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Category: Mormonism (page 3 of 12)

Romney’s relationship with the truth

7 November 2012 / / 1 Comment

A few months ago, during the Republican nomination process, my boys asked me about Romney. What was he like? Good or bad?

I said, “If he gets to be president, it’ll be bad, but it won’t be a disaster. Unlike the other nominees, he isn’t stupid. He isn’t crazy. And he isn’t evil.”

That’s still what I think about Romney. During the third debate, I was struck with the impression that Mr Romney was, at heart, a Good Man. Not crazy, stupid, or evil.

But there is one thing that was very disappointing: He lied. He conducted a campaign that was described as ‘breathtakingly dishonest‘. He was called on his lies, and he doubled down on them. (The lie that Obama hadn’t reached out to Republicans was particularly galling.)

But were they really lies? What does Romney consider to be the truth?

Mormons believe in a revelatory method for finding truth, involving prayer and reflection. I’ve written about this at length before, but here’s the short version: If you pray about something, and then feel positive spiritual feelings as though a supernatural spirit (or a ‘Holy Ghost’) is confirming the truth of that thing to you, then that thing is considered to be truth. For Mormons, that kind of ‘spiritual witness’ is considered to be the highest sort of evidence one could have. A thing is true if you feel that it’s true, and you deeply believe it.

During this campaign, we heard snarky comments about Romney’s magic underwear and the planet/star Kolob, but this is the aspect of his faith that I never really saw discussed. It is a deeply delusional way to think, and should be a disqualifier for the highest office in the land. It is stupid. It is crazy. And if Romney had become president, he might have been successful, but only insofar as he disregarded his epistemological method.

Romney shift and Mormon shift

28 October 2012 / / Comments Off on Romney shift and Mormon shift

It hasn’t gone unnoticed that Mitt “Etch-a-Sketch” Romney has a tendency to say whatever will get him elected. What doesn’t get a lot of mention is why. But I think Susan Jack at Liberals Unite gets it:

This might see strange to see so much flip flopping in a Presidential candidate, yet there is a pattern that makes utter sense in the larger Romney narrative; specifically that historically, Mormons as a whole have deemed it a holy rite to radically change their minds in the course of this very American Religion.

In other words, Romney thinks it’s acceptable to change his story in mid-stream because he comes from a culture where it’s acceptable to change your story in mid-stream. It’s typical of the way that Mormons handle doctrinal shift.

It follows this pattern:

Stage 1: Profession of faith
We believe Belief X.

Stage 2: Societal shift
Belief X becomes unpopular.

Stage 3: Stonewalling
We continue to believe Belief X even when it’s unpopular.

Stage 4: The tide turns
Belief X is becoming so unpopular that it’s hurting the bottom line.

Stage 5: Under the bus
We do not believe Belief X.
Pick all that apply.
    5a: We have received a revelation that changes Belief X.
    5b: X is not doctrinal.

Stage 6: Rewriting history
We never really believed Belief X.
Pick all that apply.
    6a: Leaders were imperfect humans.
    6b: Line upon line.
    6c: That was folk doctrine.
    6d: Belief X was not widespread.
    6e: Belief X was peripheral, not core.

I don’t even mean to say that this process is motivated by outright dishonesty. To some extent, every member of the church participates in this process (especially in Stages 5 and 6) as they struggle to understand the bits of Mormon doctrine that don’t make sense, or as they try to integrate them with reality. This is how Mormons explain their doctrine to themselves, to each other, and ultimately to non-members. After a long while, this kind of amateur apologetics becomes habitual, and someone who’s served in the Church as long as Romney has would be very good at it. But it’s a slippery way of reasoning.

This method of reasoning carries over into Romney’s slippery explanations about his positions. His policies seem to change depending on who he’s talking to. He has been very light on details because, as LDS leaders must know, saying less gives you less to walk back later.

The similarities are obvious. For a Latter-day Saint, the one non-negotiable doctrine of the Church is that the Church is true. For Romney, the one non-negotiable doctrine is that he should be president.

Or as the Washington Post described Romney:

Every politician changes his mind sometimes; you’d worry if not. But rarely has a politician gotten so far with only one evident immutable belief: his conviction in his own fitness for higher office.

