John C. at BCC published this rather stark post, the basic (and unfortunately familiar) thrust of which is that, if you “lose your faith,” it’s your own fault — not any leaders, GAs, ward members, SS or EQ teachers, Jesus, God or the Holy Ghost. (It was not specified whether you could blame the devil, although Old Scratch’s role would seem to be implicit in any loss of faith. Along with a lack of character. Or will power. Or just not trying hard enough. Or something.) It strikes me that the thought behind this kind of assertion is that there has to be some reason you lost your faith — something predictable and categorical; something that ensures that You Did Something Wrong…and if I just don’t do any of those Wrong Things, then I won’t lose my faith. Especially since I choose not to lose my faith.
This was then followed by a post written by john f., who seems to be at least obliquely responding to John C.’s assertions. John f.’s theme is also not an unfamiliar one — a fairly regular theme in the ‘nacle-vs-DAMU conversations. In a nutshell, this argument posits that ex- or post-Mormons are victims of their own “black and white” thinking. They took things too literally and didn’t have the spiritual flexibility to accommodate new information, so they, being absolutists, took the leap from white to black in a sort of spiritually immature snit. And it is the flexible, shades-of-grey-embracing Mormons, who are very familiar with all the so-called skeletons in the closet, who are the more sophisticated, and perhaps more evolved on some pseudo-linear development scale like Fowler’s stages of faith.
The numerous comments on both of these posts come from all different belief spectrums, and represent pretty widely varying approaches to gaining, keeping, and losing, faith. Which of course in itself puts paid to the idea that any parsimonious theory about losing one’s religion is going to capture even a plurality of what people’s real experiences are. In reality, I’ve seen all “kinds” of people who retain faith in religion; really, what else could account for sites as religiously varied as Bountiful, M*, T&S, ExII, ZDs, etc., all having faithful, active believers regularly engaged in conversation about “their” religion? Likewise, those who “lose faith” also represent a very wide spectrum of personalities and experiences; hence sites as varied as NOM, PostMormon, FLAK, and RFM. Perhaps a more interesting question is, what about all the people who aren’t online or involved in any discussions like this at all? The active Mormons who’ve never even heard of the Bloggernacle. The inactive Mormons, or those who’ve actually resigned, who never have any apparent need to talk religion ever again.
The more I read the ‘nacle and the DAMU (or the sites within each that I prefer, which is likely not representative), the more I believe how similar we all are in terms of one variable at least: We are interested in talking about Mormonism and our experiences with it. We are engaged in our religious life through questions and answers, doubts and beliefs, wide-ranging perspectives, with tensions, arguments, and, occasionally, a lovely emergent moment where we feel a kindred feeling and our humanity is affirmed.
Are there more sophisticated people in the ‘nacle or the DAMU? Is it even possible to discover, somehow measure, who sees more grey? Is seeing more grey in fact equivalent to being more sophisticated, or even something unequivocally Good? I don’t know. I don’t have all, or even many, of the answers. That’s why I love to keep talking about it. And my favorite quote from the john f. post’s comments is this (paraphrased): Without Black and White, there is no Grey. Can’t argue with that.
I’ve noticed that church leaders Refuse to take responsibility for ANY of their decisions or actions… With God in charge, why should they?
“Don’t pay any attention to the man behind the curtain”
Guy Noir: Uh, thanks? I’m thinking that your comment is orthogonal to the OP, though. Maybe you could tie it in better? 😉
I’ve thought about the argument that the people who stop believing are unable to see the subtle shades of gray — it comes up almost as often as the simpler “they just wanted to sin” explanation does.
I’ve come to the following conclusion about it: I think it’s a fallacy that comes from the fact that people have different root beliefs. Some typical examples would be the following: (A) Mormonism is the best path to virtue and happy families, (B) spiritual witness from prayer constitutes valid evidence for the existence of the divine (C) Jesus lived and was the Savior (D) God speaks through His latter-day prophets (E) something else…
Someone whose root belief is (A) might be able to disbelieve (D) without (A) being shaken. That person might not understand why someone whose root belief was (D) would give up on (A) after concluding (D) is false. “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!” they cry and “That’s black-and-white thinking!” But for the other person, belief (D) really was the baby and belief (A) was the bathwater. (I hope that makes sense.)
I have dealt with this fallacy over and over with Christian bloggers. They say things like “just because you discovered Joseph Smith was a fraud, that shouldn’t affect your belief in Jesus!” But “discovering Joseph Smith was a fraud” had nothing whatsoever to do with my deconversion. My root belief was that spiritual witness is real evidence of the supernatural, and once I concluded that was false, everything that was built on it came into question.
It’s not a question of lacking sophistication or subtlety, it’s a question of different people packaging their beliefs into different chunks. 😉
Chanson — excellent, thanks. Your thoughts ring true for me personally, in that I could never find a real baby in the bathwater. Or, perhaps less confusingly — though I had a strong affection and affinity for Mormon theology and cosmology (and spent many late nights at The Why discussing deep things, which I LOVED), in the end, an underpinning (and totally necessary) belief in God was something I didn’t have and couldn’t acquire.
wc: (I wanted to say this “Gentler & Kinder”, but I guess I can’t.)
Churches are Clubs. Some good, some BAD. The LDS club does lots of things that are antithetical to its stated goals & thinking & motives.
While they voice unity & compassion, the policies & procedures they practice… especially with regard to those with doubts/questions or issues of how & why things are the way they are… are targets of disdain & disgrace…merely for asking simple questions. prospective members / adherents are only told the ‘faith promoting’ stuff, the whitewashed version.
Yes; I agree. LDS, Inc. can’t take any responsibility for the weird stuff,the unsupported claims, OR the fact that a lot if not most of the ‘doctrines’ they teach are distractions from the Basics of Christian practice… so they bounce it back to the individuals responsibility. Unbelievable, but True.
(more?) Individuals SHOULD take more responsibility for their own actions/choices, but MoCulture leaves ppl so (sorry) brainwashed about right/wrong, and How NOT to be kind to others and Why that’s OK…
(details on request).
Once you’ve been STUNG by hateful people, lied to by the church… makes it kinda hard to get along with them, doesn’t it?
Guy — I think I see what you’re saying now. The notion that people should take responsibility for their choices is somehow also impacted by how their potential array of choices to begin with, which has been shaped — perhaps very strongly — by their religious training/upbringing? I believe that could be true of many people.
And I agree that it is very difficult to forgive and forget when you’ve been deeply hurt or disappointed.
Gray… or Grey?
It’s just too complicated a world to have a reasonable Black & White, Right or Wrong approach for EveryThing… Yet Mos sing in their hymn: “There is a right and a wrong to every question”…
In trying to explain that, I once asked a Bp: For many, the choice of (new, additional) electrical power generation is either coal or nuclear. Which is ‘Right’, which is ‘Wrong’?….
I think that got my point across.
I think the accusation of black and white thinking comes from some of the most visible elements of the ex-Mormon/counter-Mormon/anti-Mormon (whatever you want to call it) movement. And other bystanders get tarred with the association.
When you’ve got some guy screaming triumphantly in ALL CAPS that “JOSEPH LIED TO EMMA” or “THE BOOK OF MORMON IS A FRAUD” it’s hard to come away from that with any other conclusion than he has the mind of a twelve year old and sees the world in similar absolutes (like most teenagers).
Not because he’s wrong necessarily. But because of the screaming, wild-eyed, indignant way in which he comes storming onto the scene full of self-righteous indignation, pompously pretending that they are “speaking truth to power.”
The voice of one screeching in the wilderness as it were.
Furthermore, it doesn’t help this impression when they inevitably start sharing stories from their past as an ultra-conservative orthodox missionary.
I don’t say this narrative holds for everyone in the ex-Mormon community (or even most or a majority). But these people do exist and they are quite visible within that community.
Pisses me off really. These self-important, pompous idiots were absolutely wretched to work with on my mission (the sort who’d report you to the mission president for drinking a Coke), and now they’ve followed me onto the internet and are still stinking up the place. They may have left the LDS Church, but they haven’t left their one true religion – a self-righteous overstated sense of their own importance.
More or less, Main Street Plaza manages to avoid too much of this type. But you see it an awful lot elsewhere.
AAAAAHHHHH! LOOK AT ME! (Hey Seth, just had to yell for you – damn coke drinker!) 🙂
There is a huge factor that is being overlooked here both by John C. and anyone else who thinks people leave just because of what the believe. The single best predictor of someone’s religiosity when they are an adult is… Their significant other’s religiosity! If you pause for a second and ask yourself about the people you know who have left and those who haven’t, most of the people who have left are in situations where many of their closest acquaintances are not Mormon (or also left). We know based on a lot of survey data that there are about 10% of people who consider themselves Mormon who don’t believe there is a god. Why are they still going to church? Because their significant other is still going. Social networks are powerful predictors of religious change – sociologists have known this for years (since about the 1960s).
So, when John C. puts the blame on the individual, John C. (whoever that dipshit is), doesn’t have a clue what actually causes people to change religions.
Belief requires effort because of the unverifiable nature of the afterlife. It takes real cognitive effort to support what can never objectively be demonstrated using everyday standards of proof. Whether we put in that effort or not is up to us. Therefore, I see choice as intrinsic to belief itself.
This is what’s behind aphorisms like “a testimony is fragile and as hard to hold as a moonbeam.” The sense is that if you don’t work diligently belief will vanish. In other words, President McKay implies that the default state is disbelief and that one is therefore advised to do what it takes to keep one’s testimony intact.
I guess this means I’m sympathetic to the claim that one chooses disbelief. Disbelief is what happens when you put down the mental and emotional machinery that supports belief. (Although thrillingly rich and detailed, Mormon cosmology is also idiosyncratic. Substantial effort is required to keep it afloat.)
In my case I’d say I lost my faith when I didn’t have the energy left to defend it. I chose to put this effort to use elsewhere in my life.
I take responsibility for this choice and the (positive) changes it has brought into my life. The path I followed isn’t for everyone, of course. And that’s why we support the concept of freedom of religion.
I hate to be the overbearing rule fanatic here, but keep in mind that people from the Bloggernacle do sometimes swing by here, especially when we link to their posts. Explaining why another poster is wrong about XYZ is fine, but it’s better to avoid calling them dipshits… 😉
MoHo — Can I infer from your comment that your belief was subject to your own choice applies only to you? I ask, because I know so very many exmos who have felt like it was anything but a (conscious?) choice.
I agree that This “Black and White” thinking leads people out of the church. Take for example when Blacks (I say that instead of African American because not all affected by this were African or American) were finally allowed to hold the priesthood.
To me, racial equality is an absolute truth. That it took the church until the nineteen seventies to realize this, and stop treating the rule as relative, put into question their whole voice of god claim; for me.
So, yes, it is a lack of flexibility, You can’t be flexible with rules unless you have an understanding of them. Regarding rules as absolutes is part of learning how they work and if they work.
Good point about spousal religiosity profxm.
The real problem with the position that people stop believing the claims of the church because they were too inflexibile is that it commits the fallacy of special pleading. If gray-thinking ‘naclers want to be consistent, they would have to make a statement like:
If a person becomes convinced by facts or arguments that some of their beliefs are not true, they should change their expectations in order to maintain those beliefs.
They seem to think that this is true for Mormonism, but false for other belief systems. If a recent convert to Scientology believes that what he’s involved in is a rational self-help program, and then he reads about Xenu on the internet, he should not “shift his paradigm” to accommodate stories of a 75 billion-year-old galactic empire and disembodied aliens on Earth. He shouldn’t take the claims that are provably false and consider them figurative truths because he wants to continue believing the rest. He should use his rational abilities and conclude that the components of Scientology that appear to be false, most likely are false. I think most believing Mormons would agree with this, but if we ask about a Mormon who expects that a prophet should not marry other men’s wives and lie repeatedly and publicly about it, then suddenly that Mormon should lower his standards for what behavior is acceptable from a true prophet of God. If a person thinks that when a prophet claims a papyrus contains the writings of Abraham, that it wouldn’t turn out to be a common funeral scroll, then TBMs will tell her to lower her expectations of what words like “translate” and “by his own hand” really mean.
The reality we can all agree on is that humans are capable of shifting their standards for belief to amazingly low levels when the personal stakes are high enough, but that in most cases it won’t result in true beliefs. Everybody has to draw the line somewhere for what should compel a loss of belief, and it doesn’t make sense to criticize others for drawing it in a consistent place.
wry.catcher (#12),
Yes, I would say that I am only speaking personally. I am thoroughly sympathetic to personal accounts I hear of people who feel as if they were run over by the truck of disbelief.
I guess what I was trying to do with my comment is come to the problem from the other side– it takes tremendous effort to maintain a belief system as idiosyncratic as Mormonism.
So now you’ve cornered me… what would it have taken, in my case, to keep my investment in Mormon cosmology? Would I have been able to supply that level of effort? Or would it have just come crashing down at some point, in spite of my best efforts?
I may have to concede the point. :- )
I think my biggest problem is where this whole conversation gets started, which is in the assumptions as set up by Mormonism, that mormonism is right and leaving is wrong.
With so many people leaving mormonism, believers are having to come up with explanations for why people leave. Those of us who left already know why we leave. But if you decide to stay, either because you are a TBM or because you made a conscious decision to stay despite what you know, then you have to be able to account for those who make different decisions from yours. I know, I know, I’m just being a sociologist here. But it seems to me that this has less to do with specific core beliefs than it does with how those beliefs play out in a social environment.
Our brains work to make sense of our environments so that we can both function within them and manipulate them. If you’re a believing and/or practicing mormon, you have to make sense of the relationship of mormonism to outsiders in order to explain your own social reality.
So if you can stand back and see the TBMs dispassionately, they are doing what people normally do in groups, especially outlier groups: They are drawing in/out boundaries and explaining movement to and fro’ across the boundary in order to generate the very meaning of Mormonism itself. What we’re talking about here are the two strategies for making sense of and rendering manipulable (is that a word?) their social environment:
1) The ‘sinner’ explanation works well for someone who is comfortably orthodox (in the literal sense of “right belief”), but not so well for the doubter or selective believer. For the orthodox, this works in a sort of recursion or positive feedback loop to confirm their own beliefs and confirm their own status within their meaning system. They employ the basic religious rubric by dividing people among the “Sacred” and the “Profane,” thereby confirming their own membership in the “Sacred” camp. This then allows them a whole toolkit of means to deal with real individuals who have left, a sort of pre-determined way to both perceive leavers and to interact with them, which keep the boundaries and identities in tact.
