This is a guest post by Michael Towns.

Does the title inspire discomfort? Good. It was meant to jar you from a baleful sense of self-complacency and moral superiority.

It is all too human to project our vaunted, sophisticated value system on the very category of “God.” What ends up happening is that we create God in our own image, and while we possess the liberty to do so, that image is not really the God that stands revealed in the Holy Scriptures nor is it the God Who Reveals Himself through revelation to man.

In the 21st century, we applaud ourselves for our ethical progress and awareness. From our vantage point, we are the most advanced ethical creatures that have ever graced planet earth. We think that we are, in large measure, “better” than our forebears, who were deeply flawed humans who tolerated racism, bigotry, sexism, intolerance, and a host of other evils.

A problem quickly reveals itself when we contemplate our moral grandeur. As we peer back through the vistas of time, and we open up the pages of canonized scripture, we are suddenly confronted with not only bigoted prophets and preachers of righteousness, but, quite frankly, we find ourselves staring at a God who leaps from the pages as a ravening beast, cursing, killing, and afflicting his chosen people with tests from which we moderns recoil in terror.

How do we reconcile these disparate visions, these outpourings of divine wrath and almost Olympian capriciousness?

Please allow me to submit a solution to the problem.

We simply need to let go of our modern moral conceits and admit that God is above our self-imposed moral categories.
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Every now and then I will tell the story of my experience getting a marriage license. Me and my soon to be wife sit at the clerks desk filling out the paperwork and showing ID like any other perspective couple. I looked down at this piece of paper and start looking forward to attending the Temple for sealing. Like so many others before me, I am excited and nervous about the big day. I love my wife and she loves me. Then it hits me while putting signature to paper. My marriage is between me and my wife, my God, and my Church. Why do I need permission from the State? Its none of their business.

Yes, there are some tax related issues and a few other laws associated with State acceptance. Because I consider myself a law abiding citizen and it is a traditional requirement, the papers are put in order. Aside from that, my bride might have taken it the wrong way and the LDS Church would not allow the sealing to take place. From that time on my views of State and Marriage would be out of the ordinary.

If it is true as some say that traditional marriage defenders are “on the wrong side of history,” then perhaps a new approach should be considered. Most of the arguments for traditional marriage are based on religious belief that a man and a woman is the only legitimate definition of marriage. It is not simply signing papers for creating a small business transaction. It is a Holy Sacrament ordained by God. With that in mind, there really isn’t a reason religious conservative Christians should get married in the usually expected manner. Continue reading →

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home3/57291925-200/ban-judge-sex-court.html.csp

I’m sure there will be more information to come on this.

I wrote a post once encouraging people to think carefully before they use deception as a way of dealing with the potential problems that arise from having reinterpreted one’s faith in the LDS Church. I gave several examples of the types of deceptions that I’ve seen. I, myself, have been personally hurt by such deceptions. For example:

• Technically, they believe the Book of Mormon is “inspired” because “inspired” means something more nuanced than what most believers mean [e.g. “inspired just means it teaches good things.”]
• Technically they believe Joseph Smith is a prophet, because a prophet is something more broad than most believers understand [e.g. “prophet” is what we call the leader of our Church. Or maybe a “prophet” is someone that teaches at least some good moral principles..]
• Technically they believe the church is “true” in the sense that… [e.g. The church is “true” because all religions that teach good ethics are “true” because religion is really just about teaching ethics. There isn’t really a God.] Continue reading →