A Breath of Fresh Air

[Monster]

Interestingly, amongst the thousands of Latter-day Saints who actually experienced firsthand some of what you claim has broken your back (polygamy, the Kirtland bank failure, etc.), a certain percentage walked away whilst many, many others did not, suggesting that the difference has nothing whatsoever to do with one's closeness to events/issues you just mentioned.

You missed my point. I said those were deal breakers for me. I did not allude they were deal breakers for everyone. Many people have the ability to stare almost any controversy in the face and still believe. Whether a majority leave or stay over a controversy is no indication of the truth of the church. It simply means they have different view points or tolerance levels. The fact remains either Joseph made those things up or it was divine guidance. You have to look at the evidence for yourself and make a conclusion. But I do personally believe the more you have to adapt and mold your belief to make it work the less likely you are following the truth

[Monster]

Except of course for the thousands of LDS who have studied the "actual history" and did not walk away.

It is a curious thing that two individuals faced with the same set of facts can arrive at completely opposite conclusions about those facts. Religion is one such area in which that happens all the time, and Mormonism is but one relatively minor example of it.

You are correct thousands do not walk away, but thousands do. It seems we have different tolerance levels

[consiglieri]

Yes, member vigilantism! I like the sound of that!

consiglieri, could I get you to head that up?

Mister, we deal in lead.

All the Best!

--Head of the Consiglieri Seven

[Kevin Christensen]

"Blessed are they who sit like lumps, for they shall be spoonfed, and never caught off guard, and never, ever disappointed by anyone."

Any guesses as to whose well-intentioned podcasts I was was listening to a few years back when that phrase arranged itself in my mind?

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Mortal Man]

MM, I hope I'm not being too presumptuous in asking you this, but why do you stay in the Church?

I stay for my family.

Members like BCSpace, who are so eager to weed out the tares, forget that people don't exist in a vacuum. Heretics have spouses, children, parents, brothers, sisters etc. It's not a clean or simple decision for them to leave the church, since it frequently means divorce, loss of parental involvement, broken relationships with parents and siblings etc. The church effectively holds families hostage to keep people in line. It's not done overtly, but rather, in the thousands of subtle ways it teaches members that intellectual apostates are wicked, even if they're family (Matt. 10:37).

What motivates you to remain a Latter-day Saint in spite of what appears (IMO) to be a fairly cynical attitude toward Mormonism?

I'm not cynical towards Mormonism. I find much good in it. I simply have a strong desire for the truth, whatever it may be.

I am only cynical towards bad apologetics and attacks on the sacred sovereignty we have to think and reason for ourselves.

[Deborah]

Some are content to glance at the mouth of the cave and declare spiritual victory in surviving it. Others are compelled to spelunk their way down into its deepest bowels.

Yes, those of us who have spelunked deep into the issues and seen the big picture and understand the context of history do tend to remain.

[WalkerW]

Mister, we deal in lead.

All the Best!

--Head of the Consiglieri Seven

[Deborah]

You are correct thousands do not walk away, but thousands do. It seems we have different tolerance levels

Thousands do? Because of the history? I think not. A lot of members drop off or walk away for a variety of issues; the history is not usually the primary reason. Of course if you'd believe the vehement few on the internet you might tend to think it's thousands.

[consiglieri]

Cool!!!

And thanks for bringing to my attention my quote is just a tad off.

Looks like it should be, "We deal in lead, friend."

I also like Eli Wallach's line, "If God did not want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep."

Classic.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

P.S. I think the following link should be required viewing, especially for those who think my avatar is William Shatner.

[Mortal Man]

"Blessed are they who sit like lumps, for they shall be spoonfed, and never caught off guard, and never, ever disappointed by anyone."

Any guesses as to whose well-intentioned podcasts I was was listening to a few years back when that phrase arranged itself in my mind?

Ironically, scripture study is among the leading causes of disaffection. Like Bart Ehrman, I lost my faith simply by studying the texts. I think it's extremely risky for church leaders to counsel members to read the scriptures.

I'm sure it's fun to characterize people like me as "lumps" who "shall be spoonfed," but that doesn't change the fact that the massive MI apologetics factory has no response to straightforward questions.

[Maidservant]

But I do personally believe the more you have to adapt and mold your belief to make it work the less likely you are following the truth

This is an interesting parameter.

As you've maintained throught the thread, each person must make their own faith and knowledge journey and decisions . . . and I SO agree with you and I very rarely have any reason to have a problem with what people conclude for themselves about life and their relationship with God and religion even if it is very different than my conclusions (and chances are that they will be different than mine since mine are soo far out to begin with ).

