#79961 - know if these things are not true

[Portia]

I've been turning over the question about the Curch's truth claims.

It was worthwhile to read the divergent perspectives. A couple of points have been very ethically troublesome to me.

I. The bald utilitarianism of "if it makes me happy, who cares about the truth claims" seems to overlook the fact that building up social institutions (which in the counterfactual as posed are untrue) for your individual "happiness" ignores a great many others who may, in fact, be unhappy because of said system.

It has some parallels to slavery, or cutthroat capitalism, or damage to the environment. I don't think it is ethically tenable to live in ignorance.

If your husband didn't love you would you want to know? Santa Claus? Your real parents' identity? I do not dispute the fact that the Truth can often have negative consequences. (Why else would humans lie?) Look at Giselle, The Truman Show, Maupassant's Pierre et Jean. I got to experience this myself this summer. I finally learned the Truth about my origins -- and far from being "happier," I was deeply, deeply shaken and disappointed. I wouldn't choose to unknow it, though. The truth has inherent value ... Because it's true. Believing in something untrue is self-delusion. Professing belief that is not there is hypocrisy. I'd rather not have my life built on an edifice of lies, personally.

II. "Regardless if it's true, it makes me a better person." Well, if you knew for certain something wasn't true, no, this will probably inculcate a deceptive streak, by definition. The idea that you will "lose your morals" even if stated tongue in cheek is extremely common with LDS people to the point of self-fulfilling prophecy. Making choices that were never a question of morality anyway (growing a beard, wearing a tank top, enjoying a Beaujolais) by definition doesn't make you immoral. Deciding that what you previously thought was immoral isn't (premarital sex, Sunday shopping, watching adult movies) can be an indicator of a very active moral sense if done thoughtfully. Using the excuse that you left a religion to lie, to cheat, to steal probably makes you a sociopath or at the very least kind of a dick.

Another ethical point is that no culture is born in a vacuum. If you leave, you never have to think about doilies, legal pads, or men who don't understand what a vagina is again. Republicans with a fear of tattoos and Dr. Pepper aren't some random phenomenon: these cultural biases are inherent in the system, and if that system is not true, one is gloriously free to take or leave them. Silicon Valley may have a "culture" problem when it comes to women's advancement. (There's no a priori reason for it.) The attitude towards women in the Church OTOH is a feature, not a bug.

I basically believe that the Truth is that we are at some level sacks of nuclei who will lose consciousness permanently when those cells stop functioning. I don't believe in any supernatural creator, but that the world arose through all natural forces. (These beliefs are what keeps me out of the pews on Sunday; internecine wars about body modification, stimulants, and party affiliation are rather moot.) But I can still love as deeply, appreciate beauty as keenly, find meaningful relationships, become a parent, run for office (in theory): there doesn't have to be some Higher Truth than that.

I suppose I am no less selfish than anyone else. But I still ardently believe that I CAN contribute civically, help the next generation, and yes, from time to time, experience positive emotions like happiness (My copy of Hyperbole and a Half arrived today). Being honest, benevolent, doing good to all humans ... If you decide to abandon /ignore these aspects of the social contract, that says more about you than your parents' religious upbringing does.

As that Jesus fellow said, "you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

[Tally M.]

I don't think that one can only be a better person through a certain religious system. There are plenty of people who don't believe in anything in particular who are great people and who do gradually become better people just like those within a religious system do. However, I personally feel that the gospel is a support in helping me to become a better person, and although I realize there are cultural problems, there are things like that in every system and that doesn't mean you should throw the baby out with the bath water.

[Whistler]

what this question doesn't go into is how would someone convince a believer that the church weren't true? Since a member's epistemology is (usually) based on feeling the spirit, it seems like a feeling that it was wrong would be the only thing.

[mic0]

what this question doesn't go into is how would someone convince a believer that the church weren't true? Since a member's epistemology is (usually) based on feeling the spirit, it seems like a feeling that it was wrong would be the only thing.

Learning about the psychology behind different religious feelings or religious-type feelings could be one way. If you then believe your feelings are not necessarily unique to you, your religion, your time period, etc., that could be damaging.

[Digit]

what this question doesn't go into is how would someone convince a believer that the church weren't true? Since a member's epistemology is (usually) based on feeling the spirit, it seems like a feeling that it was wrong would be the only thing.

It's difficult to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

[Whistler]

what's that supposed to mean? if the mechanism for spiritual rhetoric is non-reason... what is it?

