Entries from September 2007 ↓

I think some people today, in this age of reason, find religion fundamentally foolish as defined by various ’strange’ practices and beliefs. All religions seem to have them: The Old Testament has fantastic stories of men getting swallowed by fish, 900 year olds, and talking snakes and donkeys. The Catholics talk about eating the literal flesh and blood of their God. The Orthodox light candles and put them in front of shrines enclosing pieces of bone and hair from dead saints. The Protestants have a God that stopped talking two thousand years ago and put ultimate faith in a book pieced together by a committee. The Muslims pray to one particular city, walk around a stone, and believe Arabic is the only language through which God communicates. Buddhists built colossal sculptures of a certain philosopher, give food to the dead, and spin wheels as prayers. Hindus have an incredible assembly of Gods living in soap opera dramas. The Mormons talk about angels handing over stacks of gold metal plates to a boy who translated it by looking through special stones. They are all quite fantastic when viewed from the outside. Why would they all have elements like that? If there is truth behind them why would God use such strange mechanisms? Continue reading →

My feeling is that religious thought is imbedded within every human soul. If you want to say our brains are hardwired for it or if you want to say our spirits have a sense of homesickness, an eternal longing outside of this world, I think both make the point that there is something, call it intuition, conscience, or whatever, that something, that causes mankind to seek for the divine, the ultimate something, which explains for the order and beauty in the universe; the power that must exist to overcome the natural pull to disorder, entropy. And so men go about trying to make the connection themselves, inventing gods, myths, and various explanations.

I also believe that God has, at certain times in the course of human history, intervened to setup and reveal his purposes and desires. Therefore certain strands of religion could be considered deviant offspring of a once pure understanding. Continue reading →

In terms of the questions of life and people who claim certain knowledge the obvious question is ‘how do you know that is true’? or even ‘can’ certain things be known about the purpose of life, life and death and the like. For a comprehensive philosophical exploration of the question I would point people to a lecture given by Truman Madsen entitled “Belief and Knowledge” in Timeless Questions Gospel Insights.

From a less philosophical perspective, my thoughts: As I look around the world today I see a couple dominant answers: (1) an ultimate confidence in science having the answers (2) the sentiment that all religions are the same and that we can’t really know the answers, so why worry about it, or (3) the thoughtless adoption of answers according to the culture one has inherited. Continue reading →

(This was written as a response to some claims of atheists on a religious discussion group. One of their main points being that atheism is not a religion, and their favorite repeated analogy was “not collecting stamps is not a hobby just as not believing is not a religion”. I had previously written a short post with had similar arguments but not explained in detail which excited a sharp response, so I tried to explain myself a little more clearly)

I typically would not comment further but I do feel I made some mistakes in expressing myself that could lead to some misunderstanding. That is not to say that everyone reading this discussion will agree with my views but I do feel looking back at my post that my language was perhaps too strong and without explanation behind the words so that they could lend themselves to being offensive or meanspirited, which was not my intent. And so particularly for those who read but not post I want to clarify myself: Continue reading →

As my first post I want to get to the very heart of the matter. Most of my quotes will come from a speech given by Hugh Nibley entitled “The Terrible Questions” which can be found in print in vol. 12 of the collected works of Hugh Nibley, Temples and the Cosmos. He, of course, addresses this subject more eloquently and far deeper than myself. I previously addressed this same topic in a letter I wrote in response to an atheist some time ago which I will post as well. I’ll start with a quote from Mr. Nibley:

“There is only one question, the sole question for religion, the only reason for religion existing at all. Religion alone is supposed to answer it, and if religion can’t then religion can’t do anything–let us forget religion….There is only one justification for religion, one sole question, so let us not talk about the endless, abstract problems (for example, the nature of God). In the hereafter, what difference will these questions make? The real question, of course, is, Is this all there is? That is what everyone wants to know, the only question that bothers us. If you answer that definitely, then our troubles are over; there is nothing left to worry about…..Who cares about how politics turns out? Or the economy? Or even the military threat? We’re going to die anyway; what difference do any of these things make?…if we exist only to drop into a sea of Nirvana, a sea of nothing–if we are to vanish entirely, we don’t care whether there is one god or thousands; whether he’s fierce and ferocious, or kind and loving. It makes no difference to you at all; you won’t be there. You won’t be anything.” Continue reading →