The Last Stage of Apologetics: It's your fault.

[cinepro]

I've collected LDS books for a long time.  I can still recall going to the LDS bookstore in northern California as a kid and buying the Storm Testament books.  And my eyes nearly popping out of my head when we visited Salt Lake City in the early 80s and we visited the huge multi-level Deseret Bookstore.

One of the first "serious" books I ever bought was in the early 1990s.  It was "The Truth About the Godmakers", an apologetic defense of the attacks made on the church in Ed Decker's book and movie.  I really like reading it and seeing the silly accusations made by Decker so easily destroyed.  My dad had a FARMS subscription in the 90s and quite a library of books himself, and my interest in apologetics continued during my mission and afterward.

Obviously, my interested in discussing Church stuff shifted online in the early 2000s, and it's been fascinating to see the massive changes made in how the Church is defended.  For some reason, a recent article over at Meridian made me a little sad.  It's not necessarily a new argument or defense for the Church, but seeing it phrased this way made me realize how far apologetics has gone.  The low-hanging fruit of Decker and his ilk is long gone, and the easy defenses of decades ago have been replaced by what could be the last, desperate gasp.

In the story, the author encounters a previously faithful student who now doubts the Church's veracity based on his "advanced training in logic." The author assures him "[...] that any questions that he had could be adequately answered, if he was really willing to turn his doubts into honest questions…those that require real faithful research to find answers."

Predictably, the author is unable to adequately resolve his concerns, and so he closes with this observation:

Quote

It isn’t the presence of difficult questions that cause alarm, on the contrary. The alarm sounds rather at the absence of a desire to pay the price for answers. And, even then, it isn’t the answers that are most sacred. It is the revelatory process, more than the product that changes who we are becoming! ‘Why’, you ask? When you experience Him, you will not need to ask! Nurturing spiritual health care will obviate the bareness that allows the growth of most spiritual cancers eating away at your discipleship. 

 

With all due respect, he is mis-framing the focus of his methodology.  The second sentence would be clearer and more honest written this way:

Quote

The alarm sounds rather at the absence of a desire to pay the price for self-delusion.

Because in the end, that's what he is talking about, and that's what he is encouraging others to seek as an antidote to "difficult questions."  Because when there are no answers to the difficult questions, that's all you can hope for.

I know the Church can never stop defending itself, even against the indefensible.  But when you start telling people that the ultimate goal is to get yourself into a mindset where you "will not need to ask!", it's really time to start thinking about who's going to turn the lights off and lock up, because the show's just about over.

Edited May 17, 2018 by cinepro

[rongo]

That isn't the only answer apologetics has, though. 

Not by a long shot. 

Reminds me of point #2 in Krister Stendahl's points he made when he announced publicly his support for the Stockholm temple: Compare similar things. Don't compare their worst to your best. 

If you take a poor, cringey example of apologetics and hold it up as indicating the imminent demise of apologetics, that indicates nothing of the kind, right? 

[Duncan]

10 minutes ago, cinepro said:

I've collected LDS books for a long time.  I can still recall going to the LDS bookstore in northern California as a kid and buying the Storm Testament books.  And my eyes nearly popping out of my head when we visited Salt Lake City in the early 80s and we visited the huge multi-level Deseret Bookstore.

One of the first "serious" books I ever bought was in the early 1990s.  It was "The Truth About the Godmakers", an apologetic defense of the attacks made on the church in Ed Decker's book and movie.  I really like reading it and seeing the silly accusations made by Decker so easily destroyed.  My dad had a FARMS subscription in the 90s and quite a library of books himself, and my interest in apologetics continued during my mission and afterward.

Obviously, my interested in discussing Church stuff shifted online in the early 2000s, and it's been fascinating to see the massive changes made in how the Church is defended.  For some reason, a recent article over at Meridian made me a little sad.  It's not necessarily a new argument or defense for the Church, but seeing it phrased this way made me realize how far apologetics has gone.  The low-hanging fruit of Decker and his ilk is long gone, and the easy defenses of decades ago have been replaced by what could be the last, desperate gasp.

In the story, the author encounters a previously faithful student who now doubts the Church's veracity based on his "advanced training in logic." The author assures him "[...] that any questions that he had could be adequately answered, if he was really willing to turn his doubts into honest questions…those that require real faithful research to find answers."

Predictably, the author is unable to adequately resolve his concerns, and so he closes with this observation:

 

With all due respect, he is mis-framing the focus of his methodology.  The second sentence would be clearer and more honest written this way:

Because in the end, that's what he is talking about, and that's what he is encouraging others to seek as an antidote to "difficult questions."  Because when there are no answers to the difficult questions, that's all you can hope for.

I know the Church can never stop defending itself, even against the indefensible.  But when you start telling people that the ultimate goal is to get yourself into a mindset where you "will not need to ask!", it's really time to start thinking about who's going to turn the lights off and lock up, because the show's just about over.

I just read a blog post from a member who basically said if you don't agree with Elder McConkie,  like he does, then you aren't a spiritually mature person

[Exiled]

7 minutes ago, cinepro said:

I've collected LDS books for a long time.  I can still recall going to the LDS bookstore in northern California as a kid and buying the Storm Testament books.  And my eyes nearly popping out of my head when we visited Salt Lake City in the early 80s and we visited the huge multi-level Deseret Bookstore.

