let us reason together

[Calm]

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I love Patrick's approach, but I think you mischaracterize Dehlin here.

I call Dehlin that because of my seeing him continue to make simplistic as well as inaccurate claims after having been given the information and nuanced discussions multiple times.  For example, one might never know he had a five hour interview with Brant Gardner given some of the things he said afterwards.  I would have to listen or read what each of his followers say before making that kind of decision about them.

 

[Calm]

4 hours ago, Gray said:

I do think that exmormons tend to be fundamentalists or literalists. But by the same token, fundamentalism seems to be the most popular approach to Mormonism among believers as well. The Mormonism I experienced growing up was totally fundamentalist.

Yes, there is a lot of that approach among members and I see many who were this as members not really changing their methodology once they leave, they just use it to reject what they once accepted.

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I'm not sure what you mean, Calm.  Is there any scenario outside of a religious context where you'd give a guy in our western society a pass for marrying multiple women with some of them being teenagers as young as 14?  I thought it was because Joseph thought it was revelation that has given us reason to give him a pass. 

I expect that a dishonest person would automatically give a pass to someone whom they esteem, just as I would expect a dishonest person to automatically condemn someone whom they apriori hold in contempt.  Those who have high ethical and moral standards don't do that.  They consider people innocent until proven guilty.  They carefully examine the evidence, and are willing to find someone guilty or innocent based on adequate evidence.  That is why judges in courts of law ask potential jurors whether they can deliberate fairly based on actual evidence, whether they can set aside their biases and prejudices.

The problem with Dehlin is that he brags about not bothering to read or study material before his interviews.  Why?  Because, he says, that way his interviews will be more spontaneous.  I suppose that might be true, except that it means that he holds up ignorance as a worthy objective in approaching an issue, and I have seen that attitude many times before -- leading to decision-making based on prejudice rather than evidence.  In the end, Dehlin is projecting onto others his own dishonest manner of dealing with issues.  In essence, he is taking on the role of satan "adversary, accuser," in his interviews and conversations.  Clarity and fairness has never been his objective.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, cinepro said:

I think it's more a matter of consistency.  Meaning, we like to think that we're using a spiritually based but rational process of judging whether or not Joseph Smith was a Prophet, but at the same time we are willing to put problematic issues aside ("on the shelf?") when those issues might provide too much counter-evidence.  Once you start being selective in your evidence like that, all bets are off and you're just working to maintain belief.

Or, to put it another way, if LDS used the same methodology to judge other religious leaders as they do Joseph Smith (Charles Taze Russell, Mary Baker Eddy, L. Ron Hubbard, Warren Jeffs etc.), then it is entirely likely that they would have the same result.  Entirely likely, because those peoples' followers do exactly the same thing.

That's what's so weird about "testimony maintenance."  In no other area of my life can I imagine focusing on creating or maintaining a belief in something with such effort and intent.  And I'm pretty sure if I did, I could convince myself of anything. 

But that is just the point, cinepro:  Are all these betes noires the same?  We even have the late great scholar Morton Smith arguing that Jesus was merely a magician typical of his time.  Others assert that the God the OT was a horrific murderer and megalomaniac.  In the end, are militant atheists right to claim that all religions are fraudulent, for the same reasons?  Is Jesus just another huckster, or the best in a long line of hucksters?  Or did he really believe all the things he is alleged to have said, and was therefore delusional?  Does the same apply to Joseph Smith, and equally to Russell, Eddy, Hubbard, and Jeffs?  Was Oxford Don and atheist C. S. Lewis so very foolish to have believed finally that Jesus was an actual dying & rising god (with so many absurd tales of them in so many cultures)?  Was he wrong, and is his testimony worthless?

So should we instead put our faith in Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and the rest?  Whose version of reality is correct?

Edited September 22, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Meadowchik]

7 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Don't need to be sorry...Dehlin lost his faith along his journey like many of us. He chose a path few would undertake....... 

I guess what I said might be confusing. To be clear, losing faith is not the same as "acting in good faith." I've had many a convo and experience with atheists acting in good faith per a premise or agreement, for example.

[Meadowchik]

8 hours ago, Storm Rider said:

Dehlin speaks in such a condescending manner - he is enlightened and all you Mormons too stupid to climb the mountain like he has done are either lying or simply ignorant.  For me, I intensely distrust anything he says or does because time and again he has proven himself to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.  

I would think that there is more mountain-climbing and faith involved in the truth, wherever it is. Thus, he and everyone should be humble and never presume the little granny in the corner who's never wavered is a simpleton...it's possible she's climbed and seen more than we have.

