When I was a senior in high school, our early-morning seminary class was taught by three divorced ladies all living in one house with all their respecitve kids: Sister Intellectual, Sister Mystic, and Sister Homemaker [not their real names as you might guess... ;-) ]
I related best to Sister Intellectual.
One morning I awoke from my usual early-morning-seminary stupor to find that Sister Intellectual was talking about the lack of unbiased historical evidence for the existence of Jesus.
I remember vividly hearing her say "Good old Jospehus!" She explained how she had had a period of doubt, and the testimony of (non-Christian) Josephus served as evidence that Jesus lived and was the Christ, and that from there the first vision, the three witnesses, and all the rest fell into place, and if not for that she would doubt the whole thing.
(Note that I'm pretty sure she was talking about a passage that is commonly believed to be a forgery...)
Many Christians will find this ludicrously ironic that she felt that the weak spot in Mormonism was the evidence for the existence of Jesus, but I could see her point.
So as usual I took my best church friend to school (she was a sophomore, but was the only other LDS girl in my whole high school), and as usual we went to pick up my best friend who was a senior like me but was a devout Lutheran.
My LDS friend and I talked about what we had heard, and we agreed without hesitation that if the church were not true, the most logical alternative would be atheism.
The hilarious thing was that I was actually surprised that my Lutheran friend was annoyed at us for suggesting such a thing... lol
Of course at this point I was mere months (or perhaps even weeks or days) away from the epiphany of a lifetime......
Posted to RfM January 9, 2006.
The Adventures of a Friendly French-American ExMormon Atheist Mom Living in Switzerland!!!
4 comments:
You had three whole divorced ladies in your ward! Also I'm trying very hard not to assume they were a happy lesbian threesome but, how big was that house?
I think someone just posted on Main Street about what a bad idea it is to use the "if Mormonism isn't true then no one else is" argument, but that actually seems a bit strange. After all, from a Mormon theological perspective, isn't being Catholic just exactly as bad as being an atheist?
Hey Sabayon!!!
I don't know if it's good strategy or not, but I think this attitude exists in Mormonism (and perhaps other religions as well) that it's more inconceivable that some other religion might be right than that none of them are.
Actually, the house wasn't that big, and I think they had some problems with the zoning laws since it was supposed to be a single-family home. Two ladies (one of whom had a teenage son in seminary) lived on the main floor, and the other lady with her whole Mormon family (husband included, at first) had set up an apartment in the basement. Later the third lady got divorced, and then there were three. I guess some people speculated about their orientations, but who knows?
Thank you for referring me to your blog. Very good stuff!
-Kathryn
Thanks, glad you like it!!!
Do you have a blog we can add to our list? :D
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