One of the first "serious" books I ever bought was in the early 1990s.  It was "The Truth About the Godmakers", an apologetic defense of the attacks made on the church in Ed Decker's book and movie.  I really like reading it and seeing the silly accusations made by Decker so easily destroyed.  My dad had a FARMS subscription in the 90s and quite a library of books himself, and my interest in apologetics continued during my mission and afterward.

Obviously, my interested in discussing Church stuff shifted online in the early 2000s, and it's been fascinating to see the massive changes made in how the Church is defended.  For some reason, a recent article over at Meridian made me a little sad.  It's not necessarily a new argument or defense for the Church, but seeing it phrased this way made me realize how far apologetics has gone.  The low-hanging fruit of Decker and his ilk is long gone, and the easy defenses of decades ago have been replaced by what could be the last, desperate gasp.

In the story, the author encounters a previously faithful student who now doubts the Church's veracity based on his "advanced training in logic." The author assures him "[...] that any questions that he had could be adequately answered, if he was really willing to turn his doubts into honest questions…those that require real faithful research to find answers."

Predictably, the author is unable to adequately resolve his concerns, and so he closes with this observation:

 

With all due respect, he is mis-framing the focus of his methodology.  The second sentence would be clearer and more honest written this way:

Because in the end, that's what he is talking about, and that's what he is encouraging others to seek as an antidote to "difficult questions."  Because when there are no answers to the difficult questions, that's all you can hope for.

How would you propose to answer the difficult questions?  For me, all the arrows point to non-belief.  So, where does one go to defend?  I can see why one would want to discount the questioner's queries by calling the questions dishonest as the last apologetic, in your words, seems to be doing.  There is nowhere else to go but to redefine reality to include mormonism's truth claims as being truthful and blaming the victim for not wanting to change perspective.  In my reality and many others' realities, mormonism isn't true and obviously so.  Therefore, just redefine reality to include nephites and book of abraham missing scrolls and inspiring Clarke to help out a tired prophet finish his "translation," etc.

[bluebell]

I think that the real tragedy is in a member of the church trying to convince someone that they can find answers to all of their questions through study and that therefore, their belief in God and/or the church does not need to utilize faith.

While I disagree that without logic all we are left with is self-delusion, belief in the church doesn't work if someone wants to rely completely on proof.

[rongo]

29 minutes ago, Exiled said:

In my reality and many others' realities, mormonism isn't true and obviously so.  

This phrase hit home for me. The single biggest factor in these things, I have found, is: what do you want to believe? All else pales in comparison. I find that the difference maker between people who find a way to make it work, and those who lose their belief is whether or not they want to believe it. Richard Bushman, in responding to some of Wesley Walters' claims in the early 1970s (about Palmyra/Manchester tax records, the location of the Smiths, and revivals), made the point that claims like this anger and scare believers initially, but they are good for them in the long run by challenging people to seriously examine  their beliefs. He said that if, in the end, some sort of smoking gun were to be found, believers (including believing scholars) would "move heaven and earth" to defend that belief before surrendering. My experience is that people who struggle in faith either hold on or they don't. And the decisive factor is whether they wanted it to be true, or whether they didn't (not making a value judgment, just an observation). 

ETA: Found the source for the Bushman quote:

https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/exploring-first-vision/7-first-vision-story-revived

For those blessed with it, spiritual experience is the most compelling data. Honesty requires that one remain true to it even in the face of other evidence to the contrary. Were a case made against the Book of Mormon, our sense of balance and personal integrity would compel Mormons to hold on to their beliefs. But I wager that we would search heaven and earth to break the case and prove the book true historically. Mormons are determined to have both material and spiritual evidence for their faith. The spiritual is the more important, but the material must have its place.

Edited May 17, 2018 by rongo

[CA Steve]

Cinepro,

 

I believe you may be misunderstanding who the intended audience here is. This is Meridian Magazine, hardly known for its serious apologetic work. Instead this article makes perfect sense when you consider it is aimed at readers who will congratulate themselves for being part of that group who is able to "turn his doubts into honest questions."

[smac97]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

I've collected LDS books for a long time.  I can still recall going to the LDS bookstore in northern California as a kid and buying the Storm Testament books. 

I enjoyed the Storm Testament books as well.

Quote

One of the first "serious" books I ever bought was in the early 1990s.  It was "The Truth About the Godmakers", an apologetic defense of the attacks made on the church in Ed Decker's book and movie.  I really like reading it and seeing the silly accusations made by Decker so easily destroyed. 

I had a similar experience (several, actually).  I am reminded here of the 1997 Mosser/Owen article, "Mormon Apologetic Scholarship and Evangelical Neglect: Losing the Battle and Not Knowing It?", which includes this conclusions:

Quote

The title of this paper reflects five conclusions we have come to concerning Mormon-evangelical debates. The first is that there are, contrary to popular evangelical perceptions, legitimate Mormon scholars. We use the term scholar in its formal sense of "intellectual, erudite; skilled in intellectual investigation; trained in ancient languages." Broadly, Mormon scholarship can be divided in to four categories: traditional, neo-orthodox, liberal and cultural. We are referring to the largest and most influential of the four categories-traditional Mormon scholars. It is a point of fact that the Latter-day Saints are not an anti-intellectual group like Jehovah's Witnesses. Mormon, in distinction to groups like JWs, produce work that has more than the mere appearance of scholarship.