[Zedability]

what this question doesn't go into is how would someone convince a believer that the church weren't true? Since a member's epistemology is (usually) based on feeling the spirit, it seems like a feeling that it was wrong would be the only thing.

Learning about the psychology behind different religious feelings or religious-type feelings could be one way. If you then believe your feelings are not necessarily unique to you, your religion, your time period, etc., that could be damaging.

I don't think it's inconsistent to recognize that people in other religions have felt the Spirit. Our Church does believe that all belief systems have at least a part of the truth and that there are good people in all religions who are trying to draw close to God the best way they know how. I don't think Heavenly Father denies them the chance to communicate with Him just because they're not part of the tiny fraction of humanity that's born into the Church.

Like I talked about in my answer to the question, when I started thinking about everyone else's religious experiences, I did realize that my experience wasn't so different than theirs. But I realized that what sets our Church apart is the idea that you can pray and ask, essentially, "Is this Church the church with ALL the truth gathered together?" and get a "yes" or "no" answer. You don't have to just believe the Church is true because you've had spiritual experiences; you can believe it's true because you had the specific experience of getting a "yes" to that question. And when you ask God "Is this THE truth?" and get "yes," it makes sense to follow it, because there are three options:

(1) That was a true answer and this is the true church, so joining it is a matter of salvation
(2) That was a false answer, so:
-----(a) There is a God, but He doesn't communicate with us and presumably won't damn us for something we didn't know
-----(b) There is no God, so whether you belong to the Church or not doesn't affect your eternal salvation

I've gotten a lot of answers to prayer that could have just been all in my head, but the answer to whether the Church was true was different. It was more powerful than any feeling I've ever experienced and I can never deny that happened. It's not really something I could second-guess, and based on the logic outlined above, I don't see why I'd want to either.

I don't condemn anyone who doesn't feel the same way or doesn't feel like they have an answer because not getting an answer exactly when you want one doesn't make you a bad person or necessarily mean you're not trying to find God/the truth/etc.

[Digit]

what's that supposed to mean? if the mechanism for spiritual rhetoric is non-reason... what is it?

Boyd K. Packer's salt story seems to imply that, for him, at least, one's own direct experience and feelings takes precedence over reasoning based on a set of axioms that is both complete and consistent. I personally am persuaded that one's feelings originate in the firing of neurons.

This makes me think of a passage in the book How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker.

Sight and action and common sense and violence and morality and love are no accident, no inextricable ingredients of an intelligent essence, no inevitability of information processing. Each is a tour de force, wrought by a high level of targeted design. Hidden behind the panels of consciousness must lie fantastically complex machinery--optical analyzers, motion guidance systems, simulations of the world, databases on people and things, goal schedulers, conflict-resolvers, and many others. Any explanation of how the mind works that alludes hopefully to some single master force or mind-bestowing elixir like "culture," "learning," or "self-organization" begins to sound hollow, just not up to the demands of the pitiless universe we negotiate so successfully.

It would be extremely hard to understand just how a brain does what it does. It's an amazing organ.

[Portia]

I got a very clear "no" answer. I had always assumed from my teens that this was a valid epistemological response. I have started to believe that this is a minority viewpoint, perhaps. I think there is a conflict, then, with following "tradition" and following common sense if you unambiguously don't think the LDS Church is true based on your best available evidence. "Pray harder" starts to feel unsatisfying; fortunately, no one has really been that bothered one way or another, but I've seen peers and friends of mine undergo what I'd view as unpleasant character assassination.

I love SLC and hope to be able to improve our city, help the environment, contribute to worthy causes with my LDS friends and neighbors, but I often feel that there is an "us vs. them" mentality and I think that examining the common foundations of morality, not only with those of other faith systems but also those of no or lost faith could benefit everyone. Just because YOU losing your faith would send you into a murderous existential crisis doesn't mean everyone who has left feels thus. Hopefully a younger generation will be more broad-minded; however, it often seems that there is a feeling of deep betrayal there. I feel sorry that others feel that way, I really do, but not enough to sacrifice my own integrity for others' comfort.

[Zedability]

I got a very clear "no" answer. I had always assumed from my teens that this was a valid epistemological response. I have started to believe that this is a minority viewpoint, perhaps. I think there is a conflict, then, with following "tradition" and following common sense if you unambiguously don't think the LDS Church is true based on your best available evidence. "Pray harder" starts to feel unsatisfying; fortunately, no one has really been that bothered one way or another, but I've seen peers and friends of mine undergo what I'd view as unpleasant character assassination.

I definitely think it takes integrity to live according to whichever answer a person gets, whether yes or no, since there are inevitably people on either side trying to convince you your answer is "wrong," no matter which one it is.

