The Plan of Salvation: A Sufficient Theodicy

[Ryan Dahle]

The role that social/ethical issues typically play in a person’s decision to leave or distances himself or herself from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is becoming increasingly clear to me. Whether the concern is with the priesthood ban, LGBTQ issues, polygamy/polyandry, or similar topics there is usually an underlying logic that leads to the loss of faith: if the doctrines, policies, or history of the Church don't agree with one's moral intuitions, then there is just cause for doubting or disbelieving its fundamental claims.

I think the obvious problem, however, is that morality is a complicated thing. Our individual moral intuitions and stances can change over time, and different societies and civilizations throughout history have viewed many moral issues very differently. There are different fundamental moral frameworks such as Utilitarianism, Egoism, Duty-based Ethics, Virtue Ethics, Divine Command Theory, etc., most of which start out with different premises, have notable exceptions to general rules, and attempt to resolve ethical dilemmas in different ways.

With so much moral complexity, how can we trust that our moral intuitions and feelings are justified? We all know people who get very upset about things that don't really bother us personally, or who think something is morally justified that we find reprehensible. And most of us can probably think of times when we were angry without cause, times when we didn't fully understand a situation, made premature judgments, and then acted rashly upon those judgments--or times when we prematurely accepted the moral validity of something that later we came to see as immoral. Our limited human knowledge and our propensity to make logical errors in our thinking often make it difficult to correctly apply moral principles in specific ethical situations.

And once we reach a conclusion about the morality of a rule, policy, or action (whether subconsciously or consciously) that conclusion sometimes evokes strong emotions. For this reason, it is often difficult to change our stance on a moral issue because we not only have to adjust our intellectual reasoning but also must push back against the strong emotions that were evoked by our former reasoning. In many cases, the human impulse is to simply justify our emotions rather than to evaluate whether those emotions are, in the first place, based on reliable information and sound moral reasoning. Most of us have probably gotten into arguments where a part of us knows we should restrain ourselves and rethink our position, but we ignore that voice and instead seek only to justify our anger, frustration, criticism, etc. It is easy to become the victims rather than the masters of our emotions.

The main point here is simply that making sound moral judgments, as independent rational beings, is often a lot more complicated than people sometimes think. In my view, if the Plan of Salvation is true and, for all intents and purposes, conceptually accurate, then it places humans in even less of a position to make reliable moral judgments on their own—at least when it comes to evaluating the moral integrity of the Church. This is because we not only have to assess the virtues and consequences of a doctrine, practice, policy in this realm of existence, but also anticipate how it will affect future realms and how it relates to metaphysical realities and transcendent divine laws that we can’t fully comprehend.

Moreover, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Plan of Salvation offers ultimate compensation for all injustices, unfairness, and sorrow—all of which are an important part of the plan, as a natural consequence of agency, as a way to help us understand justice and fairness, and as a test of our faith and character. According to the plan, we chose to come here, knowing full well that we would be subjected to unfair conditions as part of our mortal test, and that God would sometimes ask us to make sacrifices that we wouldn’t fully understand in this life.

I think we all have had everyday life experiences that teach us that what seems unfair and unjust in the short-term could very easily turn out to be completely justifiable in the long term. For example, when young children are taken in for immunization shots, they often don’t understand why the doctor must poke them with a needle, an action which indisputably causes them “harm.” They simply have to have faith when their parent or the doctor says that the shot will help them avoid getting sick, and that the immediate pain will be worth it in the long run.

I often personally rely upon this type of analogy when I wrestle with the major moral issues that increasingly seem to be a stumbling block for so many people. I’m not concerned with priesthood ban, for instance, because (A) we still can’t be sure about its origins, (B) there is strong evidence that it was ended by revelation, which provides evidence that God is still leading and guiding the Church, (C) there was no divine rebuke or explanation given when the ban was ended, and (D) the Plan of Salvation assures us that those who, for whatever reason, were deprived of blessings in this life will be compensated in the eternities. There’s a lot we still don’t know about the priesthood ban, and it seems both illogical and arrogant to make a life-altering moral judgment on this or similar matters about which we are mostly ignorant.

The natural rebuttal to this type of reasoning is that the Plan of Salvation seems too impervious to moral scrutiny and that there is no moral reason to accept it in the first place if anything and everything is potentially morally justifiable. And the rebuttal to this rebuttal is that the issues that trouble people are generally exceptions to the rule. Back to the analogy from before—as children, we can hopefully trust that our parents are telling us the truth about the doctor and the shot because we have built a loving relationship with them and have seen how they are often wise about things that we don’t understand.

Likewise, we hopefully develop a testimony through consistent daily interactions with the gospel, the scriptures, and applying gospel truths into our lives. If we perform this process correctly, it will result in unique and discernible spiritual experiences that bring joy and other spiritual gifts. For me, this is where the real test of the gospel and the Church logically lies, not in endless moral speculation about its unusual inconsistencies.