But what I find interesting is that you have made this decision here about how truth, itself, should work. As with anything else, you are free to make a decision like that, but perhaps you can see that once you set this parameter, it affects (/limits) everything else that you think about in regards to truth (which may be a good thing, I'm neutral about that, it doesn't matter . . . just that it functions as a limit).

You might be sufficiently curious to know (or maybe not, but I'm gonna say it, ha ha) . . . that one of the parameters I operate from in regards to how I recognize truth is my acceptance of and/or active searching for paradox. If a wisdom is FREE from paradox, then it cannot be truth. As I understand it (the parameter I am accepting), truth MUST have paradox. No truth is free from paradox.

Now, the disappointments and challenges in the history of the Church may or may not properly be called paradoxes, in fact I wouldn't necessarily say they are. My point is not necessarily about this history. My point is that your "difference" is not only located in your conclusions about history . . . but that you and likely each of us here have a "difference" in our methods of truth recognition that will change how we approach ANY information from any quarter.

It may be worth realizing that that is an essential ingredient in our processes of choice.

[WalkerW]

Thousands do? Because of the history? I think not. A lot of members drop off or walk away for a variety of issues; the history is not usually the primary reason. Of course if you'd believe the vehement few on the internet you might tend to think it's thousands.

Speaking from very recent personal experience (i.e. the past two years), I have struggled with my activity in the Church (to clarify, I remained active, but grudgingly). This may come as a surprise to those here, but my main struggle was what I call "Mormon cultural issues." I never felt united with my ward. I never saw the "one heart, one mind" concept in my local setting. I never felt on the same page with other members that I attend with. They perceived the gospel so differently from me, that I wondered sometimes if we really believed the same thing. It was issues like this that concerned me. Study of history, ancient texts, and so forth is actually what kept me active. Yet, this was a double-edged sword. The more I shifted my paradigm, the further it seemed to be from the majority in the ward. This was the main problem for me. I still felt very faithful and intellectually satisfied with my views, but they often conflicted with everyone else (this was manifested in Gospel Doctrine, sometimes Elders Quorum, and my own wife).

So, yes: it is a variety of issues. As MM said, things don't happen in a vacuum. It is this very reason that I look with suspicion at the claims that being a "seeker of truth" or "learning the history" leads to apostasy. I'm willing to bet it has more to do with social and cultural settings.

[WalkerW]

I will also note that studying history makes me question a lot of things: religion, science, politics, economics, etc.

More often than not, I find those using modern science and the history of religion against religion need to read more on the history of science and philosophy. Too often in our criticisms, we fail to take the whole into account and instead try to judge the world through the lens of our specialized interest.

[kolipoki09]

Speaking from very recent personal experience (i.e. the past two years), I have struggled with my activity in the Church (to clarify, I remained active, but grudgingly). This may come as a surprise to those here, but my main struggle was what I call "Mormon cultural issues." I never felt united with my ward. I never saw the "one heart, one mind" concept in my local setting. I never felt on the same page with other members that I attend with. They perceived the gospel so differently from me, that I wondered sometimes if we really believed the same thing. It was issues like this that concerned me. Study of history, ancient texts, and so forth is actually what kept me active. Yet, this was a double-edged sword. The more I shifted my paradigm, the further it seemed to be from the majority in the ward. This was the main problem for me. I still felt very faithful and intellectually satisfied with my views, but they often conflicted with everyone else (this was manifested in Gospel Doctrine, sometimes Elders Quorum, and my own wife).

Cut from the same cloth, you and I. I've felt and experienced the exact same thing. According to a certain malevolent stalker's informant however, the Church was just "cracking down" on my Mopologetic endeavors that has its roots in a shakedown involving Scott Gordon, DCP, Elder Oaks, and President Packer.

[Kevin Christensen]

Ironically, scripture study is among the leading causes of disaffection. Like Bart Ehrman, I lost my faith simply by studying the texts. I think it's extremely risky for church leaders to counsel members to read the scriptures.

I'm sure it's fun to characterize people like me as "lumps" who "shall be spoonfed," but that doesn't change the fact that the massive MI apologetics factory has no response to straightforward questions.

"All data is theory laden." N. R. Hansen.

"Anomally emerges against a background of expectation." T. Kuhn.

Bart Ehrman lost his faith by studying the texts against a particularly brittle set of background expectations. If he approaches the study of Biblical texts against the expectations that he is about to encounter God's inerrant word, he is going to have a very different experience than one who studies the Biblical texts with the expectation of seeing inspired, not perfect texts, written and transmitted by imperfect men with discernible agendas and values. The same information can be absorbed without the experience of shattering if one's expectations are not that brittle. Therefore, the information is not inherently faith-shattering, but acquires that capacity only when handled by those who bring unquestioned expectations that are susceptible to such shattering. Indeed, many many people encounter exactly the same material that so disturbs Dehlin, and find it enlightening, mind-expanding, and quite helpful. With different assumptions, different expectations, I can process it quite differently. Indeed, I see references in the 1832 account to "testimony from on High" and the implications of "Lord" being inserted at one point, where if it had been "Father", we'd have no controversy.

