All Activity

I'm not sure how acknowledging what the official doctrine was and what local members genuinely believed "downplays" their sacrifice. They sacrificed because they loved God and believed their local leaders. Is it not entirely fair to parcel out what people in an era believed and official doctrine without being accused of undermining either? In any religious movement, grassroots popular theology often expands beyond the official canon. In 1880s Utah, local pulpits heavily emphasized plural marriage as the supreme mark of faith. As a result, many ordinary members like Bent Larsen and Lorena grew up believing it was the only way to the highest degree of glory. Bent Larsen was not a man of means, but local leaders often called and cleared ordinary faithful men, not just wealthy men. You can hold both truths together A. The lived experience of Lorena and thousands like them were taught at the local ward level that plural marriage was mandatory for the highest celestial degree, and they courageously sacrificed everything based on that belief. B. Whereas Brigham Young in the 1869 School of the Prophets to post-Manifesto presidency clarifications maintained that eternal sealing was the essential requirement, and that faithful monogamists who embraced the covenant in their heart inherited full exaltation. Can we be allowed to look at history objectively and hold these two distinct historical realities at once? Or is the driving force behind your argument at its core just a moral indictment of Brigham Young? Maybe you want to lay the emotional, domestic, and physical suffering of Saints like Lorena Washburn directly at the feet of Brigham Young? When you realized that top-level theological clarifications, like Brigham’s 1869 statement, don't support a universal requirement, are you then pivoting by questioning my moral responsibility for what I believe in this matter?

This is dangerous empathy imo, if this is all the info we are given. A great example of it. Now they can both freeze/get hyperthermia and die while feeling comfort in each other’s presence. On the emotional side it is wonderful, being willing to endure with a sufferer so they are not alone. That is love. But it might be stupid love. If that was the only option, that might be the right choice (Is Thomas a father or husband? If he is, does John even want him down there risking his life knowing he is responsible because Thomas gave him priority in that moment because I sure wouldn’t.) There may be times when going in the ditch and suffering and even dying with another is the right thing to do. Not all the time. However, acting like something is harmful to others or suicide when it’s not is ridiculous and self centered. So is abandonment and doing nothing just because the extreme isn’t wise. If no one else would be significantly harmed by one’s death, if it would be a miserable time, but both would survive with maybe some frostbite instead of John dying, etc. Inflating the risks for one’s own benefit is wrong. Making the other into something that doesn’t deserve companionship or comforting is sinful, imo. A healthier version would be to tell Samuel to let John know he went to look for something to help pull him out, though it might take some time. Maybe throw down his coat if that wouldn’t impede him in going for help. Then once help came and they got John out, that is the time to stay with him until he is back able to care for himself. Or if he could trust Samuel to intelligently look for help and not waste time, then Thomas could safely get in the ditch and wait with John until Samuel got back.

You’re right. I misread a phrase in your post and reversed the meaning. My bad.

While it is probably a bit silly to try to gatekeep who is a true Christian I think dechristianizing is less likely to lead to outright cruelty the way dehumanization does. I mean, saying the Cathars weren’t Christians ended up having a similar effect but I think it is less likely to happen today.

I am not sure where you got this. Not following your thought iow. I just posted how it seemed they were complaining how wrong something was (insisting on conversion before engagement) when the other guy did it while acting like it was the righteous, healthy thing to do when they did it (repent first and then we will talk). Which we apparently agree appears to be happening here. I am willing to listen if someone who is doing this believes it’s not. So that might be what you mean…I am open to there being another possibility, though it seems unlikely.

Wow! I will say a hearty Amen to that. Maybe we are saying the same thing. This is how I am putting it:

deleted

I am not looking for a response, but I am wondering if our (LDS and non-LDS Christian) missionary efforts are not at times guilty of "deChristianizing the desire target." I wonder if there is a significant difference between dehumanizing and deChristianizing our targets, especially if we think of it in terms of doing symbolic violence to the other. Both non-LDS Christians and the LDS-Christians deChristianize all others who are not them. This starts out culturally and soon is integrated into doctrine. Then into dogma. Then it may become moral disengagement (I am trying to use that new term), even when it is meant to "advance the kingdom." What could be more justifiable than that? In college, I was president of the Student Missionary Fellowship. As an adult, I served on the International Council of one of the largest Evangelical (uh-oh!) mission organizations in the world. Now as a 77 year old, I look back on all of that and reflect! I don't say any of this to diminish anyone but myself. It is wonderful to be old and to look back and "ponder" on all I have thought, believed, and done. Just my own personal reflection.

