ATTN: God

Dear God,

I'm still upset with you for creating me without my permission, but I suppose I should let bygones be bygones.

Anyway, I thought I'd let you know that I like what you've done with the universe in general; it's a very pretty and interesting place in most regards.

That being said, I wish you'd tell your followers to stop being dicks.  I mean, lots of them are nice people, but lots of others do mean things in your name.  Can't you publicly express your disapproval or something?  A press release or something?  I mean, the McDonald's corporation would do it in your circumstances, and I'd think that your public image would be a little more important than theirs.

Anyway, the human condition still sucks and I still don't buy your excuses trying to shove the blame off on free will or Satan or any of that.  Also, Jesus has been "about to come back" for a couple thousand years now, and lots of folks are starting to doubt your priorities.  It's all fine and good for you to want to screw up the U.S. educational system through due political process, but if you can't get your kid out the door on time you might want to focus on such immediate concerns first.

All in all, it's getting more and more difficult for anyone to believe what you say, what with the broken promises and constant flip-flopping, not to mention your constant refusal to comment through any means other than various nutjobs who make mutually-exclusive claims.  I know you're master of the universe and everything, but that doesn't mean you can completely neglect PR.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen of the Universe


P.S.  I'm still willing to believe in you if you decide to answer any of all those prayers, but the answer had better be distinguishable from placebo, wishful thinking, or coincidence.  My standards really aren't that high, I'm only insisting on credible confirmation, not a magic backwoods light-show or angel Moroni in a towel or anything.

To The Lies

Promises of Hope = Lies and Fiction

Remember in "It's a Wonderful Life," how when Mr. Smalltowny Stewart is about to chuck himself over a bridge because Mr. Nasty Wheelchair has finally beat him, but then Mr. Incompetent Angel stops him (well, kind of)?
He is then shown how much different things would be without him (mostly everyone would by whores or librarians, apparently).  Then, he goes home to find that all his troubles have magically gone away and he's richer than rich and Nasty McWheelchair will die alone and unfulfilled after all!!  Hooray!

The point is, the movie promises that when things are at their lowest, wait a moment before hurling yourself into the river: things are sure to get better any moment.
This. Is. A. Lie.

Things might be about to get very much worse.  In fact, things could never get better again.  There is no promise in reality that all bad things will get better that is not a lie.

So to all the inspiring stories out there, the promises that it's darkest just before dawn, that things have to get better: go fuck yourselves, you damned pack of lies.

Ambien ismessing with me now

I havvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv noticed something,.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The tastk at hand
Forgive me, for I keep flying in and out a world where the baby's been,=,
terare voices and derectives everywhere.   I ignore the desk ninja with somethinf like satisdfaction

(Note from Dave's wife:  Dave took a break from writing this post to tell me how lucid he was, but that his feet are part of a national crime syndicate)

Okay, he're ss teh deal,.  I took an Ambien to help me sleep.  At my most lucide periods I can a little loopy, but aware of my surroundings .  I get the feel that different aspcetrcs of myself split off and take on new porblesmna nd rtoubles.

Apple doesnt'' need to put teens inside the new ipad to make ti sell.  honesry, giant theme partk shows are mnot so interesting to me.

We all
honor, defience, romance, curiousity


My room i s a ltiie gradjewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwbetter publish now before I lose it agaiin

Orson Scott Card - Fallen Author

There was a time when I couldn't get enough of Orson Scott Card's writing.  I read "Ender's Game" in middle school and loved it, and read it a few more times as a teen and was fascinated by the things I'd missed the first time around.  It was a masterpiece.  I especially used to like his short fiction: it was raw and rough hard sci-fi.  He had a talent for capturing the darkest elements of human nature and the struggle we each must personally make against them.

Through the years, though, I found I tired of Card.  His new books were increasingly bland, predictable, and repetitive.  I eventually gave up entirely, since if I really wanted cheap pulp-fiction sci-fi, I could find better examples elsewhere.