Blackout syndrome

11 October 2012 / / Comments Off on Blackout syndrome

A new video from Mr Deity is out, and it’s a heavy hitter. It’s about the racism in the Book of Mormon, with its teaching that dark skin was a punishment from God upon the Lamanites.

When I posted this on a social media site that I’ll call “Schmacebook”, a friend of mine (I’ll call him ‘Schmavid’) asked me “What was your take on this when you were a believer?”

So I’m trying to think… and nothing’s happening.

Oh, I can think of rationales that apologists would say, like “the dark skin was just the mark of the curse, not the curse itself”, or whatever rubbish I read somewhere that I just repeated when questioned about it. But I can’t remember what I thought about it.

I wonder if I thought about it at all. I know I had this ‘blackout’ reflex — just blocking the thoughts when they were uncomfortably close to unbelief.

Or maybe I didn’t attempt to integrate the racist teaching with my desire not to be racist. I think I was happy to let the book be the book, let real life be real life, try not to blend them too much, and then try not to think too much about not thinking about it.

That’s really bad, isn’t it? I’ve wondered how faithful-but-liberal Mormons can be in the Church when they’re actually okay with gay marriage. Maybe that’s how. The Church is your philosophical bubble, and if one bit seems uncomfortable, you can float over to another part you like more, and try not to let that one part bother you too much. After all, you “feel” that it’s all true, so you just have faith that all that stuff will sort itself out someday.

So how can I avoid making that mistake now? Maybe I need to watch out for symptoms of the blackout reflex, integrate my ideas and real life, and keep trying to be bothered by things that I really ought to be bothered by.

Talk the Talk: Blasphemy!

22 September 2012 / / Comments Off on Talk the Talk: Blasphemy!

If you like Good Reason for the atheism, but not so much for the linguistics, then this episode of Talk the Talk might be for you. It’s about blasphemy, the recent Muslim film riots, and the need for Blasphemy Day (which is September 30 — get your costumes early!).

It’s a little soap-boxy, but I said what I wanted to say: The right to question — and even ridicule — religious ideas is important. There needs to be a way of saying, “This is a bad idea.” It’s wrong to give up that right just because it will hurt someone’s feelings. If someone is willing to resort to violence and murder when their ideas aren’t treated with kid gloves, then this is an admission that their ideas aren’t defensible using regular means, and are invalid. Muslims, I’m looking at you.

On the other hand not all religious people lose their shit when they get sent up. Even though I have no love for the Mormon Church, I do cite them as an example of how to respond to criticism and mockery.

It was fun to be a bit blasphemous on the radio, and it was fun to watch Jess Allen squirm more and more throughout the interview. The look on her face when she heard “Hasa Diga Eebowai” for the first time was truly priceless — I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

One-off show: Here
Subscribe via iTunes: Here
Show notes: Here

Caff it up, Mormons.

2 September 2012 / / 6 Comments

When I was a young Mormon kid, the one thing the other kids would ask me is, “So, you can’t drink Coke?” That was the one thing they knew about the Church.

As a believer, I always thought this idea was a misreading of the “Word of Wisdom” — the Mormon revelation that forbids “hot drinks”, including coffee or tea. However, based on the prevailing mood of the membership, I had to allow that it was an extremely common misreading.

Now, it seems that the LDS Newsroom has clarified.

On Wednesday, the LDS Church posted a statement on its website saying that “the church does not prohibit the use of caffeine” and that the faith’s health-code reference to “hot drinks” “does not go beyond [tea and coffee].”

A day later, the website wording was slightly softened, saying only that “the church revelation spelling out health practices … does not mention the use of caffeine.”

I’m not sure if this is a policy clarification, or a full-on revelation — the LDS Newsroom seems to be in charge of church doctrine now. But whatever. The Mormon Church can arrange things how it likes.

What’s kind of surreal to me, though, is that if this is how an omniscient being wants to communicate his will to his people, he’s not a very good communicator. Why so much confusion and ambiguity for fifty years? Let’s follow the path:

In 1833, god gives a revelation to Joseph Smith. It forbids alcohol, tobacco, and “hot drinks”, and places restrictions on meat, but it’s explicitly not a commandment.

Over the next two centuries, Mormons expand and modify the Word of Wisdom. It becomes non-negotiable, and grows to somehow include caffeinated beverages, at least in the imagination of much of its membership. Prohibitions on meat, meanwhile, are ignored. God, apparently, doesn’t feel the need to intervene.