The second conclusion we have come to is that Mormon scholars and apologists (not all apologists are scholars) have, with varying degrees of success, answered most of the usual evangelical criticisms. Often these answers adequately diffuse particular (minor) criticisms. When the criticism has not been diffused the issue has usually been made much more complex.

"Most of the usual evangelical criticisms" seem to have pretty good answers, some of them very much so.

Quote

My dad had a FARMS subscription in the 90s and quite a library of books himself, and my interest in apologetics continued during my mission and afterward.

This sounds very similar to my experience, right down to my Dad having a FARMS subscription and a large library of church-related literature, and my interest in apologetics starting in the mid-90s.

Quote

Obviously, my interested in discussing Church stuff shifted online in the early 2000s, and it's been fascinating to see the massive changes made in how the Church is defended. 

I agree.  But it seems we disagree with the quality and competency of these defenses.

Quote

For some reason, a recent article over at Meridian made me a little sad.  It's not necessarily a new argument or defense for the Church, but seeing it phrased this way made me realize how far apologetics has gone. 

Hmm.  Funny how we can have such disparate perspectives on the same things.  I think LDS apologetics have become consistently better and stronger.

Quote

The low-hanging fruit of Decker and his ilk is long gone, and the easy defenses of decades ago have been replaced by what could be the last, desperate gasp.

We have faced mountains of opposition to our beliefs and truth claims.  Many of these challenges have been disposed of, with the remainder pertaining to more complex, difficult topics that, understandably, require more complex analyses and explanations.  There are also some criticisms that simply cannot be be defended against, and we Mormons have to lump it.

In the last twenty years we've had FARMS, FAIR, Interpreter, and many, many other publications which explain and defend the LDS Church's doctrines and teachings.  The quality of these apologetics, in my view, has gotten better over time, so I can't agree with the "last, desperate gasp" characterization.  It's not like I bury my head in the sand and refuse to listen to critics.  I've been on this board Since 2004, and I was on ZLMB for years before that.  I feel far more confident in the truth claims of the Church than I did twenty years go.  

Quote

In the story, the author encounters a previously faithful student who now doubts the Church's veracity based on his "advanced training in logic." The author assures him "[...] that any questions that he had could be adequately answered, if he was really willing to turn his doubts into honest questions…those that require real faithful research to find answers."

"Faithful research" being the operative phrase here.  The truth claims of the LDS Church are up for debate.  They are nowhere near demonstrably true or false.  There is plenty of room for principled and reasoned disagreement about them.  There is room for skepticism.  And there is room for faith.

Quote

Predictably, the author is unable to adequately resolve his concerns, and so he closes with this observation:

Quote

It isn’t the presence of difficult questions that cause alarm, on the contrary. The alarm sounds rather at the absence of a desire to pay the price for answers. And, even then, it isn’t the answers that are most sacred. It is the revelatory process, more than the product that changes who we are becoming! ‘Why’, you ask? When you experience Him, you will not need to ask! Nurturing spiritual health care will obviate the bareness that allows the growth of most spiritual cancers eating away at your discipleship. 

With all due respect, he is mis-framing the focus of his methodology.  The second sentence would be clearer and more honest written this way:

Quote

The alarm sounds rather at the absence of a desire to pay the price for self-delusion.

Because in the end, that's what he is talking about, and that's what he is encouraging others to seek as an antidote to "difficult questions." 

I don't think he's advocating "self-delusion" at all.  Delusion suggests that the truth claims of the LDS Church are demonstrably false, that this is an objective fact, and the failure to grasp or acknowledge this objective fact is delusional.  But that's simply not so.  Reasonable minds can disagree about the truth claims of the LDS Church.  Adopting a faithful perspective over a skeptical/faithless one is eminently reasonable (the inverse proposition is also true).  Delusion does not need to factor into this, and should not. 

Jeff Lindsay also has some thoughtful things to say about this issue: http://tinyurl.com/mdsduzg.  Here's the key bit from his article:

Quote

Latter-day Saints who study the responses of LDS writers to anti-Mormon criticisms know that there are many excellent resources which may refute or at least defuse many of the arguments hurled against us. These resources, found at places like the Maxwell Institute (formerly FARMS), The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIRLDS.org), SHIELDS, and even my little Web site (including my Mormon Answers section), do not rely on blind faith and emotional feelings to deal with the critics - though there are some tough issues like polygamy for which we don't have good answers (ugh - I really don't like polygamy!). But for many issues, Mosser and Owen are correct in observing that there are "robust defenses." In fact, many of the defenses turn the tables on the critics and leave them in intellectually untenable positions. In fact, we could turn around and ask them a few tough questions of our own -- see, for example, "My Turn--Questions for Anti-Mormons."

