A week ago, I found the second shield beetle that had gotten through my poorly sealed window. Today, I've found eight. I am no longer willing to take time out of my day to catch and release them. Now they die. Sorry. I wish I didn't have to come to this. If I can find their exact entry points or a way to repel them, I'll do that. Sometimes I see them on the outside of my window and pound on it to scare them away before they get in.

At least I never burned grasshoppers to death for fun. How's that for a transition? That's how Kyle McKay, the official LDS Church "Historian" - I use scare quotes because, like most LDS Church leaders, his background is in business and law - recently opened his remarks at a stake conference in Oklahoma. He said that being under the bright lights with his glasses was like the "revenge of the grasshoppers" that he killed as a kid. Pretty messed up, but kids will be kids, I guess.

Then he called "This Little Light of Mine," which was recently added to the Mormon repertoire after decades of singing boring white Protestant hymns with as little enthusiasm as possible, "a song where white people try to sing like black people." If he'd stopped there, I wouldn't have seen a problem. Jokes about cultural differences are not inherently racist, and if anything, given the aforementioned context, this one sounds to me like it's poking fun at white people. But then he gave his impression of a white person singing like a black person and made up a whole conversation that didn't happen. "​I wanted to turn to him and say, 'You know you’re white. And he would say, 'No, I'm an African slave, is what I am, and I'm singing 'Swanee River.'" In case you're unaware, "Swanee River" is a racist minstrel song. I have no idea why he thought this imaginary conversation needed to be shared. He seemed to be under the influence of something, and I don't mean the Holy Ghost.

I have nothing personal against McKay, whom I heard from at an institute devotional before he was important and remember liking just fine. I appreciate his apology and don't think this incident makes him a bad person, but I think it demonstrates loud and clear that Mormon leaders are out of touch and uninspired - not, despite the straw man apologists will want to apply, because I expect them to be perfect, but because anyone actually speaking for God in the year 2026 would know better than to preface his remarks by joking about a racist song that most people born after the 1950s have probably never heard of. That is absolutely not an unreasonable standard to hold them to. This might be a good time to point out that McKay's primary qualification for Mormon leadership is being a former prophet's first cousin twice removed. His sole qualification for being a historian, meanwhile, is his loyalty to the LDS Church's narrative. If you think that's not a real qualification for being a historian, you're so right. This shows in a talk he gave in 2023 called "A Sure and Certain Foundation," which, while not racist, was pretty awful.

According to McKay, the abundance and strength of evidence and arguments against the LDS Church just prove that it's true. I'm not exaggerating.

​"As you increase your efforts to increase your testimony, you are likely to be confronted with reasons to doubt. President Nelson cautioned, 'Don’t pollute [your testimony] with false philosophies of unbelieving men and women.' Please hear me and understand: there will always be some reason or another to doubt the truthfulness of this church and gospel. There are arguments and evidence supporting the proposition that there is no God, that Jesus was just a good philosopher-teacher, that Joseph Smith was simply a charismatic storyteller and that this church and gospel are not true. This evidence, these arguments, are on some level appealing and believable, for there are many who believe them....

"In short, agency - that is, our ability, our responsibility, to choose for ourselves - is essential in all things, including and beginning with belief. In order to preserve our agency in the matter of belief, there must be opposites from which to choose - reasons to believe and reasons to doubt. God does not give us doubts, nor is He the author of error, but He allows them because it is absolutely critical that you and I choose for ourselves to believe or not to believe. There will never come a time, at least pre-Millennium, when God removes all reason to doubt, for to do so would be to remove all agency in the matter of belief.

"Now, I want to be clear - by acknowledging the existence of reasons to doubt, I am not legitimizing them, and I am certainly not advocating or excusing doubt itself. Jesus said, 'Doubt not.' In the face of reasons to doubt, doubt not.

"And what? Did you think Satan would throw up flimsy, easily dismissible reasons to doubt? No! They will be enticing and flattering. If the prince of darkness can transform himself into an angel of light, then surely he can put forth ideas and arguments that appear enlightened."