I think what often happens is that when people begin to discover that some of the Church’s teachings, policies, or history seem logically immoral, their knee-jerk negative emotions begin to compete with their ability to discern spiritual truths. Before they even know what has happened, they consistently magnify the newfound inconsistencies and find it harder and harder to remember or value the feelings of joy and peace that once helped them trust that the Church was true. With these new emotions dominating their perspective, they reinterpret all their previous spiritual experiences in a way that invalidates them, while at the same time they choose to validate their new victim narrative and its attendant feelings, despite the fact that this narrative is inherently based on speculative and ultimately unreliable moral analysis.

The longer they persist in this mindset, the harder it becomes to retry the gospel experiment with sincerity and real intent. They simply can’t get past what they now see as glaring moral inconsistencies. And they won’t admit to themselves (or simply don't recognize) that they are choosing to focus on exceptions to the rule, and that their human moral reasoning isn’t adequate to assess those exceptions—at least not when the exceptions are placed in the moral framework of the Plan of Salvation, which is essential to morally evaluating any aspect of the Church’s truth claims. 

Any thoughts?

  

[let’s roll]

My thought is to focus less on people’s relationship with the Church and much more on their relationship with Deity.  God’s definition of eternal life doesn’t mention the Church, only Him and His Son.

The Church acts as a means for many to enhance their relationship with Deity, but that’s what it is, a means, not an end.

Many have come to know Deity and have refined their spirit/heart without the benefit of the Church.

When we use membership and activity in the Church as the sole measure of spirituality and discipleship and try to debate people into (or back into) the Church, we risk having the Church be a stumbling block for some.

So rather than having our principal focus be “fixing” someone’s opinion of the Church and keeping someone “in the Church,” I’d suggest that while we love them, we emphasize the importance of, and encourage them to humbly and earnestly seek wisdom and guidance from Deity.  I, for one, have faith that if they do so, and follow the direction they receive, ultimately all will be well with them.

Edited December 14, 2018 by let’s roll

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

My thought is to focus less on people’s relationship with the Church and much more on their relationship with Deity.  God’s definition of eternal life doesn’t mention the Church, only Him and His Son.

Actually, God's definition of eternal life definitely does mention his Church, as well as the priesthood ordinances and covenants that it provides.

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

The Church acts as a means for many to enhance their relationship with Deity, but that’s what it is, a means, not an end.

If the only way to a desired end is through a specific, divinely established means, then that means if obviously preeminently important. 

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

Many have come to know Deity and have refined their spirit/heart without the benefit of the Church.

But those who join the Savior's Church and then sever themselves from it also sever themselves from Him. This is all over in the scriptures. 

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

When we use membership and activity in the Church as the sole measure of spirituality and discipleship and try to debate people into (or back into) the Church, we risk having the Church be a stumbling block for some.

Who is using membership and activity "as the sole measure of spirituality and discipleship"? Also, I'm not really looking for a debate so much as a discussion of this topic from a variety of perspectives. Yes, debate will inevitably play out, but my goal is less about convincing others and more about refining my ideas. 

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

So rather than having our principal focus be “fixing” someone’s opinion of the Church and keeping someone “in the Church,” I’d suggest that while we love them, we emphasize the importance of, and encourage them to humbly and earnestly seek wisdom and guidance from Deity.  I, for one, have faith that if they do so, and follow the direction they receive, ultimately all will be well with them.

I'm not trying to "fix" anyone. I'm just trying to clearly identify some of the fallacies that lead people to leave the Church, and then to figure out how to articulate these fallacies in a persuasive manner. 

[let’s roll]

46 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Actually, God's definition of eternal life definitely does mention his Church, as well as the priesthood ordinances and covenants that it provides.

If the only way to a desired end is through a specific, divinely established means, then that means if obviously preeminently important. 

But those who join the Savior's Church and then sever themselves from it also sever themselves from Him. This is all over in the scriptures. 

Who is using membership and activity "as the sole measure of spirituality and discipleship"? Also, I'm not really looking for a debate so much as a discussion of this topic from a variety of perspectives. Yes, debate will inevitably play out, but my goal is less about convincing others and more about refining my ideas. 

I'm not trying to "fix" anyone. I'm just trying to clearly identify some of the fallacies that lead people to leave the Church, and then to figure out how to articulate these fallacies in a persuasive manner. 

If you had to choose between having someone stay in the Church and never “ask” or “seek” God as He has invited us to do or “ask” and “seek” with real intent while distancing themselves from the Church, which would you choose.  

If the latter, then perhaps you can understand my desire to focus on our relationship with Deity.  If the former, then we don’t have the same belief regarding the purpose of the Church.

