Do Lds People Structure Their Belief System So That No Evidence Could Ever Disprove It?

[ozpoof]

The First Vision is not testable. Neither is the Doctrine and Covenants. The Book of Mormon, by contrast, is held up to the world as if to say, "Take your best shot".

Critics of the church have been taking their shots for 180 years and failed to discredit it although many have convinced themselves that they have.

So the Book of Mormon IS a record of Semitic peoples who migrated here less than 3000 years ago? Why then did they church change the introduction recently to distance themselves from this assertion now that DNA shows that Native Americans originated in Asia more than 10000 years ago? It seems the church itself has doubts.

Tell me, do you really believe, as the Book of Mormon asserts, that dark skin is a curse for the sinful? If the Book of Mormon speaks the truth, then for some reason, the people who originate in places with more intense solar radiation also seem to be those who sinned the most. Some coincidence huh?

If you believe critics have failed to discredit the Book of Mormon, I doubt you've read what they say with an open mind, and without the distortion of magical thinking.

[Ahab]

You forgot a few things - in order to continue to sustain faith you must ignore all evidence that shows what you claim to believe in is something entirely different. You have to actively avoid truths that may contradict what is said by church leaders and somehow rationalize the existence of these truths by shelving them as "not important for my salvation" or "not faith promoting". You must compartmentalize what you are told and what you see in reality.

Your response ignores the many, many people who actually did want to believe, who were devastated to their core when they tried to reinforce their belief through study, but found they had been deceived. They wanted very much to believe, but facts convinced them otherwise, and for that they are often labeled evil, apostates etc.

When church leaders actually tell you to ignore evidence, even if it is true (Dallin H Oakes) or that not all truths are useful (Boyd K Packer), most rational adults will ask why truth is not what the true church wants its members to discover. If the church is true, all truths will point to that, and church leaders should have no reason to warn members to ignore some truth.

I think I covered your angle when I talked about how I focus on finding the truth on good things, rather than focusing on the truth of things that are evil.

For example, it is true that some people say things that aren't true when making a claim about something.

Those false reports are truths, too... that people actually say things like that... but rather than focus on their false reports about things I would rather focus on something that is true that is good.

Each and every person actually chooses what he or she will believe about something, and the witnesses we pay attenion to make a difference.

[Ahab]

If you believe critics have failed to discredit the Book of Mormon, I doubt you've read what they say with an open mind, and without the distortion of magical thinking.

When God first told me the Book of Mormon is true (or what it claims to be), I knew that anybody who would say it wasn't true was not telling the truth.

It is true, according to God, and anybody who says it isn't true is just wrong.

There is no good reason to have an open mind to the idea that it isn't true once God tells you that it is true, because God is never wrong about anything.

[Deborah]

You forgot a few things - in order to continue to sustain faith you must ignore all evidence that shows what you claim to believe in is something entirely different.

You know nothing about it. The growing evidence actually supports the truth claims of the church (ie The Joseph Smith Papers). The problem is, as I will repeat once again, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that is exactly what detractors from the church have "a little bit." It isn't a matter of ignoring evidence. It's a matter of putting it in its place and understanding how incomplete and biased it can be. For those who continue to believe the "evidence" is clearly in favor of belief, but then we accept that there is evidence outside the mere bits and pieces of information. There is a bigger picture and there is a spiritual element that others either deny or are unable to see.

Now all those on the board that shall not be named can say Merrie Miss is at it again and just laugh and mock. I'll laugh with you as I watch little children at play disparaging what they don't understand.

[Questing Beast]

When God first told me the Book of Mormon is true (or what it claims to be), I knew that anybody who would say it wasn't true was not telling the truth.

It is true, according to God, and anybody who says it isn't true is just wrong.

There is no good reason to have an open mind to the idea that it isn't true once God tells you that it is true, because God is never wrong about anything.

This should be qualified by asking "what is truth for me?" Otherwise, ONLY your version of "the truth" is allowable in the world. Is that what you want? Everybody and everything are not going to agree with you: not even within the same religious organization.

To simply claim that all conflicting facts held in evidence are wrong is exactly like the specious line from the fundie movie, Time Changer: "If science and the Bible disagree, then we can be certain that science is wrong"....

[Questing Beast]

... a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that is exactly what detractors from the church have "a little bit."

It's also what believers have, a little bit. EVERYBODY has a little bit of knowledge and a vast sea of ignorance and supposition. This never changes, not even during an unusually long mortal life.

It isn't a matter of ignoring evidence. It's a matter of putting it in its place and understanding how incomplete and biased it can be. For those who continue to believe the "evidence" is clearly in favor of belief, but then we accept that there is evidence outside the mere bits and pieces of information. There is a bigger picture and there is a spiritual element that others either deny or are unable to see.