See, I told you I wasn't exaggerating. I hope you realize that any religion could make this same rebuttal to its critics with equal validity - Catholicism, Islam, Scientology, Heaven's Gate, etc. And I think it's so funny how Satan gets all the credit for deceiving people and destroying their testimonies when he has so much help from Mormon leaders themselves. Is Satan the one who inspired Brigham Young to undermine confidence in his prophetic authority by declaring on multiple occasions that mixed-race couples and their children should be put to death? But of course, following the party line, McKay grouped every uninspired or downright awful Mormon leaders have said or done under "mistakes" and "errors" and makes critics out to be the unreasonable ones for expecting them to be "perfect." He even turned the accusation around:

"And what about you? If the truthfulness of this Church or the truthfulness of or your beliefs were judged by your errors, would anyone ever believe what you believe? Would there have been fewer mistakes, fewer messes, if God had only restored His Church and gospel through you?"

Yes, I answer without hesitation, pausing only to add the caveat that this is entirely hypothetical because the "restoration" is a fiction to begin with. Like many, many people who aren't Joseph Smith, I've managed not to be a serial adulterer and sexual predator despite my imperfections. I'm aware that in real life, people might already be less inclined to listen to the spiritual wisdom I have to share because I don't always live by it, and that's too bad, but I've never claimed to speak for God, whether I'm sharing wisdom or being an asshole. My mistakes and messes reflect on me. Kyle McKay's racist flub reflects on God because he was speaking in his official capacity and was supposed to have the Holy Ghost telling him what to say, which he invoked right before he started talking about the grasshoppers. Of course, everyone has off days, and this wasn't so bad that I would consider it a smoking gun against the LDS Church on its own. It's just part of a long-term pattern, with countless much more concerning examples, of these men not having the inspiration they claim.

"Sometimes, in studying the Book of Mormon or presenting it to others, we are tempted to bypass its primary purpose and jump straight to the collateral conclusion that if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith is a prophet and this is God’s church."

Off-topic, but I noticed this while I was skimming and wanted to comment because excuse me, this is exactly what the LDS Church taught us to do and what it teaches missionaries to teach prospective converts to do. Literally this exact line of reasoning is spelled out in Preach My Gospel. I'm so tired of rank-and-file Mormons being thrown under the bus for issues that come from the top. Of course, when the church tells us that David Whitmer testified of the Book of Mormon to the end of his life, it doesn't mention that he also said Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet, polygamy was an abomination, and the LDS Church was in apostasy. Anyway, McKay's point here was to suggest that we "read the book for its primary purpose - to convince the people of this earth that Jesus is the Christ." He went on,

"When you ask God, the Eternal Father, if these things are true - if Jesus is the Christ, if this is His gospel - it is essential that you ask in faith. Asking, and for that matter, reading from a position of doubt or skepticism will not summon a response from Heaven. 'Prove-it-to-me' prayers are seldom answered, and if they are, it is usually to the condemnation, even destruction, of the one demanding proof. Think Korihor and Sherem, for example. Asking in faith - even a particle of faith - implies that you at least have a desire to believe. Lead with this desire and 'let [it] work in you.'

"Asking in faith also means that you believe God will answer your prayers and give you the knowledge you desire. This faith is often demonstrated by what you do after you ask. Waiting patiently, unwaveringly for the witness you desire is part of asking in faith."

This is literally the definition of confirmation bias. Of course, McKay didn't come up with it on his own. Mormon epistemology is founded on confirmation bias.

"Brothers and sisters, I hope you realize that having perplexing questions that arise from reasons to doubt is not a problem. But please understand, finding answers to these perplexing questions ultimately is not the solution. The solution is a sure and certain foundation whereon if you build, you cannot fall. That foundation is Jesus Christ and His gospel, the fullness of which is found and taught in this Church."