2) The ‘black/white’ explanation works much better for the doubter or selective believer or “cultural mormon”. Notice that it has the same advantages, but for a different demographic: It offers them the knowledge or reassurance that they are right and/or cleverer than the leavers, intellectualizing the critique to reaffirm their own status as intellectual and fully-aware adherents. Oddly, because most apologists, although open online and in the ‘Nacle, are actually not vocal and have to constantly justify both to themselves and other mormons that they are not apostates for rejecting orthodoxy, those who leave serve as a foil to make themselves feel superior in their Mormonism. And notice that it also has the social effect of reaffirm the in/out boundaries and dividing people up in the Sacred/Profane camps. And it gives, again, a whole set of strategies for dealing with leavers.
Both options are unethical, because they refuse the humanity and individuality of the leaver. They presume to know beforehand and therefore foreclose the possibility of real understanding with leavers. In some ways, I personally find the “black/white” strategy more insidious than a mere sincere believer, whom I can at least excuse because they’re acting on their beliefs. In a way, it is at best a willful refusal to carry their own thinking to its logical conclusion; and at worst it’s cynical. It allows them to feel superior to those who left without ever having to understand them (understanding them is far too dangerous, of course).
I too appreciate the discussion, thanks wry.
And I agree that spouse and friends may have a lot to do with it. The same could be said for political affliations, although I know lots of couples (several of my aunts and uncles) who had separate political beliefs.
With that said, from the original post (by John C) – I didn’t read all the comments, but there’s a part of me that agrees with not being a victim. Before anyone jumps all over me – just that at some point in our lives, we all have to accept the cards we’ve been dealt and move on. I’m not saying that there aren’t people who haven’t had particularly sh*tty things that have happened to them, and they have a right to their anger.
But at some point, in my mind, you have to be prepared to accept what’s happened, and make what you can of your life as it is.
As far as choice goes, I definitely made the choice to no longer be an active mormon. I could have gone along with the motions. Plenty of people do. I could have continued to attend all my meetings, temple trips, etc.
I didn’t feel that would be honest for me personally.
As far as belief as a choice – that is a difficult question. I never made the choice to be raised in a mormon family. But I was.
So if the choice in belief is to continue in the belief you were raised in – or to determine your own beliefs – I could see that as a choice. Maybe.
(I’m not saying that you would have to disagree with the belief system you were raised in – just to examine it for yourself).
If people didn’t pick and choose what they believed in – things would be incredibly muddy (like that katamari game where you roll around and everything sticks to you).
Apologies for the lack of clarity in the above post. I’m used to forums were I can edit for clarity later, when i realize it doesn’t make sense on the screen. LOL
btw – as far as the victim thing goes, I think that’s a whole blog post for me in itself. Everyone has their own reasons for reacting how they do. I’m not saying that continuing to talk about what happened is wrong, it’s just important to try and live – not constantly dwell on what happened as an adult.
Again – I’m probably not making much sense here, and I’m thinking specifically in terms of different friends whose parents’ divorced – and who are still having problems (decades later) dealing with the fallout. It’s not just those situations, but that sometimes American culture seems to focus on what has happened to a person – rather than what they can still do despite what has happened.
I’ve actually never heard the suggestion that think in terms too “black and white” is something that causes people to leave the church. Rather, it is my experience that people in the church see those who become “apostate” as not being black/white enough – of thinking in shades of grey (a.k.a. rationalising their “sins”). This is certainly what I’ve been told by many people about myself.
Now that I think about it, it seems to be that neither “grey” nor “black/white” thinking is a impetus for leaving the church. I think that there is no way to say “If you think or act this way then it will lead you to leave the church”.
Personally, I think that seeing the world more in terms of shades of grey as opposed to stark white/black contrasts is a more realistic view. However, the are a few things that are either wrong or right, as mentioned above.
Like MohoHawaii, I also have found that my experience in loosing parts of my faith and certainly loosing my orthodox allegiance to the church was a conscious choice on my part, after living with the cognitive dissonance of being gay and being strictly Mormon for a long time.
Craig, like in the DAMU, it’s the black-and-white folks in church who hog all the air-time and drown out all other opinions. They’re the ones getting up every Fast Sunday to make their take on the Gospel known. So it leaves the impression that those are the only people at church.
It’s not really the case, it’s just that other opinions aren’t being heard.
So you’ve got extremists making things hard for the rest of us at church. Then occasionally, one of them has a moment of cognitive dissonance and then feels betrayed and runs off to plague the DAMU with the same stupid thinking they exhibited while within the Church.
They’re pests. They’re obnoxious. But they aren’t the only people out there – in or out of the Church.
Todd — don’t worry, your comment was quite clear and intersting. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes sense that just as the “you’re a sinner” explanation affirms the beliefs of the orthodox, the “your beliefs are as simplistic as the beliefs of the ultra-orthodox” explanation is affirming for the subtler ‘nacclers.
Don’t Hold Back Seth.
;^)
Seth R: You’re RIGHT; the reasonable ppl in Mormonism are so ‘meek & mild’… one hardly knows that they’re around.
Heaven knows: They’re NOT in ANY leadership positions! (sorta kidding)
What the Two Johns really are saying, it isn’t any different than the “left because of sin†BS. What they really said is, “If apostates had been better at being Mormon, they never would have left.†If they had chosen better or been more flexible in belief, they’d still be in the game. Why do they say this? My opinion is, fear and insecurity and maybe a tiny sting of pride. They don’t want to believe that a loss of faith could happen to anyone, that you could be doing everything right and have your faith lead you out of the church.
One of the Johns suggested “flexible faith.†I don’t know what that means; it sounds like moving past “putting it on the shelf†into becoming a “cafeteria mormon†(and how much would the loyal internet elites accept the title of cafeteria mormon, let alone the rank and file). And, I tend to think that “flexible faith†like “putting it on the shelf,†I’m not saying this is necessarily the case, but in honest terms, I think this could be described, at least to a small extent, as self-delusion.
I do think that black and white thinking invites a crisis of faith. I sense that loyal mormon internet writers of great flexible faith had more exposure to the seedy side of Mormonism from corporate-loyal family and friends. That experience is not common. The church I grew up in is black and white. To go grey, you have to venture out on your own, keep your thoughts secret, and hide.
So those in the church can look down on those who left as inflexible sinners, and those who left can look at those on the in as self-delusioned, dishonest corporate drones. That’s how it has always been and how it always will be. I mean, if everyone was as intelligent and true as I am, they would do exactly what I do, right?
Well said, Todd.
By the way, don’t apologize for your sociologist’s point of view–it’s the kind of thing that is extremely valuable in discussions/groups like this. There’s so much theory and scholarship about religion and social grouping, but laypeople don’t normally run across it, and so sometimes we forget it exists, and that there are actually entire fields of study that just pick apart experiences like ours in a principled, academic way.
Seth R.
I totally agree with you, and wasn’t trying to imply that everyone in the church (or out of it) thinks in terms of black and white, just that the loudest argument is always against “grey” thinking by those people. In the church it is commonly seen as the most dangerous because it is often synonymous with “rationalisation” which is one of the most loathed words in the church. To some in the church, to rationalise your beliefs is to be in league with satan. The fact that absolutely everyone does doesn’t seem to matter.
It is very sad that the more moderate, grey thinkers are the ones who don’t speak up as often. In my experience when they (I) do, they get screamed at and told they’re being unfaithful, etc.
(New question for baptismal candidates)
[like a waiter waiting for your dinner request]:
“Will that be the ‘Liahona’ branch of tscc you wish to affiliate with, -or- the ‘Iron Rod’ branch?”
chanson, sorry for the dip**it slip – sometimes I just get pissed off by people saying stupid things. 🙂
Todd, I couldn’t agree with you more. And what you said was clear to me, but that may be because I am a sociologist. I don’t know you, but maybe I should. Are you a former-Mormon sociologist as well (there are a few of us around)? If so, we should talk (profxm -at- gmail.com). If you’re just applying sociological thinking you picked up along the way, that’s cool, too!
MoHoHawaii, I’m also impressed with your thoughts on the effort required to maintain belief. As I was on my way out I started to notice that I was no longer reading scriptures daily or praying. I was reading books by Quinn, Mauss, and others and finding that they were finally addressing real questions. I moved from the bland, boring, repetitive milk of the Ensign to the intricate and complex tastes of historical and scientific literature and realized I’d spent 25 years of my life trying to find answers where none existed. The effort to believe is hard. So, here here for your thoughts.
Finally, this issue of black and white thinking is one that Armand Mauss addressed in a podcast and I wrote about on my defunct blog: http://sonsofperdition.blogspot.com/2006/04/church-of-victims.html
Mauss sees those who were raised in situations where they were taught to think about Mormonism as black/white as victims and argues that the only way to be a critical thinker and remain Mormon is to be less literal, more metaphorical, and gray, gray, gray. He’s right, but that’s not very easy in many Mormon families and congregations, IMO.
The writer is right, he just pulls up short.
People do decide not to believe. They have studied the evidence, they have prayed, they have pondered their emotions. Its the truthiness thing, wanting it to be true – does not make it true.
The tone of his article is that of a victim, don’t blame me. He is really a bully.
Let me give an example of what I mean about pulling up short. Parents tell their children that if they give their word they should stand by it. If they don’t they will lose credibility and have problems in relationships.Most parents pull up short because they do not teach the child that they are to be careful about giving their word. Some people will try to trick them into giving their word. Parents should also tell their children that sometimes they should “get it in writing”.
Many social critics of his ilk pull up short. They talk about values, but they fail to fully explain them, to fully think them out.
I could write a counter article that says, don’t blame me for saying the church is not true and publicising the true history and doctrines. If it hurts someones testimony, too bad.
I liked his article. It is an example of someone that should be avoided. I would not be able to have a healthy relationship with him.
Sadly in our world, we are not taught about healthy relationships and that unhealthy ones should be dropped.
All easy to write in hindsight. I can think of a few bad friendships that I wish I dropped.
Wry, you ask “Are there more sophisticated people in the ‘nacle or the DAMU?”
I would say the DAMU. I have found more people willing to let the evidence and truth take them where it may. The ‘nacle is more sophistry than sophisticate. The DAMU is willing to go the extra kilometer. They will take the next step. The DAMU will step into the unknown, it is a type of faith that the ‘nacle lacks. I will admit that it is not always easy to unmask a ‘nacler, but it can be done. It is always worth looking at what values the ‘nacler or DAMUite are using in support of their position.
The discussion between the ‘nacle and DAMU have one common theme. Can the DAMUite just stand up and walk out of the church and risk all that goes with it. Abused women face the same question regarding their husbands. Can they find their own way and voice. The ‘nacle is about come back to church and shut-up or leave and shut-up.
I do not think any of these discussions between the DAMU and ‘nacle are about religion or spiritual truth. It is all about manipulation. Some people like manipulating others, it males them feel good.
FREUDIAN SLIP ALERT:
“…it males them feel good.”
Sure, you can choose to believe. You can also choose to submit your opinions to logic and evidence. That would be the humble choice.
Believing no matter what is not only arrogant but also irresponsible and might have serious consequences for oneself and others.
It is unfortunate to see so many well meaning young people become complicit in the abuse of Mormon authorities. John C’s intellectually lazy and egocentric approach to Mormon dissent is a case in point.
In Catholicism, pride is a deadly sin, may be, because arrogance blinds empathy and without empathy there is no charity. Be that as it may, John C’s essay says a lot more about him than about his subject matter.
Great post, wry.
I don’t know the answers, either. But I think you’re right that a lot of the discussion is similar.
Amen to that one, sister. (And not in a D&C 121 kind of way. 😛 ).
I doubt either community has a consistently greater claim to gray. Both excel at finding particular nuances (and those nuances differ from one community to another). Neither has a monopoly on reasoned discussion.
Oh, and I should note that I definitely recommend Kiskilili’s recent discussion at ZD, about how people in general have a tendency to view their own stage of faith (or system of stages of faith) as the best or most enlightened.
This has been an excellent discussion, and some really good points made. Thanks to all for weighing in on this.
I guess, as they say, we will still all have to agree to disagree on that “final step” that CW alluded to. I’m certainly okay with people who decide to stay at church, for whatever reasons. If some can truly *choose* to voluntarily will faith, I say more power to you. I’ve never been able to do so, I think I was born this way. 😉 And for those who were extremely faithful, and if we want to extremely reductively label them as black-and-white thinkers, and then lost their faith through finding out new information…well, I have so much sympathy and sadness for what they go through in that experience. Anyone of any religious stripe who can hear their stories of anguish and many long dark nights of the soul and still judge them is what is truly mystifying to me.
The 10% who don’t believe in god, but who are still there, is telling for me. I was in that 10% long ago, but I didn’t have any ties so strong that I couldn’t walk away. For those who do, I understand the complexity and fears and stress, and sometimes also very mature acceptance and spirituality of a sort, that accompany those decisions.
Thanks, Kaimi, for you kind words about the post. And yeah, I totally read the ZD post — that’s one of my favorite ‘nacle spots. Wielding the Fowler sword at each other really makes me laugh sometimes, the irony of it all. Or something.
re # 9, So, when John C. puts the blame on the individual, John C. (whoever that dipshit is), doesn’t have a clue what actually causes people to change religions.
Whereas you do, because you have a Ph.D. in sociology, I take it.
sociologists have known this for years
How great that sociologists can know things with such confidence!
Interesting post WC. I didn’t see it until now — somehow overlooked it.
And it is the flexible, shades-of-grey-embracing Mormons, who are very familiar with all the so-called skeletons in the closet, who are the more sophisticated, and perhaps more evolved on some pseudo-linear development scale like Fowler’s stages of faith.
This quote from your post, as well as the title, which is an allusion to being “holier than thou”, seems to imply that my BCC post on having a flexible faith was outlining a position of superiority. In fact, based on the title, it would seem that my BCC post has been interpreted as code for a statement of being “holier than thou”.
I didn’t intend my BCC post to imply any kind of superiority for those who have developed a flexible faith. It was just an observation.