Now, after decades of limbo, the LDS Newsroom clarifies. It says caffeinated drinks are okay, contradicting other church leaders.

Can we agree that this is a dumb way for an omniscient being to communicate? It’s ambiguous, imprecise, and incremental. But consider: While it seems very unlikely that a god would need to use this method for imparting his will, it is exactly the kind of system that humans would use.

The claim, and the reality

29 August 2012 / / 2 Comments

This, from mormon.org (via Facebook):

This, from Gallup:

This was how Utah voted in the 2004 elections.

I don’t know which is more unaccountable — why the LDS Church would try to make this claim, or why they thought anyone would believe them.

He really just wanted Doritos, and I said no.

26 July 2012 / / 18 Comments
This happened when my son was so hungry he could eat a three-day-old corpse, and I don’t just mean ritually.

A mixed-orientation marriage that works?

10 June 2012 / / 4 Comments

So there’s this gay guy, right? And he’s Mormon, and married to a woman. Sadly, not as uncommon as you’d think.

But the story of Mr and Mrs Weed is a bit different because they both knew going into the relationship. He’s come out of the closet to tell their story.

I guess the premise of this post is to share that not only am I homosexual, but I’m also a devout and believing Mormon. And that I’m very happily married to a woman, and have been for ten years now.

And for the first time, we’re talking about it publicly.

So he’s gay. She knew about it. But they’re in love, have three kids, and a working relationship in which they both seem very happy, including a functioning sex life.

This story has garnered a lot of love among Mormon women on Facebook. Friends of mine are saying

  • I loved this xx
  • Very very very cool.
  • I think he is a hero.

I can see why they’d think that because his story is tremendously affirming for the beliefs of Mormon women, two core beliefs in particular:

  1. Gay people ought to abstain from gay sex for the entirety of their lives, and this is proof that it can work!
  2. Sex isn’t very important to a relationship. Why should men get to have the kind of sex they want, and why won’t my husband quit bugging me about it?!

So you can imagine the Facebook fury when I tell them that this is a terrible idea, and I give the whole thing ten years.

Am I a hater? No, I just realise that sex is important, and while you may be able to bury yourself in the kind of lifestyle you think you should want, a lifetime is a long time not to be getting the kind of sex you really really want. It’s a setup for cheating, and then he’d be the bad guy for a) having gay sex, and b) cheating.

Sure, it can be pulled off, and I hope they do. But how does it sound to you? Let’s just say there was a church that only allowed gay people, and you really believe in it, although you’re straight. If you really really tried, could you find a nice person of your own gender that you liked and respected, and maybe even have sex, even though you know you don’t find that kind of sex appealing? You probably could, especially if you regarded it as a sacrifice of faith. (And if you believed that God would fix everything in the life beyond.) But acting contrary to your orientation is just that — acting.

The Mormon angle is bugging me, too. They’re making this decision because, yes, they love each other and want a family. But they also believe the Mormon Church is the One True Church, and it’s telling him that gaysex is wrong, and that he should abstain. I’m a big believer in informed consent, but it needs to work all the way around; they know what’s going on with each other, but they’re not aware that the church is — frankly — a mess of men’s opinions, built on lies. If this man came to realise that, the anguish might be considerable. Or not, if he felt lucky to have been with his wife, which he well might. But you need to know, you know?

He writes movingly about God’s love for gay people:

I want you to know that God loves you, and that even though you are attracted to people of the same gender, you are a completely legitimate individual, worthy of God’s love, your family’s love, and the love of your friends. You are no more broken than any other person you meet. You are not evil. You are a beautiful child of God.

This would be news to the God of the Bible, who couldn’t stand gay people, won’t let them into his kingdom, and has commanded that they be killed. But I guess since Mr Weed has come this far, he’ll believe in whatever kind of god he needs to. Theism is so often projection and wish-fulfillment.

Another sad thing: despite the author’s best intentions, this will be used as a stick to beat gay people. “Hey, this guy can do it. Why can’t you?” Mixed-orientation LDS marriage is one of the tragedies of the Mormon experience, and this may tip a few people to try it. (It should be noted though that the author doesn’t recommend this lifestyle for everyone.)

Maybe they can manage it. I really hope they do — we don’t need more unhappy relationships. At this stage, he’s a data point. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. My hope is that they can keep it together, or at least work together and remain friends, when he moves on to his real sexual orientation in his early-to-mid forties.