I like this analogy of the difference of empathy and sympathy: The Muddy Trench Two friends, Thomas and Samuel, were walking home through the countryside when they came across a neighbor, John. John had slipped off the main path and fallen deep into a muddy, rain-filled trench. He was cold, soaked, and utterly stuck, looking up at the steep, slick banks with a face full of despair. Samuel rushed to the edge of the pit. He looked down at John, shook his head with pity, and said, “Oh, John, I am so incredibly sorry you are down there. That looks terrible. It must be so cold and miserable. I truly feel awful that this happened to you. Stay strong, my friend!” Samuel stood at the top where it was dry, wringing his hands and offering comforting words from safety. This was sympathy. Samuel felt pity for John’s situation, but he remained separated from it, looking down from above. Thomas did something different. Without a second thought, Thomas slid right down the slick, muddy bank into the trench. He dropped to his knees in the cold muck right next to John. He didn’t offer a speech. He just sat in the mud, wrapped his arm around John’s shivering shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “I’m here,” Thomas said quietly. “It’s freezing down here, and it feels completely overwhelming. I’m going to sit here with you in the dark until we figure out how to climb out together.” This was empathy. Thomas didn’t just look down with pity; he chose to enter into John's suffering, to feel what he felt, and to connect with him on his level.

You are assuming consistency and fairness is valued. They complain that all these degenerates are trying to force them to affirm and agree with their views while they are busy privileging their own views. You can see why they dislike empathy. It might make them realize that they are doing what they are accusing others of doing. The old line still applies: “Every accusation is a confession.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_disengagement Short version is that it is a method of convincing yourself or others that moral standards don’t apply in some circumstances. You shut down the willingness to condemn yourself for immoral behavior. You reframe this behavior as morally acceptable or good while maintaining the moral standard as still being good. It just has a bunch of exceptions. It has a lot of forms but probably the most dangerous is dehumanization. When people are being called animals or inhuman or are portrayed as a kind of disease or infection it turns immoral actions into putting down a horse with a broken leg or healing the nation or the religious movement or whatever of a dangerous infection. “illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation.” ”illegal alien animal” ”The woke mind virus” “***** Derangement Syndrome (TDS)” ”LGBTQIA groomers” ”Transgender witches” Denying basic humanity and declaring that people are a disease or an impurity. Christians are specifically susceptible to this kind of rhetoric since the Old Testament is full of it. God spends a lot of time lambasting the Israelites for not genociding hard enough and now the enemy who were spared are corrupting the nation with their weird religious practices and immorality and yada yada yada. Here is a fictional “good guy” justifying destroying a planet to preserve a greater whole:

You can’t talk with someone before they agree with your view of discipleship? Because that seems to me to be what repentance is meaning here. If anyone here holds this view (seems unlikely because they are here discussing stuff with others who follow Christ in different ways, including some who don’t view him as God even if they might agree with somethings attributed to him), would be interested in clarification because it seems identical to what the ones quoted are claiming others are doing when the others allegedly demand “affirm their feelings and choices as valid, justified, and good”, only it is feelings and choices about beliefs of God and how to follow him.

There's a certainty word again - "definitely." I would suggest that if we are looking at conservative as a broad-based adjective examined in its entirety, that in my experience in US and Mexican-based Christianity, Black Protestant Christians and Hispanic Christians may be (notice the uncertainty?) more conservative (overall) than are White Evangelical or non-Evangelical Protestants. The word "Conservative" can be used doctrinally and/or culturally, especially as it relates to the family and revealed truth. In that broad sense, I disagree that Whites out-conservative Blacks and Hispanics. I think that showed up in the last voting cycle and surprised many. My whole life, I have claimed to be conservative in my biblical interpretations (hermeneutics) and liberal in my social values. Being conservative in one does not guarantee being conservative in the other. I think one of the challenges is that we often think we know the "other" better than the "other" knows themselves. That is true from all points of view. Our apriori biases cloud our conclusions, and we would rather not let them go! They are part of our identity, and identity often gives us our purpose.

Isn’t it why people can do bad/unethical things without guilt or shame? Stuff like I was only following orders, everyone else is doing it, it’s not as bad as, etc. Nehor is addressing the form that dehumanizes the desired target if I understood him correctly…answering this to test if I did. I must be bored because it makes more sense to wait till he answers.