Fast-forward a few years.  I learn that Card is involved with the National Organization for Marriage, an organization I have never liked much because of its dishonest anti-gay rhetoric.  Even before I lost all faith in the LDS church, I always had issues with the church's political stance on gay marriage... I was okay with religious organizations dictating moral standards for their members, but for society as a whole...?

More recently, I had the misfortune of happening across this little bowl of tripe.  Card's essay about "the hypocrites of homosexuality" is nothing we haven't all heard before.  My main objections to his reasoning are his insistence that the laws of god as purveyed by the "prophets" is unchanging (when LDS church dogma has in fact evolved rapidly for the last couple of centuries), his "I'm the victim here" condemnation of his own critics, and his sleight-of-hand transition from condemning the idea that the church should accept homosexuality to condemnation of all legal recognition of rights for gays.

The first is self-explanatory: sure, the will of the prophets can't be contradicted, except when later prophets overturn "God's word" entirely.  To suggest that the church never changes its mind in response to the moral progress of society as a whole is to ignore entirely the church's historical stance on race, gender, and sexual orientation.  Or should we still kill anyone who marries across ethnic boundaries?

Card's defiant defense against his "satanic" critics is laughable.  At the end of the article, he notes that just as he predicted, he had been unfairly labeled for his upright and honest writing as "homophobic" and other related terms.  While it is true that Card never directly advocates violence or hatred toward gays, he consistently refers to their feelings in a way that dismisses them as selfish or unnatural.  He even advocates kindness toward individuals, but outright animosity toward gays as a group.  Poor Orson!  How dare those mean old gays and their brainwashed friends attack him for his honest portrayal of their sinful lifestyle?

Finally, Card pulls a funny little trick when he transitions without warning from defending a church's right not to condone homosexual behavior (which I grudgingly accept) to insisting that government ought to condemn the same.  He makes the argument that government ought to defend its citizens against such offenses as murder, and the same goes for gay marriage!  I think the difference is obvious, but if it isn't, I'll point out that gay marriage does not hurt those who don't approve of it as long as they don't engage in it.  You can babble all you want about churches losing their tax-exempt status if they refuse to perform such nuptials and such, but frankly I am an advocate of removing tax-exempt status for churches entirely (treat them like non-profits or something for all I care, it's just silly to give them special privileges just because they have "church" in their names).  The bottom line?  The LDS church need never condone gay marriage as far as I am concerned, but has no right acting as a political entity trying to ban the same at a state of federal level.  The individuals in the church are free to vote as their conscience dictates, of course, and if they choose to vote for intolerance, that is their decision.  That's what we have courts for -- to prevent the "moral" majority from needlessly oppressing minorities.


How did Card go from the masterpiece of Ender's Game to the pile of steaming poo that constitutes this essay?  I wish I knew...  How do authors so fall from grace?
One theory (purely speculative) springs to mind.  I remember my father telling my young self that he suspected Card of having strong homosexual feelings himself, and of struggling with said feelings because of his LDS faith.  This was simply based on my father's assessment of Card's writings.
If this was true, it all begins to make sense.  Card's lifelong struggle and self-hatred due to his hidden homosexual tendencies have finally manifested themselves in his old age as hatred toward all thing to do with homosexuality.  We all attack most vehemently what we hate most about ourselves.  In addition, he seeks to "redeem" himself from his earlier, darker (and brilliant) writings by writing increasingly-conformist books filled with more and more tiresome apologetic viewpoints designed to ameliorate his inner Brigham Young.  The tortured young author has become the self-righteous old puppet of his religion's ideology.  And now he rides on the wave of fame (and maybe shame?) of his earlier self in order to disseminate his uncreative ideas about how other people's sexuality should be treated.

Mourn with me a moment, brothers and sisters, for the passing of a great author, not into a noble death, but into shameful triviality.

