Why We Left Mormonism

  • “We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take the veil away” (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 345).[1]

Lynn Wilder and Corey Miller are among 4 scholars who tell their story of leaving The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the new book “Leaving Mormonism: Why Four Scholars Changed Their Mind.” They engage with Mormon believer James Holt as they discuss Jesus, Joseph Smith, polygamy, testimony, the Book of Mormon and more. For more on this program, see HERE.

One can also read my chapter on Mormonism, “Infinitely Finite – Mormon Materialism: Are Mormons Really Dialectical Materialists?

[1] James A. Beverly, Nelson’s Illustrated Guide to Religions: A Comprehensive Introduction to the Religions of the World (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009), 368. 

How Fake Subjects like Women Studies Invaded Academia

Sir Roger Vernon Scruton is an English philosopher and writer who specialises in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views. In recent years he taught courses in Buckingham University, Oxford University and University of St. Andrews. In this clip he talks about fake subjects like women studies that invaded academia with their postmodernist views. (Full video lecture is HERE.)

Ridiculous Cases of Prohibited Speech on University

Greg Lukianoff is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He previously served as FIRE’s first director of legal and public advocacy until he was appointed president in 2006. He graduated from American University (Washington) and Stanford Law School. In this clip, he talks about ridiculous cases of prohibited speech on university and how they are losing on free speech issues in court. Full video is HERE.

How the Media Portrays Progressives vs. Conservatives

Ron Robinson has served as Young America’s Foundation’s president for more than three decades. Time magazine wrote that Young America’s “Foundation—run by a former Reagan Administration advisor, Ron Robinson—is now the nation’s largest advocacy group devoted to student politics.”

In this talk from Oct, 2017 he describes how the media portrays progressives compared to conservatives. Full video found HERE (MOONBATTERY H-T)

SEE ALSO: THOMAS SOWELL: EXAMPLES OF ABSURD LIBERAL MISINFORMATION

10 Myths About Government Debt

Myth 1 is that the government owes “only” $20 trillion. (In reality, it’s much more.) But luckily, Myth 10 is that there’s no way to fix this problem… Prof. Antony Davies explains.

(MOONBATTERY) Most everyone is aware that the federal debt is a serious problem, but most don’t realize how serious, because they believe in some of the 10 myths economics professor Antony Davies of Duquesne University debunks in the video below:

1. The government owes only $20 trillion.
2. The government owes only $150 trillion.
3. Money borrowed from Social Security isn’t really debt because we owe it to ourselves.
4. The government cannot go bankrupt.
5. The government can solve its financial problems by raising taxes.
6. The rich aren’t paying their fair share.
7. The government could settle its debts by selling off assets.
8. The government needs to pay off its debts.
9. The government can just keep borrowing.
10. There is no way to fix the problem.

The Dark Past of Sea Monkeys

This is the story of how a tiny, magical creature was transformed into a cultural phenomenon by inventor, marketing genius and complicated eccentric Harold von Braunhut. Full of fun facts (both charming and disturbing), Just Add Water is a colorful short film about a half-century of marketing directly to children, the force of nostalgia in pop culture, and an unlikely meeting of flim-flam and hard science. A film by Penny Lane.

Trump Reverses An Obama Era Reg (Merry Christmas)

The DAILY CALLER discusses another great reversal of Obama Era regulations meant to choose winners and losers:

…..Wind turbines kill hundreds of thousands of birds every year, and thermal solar plants in California have scorched hundreds more. These killings are unintentional, and represent a small percentage of accidental bird kills overall.

But while wind turbines and solar arrays killed migratory birds, the Obama administration exempted them from prosecution for years.

The Obama administration prosecuted more than 200 cases from 2009 to April 2013 involving the taking of protected birds and eagles, but never brought wind turbines to task, the Associated Press found.

Obama officials, however, did fine oil and gas companies for unintentionally killing birds. For example, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in a 2009 federal court case to charges of killing 85 federally protected birds and agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees.

PacifiCorp was fined in 2009 for killing birds and paid $1.4 million in fines and restitution for the killing of 232 eagles in Wyoming that were electrocuted by power lines.

In fact the Obama administration didn’t prosecute wind power producers until Nov. 2013 for bird deaths at wind farms when they ordered a subsidiary of Duke Energy pay $1 million in fines….

Trickle Down Economics Myth |Updated|

Here are some excerpts of Thomas Sowell’s article, the TRICKLE DOWN LIE (emphasis added):

New York’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, in his inaugural speech, denounced people “on the far right” who “continue to preach the virtue of trickle-down economics.” According to Mayor de Blasio, “They believe that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and that somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else.”

If there is ever a contest for the biggest lie in politics, this one should be a top contender.

While there have been all too many lies told in politics, most have some little tiny fraction of truth in them, to make them seem plausible. But the “trickle-down” lie is 100 percent lie.

It should win the contest both because of its purity — no contaminating speck of truth — and because of how many people have repeated it over the years, without any evidence being asked for or given…

[….]

…Back in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama attacked what he called “an economic philosophy” which “says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.”

Let’s do something completely unexpected: Let’s stop and think. Why would anyone advocate that we “give” something to A in hopes that it would trickle down to B? Why in the world would any sane person not give it to B and cut out the middleman? But all this is moot, because there was no trickle-down theory about giving something to anybody in the first place.

The “trickle-down” theory cannot be found in even the most voluminous scholarly studies of economic theories — including J.A. Schumpeter’s monumental “History of Economic Analysis.”

[….]

But, contrary to Mayor de Blasio, this is not a view confined to people on the “far right.” Such liberal icons as Presidents John F. Kennedy and Woodrow Wilson likewise argued that tax rates can be so high that they have an adverse effect on the economy.

In his 1919 address to Congress, Woodrow Wilson warned that, at some point, “high rates of income and profits taxes discourage energy, remove the incentive to new enterprise, encourage extravagant expenditures, and produce industrial stagnation with consequent unemployment and other attendant evils.”

In a 1962 address to Congress, John F. Kennedy said, “it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”

This was not a new idea. John Maynard Keynes said, back in 1933, that “taxation may be so high as to defeat its object,” that in the long run, a reduction of the tax rate “will run a better chance, than an increase, of balancing the budget.” And Keynes was not on “the far right” either.

The time is long overdue for people to ask themselves why it is necessary for those on the left to make up a lie if what they believe in is true.

Below are two short clips regarding “Trickle Down.” One is a clip from Sowell’s audio book, “Basic Economics A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy 2nd Edition” (left – 4:25 minutes). The other is the same info but during an interview (right – 3:08 minutes):

HERE is the entire “Uncommon Knowledge” interview discussing “Trickle Down” rhetoric and “Taxing the Rich.” BELOW is a Reagan myth exploded in an interview of Tavis Smiley by Larry Elder:


~ BONUS ~