Did you read the conversation and what they were referencing. All the books and podcasts they mentioned talking about the dangers of excessive or “toxic” empathy. This one conversation isn’t what started it or the sum total of the movement. While phrased differently the goal of the whole “toxic empathy” thing seems to be that there are some people who are lost and godless. From the Toxic Empathy book: “The erroneous conflation of love and empathy has convinced the masses that to be loving, we must feel the same way they do. Toxic empathy says we must not only share their feelings, but affirm their feelings and choices as valid, justified, and good. This confusion has not only made us a morally lost people but it’s also harmed the very people empathy-mongers claim they’re trying to help: the truly marginalized and vulnerable.” “…someone who doesn’t follow Christ must first repent of their unbelief before they repent of anything else. That means we get to share with them who God is and what He’s done for us before we have any conversation about sexuality and identity.” It is codswallop but buried in there is the idea that the maginalized and vulnerable who are godless aren’t actually marginalized and vulnerable. Once they repent we can talk but until then we have to make sure they suffer so they repent. As if God couldn’t punish the marginalized and vulnerable for their sins without the help of his ‘loving’ followers. It is also showing that those who think empathy it toxic if it is directed to the ‘undeserving’ have no real interest in trying to coexist in a pluralistic society. They want a trump card (pun intended) that they are right and want that reflected in how government functions. “God’s definition of what is good and loving will almost always contradict the world’s definition, which will inevitably put us at odds with mainstream culture. While this is uncomfortable, the sacrifice is worth it. The truth can change lives.” Ignoring the obvious historical ignorance of Christianity being the dominant faith in many parts of the world throughout history we are still left with this pathetic siege mentality of the poor Christians fighting off the godless hordes of mainstream culture and doing this while they control the levers of power. It is pathetic. It does serve an important purpose though. If you are in charge there can be a duty of care to everyone under your governance. If you can still cast yourself as an oppressed minority you can pretend that oppression of others is just a security measure to protect yourselves. You can throw out all Christian virtues in the interest of survival. The old fascist “the enemy is both strong and weak” bit where the opposition is portrayed differently based on what your rhetorical point is.

Can you tell us more about the "moral disengagement hypothesis?" I have never heard that term. I think I like it, but want ot know more.

So NPR generalizes from one conversation to a whole class of people. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Love the certainty. What you are claiming is like saying there are cat dogs for sure, but not every cat is a dog. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are two entirely different species of Christians, who have spent more time at each other's throats (metaphorically speaking) than they ever have at other brands or species of Christianity, including the LDS. Evangelicals migrated out of Fundamentalism in the 1940s and have never looked back. Fundamentalists have demeaned Evangelicals for their migration and have never even tried to mend the fence, or bridge the gap between them. You talk like you think cats and dogs are two points on the same continuum. Perhaps they are both four legged carnivorous mammals. That is as close as you can get. The closest metaphor I can think of is that you are saying that there are FLDS LDS Christians for sure, but not every LDS Christian is FLDS. I don't think that would make sense to either an FLDS or an LDS Christian. Yet, it is said out of a lack of knowledge of the true distinctions between them. Now, if you were to say there are conservative Evangelicals for sure, but not every Evangelical is a conservative, I would agree wholeheartedly with you. If you said there are liberal Evangelicals for sure, but not every Evangelical is a liberal, I would agree wholeheartedly with you. Words matter. I would be much less welcome to give a talk in a Fundamentalist church than I would be to give a talk in an LDS sacrament service. I might not be welcome in either depending on the LDS bishop, but at least in the LDS church that would be a local decision. Fundamentalists are pretty united, in my experience and knowledge, in their opposition to the reprobate Evangelical.

She is on a mountaintop somewhere and you are not?

Her perspectives are much HIGHER than mine? What does that even mean? I am in conformity with the general scientific consensus which consist of lots of people that have perspectives that are presumably HIGHER than mine and disagree with Judith Curry. So if you are appealing to her authority I can appeal to over ten times as much authority to say you are wrong. So why would you make this an appeal to authority? That is really a dumb move. Especially when the things she said don’t match with what you said she said. Are you having a stroke? Also, nice pivot to avoid engaging what I said. Probably wise. What you said about Judith Curry saying climate change was a hoax was indefensibly wrong and stupid so you are now pretending you were actually just saying that this one person has credentials. Galaxy brained move. Does it work well in your neck of the woods? Just tell outrageously ignorant falsehoods and then when called out start talking about something else? And another pivot to a right-wing rag that thinks teaching science in a *checks notes* science class is “indoctrination”. More whataboutism. The chosen defense of people who do bad things and want you to instead focus on the (often imagined) bad things that other people are doing. The special favorite of Soviet propagandists. Good job Comrade!