Begging the question here - I mean actually begging the question, not the incorrect way everyone uses that term now. We must start with the conclusion that the fullness of Jesus Christ's gospel is found and taught in the LDS Church, and anything that gives us cause to doubt that conclusion, like whether the leaders of the LDS Church act anything like Jesus Christ would tell them to act if he were talking to them, is preemptively deemed irrelevant. Again, any religion could defend its truth claims with a similar fallacy. This is something I've noticed a lot lately. When I was a kid, prophets were supposed to direct us to Jesus, but now they cause so many problems for belief that we're told to just ignore them and focus on Jesus. My mom told me (back when I still spoke to her), "I made my covenants with God, not Spencer W. Kimball or Brigham Young." And where, pray tell, does she think everything she believes about covenants and God came from?

And oh, I didn't even realize this. McKay closed this talk with the story of Jane Elizabeth Manning maintaining her testimony of the LDS Church despite its policy that barred her from the temple because of the color of her skin, and the refusal of multiple prophets to make an exception for her.

"Her request was not granted. The Church President to whom she petitioned was John Taylor. He who once withstood what might have been his compelling reason to doubt now became part of what might have been Jane Manning’s compelling reason to doubt. Jane made similar petitions to Wilford Woodruff and Joseph F. Smith, who similarly upheld the race restrictions at the time. It would have been easy and understandable for Jane to pack it in, shut it down, and walk away. But she didn’t. Why? Because because her foundation was sure and certain in the truths that she had learned."

Very inspirational. Of course, like the other white Mormon leaders who use Jane's story as propaganda, he didn't say the policy was racist or wrong, he didn't mention that Joseph F. Smith eventually did compromise by having Jane sealed to Joseph Smith as a "Servitor" with a white woman as proxy, and he didn't mention that her surviving children left the church. Maybe if he'd ever really grappled with the LDS Church's treatment of black people instead of assuring himself that it was fine because a very small number of them believed in it anyway, he wouldn't have been so out of touch with reality that he thought his "Swanee River" joke would go over well. How's that for continuity?

I'm in a subreddit called r/spirituality, which, as you can probably imagine, is a mixed bag of wisdom, bullshit, and schizophrenic people being encouraged in their delusions instead of advised to get help. The nice thing is that unlike in a high-demand religion, nobody can require me to believe anything I don't want to. About a month ago, someone made this simple post:

Title: "The idea that a person who treated others horribly (or was a horrible person in general) gets a clean slate once they leave the earth feels like a slap in the face to the people who had to deal with them in life"

Body: "​Like that person gets to be okay wherever they are with no punishment but I still have to deal with the scars from their treatment for the rest of my life? They get to be at peace but I don’t? That’s messed up"

That was it. I don't know what specifically they had in mind as the source of this idea, but I've heard it mostly from near-death experience accounts, and I agreed with this person's sentiment a thousand percent. So I said, "Agreed. And the claim from some NDEs that good and evil aren't real disgusts me to my core. I don't think anyone deserves to suffer forever for causing a finite amount of harm, but they should face consequences before they go on to eternal bliss." Notice that I didn't say this claim isn't true, because I don't know that, but it disgusts me to my core regardless.

So then someone was like, "​I feel like I have missed some thing that everyone else has read up on or seen!?!

"People do face consequences in the after life, it's mostly just karma though. I dont know what this stuff about people just 'going on to bliss' is but that sounds pretty sensational. As far as I know it's a fair bit more complicated than that, if you want to know more read the Tibetan book of living and dying, that gives a decent outline of the process of dying even if it isn't exactly right(or maybe I just don't remember dying that well... both times)

'Good and Evil' isn't real, at least not really. It's literally entirely subjective. I happen to be one of those NDE people lmfao."

By "going on to bliss," I was referring to the majority of NDE accounts, where people just feel infinite love from the universe or higher power and don't feel judged by it for anything they've ever done, which is a really beautiful concept for normal people who are doing their best, but not so much for assholes who devote their lives to making the world a worse place. They also often talk about how we plan out our entire lives before we come here, and we're just like actors playing roles, and everything that happens here ceased to matter as soon as we die. Some people report "hellish" NDEs, but there seems to be no correlation between having those and doing anything to deserve them. Anyway, I felt like if this person responding to me really had an NDE, they should have told me exactly how it was explained to them. Merely repeating the claim that disgusted me to my core and signing off with "lmfao" wasn't very persuasive. It seemed downright douchey to me at the time, though it's not as bad in context now that I'm looking at it with fresh eyes.