I think the evidence pointing away from the Church's truth claims being what they purport to be is only significant in a "death by a thousand paper cuts" sort of way.  That is, a person could conceivably be killed through the infliction of a thousand tiny paper cuts, none of which are individually mortal, but which in the aggregate can inflict enough damage to be fatal.  I think this is the Modus Operandi of many critics of the Church, Jeremy Runnells being a notable and obvious example.  They want to inflict a thousand paper cuts on the testimonies of the Saints, none of which are mortal, but which cumulatively can cause enough pain and doubt to cause belief to waiver.  Jeff Lindsay described it this way:

Quote

I once met a new convert, a college student, in my town of Appleton, Wisconsin, who showed me a couple of thick books loaded with accusations against the Church. She was upset and angry and planning to leave the Church. I tried to calm her down, and one by one, we discussed the arguments that were bothering her. Once one attack was diffused, she raised another, and another, and I think I helped her see that there was little merit to what she had raised so far, and that the bulk of the anti-Mormon material was truly deceptive. Then she just dug in her heels and said, "Well, it doesn't matter. If only 10% of all the things in here are true, that's enough to destroy the Church!" She left the Church...

Anti-Mormon literature is often ignorant of what Latter-day Saints really believe and especially ignorant of LDS authors have written in response to anti-Mormon attacks. Many of the common attacks against the Church are regurgitated arguments from the nineteenth century, arguments which have been thoroughly and carefully treated by responsible LDS writers who do much more than just talk about some warm feeling in their hearts. But the anti-Mormon writers and speakers of today make it sound as if no Mormon has ever dared to respond to their awesome arguments, and that the Church can only retreat and hide when faced with an intellectual battle.

I think that a Latter-day Saint can have a strong, informed, and spiritually-based testimony of the Restored Gospel, and that such a testimony can withstand the paper cuts that critics want to inflict.  I also think that Latter-day Saints can and should limit the number of paper cuts they allow critics to inflict.  That's not to say we should altogether ignore critics, but we shouldn't just stand there and let them slice us up, either.

Quote

Because when there are no answers to the difficult questions, that's all you can hope for.

Nope.  Self-delusion is not the answer.  Faith is.  And patience.  And study.  And prayer.  

Quote

I know the Church can never stop defending itself, even against the indefensible.

There really aren't many "indefensible" things in the history of the Church.  Racist sentiments by members and leaders (including from the pulpit)?  Yep, those are indefensible.  Mountain Meadows?  Yep, indefensible.  Some of the interactions with Native Americans?  Yep.  But I feel that the LDS Church is overwhelmingly good and decent.  And its doctrines and practices are, with some few notable exceptions, eminently defensible.

Quote

But when you start telling people that the ultimate goal is to get yourself into a mindset where you "will not need to ask!", it's really time to start thinking about who's going to turn the lights off and lock up, because the show's just about over.

I think the author's statement needs some context.  I think he's saying that faithful study and effort can overcome doubts and fears.

Again, the Church is not in the habit of encouraging ignorance. As Elder Perry put it: “We have never been encouraged to be blindly obedient; it is an intelligent obedience that characterizes members of the Church.”

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited May 17, 2018 by smac97

[CA Steve]

21 minutes ago, rongo said:

This phrase hit home for me. The single biggest factor in these things, I have found, is: what do you want to believe? All else pales in comparison. I find that the difference maker between people who find a way to make it work, and those who lose their belief is whether or not they want to believe it. Richard Bushman, in responding to some of Wesley Walters' claims in the early 1970s (about Palmyra/Manchester tax records, the location of the Smiths, and revivals), made the point that claims like this anger and scare believers initially, but they are good for them in the long run by challenging people to seriously examine  their beliefs. He said that if, in the end, some sort of smoking gun were to be found, believers (including believing scholars) would "move heaven and earth" to defend that belief before surrendering. My experience is that people who struggle in faith either hold on or they don't. And the decisive factor is whether they wanted it to be true, or whether they didn't (not making a value judgment, just an observation). 

ETA: Found the source for the Bushman quote:

https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/exploring-first-vision/7-first-vision-story-revived

 

 

Sorry Rongo but this is just a fancy way of saying it's your own fault if you don't believe.  I know too many people who agonized over their loss of faith (our very own Runtu comes to mind) for whom staying in would have been the easier decision. So this is not just an observation on your part, no matter how much you want it to be, it is a value judgement. Those that struggle and do not hold on :"just didn't want to believe" strongly enough.  You find them lacking in how much they wanted to believe.

Also for what it is worth, I think we should decide what to believe based on what evidence we see, not based on what we want.

Edited May 17, 2018 by CA Steve

[The Nehor]

58 minutes ago, Duncan said:

I just read a blog post from a member who basically said if you don't agree with Elder McConkie,  like he does, then you aren't a spiritually mature person

I am more of a Jesus Christ guy myself but to each their own.

[smac97]

46 minutes ago, Exiled said:

How would you propose to answer the difficult questions? 

Depends on the question.

46 minutes ago, Exiled said:

For me, all the arrows point to non-belief. 