The "bigger picture" is never on offer for any individual. I, for instance, have tried it both ways: taking what I studied in a believing paradigm; and then dropping it all at once and seeing everything I had been studying for my adult life from an unbelieving paradigm. And guess what? BOTH perspectives work! The very same "evidence" supports both believing and unbelieving. (The reason why I can't go back to believing as I once did, is because my vast ignorance did not change either way, yet my religious-spiritual world view got much bigger the second way: I feel far more open to all knowledge now than I did before.)

Now all those on the board that shall not be named can say Merrie Miss is at it again and just laugh and mock. I'll laugh with you as I watch little children at play disparaging what they don't understand.

This attitude toward others, recently expressed to me as "now go back to playing in your kiddy sandbox", is a dead giveaway: that the expression of such superiority betrays an insecurity, imho, of course.

A person who is confident in their ignorance does not need to belittle the perspectives or paradigms of anyone....

[Ahab]

This should be qualified by asking "what is truth for me?" Otherwise, ONLY your version of "the truth" is allowable in the world. Is that what you want? Everybody and everything are not going to agree with you: not even within the same religious organization.

To simply claim that all conflicting facts held in evidence are wrong is exactly like the specious line from the fundie movie, Time Changer: "If science and the Bible disagree, then we can be certain that science is wrong"....

It's what is true according to God that I am interested in knowing.

To the extent that I know that, I also know whether or not other people agree with God when they share their perspective with me.

[Doug the Hutt]

When God first told me the Book of Mormon is true (or what it claims to be), I knew that anybody who would say it wasn't true was not telling the truth.

It is true, according to God, and anybody who says it isn't true is just wrong.

There is no good reason to have an open mind to the idea that it isn't true once God tells you that it is true, because God is never wrong about anything.

Howdy Ahab,

I'm interested in your view because I think it gets close to the OP.

First, let me state that I do not doubt your sincerity.

I interpret that you believe:

1. There is a God

2. He / she / it is capable and desirous of communicating with you personally.

3. Your senses (5 or more) are attenuated into receiving these communications.

4. Your are capable of processing the message as intended by God.

5. You are worthy to receive communication from God.

6. You are sufficiently sincere to receive communication from God.

7. You have received a communication from God that, after it went through post-processing and parity checking, indicated without any uncertainty that the Book of Mormon is true, and by extension The Prophet Joseph Smith and the LDS Church. This has become the axiom on which you base all discussions pertaining to God, The Brethren, the Scriptures, The Church and anything pertaining to them.

Seeing that nobody else can live in someone else's head the only thing we can do to determine the validity of someone else's testimony is ask questions, present alternatives, measure the weight of what they say with what we observe in the falsifiable world, compare their experience to our own and sometimes make layperson psychiatrist guesstimates of the sanity and/or sincerity of the other person. It would seem that as soon as a person elevates an experience, whatever it may be, to the status of an axiom, then that belief system is unassailable. If any challenge does come along then one would brandish that axiom a-la-Louisville-Slugger and beat down those pathetic non-axiom challenges -- belief system validated by itself, totally unable to be disproved. Even if you had a video taped confession of the prophet eating human flesh it still wouldn't change the God-said-it-was-so-axiom (incidentally a believer could just employ the "prophets can still be prophets and make mistakes -- they do it for the Adam-God theory, the Hoffman documents, the post-Hoffman apologetics by the Apostles, the treatment of blacks by the Brethren, and probably a number of others -- and it would all still be an intact, functioning un-dis-provable epistemology).

And don't get me wrong -- a person whose axiom is "God doesn't exist, you believers of deity are a bunch of confused gullible drooling dolts" will similarly beat down argumentation with that axiom involving spiritual confirmation, prayer, fasting, tithe-paying, priesthood blessings, etc.

So then, for anyone to be converted to another way of thinking is to let down their axiom and allow the other person's axiom to remake them. And the only way to do that is to convince the other, through some chink in their epistemological armor such as personal & family distress to be treated with love and empathy (the Spanish Inquisition of forced compliance didn't work out so well....unless it did....the Catholics did manage to establish Catholicism as a dominant force everywhere they went).

I'm sure I missed something in there. Did that make any sense? Does someone have an (civil) opposing or complementary view?

[Deborah]

The interesting thing about some of the points being made is that many of us who are converts didn't condemn our criticize our prior churches when finding the true church, but rather understood that those were places where our foundation in Christ began. In fact most of us were looking for something more, something our current churches didn't supply and when we found it we recognized it.