So I said, "​So I could literally say Hitler did nothing wrong, and my subjective opinion would be entirely valid? Surely you can understand why I have a huge problem with that." Notice that even now, I didn't insist that this premise, abhorrent though it is, wasn't true. I should have picked a more creative example, though. We're all sick of everyone comparing everything to Hitler. I should have picked a different genocidal dictator, like Pol Pot, Théoneste Bagosora, or Benjamin Netanyahu.

The person didn't respond for several days, so when they did, and up until just now when I revisited this conversation, I thought they were a second person getting on my ass. They said, "​Morality is entirely subjective. So basically, humans aren't as important as we think. We aren't the centre of the universe or anything even close. The universe is full of life.

"What is nice to me is not necessarily nice to a cat, a cow, a slime mold, another person. Every living thing is unique and has its own needs, desires, preferences etc.

"So with all that in mind, morality is completely and utterly subjective. There is no moral code passed down from God, LOVE is the main unifying force of reality, BUT what is love to one thing is not necessarily recieved as love by another thing. For example, let's say the sun loves the world, but in the process it burns your face off. Do you see what I'm getting at?

"I know people are terrified by this concept and a lot of people struggle with it, but it doesn't actually change anything, not really. Because if humans have a general consensus on morality then we can apply it generally, and we do."

Myself, I don't think "Humans aren't the center of the universe" (which I agree with) automatically translates to "Genocide isn't evil because it doesn't bother slime molds." And I'm pretty sure the preference to avoid pain and death is almost universal among organisms with the capacity to have preferences. And although I'm open to the possibility that the sun possesses some degree of consciousness beyond our understanding, it was a very strange example to use because I'm pretty sure it heats the world through automated nuclear fusion, not any kind of agency. Maybe one could argue that the laws of physics are some kind of agency beyond our understanding, but my point remains that it can't choose to not heat the world until its fuel runs out in a few billion years, long after we're extinct anyway. I didn't want to be a jerk and nit-pick everything this person said, though, so I focused on the last part, which I found most disturbing, and I concluded with a point of agreement in the hope of not seeming too contentious. I said:

"​I mean, that general consensus has endorsed some horrific things over the years and can do so again any time it pleases. I don't want to live in a world where minorities are at the majority's mercy.

"I noticed that you sidestepped my question because you intuitively understand how messed up it would be to say that Hitler did nothing wrong, even though it logically follows from what you're saying, unless I'm still missing something.

"But I do like the idea that love is the unifying force of reality. I try to let it guide my actions. When I'm unkind to people, it's usually because they've pissed me off by being unkind to others. I know love is far more important than all the rules I was taught I had to obey to please God."

They said, "From Hitler's perspective or a die-hard nazi, they did nothing wrong. Sorry I forgot about that part"

As if "that part" wasn't my entire comment. But whatever. For a moment, I was impressed that this person had the courage and integrity to stand by the uncomfortable implications of their belief. And then I realized they hadn't actually said anything significant. No shit, of course evil people don't think they're doing anything wrong. That's not the important part. So, not wanting to play any more games, I followed up,​"And their perspective is as valid as anyone else's, yes or no?"

That was 18 days ago. That person hasn't gotten back to me yet. Look, I wasn't trying to be a jerk, and I have no malice toward this person. I just want people to be consistent with their worldviews. If the implications of your own beliefs are too uncomfortable for you to admit, then either your beliefs need to change or you do. And yes, maybe this person did get their belief straight from the divine during an NDE or two, in which case they can't just toss it aside, but I must admit I'm skeptical of that because in that case, I don't think I should have been able to outsmart them so easily. Oh well.