For me, the arrows generally point to A) we don't know, B) we are human and make mistakes, C) we need further study and effort and patience, or D) some combination of A-C.

46 minutes ago, Exiled said:

There is nowhere else to go but to redefine reality to include mormonism's truth claims as being truthful and blaming the victim for not wanting to change perspective. 

No need to "redefine reality."  We can instead suggest that reasonable minds can disagree about all sorts of things, including important things.  So it's not about different facts, but rather about 1) different opinions about facts, 2) different emphases about facts, 3) differents interpretations of facts, and so on.

46 minutes ago, Exiled said:

In my reality and many others' realities, mormonism isn't true and obviously so. 

Are you able to consider a slight change in the foregoing statement?  "In my opinion and many others' opinions, mormonism isn't true and obviously so."

I am able to accommodate the possibility that reasonable minds can disagree with my assessment of Mormonism, and that they can do so without being accused of needing to fabricate their own "reality" as part of the process.

46 minutes ago, Exiled said:

Therefore, just redefine reality to include nephites and book of abraham missing scrolls and inspiring Clarke to help out a tired prophet finish his "translation," etc.

Again, a slight tweak readily resolves the issue: "Therefore, just redefine opinions to include nephites and book of abraham missing scrolls and inspiring Clarke to help out a tired prophet finish his 'translation,' etc."

If you can ditch the my-way-or-the-highway, either-you-agree-with-me-or-you-are-a-delusional-moron approach to Mormonism, things start to make a lot more sense.

Thanks,

-Smac

[RevTestament]

To be fair to this author I can interpret his comments a little differently. He says: 

Quote

It isn’t the presence of difficult questions that cause alarm, on the contrary. The alarm sounds rather at the absence of a desire to pay the price for answers. And, even then, it isn’t the answers that are most sacred. It is the revelatory process, more than the product that changes who we are becoming! ‘Why’, you ask? When you experience Him, you will not need to ask! Nurturing spiritual health care will obviate the bareness that allows the growth of most spiritual cancers eating away at your discipleship. 

While i don't know that I fully agree with Him, I do see that there can be a cost for desiring or obtaining answers we seek. I think the answer we get can be quite sacred, but I do see the process of paying that cost as being part of the sacredness of the answer. It makes it more real and meaningful to the one receiving the answer, so I can understand this comment too from my personal experiences. I've had questions that the Church materials and theologians did not sufficiently answer. Being willing to seek out the answer and pray over the course of years set me on a course which involved personal cost. Life experiences cemented the answer I was seeking. These experiences make the answer all the more memorable and meaningful to me. My willingness to "put it on the line" so to speak involved some cost/pain, but also satisfaction in receiving an answer. This nourishing of my spiritual questions/life did alleviate the bareness of where I had otherwise arrived spiritually in my life. My willingness to search out the answers took me down a path with some spiritual bareness. This has made me appreciate Him all the more.

However, I would not have arrived where I did if I did not ask, so here I do perhaps disagree with this author, and believe you have a point about his conclusion. "Ask and ye shall receive. Knock and it shall be opened to you." Our spiritual growth depends on our willingness to continue to ask. But this author is not saying we should not ask. He is saying that we do not need to ask about the importance of the revelatory process as I read him.

Nevertheless, i don't know that we can obviate spiritual bareness. I think that can be part of the sacred process, which makes us appreciate the answer all the more. Feeling some spiritual bareness is not necessarily something to be avoided. Allowing the spiritual cancers in as answers to this bareness is something to avoid. But even here it can be part of partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I don't think that not wanting to partake of that tree is self-delusion. I think it is just going along with the crowd or being satisfied with what we know. Some are willing to explore outside the box, and some are not. I think it is a matter more of willingness to seek rather than a matter of being deluded. Sometimes having a sure knowledge of Him gained through the experiences of receiving revelation is adequate - it is certainly more valuable than having an answer. I have questions which I don't know I will ever be able to answer in this life, and that's OK. it doesn't mean I'm deluded. Refusal to acknowledge the questions may be delusion, but that is not what this author is saying. He is saying have faith in the revelatory process, and in your experiences with God, and you don't have to have all the answers. However, some of the biggest answers may come with time through your faith in the revelatory process. This I can confirm through personal experience. 

Revelation 19:10 says: "The testimony of Yeshua is the spirit of prophecy/revelation."

 

Edited May 17, 2018 by RevTestament

[juliann]

There is some really bad apologetic stuff....just like there is some really bad critical stuff. It was easy to go after the Evangelical ministry types because there was a basic bottome line, there was a God, the Bible is "true," etc. In other words, there was a place to start.

That is no longer the case and I think it boils down to the basic criteria to involve yourself in philosopy of religion. It has to start with an accepted premise, God, or there can be no advancement in resulting propositions. That may be what this author is trying to get at. (I didn't read it) 

We probably do not demand "honest questions" for a majority of our worldview and life experience, so perhaps equating that with turning out the lights and locking the door is a little dangerous.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

Sorry Rongo but this is just a fancy way of saying it's your own fault if you don't believe.  

Perhaps the better phrase would be "It's your own choice if you don't believe."

That's pretty hard to dispute.