Spinning My Wheels

I've written several posts lately and ended up not posting them.  It feels like I'm spinning my wheels as far as life is concerned...  I want to change the world but find myself impotent.

I feel trapped, for the most part.  My brother is getting married very soon, and my mother has been pressuring me to see if I can't get a temple recommend.  I think today I'm going to call her and tell her there is no way that is going to happen.

Anyone who says the church strengthens families is full of shit.  The church happily tears families apart when it suits the church's dogmas and agendas.


School blows.  I need to get out of this damn place, but I keep pushing back graduation because my damned depression has sabotaged my academic performance for the last two years.  I feel so fucking trapped that I entertain thoughts of offing myself every day.

I'm a wreck.  I suppose I'm a disgrace to atheists, agnostics, and apostates everywhere, because I've been consistently less happy since I gave up on faith.  But I'll be damned if I go back to believing contradictory statements simultaneously just to make myself feel better.
Damn the church and its lies.  It's like an addiction I can't get over, that feeling of absolute truth and simple moral reality.  The feeling of objective meaning.  Damn them all for promising peace where there is none.
Damn them for speaking of rest where there is only death.
Damn them for teaching me to hate myself for being less-than-perfect.
Damn them for their precious "Atonement" and "Grace" and all the other righteous bullshit that they use to tell those who suffer that their pain isn't real.
And damn me for taking it all so fucking seriously that I have been no more than half of a man ever since I figured out that all of it is fantasy.

Sometimes you forget about all the jacked-up stuff

So I just picked up "The Passion of Raptor Jesus and the Road to Mormon Apostasy" in the Amazon Kindle Store, and it's got me remembering all the weird crap that happens in the church.
This book, by the way, is really great.  It's hilarious and so incredibly accurate, at least about the experience of being a boy growing up active in the church.  However, if you can't handle some intense blasphemy and swearing, maybe you'd better steer clear.

**WARNING:  THE CONTENT BELOW CONTAINS SOME MOSTLY NON-SPECIFIC PERSONAL INFORMATION THAT SOME READERS MAY REGARD AS DECIDEDLY TOO MUCH.  LIKE MY BOYHOOD 'SINS.'  IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I MEAN STOP READING NOW, LAST WARNING.**

Anyway, it's totally true!  The invasive interviews about masturbation and all possible sexual violations... I remember being interviewed for my mission and a member of the stake presidency raking me over the coals over and over.  There was very little he didn't think to ask me about, and he commented that I'd clearly had a problem.  I had a problem?  Who didn't have a problem?!  I hadn't even jerked off in months and months, maybe even years at that point!  Sure, I was interested in the boobs of my female classmates, but hell, I had only kissed one girl, and her only like twice!  A "problem?"
That interview was specifically engineered to make me feel  like a lustful piece of crap, and I even knew it at the time.

And that interview was not an isolated sort of incident.  I spent my entire teenage experience knowing for a fact that I was going to hell because I could never go more than a few months without masturbating, even after I promised god through a whole straight hour of self-flagellating prayer never to do it again.  Every time I took the sacrament, I reminded myself that I was "drinking damnation to my soul."  I hated thinking about the Atonement because every time I screwed something up it was like I was personally tasering Jesus in the face, and since I was surely damned anyway his sacrifice was completely wasted.  I confessed over and over, but it never seemed to help.  I developed exercise regimens to stave off my horniness (hornocity?), I reported to my parents, I withheld things I liked when I screwed up, but it was all for naught.
Okay, and let's get something straight.  I never fooled around even a little with a girl.  This was not even my decision until maybe my junior, probably my senior year of high school.  I was a huge nerd and didn't know diddly about talking to the opposite sex.  But in my senior year I had one opportunity where I was quite confident that I could get laid, and I very deliberately went home despite being horny, lonely, and depressed.