Also please note that the post did not posit a flexibility of faith about the basic or foundational truth claims, as I noted in that post as quoted below:
The point about flexibility of faith wasn’t about these items, which seemed to have been missed by many of the commenters on that thread. That post wasn’t about taking a nuanced view of history, which is also a very good idea in my opinion, but rather about letting go and being flexible on matters of policy/culture/tradition/opinion that overlay the basic foundation and that constitute the material Church as it now exists.
When did you start using a period in your name?
re # 17, Both options are unethical, because they refuse the humanity and individuality of the leaver. This is an interesting statement. Your short explanation is unconvincing as to why it’s unethical for people who hold to certain beliefs to voice observations and speculate as to the factors involved when other people who shared those beliefs no longer share them.
And as to being unethical, I wonder whether you find the approach taken by many ex-believers, including yourself, here, at FLAK, and elsewhere around the internet, to be ethical as opposed to these unethical approaches taken by those who continue to believe?
They presume to know beforehand and therefore foreclose the possibility of real understanding with leavers.
This is astounding in light of the things I have read from you with relation to believers and their sincerely held beliefs. It seems that what you write “forecloses the possibility of real understanding with leavers.” Isn’t it preferable that those who continue to believe are honest and say that it saddens them when others no longer believe?
In some ways, I personally find the “black/white†strategy more insidious than a mere sincere believer, whom I can at least excuse because they’re acting on their beliefs.
Since I was the one who wrote the flexible faith post (which you are calling the ‘”black/white” strategy’) I suppose that is the reason why I am viewing your comment # 17 with such incredulity.
In a way, it is at best a willful refusal to carry their own thinking to its logical conclusion; and at worst it’s cynical. It allows them to feel superior to those who left without ever having to understand them (understanding them is far too dangerous, of course).
I think you run rough-shod over the arguments with this condemnation and therefore you don’t have to address what is actually being said. Your self-righteous judgment of believers seems to be enough for you here. I’ve seen you make much better presentations against believers at FLAK (and much worse) so I know you can do better but must say that this one wasn’t a slam dunk.
re # 26, They don’t want to believe that a loss of faith could happen to anyone, that you could be doing everything right and have your faith lead you out of the church.
This just simply isn’t true, at least with regard to me and my post. In fact, it’s patently false. If you’re happier outside the Church, more power to you — you should be out of it. I can hardly expect the same from you and other ex-believers because (1) it hasn’t been my experience so far to have ex-believers (with one or two very rare exceptions — John Hamer seems to be one of them) truly respect me and my beliefs and (2) doesn’t the exact analysis that Todd O. applied in # 17 also apply to ex-believers who talk about and analyze those who continue to believe? Isn’t that what FLAK is?
re # 26, I should note that your concluding paragraph more accurately describes the situation than the rest of your post:
So those in the church can look down on those who left as inflexible sinners, and those who left can look at those on the in as self-delusioned, dishonest corporate drones. That’s how it has always been and how it always will be. I mean, if everyone was as intelligent and true as I am, they would do exactly what I do, right?
At least this statement is honest about what many of those who have left are thinking — and it should be noted that this must be seen as every bit as “unethical” as what those who continue to believe supposedly think, according to # 17.
I must point out, however, that when you say “inflexible sinners” that captures neither what John C. wrote in his post about those who have lost faith chose to lose faith and what I wrote in my post observing that many Mormons who stay in the Church their whole lives benefit from having developed a flexible faith that allows them to keep their faith in the basic fundamentals of the Gospel despite the messy everyday life of having to live with other believers.
re # 31, you note that Mauss argues that the only way to be a critical thinker and remain Mormon is to be less literal, more metaphorical, and gray, gray, gray. He’s right, but that’s not very easy in many Mormon families and congregations, IMO.
It seems like you must agree with my BCC post based on this statement. Did you read it?
Re: (1) it hasn’t been my experience so far to have ex-believers (with one or two very rare exceptions — John Hamer seems to be one of them) truly respect me and my beliefs
I’d like to link again to my famous If there’s no solution, there’s no problem post, just in case there’s anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
And how come my brother always gets all the accolades? Just sayin’. I can’t even get a simple nomination as “Nicest Evil Villain” in the Niblets. No respect, I tell ya… 😉
re # 32, The tone of his article is that of a victim, don’t blame me. He is really a bully.
circus watcher, in defense of my friend John C., although I thought his post was harsh, I do believe that what you write at FLAK fits much more into the role of the bully than that which John C. characteristically writes at BCC or elsewhere. To be sure, John C. makes fun of people far more than I am comfortable with, but it is truly nothing compared to what I have read from you at FLAK.
What I mean by this is that is seems ridiculous for you to call John C. a bully considering what you yourself frequently write about believers and their beliefs. I understand you probably do not agree that your ridicule of beleivers and their beliefs counts as bullying, but objectively speaking it is much, much worse than what John C. says or writes.
look, chanson, you’re nice and everything but I don’t get the same sense of genuine respect from you of Mormons and their beliefs as I get from John, even if you are in favor of being nice to the random missionary. (I’ve read your short stories, for one thing.)
re # 38, Anyone of any religious stripe who can hear their stories of anguish and many long dark nights of the soul and still judge them is what is truly mystifying to me.
Who is judging whom here? I suppose this goes more to John C.’s post than mine but if it is meant to address my post on having a flexible faith, I must stress it wasn’t judging people. As I told circus watcher, if you are happier not believing the truth claims of Mormonism then by all means you should be out of the Church and where you are happy. Wishing them well doesn’t mean we have to take the continual abuse from them, though, does it, and if so, please explain why? Reciting facts and the chosen inferences from those facts is a far cry from the ridicule, manipulation, mockery, and verbal abuse that we see here and on FLAK.
Hi john f! I was wondering where you were.
In case it’s not obvious, my tone is not one of taking the “grayer than thou” thing seriously, that is definitely tongue-in-cheek. Which is emphasised in my closing paragraph a bit more.
I think the “black-and-white” vs “shades of grey” paradigm in general is kinda silly and reductive, from either side of the belief line. That is why I mocked it generally. I wasn’t making hay off your post, or John C’s really (though his lent itself to it more 😉 ); rather, just springboarding into a metadiscussion of the entire silly notions of who has the more “sophisticated” approach to life.
I think, re: FLAK, which you mentioned a couple of times, you should keep in mind that it’s a support board. People are emotional and ranting, and giving unquestioned (a lot of times) support to the ranters. It’s not meant to be like the bloggernacle in terms of covering topics with any depth of thought (generally speaking). I think it’s fair to say that FLAKers “ridicule and mock” but I find “manipulation” inexplicable. And “verbal abuse” implies speaking directly to someone, in my book. So there isn’t any verbal abuse there generally either, except for the odd spat of in-fighting.
I also wasn’t talking to you (or John C) with my “long dark nights of the soul and still judge them” comment. That’s why I talked about “anyone” in that comment, I really didn’t have you or John C in mind at that point.
I didn’t notice my name displayed with a period in it here till you just said. I had to change my profile to take it out. 🙂
Chanson, I dig you the MOST! So John Hamer has to take a back seat to you. 🙂
Thanks Wry!!! I think you may be the first person who has ever said that… 😉
I have made a sincere attempt to understand the perspective of others — recognizing that the hard questions in life are hard — while being completely direct and forthright about my own conclusions on such matters. If others don’t see my position that way, so be it. I can’t please everyone. To John F. — thanks for taking the time to read my stories, anyway, even if you don’t think highly of my perspective. 😉
chanson, I think that Mormonism, its adherents, and its beliefs don’t come off very well in your stories. That has to do with the genuine respect point. It has nothing to do with the fiction itself or how I think about your perspective. It’s possible that your brother writes similar that builds on a similar take of Mormonism. I just haven’t seen it.
Also, I would hope that you don’t think you have to please me or anyone else. Politeness and civility (and respect) are enough, in my view, not pleasing people.
As far as I know, John doesn’t write much fiction, though we did write some Star Trek scripts together. 😀
And I completely agree that civility (and constructive dialog, including introspection and taking the other’s position seriously, i.e. respect) are what’s important, not pleasing at all costs.
How many Mormons believe me when I say that I perceive them as generally thoughtful, intelligent, kind, compassionate people, and their beliefs (beliefs which I once held not so long ago) simultaneously seem looney tunes to me? (Yes, I realize that not every Mormon believes exactly the same things.)
I think many Mormons have their Mormonism so tightly bound up in their identity that they can’t separate criticism of their beliefs from a personal attack. I can bend over backward trying to express myself tactfully so as to convey my respect for the person, and at the end of the day I still need to call it like I see it. It’s not easy to do both. Cut us some slack. 🙂
Wry ~
I like this post. I enjoy your thoughts immensely and always look forward to what you notice in your blog travels.
I find it interesting to hear from the people on both sides of this issue. People are fascinating to me in general, and it’s fun to note that there are such similarities in the mindsets of the players of both sides. Each set of people has value. Each of us has gray areas in our lives and in our belief systems (or lack thereof) to face. We aren’t so different from each other, really.
RE: John F.
“Whereas you do, because you have a Ph.D. in sociology, I take it.”
Um, yeah! 🙂
“How great that sociologists can know things with such confidence!”
Um, agreed! 🙂
I’m being pithy and arrogant here, of course, but do keep in mind that sociologists and psychologists are basically the only two scientific disciplines that have studied religious conversion from a scientific perspective. Certainly theology, religious studies, and religions themselves have studied it, but not using the same approach. I’m happy to cite the amazing amount of literature on this topic if you really want to impugn sociologists and their understanding of conversion. I was probably out of line calling John C. a dipsh*t, but his level of understanding of conversion is about at the level of a dipsh*t (reminder to profxm: attack the argument, not the one doing the arguing) based on my reading of the sociological literature. There are basically no studies that come to mind that claim de-conversion has anything to do with people simply choosing not to have faith. The de-conversion literature focuses on changing beliefs, changing friendships, significant life changes, cost/benefit analyses, and interpersonal conflicts (my own, personal contribution attributes it to role conflict and role strain). So, when I criticize John C., I do it based on an academic understanding. Until John C. brings an academic understanding to the discussion and critiques the existing literature with valid, logical arguments, I’m fine with my criticism.
As for the Mauss article and your post, yeah, I’d say we’re basically in agreement on this. But I can’t leave it at that. I doubt you will admit it (no reason to), but can you at least consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, apologists and borderlanders are the only ones in the LDS religion who have nuanced understandings of the religion? I could be wrong here, but I think what often ends up happening when this idea of black/white thinking is brought up by faithful members (whatever that means) is that it is turned into a, “Well, those victims were the unlucky ones. Most Mormons have more nuanced understandings.” In my experience, that is simply not true. If I tallied up all the Mormons I know, which is quite a few, 90% of them think in the black/white way that I was taught (including all of my family, my wife’s family, and almost all of our extended families – a few exceptions). The 10% I know who don’t think in black/white ways and have the nuanced understandings you talk about are all borderlanders and I’ve met almost all of them online in these forums. So, when people say, “Oh, the victims, well, they are just a minority.” I have to admit that gets under my skin. I think my experience with Mormonism is similar to that of a lot of other people.
One final point here. What the 90% of Mormons do have that allows them to stay isn’t a nuanced understanding, but a relative disinterest in details, IMO. I don’t mean that as a slight or criticism – I think this is true of the majority of religious and irreligious people. Most people just don’t put that much weight in their religion, Mormons included. They believe it; they even believe it in black/white terms, but when it comes to details, they could care less. They don’t want to consider them and they don’t think they are important. So, they don’t get hung up on issues surrounding Joseph Smith’s wives, etc. because they either: (1) don’t know them or (2) minimize them and dismiss them. In short, 90% of Mormons are, IMO, black/white, disinterested thinkers; 10% are nuanced, borderlanders who work in the realm of the gray. Former Mormons are also a combination, but that’s a different issue.
john f. (42 and 43)-
I haven’t left the church and I show up every Sunday to teach flexible things to your beautiful children in Sunday school. You don’t know what I believe. I don’t even know what I believe and my not knowing has a lot to do with the flexible, nuanced faith I’ve adopted. If I ever were to leave the church, it wouldn’t have anything to do with my faith but everything to do with the terribly draining and unsatisfying experience of contemporary Mormonism.. (And as an aside, I think the draining effects of contemporary Mormonism have a lot to do with a black and white church unwilling to admit and process the shades of grey).
Regardless of what you (and John C) intended, your posts struck me as mudslinging. I don’t think I’m alone in that impression. I don’t feel like it was aimed at me. (Remember, I’m flexible and I still go to church, right?) I’m sure it wasn’t your intent to belittle others (though I’d respect you more if it was) but that isn’t a good excuse. I think Kaimi’s related post at T&S still (in my mind) had an element of name calling, but it was much more fair to the other side. It’s a personal amusement to me, the mean things that are unintentionally said at faith-promoting sites such as BCC and T&S.
As to the rest of your response to my comment, I think others have given answers better than I could give.
“I doubt you will admit it (no reason to), but can you at least consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, apologists and borderlanders are the only ones in the LDS religion who have nuanced understandings of the religion?”
If he won’t, I will.
But that’s true of every religion and ideology (ask a lay Christian about the trinity and you’ll get all sorts of answers that would make a theologian cringe). The “unwashed masses” are almost never all that big on nuance. But, it’s important to have the nuanced views anyway. Eventually they often trickle down to the layman in the pews.
re # 56, my comments didn’t make any claim to knowing what you believe. But it seemed like your comment made a claim as to what John C. and I believe, when you said They don’t want to believe that a loss of faith could happen to anyone, that you could be doing everything right and have your faith lead you out of the church.
As I noted in comment # 42, this isn’t an accurate description of John C.’s post or my post, in my opinion.
Regarding #42 – about ex believers respecting John f. and his beliefs – I disagree.
I have respect for active and former LDS and their right to their beliefs. I believe there are actually quite a few of us out here. No offense to John Hamer intended :).
As the saying goes, I may not agree with your beliefs, but I will fight for your right to believe them.
I think there have been many posts here (and throughout the bloggosphere) which show a tolerance and willingness to see things from a believer LDS perspective.
With that said, I don’t think that debating LDS policy particularly towards women (see profxm’s above post) constitutes disrespect. Or for that matter – any other host of topics that are discussed here.
Now, if the mere discussion itself (current LDS policy towards its members, towards full disclosure of history, standards at BYU) – constitutes disrespect of a person and/or their beliefs – well, we may not be able to find any common ground.
