The following is from a post I sent out on Sunday October 3, 1999:

Here for those interested is a brief summary of what happened today at the gates of Temple Square.

I arrived at the west gate at 9:30 and started folding some brochures. After folding 100 I stood at the west gate for a short time.

I had a name tag which looked missionary-like. It read:

Elder
Ex-Mormon
Atheist
a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation

I also had one of my birds.

After a couple of minutes of standing there a man came up to me and said "Hello Satan." He then testified that Gordon Hinckley was a prophet. Then he walked off. As he was talking off I asked him if he wanted to dust his feet. He didn't respond.

Then some friendlier people came. Eventually around 11AM I went to the south gate.

A gay group was preparing to protest. A Church Security man came up and told me that he thought I was going to be at the west gate, and he was confused at my presence at the south gate, as my permit was for the south gate on Saturday & the west gate on Sunday. I told him that maybe I would join the gay group in their protest. (While I am not gay I do fully agree with their goals for legal marriage & etc.) So I asked a group leader if I could join. He agreed. Next a policeman who looked very much like a Church Security man (dressed in a suit) told me I had to go to the west gate because that's where my permit was for. I told him that I had joined the gay protest, but he didn't believe me, until we managed to get a leader over. The fact that some of the police were dressed in suits was disconcerting & irritating.

Anyway, I held up a sign as provided by the gay group which read "Freedom from religion." Other people held up signs with other slogans, some advocating leaving the Church, some with lightly derogatory statements about Church beliefs.

Across the street in front of Crossroads Plaza there was a group protesting the gay protest. The group across the street had a woman yelling "We are sorry they are here. We do not believe they should protest a Church event. They are promoting intolerance by being here."

I don't know where the group across the street was from, but it was a bit strange.

Anyway at 2PM the protest ended with us walking around the two blocks which encompass the main Church property.

After that I stood at the south gate. No one asked me to leave as there were no permit holders left. My permit for today was for the west gate, so my presence at the south gate was non-permitted, so I couldn't ask the anti-abortionist to go 50 feet away today.


A similar thing happened today with regard to discussions with members & apologists. Some were amazed at how I was a missionary & how I could loose my testimony. I had the feeling that as I was telling them how I lost my faith that they were processing my story within the context of the lies of the Church, and it irritated me that there was nothing I could do to stop their mis-processing of my story.

I spoke at length with one apologist. He told that he thought that when I was a Mormon I believed in "folk-Mormonism." He claimed that much of the orthodoxy in Mormonism is just the invention of man. He was interested in the Book of Mormon DNA items I mentioned to him. But he told me that Mormon theologians believe the following: That the Laman group intermarried with Amerindians already here, but the Nephites didn't. He told me that he didn't know how DNA could detect the very limited influence of Laman's group, and he gave me the analogy of how a limited group of Caucasians would affect the whole of China (assuming that the Caucasians intermarried).

Note that yesterday when I told him about how the D&C talks about how Joseph receives revelations on how various people are to preach to the Lamanites he told me that there are various definitions for Lamanites.

Anyway, toward the end of my stay after the 4PM conclusion of the Mormon conference, mass groups of people came out. From about 4:30 to 5:00 a large group of Mormons gathered around me. Some of them were sad that I left. Some were angry. Some wanted to know how I "lost my faith." I told them in general terms, that from age 21 to 26 I was worn down by the Church. But that was not good enough for one lady with a New York accent. Because of the highly personal nature of some of the reasons why I left I am reluctant to speak explicitly about them, but she pressed & I responded. I then told them that I got tired of being shamed for being human - for being a sexual being. I told them that I felt it's inappropriate to shame children for innocent & harmless acts. I told them that Mormons often say "oh he left the Church over sex," "but," I told them, "humans are sexual beings." Most of the group dispersed at that point. They had heard the key - that this atheist couldn't stay true to the standards, so he left. It was a bit disappointing.

However in retrospect, were some people to visit the Heaven's Gate cultists before they committed suicide, I am sure the cult members would have been reluctant to change their mind.

I should mention that one man in the crowd really didn't like science. He said that "science hasn't proven anything." Then others in the group told me "science shows there is a god." I told them that when 90% of leading scientists become theists rather than non-theists (70% atheist, 20% agnostic), that I would perhaps be more willing to embrace theism. I also told the group that there are different types of theism. Then this anti-science man asked me how much of our brains do we use. He said Einstein used 10%. His implication I think was that using spiritualism as a means of truth finding allows us to use more of our brains. I agreed with him that humans fumble along, but I told him that the scientific method is the best way for us to determine truth.

So anyway, I guess it was little old me against the world at the end - against a mob of TBMs, and against a couple apologists.

If they really care what I think they are welcome to read what's on my web site.

Earlier while I was hanging out at the west gate I heard mention of Korihor (as from the speeches), so I am sure that some thought that I was a Korihorite.

But I did disseminate info. I stood as a skeptic in the face of mass delusion. Skeptics really aren't very popular in delusional circles, the past two days have clearly shown that to me.

Perhaps the one bright spot for us is how we can continue to disseminate info on the net. The Church deserves the ex-Mormons it creates, through it's iron fisted methods of thought control. The Church deserves the hatred it receives from people in Utah who hate the Church's de facto mandate of a one-party state. And on and on. It's all in my journal & web site for the TBMs to find.

As for Temple Square I don't know if they'll let me back on know that they know that I am such a danger. A free thinker is a great danger to people who have given their lives over to a lie.

I was glad to participate in the gay group protest. I was glad show off the books I brought today. I was glad to give out my tract to friendly people. I was glad to stand for what I believe in the face of a massive number of people who are caught up just like I was once.

The health of a society in my view is borne out by how diverse the group is. Does the group allow for differing points of view, or not? Then there's the complex issue of whether a group has given over their internal thought process to self-encompasing lie. These issues really are complex, but maybe I did some good. As there shall be no judgement bar of humanists (in my view) to view how good the atheists & humanists & naturalists did to convince conservative theists of the fallacy of their ways, I guess I may never know :-) .

I suppose some could ask me: were you there because you wanted to advocate your view in missionary-style? And if so, perhaps that's inappropriate?

Q. Were you being a missionary like the Mormon missionaries?

A. No, because I advocated a different method of truth finding - one based on fact & science.

Q. Was it appropriate for you to "preach?" Preaching is evil after all.

A. Disseminating skeptical oppositional information is not preaching in my view. Preaching implies a lack of listening to the other party. I didn't grand stand.

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