Once in middle school I experienced attraction to another guy.  I admired him, but also he turned me on a little.  I worried for years that I was gay, and what would I do?  Maybe I turned myself gay by being such a pervert and fiddling with myself.  I never felt that sort of thing again, but I was very, very worried for a long time.  I can't imagine what it must be like to grow up in the church and actually feel that way consistently.  To you out there actually coping with those circumstance: you have my everlasting admiration.

Damn, I didn't mean for this to turn into my confessions, but man, it's amazing to think about this stuff now.  I spent my youth telling myself that I was a disgrace, a sinner, inadequate despite my most earnest and desperate efforts.


You'd think with such self-punishment, I must have been pretty damn sure the church was true, right?
Hell, no.  I had points in High School where I decided (temporarily) that the church must not be true.
Get this:  I had the opportunity to attend a temple open house as a teen.  What do I remember?  I remember looking into the endowment room and wondering what the little reddish LED banks in the ceiling were for.  I know now that they are for transmitting audio to the little translation-headphone setups, but at the time my first guess was some kind of hypnosis for brainwashing.  I had some serious repressed doubts about the church even then.

I assumed most of my youth that I would end up being a worthless apostate, starting with a failure to go on a mission.  Hell, I didn't want to go on a mission, I don't like being pushy, and I didn't have a testimony.
That's right, I never bore my testimony, even at EFY and Youth Conference when they whipped us up into a mucous-dripping frenzy with heart-wrenching videos about the Atonement.  I remember one year I was the only one in the whole room who didn't.  The counselors kept kind of not looking at me and asking if anyone else would like to take the opportunity...?

Once, in mutual, they had us write our testimonies in the inside covers of a bunch of copies of the Book of Mormon for the missionaries to distribute before we went caroling or something.  I stared at that inside cover until they were starting to load vehicles 15 minutes later, and then quietly slipped the book back into the unsigned pile, ashamed.  I didn't have a testimony, what was I supposed to write?

Even on my mission I had serious doubts.  In my first area, while we road our bikes from rejection to rejection I tried to justify the church to myself in vain.  Ultimately I classified these disheartening inner dialogues as "idle doubts" and decided that they were sinful, so I should avoid them.  Not thinking helped some, but I still wondered why, if our message was so great, did no one want to hear about it?  Why didn't we find the "prepared" no matter how hard we tried?
And throughout my mission, I came to understand that the "challenge" in Moroni was just a formality, and no one would ever actually feel anything even if they did read and pray.  Not that surprising, considering the fact that I never did, I guess.  Still, never did an investigator have a good experience with that.

Once, I had a painful flash of self-awareness when one of our long-term investigators admitted to us that she had joined two "cults" in the past, and that was why her husband didn't like us.  Were we a cult?  I was depressed for days.  I saw us for what we were: pushy, sneaky, even a little brainwashed.  No, I don't think the church is some psychotic organization with a secret slave trade, but you have got to admit that the training for missionaries is pretty dogmatic.  We were taught to basically shout down alternative opinions.


I never much liked the temple.  Chanting freaks me out, so I really disliked the prayer circle with its mumbling in a circle followed by the unsettling repetition by the group of everything one guys said.  Also, it's really freaking boring after the first time.  And, damn this is shallow, but I hated those stupid mushroom hats.
Do people actually enjoy that stuff, or do they just convince themselves that they must, otherwise why would they keep going?

I wonder occasionally if I'll go straight to hell on the off chance that it was all true.  After all, I was endowed.  Now I can't even remember my "new name"... I guess if I ever do have to get past those angels I'll just say "Dennis" and then ask real quick where the angel's from, what's it like there?


I've come a long way in the last year or two.  I don't hate the church or its members.  I don't get angry like I used to.  Still, I sometimes wonder if I'll ever be able to entirely stop feeling quite hurt by the church and all it put me through.  Maybe I'm playing victim and wallowing in self-pity, I don't know.  Sometimes I wish I could convey to my younger brothers that screw the church, they are good boys.  If they don't want to go on missions, don't let the church bully them into it.  But I know it would have no effect except to push my family away.