Now, in fairness, here's another response someone gave me that I liked much better, particularly because I believe many (not all) NDEs are valid and want them to make sense: "​Perhaps they mean something like 'there isn't a sort of 'moral laws' that the Universe enforces like a cosmic Judge', but rather more that the consequences of actions to others are mirrored back not because of how they were judged but just as they actually landed, and that it is up to us to decide how that should affect our doings. That said, this is a dangerous form of language to describe the matter with because it ambiguates between the idea of no set moral rules or values and the idea of irrelevancy of moral cognition - and the latter is, indeed, a serious problem."

I understand that distinction in a vague, abstract way. I'd probably need to be high to understand it on a deeper level. I'm good with it for now.

In the past month or so, I've really backslid in my theoretical goal of loving shitty people who make the world a worse place, aka Trump supporters. I've been telling them on Facebook and Reddit exactly what I think of them, and I've been so brutal that several of them have shut the hell up, and one of them even deleted her comment after I pointed out how stupid she was for fixating on Kamala Harris' sex life while her cult leader cheated on all three of his wives and was best friends with a child sex trafficker. I feel really, really good when I make them shut up. If being unkind to them is wrong, why does it feel so, so right?

The thing is, refusing to sink to their level hasn't worked. Democrats get their asses kicked in part because they fret about decorum while Republicunts do whatever the hell they want. I keep hearing that we have to be kind and patient toward Trump supporters while they gleefully shit all over everything and make other people's lives miserable because they can, and I'm tired of that burden. I'm tired of being expected to treat grown adults who choose to be shitty people like toddlers. I have found that every time, and I do mean every time I choose to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who strikes me at first glance as a mindless bigot, and I choose to communicate with them calmly and respectfully and not treat them like a mindless bigot, they immediately, and I do mean immediately prove that I was right the first time. If bullying is the only language these emotionally stunted troglodytes speak, so be it. Changing their tiny minds is damn near impossible until the person they elected to hurt other people hurts them, but getting them to shut up is the next best thing.

Anyway, I was thinking about this the other day when I watched this video. I'm writing this blog post to share this video because I'm exceptionally sleep-deprived today, which puts me in the mood to not write a long, thoughtful post or do much of anything but count the hours until I can take a Kush Kube and enjoy myself. I don't have words to express how satisfying it is to watch people insult MAGAts in scathing, well-crafted ways and know that the "Fuck your feelings" folks are getting their feelings hurt by it. On a related note, I'm generally against making fun of men's penis sizes, but I love the recent South Park episode because anything, and I do mean anything that hurts Trump's feelings is justified.

On a related note, nobody's ever given me a valid reason why I shouldn't celebrate when terrible people like Focus on the Family founder James Dobson leave this world. His was a toxic influence, and now it's diminished. That's a good thing. Speaking of terrible people dying, the orange taint made a weird statement the other day that seems to indicate the first moment of introspection in his self-absorbed life: "I wanna try and get to heaven if possible. I'm hearing I'm not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this [theoretical Ukraine-Russia peace deal] will be one of the reasons." Wow. I'm not sure any number of lives saved in Ukraine could cancel out the astronomical human suffering he's intentionally caused elsewhere. This is a strange statement from someone who's dedicated his entire life to bullying people and spreading misery. And look, I have some empathy for him because his dad didn't love him and raised him to be cold and heartless, but my empathy stops at the point where he chose to make that everyone else in the world's problem. Suicide would have been a better answer.

Anyway, I don't believe in a permanent hell for anyone. The general consensus of near-death experiencers is that no such thing exists, and it wouldn't be fair to attach an infinite punishment to the finite amount of harm that even the worst people in the world cause. Do I want Donald Trump to get back the suffering he's dished out to humanity? Absolutely. Do I want him to suffer for eternity? No. I hope he does go to heaven... eventually.