Anybody who says that us former mormons have succumbed to black & white thinking have themselves succumbed to the very same black & white thinking they’re accusing us of having. Not everyone walks away from mormonism for the same reason. Talk to a hundred different exmos and you’ll get ninety different reasons why they left.
In reality, active mormons are the least qualified people on earth to be making any judgements at all about ex-mormons because they simply have no capacity for understanding where we’re at or how we got here.
The puerile mormon thinking that says that those of us who left were offended somehow, is most often way off base but it’s an urban legend that has legs and continues to run. I wonder sometimes if mormons are simply incapable of understanding that some of us took a critical look at mormonism and said, wow, that’s just not for me anymore. We didn’t need to be offended before we chose to leave – we just had to be willing to think critically and openly.
Hi,
I only today found out about this post that I inspired. FWIW, I don’t find Mormons or Non-Mormons particularly more sophisticated, nor do I believe that leaving the church, ultimately, is indicative of anything other than that it isn’t working for you. To me, it sucks if it doesn’t work for you, I wish it would, but I get that it doesn’t work for everyone (at least not now).
Nor do I suspect that leaving the church is always about a lack of willpower or some such. People make choices, that’s all it is. I don’t know you and can’t really say if it is the right choice for you or anybody else. I hope it is the right choice, but I can live with a world where it isn’t.
The truth is, as far as I can tell, we all have to take our own path. I tend to think that all these paths lead back to God (this is because I am not an atheist and believe in a loving God), but that’s just me. Regarding the original post, it was intended to be a discussion surrounding taking responsibility for the state of one’s faith (or lack thereof). No implication of weak-willedness on the part of those who lose faith was applied. That some people keep faith when most everyone else would lose it is, to my mind, heroic. There is nothing bad with not being heroic (I’m certainly nobody’s hero).
@John C.
I appreciate your willingness to embrace the choices of people who believe differently. It’s refreshing.
“That some people keep faith when most everyone else would lose it is, to my mind, heroic.”
I have to disagree with this thought. I don’t see this as heroic, but as doggedly attached to an idea when humble people acknowledge that their beliefs were wrong. In other words, such a person is lacking in the virtue which prevents excesses of faith: doubt.
A humble person approaches life with an awareness of their own fallibility which means, by extension, the fallibility of their beliefs. A humble person who tempers faith with doubt will have strong opinions, weakly held.
Please note the qualifier. Some beliefs aren’t worth holding on it, no matter what the circumstances. I don’t know that true faith is excessive, but such decisions are always made after the fact, no?
How on earth do you know if faith is “true”? By what standard can you judge it? Even if it works for you and your life, it’s got a pretty good chance of being a false belief simply because it can’t ever be objectively tested.
And if you can only know after the fact that you’ve been excessive, that sounds like a good argument to avoid faith all together, seeing as how incredibly destructive and pernicious it all too often is.
Craig,
With all your foresight and reason, you’ve never gotten yourself into a situation that you later regretted or pushed an idea too far? I don’t think actual people use reason in the manner that you seem to think that they do. Usually, reason is applied as after-the-fact rationalization (in my opinion) rather than in any sort of deductive, inductive, or abductive manner.
Regarding judging the value of “faith” or “truth” or whatever, please feel free to let me know when you get some sort of objective scale set up. In the meantime, I’ll just follow my own subjective leanings and do my best. Your mileage may vary.
Of course I have, and that has taught me not to use conjecture and faith to make decisions but logic and reason. Of course we never have all the facts and our reason does fail us at times, but I do try to base my life, my beliefs, and my decisions on reality and reason.
In order to respond fully, I guess I would need to know what you mean by “faith” and even more by “true faith”. What are your definitions for these words?
The way I conceive of and was taught to view faith is an irrational belief that cannot be challenged by reality because it isn’t based on reality – things like faith in the existence of god(s), heavens or hells, salvations, sins, eternal rewards or punishments, saviours, etc. To me, faith is belief in anything that is unprovable, in-disprovable, and therefore totally ridiculous and superfluous. The belief that Jesus is a saviour is had on faith, but there’s no reason to have such a belief. I could hold the equally unprovable belief that Jesus is actually a magical pink unicorn that only took human form because it lost a bet to the evil purple dragon which lives at the core of Jupiter. My “faith” in those beliefs are just as real and logical as the beliefs that Mormons have or Muslims or any other type of religionist.
That is why I think faith is ridiculous and pointless. Though I didn’t always think so, it was because I had never thought it through and never had looked at faith and religion objectively and seen that it’s all total fabrications and bronze-aged myths that were made when humanity had no understanding of the way the natural world worked so they invented gods as the causes for the (then) unexplained.
Craig,
Fair enough. I tend to prefer faith and I tend to use the traditional/biblical definitions thereof. As a corollary, I see rationality as a useful enough tool, if somewhat overvalued. At best, it provides some insight into how this world might work. At worst, people use to it confuse means with ends. For me, it holds little explanatory power regarding “the terrible questions”(that is, I have had experiences regarding ultimate purpose for which I find rational explanations (at present) inadequate). I’m not a hypocrite when I see a surgeon, I just think that rationality has a place and metaphysics, epistemology, and the supernatural aren’t it.
Finally, the assumption that rationality is in some way provable mystifies me. Sure, it offers ready explanations, but that doesn’t actually prove it is superior (remember, for all you or I know, we could all be fated to live our lives under the secret dominance of the Potato Gods of Preston, ID). Rationality may be a good way for some people to find the courage to go to sleep at night, but not all of us insist that the world be limited to things that we are capable of labeling and neatly filing away in some mental cabinet.
So, you and I, at present, operate using different narratives in order to understand the way the world works. I’m glad that you’ve found something that works for you; I’ll keep thinking that you’re wrong of course, but I’m glad that you’re happy.
Well, nothing is provable in the ultimate sense, but some things jibe with the available facts better than others and make better predictions.
Rationality isn’t satisfying in some ways, yet truth has often proven very unsatisfying to human tastes. I’m thinking of quantum mechanics as an example. It’s quite the bitter pill to swallow for those of us who grew up in a Newtonian universe. So whether an answer satisfies us seems immaterial to the question of whether the answer is true (or approaches the truth).
Human rationality, for all its faults and missteps, has proven the most successful way to achieve material results. Faith in the irrational has its place, but it’s entirely overvalued and overused in the religious world. The more I see of life, the less I see the value of faith untempered by doubt. Untempered faith is another name for escapism and fantasy.
To my knowledge, there isn’t such a thing as faith untempered by doubt (how could it be faith otherwise?). I agree with you that extreme certainty (no matter what the belief) can often lead us astray (heck, Nephi questioned God with the sword in his hand; why shouldn’t we?).
Faith tends to make predictions, too. They just aren’t ones that are rationally or objectively testable. For all that, they’ve tended to be dead on for me (and yes I understand the glorious value of hindsight in this; it doesn’t change my opinion).
I don’t deny that rationality is testable and that it has predictive force for the world in which we find ourselves. But I’m skeptical regarding it’s predictive force in areas where it cannot measure. I’m deeply, deeply skeptical of its ability to reveal or discover ultimate truth. At its current best, it can say no known forces cause human consciousness or life. Some people read that to mean that there are no causes, which is, I think, a grave overstatement. Even if a genetic combination is found for consciousness or an amino acid combination for life, all it gives is a how, never a why.
The reason that faith appears overvalued (in regards to rationality) in the religious world is because it is capable of asking correct questions and rationality isn’t (to my mind, at least). The reason that some people find solace in a worldview explained solely by rationality (in my opinion, obviously, since I ain’t one of them) is that they demand a certainty regarding the why that isn’t currently possible (and may never be for all I know). So, instead, they give up looking and declare why a false a question (there is no why, it’s all just random electrons firing). Which is an approach, and if it works for you that’s great, but to stop and declare that the objective truth seems entirely unwarranted to me (the believer with an obvious bias).
To my mind, untempered rationality got us Plato’s realm of the Forms and Kantian deontology (both fantasy notions of the highest order). As Nietzsche would say, your clinging to rationality is a symptom of the problem, not its solution. He’d also call you degenerate, but he’d call me an active force for evil and oppression, so I guess we’re even.
Finally, the comment box is doing some wierd thing where it shrinks down to one line when I start typing so I can’t see the whole comment. Is there something wrong with my settings?
Excellent points. You and I know that faith untempered by doubt doesn’t exist, but many of your fellow religious believers don’t. They imagine that they know, or aspire to a time when they will know, and therefore hide from their doubts.
Faith as I see it isn’t so much predictive as hopeful or expectant. There are questions that we ask that cannot be answered rationally, but most Western religions hold out the hope that someday they will be. For example, we are told that we will meet God when we die and will know that he exists. So most Western religion still holds up rational, empirical evidence as the ideal while faith is something that is required now, a test that must be endured.
So it seems that the religions that we grew up among are of two minds about faith (when it’s opposed to knowledge). It is a virtue that we must cultivate in order to answer questions about the unknowable, but a virtue that will be shed eventually as unnecessary.
How do you envision answers to the ultimate questions coming? In other words, if your beliefs are correct, how do you see them being finally and ultimately confirmed? Is faith still involved or is it some form of empirical knowledge? Or do you never expect to know for certain?
Regarding the big why questions, I don’t think they are somehow logically inconsistent. Rather, I see a couple of problems with them. The first is the assumption that the questions have an answer. Even God may not have a solid answer why there is something rather than nothing. The second is the idea that faith somehow answers these questions rather than just providing appealing guesses. And one guess is as good as any other in this realm.
Because of how intractable why-questions are, I mostly acknowledge my inability to get useful answers, and focus on questions that can profit from investigation. So I take a very pragmatic approach.
I don’t think untempered rationality exists. Human rationality isn’t as rational as we might hope, and as I mentioned before, nothing is ultimately provable.
re John C:
Finally, the comment box is doing some wierd thing where it shrinks down to one line when I start typing so I cant see the whole comment. Is there something wrong with my settings?
I have no idea about how to fix this, seeing as it affects me too.
…meanwhile…
I have skipped a great portion of this discussion, so I could be repetitive or be missing a whole portion of things…I don’t think that it is necessarily about “untempered rationality” vs. “faith” where “untempered rationality” says that “there is no why.”
Rather, rationality (egh, I already dislike this distinction, but I’ll go with it) simply points out to us that we *don’t have reason to believe* in certain whys. It doesn’t mean that these whys are untrue, or that the whys don’t exist, but we don’t have reason to believe.
What might give us reason to believe? Subjective experience. But the tricky thing about subjective experience is that it’s not on the same level as objective experience. Subjective experience makes things known to *us*, but not necessarily makes known what is objectively or universally true.
So if people are going to have disagreements, it’s because someone has confused the subjective with the objective. Whether it is the subjectively felt claim that “x religion is the one truth for all” or the subjectively felt claim that “all religions are dangerous and should be dismantled.”
I do think that in the end, these realms should have different treatments in public policy, etc., The subjective is great for you, but it should not be mandated, especially if it has areas of disagreement with the “rational” (whatever that means).
Andrew,
I think I essentially agree with you. I am also a little concerned with how we (especially I) am using “rationality” in this discussion. I suppose that I think that everyone uses reason (at least in this world), it’s the foundational principles (the axia) that are subjectively chosen and applied. My axia, at present, differ from yours, Jonathan’s, and Craig’s such that we rationally come up with differing beliefs about the existence of God as a result. We all use reason, but I weigh supernatural experience (as experienced by me) more heavily as evidence than you all.
Regarding reason to believe, we all have lots of reason to believe in lots of things. My subjective reasons for believing in God aren’t, as you note, subject to objective testing, but that doesn’t make them less powerful to me or less binding on me if I want to maintain some sense of personal integrity.
Jonathan,
I tend to think that the Great Reveal when Oz/God pulls back the curtain is wishful thinking on rational folks part, so I’m not certain that faith will ever cease to be a factor in our lives in the eternities (isn’t there a passage somewhere that states that God is the being who has faith in himself? (apologies if I am making that up; I just think I heard it somewhere and I am too busy today to look it up)).
We also appear to be in agreement regarding the limits of human rationality. And regarding the guesswork of ultimate aims, whether God or Reason is the source. We seem to be looking at the same basic data set and drawing differing conclusions, which may simply mean that I trust my interpretations of the supernatural more than I trust yours or someone else’s, which is fair enough, I think.
Setting aside the definition of supernatural (I still haven’t come up with a definition to satisfy myself), I agree with most of what you’re saying. I think the main difference may be that I don’t experience things that I interpret as being supernatural, but if I did, I probably wouldn’t trust myself to get the interpretation right. I trust peer review much more than my own reasoning abilities to keep me from following flights of fancy.
Regarding God and faith, are you thinking of the Lectures on Faith where it is said that faith is the principle by which God created and governs the universe? I don’t doubt that someone has said that God has faith in himself, but I can’t think of anything authoritative for Mormons. A conference talk?
Thanks! It is the Lectures on Faith (which I acknowledge involves impressive feats of circular logic). It’s in the questions on the second lecture:
There’s more justification, but it is long and I didn’t read it through this time so I don’t know how relevant it is.
Regarding your other point, I think that at some point I just made a decision to trust my gut on the supernatural. That may be the fundamental difference.
This is going to be a really long response to multiple ideas (building especially on what Andrew S. said in #72 to which I mostly agree) which have been brought up in the past several comments, starting with what John C. said here:
Well that’s obviously true, as I think that what is termed a “supernatural” experience isn’t anything of the sort, and therefore isn’t any sort of evidence for gods or the supposed positive effects of faith. I weigh it as having exactly zero evidentiary usefulness towards explaining reality, except in as far as the experience itself can be explained by science – which I’ll touch on in a bit.
Labelling the unexplained “supernatural” because there is no known natural cause is how religion got started in the first place because humans didn’t know how suns were formed or why grass grew or how we evolved or why we reproduce sexually or how water freezes and so on ad infinitum. Of course, we’ve narrowed the gap between the unknown and the known, but it is still there. There are just far fewer things now that people try to explain as “supernatural” when the real explanation is that there is simply no explanation. Giving the “supernatural” “explanation” to an unexplained event is pointless because it takes the onus from us to try to explain those events or experiences. It may be that some things aren’t explicable, but that doesn’t mean we should be lazy and label them “supernatural” when there is no evidence at all for anything supernatural existing.