I'm curious what you mean by a clear "no" answer. Above you seem to indicate that you don't believe in a higher power in the sense of one who gives personalized, direct answers to prayer. So by a "no" do you mean that you didn't receive an answer or find evidence of such a being, or do you feel like you actually "got an answer" from something, which was "no"? Or something different? (I'm not trying to disprove your answer, I'm genuinely just curious about other people's experiences.)

[Portia]

I suppose the best way to describe it would be to say that I am quite certain that, as the question-asker posed, the Church is not "true" in that it does not offer a cogent view of the universe. As in, I don't believe Joseph Smith as a supernatural prophet, I don't view the Book of Mormon as an ancient record, I don't think that my mother still exists "out there." I no longer trust feelings as a sufficient guide to truth. If that were the case, dumb ideas one gets when drunk or high would be a great basis for one's life path. (Rarely true.) When I contemplate continuing participation in the organization, my head and my heart point to that being a bad idea. I think I got tired of lying.

I see no compelling evidence for a creator-god or an afterlife. I might be best described as a strong agnostic[1], but a functional irreligious/atheistic person.

[1] The view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities, and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you."

[Portia]

And I think that tendency to dissimulation is probably the #1 reason why I don't feel the Church made ME a better person. It starts out small, and I have a great capacity for self-delusion -- that you think dating some jerk is a good idea because he fits the boxes, or that you'll go to some Church activity when you won't, or (the one that most alarms me in its level of cognitive dissonance) elaborate lengths gone to hide coffee like it's cocaine. It started to feel like living a double life. I was grateful I had a bishop two years ago who didn't pressure me into lying about having a testimony of Joseph Smith or even God. To quote "As You Like It," "I can live no longer by thinking."

Unfortunately, I found that lying came easily to me: white lies, black lies, every shade of gray in between. Now that I have my own conscience to answer to, I find that actually quite disturbing. It may be that others are more internally-motivated than I was, I don't know: I think that although my family was relatively broad-minded, keeping up appearances (not in a Mormony way exclusively, just in so, so many ways) was very much emphasized. I suppose my commitment to radical honesty has its limits though, because, for example, my grandmother thinks "atheist" = "communist," basically. It's one of my top priorities, though, to be more forthright, especially in my love life.

[Zedability]

That makes sense. I definitely think it would be good if more people could feel accepted coming to church saying "I honestly don't think this is true but I wanted to show up today for tradition/friends/keeping the door open to the possibility" and not feel ostracized for a lack of testimony or different life choices. There's nothing saying it's not okay to do that, but the vocal minority that either judges or pressures people tends to obscure that, I think.

[Marduk]

I think that I'm far too much of a philosopher to answer questions like this. I don't find the question "is the LDS church true?" to be any more intelligible than "is the United States true?" A more answerable question might be "are the truth claims made by the LDS church true?" but even that is intensely problematic. We talk about truth claims within the LDS church, any one of which is (supposedly) able to be invalidated (hence, an actual "claim" in the epistemological sense of the word) and yet, as a whole, seems less coherent. Taken as a whole, the set of things claimed at various times within Mormonism are diverse and scattered, possibly even in conflict. So I don't know what exactly is meant by that question.

Similarly, I don't really get the validation claim of the truth of the church being the fact that it makes someone a better person. I'm not sure I, or anyone else for that matter, has a solid claim on what is "the good." And religious morality, especially among western religions, but even among most eastern religions as well, tends to beg the question: the set of qualifications for what a "good" or "better" person is, is defined by the institution measuring it. Hence the claim "I believe in the LDS church because it makes me a better person" should better read "belief in the LDS church helps one be better at Mormonism." When the institution being measured for intellectual validity by moral efficacy is the arbiter of that efficacy, it must fail as a measurement.

[Marduk]

Of course, it must be said that my suppositions about the nature of religious truth claims hold the opposite sway, as well: so much of what the LDS church, or other churches, claim, are not exactly falsifiable in the traditional sense. A "no" answer to the question "is the LDS church true?" presupposes validity of the question, just as a "yes" answer does.

[Whistler]

this is a subject I've discussed with my husband on more than one occasion. I hate how there's always an out for a religious person if you get the "wrong" answer--you didn't have enough faith, you weren't righteous enough, etc. So that's one reason I was wondering what it would take for a faithful person to lose their faith (reasonably, from a faithful person's view). But I guess for a truly faithful person, nothing can shake their faith, and I find that very disturbing, because it's like the world around them has no influence on their views. So if nothing can convince you you are wrong, nothing can convince you that you're right either? It feels very illogical to me.

