In Mormon culture it's understood to be something you can only do if you've had life experiences that should convey extraordinary faith. (IMO GP makes a bigger deal of this particular quirk of Mormon doctrine than is needed for the topic, fwiw.) Judas Iscariot is commonly referenced as an example of someone who as a disciple of Jesus should have believed in His divinity but betrayed Him. Most Mormons aren't concerned about accidentally committing an unpardonable sin, and most teaching in the Mormon church focuses on the idea that all sin is forgivable because of Jesus' atonement, with scant mention of the idea that there might be sins that could be unforgivable.
(Note that despite commenting on this thread and being a Mormon I'm hardly an examplary Mormon in a variety of ways. It's rare that a topic comes up on HN that I know much about though, so may as well contribute some info in the spirit of satisfying intellectual curiosity!)
I'm not Mormon, but I was married to one. I got that I was safe as long as I never believed. But that once you believe and then renounce, you're at least at risk. Or maybe that was belief as documented by baptism.
Sure, but "feigning belief" is not "belief". I mean, any deity worth believing in would know whether you believed or not. So they'd also know if you really believed, and then renounced. It's like manslaughter vs premeditated murder.
The one sin is to, as far as I can tell (not a Mormon here), refuse God's light once you have seen it.
It would take a crazy man, the kind that would say "the sun does not shine when he sees it", to deny a revelation.
Arguably... Anyone who doesn't believe because they have not seen anything has not sinned. The sin would be, for example, to realize "the Mormons were right!" as you face the gates too paradise and say "I don't believe this. I am an Atheist." As you are staring down the pearly gates.
Basically, knowing you do the wrong things, since you ignore the truth in front of you, and doing it anyway. But you have to see it to really unforgivably sin.
It seems pretty well-specified. It's about internal peace, not external vision.
Seems rather uncharitable. If you are not rational enough to recognize divine truth, are you really in a position to be condemned for your ignorance? Seems like it's targeted towards the mentally ill and disabled.
I think the point is it can only be committed if you understand it rationally and still reject it. So seeing the pearly gates and believing it to be a hallucination, for example, would not qualify.
I am a (non-theistic) Satanist, and I find it easy to understand. The sin in question is to know that there is a God, but reject it even so - or, more broadly, to consider the possibility of God existing as described, but then to conclude that even if it did, one's moral duty is to oppose it.