UPDATE
Another thing: Notice how he talks about ‘authenticity’, and claims that by having an LDS lifestyle, he’s being authentic to himself.

No, you’re being authentic to the Mormon Church. I’ve written before about how Mormonism is so all-consuming that Mormons often conflate their own goals, desires, and even their identities with that of their religion, so much so that when I insult the church, they think I’m insulting them. This is another manifestation of that.

Is it right to try to influence others in the Church?

15 May 2012 / / 3 Comments

Steve Bloor is an ex-Mormon, an ex-bishop, and a much nicer guy than I am. He’s so nice, he actually cares about other people’s feelings. If I could be like that — it would require a soul transplant, and since I don’t have a soul, there’s no place to put a new one. Ah, me.

His latest blog post has got me thinking. It’s titled: Is it right to try to influence others in the Church?

My first impulse is to say, “Of course. Why wouldn’t you? Next!” But it’s more complex than that, and it gets into the reasons why I write things here and there, so let me unpack it.

I like where Steve’s coming from. He knows that people are harmed by their involvement in the church, and that a rational worldview is the most helpful basis for living one’s life. I agree — dumping a layer of supernatural fictional goo isn’t going to help anyone think better or be a better person, at least not for any real reason worth mentioning. Maybe some people can be frightened into acting good for a while, but there are going to be some costs involved (and the church profits in the end), so I don’t see any real benefit.

Something Steve doesn’t mention is that as ex-Mormons, we sometimes try very hard not to ‘appear evil’. I certainly did; I didn’t want to confirm every rotten stereotype I’d been fed about people who leave the church. And one of the ‘evil’ things ex-Mormons do is talk about their experience, so sometimes people hesitate to do that. Seriously, I’ve run into a lot of people in the initial stages of their deconversion who ‘don’t wish to harm others’ with their knowledge. Isn’t that strange? Yes, deconversion is disruptive and difficult, but it’s not Jedi death rays.

So when Steve asks:

Should I try to raise awareness of the potential problems with their belief system?

Does my attempt at raising awareness actually achieve anything? Or does it create a feeling of being threatened & create fear in my TBM [true believing Mormon] friends and family? In the end is my attempt futile or counter-productive?

the answer is: Don’t worry! The ex-Mormon power has a unique attribute: it only works on people who are ready for it. It leaves True Believers entirely unscathed. There is no way you can ‘harm’ anyone’s faith. True Believers have a whole range of psychological defence mechanisms to protect their faith, including communal reinforcement, confirmation bias, and sudden-onset deafness. Don’t worry about ‘harming their faith’; because it isn’t built on reason, it’s very robust against rational attacks. Unless they take science and reason seriously, as good things — then it’s another story.

The other part of Steve’s question is a really good one:

Does my approach to this increase my own happiness & wellbeing, or does it cause me angst & emotional fatigue?

It’s a good point; if it’s pissing you off, you’re doing it wrong. Remember, we’re the ones who escaped! We’re not bound down by artificial guilt or arbitrary restrictions. We have permission to be happy. If the discussions are causing you angst, maybe you’re taking the need to convert others too seriously. (It’s a common holdover from the evangelical mindset.) Accept that some of your friends and family will never deconvert, and will stay in the Church their entire lives. Relax; they won’t go to hell or one of the lower kingdoms. Eternal punishment for the crime of misbelief is no longer one of your beliefs. Realise that long-term social and religious patterns are trending in our direction, even if the people you care about aren’t part of it. Once you’re free of the idea that you can deconvert people, it’s very liberating. You can accept your TBM friends, even if they can’t fully accept you.

So if we can’t deconvert them, and they may not even hear us, why speak out at all? Why be public? We do it because there are people around us who are deconverting, and if we’re visible, they’ll come to us for help. I have had several people from my mission contact me. They’d begun thinking thoughts that couldn’t be unthunk. So I’ve been able to talk to them and encourage them, and it’s been a great experience.

It’s perfect, really — those who are ready find us, and those who aren’t ignore us. Influence others? They influence themselves. All we have to do is stay visible.

