Access to the Internet has Mormons questioning their faith in droves. Oh, I like this!

'Wait, what's happening?"

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of Mormons and those who study the church.

“I felt like I had an earthquake under my feet,” said Mr. Mattsson, now an emeritus area authority. “Everything I’d been taught, everything I’d been proud to preach about and witness about just crumbled under my feet. It was such a terrible psychological and nearly physical disturbance.” 

Mr. Mattsson’s decision to go public with his disaffection, in a church whose top leaders commonly deliberate in private, is a sign that the church faces serious challenges not just from outside but also from skeptics inside. 

Greg Prince, a Mormon historian and businessman in Washington who has held local leadership positions in the church, shares Mr. Mattsson’s doubts. “Consider a Catholic cardinal suddenly going to the media and saying about his own church, ‘I don’t buy a lot of this stuff,’ ” Mr. Prince said. “That’s the level we’re talking about here.”

My fervent hope is that this continues to happen throughout ALL religious communities. All hail Google!

Religions can really only survive so long as people do not examine their belief systems too aggressively. Once they recognize and accept that faith cannot stand up to reason it is all over but the crying.

And of course this is why I believe that we have a responsibility to continue to have the conversation. Even though it makes people uncomfortable.

Sadly much of the burden for challenging faith and its impact on our politics, our education, and our understanding of the world around us, falls on the Atheist community.

We are the ones most likely to call bullshit, and accept our lumps for pointing out the inconsistencies and inaccuracies within the Bible and other religious tomes.

We are the ones who desperately want our fellow human beings to recognize how wonderful, and free, the world is without religious constraints or primitive superstitions binding us to archaic traditions and tribal hatreds.

And we are the ones who will continue to be vilified for doing so.

But that's cool, because the potential reward far outweighs the consequences.

Personally I welcome my Mormon brothers and sisters to the new enlightenment. 

Don't be afraid, we don't bite. And our morals are just as good as any religious persons.

Actually, more often than not, even better.