Quote

I know too many people who agonized over their loss of faith (our very own Runtu comes to mind) for whom staying in would have been the easier decision.

I acknowledge that.  But loss of faith is not the only option.  There are plenty of rational, intelligent, informed people who accept the truth claims of the LDS Church.  And there are plenty of such people who do not.  The difference between these two groups is . . . their choices.

Quote

So this is not just an observation on your part, no matter how much you want it to be, it is a value judgement. Those that struggle and do not hold on :"just didn't want to believe" strongly enough.  You find them lacking in how much they wanted to believe.

Rejection of the Restored Gospel is not a foregone conclusion (neither is acceptance/retention of it).  It's a matter of choice.  What informs that choice varies from person to person, but at the end . . . it's a choice.

Quote

Also for what it is worth, I think we should decide what to believe based on what evidence we see, not based on what we want.

I can go along with that, but I'd also add that we should exercise faith.  "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"  (JST Hebrews 11:1).

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited May 17, 2018 by smac97

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, cinepro said:

.......................

One of the first "serious" books I ever bought was in the early 1990s.  It was "The Truth About the Godmakers", an apologetic defense of the attacks made on the church in Ed Decker's book and movie.  I really like reading it and seeing the silly accusations made by Decker so easily destroyed.  My dad had a FARMS subscription in the 90s and quite a library of books himself, and my interest in apologetics continued during my mission and afterward.

Obviously, my interested in discussing Church stuff shifted online in the early 2000s, and it's been fascinating to see the massive changes made in how the Church is defended. 

I had thought that the actual changes in how the Church was defended were incremental over a very long period, beginning with Hugh Nibley and culminating in the FARMS effort to address first class non-Mormon scholarship in defense of the faith.  A good deal of that involved basic research projects in which one could not even predict the results (a good example is the decades long Book of Mormon Critical Text Project which I began and has been brought to fruition so brilliantly by Royal Skousen).  As with the long and detailed biography of Joseph Smith by Richard Bushman, one could not even really term it "apologetics," since it entailed a direct presentation of the facts, and "let the chips fall where they may."

2 hours ago, cinepro said:

For some reason, a recent article over at Meridian made me a little sad.  It's not necessarily a new argument or defense for the Church, but seeing it phrased this way made me realize how far apologetics has gone.  The low-hanging fruit of Decker and his ilk is long gone, and the easy defenses of decades ago have been replaced by what could be the last, desperate gasp......................................

With all due respect, he is mis-framing the focus of his methodology.  The second sentence would be clearer and more honest written this way:

Because in the end, that's what he is talking about, and that's what he is encouraging others to seek as an antidote to "difficult questions."  Because when there are no answers to the difficult questions, that's all you can hope for.

I know the Church can never stop defending itself, even against the indefensible.  But when you start telling people that the ultimate goal is to get yourself into a mindset where you "will not need to ask!", it's really time to start thinking about who's going to turn the lights off and lock up, because the show's just about over.

All relevant, cinepro, but beside the point.

Merdian magazine is an obvious throwback to an earlier age, and it does not reflect the reality which the Joseph Smith Papers Project or Gospel Topics Essays have brought, and continue to bring.  In fact, we should appreciate the virtual change in attitude about all that, since the LDS archives are so readily accessible these days.

I do recall the time decades ago in which Ed Decker's The Godmakers was being shown in homes throughout Provo.  I attended one of those showings, and (despite the attacks on Decker by the Tanners!!), I had a positive response.  I especially liked Decker's cartoon presentation of the LDS temple rites.  To my mind, people watching his movie would be attracted to Mormonism on that basis.  Indeed, wherever Decker showed his film, baptism rates increased (or so LDS missionaries were telling me).  Theretofore, people would simply turn the elders away.  Now, however, their interest had been piqued.

[Exiled]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

This phrase hit home for me. The single biggest factor in these things, I have found, is: what do you want to believe? All else pales in comparison. I find that the difference maker between people who find a way to make it work, and those who lose their belief is whether or not they want to believe it. Richard Bushman, in responding to some of Wesley Walters' claims in the early 1970s (about Palmyra/Manchester tax records, the location of the Smiths, and revivals), made the point that claims like this anger and scare believers initially, but they are good for them in the long run by challenging people to seriously examine  their beliefs. He said that if, in the end, some sort of smoking gun were to be found, believers (including believing scholars) would "move heaven and earth" to defend that belief before surrendering. My experience is that people who struggle in faith either hold on or they don't. And the decisive factor is whether they wanted it to be true, or whether they didn't (not making a value judgment, just an observation). 

ETA: Found the source for the Bushman quote:

https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/exploring-first-vision/7-first-vision-story-revived

 

 

The thing is that at a certain point, one can desire to believe almost anything.  So, how do you resolve this?  Are other religions just as valid as mormonism in your estimation?  Is any belief valid?  The thing about religion for me is that it all ends with the question of what lies beyond and really no one knows for sure.  So, we just guess.  Is someone's guess better than another?  I think the information about Clarke being found in the JST, the lack of nephites, the problems with the bofa, etc., etc. point to the fact that JS was just guessing.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, RevTestament said:

To be fair to this author I can interpret his comments a little differently. He says: 

While i don't know that I fully agree with Him, I do see that there can be a cost for desiring or obtaining answers we seek. I think the answer we get can be quite sacred, but I do see the process of paying that cost as being part of the sacredness of the answer. It makes it more real and meaningful to the one receiving the answer, so I can understand this comment too from my personal experiences. I've had questions that the Church materials and theologians did not sufficiently answer.... 

