I did this in another thread, but I think this would be educational for everyone. It would also make it much simpler for anyone who wants to defend any given belief system, since the reasoning is the same and only the specifics need to be changed.

How To Play

1. Pick an aspect of an organized religion that is troubling in some way.
2. Outline the argument defending that troublesome aspect.
3. Underline where you insert the specifics that pertain to a given organized religion.
4. Extra credit if you can link to a non-LDS source using the same reasoning often heard from the LDS Church or its believing members.

To help everyone get the hang of it, I'll use my example of claims that people have a different skin color than your own because of the sins of their ancestors:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/religion ... white.html

"My religious leader said the things he did about skin color because God is color I am and made the parents of the human race look like him, and the people who have a different skin color than me have a different skin color because of sin. This principle is based on ludicrous assertion about the nature of the universe. My religion's holy book says.........."

http://www.quran.org.uk/articles/ieb_quran_who.htm

There is no way the prophet could have produced the holy book by mortal means, as he possessed neither the talent, the education, the motive, nor the wherewithal. A collaborative effort among co-conspirators can also be ruled out. The only other possible explanation is that my deity is the source.

Am I doing this right?

The science regarding religious claim contrary to evidence is unsettled, and what seems like fact may be overturned within a few years by new evidence. In the meantime, I can keep an open mind about religious claim contrary to evidence because I know that in the end it will be vindicated.

Those who say that my religious leader was wrong for indulging in morally reprehensible behavior are guilty of negative character flaw that blinds them to knowing the will of my particular deity.

If there were evidence for religious claim, we wouldn't need faith.

Here's an external example: "Some suggest we cannot find facts to support our faith, nor is it preferable to try. Faith is not the kind of thing that has anything to do with facts, they say. If we have evidence to prove what we believe, then that takes away from real faith." ("Faith and Facts," Stand to Reason)

WHAT THE HELL MR. J!?

Homework on this Site?

http://finding-the-church.blogspot.com/ ... stasy.html
http://bahairants.com/marginality-and-a ... y-110.html
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchto ... e-Apostasy

"Apostates have lost touch with my religion's preferred method of epistemology. They are no longer able to understand the truth that is taught by my religious organization. They are also angry and bitter, so they cannot be trusted. Apostates are angry and bitter because they really know that my religious organization teaches the truth, but they desire to sin, which is the real reason why they have rejected the authority of title for my religious leaders. Often apostates will engage in arbitrary social taboo that my religion says is forbidden by our deity, and from their will go on to arbitrary social taboo that my religion says is even more forbidden by our deity. This is how evil cosmological antagonist in my religion's pantheon gets people to be blinded to the truth and also reject it, because somehow they both cannot perceive the truth and simultaneously knowingly reject the truth. Instead of relying on the guidance of title for my religious leaders and my religion's holy book(s), apostates are persuaded by secular evidence and the reasoning of men, so they reject truths like ludicrous claim about the world/universe made by my religion and another ludicrous claim about the world/universe made by my religion. We should not listen to apostates or associate with them."

The sad thing is that the second sentence is an almost-verbatim quote from a junior-tier MAD apologist.

It almost sounds like a heavily bastardized version of Pascal's wager IMO.

To me it sounds like "I'm going to ignore evidence against my beliefs as long as I need to."

That's how I understood it, and it certainly is the majority of the Mormon's mindset. It's astounding really on second take a look at it all. They will use science a whoring after her sexy butt as long as it already agrees with preordained conclusions they wish to be true, but damn science to the netherworld of anti something or other (ALWAYS label something you don't like or agree with and you have already won 90% of your audience by default) and you can't lose. When science agrees with you with evidence, shout it from the rooftops, when she completely contradicts your silly man made doctrines, claim it's only science, and it never has the last word, and it's usually godless atheists who are scientists anyway, and besides, the church takes no issue on that! HOW can a church who is said to communicate with God EVER remain neutral in knowledge of something? Especially when we have examples in the D&C of Joseph Smith asking and God giving all kinds of explanations to various parts of the Bible he didn't know about. Gee, why not do the simple thing and just ask God about evolution and be done with it? WHY would that be so spooky or scary to do?