Even more implausible is trying to posit the existence of a single (or even a couple) version of the supernatural as the one “true” version. There being no evidence, no possibility of objectifying and measuring any particular supernatural world-view, every single one is equally valid. It seems to me to be completely ridiculous to even entertain the notion that there is some part of existence which cannot ever be measured, quantified, observed, or known. As soon as we start making such suppositions where does it end? If one god is real because of faith or so called “supernatural” experiences then we have to assume that all gods are real, all imaginations of every human is equally valid and real. Simply because a delusion is shared by many people doesn’t make it any less a delusion.
In fact, I am convinced (until I’ve been presented with a more reasonable, convincing argument) that science is more than able to explain what many term “supernatural” experiences as natural events that happen in our brains, and have no basis in a reality that isn’t measurable by science or reason. Any feelings I had when at church, praying, reading the Book of Mormon, or etc., when I was a Mormon I now know weren’t any indicator of the supernatural (least of all the Mormon supernatural) but rather were biochemical, psychological, and other reactions (including many psychosomatic) that are natural and explicable, and happen to many, many humans in every culture and religion in the world.
While I know that my experiences, thoughts, feelings, ideas are quite subjective and I’m not able to adequately distance myself from my own biases and prejudices to really be truly objective about my experiences, I can do a reasonable approximation of it when I look at a bigger picture, when I look at my experiences, and then see that they’re not unique at all, but are wholly common to probably nearly every human. I can see that what when I experience it may seem like a supernatural occurrence is actually nothing of the sort when I look at how brains work in general, and how a Muslim has the same faith in Allah that I had in the Mormon version of God, that my experiences weren’t at all different from those of any other religious person’s and that the fact that all types of non-physical reality based belief are exactly the same means that my feeling that God was telling me the BoM was “of God” can’t possibly have been correct, but rather what I felt was my own desire to have what I was told to believe be true. Logically, that is the only explanation that makes any sense at all, for all the explanations given by any one or all religions are all mutually contradictory and/or exclusive, and cannot be true, right, or in any way a useful or correct indicator of what is real in any meaningful sense of the word “real”.
That is the basis for why faith isn’t useful (and actually very often quite dangerous and harmful).
While we are very subjective beings by our nature, that doesn’t mean that we can’t step outside that limitation at times and use rationality and logic to get at the reality of our existence. The reality is that the chance of any gods existing at all is very slim, the chance of gods even remotely similar to how any single person (let alone group of people) conceives of them infinitesimally smaller (smaller in fact than the chance of life evolving in the first place in a totally natural way (untampered-with by gods or whatnot)) Is it possible? Yes, it is, but so incredibly improbable (and unprovable) that is useless to seriously entertain the possibility. The obsession humanity has with religion and faith is only detrimental. We as a species need to get outside our own heads and see that faith and prayer and religion and magical thinking and prophets and baseless speculation about the “supernatural” don’t solve a damn thing, but rather make everything worse.
Faith is a negative because it teaches that belief in ideas for which there is no evidence is a virtue, when it is actually humanity’s greatest vice.
We are remarkable only in as much as we are alive at all. We’re no more special or at the centre of any grand cosmic scheme than some bacterium is. We’re here by chance coupled with an evolutionary history that bred us and all life over billions of years to be the best suited organisms for our environment. That’s it. No gods, no reason for faith, no basis for religion.
Even if there is some grand cause of everything, it’s not like anything we’ve yet conceived of, and we can’t see it or measure it’s effects in any way, so it might as well not exist. And we’ve got better and more pressing things to take care of than to worry about whether made-up entities like Jesus or Jehovah or Allah or Shiva or Frigga or Zeus or Ra are the right imaginary deity to worship, or which of the untestable claims of Hinduism or Buddhism or Mormonism or Catholicism or Shintoism or Daoism is the best representation of an imagined supernatural world which exists outside/inside/over/under our own.
Personally I’m far more concerned about poverty and hunger and disease prevention, and whether I’m going to have health-care next year (let alone a job), or how to get it through the thick skulls of the crazies that all humans deserve the same treatment, and that comprehensive sex education is an amazingly good thing, and that socialism isn’t going to eat your children in the middle of the night. Or how to stop our atmosphere from boiling off.
As a race, we’ve got no time to indulge in useless fantasies and faith, because we’re not going to need a supernatural Armageddon, we’re doing a dandy fine job of that all on our own, the natural way.
/rant
Craig,
“Faith is a negative because it teaches that belief in ideas for which there is no evidence is a virtue, when it is actually humanitys greatest vice.”
This is a great overstatement, as I suspect you know. Plenty of blood has been shed in the name of rational ideas and for notions that appeared to come from evidence at the time. Humans simply aren’t sufficiently rational for you to argue that rationality has been our savior or that it provides some golden path to freedom in the future. There’s no evidence that reason (by which we seem to be implying an empirical, naturalist worldview) offers anything any better than religious approaches and as humans are the only known vehicles of reason available (until the vulcans show up) I don’t imagine a change in that, unless there is a coincident change in what we are.
Your problem isn’t with faith, but with dogma (and particular dogmas at that). Certainly, there are plenty of faiths that don’t argue against scientific investigation of faith claims and so forth. But you are right that there is no way for evidence to overthrow faith per se. That’s what I meant regarding it’s inability to ask the right questions. Your rant strikes me as agreement with what I said earlier regarding the appeal of reason.
You’ve set up a false dichotomy between the faithful and people who care about the world around them. I appreciate that this might be helpful rhetoric or helpful self-justification but an honest assessment finds many among the religious engaged with the world around them, even engaged in causes and movements that you probably don’t find objectionable. You don’t have to be an atheist to be an environmentalist, as an example and I’m a little surprised that someone as reasonable as yourself is relying on such easily falsifiable evidence (also, I do realize that you were ranting and, in a rant, evidence and reason are entirely beside the point (so apologies for pointing out the holes you weren’t really trying to fill)).
In any case, my point is that faith and empirical naturalism are two approaches to the world and that neither is inherently good or bad (as, almost always, it is what you do with it that matters). I certainly prefer faith and I think it better explains the whys and wherefores of life, but if I’m wrong, I certainly won’t be around to complain about it. In any case, I agree with you that we ought to focus on the issues of today, rather than speculating regarding our place in our notion of an afterlife. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof and all that.
Also, my rant…
While I appreciate that I am wholly unique and the only possible religious dude who doesn’t hate all atheists because their existence is a threat to mine, I prefer that folks arguing with me to address what I’ve actually said and implied, as opposed to addressing some construct fashioned out of years of arguments with other, prejudiced, and insufficiently thought-out (possibly) stupid reasons for faith. I get that some of ya’ll have anger issues with the church and (as a TBM) I’m an outlet for that, but I (hope that I) am fairly thoughtful and open to other ideas. I’m gonna be stubborn about faith I suppose, but I don’t have any sort of need to condemn you all to hell, so please don’t assume that about me. It’s not offensive so much as it is tiresome.
Okay, my rant is actually only aimed at Craig. Sorry, Craig.
John C.:
I hate to be a jackass, but you are the one that told us DAMU folks to “Die a horrible lonely death.” and to leave your board alone. So, if we have anger issues, you will have to understand why.
To the debate at hand, you say that reason cannot answer the “terrible questions”. Why is it important to do so? Why do these questions require an answer, and why is reason inadequate and faith adequate to answer such questions? It seems to me that setting up faith as the only possible way to answer such questions, is entirely self-serving for religion, which peddles faith. I guess I do not understand why reason cannot answer said questions, and why you are so certain it cannot.
re Craig:
We as a species need to get outside our own heads and see that faith and prayer and religion and magical thinking and prophets and baseless speculation about the supernatural dont solve a damn thing, but rather make everything worse.
Faith is a negative because it teaches that belief in ideas for which there is no evidence is a virtue, when it is actually humanitys greatest vice.
I have to respectfully disagree. Faith and prayer and religion and magical thinking and prophets and “baseless speculation about the supernatural” solve a subjective need required by very, very many people for meaning, transcendence, and “why” questions.
You counter this in your second comment with a different answer to “why” questions — namingly, scathing and cold nihilism (probably tempered with existentialism, but still). If you want to do that, then fine, but then can you even WONDER why people are going to reject that for something that is more meaningful to them?
Really, the problem with faith isn’t that it doesn’t “solve a damn thing,” but that it doesn’t solve a damn thing for you or for me. It isn’t that it makes everything worse for everyone, but that we see the margins of the people who it does make it worse for and then somehow forget the vast numbers of people who are improved and find improvement from it.
I understand that the margins — where we see abuses and so on — are important enough to make us take heed. But we really do a disservice when we paint it all in one broad brush stroke.
brailsmt,
Fair enough. Please note that there is a time and a place and ya’ll went over there understanding that that was not the place. If you don’t want me speculating as to your ultimate aim in a conversation, don’t make your conversations public. I don’t hate ya’ll and I am not afraid of you, but that isn’t the forum for you all to get the angry out.
As to the terrible questions, I think we should look for answers because I think they are important (if you don’t think they are important, then you may not be so motivated). I also tend to think that folks who say that they don’t think they are important are fooling themselves (but I’m often wrong). If they aren’t fooling themselves, they are certainly going to a lot of trouble to demonstrate how unimportant they find all these things to be.
And empirical naturalism does say that it offers an answer. It says, “We can’t know, so it doesn’t exist.” I think it’s fairly clear why anyone might find that unsatisfactory (especially in the spirit of scientific inquiry).
John C.,
I understand that some people think the “terrible questions” require an answer. What I’m asking is why. Why do they require an answer? I also understand that these questions are fairly universal across diverse cultural groups. It makes sense to me how a species such as our own would introspect and wonder what the meaning of it all is. What I don’t understand is why religion and faith are granted special purview over the questions. It is self-serving for religion to exploit these very natural questions and claim them as the sole territory of faith. Over hundreds or thousands of years of such claims, it becomes so ingrained in culture that is taken as axiomatic that only faith can answer these questions. I’m questioning that base assumption, namely 1) these questions have answers, and 2) only faith can provide those answers.
Hi John,
Good to see you. My apologies for taking so long. I pasted and copied your conversations. It was a whopping ten pages and I am not done reading all of it.
I agree with you that faith is important. No one can bring about change without faith. It’s important to transcend reality because it is a precondition of pursuing progress.
I also like your heterodox emphasis on faith rather than knowledge with respect to religion. Mormonism would be a better and safer place if people would stop to refer to feelings as knowledge. Faith is perfectly fine.
I am not sure, however, if, lets say, a believer like C.S. Lewis was more courageous than an atheist like Sigmund Freud.
Denial can look like courage and persistence but it is not a healthy attitude.
brailsmt,
“What I dont understand is why religion and faith are granted special purview over the questions.”
I’m not entirely certain what you mean by this. Could you clarify? As I noted, some people try to use empirical naturalism to answer these questions, so I don’t know why we should argue faith has a special purview. I don’t think empirical naturalism is particularly good at handling these questions, because these things are too subjective for standard objective testing. But being untestable objectively is hardly a reason to do away with some phenomenon entirely.
My position is that I think these questions potentially have answers and that I think that empirical naturalism isn’t capable of measuring supernatural phenomena. At best, it can say that it can’t test them; at worst, it dismisses them because it can’t test them. The reason I tie these two together is because I think the supernatural offers good information regarding these questions that are of interest to me. So, for me, rational answers to the terrible questions are largely irrelevant.
Hellmut,
I don’t tend to see faith as denial (with plenty of exceptions, of course), so I don’t think I’d suggest that C.S. Lewis is someone in denial (at least as regards faith). I do have a bias toward seeing faith as heroic (with the appropriate caveats) and I’m unlikely to find something wrong with that. However, I am also likely to see someone acting with conviction as somewhat heroic no matter what they are convicted of (within reason, once again. I don’t think much of the Lafferty’s, for example).
Regarding Freud, not having deeply studied his work, I tend to find it reductionist, which is a constant danger in the atheistic worldview (at least as much as in the religious worldview). We’re all tempted by easy explanations; that Freud chose particularly lurid easy explanations doesn’t make them inherently more insightful.
“What I dont understand is why religion and faith are granted special purview over the questions.
Im not entirely certain what you mean by this. Could you clarify?”
Well, first let me say that I may not be as schooled as some, but I am quite capable of being logical and rational. With that in mind, forgive any naivete on my part.
You stated “But you are right that there is no way for evidence to overthrow faith per se. Thats what I meant regarding its inability to ask the right questions.” Given this, I came to the following conclusions:
1) You do not believe that faith can be overthrown by evidence.
2) You are not alone in this belief, in fact, it is the prevalent thinking in our culture, and has been for thousands of years.
3) Given #1 it follows that you believe that faith alone can ask the right questions and provide the right answers.
4) Given #1, #2, #3, faith is granted a special status when it comes to the questions of the meaning/purpose of our existence.
I can think of numerous examples where faith has indeed been overthrown by evidence. Examples that have caused faith to change. These examples come from both general history (flat earth, geo-centricity, etc…), and from mormonism (Book of Abraham, Kinderhook, Salamander Letters, etc…). Despite this, the faithful continue to claim that evidence* cannot ask, or answer, the right questions. Why? Why is reason/evidence/science incapable of answering these questions? Are there counter examples where faith has overthrown reason/logic?
Secondly, you state “My position is that I think these questions potentially have answers and that I think that empirical naturalism isnt capable of measuring supernatural phenomena.” This raises several questions. Why do you believe these questions have answers? Secondly, if we grant the assumption that these questions are answerable, why is empiricism incapable of answering said questions? Thirdly, what do you mean by “supernatural”? If you mean those things which cannot be observed/explained naturally, then by definition, you have excluded the possiblity that these things will, at some future point, be understood, you have boxed yourself into the corner of our current understanding. That which was supernatural 100 years ago, is commonplace today (computers, flight, space flight, etc…). It is reasonable to expect that in 100 years, a portion of those things which we deem supernatural will be commonplace and well understood, through the methodical application of reason, not faith.
I reject the notion that there are questions which science/reason is incapable of answering. I grant, that there are things which, with our current understanding, we cannot explain, but we have the means by which we can methodically determine said answers. Faith provides no such promise, and has a dismal track record for revealing new truths which improve our lives.
