FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Question: Do Latter-day Saints believe in a "part-time racist" and "psychopathic schizophrenic" god?
Question: Do Latter-day Saints believe in a "part-time racist" and "psychopathic schizophrenic" god?
Latter-day Saints believe in a God who cares for His children
One critic of Mormonism mockingly describes the "God" that he claims that Latter-day Saints believe in:
God doesn’t like to hear whining and ingratitude so he sends out a bunch of snakes to kill the people. When the people had enough of the snakes, they ask Moses to tell God to quit it. God decides Moses is persuasive and tells Moses to put a snake a pole and tell the people to look at the pole and they won’t die. So, the pole is built, the people look at it and they don’t die. The moral of the story? Don’t whine or God will send in the snakes.
He concludes by stating, "I’m asked to believe in not only a part-time racist god and a part-time polygamous god but a part-time psychopathic schizophrenic one as well." [1]
Latter-day Saints do not believe in a "part-time racist," "psychopathic schizophrenic" god. Some Latter-day Saints do indeed believe that God has more than one wife, and some do not. There is no official Church position on this subject. Latter-day Saints are not "asked to believe" in a racist, polygamous or "psychopathic schizophrenic" god. Such hyperbole obscures and mocks the true nature of the God that we believe in. The sarcastic version of the story offered by the critic robs it of any coherent meaning.
The critic uses a variety of passages from the scriptures to portray God as capricious and uncaring. If the Children of Israel "whine," God will "send in the snakes." God is "psychopathic" and "schizophrenic." He completely misses the point of and the significance of the scriptural events described.
Notes
- ↑ Jeremy Runnells, "Letter to a CES Director" (2013)