It seems however that many of those who leave Mormonism resort to finding any fault they can with the church to the point of outright hatred and animosity. I find it very strange. Now understand I have a daughter raised in the church who has left all religion behind. She doesn't waste a day thinking about how she was deceived or how she was brainwashed. She lives her life in her new found "religion" which is a mixture of nature and thanks to the Universe. I think she would be hard pressed to understand why some hold such animosity toward a body that for many years was her home and something she once loved.

[Ahab]

It would seem that as soon as a person elevates an experience, whatever it may be, to the status of an axiom, then that belief system is unassailable.

Yep, and that's why receiving a testimony from God is touted as something everyone should receive, while doing whatever it takes to get it.

Once God told me something, and I knew it was God who was communicating with me, while also knowing what he was telling me, I was all set.

I received all of the answer I needed on that particular issue, or particular aspect of that issue, so that I was certain about what it was God had told me.

So then, for anyone to be converted to another way of thinking is to let down their axiom and allow the other person's axiom to remake them.

Right.

God says [such and such]. Somebody else says something else. God still said what he said.

Does someone have an (civil) opposing or complementary view?

Yes. Not everybody is in agreement, so there are those who agree with God and those who do not.

[KevinG]

The interesting thing about some of the points being made is that many of us who are converts didn't condemn our criticize our prior churches when finding the true church, but rather understood that those were places where our foundation in Christ began. In fact most of us were looking for something more, something our current churches didn't supply and when we found it we recognized it.

It seems however that many of those who leave Mormonism resort to finding any fault they can with the church to the point of outright hatred and animosity. I find it very strange. Now understand I have a daughter raised in the church who has left all religion behind. She doesn't waste a day thinking about how she was deceived or how she was brainwashed. She lives her life in her new found "religion" which is a mixture of nature and thanks to the Universe. I think she would be hard pressed to understand why some hold such animosity toward a body that for many years was her home and something she once loved.

I have observed that the more enmeshed in someones lifestyle their faith is the harder it is for them to leave without some tearing apart of their former belief system. We are a very dogmatic and involved faith- it is a part of our everyday lifestyle and our belief system produces a framework for family relationships into the eternities. Frankly that is harder to leave and leave alone than my former religion of Methodism which was much less of a whole life framework. It was still difficult for me to change a family tradition but less traumatic in the end than leaving the LDS church would be for my family and loved ones.

I don't have any plans to leave or doubts about the divine origins of the LDS Church, I can just empathize with those who struggle with their beliefs and sometimes have to "prove them wrong" to leave them.

I think it is a credit to the LDS Church that they do very little criticizing of other faiths and that no part of our ministry is designed to refute a particular faith or creed. We teach our authenticity over other faiths to be sure, but that is a far cry from "anti-_____" ministries.

[Deborah]

I have observed that the more enmeshed in someones lifestyle their faith is the harder it is for them to leave without some tearing apart of their former belief system.

And that is probably more difficult when family with children is involved. We've seen some of that angst here with those who no longer believe and are torn between that and preserving their families.

But to me that makes it even more difficult to understand why they would be so openly hostile toward the church when they have loved ones to whom it is still so important.

[KevinG]

And that is probably more difficult when family with children is involved. We've seen some of that angst here with those who no longer believe and are torn between that and preserving their families.

But to me that makes it even more difficult to understand why they would be so openly hostile toward the church when they have loved ones to whom it is still so important.

A rift of that proportion in a family must be its own kind of h***. Open hostility may be a coping mechanism to combat that kind of pain - "If only this doctrine or rule didn't exist we could be happy, etc."

A parallel on a very small scale may be the small child who screams "I don't want to be a part of this family" when they are put in the corner or denied a treat.

[KevinG]

Indulge me with an expansion on those thoughts...

When I first started on-line discussions about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Latter-day Saints I noticed the sometimes nasty rift between active and former members. Apostates would be offended (and rightly so) when accused of some secret sin that must have been the "real reason" for apostacy.

I spent a lot of time and energy trying to udnerstand the reasons for loss of faith in the LDS church and began to realize there were many reasons other than personal sin or weakness that led to apostacy. The most tragic of these were the cases where the critic or apostates experience of the church didn't live up to the doctrine and promise of the church. Family dysfunctions ranging from overt abuse to more subtle controlling behaviors teach that agency and I am a child of God are window dressing and not the reality of some families and wards.

I can understand someones bitterness if their experience doesn't match what is being taught.

Yes sometimes sin or selfishness is at the core of apostasy. But I think there are some things we can take responsibility for as a culture that would help us retreive some list sheep much easier, or perhaps lose fewer sheep in the first place.

In the end it doesn't matter how many critics we prove wrong. What matters more is how many family members see an example of what is corret and true about Mormonism and the Gospel. My guess is that we would save thousands more souls by being a good example of Christ's follwers than by refuting even our most wiley critics.