Now here's an embarrassing confession. I've come to realize that Trump has made my life better. By protesting at every opportunity, I've made like-minded friends, and I'm much less lonely than I was at this time last year. Of course, the Kush Kubes help with that too. Anyway, in my privileged position, protesting is fun. I go out and stand up for other people's rights, and then I go home and move on with my life. I hope I'll stay strong and brave if things escalate and protesting becomes less fun. Maybe I should get myself arrested on purpose so I'm not privileged anymore. I know it may seem silly for me to have so much anger toward a person who doesn't affect my life very much, but that's because I have a little mental disorder that I like to call empathy for other human beings. I'm not willing to stick my head in the sand while he puts other human beings in concentration camps. I'm weird like that. Oh, and I will be affected when his Big Butt-ugly Bill goes into effect (after the midterms; I wonder why), so there's that. I take comfort in knowing that most of the people who voted for him will be affected too, and I'm not sorry. They were warned.

I'm on vacation with my grandparents in New York for a couple of weeks, and I'm not going to put much effort into this post. My first flight was delayed by two and a half hours, which would cause me to miss my second flight, so American Airlines' system automatically rebooked me on an overnight flight arriving at 6 a.m. without telling me. The bag check-in lady was able to get me on another delayed flight to Dallas instead of Chicago, and I made to the end of the boarding line with a few minutes to spare. I would like to add my complaint to the many complaints about the Salt Lake airport. I cannot comprehend why I had to walk through empty space for twenty minutes to get to my gate. Why the hell didn't they put the gates in that empty space instead of the empty space? How the hell did this arrangement get designed, approved, and built? I hope everyone involved never works in their respective industries again.

So now I've been to Texas. I have no other reason to want to go to Texas because its governor is a bellend. I had five hours to kill at the airport because my second rescheduled flight was, of course, delayed, and I walked around for a while and I worked on the new book that I just started for a while. I sat with my computer at a charging station by the gate and paid no attention to the pretty young woman seated across from me until a guy across the room yelled at his kids for running around, and I looked over there, and she grinned at me and said, "They're losing their shit!" And I said I couldn't blame them for being bored, and she agreed. And then it occurred to me that I could keep talking to her by asking how long she'd been delayed and stuff, but it also occurred to me that just because a woman spoke to me didn't mean she wanted to have a whole conversation, so I didn't. She went back to her work, and then she went off somewhere.

When it was time to board, I was in the second-to-last group, so I didn't get in line. She returned and also didn't get in line. As I waited, my eyes wandered around and didn't look at her. But then they did look at her, and it seems like she was looking at me before that, because she immediately looked away as an involuntary smile sprouted on her face. I mean, I wasn't in her head and I don't know what the synapses in her brain were doing, but her smile looked involuntary based on my short lifetime of observations and personal experience. I've had the exact same reaction when someone I found attractive looked at me. So this brought me to the realization that, against all odds, she probably found me attractive. Though unusual, this would not be unprecedented. I've been asked to ladies' choice dances. I've been flirted with and realized it years later. That girl in the USU library in 2013 who started a friendly conversation by asking me about a simple point of grammar that she could have taken a few seconds to look up on her computer was probably flirting with me.

I kept waiting for this pretty young woman to get in line, but she kept not getting in line, so I got in line and then she got in line right behind me. And the line moved slowly, and I made a point of pretending not to notice or care about her presence, although sometimes I would turn my head so I could kind of see her and she could see that I could see her and she could talk to me if she wanted. I didn't dare to talk to her. Bad things happen to me when I have that kind of confidence. I imagined her getting on one of the feminist subreddits I frequent and complaining that she can't go out in public without men being attracted to her. Really, I see complaints like that. Apparently some women hate being approached by men in public at all, even if the men don't harass them or refuse to take no for an answer. And they hate it when their guy friends turn out to be attracted to them, even if their guy friends don't harass them or refuse to take no for an answer. Maybe I'm a misogynist for not feeling even a little bit sorry for those women.

As she stood behind me in line and I let her into my peripheral vision, this woman twirled a lock of her hair in an exaggerated manner. This was a less obvious sign of attraction, since I couldn't prove that it had anything to do with me, but nobody else was twirling their hair, and it's such a well-established sign of attraction that it inspired a hilarious Argentinian commercial where a guy has dinner with his girlfriend's family and charms her mother, grandmother, and father so much that they all do it. (Her father has short hair, but he grows a long lock just for that shot.) I became hopeful that since we seemed to be in the same boarding category, we would sit together, and then it wouldn't be weird for me to talk to her. Her seat was several rows up from mine. I decided I would muster my courage during the three-hour flight and talk to her at the baggage claim. She wasn't at the baggage claim. I hate being me.