 

Rev, could you separate your comments into paragraphs for easier reading even if they work as one, please.  I find it very, very difficult to read large blocks of text and I like your posts, so don't want to skip them because I have lost track of where I was too many times.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

17 minutes ago, Exiled said:

The thing is that at a certain point, one can desire to believe almost anything....

True, but there are always desires in competition with each other.  The strongest desire (or group of desires that can be achieved together) likely wins out.

Quote

So this is not just an observation on your part, no matter how much you want it to be, it is a value judgement. Those that struggle and do not hold on :"just didn't want to believe" strongly enough.  You find them lacking in how much they wanted to believe

A desire to believe may be very, very strong, but there may be other desires that are even stronger that weight the choice whether to believe or not into the Not category.  Those desires may be admirable, they may not be.  They may be quite neutral...such as a desire to make a decision immediately so one can get on with one's life rather than feeling like one is in limbo.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Calm

[rongo]

1 minute ago, Exiled said:

The thing is that at a certain point, one can desire to believe almost anything.  So, how do you resolve this? 

We each have to live with ourselves. When we act differently from what's in our hearts and minds, it creates CogDis that drives us crazy. I think we've all experienced this. One form of this would be a Latter-day Saint who wants to believe, but truth be told, finds the evidence weighted against this belief. That truthfully doesn't describe me, but I know good, sincere people whom that does describe. There isn't anything I need to resolve, because there isn't any friction or conflict between what I want to believe, what I actually believe, and what I see the evidence as indicating.

Are other religions just as valid as mormonism in your estimation?  Is any belief valid?

No, not in my estimation. But I can only really testify to what I personally feel, believe, know, and experience. I do not subscribe to universalism in the sense of everything and anything being equally valid. I also recognize that other people calculate the variables differently.

The thing about religion for me is that it all ends with the question of what lies beyond and really no one knows for sure.  So, we just guess.

There are things we think, things we believe, and things we know. That's what testimony is. The things that I know are more temporal-based: power of the priesthood, God exists and can communicate and intervene, etc. The end questions, as you term it, are more a matter of faith for me. I believe, based on what I know, that there is a hereafter, and that it is as explained by the restored gospel. But you're right --- I don't know for sure about that. I trust, I believe, and I have confidence. 

A member of a former ward sat next to a minister on a plane, and they talked about the Church. The minister asked him what it would do if he could hypothetically prove 100% that the Book of Mormon was false. He said that it would destroy his faith in God and Christ. I thought about that when he told that, and I responded that I would still know that God exists and that the atonement is reality because of what I have felt and experienced. My knowledge with that doesn't depend on or stem from the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith. I would still know what I know even if I lost my belief in the Book of Mormon. Other things such as the Restoration and all that entails, of course, would be harmed if that belief were shattered. 

[Exiled]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Depends on the question.

For me, the arrows generally point to A) we don't know, B) we are human and make mistakes, C) we need further study and effort and patience, or D) some combination of A-C.

No need to "redefine reality."  We can instead suggest that reasonable minds can disagree about all sorts of things, including important things.  So it's not about different facts, but rather about 1) different opinions about facts, 2) different emphases about facts, 3) differents interpretations of facts, and so on.

Are you able to consider a slight change in the foregoing statement?  "In my opinion and many others' opinions, mormonism isn't true and obviously so."

I am able to accommodate the possibility that reasonable minds can disagree with my assessment of Mormonism, and that they can do so without being accused of needing to fabricate their own "reality" as part of the process.

Again, a slight tweak readily resolves the issue: "Therefore, just redefine opinions to include nephites and book of abraham missing scrolls and inspiring Clarke to help out a tired prophet finish his 'translation,' etc."

If you can ditch the my-way-or-the-highway, either-you-agree-with-me-or-you-are-a-delusional-moron approach to Mormonism, things start to make a lot more sense.

Thanks,

-Smac

Well, at a certain point, one needs good evidence to form a rational opinion.  However, to each his own I guess.

 

[hope_for_things]

3 hours ago, cinepro said:

Because in the end, that's what he is talking about, and that's what he is encouraging others to seek as an antidote to "difficult questions."  Because when there are no answers to the difficult questions, that's all you can hope for.

I know the Church can never stop defending itself, even against the indefensible.  But when you start telling people that the ultimate goal is to get yourself into a mindset where you "will not need to ask!", it's really time to start thinking about who's going to turn the lights off and lock up, because the show's just about over.

What a sad article it sounds like.  I agree with your assessment completely.  This sounds like a person who has created a wall of defense and refuses to critically engage with the questions and have enough humility to question their own assumptions.  Its a defense mechanism tactic to avoid being truly introspective.  