Spiritual feelings are hard for me to differentiate, because often they are close to other human feelings for me. Adam insists that one of the markers of spiritual feelings is that you can't remember them (hence the imperative to write them down), but I feel like that is true of any strong feeling or mental state. I can remember the content of my feelings but I don't usually re-feel past feelings, if that makes sense. This is a problem because it makes comparing spiritual feelings to other feelings very difficult.

I tried an experiment where I asked some questions that I knew the answer to in my prayers for a few days. If I received an answer, it was something like "prayers don't work like that," which was pretty discouraging, since I thought that God would reason with me, "even as a man reasoneth with another." My plan to establish a baseline of feelings of "yes this thing is true" by asking about things I knew the answer to didn't work. Was it because I felt like I already knew the answer, and I wasn't open to alternatives? But if that were the case, I don't think my answers would have been as inconsistent. I still believe in God, but I don't know where the answers to prayer come from. They must come from somewhere in our minds, because that is where all feelings come from. I want to believe in the holy ghost, but if everything is matter, then where is it? I wonder if the Holy Ghost is something built in to everyone's mind.

[Zedability]

this is a subject I've discussed with my husband on more than one occasion. I hate how there's always an out for a religious person if you get the "wrong" answer--you didn't have enough faith, you weren't righteous enough, etc. So that's one reason I was wondering what it would take for a faithful person to lose their faith (reasonably, from a faithful person's view). But I guess for a truly faithful person, nothing can shake their faith, and I find that very disturbing, because it's like the world around them has no influence on their views. So if nothing can convince you you are wrong, nothing can convince you that you're right either? It feels very illogical to me.

Say you woke up one day and the sky was green. Would you automatically assume the sky had been green all along? Or would you first try to look for other reasons it was green that day, maybe there's some weird thing going on with the atmosphere, maybe I should get my eyes checked, did something happen at the powerplant down the road? After a long enough time, you might be persuaded that the sky was always green and you were wrong when you thought it was blue. But it wouldn't be your first assumption.

That's what religion is like for me. I can't feel the blue sky, but I can see it. I can't see the Church is true, but I can feel it and I have faith. Sometimes, things happen that would initially seem to contradict it. But because of the wealth of evidences I've already received, the reasonable thing to do isn't to immediately throw all that evidence out at the first sign of contradiction. The reasonable thing is to examen other possible reasons for the contradiction. If the contradiction kept coming back long enough and consistently enough and the evidences stopped coming, eventually I think I would be convinced. But that's never happened and I've never had reason to believe it will happen. Every time, I come to have an answer and my faith is stronger. Why would the trend change? It's not reasonable to assume it suddenly has every time something comes up.

It took me a REALLY long time to recognize answers to prayer...they were all so subjective and hard to recognize. I spent a lot of time really trying to create comparisons or an objective baseline to measure from. It still doesn't entirely make sense to me. But with faith answers would come, they have. There are enough obvious answers that stick out to me that I'm okay with still trying to figure out recognizing the subtle ones. In retrospect, I can see God was guiding me even when I didn't recognize it at the time.

[Whistler]

Say you woke up one day and the sky was green. Would you automatically assume the sky had been green all along? Or would you first try to look for other reasons it was green that day, maybe there's some weird thing going on with the atmosphere, maybe I should get my eyes checked, did something happen at the powerplant down the road? After a long enough time, you might be persuaded that the sky was always green and you were wrong when you thought it was blue. But it wouldn't be your first assumption.

Maybe I'm being too literal, but if this actually happened, I would have photographic evidence that the sky was at some point blue. Then I would create a little story in my mind like "the sky used to look blue, but when [something happened], it started to look green." It's not that the scales fell from my eyes and I started to suddenly see what was real... seeing worked all along. The reason spiritual "seeing" is different is because what you "see" depends on what you believe. The same things you see as God guiding you are explained by coincidence or being in the right place and the right time by other people. Or "hindsight is 20/20."

I agree with you for the most part. Spiritual things are impossible to document right now, and when they make up part of the way I see the world, I don't immediately reject them at the first sign of something that doesn't make sense. But things not making sense is a sign that I should pay attention and maybe change what I believe. When I look back on my own spiritual "evidence," it seems like it's all feelings and a handful of decisions that seem key to me but maybe wouldn't have mattered to my personal happiness in the long run. But on the other hand, feelings are collectively what make me who I am, so who am I to discount their importance in my life.