Over at Ross Douthat’s blog, a giggle-inducing comment:
It seems to me that Mormonism is indeed a lot more illogical than mainstream Christianity. It suffers from logical contradictions that Christianity does not- for example, how can someone be retroactively baptized? Why would God say that polygamy was OK for Brigham Young but then not OK anymore after Utah became a state? How do the Gods of multiple universes interact? Most importantly, how is it even logically possible for man to become God? This last bit, about man becoming God, is not just highly offensive to me, it’s also logically incoherent- if God and man are not inherently of unfathomably different kind, then the term ‘God’ has no meaning.
I’ve hit this topic a few times. My general attitude as an atheist in regards to Mormonism, Christianity, etc., is this: Mormonism suffers from being both exotic and familiar. That is, its doctrines are not peculiarities to which we are habituated, and the fact that Mormonism is a religion of recent history is problematic since that history offers many non-supernatural explanations for the development of the nature of Mormon theology and institutions. That being said, I also think it is important to remember that the Mormon aversion toward excessive philosophical obscurantism, in short, a rejection of the Hellenic intellectual legacy in Christianity, makes it a more intelligible religion to our common sense. And that in some ways is part of the problem: what is not a mystery seems laughable and fallacious on the face of it to those outside the faith. Note that the commentator above is offended that the Mormon god is fathomable!
In any case, I won’t bother to “fisk” the above comment. It is a classic “Village non-Mormon” reaction to the absurdities of the Mormon religion, and a sentiment I can empathize with. But, my own take is I suspect a bit more global than the individual who is making the argument above.
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