By the way, since the vast majority of the people in the Celestial Kingdom will not have been members of the Church in mortality, one can’t fairly characterize the Church as “the only way to a desired end....”

Edited December 15, 2018 by let’s roll

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

If you had to choose between having someone stay in the Church and never “ask” or “seek” God as He has invited us to do or “ask” and “seek” with real intent while distancing themselves from the Church, which would you choose.

I think the question has built-in assumptions that I fundamentally disagree with, and that it essentially presents a false dilemma.

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

By the way, since the vast majority of the people in the Celestial Kingdom will not have been members of the Church in mortality, one can’t fairly characterize the Church as “the only way to a desired end....”

Christ's true Church exists in this world and the next (D&C 138). And those who enter into eternal life must categorically be of the "Church of the Firstborn (D&C 76:54). In this discussion, I never assumed the Church was a strictly mortal organization. That was an assumption that you apparently held and seem to have read into my comments.

The only way people will enter into eternal life is if they accept the ordinances and covenants of Christ's true Church. And, as Joseph Smith taught, it would be to their advantage if they accepted and were obedient to these ordinances covenants in mortality (D&C 130:19). So, there is an urgency to encourage and inspire and persuade people to not sever themselves from Christ's Church. Doing so will inevitably lead them to experience unhappiness and sorrow. Which is why modern prophets are exhorting us to "stay in the boat."

But, really, this is all tangential to the OP.

 

Edited December 15, 2018 by Ryan Dahle

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

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

The main point here is simply that making sound moral judgments, as independent rational beings, is often a lot more complicated than people sometimes think. In my view, if the Plan of Salvation is true and, for all intents and purposes, conceptually accurate, then it places humans in even less of a position to make reliable moral judgments on their own—at least when it comes to evaluating the moral integrity of the Church. This is because we not only have to assess the virtues and consequences of a doctrine, practice, policy in this realm of existence, but also anticipate how it will affect future realms and how it relates to metaphysical realities and transcendent divine laws that we can’t fully comprehend.

Moreover, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Plan of Salvation offers ultimate compensation for all injustices, unfairness, and sorrow...............................

The problem with that is the position taken by some admirers of Mormon social behavior, who at the same time do not accept the religious ideas of that faith.  The late Sterling McMurrin had a great deal of praise for Mormon society, even though he did not believe in Mormon religious claims.  He was interested in the here and now.  Even within Judaism there is a strong tendency to emphasize this world and this life, rather than focusing on the world to come.  Jews have been focused on improving and repairing this world, rather than worrying about what happens in the next life.

8 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I think what often happens is that when people begin to discover that some of the Church’s teachings, policies, or history seem logically immoral, their knee-jerk negative emotions begin to compete with their ability to discern spiritual truths. Before they even know what has happened, they consistently magnify the newfound inconsistencies and find it harder and harder to remember or value the feelings of joy and peace that once helped them trust that the Church was true. With these new emotions dominating their perspective, they reinterpret all their previous spiritual experiences in a way that invalidates them, while at the same time they choose to validate their new victim narrative and its attendant feelings, despite the fact that this narrative is inherently based on speculative and ultimately unreliable moral analysis.

The longer they persist in this mindset, the harder it becomes to retry the gospel experiment with sincerity and real intent. They simply can’t get past what they now see as glaring moral inconsistencies. And they won’t admit to themselves (or simply don't recognize) that they are choosing to focus on exceptions to the rule, and that their human moral reasoning isn’t adequate to assess those exceptions—at least not when the exceptions are placed in the moral framework of the Plan of Salvation, which is essential to morally evaluating any aspect of the Church’s truth claims. ..............  

Perhaps this all boils down to extrapolation from a recognition of human fallibility:  Disappointment in the lack of human perfection may have angered some people to such an extent that they want to chuck it all -- and end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Ryan Dahle]

9 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The problem with that is the position taken by some admirers of Mormon social behavior, who at the same time do not accept the religious ideas of that faith.  The late Sterling McMurrin had a great deal of praise for Mormon society, even though he did not believe in Mormon religious claims.  He was interested in the here and now.  Even within Judaism there is a strong tendency to emphasize this world and this life, rather than focusing on the world to come.  Jews have been focused on improving and repairing this world, rather than worrying about what happens in the next life.

I think what you are bringing up is definitely the other side of the coin. Unusual moral inconsistencies don't necessarily invalidate a religious system, especially when its overarching theological framework is as large in scope and as compensatory as the Plan of Salvation. Yet, as I think you rightly point out, a simple preponderance of consistent and agreeable moral tenets certainly doesn't prove a religious system to be true. I guess that is my whole point. The final validity of any religious system shouldn't really rest on its ability to prove the moral consistency of each of its policies, doctrines, and practices. Obviously our moral intuition and reasoning about the majority of a religion's teachings and practices will likely make us more or less inclined to accept its truth claims and affiliate ourselves with it. But in the overall evaluation, we should be open to the possibility that in some situations our moral assessments may be too flawed and uninformed to reliably trust them.