Oh, you meant in that poll. I was thinking there are much more conservative religious groups out there but they aren’t in that poll. Apologies.

Yup, exactly. Regarding the most conservative religious groups, it's definitely white evangelicals and LDS: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/party-identification-among-religious-groups-and-religiously-unaffiliated-voters/

Not sure if they are the two most conservative groups. Maybe though. And yeah, the propagandists are fascists and are working the fascist playbook. Empathy and compassion are for the in-group. You focus entirely on the (often imagined) crimes of the out group against the in-group. Then you allow the out group a human capacity for planning in a kind of hive mind way and deny them individuality or basic human emotions. Thus the Jews or the trans people or the illegal immigrants or the Muslims or the liberals or the communists or the gays or women become a solid bloc that has advanced nefarious plans that they are trying to execute to harm the in-group. Since the in-group are the victims they are justified in defending themselves but you deny individual personhood to the out-group so empathy for them or compassion or giving them legal due process is pointless. They are the enemy. It is the moral disengagement hypothesis. It is how you create terrible humans willing to be cruel and unjust while setting up mental defense mechanisms within them that shut down any attempt at self-reflection or wondering if this has gone too far. You end up with someone that values civil liberties but thinks that different people don’t deserve them or have to meet an arbitary moral standard to earn or deserve them “he was no angel”, who thinks peace is a great ideal but it perpetually at war with all the out-groups, and imagines they haven’t changed at all when they are advocating for obvious and unnecessary cruelty.

Thanks Eschaton and Seeking Understanding. I wasn't aware of this public discourse which seems to pit anti-empathy against pro-empathy. It appears to me to be more nuanced than presented by the poll, or the NCR article which baited them into foolishly arguing against something called empathy, but which demands more than is prudent or reasonable. It made them look like terrible people, but if we have empathy, we will try to understand them better. I said that "I do not know of a single person who publicly argues that it is imprudent or immoral to try to understand and appreciate motives and feelings of everybody." It seems to me that what is bolded and italicized is not the same as the "empathy" that the conservatives are opposing. If they are all really against what I described as empathy above, they have not declared themselves against that. Do either of you take issue with how I have described empathy? The NCR article begins as follows: "There's a growing movement, among some conservatives, pushing back against traditional notions of empathy. What's behind it, and what might it mean, especially for Christian conservatives?" From what I could see in the subsequent article, the conservatives were accepting a new definition of "empathy" which views those who are against unlimited immigration as lacking in the same. Hopefully not. Many of us can't accept a novel kind of empathy that is certainly not traditional, and which requires us to accept as good and moral everything that anyone with whom we empathize believes or does. To empathize with someone does not traditionally require agreement with all of their beliefs and actions. However, to empathize with those with whom we disagree is a very traditional Christian virtue. It is natural and easy to empathize with those with whom we agree. How much merit is there in that? I am afraid I don't see much empathy on the non-conservative side either, beyond those with whom they already agree about morals and law. I did like a lot of what you said SeekingUnderstanding above. I certainly wouldn't include you among those who paint the other side in the worst possible light. I appreciate that while you are probably what is called pro-choice, you do not approve of calling a fetus, a clump of cells. I am what is called pro-life, but I have to recognize that pro-choicers do not believe as I do, that God imparts the immortal soul of a human person at conception. How can it be a crime if the fetus is no more human at the start than is a mouse full-grown? I disagree with anyone who thinks empathy should be the supreme rule by which civilization should be governed. Hyperbolic comments against the word by conservative commentators are unfortunate. But if those who are against the conservatives in this debate wanted to empathize with the conservatives, they would see that they are not against traditional ideas of empathy. They are only against empathy if it requires them to try to coherently accept the beliefs and behaviors of everybody they disagree with at once. Even Elon Musk was quoted as saying that empathy is good in its proper place: "Empathy can be good, but it's too often weaponized to persuade well-meaning people to support bad ideas." No one said anything against trying to "understand and appreciate motives and feelings of everybody."

Careful, you are getting dangerously close to agreeing with smac97! 😁 I jest. I quite agree with your statement. In some ways I'm pleased to see how strongly the LDS respondents valued the idea God's truth (which, for us, would absolutely include being empathetic for others).