I've also been fascinated by the relevance of the Perry Scheme to the personal narratives of faith loss versus enlightenment. For instance, Position 2:

POSITION 2 - Multiplicity Prelegitimate. (Resisting snake)

Now the person moves to accept that there is diversity, but they still think there are TRUE authorities who are right, that the others are confused by complexities or are just frauds. They think they are with the true authorities and are right while all others are wrong. They accept that their good authorities present problems so they can learn to reach right answers independently.

One of the possible phases in passing from brittleness is the realizations in transition 6:

Transition 6. Person realizes that on some matters, reasonable people reasonably disagree, that knowledge is qualitative and is context-dependent. They begin weighing factors and approaches in ways that force comparison of patterns of thought, they think about thinking and this occupies the foreground. But they still tend to want to conform so much that they have trouble thinking independently.

And if a person gets to Position 5, there is a danger that fits many of the de-conversion accounts I see:

If the person RETREATS, rage takes over and he loses agency to make sense. He survives by avoiding complexity and ambivalence and regresses to Dualism, position 2, (multiplicity prelegitimate). He becomes moralistic righteous and has "righteous" hatred for otherness. He complains childlike and demands of authority figures to just tell him what they want.

And here:

"For the students reporting their recovery of care,...their period of alienation appears as a time of transition. In this time the self is lost through the very effort to hold onto it in the face of inexorable change in the world's appearance. It is a space of meaninglessness between received belief and creative faith. In their rebirth they experience in themselves the origin or meanings, which they had previously expected to come to them from outside." (page 92 of the Perry Scheme.)

But Position 6 looks much more promising.

POSITION 6. Commitment Foreseen.

FROM HERE ON THE PERSON WILL FEEL FRUSTRATION IN TOO-STRUCTURED OF AN ENVIRONMENT.

Now the person thinks he is alone in an uncertain world, making his own decisions, with no one to say he is right. He makes choices aware of relativism and accepts that the agency to do so is within the individual. He sees that to move forward he must make commitments coming from within. He foresees the challenge of responsibility and feels he needs to get on with it. He also senses that the first steps require arbitrary faith or willing suspension of disbelief. He knows he needs to narrow his focus, center himself and become aware of internal, what could be called, spiritual strength.

He starts to see how he must be embracing and transcending of: certainty/doubt, focus/breadth, idealism/realism, tolerance/contempt, stability/flexibility. He senses need for affirmation and incorporation of existential or logical polarities. He senses need to hold polarities in tension in the interest of Truth.

He begins to maintain meaning, coherence, and value while conscious of their partial, limited, and contradictable nature. He begins to understand symbol as symbols and acknowledges the time-place relativity of them. He begins to affirm and hold absolutes in symbols while still acknowledging them to be relativistic. He begins to embrace viewpoints in conflict with his own. Now the person has a field-independent learning style, has learned to scan for information, accepts that hierarchical and analytic notes are evidence of sharpening of cognition. He is willing to take risks, is flexible, perceptive, broad, strategy-minded, and analytical.

It takes a while to get to position 9, of course. And some never make it. I've got a nice summary of the Perry Scheme in my About me, courtesy of Veda Hale several years back. She did a study of Levi Peterson's Canyon's of Grace based on it.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[WalkerW]

According to a certain malevolent stalker's informant however, the Church was just "cracking down" on my Mopologetic endeavors that has its roots in a shakedown involving Scott Gordon, DCP, Elder Oaks, and President Packer.

You've got to send me this stuff.

[WalkerW]

It is worth noting that I'm doing a little better. Conference was a big help, which was surprising to me.

[Mortal Man]

It is this very reason that I look with suspicion at the claims that being a "seeker of truth" or "learning the history" leads to apostasy.

It's a natural human tendency to impute our own motives and paradigms to other people; to say to ourselves, "If it doesn't bother me then why should it bother anyone else?"

I'm willing to bet it has more to do with social and cultural settings.

I also think that most people go inactive for social reasons, and a few on account of "sins".

Intellectual apostates are a minority of those disaffected. Most of those go inactive for historical reasons (polygamy etc), but some lose faith because the texts are not what they claim to be.