I would grant the same privilege to any religion or belief system. For instance, my natural inclination is that living a celibate lifestyle is not morally favorable. However, that really has little (actually nothing) to do with my reasons for not becoming a member of the Catholic church--which, to my knowledge, approves of and requires celibacy in some ecclesiastical situations. It is really beyond me to determine, based on moral intuition and scriptural exegesis alone, whether or not celibacy could be morally favorable in some situations. So I'm willing to suspend moral judgment on this matter (and many others like it) and choose instead to focus on what I feel are more reliable grounds for disagreement. Not that I really sit around thinking a lot about why I'm not a Catholic, but I think this helps illustrate my point. 

 

 

 

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I think what you are bringing up is definitely the other side of the coin. Unusual moral inconsistencies don't necessarily invalidate a religious system, especially when its overarching theological framework is as large in scope and as compensatory as the Plan of Salvation. Yet, as I think you rightly point out, a simple preponderance of consistent and agreeable moral tenets certainly doesn't prove a religious system to be true. I guess that is my whole point. The final validity of any religious system shouldn't really rest on its ability to prove the moral consistency of each of its policies, doctrines, and practices. Obviously our moral intuition and reasoning about the majority of a religion's teachings and practices will likely make us more or less inclined to accept its truth claims and affiliate ourselves with it. But in the overall evaluation, we should be open to the possibility that in some situations our moral assessments may be too flawed and uninformed to reliably trust them.

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

The worldly success of some groups and the failure of others sometimes suggests that there may be features of some groups (religious or not) which are positive and have survival value.  The Jewish community, for example, has been enormously successful in surviving and even flourishing for thousands of years.  We might want to examine the reasons for that success.  Did God just say by fiat, "Voila !! My chosen people will survive."  Or are there Jewish traits which help guarantee that survival?  Do the sociological surveys of the Latter-day Saints demonstrate that same survival value?  I think that they do, and that a solid theological structure can be accompanied by firm secular traits which bode well for community happiness and survival.

[The Nehor]

On 12/14/2018 at 7:56 PM, let’s roll said:

If you had to choose between having someone stay in the Church and never “ask” or “seek” God as He has invited us to do or “ask” and “seek” with real intent while distancing themselves from the Church, which would you choose.  

If the latter, then perhaps you can understand my desire to focus on our relationship with Deity.  If the former, then we don’t have the same belief regarding the purpose of the Church.

By the way, since the vast majority of the people in the Celestial Kingdom will not have been members of the Church in mortality, one can’t fairly characterize the Church as “the only way to a desired end....”

That is like asking if you are more likely to live if you spacewalk without protection in a vacuum or if you chop your head off. You are damned either way.

Edited December 16, 2018 by The Nehor

[Ouagadougou]

On 12/14/2018 at 4:23 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

The role that social/ethical issues typically play in a person’s decision to leave or distances himself or herself from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is becoming increasingly clear to me. Whether the concern is with the priesthood ban, LGBTQ issues, polygamy/polyandry, or similar topics there is usually an underlying logic that leads to the loss of faith: if the doctrines, policies, or history of the Church don't agree with one's moral intuitions, then there is just cause for doubting or disbelieving its fundamental claims.

I think the obvious problem, however, is that morality is a complicated thing. Our individual moral intuitions and stances can change over time, and different societies and civilizations throughout history have viewed many moral issues very differently. There are different fundamental moral frameworks such as Utilitarianism, Egoism, Duty-based Ethics, Virtue Ethics, Divine Command Theory, etc., most of which start out with different premises, have notable exceptions to general rules, and attempt to resolve ethical dilemmas in different ways.

With so much moral complexity, how can we trust that our moral intuitions and feelings are justified? We all know people who get very upset about things that don't really bother us personally, or who think something is morally justified that we find reprehensible. And most of us can probably think of times when we were angry without cause, times when we didn't fully understand a situation, made premature judgments, and then acted rashly upon those judgments--or times when we prematurely accepted the moral validity of something that later we came to see as immoral. Our limited human knowledge and our propensity to make logical errors in our thinking often make it difficult to correctly apply moral principles in specific ethical situations.

And once we reach a conclusion about the morality of a rule, policy, or action (whether subconsciously or consciously) that conclusion sometimes evokes strong emotions. For this reason, it is often difficult to change our stance on a moral issue because we not only have to adjust our intellectual reasoning but also must push back against the strong emotions that were evoked by our former reasoning. In many cases, the human impulse is to simply justify our emotions rather than to evaluate whether those emotions are, in the first place, based on reliable information and sound moral reasoning. Most of us have probably gotten into arguments where a part of us knows we should restrain ourselves and rethink our position, but we ignore that voice and instead seek only to justify our anger, frustration, criticism, etc. It is easy to become the victims rather than the masters of our emotions.

