Attacks on My Faith, Disbelief in Religions

    I understand why people see the negatives. 

    Christians, in general and specifically, try to show that Jesus is who He says He is, despite the non-believers and the naysayers. The empirical facts can be hard to prove and collect. Numbers of believers alone does not do it for the scientifically-minded, to the people who look at the lack of material evidence, plus the subsequent negative externalities of Christianity and those who have done wrong in its name.

    No small list. Many have killed, hurt, and hated in the name of Christ. This is wrong, of course, but it happens. Way too much. It has happened as long as there have been religions. But let us not only blame those who espouse formal and informal faiths and religious traditions that cause strife and severe pronouncements and misery, torture and warfare, against millions across the ages. In the last few thousand years, anyway. In the last 150 or so years quite a few political ideologies have arisen that have led to the death and misery of millions, practically billions when we extrapolate how wars drawn up have killed soldiers and alleged peace keepers, and all kinds of innocent inhabitants and citizens who got in the way of movements from Communist revolutions, to blundered five-year government plans, to nationalist tyrannies and genocides, to terrible warlords who horde food and resources. Not in any religious vain, mind you. 

    Here is a list against my particular faith, established formally since 1830. Not too many include accusations of murder and violence.

    1. Joseph Smith told lies about seeing God and Jesus and communicating with them.

    2. He subsequently made up the gold plates and the Book of Mormon.

    3. He cheated people of their money and lives' efforts, tricking them to be dedicated to the new religion that he claimed to restore from ancient times.

    4. He started up polygamy, or plural marriage, surreptitiously, and took advantage of his power or holy calling to exploit women and girls who were underage.

    5. He did most of his doings and declarations as a result of a frenzied, or unstable, or narcissistic mind.

    6. Brigham Young was power hungry, and also wished to control people and get away with living with a harem.

    7. Brigham Young was racist and excluded Black men from holding the priesthood, which was meant for all worthy males who were not of African descent.

    8. Brigham Young called on members of his faith to attack the Fancher party that resulted in the massacre of over 100 pioneers at Mountain Meadows in 1857.

    9. The second prophet of the restored times of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young, wished to establish his own empire outside of the United States, and fought with the federal government for sovereignty and power.

    10. President Brigham Young, as governor and leader of the new American faith, fought local native Americans and displaced or exploited the tribes where his people tried to colonize.

    11. Latter-day Saint or Mormon elders (male missionaries) went near and abroad convincing people of a false religion based on much of the above things.

    

    That is quite a list to begin with! Many negative claims, many of them can be debunked, or explained to counter, but on the surface it adds up to be an ugly or sordid affair.

    But, we have to be aware of these factors and be able to account for all these things.

    The good, the bad, and the ugly.

    The amazing, the hard to believe, and the sublime.