Tommy Hogan

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

I denounced atheism 1 month and 14 days ago and every day since I have thought back to the realizations i made on 2/12/24 that led me do so:

-God exists
-He has agency and his will is the reason for everything
-Our purpose is to understand and exercise his will

What led me to these realizations?

Well to put it simply, I realized I was being stupid.

Stupid for thinking about creation and tracing it back to the big bang and then just thinking like “science can explain it so i’ll just leave it there”

Stupid for thinking that there was little basis for moral claims even though I felt deep within me a strong sense of morality and acted according to that feeling all my life

Stupid for not realizing those special moments in time, when time itself seemed to stop, and I could feel things in a way that I knew a clump of atoms (which is basically all I thought i was) should not be able to feel.

All this led me to simply give God a chance, by taking a small but genuine step towards him…

I simply opened the bible, with a truly open mind for once, i flipped to a random page, and i started to read…

I remember thinking to myself… 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦?

It was almost like I didn’t want to accept it at first. For so long I held bad views of those who did. But i couldn’t help but agree with the messages I was reading.

And while I’m still working out the details of what I take from the Bible to be true, in a literal sense (it might be the whole thing, idk yet), I can not express enough that the messages and principles i’ve found in this book are invaluable and that they filled a literal void in my life that was missing for so long.

I know it has the power to do that for anyone else who like me just gives it a chance with an open mind.

Blessings to you all, thank you for being a part of my journey.

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@Joshua6285 Throwback to when I randomly stumbled onto the home of Joseph Smith… completely by accident

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

Today, I baptized myself. Kinda

Ok let me back up a second...

So I was eating breakfast at a diner in rural PA. I was thinking of what I wanted to do after that, and I saw when looking on maps that there was a place not too far away called "priesthood restoration site". It had some cool pictures of statues online, so I wanted to go see those.

I drive over there (only like 10 min away), big complex, but only 1 other car in the parking lot. I see on the door a sign that says "free guided tours", so I go in...

The place is set up like a museum, with various paintings and items on display - clearly a lot of work went into it - and while I'm appreciating the first few things in there, an older lady comes up and welcomes me.

I tell her that I'm interested in learning more about all this stuff I'm looking at, so she calls her husband over.

I discover through talking with them that while I thought I was coming to a sort of general priest retreat sort of thing, I was actually visiting one of the most historic sites to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - the very place where the prophet Joseph Smith did the majority of the work that he did in writing the Book of Mormon.

I agreed to go on a guided tour of the land, visiting the very plots of land where Joseph Smith lived and worked with his wife, and also through the woods where he would walk and pray.

It was quite the experience walking through there - I felt extremely connected to God and my faith - even though I wasn't sure exactly about the church of jesus christ of latter day saints - I felt the direct connection with God that I can only get at special times and in special places.

A key part of the tour was a story about Joseph Smith and his associate Oliver Cowdery walking through the woods and being visited by Saint John the Baptist who restored the right to baptize, and instructed these two men to go down to the Susquehana River and baptize each other- and they did.

So, to wrap this all up, after the tour I went down to the river myself once again not totally sure what I was going to do - but once I got down there, I felt called to immerse myself in the waters, and so I did.

Only for a quick second lol but it was a full dive underwater immersion, and I really did feel the spirit in me especially for the brief moment that I was underwater.

I don't know if I should really think about it like I baptized myself, because technically it wasn't the full baptismal process w/o someone else there to do it for me- But it was definitely special for me, and even if it wasn't really like I baptized myself, I wanted to show God that I cared, and that I want to continue to work towards him, and that I wanted to renew my faith in him.

I wanted to choose him, in a way that I could not when I was a baby. And while I don't recommend that everyone go jump in a river like I did today, I think it's important that we renew our faiths in whatever way we see fit, and we should keep aspiring towards the good, and we should not be afraid to take risks, and we should do whatever it takes to serve God because at the end of the day this is the best way that we can serve ourselves.