Choosing Views

My political views are in a state of constant flux.  My many conservative friends and family would call me liberal, maybe even radical in a couple of areas.  Then again, my most liberal friends might not approve of "liberal" as a moniker for me.  After all, I am fiscally moderate and actually approve of the medical and pharmaceutical fields' work.  Hell, I'm actually kind of a libertarian in certain economic and individual rights issues.

Generally, I guess I side with the scientific community.  So yeah, I'm all about evolution, but I don't set much store by alternative medicine.

I guess I'm some kind of pragmatic materialist.

I'm not patriotic per se... I care very much about the welfare of US citizens and the goings on in this country, but I don't think the USA is the infallible beacon of all that is good that some others think.  I don't like the USA's extensive military presence and activity in the world.  Does that make my un-American?
I guess I don't care too much about being "American" or "un-American."  I'm mostly concerned with the happiness and suffering of people in general, not Americans in particular.

I guess it's a tricky question... is it moral for me to value those who happen to live close to me more than those who don't?  (Here I use "close" not exclusively in reference to distance.  Cultural experience and roots count, too)
On one hand, this assumption seems utterly immoral to me.  Why should other people be more important just because they happen to be more similar or at least close to me?
On the other, the world is too big to try to help every single person.  So I guess we should start at home?
I can't tell.  Hrmph.  Moral ambiguity is so tricky all the time.

Ah well, when I try to nail down my own political stances, I either have to laugh at the absurdity of it all or get really frustrated, so I'm practicing laughing.  Dead children... ba hahahahahahaaaa!

I've actually formulated the ideal political solution.  It's a version of democracy where people vote on basic moral statements, not policy.  Awesome, no?!
See, you just poll the entire population on what they value, getting a large base of simple moral statements that can be rationally extended into moral statements about potential policy.  Then, you enact the combination of policies that results in the highest overall moral satisfaction score!
What shall I call it?  Ethical... Ethos... Etho-rational democracy?  Or maybe Logo-moral self-representation...
And yes, I know it couldn't work  just like that.  Maybe I'll post on it later.

The GOP's Political Circus

I'm usually amused by the election process, but this set of Republican Primaries has been a show I won't soon forget.  The spotlight keeps shifting from ring to ring, highlighting the front-runner of the week while he or she does his or her song and dance, then moving on once we get bored of the act.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you'll give me your attention please, I'm proud to introduce to you our performers!

-Michelle "Fact-Check" Bachmann, the very same who brought you her serial-killer lineage returns to astound you with her absurd linking of vaccines and autism!

-Rick "Almost-There" Perry, an accomplished Texas clown bringing you all the hilarious charm of Larry, Curly, and.... what was that other one?

-Mitt "Why-Won't-They-Love-Me" Romney may actually say smart things once in a while, but that won't stop voters from despising the star of the children's book "A Mormon Fires a Who!"

-Rick "Sensitivity" Santorum, a delightfully frothy mixture of ignorant ethnocentrism and offensive analogies, you'll love this underdog who loses even when he wins!

-Ron "Won't-Leave" Paul, the batty old libertarian who won't go home no matter how much the GOP tries to hint that no matter what place he wins, he's overstayed his welcome!

-Newt "Rage-Potato" Gingrich, a fun, lumpy bag of infidelity and spite, this firecracker will wow your with his whining, awe you with his audacity, and astound you with his asshole comments about minorities!

And while you watch those acts, don't forget to glance at the darkened ring in the corner to pretend to see Herman "999-Harassment-Cases" Cain and John "Who-Am-I" Huntsman!



Seriously, this would be really funny as a comic strip or Sandler-Style late-night comedy, but as reality it is beyond hilarious.