There are, in reality, numerous reasons and circumstances for which people leave, but the church dumps them all into the "wickedness" category. John Dehlin is simply suggesting that another category be created and that intellectual apostates should perhaps not be persecuted. Most members are too insecure to listen to him.

[consiglieri]

It is worth noting that I'm doing a little better. Conference was a big help, which was surprising to me.

I am glad you are doing better, WalkerW, and thank you for sharing so much of your personal feelings with the rest of us.

The path you are on is like a roller coaster, sometimes way up and other times way down.

But you know what?

Roller coasters are a blast!

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[volgadon]

It is worth noting that I'm doing a little better. Conference was a big help, which was surprising to me.

Me too. I was expecting conference to be the same old, same old, but this year it felt different.

[WalkerW]

It's a natural human tendency to impute our own motives and paradigms to other people; to say to ourselves, "If it doesn't bother me then why should it bother anyone else?"

Self-aggrandizement is also quite natural. It would have sounded better for me to say, "I struggle with the Church because I'm a bona fide seeker of truth. If only these poor saps would pick up a book." But I tried to get down to what was really bothering me.

If it truly is the history in your case, so be it. But don't "impute [your] own motives and paradigms to other people" who leave the Church. Apostasy does not equal intellectualism or truth-seeking, despite the claims of many.

I'm highly suspicious of those who describe themselves as "open-minded" or "truth-seekers" in regular discourse. I'd rather see it displayed in their content than take their word for it.

[Mortal Man]

It takes a while to get to position 9

I dunno Kevin, that's an awful lot of steps for a brittle mind with rigid expectations, such as mine. Couldn't I just get a prefrontal lobotomy instead?

[mrmendoza]

I can say the more you study the actual history the more likely its seems you will walk away. I am not sure how but the church will have to address it at some point. Maybe not for years but at some point it will have to adapt or wither. IMHO

It has always seemed sad to me that people who've been in the Church most of ,or all of their lives, can somehow be so ignorant about Church history, that when they find out how it "realy" was, they are shocked and dazed and start looking for the door!

This guy says that he was "taught" that JS was not involved with poligamy? He's 36 years old and never new that?

The "Salamander letter" affair was all over the news when it first came out! The subsequent realization that Hoffman was a fraud, forger, and murderer was the catalist for nurmerous books on the subject, many not favorable to the Church.

I'll admit I missed the info about Paul Dunn, until long after it was over, but George P Lees excomunication was announced in the Ensign the year it happened, and Richard Lymans excomunication, which happened in the 40's was a scandel at the time, but only went to show that GA's are afterall, human!

Yes, these things can be troubling to those who are already weak in the faith. And yes it's a shame that when people today look up answers through Google, (instead of asking those around them who now about these things) most of what they get will be from anti-Mormon sources. But do we need to teach about all the these things in SS or RS/EQ? I don't think so. There are many good books and other good sources of information that speak of these things without trying to pull the old "anti" trick of "poisoning the well" by saying that the Church is "hiding this" or "doesn't want you to know"!

That was about as far as I could go watching that video. But as much as I hate to say it, he may be right about a lot of people who wind up letting these thing mess up their testimonies!

It's kind of like the "wheat and tares" anoligy. When the tares are planted along with wheat, even though they may injure some of the wheat, it would do more damage to try to pull them out untill after the wheat is fully matured!

So no, IMHO this video should not be shown, nor should all the so-called "dirty laundry" be aired durring the Church established teaching classes!

Mike

[Mortal Man]

I'm highly suspicious of those who describe themselves as "open-minded" or "truth-seekers" in regular discourse. I'd rather see it displayed in their content than take their word for it.

I completely agree. I don't expect anyone to take my word for anything, only to respond to my arguments.

It's like this. In studying history and scriptures, people occasionally come across little trails of evidence which they sometimes begin following. These trails often lead to walls, constructed by the church, which the member is not allowed to cross (like The Truman Show). At this point the member makes a decision (usually unconscious) to either break through the wall and keep following the evidence, or stay inside where it's safe. Some members might try to work their way along the wall, rigidly clinging to their expectations that there may be an opening somewhere, but with enough Kuhn and a large hammer, they can beat their brittle brains into a soft pliable pulp, sufficient to enable them to return to the center of the safety zone. (No offense Kevin, I'm just messin' with ya. )

[WalkerW]

...constructed by the church...

What do you even mean by this? Do you mean "the Church" as the members that make up the Church or "the Church" as in the First Presidency and the Twelve or something entirely different?

I would pin it mainly on the quasi-celebrity status that members attribute to the First Presidency and Twelve. Thus, they are culturally-constructed walls.

I never get the "walls" or "controlling" that the Brethren do. I've always felt like I have a good amount of autonomy.