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

I tried a non-denominational church today.

Wasn’t expecting them to not administer the eucharist, not give out palms for Palm Sunday, not read directly from the bible…

There were some benefits to it being less ceremonial, but I was kinda looking forward to those ceremonies 😕

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

The only one way to reconcile these two statements:

A. God is omnipotent
B. We have free will

Is to say that God was omnipotent when he created the universe, then created it in such a way where he was no longer so

Free will= God's potency removed from himself, instilled in us

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@Jason everyone in the comments saying you're wrong for saying to short it because it's a meme stock... ok well why don't y'all go buy some call options then if you're so sure ??!

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@DavidLimbaugh nope! xD

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

The only one way to reconcile these two statements:

A. God is omnipotent
B. We have free will

Is to say that God was omnipotent when he created the universe, then created it in such a way where he was no longer so

Free will= God's potency removed from himself, instilled in us

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@ReeseCayle It’s up to us to choose which side we’ll fight on.

God, as an omnipotent being, gave us that freedom.

If we don’t recognize that we must choose, or we recognize the choice and remain indifferent, then the evil forces have already won us over.

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@LivinForTruth1 That’s what i’m sayin. I just brought up how the ideas can’t coexist. But I think we definitely have free will, given by God.

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@mjmorizio @deli_cue 🎯🎯🎯

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

I wrote so many papers in high school and college arguing against free will, agency, identity…

Based on the same reasons you gave, saying everything could be reduced down to chemistry and physics.

I thought that either the world was completely deterministic, or completely random, and either way we had no agency.

But that was never how I felt, even when I was writing those papers. So I could never reconcile my feelings with my theories. Eventually I realized that this internal feeling of agency and identity was actually better evidence for how the world is than those external theories I relied on.

And once I recognized my own internal agency, that’s when I recognized God as someone who exists and gave me this agency. And that he gave us a spirit to exercise control over our physical bodies, potentially through the quantum realm by allowing us to exercise a level of control over the ‘randomness’

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@gardellap GO ‘GATE !!!

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@taporroJ113 Got that the wrong way around bud. My belief is he did create us with free will, and in doing so, made himself not omnipotent over those creatures. Or else they we shouldn’t consider their wills to be free.

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@Nicholai_Korea i’m not an atheist ??

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@LoSummitt https://t.co/x5Aru9q0b2

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

Of course God could make a stick that he could not lift.

Omnipotence implies the ability to create things which violate the trait of omnipotence itself

In which case, with regard to that object or system, God would not be omnipotent- but only because he willed himself to be so.

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

entonces nuestro albedrío no sería distinto del albedrío de Dios, lo cual es un buen argumento, básicamente para decir que somos Dios, pero creo que Dios hizo que nuestro albedrío e identidad fueran algo completamente distinto de los suyos, algo en lo que no podía influir. y que esto explica por qué debemos ser juzgados por nuestras acciones.

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@papista01 ¡Pero entonces nuestras voluntades no son libres!

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@jdtiger1981 I believe it is a gift from God

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@CooperGMacBride My position is actually that we do have free will and God chose (when he was omnipotent) to limit his potency

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@ShaunKThornhil No that’s not what I’m saying.

I’m saying that he removed his own power over influencing our wills in order to make them free, and thus making it so that when we choose him, choose good over evil, this has value and meaning to him (the creator).

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

@Screwtape1984 That is what I'm saying

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

So essentially that he could intervene on our agency, like make us do certain things, but he just chooses not to... if that's what you mean then that does make sense to me actually, I just think he maybe limited himself to such a high degree where he couldn't intervene like that.

[Tommy Hogan @tommyprints]

I guess we agree that he limited himself, and this is what explains us having free will.

It's an interesting topic of discussion as to what degree he limited himself, and also to what degree he would need to limit himself, in order for us to say we have 'free will'.