* – I’m using “evidence” as a loose corollary to reason and the methodical methods of science. (lol)
Okay, now we are getting somewhere. This is a discussion about argumentation. So you have to make some decisions regarding what sort of data are relevant to your discussion, which means that you need to make decisions regarding what sort of questions you are asking (your question always determines the kind of answer you will get).
“1) You do not believe that faith can be overthrown by evidence.”
It depends on the evidence. Faith is established, primarily, by some sort of supernatural experience. Therefore, for the faithful, physical evidence and inference therefrom is less important than other considerations. Generally speaking, faithful people, when presented with new evidence (even if it appears contradictory to basic faith claims) will try to find a way to accommodate it within their faithful worldview. Some people have an easier time accomplishing this than others. I have no opinion as to why that might be; I don’t get it as there are believers and non-believers who know the same stuff and who equally appear to me to be people of integrity, intelligence, and sincerity. Ultimately, I put it down to comfort: knowing what they know, some people are comfortable remaining in religion and other people are not. Beyond that, I don’t get it and don’t expect to any time soon. In any case, I don’t think that any particular empirical theory is a God-killer or a faith-killer. I can appreciate that it might be useful for someone’s personal narrative to argue that something is, but I’m skeptical regarding its existence. Perhaps I’m the naive one here. That said, there are supernatural things that would cause me to question my faith. If I felt a strong prompting to kill someone or to lie or something similar, I would question the accuracy of my understanding. But that sort of questioning is already circular, because I don’t believe that God is going to ask me to kill someone. In any case, the faith-killers for me would tend to involve the supernatural more than empirical, naturalist things.
“2) You are not alone in this belief, in fact, it is the prevalent thinking in our culture, and has been for thousands of years.”
Woo-hoo! The popularity I’ve always craved.
“3) Given #1 it follows that you believe that faith alone can ask the right questions and provide the right answers.”
This doesn’t follow from #1 at all. I don’t follow the jump you are making. For clarity’s sake, I don’t think empirical naturalism can ask the right questions because empirical naturalism can’t answer questions of motive in people. Why would I expect it to be able to do it in the divine? There are limits on our observational power and our logical guesswork. That’s the point I’m making. In this, I’m not insisting that subjective, supernatural experience isn’t likewise limited. I am saying that I prefer some subjective answers because of subject experiences I have had. You don’t because you aren’t me and you haven’t had my experience, which is fine. One of me in the world is probably sufficient.
My message bos is too small. More in the next comment.
“4) Given #1, #2, #3, faith is granted a special status when it comes to the questions of the meaning/purpose of our existence.”
Only #3 leads to this and I hope I’ve explained why. That said, I believe that we can certainly guess regarding likely motives, with decent accuracy. So, if a husband kills his wife and I find out he has a mistress, I might guess that the existence of the mistress is related to motive. In this, I may be right or wrong, tho. 100% accuracy simply isn’t possible. Even our best guesses are based on models predicated on prior experience. Reason simply isn’t built to deal with data that is completely new or subjective. Regularity and repetition is what gives reason insight.
“I can think of numerous examples where faith has indeed been overthrown by evidence. Examples that have caused faith to change.”
Maybe this is our problem. I don’t equate overthrow to change.
“Despite this, the faithful continue to claim that evidence* cannot ask, or answer, the right questions. Why? Why is reason/evidence/science incapable of answering these questions?”
Once again, you have to be careful about the question you are asking. So, for instance, regarding the Kinderhook plates, one could ask: “Do the Kinderhook plates mean that Joseph Smith is a fraud?” Well, what would it take to prove Joseph Smith was a fraud? You would have to show willful intent to defraud, I suppose. So we have Joseph saying he thinks they are legit (I may be getting the history wrong, feel free to correct me) and then we don’t have him ever producing a translation. So, the evidence is ambiguous. Maybe he hadn’t studied them enough to know that they were fake yet when he first started, but then he realized they were fake and dropped it like a hot potato. Maybe he bought it hook, line, and sinker and there is a translation out there ready to be found (maybe it has been found, again, I don’t know the history sufficiently). Maybe, maybe, maybe… Everyone is going to pick the narrative that best fits their view of how frauds, prophets, and Joseph Smith ought to behave. Now you then have to ask if, once you conclude Joseph Smith was a fraud, whether that affects the things he wrote that you didn’t use to think were fraudulent. People will come to different conclusions. There are all sorts of Mormon churches that draw a line in time and argue that what Joseph did prior to it was legit and what he did after was bunk. Or, if you prefer, you can scrap the lot of it. There are more reactions and ways of assimilating it than just fraud or prophet. We will end to pick the one that makes the most sense to us.
But, of course, that is irrelevant to your question, I just realized. Think of it this way: suppose that we figured out that any human could walk on water if the right set of genes is switched on (and my ignorance of genetics shows up). Would that necessarily indicate that Christ’s purported ability to walk on water wasn’t a miracle? Of course not. Explanations don’t invalidate purported purposes; they can only comment on ways it may or may not have been done. Reason is great at providing explanations (and thank goodness). But reason can’t account for every facet of motive (and often does a poor job of accounting for any facet of motive). If you care to believe that there is a motive force behind the universe (to whatever degree) at best reason (by which I mean empirical naturalism) might help you figure out God’s toolkit and schematics; it can’t give you insight into His soul.
“Are there counter examples where faith has overthrown reason/logic?”
I don’t have a clue how often it happens in real life, but whenever a detective goes with their gut and gets the guy, that would be an example. Admittedly, that’s more a literary trope than a real-life event, but you get the idea.
More in the final comment for tonight
“If you mean those things which cannot be observed/explained naturally, then by definition, you have excluded the possiblity that these things will, at some future point, be understood, you have boxed yourself into the corner of our current understanding.”
Again, observation does not equate to explanation. Just because we see it, we can’t claim to understand why. Also, I don’t really think your examples of ancient magical thinking are apropos (but you may be more knowledgeable than I on the matter). I would have gone with reviving people from the dead (via those shocky things) and demonic possession (which is now some mental disorder). I figure that people used to imagine gods flying, but I’m unaware of prohibitions on it or negative connotations.
“It is reasonable to expect that in 100 years, a portion of those things which we deem supernatural will be commonplace and well understood, through the methodical application of reason, not faith.”
Excellent. An expression of faith in reason. It is fairly incapable of convincing people of moral certitude or divine presence today, but I’m sure that at some future point it will be. I’ll concede the argument to you if you’ll agree that this will take place after the Millennium.
“Faith provides no such promise, and has a dismal track record for revealing new truths which improve our lives.”
Dude, don’t confuse yourself with everybody. Plenty of people find what they consider to be new truths in religion and plenty of people have what they consider to be revelatory experiences. You may prefer to think of it as misfiring synapses, but that is still their description of their own experience (which you appear to be discounting as irrelevant). Just because you don’t feel religion was a force for good in your life (or, at least, any particular good) insisting that this isn’t the case is anyone’s (or even most religious people’s) life is laughably easy to disprove. See, for instance, Andrew’s comment above.
Oops, one last thing, by supernatural I mean something that doesn’t currently have a natural explanation. Usually supernatural events are not conventionally (empirically) testable and are not laboratory repeatable. In my experience, they involve contact with forces that seem to have their own motive force which appears to me to be different from my own. FWIW
Craig hit on some of my concerns with the term “supernatural”. If we relegate all unexplained things to the supernatural, this represents a incuriosity that puts us in danger of not seeking an explanation. It’s better to assume that something has a natural explanation and seek it empirically. This strategy has gotten us pretty far to date.
Also, anything that has an effect on the natural world (i.e. the world governed by physical laws) is by definition measurable. If the supernatural is immeasurable, then it is also irrelevant to the natural world that we live in.
In fact, anything that has an effect on the natural world is part of the natural world. This is why I can’t come up with a good definition of supernatural; there is no clear dividing line between the natural and the supernatural. It ends up being something like the definition of pornography: “I know it when I see it.”
Even if we stick to the definition that the supernatural is anything that is currently unexplained, this includes many things that will probably be explained by a better understanding of natural law at a future date.
Re 90:
John wrote:
Is this saying that it’s possible for the supernatural to “become” natural, if we develop better ‘conventional’ or ’empirical’ tools to test these things? Not to say that this is likely, but that it’s possible?
If it is *possible*, then why call these things supernatural simply because we do not have a natural explanation for them currently? For example, let’s say something like priesthood power represents something that is actually natural (e.g., midichlorians)…in this case, the supernatural would not be supernatural, but would it really matter (empirically discovering the priesthood for sure would be pretty awesome, IMO). It seems to me that trying to seek out such empirical confirmation would be more meaningful than throwing up our hands and saying, “Supernatural!” but then again, that’s my bias, perhaps.
And I recognize to that this search for empirical confirmation may not be so reductionist. For example, the tool we may need for laboratory testability (but which we currently don’t have, so we don’t see) may be something that is traditionally not employed in the lab (e.g., faith or something like that). But STILL, we should expect that if all the necessary ingredients are there (faith, etc., etc.,) that the said event should be (eventually) repeatable.
Andrew,
If the means of communication turn out to be natural, I’d still likely posit a supernatural motive force. And there is too much chaos in the system for faith experiments to be repeatable in any empirical or scientific sense. Spiritually, I think that we’ve got too many butterflies in Brazil. But I may be wrong and I can live with that.
re 93:
it has always been my understanding that “chaos” doesn’t represent randomness at all, but merely hyperorganization that we simply do not yet understand the pattern (which is fixed by initial conditions and VERY deterministic) to.
So, in other words, the supernatural motive force, at best (which it still doesn’t even make sense to me to say it’s supernatural) represents an initial condition or pattern that should — at least theoretically — be discoverable.
Andrew,
You may be right. I tend to think of chaos as having too many starting variables for us to adequately make predictions. But with computer processing power growing maybe we’ll one day be able to predict spiritual feeling along with the weather. Then again, maybe not.
Perhaps I am being obtuse. By supernatural motive force, I mean God. We may catch him stirring the air molecules over Bolivia someday, I suppose, but skeptical I remain. Are you trying to say that God isn’t supernatural or that we don’t need a God to explain it? I disagree with the first and agree with the second (faith is, to a large degree, a matter of preference). I prefer a world with God in it (and I think I am right to do so).
re 95
again, I feel what you say only pushes back the time of understandability, instead of creating a class of “supernaturality.” As you yourself say, it just needs more computer processing power or whatever.
This is why I do not pay heed to the supernatural. I think there could be *tons* of natural stuff that we don’t know enough about yet, but this doesn’t mean we should just slap the label supernatural on it. If something is worth paying attention to, it’s worth trying to figure out…even if it takes us trillions more teraHz processing power or whatever “instrument” is needed. I think we do a great disservice when we worship the unknown and resign ourselves to that unknown aspect.
So if God is worth trying to figure out (which, I’m supposing he is), then it’s worth figuring out in a naturalistic way. And I think that yes, this should reveal (if there is a God) that he works through naturalistic ways. I think Mormonism in PARTICULAR is more friendly to this idea (God doesn’t create ex nihilo…he organizes.) But if God cannot be figured out in a naturalistic way, then I feel like there’s no benefit from racking my brain over him because he doesn’t do anything to or for me, a being of the naturalist universe. Perhaps in such a case, we can come back to this question in a million years and maybe it’ll be closer then. (I see why you’d disagree…because I too would say that if God were merely hyperadvanced, but natural…why call him God?)
I guess if I had to talk about “preferences,” then I’d prefer a world that has the scintillating hint of understandability. I think naturalism gives us a road to understandability (doesn’t mean we’ll ever get to the end of that road…but still) and invocation of the supernaturalism essentially posits a house, a destination, that cannot be reached via the road. That isn’t satisfying in the least to me. And so many things about theism and religions seem to be about setting a destination that cannot be reached by road…so it’s not appealing.
For me, labeling something “God” rather than “the supernatural” doesn’t increase the explanatory power of a statement.
Andrew,
You are assuming that my labeling it supernatural indicates that I don’t think it appropriate to investigate it via science or something. That isn’t what I have said. What I have said is that science can’t currently handle it and that I think other means do. But I’m certainly not prohibiting other approaches.
As an example, Jeremy Bentham, at the beginning of the Enlightenment, believed that we would be able to quantitatively measure pleasure or happiness and use that data to make decisions regarding behavior. Obviously, he was overly optimistic regarding the possibilities of reason. At least to this point. There are some things that science, as presently constituted, isn’t equipped to handle. And if we are going to invoke science fiction to insist that science is ultimately capable of dealing with such things, then I don’t understand how it is superior to supernaturalist explanations for that. This isn’t to say that people shouldn’t pursue it, but I’m not particularly interested. I’m happy with the answers I’m getting now.
A difference between us is that I don’t see the natural and the supernatural as entirely discrete. In this I mean that I feel like the supernatural is capable of consciousness and motive force in a way that I don’t imagine the natural to be. This has to do with souls and such, the great soul/body divide or some such. But the soul isn’t 27 grams, it doesn’t appear to be something measurable at present. But that isn’t going to prevent me from believing in it.
Shoot. I don’t think that I am really addressing your points, but I am tired. Maybe I’ll be smarter tomorrow.
re 99: John,
oh? So do you think that science can *theoretically* investigate the supernatural? I was under the assumption that science is methodologically naturalist…
I agree with you when you say science currently is unequipped to handle certain things — that is what I was trying to say — but the buck stops at the border between natural and supernatural (wherever that is). Bentham hoped that pleasure was measurable under the idea that it was natural. He just didn’t have the tools to approach it quantitatively.
I think the supernatural and natural must be discrete, even as you use them, but not in the way you think. They are discrete because of how we *approach* them. The labeling of things as “supernatural” appears to “set apart” things so that no matter what, you’re going to hold certain concepts as worthy of reverence despite difficulties in investigating it naturally. If the soul were natural, then you might have to be wary of the reality that we don’t have a lot of hardcore evidence for it (this isn’t to say you would have to abandon belief in it — because obviously there are plenty of other persuasive arguments to convince you to believe). But if it’s supernatural, then it seems like the soul can just be revered no matter what. Perhaps investigation would be nice, but it isn’t necessary.
Emphasis mine
I find this statement extremely troubling. As you stated, the faithful will place less importance upon empirical observations, and will endeavor to fit new data with their worldview. This smacks of Crabtree’s Bludgeon.
