The Salt Lake Tribune recently published an article entitled Polygamy lives on in LDS temples. One of the comments got my attention.
“I found Dallin H. Oaks’ talk from this last General Conference appropriate and inspiring. We would do well to trust in the Lord more, and lean not unto our own understanding. Removing canon to make ourselves comfortable sounds a lot like fashioning a god after our own image.”
Jasmin refers to a famous scripture found in Proverbs 3:5.
Nonsense. At the ripe old age of 67, I am absolutely going to lean unto mine own understanding. Why?
For over six decades, I was schooled in the morality of the Mormon god. I believed in him. I leaned into his understanding. Well guess what. That god wasn’t so great. I was blinded as to his true nature. Now I see him clearly. His character is steeped in racism, genocide, homophobia, misogyny and a weird focus on child masturbation practices. Why in the world would I lean unto those understandings? No way. Not anymore.
“Removing canon to make ourselves comfortable sounds a lot like fashioning a god after our own image.”
This god WAS fashioned after the image of men. Men of a particular nature…racist, homophobic and misogynistic. Men looking to justify their own genocides. Men who have a weird proclivity to pry into how children touch themselves. To me this is obviously a god invented in the image of man.
On this day 67 years ago, I took my first breath on the planet earth. On this day 67 years later, I celebrate a God fashioned in my own mind. My God is patterned after the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.
His parables, beatitudes and encouragements have always appealed to me. Only in the last few years have I come to more fully appreciate His example. And what an amazing examplar He was.
Today, I lean unto my own understanding which has been well seasoned with Christ’s preaching and prototype. I have spit out the distasteful seasoning of my former god who was fashioned in someone else’s image.
Happy birthday to me. Life is good
Tocubit Is Invisible's Cubit 
Great Birthday Message, Sam!
Earlier today it occurred to me that … more often than not … the ROOT CAUSE of people getting themselves into serious trouble … in many cases trouble that can last a lifetime … originates from LISTENING TO OTHER PEOPLE AND THEN THINKING and/or BELIEVING and/or DOING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE WANT YOU TO THINK and/or BELIEVE and/or DO.
How would life be if the societal norm is to teach new human beings to SEEK THEIR OWN COUNSEL and LEAN INTO THEIR OWN UNDERSTANDING … as you talked about in your post.
Sure … we would make mistakes … and then … then WHAT?
We LEARN from our mistakes … and figure out how to do it better and more successfully next time.
Instead of that, we teach MISTAKES to our children … and not little mistakes … GIANT MISTAKES … like turning over control of your entire life to a MISGUIDED BAND of SPIRITUAL DWARFS who have proven themselves WAY TOO SLOW at learning from THEIR own horrible mistakes … like racism, misogyny, homophobia, sexual preoccupation/voyeurism and pedophilia … to name just a few of their mistakes.
Anyway … resonating here with your Birthday Message, Sam.
Happy Birthday to my Long Lost Brother … but what was lost, is now found … and I thank my Lucky Stars to have crossed paths with one such as you, my dear friend.
Now that you have left the Giant Mistake of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in your rearview mirror, every year will get better and filled with unimaginable adventures. Your straight jacket is gone and you are now well on your way fulfilling the destiny of your creation.
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Always great to hear from you. I was reading along and hit the term ‘spiritual dwarfs.’ It got me chucking. Still smiling about it. I consider our friendship a great gift that I’ll cherish on this birthday.
Yesterday I reviewed the video footage from the march. There you were, walking your 50 foot tall sign back and forth behind the speakers at the capitol. Nice touch my friend.
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Happy birthday, Sam. Thanks for sharing your hard won wisdom with us. 💜
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Happy Birthday, Sam! My 65th was only eleven days ago. We old dogs CAN be taught new tricks. 😁
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Happy Birthday, Sam. Although I feel you are wrong and should be ashamed of yourself, I still love you, my brother. I will never understand how someone can have the vast knowledge you have had and can do a complete 180 and preach the opposite. Satan is alive and well.
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Love you too my friend. I’ve also done a 180 on Satan. He’s a figment of man’s imagination. A bad version of Santa. Who is also imaginary, by the way.
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I highly recommend believers read “Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind” by Yuval Noah Harari
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Great book.
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Happy birthday, Sam. I behold the Christ in you!
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Happy birthday Sam. I’m not a personal friend but you have influenced my life in a positive way. May you have a long meaningful life.
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Completely agree with you Sam! Happy Thanksgiving! Sending all my love your way ❤
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Have you ever read James Rachel on moral autonomy— “To continuously evaluate whether a being is good requires moral judgment, which requires moral autonomy. Therefore it is not possible to continuously evaluate if a being is good while also worshipping it (or submitting to it) Therefore, worshipping necessarily requires abandoning one’s moral responsibility, which is immoral.
Groupthink and “we believe” are two of the most damaging hurdles facing humanity today.
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I haven’t read this author before. But it sounds like our philosophy aligns.
