Logic and Faith

Aaron: I’m beginning to think that logic and faith are opposites. One requires the previous knowledge of everything we’ve ever experienced, and use it to make calculated decisions about life and situations that occur to you. The other requires no knowledge of anything in particular,  just the thought that somewhere, somehow, something is going to pull through for you. This is my main issue with religion, and the people who partake in it.

I’ve been having a look at Mormonism in the last few weeks. I’m probably a little shaky on the details, but a man named Joseph Smith from the USA had a walk into the forest and an angel helped him discover some Golden Tablets that happened to have an undiscovered Word of God on them. He was enamoured with this discovery, and God told him that he could not show these magical tablets to anybody, and had to read them out loud from inside a top hat to a scribe that was not allowed to see them. He then began preaching these new ‘gospels’ as the Book of Mormon, and also made a few amendments himself which were mentioned nowhere in the Book of Mormon or in the Bible, but claims they came directly from God. The Book of Mormon also tells the story of the Jaredites, who escaped persecution in the ‘Tower of Babel Debacle’ and escaped to North America. Another migration occurred, this time led by a man named Lehi. His sons, Nephi and Laman, eventually led two groups that warred against each other, but Nephi’s tribe were more favoured by God, so Laman’s tribe were cursed by God with dark skin. And that is why the American Indians have dark skin.

And if this does not seem illogical or irrational to anybody… I don’t know what to think. I originally thought this was a joke. I read about this from many sources, including asking a few Mormon friends about how Israelites came to be in America. Of course there were no solid answers, much as there are no solid answers when I ask my family (who are Christian) about their beliefs. Admittedly, I am a very large skeptic…But this is just ridiculous. The fact that people actually believe this happened, and base their lives around something with so many holes just defies all belief I have in human rationality.

Logic says that it is extremely unlikely that all of these things happened, and over time, people would have realised more than a few differences between what is real and what has been invented by some guy. But no. Faith says that its entirely possible.