[cinepro]

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

But that is just the point, cinepro:  Are all these betes noires the same?  We even have the late great scholar Morton Smith arguing that Jesus was merely a magician typical of his time.  Others assert that the God the OT was a horrific murderer and megalomaniac.  In the end, are militant atheists right to claim that all religions are fraudulent, for the same reasons?  Is Jesus just another huckster, or the best in a long line of hucksters?  Or did he really believe all the things he is alleged to have said, and was therefore delusional?  Does the same apply to Joseph Smith, and equally to Russell, Eddy, Hubbard, and Jeffs?  Was Oxford Don and atheist C. S. Lewis so very foolish to have believed finally that Jesus was an actual dying & rising god (with so many absurd tales of them in so many cultures)?  Was he wrong, and is his testimony worthless?

So should we instead put our faith in Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and the rest?  Whose version of reality is correct?

The theory that every other religious believer just doesn't believe as much as LDS do (or in the same way) is certainly an interesting one, but I haven't seen much support for it.  I've talked with true-believing Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Catholics, Muslims, and numerous others, (and seen a few FLDS bear their testimonies) and they certainly seemed to have testimonies every bit as firm as those I hear shared in LDS services. 

But ultimately there's no way to definitively answer the question or compare experiences; after all, we only have words to use, and even if they use the exact same words as LDS, they could be describing something different (and less true). 

But it's a little disingenuous to present it as a choice between Joseph Smith and Sam Harris.  For many, "neither" seems to be a perfectly valid option.  But I can understand why someone might feel the need to frame it that way; if current events teach us anything, it's that when you don't have good argument in favor of a proposition, your last best hope is to try and get people to fear the alternative.

Edited September 22, 2016 by cinepro

[notHagoth7]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I expect that a dishonest person would automatically give a pass to someone whom they esteem, just as I would expect a dishonest person to automatically condemn someone whom they apriori hold in contempt.  Those who have high ethical and moral standards don't do that.  They consider people innocent until proven guilty.  They carefully examine the evidence, and are willing to find someone guilty or innocent based on adequate evidence.  That is why judges in courts of law ask potential jurors whether they can deliberate fairly based on actual evidence, whether they can set aside their biases and prejudices.

The problem with Dehlin is that he brags about not bothering to read or study material before his interviews.  Why?  Because, he says, that way his interviews will be more spontaneous.  I suppose that might be true, except that it means that he holds up ignorance as a worthy objective in approaching an issue....

QFT

[thesometimesaint]

17 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I'm not sure what you mean, Calm.  Is there any scenario outside of a religious context where you'd give a guy in our western society a pass for marrying multiple women with some of them being teenagers as young as 14?  I thought it was because Joseph thought it was revelation that has given us reason to give him a pass. 

The early to mid 19th Century is not our modern Western society. 14 years old was the age of legal consent to marry clear into the 20th Century in many states in America. 

[hope_for_things]

12 hours ago, Calm said:

I call Dehlin that because of my seeing him continue to make simplistic as well as inaccurate claims after having been given the information and nuanced discussions multiple times.  For example, one might never know he had a five hour interview with Brant Gardner given some of the things he said afterwards.  I would have to listen or read what each of his followers say before making that kind of decision about them.

 

I'm a podcast junkie, I've listened to his interview with Brant Gardner as well as most of Dehlin's podcasts over the years. If you're implying that Brant Gardner has an accurate perspective of historical issues, and that after he was interviewed by Dehlin, that Dehlin is now informed about how things are, then I think you're showing a bias towards a particular perspective.  I wouldn't expect Dehlin to agree with Brant's perspectives just because he had an interview with him.  I don't think Brant would expect that of Dehlin either.  

I wouldn't say Dehlin is an expert on the historical issues, he definitely knows more than your average orthodox member, but thats a pretty low bar anyway. 

 

Edited September 22, 2016 by hope_for_things

[stemelbow]

16 hours ago, Mystery Meat said:

No offense to you, but this evaluation of Church membership is just as unfair (I won't call it dishonest, as I don't believe it is intentional) as Dehlin's. My wife, who is highly educated and quite progressive when it comes to women's rights and related issues, doesn't care about polygamy in the 19th Century Church. She could read about all of Joseph's wives, their struggles, Fanny Alger, etc., but what for? It isn't that she is dismissive, but that she knows what she knows. And she knows Joseph Smith is a prophet. All too often, people who want to talk about polygamy want to do it to discredit Joseph Smith. It's not the topic but the intent. My wife is not the only member who falls into this category.

I certainly meant no offense to anyone particularly not you about your wife.  Of course I don't know her.  I'm curious if there is anyone she has endorsed since the Church has stopped polygamy who practices polygamy? 

Don't get me wrong.  I dont' think it's a bad thing or anything.  I'm just saying it's a thing.  There are plenty of members who either dismiss Joseph's practice as nothing bad, or completely stay away from information about the whole thing, and there are those who justify it because he was a prophet.  In fact I don't know any member who doesn't do this.  It seems impossible to escape.  In the case of your wife, it seems she's already convinced he's a prophet, so any polygamy had to be justified by him receiving revelation to practice it.  Again, I'm not saying that's a wrong thing--just that it's a thing.  Now if I'm way off, let me know.  I certainly don't mean to offend. 