She probably thinks I wasn't attracted to her and/or failed to pick up on her signals. The first one isn't true, and surprisingly, neither is the second. A third, less likely possibility is that she thinks I'm a weird Republican who refused to flirt back without verification of her chromosomes. I don't want her to think those things. But because I think almost constantly about death and what may await us afterward, it occurred to me almost immediately that maybe when she dies she'll have one of those life reviews that many people describe after they die and come back, and she'll revisit our brief moments together and see my thoughts and feelings and finally know the truth. Maybe she'll know that I thought she was very pretty. Maybe she'll know that her unsolicited vulgar remark gave me a positive impression of her personality. And maybe she'll glimpse the ocean of trauma that made me fear her more than I fear being alone.

I made a simple little YouTube ad for my book. In theory, I have a wider reach on YouTube than on any other platform, because I have 3.45K subscribers, mostly thanks to one music video I posted in 2015 that has over two million views. In practice, this video has gotten six views in six days. Yay, I love being me.

But I'm also friends with a host of a Star Wars podcast, and I arranged to exploit that for some free advertising under the rationale that my book drew lots of inspiration from Star Wars. I listened to this episode on mute because I want to support my friend but I'd rather slit my wrists than hear my own voice. This was my first time being interviewed about what I hope to leverage into a career, and I think I did pretty well right until the end. I've decided that from now on I'm not going to be apologetic or self-deprecating about the fact that I self-published. That was my choice, and I stand by it. I don't know how much rejection I would have experienced or how many changes the publisher would have wanted to make if I'd gone the traditional route, but the fact that I didn't is not a reflection on the quality of my writing. Also, at the end, I should have mentioned my Goodreads author page. I only mentioned my Amazon page and this website and said that should about cover it. My mind was racing with all my different social media profiles, and I thought I should keep it simple by not including them, and then I didn't mention the Goodreads author page because I haven't done anything with it, I have one follower (the podcast friend), and I don't have a strategy for using it to further my career. I should, though. But see, I'm learning already, and it's a very good sign that I don't hate everything about this interview.

A few days later, as it happens, another friend sought out people to participate in a podcast that she's making for a college class. The topic is "life lessons you wish you had learned sooner." I'm not sure if I'll do it or not, because the biggest life lesson I wish I had learned sooner, besides the generic and boring ones, is one that she, a Mormon, wouldn't want to hear. The biggest life lesson I wish I had learned sooner is this: Feelings are not a reliable method of evaluating truth. I've only learned this in the last couple of years. My parents and everyone in the LDS Church taught me from a young age to base my worldview in large part on "spiritual witnesses" that are actually just normal human emotions. As an adult, I thought I was so open-minded and well-rounded because I accepted spiritual methods of evaluating certain kinds of truth in addition to empirical methods for evaluating other kinds of truth. But this sandy foundation, and my desperate wholehearted efforts to follow God's direction for my life, eventually brought me a world of pain and disillusionment. Pleasant feelings are not the Holy Ghost. Unpleasant feelings are not Satan. This is so obvious now. I'm pretty pissed off that I was indoctrinated to think that way. I try not to be pissed off at any specific person who indoctrinated me, because I know they all meant well.

There was a very specific point in my life, age seventeen, where I chose to continue believing the church, despite all the evidence I'd stumbled upon that Joseph Smith was a fraud, because of the powerful "spiritual witness" I'd felt at EFY. It's hard to say I regret that as such. I don't regret moving to Utah, going to USU, or meeting many wonderful people and having many great experiences through the church. It's impossible to even say how my life would have turned out otherwise. But eventually, my fidelity to this decision - to God, I thought - drove me to twist myself into intellectual pretzels, put up with a lot of bullcrap that was so clearly wrong, and waste several years of my life defending and promoting a lie. I wish I had still come to Utah and gone to USU but left the LDS Church years earlier. And I hope to help others figure it out sooner than I did before they base their major life decisions on unreliable feelings, perhaps with less positive results. Think of all the women who gave up their dreams because their prophet told them to be stay-at-home moms, for example. Think of all the irrational things people may do because they think the Holy Ghost told them to. Someone posted this on reddit a few months ago. They filed it under Humor/Memes, but it's not funny, it's terrifying that children are being groomed to think this way. Or more precisely, to not think at all.

