Well, first, we believe in Jesus. Yes, Jesus Christ, from the Bible. If  this is news to you, it might serve you well to check out a run down of some of our basic doctrinal beliefs. We call them the Articles of Faith.

There are, however, a whole lot of other things that we believe. Below I’ve listed, based on personal observation, 13 Articles of Fact.

1. We believe that all problems can be solved with food. A plate of cookies should be given in the event of births, deaths, holidays, and in conjunction with, or possibly in lieu of, home teaching.

2. We believe in guilt as a supreme motivator. If you can’t obey a principle out of faith, perhaps the fear of judgement will do the trick. We also believe in feeling guilty about not doing things that no one has ever actually asked us to do.

3. We believe that a pregnant woman’s belly naturally negates the need for tact and respect of personal space.

4. We believe that being on time is being early, being late is being on time, and being really late is fine because, hey, isn’t it great that we showed up?

5. We believe that anyone called as Cub Scout Den Leader should be given a plate of cookies.

6. We believe that adding the phrase “bless their heart” to the end or beginning of an insult makes it okay.

7. We believe that any talk given in sacrament meeting must begin with the speaker’s explanation of how much they don’t want to be giving a talk in sacrament meeting. Adaptations of this requirement include the speaker making a joke about how they tried to avoid the bishopric’s phone call and commenting on the shortness of the intermediate hymn.

8. We believe in the Webster’s dictionary.

9. We believe in promising ourselves we won’t cry and then breaking that promise to ourselves.

10. We believe that any task can be accomplished if we have enough meetings. We also believe in bribing people to come to meetings with the promise of cookies.

11. We believe in spitting the bite of food we just took into the sink the moment we realize it’s Fast Sunday. We believe that if we eat the whole bowl of cereal before remembering that it is Fast Sunday then the cause is lost and we’ll make up for it by having a super-spiritual fast next month.

12. We believe that sex should be saved for marriage, unless it’s Pam Beesley and Jim Halpert.

13. We believe that we are all brothers and sisters, even that weird guy who always spouts false doctrine over the pulpit, bless his heart.