Warm Fuzzies, the priest and me

As we all know the LDS church tells its' members to base their lives on the feelings of the spirit not on facts or rational argument. Since the early days of my enlightenment I have been able to see how flawed this is.

As I struggled with new found facts that conflicted with my feeling I faced a struggle between to sets of conditioning. One the Mormon set and one the secular set which demanded reasoned argument. My breaking point in terms of faith came when I realised that faith cannot withstand fact. That at some point the evidence against an idea could become so compelling that an alternative conclusion was outwith the bounds of rationality.

Having come to the decision that Mormonism could not possibly be true based on the evidence presented and that to have continued to believe, in-spite of the facts, would be irrational, I have not really looked for nor stumbled into any alternative faith. However I have had religious experiences since my departure from the LDS church.

For several months after my departure, whilst still hesitant about my decision I lived with my Grandmother. My Grandmother is a life long Catholic, and over the years had educated herself in her faith. I consider her to understand Catholicism better than most. So many catholics fail to realise that they belong to a church based on a coherent theology that has been built up over thousands of years. Instead of seeking that out they get caught up in the superstitious and outward elements of the faith. Not dis-similar to the way many Mormons are - appearances being everything.

For months I attended Mass with her and actually quite enjoyed it. I enjoyed actually hearing about the teaching of Christ who at the very least has an inspiring philosophy even if I cannot decide if I can believe he is the son of god. It was refreshing to hear about his teachings and not those of a bigoted hick with masturbation on the mind or some other LDS prophet. I did start to take some comfort in the rituals too, I don't know what it is about human nature but rituals do seem to do something for many of us.

I noticed how I felt the same warm fuzzies that I always thought had been the spirit at mass. My Mormon thought patterns told me that this was because they must have been talking about something true, but even when discussing things which the LDS church oppose, like reciting the Nicene Creed I felt the same fuzzies. Brilliant I thought, and took this as evidence that warm fuzzies meant nothing, a position I still hold.

A further confirmation of my anti fuzzies resolve came last week. I was visiting a friend from uni. The last time I had seen her was on her wedding day, about a year ago. At the wedding I again felt these fuzzies. The wedding was a full Wedding Mass led by my friend's parish priest. His performance was wonderful, aided by the choir that my friend and her husband had hired for the ocassion.

The Priest who I thought was so wonderful is sitting in the dock of the High Court in Edinburgh being cross examined over the murder of a young polish woman who had been living at the priest's church. He admitted to having has sex with the girl, to being an alcholic and having had numerous affairs. As it turns out the prist was not the murderer, but his actions and reactions surrounding the murder in his church were less than valient and not befitting a man of the cloth. It was his negligence and his refusual to look into the backgrounds of those to whom he opened his doors which led to this death.

All the events took mentioned in court happened around the time of the wedding. My friend even joked last week that now she knows why he was so late for the ceremony. So my point is that the warm fuzzies show nothing. If I can get warm fuzzies from a wedding mass from a man not maintaining his vows and who's behaviour surrounding a murder was suspect to say the least then it shows nothing.

Feelings are unreliable, clouded by emotion and certainly not influenced by god. They can be manipulated by the silver tongued and through flattery, or even in the case of this priest, and Joseph Smith, by a good showman.