What is ironic and unfortunate is that I believe the gospel message and the metaphorical truth of the gospel is calling people to a death of their old and naive views about God that gives us things, and a rebirth into a complex and messy God without all the answers to life's most difficult problems.  

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, rongo said:

https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/exploring-first-vision/7-first-vision-story-revived

Quote

Looking on from the outside, an observer might think Mormons are hopelessly mixed up. If testimony is all that really matters, why worry about the historical evidence? Since an airtight case would fail to convince believing Mormons, they should forget about proofs for the Book of Mormon and replying to the Reverend Mr. Walters and concentrate on their religious experiences and the satisfactions of their group life.

For those blessed with it, spiritual experience is the most compelling data. Honesty requires that one remain true to it even in the face of other evidence to the contrary. Were a case made against the Book of Mormon, our sense of balance and personal integrity would compel Mormons to hold on to their beliefs. But I wager that we would search heaven and earth to break the case and prove the book true historically. Mormons are determined to have both material and spiritual evidence for their faith. The spiritual is the more important, but the material must have its place.

There is good reason for this combination. Mormons are committed to a God who acts in history. He led ancient Israel; he came to earth to redeem the world; he guides prophets in our time; and he helps individuals day by day with mundane problems. Our most basic commitment is to the power of God acting concretely in the lives of men. He comes and leaves footprints. To give up on historical proofs would be to relinquish in part our faith that God enters the here and now to lead and help and illuminate. Mormons feel divine power mainly in their spiritual experiences, but they believe traces of it can also be detected in the history of his people and his prophets. So long as we embrace that faith, we will, I think, search for proofs and evidences and reply to the likes of Mr. Walters when they try to confute us.

Thank you for the very interesting quote.  I respect Richard Bushman a lot, but I've found some of his perspectives perplexing over the years and this provides some really interesting and important insight in to how he reconciles things in his mind.  

I do have a problem with this perspective.  If you see the bolded part in this quote, it sounds like he's justifying holding indefensible positions about historical claims because it would in part relinquish faith in God if those positions were abandoned.  I don't find this a compelling argument from my vantage point.  From my perspective we need to be humble enough to recognize that any of our assumptions and perspectives might be wrong, and we ought to follow the evidence for where it leads us and adjust our paradigms accordingly.  

Its personal pride and bias that often keeps people tied to their earlier perspectives, not the strength of the evidence.  We should have a commitment to truth, even when that truth shatters out earlier views.  That doesn't mean this shattering also requires us to abandon all our spiritual convictions, but it does mean we may have to reinterpret our earlier perspectives including our spiritual ones.  

I'm thankful for so much of what Richard Bushman has done, he's an amazing scholar, but I think he's wrong on how he describes the way we should reconcile these things.  

[Guest]

I often feel blessed due to my upbringing. Living in the home of and the son of a Baptist Minister, my Father was very welled versed in scripture. Not though a doctorate of theology, kind of knowing, but the decades long study of the Bible and his ability to recognize the Holy Spirit. At the age of 11, I began taking Bible correspondence courses by mail. In my reading assignments and questions, I had this overflowing fountain of wisdom sitting across the table from me every evening. 

I learned about "oral tradition", before the written word, and how to think critically, without being critical. This lead me at the age of 19 to believe that God was calling me to the ministry. But with a young (very young) family, the military came first. It was while serving in West Germany that I received my first BoM. My first response to the BoM was instant and overwhelming, having absolutely no idea what had even been handed me. That first night, I had guard duty all night, so powerful was that first witness, I read all night. We were on maneuvers, and when I returned home three days later I asked for more to read, and for missionaries to come to our apartment. 

In the beginning I could not get enough of Church history, but that does not mean I believed all that I read. All I knew in the beginning was that the BoM was the word of God, the rest I approached more skeptically. Over the years I have learned that when mortal man, and sometimes angels are concerned, protection is all things just cannot be. Therefore I did know grow up believing that the early leaders of the Church were as perfect and sanitized as accounts sometimes suggested. So, when I found error, or imperfections, it did not shake me to the core, as I had always grown up around the moral and the flawed. Both those in scripture, and those in Church. God uses flawed men and women, because there is nothing else available.    

[RevTestament]

48 minutes ago, Calm said:

Rev, could you separate your comments into paragraphs for easier reading even if they work as one, please.  I find it very, very difficult to read large blocks of text and I like your posts, so don't want to skip them because I have lost track of where I was too many times.

Wow. Glad to know someone thinks what I have to say is worth reading! I increased the font size 2 pts, and broke it into 3 paragraphs. It is not my finest work - reading back on it I seem a little disjointed, but hopefully you can now get at least some gist of what I am saying.  

[MiserereNobis]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Perhaps the better phrase would be "It's your own choice if you don't believe."

That's pretty hard to dispute.

Belief and choice don't always work together. I cannot, by the force of my will and choice, believe that 2 + 2 = 7. Or that the earth is flat. Or lots of things where my belief is not dictated by my choice. Belief is a web and you cannot simply pluck one belief out by choice. Often the beliefs around it have anchored it too strongly.

This is true for my religious beliefs. I cannot right now simply choose to not believe Catholicism. I imagine the same is true for you and Mormonism.