The Healing Process

It has been months and months since I last successfully posted.  I have written a few drafts that will probably never see the light of day.  I think what I really needed was some time to step back and let some of the hurt I felt at losing my faith really start to heal over.

For the most part, I'm not angry anymore.  The only times I'm even irked are in Sunday School (I just can stand listening to logical fallacies stated as if they were sound reason for an hour at a time) and occasionally when I see friends inadvertently hurt by elements of church culture (which I admit is a problem with specific people, not the actual theology or organization of the church proper).

I have begun to admit to more people my lack of belief more than ever before, and I feel like I don't have to be very defensive about it.  I mean, I don't tell everyone I see, but I find that most folks are quite accepting when I explain myself.

I still try to keep my mind open to the possibility that I've missed something.  Maybe the LDS church is true after all?  I still doubt it as much as ever, but I don't want to miss truth regardless of its potential effect on my ego.

My most recent experiment with prayer involved a 6-sided die: I would pray, carefully explaining that in my pride I was having difficulty getting answers and maybe instead of waiting I should come up with a suggestion like the brother of Jared, so I asked if God couldn't help me predict the outcome of a die roll with statistical significance.  I'd pray before each roll and conducted a large number of trials, but ultimately the results were very bland indeed: I successfully predicted the roll just barely under 1/6 of the time.
Blasphemous?  I don't know, but I thought if I had an idea I might as well give it a shot.  Can't be any more blasphemous than myself of a year ago shaking my fist at the sky and daring God in filthy language to strike me down to hell immediately.

Was with my family for Christmas, it was really great.  Had only one major religious discussion with my parents, and it went very smoothly, considering.  I think their hopes for my swift reconversion are a little higher than is justified, but they are very accepting of me.

Revisiting the Watchmaker - Bayes' Theorem

I have previously explained the watchmaker argument and the inherent circularity, but I thought I would expand my objections with a bit more mathematical rigor.

As a brief review, the watchmaker argument involves a cute little story about finding a beautiful gold watch in the middle of nowhere and, how silly it is to conclude that the watch was not manufactured by some intelligent being.
The main thrust of this argument is this:  the likelihood of the existence of a complex universe containing life is very small if there is no intelligence to deliberately create it.

Now I will briefly explain Bayes' theorem.
If P(A|B) is the probability of A given B
and P(A) is the independent probability of A (not given any other variables),

Then P(A|B) = P(B|A)*P(A)/P(B).

Now, let's look at the watchmaker argument.  We have two propositions:
G = God Exists
L = Life Exists (in a complex universe)
(Not G is written ~G)


We are to assume, from the argument, that P(L|G) is much, much larger than P(L|~G).  This is debatable, but there are some arguments in favor of this.
The watchmaker argument would have you believe that P(G|L) is large because P(L|~G) is so small, that is, if there is life, god likely exists because life is so unlikely to exist without god.  Essentially, the statement is that P(G|L) = 1 - P(~G|L) = (approx) 1 - P(L|~G).

However, inverse probabilities are not so simple as this naive argument would have you believe.  In reality:
P(G|L) = 1 - P(~G|L) =  1 - P(L|~G)*P(~G)/P(L).
What we don't know here is the relative magnitude of P(L|~G)*P(~G)/P(L), because the likelihood of god's existence (independent of other variables) is unknown.  Therefore, no conclusions can be drawn.  If P(L|~G)*P(~G)/P(L) is close to 1, then P(G|L) is actually very small, close to zero.

Now, I think I've made my point, but I'd like to venture into the realm of speculation now, so take this as you will.
Does god count as life?  If so, then P(G) < P(L) assuming that life besides god can possibly exist.
If that is the case, then P(G)/P(L) < 1, so P(G|L) = P(L|G)*P(G)/P(L) < P(L|G).
This gives us the rather minor conclusion that life must give god's chance less of a boost than god give's life's chance.  Thus, the watchmaker argument is inherently weaker than it purports to be.