The Phoenix The Phoenix is a mythical animal of rebirth present in many cultures. The myth may have first originated in ancient Egypt. According to some myths, it dies in a combustion of flames to then be reborn from its ashes. A cycle of eternal life or regeneration. Early Christians were just one of the …
Category: World-View Reconstruction
The Dimensions of God
https://brilliant.org/wiki/tesseract/ The Tesseract I believe in God. I believe God is everywhere and in everything. In all and through all. I can't prove it, but if one defines God as the laws of physics and the universe at a minimum (some do) then this is self-evident. A Tesseract (shown above) is a spatial four dimensional …
Oh Say, What is Truth?
Sun breaking through clouds. Labeled for reuse. It can be useful to think of truth as inhabiting portions of the following 4x4 grid. Where Mormonism Resides In Mormonism, the literal "truth" of the Church is usually dogmatically taught as inhabiting the top left grid box. In reality, I believe the literalism of Mormonism mostly inhabits …
The Eternal Present
Hourglass on Ocean Beach (image labeled for reuse) Noah Rasheta and the Secular Buddhism Podcast Noah Rasheta used to be Mormon. He runs the Secular Buddhism Podcast and is an example of someone who appears to have done a fantastic job reconstructing a healthy view and paradigm of life after the experience of Mormonism. His …
The Nature of Our Immortal Lives
Colorado Night Sky The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time. Our lives are not our own; from womb to tomb, we're bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future.Sonmi-451, Cloud …
Our Sacred Stories
Droste Effect, image labeled for reuse, Wikipedia For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding.The Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 31:3 What is Consciousness? What is consciousness? How does it work? These are questions we still don't have a firm grasp of …
The Racism of the Mormon Church (God is Not a Racist)
Getty Images The Murder of George Floyd George Floyd, a Black man, was recently murdered by several policemen in Minneapolis. Floyd cried for over eight minutes for breath and wasn't given it, a knee smugly to his throat. Like many others, I was appalled and sickened to witness the video account(s) of this. Understandably, this …
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Black, White, Gray and Shades of Color
Photo by burak kostak on Pexels.com "Black and white" thinking or "all or nothing" thinking is a classic cognitive distortion of reality that can lead to poor mental health outcomes because most things in life are not black and white. This dichotomous pattern of thinking is a hallmark of some psychiatric disorders, in particular Borderline …
My Views on LGBTQ Topics
Photo by Alex on Pexels.com My gay cousin recently died by suicide. It was at precisely the one year anniversary of another cousin (a professed atheist) who also died by suicide. Both grew up devout Mormons and lived in Utah. Emotionally processing this tragedy (as well as the prior tragedy) has been a mix of …
The Truth of the Mormon Church
Photo by Zetong Li on Pexels.com I KNOW the Church is True! "I KNOW the Church is True" is an extremely familiar statement within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, AKA: The LDS or Mormon Church. Every first Sunday of the month Latter-day Saints around the world, or "Mormons" gather together in local …
Discovering and Embracing My Emotions: Healing From a Mormon Paradigm
Photo by Simon Matzinger on Pexels.com To be intimate with all that we are- including our every emotion- is to fully embody and awaken to who and what we truly are. Robert Augustus Masters, PhD, Emotional Intimacy: A Comprehensive Guide for Connecting with the Power of Your Emotions The Moment of Realization It was the …
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Compassionate Curiosity
Compassionate Curiosity encompasses and forms the foundation for healthy World-View Reconstruction. If I could only convey one concept I have learned in life, it would be this... Jason Harris is a Neurologist/Neuro-Ophthalmologist, Dad and Husband who shares his experiences leaving the Mormon Church and reconstructing a new World-View. He believes all religions and scripture are …
Top 10 LDS Faith Transition Resources
An LDS Faith Transition Has Three Stages: An LDS Faith Transition has three stages, comparable to faith transitions from other faiths of the World: 1. Initial World-View Construction. 2. Subsequent World-View Deconstruction followed by 3. World-View Reconstruction. My Top 10 LDS Faith Transition Resources for each stage are listed below. Reconstruction stage resources listed may …
Emma’s Poems
Our daughter Emma has always been a poet. She is currently pursuing a political science degree at BYU. It was particularly difficult for her when she first learned of my faith transition. However, she is in a much healthier place now. She wrote these poems reflecting different aspects of her experience from April, 2019 - …
Love Transcends All. FB post, April 11, 2019
The past few days have been eventful in our family, especially in the lives of my wife and children still in the LDS faith, whom I love very deeply. For those of you already in the LDS faith, you already know about the recent LDS revelation from God reversing the previous LDS revelation from God …
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President Nelson… I’m having a Trust Crisis
April 2019 General Conference was a turning point for our family. Shortly after President Nelson's "Sad Heaven" talk, my wife, Shandra published this response on Natasha Helfer Parker's site: Dear President Nelson, Allow me to introduce myself and my sweet family. My husband and I were married and sealed 20 years ago. We have taught …
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God is to be Found “Below” not “Above”
In early March, 2019 my mother posted a Facebook announcement about the LDS Church being generous in donating $10 million to build a homeless shelter in Salt Lake City. I commented on her post, and in many ways wish I hadn’t: This is great news Mom! I have debated saying anything, but will anyway. I …
Blog Introduction: Growth Within and Without Mormonism
The Second Half of Life. We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.C. G. Jung When I was younger, I had life all …
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