The main point here is simply that making sound moral judgments, as independent rational beings, is often a lot more complicated than people sometimes think. In my view, if the Plan of Salvation is true and, for all intents and purposes, conceptually accurate, then it places humans in even less of a position to make reliable moral judgments on their own—at least when it comes to evaluating the moral integrity of the Church. This is because we not only have to assess the virtues and consequences of a doctrine, practice, policy in this realm of existence, but also anticipate how it will affect future realms and how it relates to metaphysical realities and transcendent divine laws that we can’t fully comprehend.

Moreover, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Plan of Salvation offers ultimate compensation for all injustices, unfairness, and sorrow—all of which are an important part of the plan, as a natural consequence of agency, as a way to help us understand justice and fairness, and as a test of our faith and character. According to the plan, we chose to come here, knowing full well that we would be subjected to unfair conditions as part of our mortal test, and that God would sometimes ask us to make sacrifices that we wouldn’t fully understand in this life.

I think we all have had everyday life experiences that teach us that what seems unfair and unjust in the short-term could very easily turn out to be completely justifiable in the long term. For example, when young children are taken in for immunization shots, they often don’t understand why the doctor must poke them with a needle, an action which indisputably causes them “harm.” They simply have to have faith when their parent or the doctor says that the shot will help them avoid getting sick, and that the immediate pain will be worth it in the long run.

I often personally rely upon this type of analogy when I wrestle with the major moral issues that increasingly seem to be a stumbling block for so many people. I’m not concerned with priesthood ban, for instance, because (A) we still can’t be sure about its origins, (B) there is strong evidence that it was ended by revelation, which provides evidence that God is still leading and guiding the Church, (C) there was no divine rebuke or explanation given when the ban was ended, and (D) the Plan of Salvation assures us that those who, for whatever reason, were deprived of blessings in this life will be compensated in the eternities. There’s a lot we still don’t know about the priesthood ban, and it seems both illogical and arrogant to make a life-altering moral judgment on this or similar matters about which we are mostly ignorant.

The natural rebuttal to this type of reasoning is that the Plan of Salvation seems too impervious to moral scrutiny and that there is no moral reason to accept it in the first place if anything and everything is potentially morally justifiable. And the rebuttal to this rebuttal is that the issues that trouble people are generally exceptions to the rule. Back to the analogy from before—as children, we can hopefully trust that our parents are telling us the truth about the doctor and the shot because we have built a loving relationship with them and have seen how they are often wise about things that we don’t understand.

Likewise, we hopefully develop a testimony through consistent daily interactions with the gospel, the scriptures, and applying gospel truths into our lives. If we perform this process correctly, it will result in unique and discernible spiritual experiences that bring joy and other spiritual gifts. For me, this is where the real test of the gospel and the Church logically lies, not in endless moral speculation about its unusual inconsistencies.

I think what often happens is that when people begin to discover that some of the Church’s teachings, policies, or history seem logically immoral, their knee-jerk negative emotions begin to compete with their ability to discern spiritual truths. Before they even know what has happened, they consistently magnify the newfound inconsistencies and find it harder and harder to remember or value the feelings of joy and peace that once helped them trust that the Church was true. With these new emotions dominating their perspective, they reinterpret all their previous spiritual experiences in a way that invalidates them, while at the same time they choose to validate their new victim narrative and its attendant feelings, despite the fact that this narrative is inherently based on speculative and ultimately unreliable moral analysis.

The longer they persist in this mindset, the harder it becomes to retry the gospel experiment with sincerity and real intent. They simply can’t get past what they now see as glaring moral inconsistencies. And they won’t admit to themselves (or simply don't recognize) that they are choosing to focus on exceptions to the rule, and that their human moral reasoning isn’t adequate to assess those exceptions—at least not when the exceptions are placed in the moral framework of the Plan of Salvation, which is essential to morally evaluating any aspect of the Church’s truth claims. 

Any thoughts?

  

For me personally, my disbelief in the church wasn't just about social/ethical issues or some moral inconsistencies here or there; rather, it emerged primarily from several huge problems in the church's underlying narrative and truth claims, which, IMO, cannot be reconciled. Even Richard Bushman said the following:

Richard Bushman: "I think that for the Church to remain strong it has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained. The Church has to absorb all this new information or it will be on very shaky grounds and that’s what it is trying to do and it will be a strain for a lot of people, older people especially. But I think it has to change."

http://ldsanswers.org/dominant-church-history-narrative-not-true-lds-scholars-encourage-new-history-new-policy-new-church/

Likewise, I think "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" -- and as it relates to the church's truth claims -- I have arrived at my own conclusion that these claims are not true and that there is no reasonable evidence (other than feelings) to substantiate them.