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Happy happy birthday, my dear friend, Sam. I try not to fangirl you too much because I know you’re humble, but I figure it’s ok since it’s your birthday. Throughout the time I’ve known you, I’ve watched a good man, who is carrying the image of the Christ of the NT, in so many ways. You’ve made a big difference in my life, my daughter’s life, and it ripples out from there. You are part of my life’s memories filed under ‘Miraculous and wonderful.’
Thanks for the boost. Thanks for the Love. Thanks for daring to lean on your understanding of what road really leads to ‘Him.’ Not covenants, not straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. But love.
Thank you for the Love.
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Fabled Creature. That name fits you well. What fond memories come flooding back every time I see your name.
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Happy B day to my friend Sam. It has been 65 years since I turned 8. I was true blue to TSCC until the last 4 years. I trust in my friend Jesus! Sending LOVE
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Happy Birthday Sam, and welcome to life outside of Mormonism! You might be interested in the FREE online course on the Origins of the New Testament offered by Yale University. You may not realize that Yale has its own Divinity College. It’s interesting to note that the course is just a semester for freshmen. Just for starters you’ll discover that everything you were taught in Sunday School and Seminary about the New Testament is pretty much FALSE. Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John wasn’t written by Mathew, Mark, Luke, or John. Only (4) letters were written by Paul, (2) are “iffy”, and the other (7) were definitely forgeries. The bottom line is: Nobody knows who wrote the books that make up our present New Testament except for the few letters by Paul. Most Christians haven’t got a clue about the origins on the New Testament or Christianity.
Perhaps you should take a look at the other 5,000+ gods out there. What you’ll find is that religions are always “man-made”; used to control the masses and enrich the “prophetic” few.
Invest a little time in this semester class. You’ll come to see how you’ve been taken to the “cleaners” not only by Mormonism but by Christianity. You can never go wrong by searching for facts despite what you’ve been taught to believe. I suggest you download the syllabus and checkout the references for the coursework. For a man that’s interested in the truth, it will knock your socks off.
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Hi Angela!
Thanks for the headzup on the New Testament origin debacle … and how Christians throughout history have been deceived and exploited up one side and down the other by the PuppetMasters who own and control the Church(es).
Coincidentally (or synergistically … take your pick) I am soon to finish reading a wonderfully awakening book on that same topic “Saving Jesus” by Dr. Miceal Ledwith. He is a former Catholic Priest, theologian scholar, college president and advisor to the Pope at one time. Not only does Dr. Ledwith deconstruct the dysfunctional transmogrification that eventually became the New Testament (as covered in the Yale course … sounds like), but he also tackled the Old Testament with eye-opening depth and clarity to reveal to the reader that the Genesis story was not “in the beginning” at all … but in reality a rehash of creation stories that originated thousands of years earlier with other civilizations and cultures.
What the Yale course likely does NOT cover is Dr. Ledwith’s carefully woven literary algorithm intended to deprogram the reader’s ingrained brainwash all Christians of every stripe were taught from birth: that Jesus died for our sins as our Suffering Savior to appease the anger of his Dad who gets steaming pissed off because of the rampant disobedience of his other children … aka … the human race. Add to that, our ubiquitous belief that the MORE we ourselves suffer (as Jesus suffered for us) the better God likes us.
The bottom line result for Christians the world over is: suffer, suffer, suffer, you disgusting, wretched sinner … who would go straight to hell were it not for the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ to pay the ransom for your life of sinning and unworthiness. Oh … and … God loves you, too.
Dr. Ledwith methodically proceeds to replace those disempowering, limiting, damning, core unconscious beliefs with what he believes was the real message of Jesus: to show us by his example what capabilities are possible for humans to attain during our lifetimes, as expressed in John 14:12
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these …”
The tragedy of Christianity is that the actual message of personal empowerment Jesus was trying to convey ended up being twisted upside down and backwards by the clerical doofuses who eventually wrote and/or assembled and mistranslated the New Testament we ended up with. Dr. Ledwith takes up back to the Greek in some cases to show us what was lost in translation into English. There NT excerpts printed in Greek in the book, with explanations as to what the Greek really conveys alongside the English version.
Sam recently also started reading “Saving Jesus” on my recommendation. Angela, it sounds like it’s a book you would deeply appreciate as well.
In case you wonder, Dr. Ledwith is no longer a Catholic Priest. I had the good fortune to meet him in person at a conference this last July 4 here in the Pacific Northwest (where I live). His presentation was a great introduction to what he puts forth in his book “Saving Jesus.”
You can watch the same presentation I attended … right now if you like. The link below takes you to the video from ECETI Ranch near Trout Lake, WA. You can see my white hair in the audience footage during the video … second row far left. Just click the link and watch the video immediately from the cloud.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!An2_2A4zSuD_pR57sj5C5SAKGLpj?e=2fCqSa
I think you will really resonate with Dr. Ledwith’s presentation … filled with images and information most Christians would find shocking … because the truth might set you free, but first, it will piss you off.
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