I read all of your posts in response to mine, and I must admit that you had some well reasoned responses, however, in the end it came back to you reasserting that there are some things which cannot be answered by evidence alone (I agree, reason and logic are also required).
You stated, “there are supernatural things that would cause me to question my faith.” You also state that you call the “supernatural motive force” God. Therefore, I interpret your statements to be circular, ie, you will question your faith in God if God does something which would cause you to question. Or, you will question your faith of the supernatural (God), if the supernatural (God) causes you to question. This assumes the existence of a God.
Just as you have said that it is impossible to prove God does not exist, this is not the same as saying that God does exist. This brings us to the familiar territory of arguing for or against the existence of God. We can both argue until blue in the face and call upon Russell’s teapot, Pascal’s Wager, etc… in support of our positions, and we are unlikely to persuade the other. You have likely heard the arguments before, as I have from the other side.
re 95:
Now talking about computability, this is my field. There is an entire, vexing class of problems labeled NP-complete in the realm of computer science. NP-complete is simply the notion that there are problems which will complete or be solved in an Nondeterministic Polynomial execution time. We basically, cannot expect to solve such problems in any sort of predetermined amount of time because of their complexity, given our current computing power and mathematical models.
I think this is a good analog to our current debate. We have a problem domain which has vexed us for thousands of years. That being our purpose, the meaning of life, how we relate to the cosmos, God, etc… This set of problems is not something which we can reasonably expect to understand and solve with any certainty with our current methods of observation, our current mathematical models, our current computing power, etc… However, we are getting better all the time at explaining these or exploring these questions. We are in the very infancy of understanding the neurological processes in our brain, we have been using computer models for only roughly 50 years, we are refining instruments capable of measuring things on a much finer and much grander scale than ever before. We are beginning to grapple with the definition of life at the cellular level in order to understand the genesis of life.
It seems defeatist to me to claim that there are realms which cannot be understood by evidence and reason. It is tantamount to saying that because we do not currently understand things which you would classify as spiritual, we will forever be incapable of such understanding. This returns to my original question of why? Why are you so certain that those things which you deem spiritual will always lie outside the ability of evidence and reason to explain?
Andrew,
It’s been 200 years and we still can’t quantify happiness. The idea that we can is a bit ludicrous. If you are talking about advances in science that are going to be measured in centuries, then I am just fine calling it a sufficiently advanced technology (if you know what I mean). I suppose that I am not finding a difference between your science fiction and my fantasy.
As to the natural/supernatural divide, I’m perfectly happy with your last sentence. So that might be the difference.
brailsmt,
Calling arguments from religion circular is like calling circles round. You find my faith unreasonable? I’m shocked, SHOCKED!
I believe because I’m convinced by what I have experienced. What I experienced invokes the supernatural to my mind (get back to me 1,000 years from now and I’ll let you know if I’ve changed my mind). I don’t expect that to be convincing to anyone else (I’m not really trying to convince you guys of anything other than intelligent people can choose to believe and not be dupes, idiots, or collaborators).
“It seems defeatist to me to claim that there are realms which cannot be understood by evidence and reason.”
It seems defeatist to me to assume that there aren’t, especially after you and I both acknowledged the limits of human reason. Perhaps you wish you were a robot (ala Veridian Dynamics)?
As to your last question, may I ask one? What do you think would be sufficient evidence to establish that there is no God?
“What do you think would be sufficient evidence to establish that there is no God?”
I don’t think evidence alone can prove the non-existence of anything. Just like I could not produce enough evidence to disprove the existence of Russell’s Teapot, I cannot produce enough evidence to disprove the existence of god. As I stated, this is not the same as admitting he does exist. Perhaps the most meaningful logical argument against god, is for me, the Problem of Evil.
However, this is all somewhat beside the point. I do not have to establish that god does not exist. The burden to prove his existence belongs to those that make the positive claim. If I claim to have found Santa Claus’s north pole domicile, it is not you that must disprove the claim. It is I that must provide the proof of the claim. Until such a time as I do provide proof, the prudent approach is to remain highly skeptical of the claim. So it is with god, notwithstanding the long tradition of western civilization.
Furthermore, claims that god exists are not falsifiable. As such it is impossible to disprove the claim because of the way the claim is made. I do not believe god exists, but if verifiable, repeatable evidence was provided that proved his existence, I would believe. Such a thing does not exist, and personal anecdotes or personal convictions and experiences are meaningless, IMO, because they are simply Appeals to Emotion, which is a well known logical fallacy. Until such a time as it is proven that there is a difference between “feeling the spirit” and feeling a positive emotion, I will also remain highly skeptical of the claim that there is a difference.
“Im not really trying to convince you guys of anything other than intelligent people can choose to believe and not be dupes, idiots, or collaborators”
There is no need for you to convince me of this, I do not think all believers are dupes, idiots or collaborators. I hope you also feel that those of us that have left the church are not all sinners, weak or easily offended.
I think that any reasonably intelligent person is capable of providing convincing arguments for either side of a debate, and it is a mark of intelligence to be able to see the validity in the claims of a position which is not your own. With that said, I do not feel that all sides of a debate to have equal merit simply because they can both be supported by reasonable and intelligent people.
Just to clarify, by saying “personal anecdotes or personal convictions and experiences are meaningless” I did not intend to imply that they are meaningless in the general sense. They are very meaningful to the person who has had such experiences and feelings. I should have stated that they are irrelevant to establishing the truth of a claim. It is feasible that I could receive a very strong personal conviction that 2+2 is 5, it matters not how strongly I might feel this, I would still be wrong.
“Its been 200 years and we still cant quantify happiness.”
This is actually a relatively recent effort known as positive psychology. Until recently, the scientific community hasn’t made much of an effort to study happiness. And there are some indications from research about what makes us happy.
Anyway, the claim that belief in the supernatural is necessary to achieve optimal happiness or is a surer path to optimal happiness seems dubious to me. In my personal case, I am much more satisfied with myself and generally feel happier since I rejected religion. Some may be happier inside of religion, but I’m not.
So it’s not religion or belief in the supernatural/God per se that makes us happy, not universally anyway. And it is possible (for some?) to live happily without embracing and accepting irrationality.
brailsmst,
Well, good. I’m glad that we agree that the supernatural (if it exists) is not identifiable via empirical naturalism. What are we arguing about again? Also, I am happy to say that (as far as I know) you are no more a sinner, a weak person, or an easily offended person than I am. Thank goodness we can set aside all these useless stereotypes, no? As to the relevance of personal anecdote to the truth of a claim, it depends on the claim, doesn’t it? Some claims aren’t meant to be objectively generalizable; does their anecdotal nature somehow make them invalid as a result?
Jonathan,
While I do think that belief in the divine is necessary to achieve optimal happiness, I don’t remember making that claim, as it strikes me as insupportable (especially after I just said that we can’t quantify happiness). I know I’m a hypocrite, but hopefully I’m not that obvious of one.
Of course, it is possible for someone to live happily while eschewing irrationality. In theory, at least. In fact, I tend to think taking irrationality out of people isn’t possible, so this is all a bit of a moot point.
“Im glad that we agree that the supernatural (if it exists) is not identifiable via empirical naturalism.”
I did not make that statement. You asked what evidence would be sufficient to disprove god. I said that evidence alone cannot prove the non-existence of something. That is not the same as agreeing with you. It seems you are focusing only on evidence and the supernatural (god). If you define the supernatural as that which does not have evidence in the natural world, then your definition preempts any discussion. If you are claiming that a lack of evidence against the supernatural is a basis for a claim for the existence of the supernatural, then there is no point in debating such a fallacy. I’m fairly certain you aren’t making this claim (at least I hope).
My original question is why the terrible questions mentioned require an answer, and why only faith is equipped to answer them, and why you are certain you are correct. We have fairly well discussed what you mean by the supernatural, but I’m not sure this brings us any closer to the question of why the supernatural has answers to those questions where evidence *and* reason do not. Nor does it bring us closer as to why it is necessary for these questions have answers in the first place.
I’m relatively certain I’ve provided my answers to those questions. I’m also fairly certain that I’ve expressed my okayness with your decision to ignore those question. So, barring some exciting new evidence, we’re done here, no?
re 103:
John,
This is the WORST non sequitur I have ever heard. “It’s been (insert amount of time) and we haven’t been able to (figure something out quantitatively). Therefore, it must not be able to be figured out quantitatively.”
This is as fallacious as the argument, “In (several) thousands of years of recorded human history, we have not found empirical evidence of God. Therefore, it must not exist.” Or the theist’s answer, “No, therefore, God is not empirical/natural.”
I think the difference, if you’re going to call mine “science fiction” and yours “fantasy,” is that we can *do nothing* with your fantasy. It is just there. But it cannot be interfaced whatsoever. at least with the science fiction, we are trying to interface with and investigate. Fantasists are giving up, essentially.
Still, I don’t think I’m as optimistic or naive as you may think. When I say things like, “We have a road to the *possibility* or *hint* of understanding,” this isn’t to mean that we ever will understand, or that we can, in fact, understand. So, I think science fiction is saying that we WILL understand, that we WILL progress infinitely, and things like that. No, I don’t accept that. I’m only allowing for the theoretical possibility — on the other hand, your position is a flat-out rejection of the theoretical possibility. “Based on a (rather short) period of time, I conclude that we cannot quantitatively measure happiness!”
Andrew,
I’m not cutting off the possibility (how would I do that?). I could be dead wrong about our future ability to quantify happiness (though I doubt I am). But the point is that you are defending reason by pointing to possibilities that are, at present and for the foreseeable future, fantastic. If you can’t see the irony there, I don’t know what to say.
And there is a possibility that you can do something with the fantasy, but only those who buy in are doing it. I’m not fighting hard for that possibility here, because I doubt you are interested in buying in and without that there is no point in having the conversation.
re 112:
You’d cut off the possibility through your words and attitude.
My question is…how is a “possibility” fantastic? A “definitiveness” is perhaps fantastic (e.g., we will quantify it. Definitely.) But a possibility is not fantastic because it isn’t bold enough. So, I don’t see the irony (and I guess you don’t know what to say).
So we are at an impasse.
Andrew,
I don’t have that sort of power (only the power of Greyskull). Sure possibilities are fantastic. It’s possible that tomorrow we will develop the ability to fly. It’s possible that monkeys and keyboards and infinity and Shakespeare. All sorts of unlikely possibilities are fantastic. I just don’t see yours are somehow less fantastic than mine. Both require a certain suspension of disbelief, for instance.
I agree that we are at an impasse, however. Let’s let sleeping threads lie, shall we?
re 114:
Actually, it’s not the “possility” that is fantastic…is it the limits or the parameters you set on them. If you say “It’s possible that tomorrow we will develop the ability to fly,” this is fantastic.
But if you say, “It’s possible that sometime we may develop the ability to fly,” this isn’t a bold, ambitious, or fantastic statement.
If we applied this ambiguation to religion and the supernatural that I *already* apply to my statements, however, then religion would look vastly different than what it does. (I think it would be vastly better, too…much more humble).
So please don’t misunderstand me while we are at impasse. I’m not as optimistic or naive as you might think. I’m not saying, “It’s possible that tomorrow we will develop the ability to fly” or anything of that strength and boldness.
Andrew,
When my son was young, he wanted to grow up to be a panda. This isn’t impossible, I suppose, but it is sufficiently unlikely that labeling it fantasy doesn’t seem unreasonable. If you want to discuss the lengths of time necessary to make sprouting wings, thinning bones, and so forth necessary to create flying humanity, that’s fine, I guess, but at those distances any speculation is equally fantastic (for all the possibility that it might turn out to be true). Why not insist humans will get a third eye? Develop a reason for the appendix? Figure out the infield fly rule? If you want to speculate about human and natural possibility, have at it, but it seems just as fantastic to me as anything religious folk have dreamed up.
I was struck by Contact, back in the day, because Carl Sagan seemed to believe that instead of have an all-powerful, loving creator who made mankind, it was better to have all-powerful, loving aliens who made mankind (I’m garbling it, I’m sure. It’s been a while since I saw the movie and I’ve never read the book). I’ve yet to hear evidence that convinces me that the superiority of Sagan’s theory was that it was more likely.
John,
Why not insist? Because “insisting” is not the language of “possibility” to the language of definitiveness. Definitiveness is the problem. Narrow boundaries are the problem.
Carl Sagan is a SETI proponent. The definitiveness of his propositions (and of SETI proponents in general) is what makes him ludicrous. (Especially clinging to claims such as “all-powerful” and “loving” or whatever.) But the categorical difference is that Sagan is trying to describe a natural solution, whereas you say supernatural.
This is the distinction. At least a natural claim invites discussion (in fact, the claim of naturality is what allows you to be so skeptic because you recognize that now, there is not too much evidence that is persuasive to you). However, if aliens are natural, then at least we have the possibility of coming to discover them and describe them. A claim of supernaturality, however, closes off and precludes discussion. So the skeptic, some would say, “just needs more faith.” or whatever. Skepticism is seen as inferior or invalid.
supernature doesn’t preclude discussion (what is it exactly that you think we do over in the Bloggernacle?). Both naturalists and supernaturalists have entry requirements for participation in a discussion (in full fellowship, at least). Even the foyer isn’t a completely open forum. Sure, some discussions are less likely and other more, but that’s true of any community. So we are back to the notion that we are just taking different approaches to ultimate meaning and such. And neither is obviously better than the other, says me.
So much to respond to. 🙂
I agree that we will ever completely completely eschew irrationality. I believe however that we can and should work to minimize it and keep it in its place.
Regarding fantasy, the discussion reminds me of mathematicians. They are infamous for saying “It can be proven that X” without bothering to prove X. They’re often only concerned that X can be proven in principle. (chanson, can you back me up here?)
So anything that affects the natural world (i.e. the world governed by natural law) can be measured and tested in principle. Therefore, the supernatural (i.e. something that cannot be measured in principle) cannot have an effect on the natural world, else it would be measurable. (Proof by contradiction.)
So if God affects the natural world in any way, we will be able to measure and explain it… in principle. And God would be therefore not be supernatural.