Based on the compilation of all of the major problems with the church's truth claims, I think when using Occam's Razor a person can reasonably come to his/her own conclusion that the church's truth claims are not what they are...and simply cannot be sustained or reconciled. For some people, relying on just warm and special feelings is not enough evidence or justification to support such extraordinary truth claims.

Finally, I compare my disbelief in the church's truth claims to other fairytales, myths, or stories I once believed as a child. At one time as a child, I believed in myths or imaginary characters (as most of us did), but as I grew older, logic and science began to play an even more important role in coming to my own conclusions. I agree with Richard Bushman when he said: "The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained." For me it wasn't just about "moral intuitions and stances," or that church issues were "logically immoral;" rather, it was about the narrative itself not being compatible with science and logic; it's more about applying logic, reason, and science to how I view the world and any religious institution's claims, teachings, or policies.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Ouagadougou

[let’s roll]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

That is like asking if you are more likely to live if you spacewalk without protection in a vacuum or if you chop your head off. You are damned either way.

Early Church history included a fair number of early leaders who became disenchanted with the Prophet/Church but continued to earnestly ask and seek Divine guidance and,as a result of such guidance returned to the Church.

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

For me personally, my disbelief in the church wasn't just about social/ethical issues or some moral inconsistencies here or there; rather, it emerged primarily from several huge problems in the church's underlying narrative and truth claims, which, IMO, cannot be reconciled. ...

I'm actually more sympathetic to this view, even though I obviously completely disagree with your conclusion about the underlying problems in the Church's narrative/truth claims. Honestly, for most people it is probably a mix. I just think the concerns people have with social/moral issues are often magnified and prioritized in a way that is irrational.  

Edited December 17, 2018 by Ryan Dahle

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

Early Church history included a fair number of early leaders who became disenchanted with the Prophet/Church but continued to earnestly ask and seek Divine guidance and,as a result of such guidance returned to the Church.

Yeah, I would need to see evidence of the "continued to earnestly ask and seek Divine guidance" bit. The rest is true.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

Based on the compilation of all of the major problems with the church's truth claims, I think when using Occam's Razor a person can reasonably come to his/her own conclusion that the church's truth claims are not what they are...and simply cannot be sustained or reconciled. For some people, relying on just warm and special feelings is not enough evidence or justification to support such extraordinary truth claims.

Finally, I compare my disbelief in the church's truth claims to other fairytales, myths, or stories I once believed as a child. At one time as a child, I believed in myths or imaginary characters (as most of us did), but as I grew older, logic and science began to play an even more important role in coming to my own conclusions. I agree with Richard Bushman when he said: "The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained." For me it wasn't just about "moral intuitions and stances," or that church issues were "logically immoral;" rather, it was about the narrative itself not being compatible with science and logic; it's more about applying logic, reason, and science to how I view the world and any religious institution's claims, teachings, or policies.

This is what I picture every time you try to hold yourself up as a paragon of reason and rationality after all your shoddy arguments and evidence:

[mfbukowski]

On 12/15/2018 at 2:00 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

The worldly success of some groups and the failure of others sometimes suggests that there may be features of some groups (religious or not) which are positive and have survival value.  The Jewish community, for example, has been enormously successful in surviving and even flourishing for thousands of years.  We might want to examine the reasons for that success.  Did God just say by fiat, "Voila !! My chosen people will survive."  Or are there Jewish traits which help guarantee that survival?  Do the sociological surveys of the Latter-day Saints demonstrate that same survival value?  I think that they do, and that a solid theological structure can be accompanied by firm secular traits which bode well for community happiness and survival.

Yes this is the key! "The Plan of Happiness" parallels the Didache's "Way of Life" as opposed to the "Way of Death" 

 

[let’s roll]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Yeah, I would need to see evidence of the "continued to earnestly ask and seek Divine guidance" bit. The rest is true.

See, e.g., the remarks of Thomas B. Marsh (in the JofD), when he returned to the Church.

[Ouagadougou]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

This is what I picture every time you try to hold yourself up as a paragon of reason and rationality after all your shoddy arguments and evidence:

Cool random story/comment..it looks like I struck a nerve. 

You went out of your way just to randomly show/tell me this and make such an "insulting" (what you think is insulting) comparison?  Some Mormons trying to be insulting and on the edge is actually quite comical...

If you are going to try and attack me personally, at least be a man about it, and use some foul language...and leave the poor innocent kid in the pic out of it.   

BTW, if my arguments are so "shoddy," why then does one of the leading scholars on American religious history (Richard Bushman) even say the following?

 "The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained."

 

 

 

 

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

Cool random story/comment..it looks like I struck a nerve. 