People in every religion appear to get the same "spiritual witnesses" that the LDS Church wants to monopolize, and I point this out at every opportunity. Mormons typically give me one of two responses. The first one is that of course all these people feel the Holy Ghost because all religions have some truth. But that still undermines the claim that Mormons' spiritual witnesses specifically prove that their religion is the most true. Mormons have no right to assert that their subjective personal feelings are more powerful or more authentic than everyone else's subjective personal feelings. This also fails to explain why "the Holy Ghost" bears witness of the truth of suicide cults, as attested by people who have been filmed bearing emotional testimonies a few days before they killed themselves because their prophet told them to. And when I bring that up, Mormons give their other response, which is that Satan deceived those people by mimicking the Holy Ghost - something that the LDS Church specifically taught me he couldn't do. My sister said that's why we have to evaluate religions by their fruits. I tried to explain that nobody in the world sees the LDS Church protecting child abusers or lying about its obscene wealth and thinks "Ah, this must be the true religion."

Someone posted this on reddit a few days ago. I can vouch that nothing in it is inaccurate. I was taught all of this in the LDS Church, and now, from the other side, the manipulation and circular reasoning are so obvious (without even getting into the fallacious claim that the church is automatically true if the Book of Mormon is true).

The LDS Church quite noticeably pulls this same bullcrap with tithing. If you pay it and good things happen, that proves tithing is a true principle and you should keep paying it. If you pay it and good things don't happen, that means you need to wait on the Lord's timing or you're just failing to notice the subtle ways he's blessing you, and tithing is still a true principle and you should keep paying it. There is no scenario in which the church will concede that the tithing promise has been falsified.

While I'm on the subject of the Book of Mormon, though, I want to address a couple of faith-promoting cliches that I saw all over Twitter when Mormons began studying it in their church curriculum this year. The people saying these things weren't the usual alt-right jerks that I interact with, so I left them alone unless they specifically invited feedback. But I can't stand the claim that Joseph Smith only had 85 days to translate the Book of Mormon and therefore it was miraculous. According to his own narrative, he had five and a half years between the time he first mentioned the golden plates and the time he started translating them. His mother later wrote of this period, "During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelings, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them." He even got a bit of a practice run when he dictated the original 116 pages and then didn't reproduce them after Martin Harris lost them, as he would have been able to do if he'd actually received them by revelation. And then he only needed to dictate for three to six hours a day to get the Book of Mormon finished in 85 days. Suddenly it's a little less miraculous.

I also saw a lot of assertions that the Book of Mormon has "held up to scrutiny" for almost two hundred years. That one just baffles me. Orthodox Mormons will continue to believe in it because of their "spiritual witness," not because of external evidence or internal consistency, regardless of what anyone says. Meanwhile, the people outside of the LDS Church and the tiny Mormon splinter groups who take it seriously as an ancient document can be counted on one hand. Virtually all scholars of anything regard it as an obvious work of nineteenth-century fiction. Even many Mormons regard it as a work of nineteenth-century fiction. I have no real idea, but I think it would be generous to estimate that 0.05% of people in the world believe the Book of Mormon is what Joseph Smith said it was. So why does that tiny fraction of a percent, whatever it happens to be exactly, get to decide that the book has "held up to scrutiny"? What does that even mean under these circumstances? Just that the book has continued to exist? That's a pretty low bar, and not miraculous by any stretch of the imagination. It's the same bar to which they hold the entire LDS Church now that its "miraculous" growth rate has been plummeting for three decades in a row.

So that's why I'm not sure if I'll appear on this other friend's podcast.