About B.A. Woodhouse

Bryan Woodhouse spent the greater part of his working life in the educational publishing industry. Although he still does occasional editorial work, he is now largely retired, and spends the majority of his time and energy working on a variety of writing projects, including essays (some would characterize them as rants) on topics of interest to him, such as politics, the nature of the human animal, and The Meaning of Life.

Mormon Heaven Part 4 (of four)

Some Final Thoughts I must say that, quite surprisingly, at least to me, I never really felt discriminated against when I lived among a Mormon community of True Believers. Religion was so pervasive that it was more or less taken for granted in the little town where I grew up; like air, it was everywhere, and my theory is that people just accepted it as part of their environment, and they never consciously thought about it, because they’d never known … Read on…

Mormon Heaven Part 3 (of four)

The Mormon Belief System Now let’s examine the basics of the Mormon belief system: First things first: Mormons belief that discorporated individual souls float in the ether somewhere above Earth, and when a woman’s egg is fertilized, one of those souls immediately flies into it and endows it with Heavenly Grace, making it a human being, despite its being too small to see with the naked eye! In our family, when I was a child and a teenager, we used … Read on…

Mormon Heaven Part 2 (of four)

The History of the LDS Church Let’s begin with a capsule history of the Church. The founder, Joseph Smith, was born on a farm in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century. That area later became known as The Burned-Over District, a nickname alluding to the many fire-and-brimstone preachers who roamed the area delivering jeremiads to the local residents in tent shows and so-called camp meetings, urging them to repent their sinful ways lest they burn eternally in Hell. … Read on…

Mormon Heaven Part 1 (of four)

Author’s Note: I hope readers will forgive the somewhat ironic tone. I thought skeptical readers might allow some latitude, enabling me to get by with a slight tinge of irony; in any case, it’s the way I both think and write, and there’s little I can do about it. If I have offended, however unintentionally, anyone’s sober sensibilities, I apologize in advance. My Background I don’t claim to be an authority on Mormon theology, but having grown up in a … Read on…