You went out of your way just to randomly show/tell me this and make such an "insulting" (what you think is insulting) comparison?  Some Mormons trying to be insulting and on the edge is actually quite comical...

If you are going to try and attack me personally, at least be a man about it, and use some foul language...and leave the poor innocent kid in the pic out of it.   

BTW, if my arguments are so "shoddy," why then does one of the leading scholars on American religious history (Richard Bushman) even say the following?

 "The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained."

Are you under the delusion Bushman would agree with you?

[stemelbow]

On ‎12‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 4:23 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

The role that social/ethical issues typically play in a person’s decision to leave or distances himself or herself from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is becoming increasingly clear to me. Whether the concern is with the priesthood ban, LGBTQ issues, polygamy/polyandry, or similar topics there is usually an underlying logic that leads to the loss of faith: if the doctrines, policies, or history of the Church don't agree with one's moral intuitions, then there is just cause for doubting or disbelieving its fundamental claims.

I think the obvious problem, however, is that morality is a complicated thing. Our individual moral intuitions and stances can change over time, and different societies and civilizations throughout history have viewed many moral issues very differently. There are different fundamental moral frameworks such as Utilitarianism, Egoism, Duty-based Ethics, Virtue Ethics, Divine Command Theory, etc., most of which start out with different premises, have notable exceptions to general rules, and attempt to resolve ethical dilemmas in different ways.

With so much moral complexity, how can we trust that our moral intuitions and feelings are justified? We all know people who get very upset about things that don't really bother us personally, or who think something is morally justified that we find reprehensible. And most of us can probably think of times when we were angry without cause, times when we didn't fully understand a situation, made premature judgments, and then acted rashly upon those judgments--or times when we prematurely accepted the moral validity of something that later we came to see as immoral. Our limited human knowledge and our propensity to make logical errors in our thinking often make it difficult to correctly apply moral principles in specific ethical situations.

And once we reach a conclusion about the morality of a rule, policy, or action (whether subconsciously or consciously) that conclusion sometimes evokes strong emotions. For this reason, it is often difficult to change our stance on a moral issue because we not only have to adjust our intellectual reasoning but also must push back against the strong emotions that were evoked by our former reasoning. In many cases, the human impulse is to simply justify our emotions rather than to evaluate whether those emotions are, in the first place, based on reliable information and sound moral reasoning. Most of us have probably gotten into arguments where a part of us knows we should restrain ourselves and rethink our position, but we ignore that voice and instead seek only to justify our anger, frustration, criticism, etc. It is easy to become the victims rather than the masters of our emotions.

The main point here is simply that making sound moral judgments, as independent rational beings, is often a lot more complicated than people sometimes think. In my view, if the Plan of Salvation is true and, for all intents and purposes, conceptually accurate, then it places humans in even less of a position to make reliable moral judgments on their own—at least when it comes to evaluating the moral integrity of the Church. This is because we not only have to assess the virtues and consequences of a doctrine, practice, policy in this realm of existence, but also anticipate how it will affect future realms and how it relates to metaphysical realities and transcendent divine laws that we can’t fully comprehend.

Moreover, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Plan of Salvation offers ultimate compensation for all injustices, unfairness, and sorrow—all of which are an important part of the plan, as a natural consequence of agency, as a way to help us understand justice and fairness, and as a test of our faith and character. According to the plan, we chose to come here, knowing full well that we would be subjected to unfair conditions as part of our mortal test, and that God would sometimes ask us to make sacrifices that we wouldn’t fully understand in this life.

I think we all have had everyday life experiences that teach us that what seems unfair and unjust in the short-term could very easily turn out to be completely justifiable in the long term. For example, when young children are taken in for immunization shots, they often don’t understand why the doctor must poke them with a needle, an action which indisputably causes them “harm.” They simply have to have faith when their parent or the doctor says that the shot will help them avoid getting sick, and that the immediate pain will be worth it in the long run.

I often personally rely upon this type of analogy when I wrestle with the major moral issues that increasingly seem to be a stumbling block for so many people. I’m not concerned with priesthood ban, for instance, because (A) we still can’t be sure about its origins, (B) there is strong evidence that it was ended by revelation, which provides evidence that God is still leading and guiding the Church, (C) there was no divine rebuke or explanation given when the ban was ended, and (D) the Plan of Salvation assures us that those who, for whatever reason, were deprived of blessings in this life will be compensated in the eternities. There’s a lot we still don’t know about the priesthood ban, and it seems both illogical and arrogant to make a life-altering moral judgment on this or similar matters about which we are mostly ignorant.

The natural rebuttal to this type of reasoning is that the Plan of Salvation seems too impervious to moral scrutiny and that there is no moral reason to accept it in the first place if anything and everything is potentially morally justifiable. And the rebuttal to this rebuttal is that the issues that trouble people are generally exceptions to the rule. Back to the analogy from before—as children, we can hopefully trust that our parents are telling us the truth about the doctor and the shot because we have built a loving relationship with them and have seen how they are often wise about things that we don’t understand.

