{"id":43987,"date":"2022-11-27T11:29:35","date_gmt":"2022-11-27T19:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=43987"},"modified":"2025-05-28T07:38:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T13:38:51","slug":"if-i-didnt-believe-part-iii-living-a-non-latter-day-saint-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2022\/11\/if-i-didnt-believe-part-iii-living-a-non-latter-day-saint-life\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Didn\u2019t Believe, Part III: Living a Non-Latter-day Saint Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

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Word of Wisdom<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

I accidentally drank beer once, and found it gross. I\u2019ve been told that it\u2019s kind of an acquired taste, so given the harms it does I probably just wouldn\u2019t acquire it even if I didn\u2019t have any religious scruples about doing so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I like new experiences, so I\u2019d probably try everything short of really hard drugs (heroin, crystal meth, etc.) at least once. Given the data on mental health issues and marijuana or psychedelics, I haven\u2019t been convinced that the benefits outweigh the costs for routine use, so I\u2019d probably more or less follow the Word of Wisdom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tattoos<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t understand tattoos. I have a hard time seeing why tattoos have become so fashionable, and the idea is kind of queesy to me with or without the Church. Occasionally I\u2019ll see people who get tattoos of the names of their children on them; if I\u2019m going to carve something into my flesh for all eternity it would have to be something almost existential along those lines (flesh of my flesh?). Similarly, I kind of get it if I was Maori and it had some traditional, genealogical significance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sexuality<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

To paraphrase and modify Carl Sagan, \u201cextraordinary demands on people require extraordinary justifications.\u201d Occasionally secularists want to reconstruct some kind of boundaries and norms for sexuality<\/a> beyond just consent, but given how powerful those forces are for most people, I just don\u2019t see it happening without the God of Israel\/Buddha\/Allah telling you so if doing so goes against your disposition. More to the point, the justificatory onus for restricting a sexual practice that isn\u2019t directly hurting anybody is quite high, and outside of a faith I don\u2019t think I\u2019d see anything that would meet that requirement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Religious Practice<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

I mentioned in the last post in the series that if I wasn’t a member I doubt I\u2019d be able to settle enough in a faith to really practice it, and this also extends to Mormonism. I\u2019m surprised at how many prominent Latter-day Saint intellectuals seem to think that the Church could downplay its truth claims while still retaining its vibrancy and activity, but I think this perspective is patently absurd (\u201cBishops, we all know this is all based on a fabrication, but we\u2019d like you to get your sacrament meeting attendance up\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Life Philosophy<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

My guiding life philosophy would probably be something along the lines of “have fun while not hurting others.” The justification for this deals with fundamental questions about meaning, purpose, and morality in a Godless and\/or Church-less existence, which I’ll address more in-depth next time.<\/p>\n



<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Word of Wisdom I accidentally drank beer once, and found it gross. I\u2019ve been told that it\u2019s kind of an acquired taste, so given the harms it does I probably just wouldn\u2019t acquire it even if I didn\u2019t have any religious scruples about doing so.\u00a0 However, I like new experiences, so I\u2019d probably try everything short of really hard drugs (heroin, crystal meth, etc.) at least once. Given the data on mental health issues and marijuana or psychedelics, I haven\u2019t been convinced that the benefits outweigh the costs for routine use, so I\u2019d probably more or less follow the Word of Wisdom.\u00a0 Tattoos I don\u2019t understand tattoos. I have a hard time seeing why tattoos have become so fashionable, and the idea is kind of queesy to me with or without the Church. Occasionally I\u2019ll see people who get tattoos of the names of their children on them; if I\u2019m going to carve something into my flesh for all eternity it would have to be something almost existential along those lines (flesh of my flesh?). Similarly, I kind of get it if I was Maori and it had some traditional, genealogical significance. Sexuality To paraphrase and modify Carl Sagan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":43988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/72aknw.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43987"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50168,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43987\/revisions\/50168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}