Science vs ‘continuing revelation’

24 April 2012 / / 12 Comments

In a recent thread, I was wondering how people can have confidence in a religious leader who gets it obviously wrong. In a comment, brettandkatie asks (ask?) a really good question that I’ve been thinking about:

So, how does this differ from “further light and knowledge”? The apostle know what they are given now, just like I know what I am given now. Further revelation may change this. I don’t think that God and science should be separated, for they work together.
I don’t discredit science, it has given us so so much. However, we are getting the best of what they “know” may change. How can you use the word “know” if it is a hypotheses? I’m just saying that having full confidence in everything current science is saying can be hard because, while much of it is fact, much is also an educated guess that will change in the future. So how is this different from what you claim the LDS church does?

In other words, scientists learn more, and their knowledge changes. Religious leaders learn more, and their knowledge changes. So how is science different from ‘continuing revelation’? Don’t they work the same? Am I being unfair to expect religion to work differently?

It’s a tempting comparison, but not all systems that advance incrementally are the same. Consider the cheating spouse who tells a little of the truth, and then comes out with more and more of it when confronted with more and more of their lies. Or what about L. Ron Hubbard, who made up more and more of his phony-baloney science fiction religion bit by bit? That’s incremental, but most people are able to see how that isn’t quite on a par with science.

Before getting to the meat of it, a couple of caveats. First up, I’m addressing this from a Mormon perspective, since I’m most familiar with it and because it’s in response to a Mormon commenting on a post about a Mormon apostle. I think this relates to other religions too, but if this criticism doesn’t seem apt, be grateful that your church doesn’t do this. (Or it does, and you just don’t realise.) Also, I don’t think I’m comparing ‘ideal science’ to ‘the worst of religion’; I think I’m comparing how they work most of the time. Again, take it for what it’s worth.

SCIENCE
RELIGION
With science, you start with the facts and move to conclusions. With religion, you start with the conclusion and see what facts will get you there.

Still love this cartoon:

SCIENCE
RELIGION
In science, you start with the null hypothesis (assuming the hypothesis is not true), and you use evidence to build up a picture. An idea must be within a certain degree of confidence before you settle on it. Religious people require that an idea be argued down to null before they’ll abandon or (more often) modify it. As long as there’s a sliver of hope, they’ll cling to it.
The evidence for a scientific idea must be publicly verifiable, and replicable. Scientists submit their evidence and conclusions for peer review. So-called ‘spiritual evidence’ comes from emotions, experiences, and unusual-seeming happenstances, which cannot be examined directly by others, or replicated under controlled conditions.
The evidence for scientific ideas comes from the natural world. The evidence for religious ideas comes from interpretations of holy books and authority figures.
Scientists change their views when the evidence requires. Religions change their views when they become unpalatable.
Scientific hypotheses make testable predictions. If those predictions don’t come true, the hypothesis is rejected. Religious leaders sometimes make a prophecy. If it doesn’t come true when expected, the prophecy is either kicked down the road for “sometime in the future”, or reinterpreted to apply on a “spiritual level”. They are not typically abandoned.
In science, you publish your results when they change. With religion (particularly the Mormon sort), you quietly drop doctrines and hope no one will notice after 40 years. (The most recent exception I can think of happened in 1978.)

The main idea here is not just that science and religion are different in lots of ways, though they are — they actually function as opposite and incompatible methods. Science expands when it can; religion contracts when it must.

And finally, an observation: Science is a system created by humans.
Religions claim to get their answers from an all-knowing, all-powerful being.
Yet science has been much more successful at gaining knowledge, promoting longevity, and finding out about our universe. That ought to give believers some pause.

Let’s just say that brettandkatie is (are?) right, and science and religion are comparable systems. Why would a god even need to spread his knowledge by using the same system that humans invented? Wouldn’t we expect him to do better? An organisation led by a god would surely have more knowledge and would show more moral progress than a purely human one. Yet religions display less knowledge and poorer moral judgment than humans generally. So what are they for?

Some believers acknowledge this, but then say that god is ‘teaching his people line upon line’ or that ‘god chooses to work through fallible people’. Well, God would be awfully hamstrung if he could only teach to the level of his most advanced followers. Why would a god limit himself in this way, and not take the lead? We are meant to believe that this all-powerful being is stymied by human cognitive limitations and human intransigence. This makes no sense.

(p.s. You can tell I’m pretty gung-ho on science, but please don’t have full confidence in everything current science is saying. It’s going to change. That’s why it’s good.)

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