Likewise, we hopefully develop a testimony through consistent daily interactions with the gospel, the scriptures, and applying gospel truths into our lives. If we perform this process correctly, it will result in unique and discernible spiritual experiences that bring joy and other spiritual gifts. For me, this is where the real test of the gospel and the Church logically lies, not in endless moral speculation about its unusual inconsistencies.

I think what often happens is that when people begin to discover that some of the Church’s teachings, policies, or history seem logically immoral, their knee-jerk negative emotions begin to compete with their ability to discern spiritual truths. Before they even know what has happened, they consistently magnify the newfound inconsistencies and find it harder and harder to remember or value the feelings of joy and peace that once helped them trust that the Church was true. With these new emotions dominating their perspective, they reinterpret all their previous spiritual experiences in a way that invalidates them, while at the same time they choose to validate their new victim narrative and its attendant feelings, despite the fact that this narrative is inherently based on speculative and ultimately unreliable moral analysis.

The longer they persist in this mindset, the harder it becomes to retry the gospel experiment with sincerity and real intent. They simply can’t get past what they now see as glaring moral inconsistencies. And they won’t admit to themselves (or simply don't recognize) that they are choosing to focus on exceptions to the rule, and that their human moral reasoning isn’t adequate to assess those exceptions—at least not when the exceptions are placed in the moral framework of the Plan of Salvation, which is essential to morally evaluating any aspect of the Church’s truth claims. 

Any thoughts?

  

I would say the main reasons why I don't fully participate in church as I once did are:

1.  Attitudes by members found in the above.  No offense, but I think the presumed privilege of elitism wore me out.  I didn't like it in the Church, fought it at every turn, and realized after many years, I was banging my head against the wall over and over.

2.  The lack of an ability to really discuss the welfare of individual's souls.  In my experience church has been far more about protecting itself and fear of the outside than it is about the people.  

3.  The exclusivity claim of holding absolute truth.  Pres Oak's recent comments in General Conference and since have outlined perfectly this problem as I see it.  It is insular, obtuse thinking that seems to keep people in.  If it works for them, have at it.  But it doesn't work for me.  

I knew all of or most of the many problematic issues of the Church and remained because it didn't matter if the Church was true or not.  I mattered if it worked, if it was a place that was helpful and useful.  I learned it was not.

 

Thanks for your piece above,  It further explains to me why so many in the Church, those who were once close to me, have pulled away.  I mean, they've tried to explain their anger at me, but this helps in my quest to understand.

[stemelbow]

23 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Are you under the delusion Bushman would agree with you?

I do believe you are being unnecessarily harsh here.  But you tend to do that from time to time.  He merely pointed out a quote from Bushman wherein he (Ouagadougou) agrees with Bushman. He didn't say anything about Bushman agreeing with him (Ouagadougou).  Although it is patently obvious that Bushman, like you, would likely agree with Ouagadougou about a great many things.  

Edited December 17, 2018 by stemelbow

[Ouagadougou]

15 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Are you under the delusion Bushman would agree with you?

I can't speak for him personally, but I agree with his statement that, "The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained."  I'm sure that (like all of us) there might be things we agree on and other things we that we disagree on.  

 

 

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, Ouagadougou said:

I can't speak for him personally, but I agree with his statement that, "The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained."  I'm sure that (like all of us) there might be things we agree on and other things we that we disagree on.  

 

6 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

 BTW, if my arguments are so "shoddy," why then does one of the leading scholars on American religious history (Richard Bushman) even say the following?

 "The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained."

So you are backtracking your original claim that Bushman’s statement somehow functions as proof that your arguments are not shoddy?

[Ouagadougou]

13 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

 

So you are backtracking your original claim that Bushman’s statement somehow functions as proof that your arguments are not shoddy?

I am saying I don't believe the dominate narrative can be sustained or is true...oh, and Bushman says the same thing as well.   

[Ryan Dahle]

30 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Thanks for your piece above,  It further explains to me why so many in the Church, those who were once close to me, have pulled away.  I mean, they've tried to explain their anger at me, but this helps in my quest to understand.

This honestly makes no sense in the context of my post. 

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

This honestly makes no sense in the context of my post. 

It does to me.  I've had to try and figure out why those who are close to me have pulled and pushed away and responded with anger at me.  I think reading your words helps me get where they are coming from a little more.  For instance, I haven't seen myself have any "knee-jerk negative emotions" that competed with spiritual impressions.  But, seeing it put that way, helps me understand that's likely how they feel--my mistake is not in my attempted measured evaluations, but is in my emotions competing and drowning out the spiritual.  You gave a number of comments that help me understand a little better where they may be coming from.