[hope_for_things]

12 hours ago, Calm said:

Yes, there is a lot of that approach among members and I see many who were this as members not really changing their methodology once they leave, they just use it to reject what they once accepted.

Yes, and no, I would say its not that simple.  I've heard this critique quite a bit, but I'd like to push back against it somewhat.  I have seen some who once they found out challenging issues about history or once they had a particular issue that causes them to question the legitimacy of the church, that they go from aligning with the organization to aligning against the organization, very quickly.  It seems like a stark contrast, and I think from an outsider's perspective it would look like they went from one fundamentalist view to another fundamentalist view.  

I find it unfair to characterize these people with such simplistic terms.  There are many things going on.  If we respect converts who agree to align with the church after learning very little from a couple of missionaries and then agreeing to change their entire life based on this very limited information.  I think we have to also respect exmormons for doing the same thing.  I think its a double standard to do otherwise. 

[stemelbow]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I expect that a dishonest person would automatically give a pass to someone whom they esteem, just as I would expect a dishonest person to automatically condemn someone whom they apriori hold in contempt.  Those who have high ethical and moral standards don't do that.  They consider people innocent until proven guilty.  They carefully examine the evidence, and are willing to find someone guilty or innocent based on adequate evidence.  That is why judges in courts of law ask potential jurors whether they can deliberate fairly based on actual evidence, whether they can set aside their biases and prejudices.

I still can't see how he's charging anyone of dishonesty.  But maybe we've moved on from that. 

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The problem with Dehlin is that he brags about not bothering to read or study material before his interviews.  Why?  Because, he says, that way his interviews will be more spontaneous.  I suppose that might be true, except that it means that he holds up ignorance as a worthy objective in approaching an issue, and I have seen that attitude many times before -- leading to decision-making based on prejudice rather than evidence.  In the end, Dehlin is projecting onto others his own dishonest manner of dealing with issues.  In essence, he is taking on the role of satan "adversary, accuser," in his interviews and conversations.  Clarity and fairness has never been his objective.

I'm not concerned about him as a person.  I've liked what is in the blog at this point.  If he causes problems as it seems everyone here seems to think he will, I'll let everyone know. 

[stemelbow]

42 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

The early to mid 19th Century is not our modern Western society. 14 years old was the age of legal consent to marry clear into the 20th Century in many states in America. 

That's fine.  But certainly we wouldn't be happy if a man in his thirties married many women some of which were teenagers and that man claimed to be a prophet.  We'd most likely not seriously consider him.  Sure some might.  But most of us would not.

[stemelbow]

16 hours ago, Gray said:

I do think that exmormons tend to be fundamentalists or literalists. But by the same token, fundamentalism seems to be the most popular approach to Mormonism among believers as well. The Mormonism I experienced growing up was totally fundamentalist.

However, I see signs that fundamentalism is starting to lose its grip over the church, just a little. I think the less fundamentalist the church is, the more we'll start to see friendly dialogue between believers and former believers, or people in between. There is no more ardent critic of faith than the fundamentalist who has lost his own faith. There is no more ardent critic of "unorthodoxy" than a fundamentalist. 

Interesting perspective re ex LDs tend to have been fundamentalists or literalists.  I do notice in conversations with ex LDS, it is quite often their contention that what is wrong with the Church is the problems with a literalist view.  In those conversations I often walk away agreeing.  But then as it turns out, I'm still LDS and they are not. 

[Gray]

12 hours ago, Calm said:

Yes, there is a lot of that approach among members and I see many who were this as members not really changing their methodology once they leave, they just use it to reject what they once accepted.

Yes, I've noticed that too. All the base assumptions are exactly the same. Only the conclusions are different. 

[thesometimesaint]

It wasn't all that uncommon in the early to mid 19tyh Century for older men to marry much younger women. Especially if the wife died in child birth. Modern medicine has come a long ways since then.

I live in the 21st Century, but remember well when I was in High School that the legal marriage age was 14. Do I approve of that today? No of course not, even with the claim of Divine Command. BTW We were too young, but legal, when I was 20 and my wife was 19 when we got married, my children were all in their mid 20's.

[Gray]

8 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Interesting perspective re ex LDs tend to have been fundamentalists or literalists.  I do notice in conversations with ex LDS, it is quite often their contention that what is wrong with the Church is the problems with a literalist view.  In those conversations I often walk away agreeing.  But then as it turns out, I'm still LDS and they are not. 