Regarding benevolent aliens, isn’t Carl Sagan’s (blessed be his memory) theory essentially identical to what Mormonism teaches? Highly intelligent scientist/creator from another planet doing on this world what has been done on other worlds, seeding life, etc.? 🙂
re 118: John,
With the natural (e.g., what you did with Sagan), your ideas may be criticized. They may be skeptically reviewed. You are also free to engage in the critical review yourself! With the supernatural, there’s a kind of zone of veneration and deference. The supernatural is taken for granted. This is what I mean by preclusion for discussion.
And you should know that! You should know more than most of us (well not me, because I’m one of your outlaws :3) that the Bloggernacle has certain “OK” zones and certain zones which cannot be crossed. The site you are a member at (BCC, not FPR…although perhaps FPR does the same) is NOTORIOUS for shutting down the conversation whenever it feels like, or for shutting out certain commenters when they don’t “match the tone”.
And I mean, this gets into a discussion of what is reasonable vs. unreasonable censorship (and there’s another impasse), etc., but I find it odd that you’d say there is *no* preclusion of discussion when one of your last comments in one of these pertaining to one of these blog posts was a scathing response telling all the DAMU visitors, in more or less words, to stay on their own side of the internet forever.
I mean, I can’t speak for everyone here, so maybe chanson or the others censor right and left, but basically, if you’re worried that MSP isn’t letting your comment through, it’s because 1) somehow, you have to be manually added and an admin may not be here at the moment or 2) the site’s on the fritz (I will admit our software and hardware disagrees with us sometimes). And MAYBE if you are CLEARLY spamming (like, unintelligible spam with tons of off-topical links). It’s not because “the tone” is off. It’s not because “We dont like you. We dont like your comments. We dont like the manner in which you conduct yourself. We dont like how you blame others for your problems. Go away. Dont come back. Leave forever. Take a hammer to your computer. Move to Montana and conduct all your business by mail. Die a horrible lonely death. Leave us alone.” and so on.
Jonathan,
It may simply be that I think it is fine for irrationality to play a larger role in life than you would like (or that I may admit it does).
Regarding the natural as a cloak for the supernatural, I don’t agree. I can imagine it being possible for the supernatural to affect the natural, possibly even using natural means, with itself being natural. But I may, as always, be dead wrong with that. Many Mormons, for instance, seem to believe that God operates exclusively via natural means and that he is sorta natural. I don’t subscribe to that view, because you have to do too many twists to make it work in my opinion, but it is out there.
Andrew,
If a TBM showed up in the foyer and started calling everyone to repentance, that would be frowned upon behavior. And a discussion of whether or not Elder Packer or Elder McConkie has a better approach to some doctrinal chestnut isn’t going to get very far in that forum either (I can’t speak for this forum because I don’t generally follow it). If you think that operating in the DAMU places you in some blissful no censorship zone on the internet, that a fine delusion to have, I suppose, but it ain’t so. There are behavioral norms and those norms tend to get enforced. That applies everywhere.
Every DAMU person who contributed to that thread was coming in angry and looking to pick a fight. Heck, brailsmt’s last comment (possibly deleted) was him picking a fight with ZD Eve, who essentially agreed with him. I’m sure that it might be more polite to let the horde overturn the tables, but we’ll pass thanks. Also, I’m egotistical enough to love my prose (you forgot the part where I invited folks to come back once they got the angry out (I may have even been sincere (admittedly, at that point it was hard to tell(also, die a horrible lonely death was probably a little too much for the DAMU-ers that day; how about “Die surrounded by loved ones”(That said, I’d still use the old version for Mike, who just wouldn’t take a hint or even a straight up assertion))))).
In order to have a conversation about the supernatural, you do have to take it for granted. I don’t deny that, but I don’t think that it invalidates it in some way. It just establishes the entry fee for being taken seriously. To have a conversation about it’s existence, I don’t think you do, but the existence of the supernatural isn’t generally established for people via argumentation (otherwise, Socrates and Plato would be are greatest spiritual guides). So you have the Bloggernacle, where people assume that they are talking about something real, if subjective, and they have lots of conversations about what that means to them. They even go so far as to try and persuade one another (and sometimes succeed without the invocation of divine intervention). Completely irrational, all of it, I am sure.
Finally, I founded FPR. I invited everybody who is there now in (except maybe Yellow Dart). You clearly don’t know my history.
*without itself being natural
If the supernatural uses natural means to affect the natural world, then the effect of that natural means can be measured, and the supernatural’s influence on the natural can be detected and investigated. The effect would be detectable as a violation of natural laws. If the supernatural never violates natural laws, then the distinction between natural and supernatural is meaningless.
re 121:
If a TBM showed up in the foyer and started calling everyone to repentance, that would be frowned upon. but the TBM would not be banned. If the hypothetical Packer/McConkie discussion occurred, there’d be loud voices against it. But the discussion would not be banned.
With the Foyer, there is scrutinizing. There is criticism. There are heated discussions. Don’t get me wrong. Everything is not sunshine and daisies and I’m not saying it is. You have to back up what you say or face the consequences.
On the other hand, this is not the case in other places (I do understand that this isn’t even the case for New Order Mormon, so perhaps that would be a better example of DAMU censorship). Perhaps you will be banned from discussion.
It seems you are trying to equivocate some things. If we can have a discussion even if some people “frown” — this is fine. This is not a problem. If we can’t have a discussion because things will be shut down by the powers that be eventually…then obviously, discussion is impossible. Again, you may agree with the BCC shutting down certain discussions — this again gets us into the no-man’s land territory of justified damage control and censorship.
The problem with taking the supernatural for granted is that it precludes one rather important subset of conversation — the conversation about what if it isn’t real?
Finally…uhhhh…NO MAN KNOWS YOUR HISTORY :D. i couldn’t resist.
Jonathan,
I don’t disagree with anything you just said. I’m just open to violations of natural law.
Andrew,
I’m perfectly willing to put it to the test. I’ll just go over to thefoyer and be as obnoxious as possible. We’ll see how long I last. You wanna dare me? It’s not like I have a good reputation there to lose.
It isn’t the discussion that gets me riled it’s the behavior and the likelihood that it will go somewhere. Spinning wheels isn’t interesting to me. Flame wars aren’t particularly interesting to me. When I see the potential to either, I’ll ask about moving along the topic. Also, if you show up and act like a jerk or a troll, that will usually get you booted.
Also, I should note that I don’t speak for the powers-that-be at BCC. So take everything I say with a grain of salt. I don’t decide who lives and who dies.
Regarding discussing the supernatural, I addressed that in my comment. If your response to any discussion of the supernatural is to say, “Why are we even having this conversation?” that’s a bit of a conversation killer. And now you know why you don’t get invited to cool medium parties. 😉
Well, we haven’t found evidence of the violation of natural laws or what we understand of them anyway. They seem to hold true in experiment. If they seem to be violated, it has always led to more fundamental laws, not to someone apparently twiddling with reality.
I would like to draw a distinction between the faith that I think helps us and superstition which I think harms us.
Faith helps us to move out into the impossible as Arthur C. Clarke put it. It allows us to transcend current knowledge in order to find new knowledge. It gives to artists their vision, to scientists their hunches and their hypotheses, and to activists their hope for a better future. Faith speculates based on current knowledge but cannot guarantee success. It allows us to move forward in the face of uncertainty. It expands our horizons.
Superstition, by contrast, has no solid basis in current knowledge. It may even be refuted by available evidence. It may even lie beyond the reach of future verification. It propagates through our ignorance and fear. It confers a false hope in the face of uncertainty. Superstition stultifies and closes us off to future advancement.
I see prayer as a commonly practiced example of a superstition. We’ve attempted to verify the efficacy of prayer on behalf of others. It’s not clear that such prayer has any effect. The example that helped me to give up my own superstition was prayer for those with amputated limbs. No one has recovered a limb, whether they were prayed for or not, without the intervention of human medicine. If prayer were effective, why are amputees left out?
From what I can tell, religious faith often amounts to little more than superstition.
Jonathan,
In my understanding of my experience, prayer has been effective and I imagine that it will continue to be so. So, when faced with the choice of your experience and mine, I’ll go with mine. FWIW
I understand that prayer can have beneficial effects indistinguishable from those of non-theistic meditation. Let’s make sure that we’re not talking about that kind of thing.
However, when someone says “I prayed and my father got better, therefore prayer works,” it brings prayer within the realm of the testable. Such personal judgments are too subject to biases and distortion. We’re too ready to see patterns where there are none, too ready to count prayer’s hits but not its misses.
The only way to tell if praying to Vishnu has any real effect on the health of our loved ones is to perform tests. Most religious folk don’t care to subject their beliefs to the test (a good sign of superstition). In other words, they’re afraid to find out the truth.
So our personal experiences and feelings aren’t worth much when we’re trying to determine the efficacy of prayer. It’s too small a sample and too biased an observer.
There are too many factors in prayer to be accounted for in objective testing. Faith (on the part of the pray-er and the prayee; God’s will; what is and ain’t possible; butterflies in Brazil). If we knew what we were looking for, we might be able to fashion a test, but we don’t and there is a sufficiently large number of variables as to make it senseless to try at present.
Besides, no amount of testing is going to convince the convinced that they are wrong. It wasn’t the testing that convinced them that they were right.
Those all sound like rationalizations. Science has been pretty successful at teasing out significant factors in complex situations. Why not in principle with prayer?
Someone somewhere said pretty much the same thing as you have. I wish I could remember the quote exactly, but basically, what wasn’t reasoned into can’t be reasoned out of. I agree mostly, except it’s not always true. Reason (and testing a hypothesis about prayer) convinced me.
As much as I appreciate sign-seeking or perhaps egomania failed to produce new limbs in amputees, I fail to understand why your failed attempt is applicable to me and my relationship to prayer. I’m pretty sure that we’re done here so, barring some remarkable development in the scientific study of the evil that dwells in the hearts of man, I’m gonna pull out. Have a nice day.
I’ve been accused of needing to have the last word before. I don’t want to believe that about myself, so I’m loath to continue a discussion after it’s over.
But (of course there’s a but) the turn that our conversation took is an excellent example of what Andrew has been trying to say about the supernatural. Toss the supernatural into a conversation and it leads it down a dead end street where no useful conclusion can be made.
You say we have to factor in God’s will if we want to test prayer. No one is competent to speak for God’s will, so this puts prayer beyond discussion and therefore beyond usefulness.
Someone prays for their sick aunt and they get better? Must not have been God’s will that she die. Someone else prayed that their father would beat the cancer but he died anyway? God must have wanted him to come to Heaven. There is thus no way to disconfirm the efficacy of prayer.
There is no result that would lead the believer to say that prayer doesn’t work. Under these conditions, saying that prayer works doesn’t provide information; the statement has no real content, only the appearance of saying something. Someone who believes that prayer works has no way of knowing what effect their prayers will have. Maybe they’ll get what they want, maybe they won’t. So why even ask in the first place?
No one who uses this kind of logic can say truthfully that their experiences led them to believe in prayer. Something other than their experiences and logic led them to that conclusion. Childhood teaching when we’re the most vulnerable to indoctrination may be one factor. The will to believe may be another. In any case, it is only a pretense to themselves and others that they are being reasonable in believing in prayer.
I find the sign-seeking defense frustratingly hypocritical. First, God didn’t seem to mind splitting the Red Sea for the skeptical Israelites, or raising the dead Lazarus, or letting Thomas feel the nail and spear wounds. Why should he refuse to offer me a reason to believe? Why am I different than those other skeptics?
Second, almost every believer that I’ve met is a skeptic at heart, except for the case of their own religion. If I came to them and claimed that making oblations to Cthulhu had made me wealthy, they would doubt me and demand some form of proof. That’s why I say the sign-seeking defense is hypocritical.
This is where superstition (the refusal to submit our faith to the test) leads us.
Johnathon-
“I see prayer as a commonly practiced example of a superstition. Weve attempted to verify the efficacy of prayer on behalf of others. Its not clear that such prayer has any effect.”
I cannot vouch for limbs growing back as a result of prayer; however in the mental health realm there has recently been some evidence that faith healing, prayer etc. In areas where traditional healing practices (shaman, medicine men) are available along with secular western medicine and mental health practices are available. Tests have shown that individuals with mental illness have a faster and more effective healing rate when treated by their shaman than when treated with Western
practices.
This includes what may appear to western doctors as purely physical illness.
The healing rates of Schizophrenia in cultures where “mentally ill” individuals are treated by shaman are also better than cultures, such as the U.S., where these illnesses are treated with medication. Other non-religious practices.
Such studies are usually not double blind trials. Were the recipients of shamanic prayer aware that they were being prayed for?
Also, was the control group pulled from the same population but their shamans instructed to refrain from praying for them?
Jonathan-
If you did carry out a test I doubt that you would get any decent results. I don’t know that it is possible to quantify experience. If you did carry out such a test your results would only give you a range any way.
Psychologists have yet to come up with a reliable test to measure emotion, even fmri tests and eeg tests which map brain centers are not effective at explaining reactions our emotional reactions to our environment. So, I doubt that doing scientific analysis on prayer would be very effective.
I don’t need proof of the power of prayer to a god because in my experience I have not found such beliefs as effective. My experience is not enough for me to take a position on someone else’s faith.
Here is a pretty comprehensive and seemingly honest review of prayer studies: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/27.43.html
There are studies that show both positive and negative effects. There are more studies that show no effect at all.
Wayne,
Science still struggles with measuring emotional responses. Their methods remain crude, but are getting better.
I’m not after emotional responses and experiences, though. Unless we’re talking about measuring the faith of the pray-er, then I am most interested in prayer’s effects on measurable things like health and wealth. I’m basically gunning for the theistic god who answers prayers with worldly effects (e.g. the proverbial surprise check after paying tithing despite not having enough money to pay the bills, or the miraculous healing of someone after being prayed over).
Hellmut-fascinating article. I liked the authors conclusion ” God is so generous you don’t really need to pray” It seems to me that St. Francis came to that same conclusion while watching a bird eat.
Anyway, it seems that a study would be just as effective if it just compared the mean healing rates between those who pray and those who don’t. It would give you just as much info and it would not have to be double blind.
Johnathan- Frankly, I am far to skeptical about the power of prayer to even want to study it out side of the realm of how prayer interacts with mental health. That is entirely other conversation.
And now to belabor the point. I spoke with one of my psych. professors about this subject(she is into symbolic healing) She pointed me toward several tests. Here is a link to one.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9375429
There are several others if you go to google scholar and look for double blind studies and prayer.