D&C 1: 16

Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world

Teaching the philosophies of men mingled with scriptures is one of Satan’s oldest tricks getting us to change the simplicity and beauty of the gospel into worshiping something else entirely

This is usually used by members of the church to describe non members, atheists and other groups but I want to show you how we do that in the church all the time and how to be aware of this trap

In John 9

Jesus teaches about spiritual blindness using the healing of a physically blind man. It goes kinda like this

Jesus heals a blind man- the pharisee’s don’t like this at all as they “know” that Jesus couldn’t have possibly done this

You can alter and change anything you want if you want to badly enough. All you have to do is ignore contrary evidence to what you want and exaggerate evidence that goes along with it. This is called Confirmation Bias and this is EVERYWHERE. Including all of you (not me though)  This distorts everything we see. (more about this on this video here: https://youtu.be/GBi5Cj21b1I )

Back to John 9

How can the Pharisee completely disregard the miracle of healing a blind man? They discard any evidence with excuses, and exaggerate evidence and scriptures that allows you to keep your blindness.

1. They question the man who was healed, when he says something they don’t like (Jesus healed me) they then discredit him so they don’t have to listen to him: v 28- they say that he is a disciple of the man so therefore biased, and not a disciple of Moses the true religion. 

2. When the man says this is funny because he healed his blindness verse 30 they then disregard his testimony by calling him a sinner for being born blind (verse 34) 

3. They rely on a misinterpretation of scriptures to discredit Jesus also by claiming he broke the sabbath as well (verse 16)

As Jesus states the lesson that the blind man is now the only one who sees because as the blind man stated the obvious truth “whereas I was blind now I see”  Everyone else remains blind by ignoring truths and scriptures that are right in front of them so that they can continue believing the god after the image of their own God.

The Pharisee’s couldn’t see Jesus for who he was because of their traditions, their brain literally ignored any evidence that would have left them to the truth. 

It’s kinda like when I was on my mission and at a branch function someone had brought caffeinated drinks much to the dismay of the branch president and his wife. When my companion asked for what drinks they had she pointed to all of the non caffeinated drinks but completely ignored the caffeinated ones. He found it amusing so he asked again what drinks were available and when she ignored them again he just took the caffeinated one that he wanted (nothing wrong with that just to clarify). 

Our brains will literally delete things from our vision to keep us from learning new things and it makes us blind

Joseph Smith Said that anytime he tried to teach the saints things that went contrary to their traditions they would “fly to pieces like glass”

Our brain doesn’t really want to learn new things, it wants to protect us by telling us that we already know everything worth knowing. 

I can’t help but put my brain on the stand demanding the truth

Yet my brain looks stares back at me screaming “you can’t handle the truth”

And it happens again and again

Gospel of Prosperity

When I taught Gospel Doctrine years ago as a teacher I unknowingly ignored the unspoken convention that we have in all of our Sunday School classes of ignoring any warnings about the dangers of riches.

I had a couple of ward members get annoyed with me after a few months of that. One asked me why I talked about money all the time. I was confused. I brought them up no more than the scriptures did. In one day I had someone tell me I was teaching false doctrine and another who told me I was teaching exactly what everyone needed to hear. (it was not false doctrine I’ve checked the math on that a dozen times)

It’s like our culture prefers to follow the example of the rich man in the story of Lazarus and the rich man completely unaware that the reason he was going to hell was that he studiously ignored every scriptural warning about the dangers of setting your heart on riches.  (Luke 16:19-31)

I taught a marriage class twenty years ago in church. One man told me that he needed to be rich so that he could serve the church as a general authority and a mission president. He was walking after the image of his own God and a couple short years later got divorced because he spent every waking moment ignoring his family and chased after his fortune.

I did a whole series of posts about this called Jesus isn’t a capitalist you can find them here:

https://www.jeffbrownsclassroom.com/jeff-browns-sunday-school-classroom/jesus-isnt-a-capitalist

Pride and Arrogance

The Zoramites made a whole religion and God based on being better and richer than other people, (Alma 31). They stood on their pulpits and thanked god for being better then everyone else and cast the poor and downtrodden out of their congregations.

