1. Persona non grata
2. How little do you know me after all these years?
3. A question of perspective
4. The people who weren't allowed to attend the ceremony in the temple
5. You can't choose your family

• (character chart)

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

This statement caused some general confusion. "But..." said Susan, "The fact that the Bible is thousands of years old isn't in dispute, so of course some of the historical points are accurate..."

"Yes, but the Book of Mormon is clearly based on nineteenth-century ideas, while the Bible is not," said Mom. "For example, take the fact that in the Book of Genesis the writer knew well before his time that in the beginning there was nothing. Scientists today have discovered that he was right when they proved the Big Bang. In the nineteenth century, it had been recently discovered that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. So Joseph Smith conveniently had a revelation saying that -- in contradiction with the Book of Genesis -- all matter was merely organized, not created. Then later with the Big Bang, the Book of Genesis was vindicated."

"Yeah, that example is a pretty funny illustration of how Joseph Smith took the ideas of the time and claimed them as 'revelations'," said April. "Like the 'Word of Wisdom' and the 'three degrees of glory,' which matched things that other people had already published around the same time period."

"Clearly the person who wrote the Book of Genesis had supernatural insight to have known that the world was created from nothing," said Richard. "The Judeo-Christian tradition is the only one that starts with this idea."

"One might imagine that that required special insight," I said, "if it weren't for the fact that practically everything else in the Book of Genesis is completely wrong."

"What do you mean?" Mom asked. "Everyone knows that the Book of Genesis is essentially confirmed by Science."

"Earth to Mom," I said. "The Book of Genesis claims that the Earth was created with green plants growing on it before the creation of the Sun! That's absurd! How can you possibly say that that is confirmed by Science?"

"To an observer on the newly-created Earth, with all of the strange clouds it might have appeared that there was no sun until the green plants altered the atmosphere," said Richard.

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"Well if this is supposed to be given from the point of view of an observer on the Earth, then how in God's name did he witness the Big Bang?" I asked. "Besides that, that's not the only error. It claims that all birds and fishes were created, and then after that the land animals were created. If you believe that one can learn anything at all from the fossil record, you will certainly agree that birds did not appear before land animals. Nor did grasses appear before animals. Grasses are specifically mentioned as appearing before all animals -- and before the Sun, by the way -- when in fact grasses are a modern category of plants on an evolutionary timescale. They didn't arise until after the appearance of mammals."

"Well all of that you've just said is based on the 'Theory of Evolution,' which has been largely discredited," said Richard.

"What?!" I asked. "Never mind. Please, let's just talk about something else."

"It'll be nice to have the opportunity to see some of your aunts and uncles on your dad's side again," said Mom. "Of course I've had no opportunity to communicate with them since the divorce. But I was friends with some of them, so it will be nice for them to see that I'm not the monster that your dad has undoubtedly made me out to be."

"Don't worry," said April. "Of course they're biased to believe their own brother, but most of them are fair enough to see that there are two sides to any conflict."

"I'm sure that they imagine that it was weakness or Satan that made me leave the church, though, so it will be nice to have the opportunity to demonstrate that it was in fact logical reasoning and the love of Christ that brought about my change," said Mom. "I love to take the opportunity to witness of Christ to LDS people. For example, recently I entered into a correspondence with some friends from our old ward. I pointed out to them a list of the ways in which Mormon theology contradicts the Bible. They gave a couple of half-hearted responses, but after that, they couldn't answer my arguments."

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