I decided to share this video because some of you are curious what it would be like to loose your faith. I think this video paints a vivid, sometimes painful, yet beautiful picture of one man’s journey out of Mormonism. It’s interesting. Watch it if you’re curious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj9uLK-Z1MM
Ricardo shared this video and said he found it when he was going through his faith crisis. Ricardo related to Chris a lot and said that Chris’s words gave him hope.
A Life Wide Open 
I like that he is embracing life so fully and giving hope to other people. I’m glad Ricardo got hope from him. I personally don’t think you have to leave religion to find that but I concede that religion can take some difficult twists on things at times too. I think just thinking about the subtle roll that I believe God plays, and being humbled by my journey, has made me more careful about being judgmental and made me think about embracing life more fully. But I love the support I get from what I perceive as God.
as a side note It seems to me that Joseph Smith had a variety of opinions about where the Book of Mormon took place, or how extensive it was, but the text of the Book of Mormon itself shows it couldn’t have been a very big area at all–more like modern Palestine is the example I’ve seen, even though other myths persisted in the church. So I guess that’s a big part of the DNA debate. Also there were not just errors copied from the King James in the early Book of Mormon editions, (things like using cherubims when the appropriate plural was cherubim etc.), but also grammar errors. It’s actually to me a fascinating stream of dictation, never read back to Joseph Smith after quitting/re-starting etc. It also has many non-biblical names that have good Hebrew Etymology etc. and Joseph seems to have been spelling out some of the names. I can’t tell what’s going on, but I can only guess that it’s some interaction between Joseph’s mind and what he’s seeing?? I don’t know, but for me personally to just say it’s all him and ignore what the witnesses experienced and lots of other things leaves me with just as many things that don’t make sense. Perhaps in time we’ll see little clues to a pre-columbian Hebrew influence??? But that’s also my bias. I certainly respect his decision, and I think a lack of solid archeological evidence is a justified reason to not believe, but also hope he’d be able to respect mine which is based on more than just my spiritual impressions.
here’s a link to another perspective on the name Egyptus (however you spell it). I haven’t tried to read a critical response to it, but it’s always good to hear another perspective since he talks about that too: http://www.fairlds.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2005-John-Tvedtnes.pdf
ok. i’ll go to bed now :-).
Thanks Jenny! I’ll check that out tomorrow hopefully. I think one area I really do need to do some thorough research on is the BoM, since that is probably one of my bigger stumbling blocks you could say. When I’m ready to start that I’ll be getting in touch 🙂
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