[Deborah]

A rift of that proportion in a family must be its own kind of h***.

Which sadly is why so many of those situations end in divorce. I do know families however when one spouse becomes inactive and they stay together.

My sis and her husband are one such couple. He left the church when their children were young (temple marriage, return missionary, he just stopped believing). They had some very hard times because of his demands (not letting the kids get baptized, etc) and there were many times she considered leaving but stuck it out. Now the kids are grown, two remain active, two have left the church. He has mellowed quite a bit and they are happy in their old age, enjoying the grandchildren and he even goes to church once in awhile.

It is very hard though in any situation where the dynamics of the marriage change dramatically from expectations. That can be in the form of career choice, ambitions, lifestyle etc. It isn't just religious issues that cause rifts but those can be some of the most traumatic.

[Questing Beast]

It's what is true according to God that I am interested in knowing.

To the extent that I know that, I also know whether or not other people agree with God when they share their perspective with me.

This kind of reasoning is the source of religious wars. You do know that? Taken to a grand scale, the religion sees "the others" as wrong, because they do not convert. So they must die. "God" demands it. It's in their scriptures. If we are to move beyond this eventuality, again, we must allow that EVERY religion is just as valid. "God" speaks to them all, or "God" has never spoken to any of them. We have no method of "knowing" on our own. Left to ourselves, we will either become ecumenical (hasn't happened on a worldwide basis so far), or we will revert to type and turn on everyone who is not one of "us"....

[Calm]

The most tragic of these were the cases where the critic or apostates experience of the church didn't live up to the doctrine and promise of the church. Family dysfunctions ranging from overt abuse to more subtle controlling behaviors teach that agency and I am a child of God are window dressing and not the reality of some families and wards.

I can understand someones bitterness if their experience doesn't match what is being taught.

I think it is extremely hard to learn to trust God if one hasn't been given the opportunity of experiencing trust in one's most fundamental relationships. How can you relate to the Father in a healthy, totally open way if your own father was abusive, controlling, played mind games, etc.?

[wcdrotar]

Of course not. Latter-day Saints base their testimony purely on subjective experiences not social pressures or having been told what to say they know from age 3 and rewarded for it.

Don't think LDS are so close-minded.

[Deborah]

Latter-day Saints base their testimony purely on subjective experiences not social pressures or having been told what to say they know from age 3 and rewarded for it.

In fact, no matter what was taught up to a certain age there comes a point where one can only stand or fall on his own testimony and not rely on what he has been told by others. It is apparent many fall when they reach that point whereas others become stronger in the faith. I'm reminded of the Amish Rumspringa, though LDS do not teach that one needs to sow their wild oats so to speak but do need to reach a point of studying and praying to find out for themselves what is true.

[Sleeper Cell]

This kind of reasoning is the source of religious wars. You do know that? Taken to a grand scale, the religion sees "the others" as wrong, because they do not convert. So they must die. "God" demands it. It's in their scriptures. If we are to move beyond this eventuality, again, we must allow that EVERY religion is just as valid. "God" speaks to them all, or "God" has never spoken to any of them. We have no method of "knowing" on our own. Left to ourselves, we will either become ecumenical (hasn't happened on a worldwide basis so far), or we will revert to type and turn on everyone who is not one of "us"....

Well, that’s true for you.

You criticize religions that say that "the others" are wrong because they do not convert, yet you essentially are saying that those religions are wrong for not converting to your way of thinking.

It makes no more sense to say that every religion is equally valid than to say that every political philosophy or every value system is equally valid.

[Questing Beast]

...

You criticize religions that say that "the others" are wrong because they do not convert, yet you essentially are saying that those religions are wrong for not converting to your way of thinking.

It makes no more sense to say that every religion is equally valid than to say that every political philosophy or every value system is equally valid.

"Equally valid" does not address equal weight, reasonableness or logic; it means equally valid to exist and attract adherents if they can. When I consider ALL religions equally valid, I often say it the other way too, "equally invalid". To me their myriad claims to dogmatic exclusivity with "God" are equally invalid. Yet their existence is equally valid on the basis of "live and let live".

Where a religion moves against "the others" it invalidates itself: there is no reason why any "outsiders" have to put up with any religion, philosophy or political force brought to bear against them. And yes, if a religion does not agree with this ecumenical perspective, wherein the religion is "wrong" to wage war against the "unbelievers", they are wrong for not converting to my way of thinking.

Where Mormonism is right, in its dogmatic assertions of exclusive authority and revelation, is in not infringing one iota upon the free will of unbelievers. Mormonism, along with the vast majority of religions, does not condone force or even coercion....