If I’m being honest this is what too much of religion is about with sooo many. 

As a way to think you are better than other people

I wrote a series on how easy it is to have your religiosity twisted into hate called “how to be a religious jerk”. I wrote it in screwtape letters style satire:

https://www.jeffbrownsclassroom.com/jeff-browns-sunday-school-classroom/how-to-be-a-religious-jerk 

Politics

Peter made the classic error of getting his politics mixed up with his religion: 

When Jesus made his triumphal entry on the Donkey into Jerusalem still many if not most believed that Jesus had come as a political conqueror. This caused even Peter to be completely blind to Jesus' true mission that he would die. When Jesus told the disciples he was going to die Peter contradicted him in his blindness “this shall not be unto thee”. Jesus then rebukes Peter for loving his political view too much “thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” (Matthew 16:22-23)

I saw a study once that when Christian Democrats and Republicans are asked which party Jesus would belong to they both claim their own. It’s not that hard to distort Jesus to fit perfectly into your politics. All you need to do is exaggerate some scriptures, quotes from prophets, and ignore any that contradict them.

A few months ago I made a blog post on why I didn’t believe in Classic Jesus but not Republican Jesus. It’s here https://www.jeffbrownsclassroom.com/jeff-browns-sunday-school-classroom/how-politics-is-tainting-religion/republican-jesus-or-classic-jesus

Honestly I could have made that post about any political party. I enumerated some of the differences that I saw between the two. I could do that about Democratic Jesus as well. I just didn’t because I don’t see that error nearly as much. 

This one has gotten worse over the last 30 years as everyone worships their politics more and more. This again is one of the oldest tricks and though many have fallen for it you can take comfort in the fact that even Peter and many of his other disciples fell for this also. 

See also why consuming news about politics could be destroying your spirituality here:

https://www.jeffbrownsclassroom.com/jeff-browns-sunday-school-classroom/how-politics-is-tainting-religion/how-politics-could-be-killing-your-spirituality 

Self hatred

Many imagine up a god is is aways angry with them much like the puritan version of God exemplified by the famous puritan sermon “Sinners in the hands of an angry god”

They haven’t come to know how god is kind loving and merciful by focusing on all of the wrong things. It also is a way that people become very judgemental to other people. (

Finding the true god

Whatever we do our brain works against us

Joseph Smith said that teaching the saints about things that went against their traditions would make them fly apart like glass. 

We can’t afford to be that way even though that

You must realize that your current understanding of God is limited, Humble yourselves

Hunger and Thirst after righteousness

I have come to find that knowing god, the truly knowing god is much like a treasure hunt

The path is the path of a disciple as it says in 

Micah 6:8

Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

The map for this treasure hunt is the scriptures and the words of the prophets  but you have to search them diligently with a hunger and thirst to uncover their secrets. Not because there are secrets written into them as god puts things out their pretty plainly but because your brain will try and hide them from you. Others will try to hide them from you to get you to follow after the image of their god also. 

When I look back at what I was like when I first started teaching 24 years ago I cringe at how self righteous and judgmental I was. But God has humbled me over and over again in this path that he sent me on.

I came to find that the students who I once judged had so much to teach me. That looking down on people because of their dress, tattoos, or piercings, is the way of a religious jerk and a sure fire way to lose the path to the true god. 

I had one student who bugged the heck out of me. He was always making snide remarks and arguing with me on every point. I really wanted to shut him down. I prayed about what to do and I felt the very distinct impression that I God wanted to teach me something with him. He was going to teach me something that I didn’t want to learn. He taught me to see this student the way that he did. He taught me to love him as he did. Many of my early judgements melted away with him and with so many other students. He filled me with his love and I came to know god more just by making the attempt to be his disciple and willing to learn more. 

John 13

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another

As it says in Les Miserables:

To love another person is to see the face of God