A Brilliant Mind
Conversation between myself and my seven year old son, Blake:
Me: I heard you on the phone with Zach. It sounded like he thought you were Mormon?
Blake: Yeah, but I told him we’re nothing.
Me: I heard that. I noticed you said it a couple times. How come?
Blake: He said you can’t be nothing. I told him we really are.
Me: That’s funny . . . You know if you want, you can tell people we’re agnostic.
Blake: What’s agnostic?
Me: It’s when you believe nobody knows what it’s like after we die. Religions think they know all about it; what happens. Agnostics don’t think anyone does.
Blake: Agnostic?
Me: “Gnostic” means “knowledge”. The “A” means “without”. So “agnostic” means “without knowledge”.
Blake: Then really, EVERYBODY is agnostic!
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November 19th, 2005 @ 7:51 pm
Cool! You know the more I think about it the more I realize just how original the concept for this website really is. I’d love to share it with all my close friends and family but most of them won’t get it and some of them might even think that I joined a cult or something. Question: How did you and your husband agree/disagree to “experiment?” Wouldn’t it have just been a lot easier to just go with the flow? But then again I don’t know what it’s like to be a Mormon. Honestly I’m ignorant when it comes to the Mormon faith. The first time it really caught my attention was when I saw Episode 712(All About the Mormons) from South Park.( Oh man that was soooooo funny. Well it was to me anyway.
November 20th, 2005 @ 7:36 am
I just saw that episode of South Park last week! That was funny!
“Going with the flow” was, in fact, a consideration, until we tried it. I found that you can’t be a non-believing Mormon without losing your integrity and self-respect.
In order to continue taking part of the entirety of LDS church life, you have to return every year for an interview with the bishop in order to renew your temple recommend. At this interview, the bishop asks you if you believe Jesus is the Son of God, and if Joseph Smith was God’s prophet, seer, and revelator. He also asks if you believe the Church is the true and only church of Jesus Christ.
While it may be no problem for some non-believers to say “yes” to those questions, I could not do it.
By not having a temple recommend, you expose your children to all kinds of inner turmoil. Lessons to the children regularly refer to the temple as being necessary for their family to be together again after they die. I remember my cousins agonizing over their belief that they would not be with their parents, because they had not been “sealed” in marriage.
This comment is getting LONG, so I won’t go into more detail to explain why I make the next statement: Continuing activity in the Mormon Church, when you really don’t believe it, inevitably leads to undermining your position as a parent. The Church does a phenomonal job of teaching the children. Based on what they learn, the children, then, question your every move. If you disagree with a certain doctrine, or choose not to follow a certain rule, you essentially project yourself as a parent lacking wisdom.
I have to live an honest up-front life. I have to have a passion in my beliefs. I would be miserable faking anything, especially religion.