Back from Kolob

 

Atheist-adjacent agnostic Emerson Green spends one hour and a half arguing against a Christian video titled "Mormons are actually atheists". Green ironically refers to himself as a crypto-Mormon and even wears a BYU T-shirt! The video he is criticizing isn´t as insane as its title suggests, but I´m in general agreement with Green´s polemic. Of course Mormons aren´t atheists. But who knows, many atheists ("lacktheists") have such a broad definition of atheism that maybe they could regard the LDS Church as some kind of very exotic god-belief-lackers? "Well akshually, you can believe in powerful space aliens from Kolob and still be an atheist". I can almost see it happen.

The Christian content-creator Green is arguing against, Inspiring Philosophy, points out that Joseph Smith regarded both matter and "intelligence" as eternal. He takes this to mean that the Mormons have a view of the universe similar to that of atheists who are non-naturalist moral realists (which I assume is *Green´s* position). The "gods" in Mormon theology are really exalted humans, with the same ontological status as humans pre-exaltation. I suppose space aliens would be an apt comparison, although he doesn´t seem to make it. Thus, the Mormon "gods" are simply conforming to higher impersonal laws and therefore can´t be gods in the proper sense. 

Green argues that it *isn´t* clear from the Mormon canon that God was once a man (but surely it is?), nor is it clear that divinized humans will keep their ontological status as humans. Rather, it looks as if their ontological status does become more God-like (in the usual sense of the term "God"). But even apart from this, the Latter Day Saints obviously worship God (or the Gods), see them as saviors, derive their meaning of life from them, and so on. In other words: the exalted-humans-or-aliens play pretty much the same role in Mormonism as gods do in other religions. So how are Mormons "atheists"? 

Green could also have pointed out (maybe he did) that the pagan gods are often subordinated to higher impersonal laws (such as Fate), yet nobody denies that polytheism is a thing. He does point out that the ontological divide between gods and humans wasn´t 100% absolute in paganism (see: demigods). Yet, people still consider polytheism a thing. He is right: Hercules was a demigod but received the same worship as the gods proper. 

Not sure who needs to hear this in 2026, but there you go. Fun fact: he mentions the "Shia Mormons" (Community of Christ) at the very end of the video. Haven´t heard anyone reference *those* guys for a very long time!