I think literalism will work less and less in the 21st century. But people who have been exposed to nothing but literalism their entire lives will see no alternatives but atheism. They don't understand that you can reject superstition without rejecting spirituality. 

[Storm Rider]

1 hour ago, thesometimesaint said:

The early to mid 19th Century is not our modern Western society. 14 years old was the age of legal consent to marry clear into the 20th Century in many states in America. 

The attempt to shock people with the fact that Joseph was married/sealed to a 14 year girl always comes off flat to me.  It is only the ignorant or the blind that think they have something with this accusation.  

A lot of my genealogy on my father's side is in the south.  Working on it this morning I again for another girl marrying at the age of fourteen.  This was not novel, but was common. 

After the Civil War there were a number of polygamist marriages or relationships.  My gggrandmother was in this type of marital arrangement in Florida after the war.  It was a recognized relationship and her husband identified her in his war pension documents recognizing her and their son as well as his first wife.  She never took is last name, but the relationship was there.  This was not a unique situation, but far more common than is realized.  

 

[cdowis]

FWIW, King Henry VII was born when the queen mother was only 13 years old.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, thesometimesaint said:

It wasn't all that uncommon in the early to mid 19tyh Century for older men to marry much younger women.

 

56 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

The attempt to shock people with the fact that Joseph was married/sealed to a 14 year girl always comes off flat to me.

 

3 minutes ago, cdowis said:

FWIW, King Henry VII was born when the queen mother was only 13 years old.

And most scholars believe that Mary was around 14 years old when she gave birth to our Savior AFTER being betrothed to Joseph at an even younger age.
The age argument is such a tired one and is based in nothing but the silliest of presentism.  Joseph did nothing wrong in his sealings and marriages.

[hope_for_things]

34 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

The attempt to shock people with the fact that Joseph was married/sealed to a 14 year girl always comes off flat to me.  It is only the ignorant or the blind that think they have something with this accusation.  

A lot of my genealogy on my father's side is in the south.  Working on it this morning I again for another girl marrying at the age of fourteen.  This was not novel, but was common. 

After the Civil War there were a number of polygamist marriages or relationships.  My gggrandmother was in this type of marital arrangement in Florida after the war.  It was a recognized relationship and her husband identified her in his war pension documents recognizing her and their son as well as his first wife.  She never took is last name, but the relationship was there.  This was not a unique situation, but far more common than is realized.  

Most of the reputable LDS historians would disagree with your assertion that these kinds of marriages were far more common than realized in the 19th century.  Spencer Fluman wrote a good essay on Helen Mar Kimball, I'll quote a relevant section:

Quote

While marriage proposals at age fourteen were not unheard of in the 1840s, they were unusual. Nineteenth-century women on average married earlier than today; early American legal understandings of youthful marriage might baffle modern readers. Borrowing from English common law traditions, American law during the 1840s set the legal age for marriage at twelve for females and fourteen for males.6 Similarly, pre-Civil War “age of consent” laws set a low standard; not until the 1880s did states begin raising the age of female consent from ten (or twelve) to sixteen.7 In rural communities where marriageable women could be scarce, marriage age could dip well below modern conventions—for instance, Martin Harris married his wife Lucy in 1808 when she was fifteen. These cases notwithstanding, the period’s census data reveal that generally, seventeen or eighteen marked the younger end of the typical range of female marital “eligibility.”8 So, while the rest of Joseph Smith’s plural wives’ ages more or less met contemporary expectations, Helen stands out as a possible, but not unheard of, exception.

https://benjaminepark.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/joseph-smiths-youngest-plural-wife.pdf

The entire essay is good.  I think we do a disservice to the history to try and normalize this kind of behavior.  It was unusual, not common or mainstream behavior. 

[thesometimesaint]

Go to a Pre-Civil War grave yard.

[hope_for_things]

4 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Go to a Pre-Civil War grave yard.

Ok, lets ignore what informed LDS historians are saying about their research, and lets visit a grave yard and make an uniformed observation that validates our preconceived notion.   Gotta love confirmation bias! 

[stemelbow]

I think people like to give Joseph a pass on the age thing with Helen, and lest we forget another of his brides was 14 as well.  It just so happened she was months younger than Helen at the time of the marriage, so she rarely gets mention.  But I don't see many argue that it was pretty ok and normal for 30 something old men to marry 14 year olds while that 30 something year old was married to other women and teenagers.  To say, it was ok for Joseph to marry a young teenager because there were other cases in society where a 14 year old girl got married is jumping off the boat and seems to, in my mind, confirm Dehlin's point which sparked all of this.  It wasn't normal for 14 year olds to get married even if some did.  And it was beyond ok for a 30 something year to marry a 14 year old girl.  And to add to all of that, he was already married to many other women, some of which were married to other men. 

I think the downplaying of it, at every opportunity, is exactly what Dehlin is talking about.