In 1842, Mormon founder Joseph Smith wrote a letter to editor John Wentworth of the newspaper The Chicago Democrat . In that letter, he included a list of the tenets of the Mormon faith which he called the Articles of Faith. Growing up in the LDS church, I memorized these articles as a child. Since I no longer believe in deities, I often find myself musing about what my beliefs are. The purpose of this post is to enumerate some of those beliefs. Perhaps I'll think of more and add them at a later time. But these are some of my musings on what I personally value. 1. I value the pursuit of knowledge, using the tools of critical thinking, skepticism, and empirical evidence. I know from my time as a Mormon that one of the misconceptions about the scientific method and empirical learning is the straw man of saying that people who do not believe in gods do not believe in anything they cannot see. In fact, I recall a talk from a general authority of the church who pointed out that atomic
Life is what you make of it.