Liminal Blather

Julie & Julia & Joseph

2009-08-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

Warning: Minor Spoilers, and a blog post that will be a little unclear if you haven't seen the movie.

I just saw Julie & Julia. A cute movie, I thought. Like many experiences in life, this made me think about my Mormon journey.

As the movie progresses, Julie models her life after Julia Childs. She sees her as an inspiration to be a better person in all aspects of life, not just in the kitchen. Julia becomes a hero to Julie through her writings (collections of letters, primarily).

This admiration is suddenly thrown in jeopardy when Julie learns that the real-life Julia doesn't like her blog at all. All along she had fantasized about Julia reading her blog, but now she learns that Julia doesn't even like her. She is traumatized as her imagined Julia collides violently with the real Julia.

Ultimately she works through this, as she realizes that the Julia in her mind has helped her life, even if the real Julia was a bit of a disappointment

I think Joseph Smith could be considered in this way. As a child I lionized him, but as I learned about his indiscetions and poor choices later in life that sheen wore off. But is there something good he can still represent? I think this is dangerous if someone is alive, as they might use that aura of perfection inappropriately, but if someone wants to use Joseph Smith (or Lincoln or Gandhi or Reagan or Kennedy) as a deceased idol, how is that harmful?

Leaving the church, but not really...

2009-01-15T17:56:00.001-08:00

I posted this idea on NOM, and people seemed to like it, so I'm putting it here for posterity.

Ever wish you could really just get away from church visitors but don't want to officially remove your name? Moving soon? Here's a "permanent" solution I came up with (but haven't tested). It only requires a little white lie.

Here's my (only slightly unethical) suggestion based on my knowledge of church IT systems and practices. First, move to a new ward. Don't give a forwarding address. Eventually the church WILL track you down. When that happens, eventually someone from the local unit, probably the missionaries, will come to see if the address is legitimate.

Now for the finger-crossing part.

Tell them that they are looking for the former residents, who, as it happens, recently moved. Then--and this is where the magic happens--give them a "real" forwarding address. In the middle of nowhere. Preferably in a foreign country, but a US address is probably more likely to make it back through the clerk without a hiccup. Use lds.org to find a spot In Montana or Alaska (or northern Canada?) that is literally 4+ hours from a meeting house. You'll be safe until someone from that unit tries to find you, which will honestly probably be never. Thus your record will be considered "located," and they will never track you down again.

I might start with a foreign address--in Iran.

They may send you a letter after you move (rather than the missionaries), in which case you could just send a letter back to the sender explaining the same story.

Little bit of a lie, but I love messing with systems. You could show up and make an apology (without mentioning your name) to the local bishop, if it made you feel better, but only after waiting another 18-24 months.

Progress?

2008-10-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

Last week my wife and I had a very long talk about where I stand on the church. I haven't really come across anything in the last few years to make me think its claims of moral and authoritative superiority are true, and she, despite disagreeing with the recent actions against homosexuals and other issues, continues to fall back on "but it's true." We're both even-tempered, so while these can be animated, passionate discussions, they're (happily) not real fights.

Nonetheless, this one left me particularly frustrated. Perhaps because it's been such a long time since our last one.

The next night she said, "If you don't want to go to church you don't have to."

Wow. I never thought that that day would come. My mind raced--was this my one chance at "freedom?". Was I looking at a once-in-a-lifetime chance to escape from endless, mind-numbing Sundays? The door to my prison left ajar by a thoughtless guard?

"Really?"

"Yes. I don't want to be a controlling wife or anything."

I took one last look out of the prison door and turned back.

"I want to be where my family is. I'll keep coming with you."

What can I say? I know my attendance makes her happy, even though I complain to her about all the crap that gets taught. And I see so little of my kids, I'd rather play quietly with them in Sacrament Meeting (or in the foyer!) than stay at home.

Strange, really. I feel like some progress has been made, even though nothing's changing outwardly. One never knows what to expect, here on the middle way. But I was careful not to lock the door when I closed it behind me.

NOM Movie Review

2008-05-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched My Kid Could Paint That. I highly recommend it to people who've found a way out of a prior belief system. Watching the progression of the film maker, both in the movie and in the DVD feature Back to Binghamton. It's fascinating to see the human drama of preconceived notion collide with raw data, then to watch some people cling to beliefs in the face of that evidence, while others begin to question and doubt their fundamental assumptions. It's clear that it caused the narrator an all-too-familiar internal turmoil.

When I first set out on my journey from belief to agnosticism (or, more candidly, outright disbelief) toward Mormon teachings, I felt very alone. It was as if I was struggling in a darkness that surely no one had been through before, save the "offended or unworthy." Having done considerable reading on religiosity since then (and even in seeing movies like this one) I find it fascinating that my experience is, essentially, a core part of the human experience. That many people go through these wrenching changes and emerge with added light and knowledge on the other side.

So then, tally ho!

Do I come out or not

2008-03-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

I recently discovered a fellow ward member on NOM. This was somewhat exhilarating, because even though I knew he was redefining his relationship with the church, I am completely "in the closet" in my ward; yet I could now interact with a local fellow member without blowing my cover. Mind you, in real life people see me wearing non-white shirts and such, and I certainly make nontraditional comments, but I still go to most meetings. And have a very "high" calling in the ward. I've been debating "outing" myself to this guy for some time, but I'm not really sure how that would play out. Given the negative reaction that often follows overt questioning, I'm interested in carefully controlling how much information I share with people who are basically acquaintances (i.e. fellow ward members). Ah, life in the liminal lane!

Monday Night Services

2008-01-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

I sing in an amateur choir, which my wife and I auditioned for about a year ago. I've never really done anything like it before, and, frankly, I'm a little out of my league surrounded by so many experienced singers. But I really enjoy the weekly chance to step out of the daily punishments of life and just create beautiful music.

We've just started working up our spring repertoire, and one of the pieces we're doing is Morten Lauridsen's Sure On This Shining Night. I have a hard time singing this, even though it's still in "practice mode" (I can only imagine where we'll be in two months!) because it is so spiritually moving to me. I literally choke up at certain points. Yet the lyrics are completely secular, based on the poem by James Agee--

Sure on this shining night
Of star-made shadows round
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground

The late year lies down the north,
All is healed, all is health
High summer holds the earth,
Hearts all whole

Sure on this shining night
I weep for wonder
Wandr’ing far alone
Of shadows on the stars.

I don't have a good place to recommend for a professional recording of this, but YouTube has a pretty good recording of a Taiwanese group performing it. It doesn't do it justice compared to performing it, but I just find this a truly beautiful piece of poetry and music.

When my Sunday's leave me feeling frustrated and generally unfulfilled, it's nice to know I communion with God (to the extent an agnostic can) every Monday.

More Musings on Racism

2007-12-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

I just had the chance to spend lots of quality time with my devout in-laws for the holidays. I love them a lot. They are great people. The parents know my current views on the church, but the siblings do not (although I come off as very heretical to them, I'm sure). We talked about lots of things, both religious and secular. Here's what I learned in one poignant conversation that flowed from a discussion of presidential contenders:

1. Oprah Winfrey is anti-Mormon,
2. the church was never racist (but it's complicated to explain that to journalists), and
3. suggesting that the church may have been mistaken prior to 1978 is disloyal (and therefore bad).

Have to admit, I felt like #1 came out of left field. After establishing that there was no good evidence for the assertion, I suggested that if it were true, it might be because she's black, and the church has a less-than-stellar record with its teachings on race. That led to the next two observations. At that point, tension building, we changed the subject.

These two observations by my family really bothered me because I've been thinking a lot about the recent article in the Wall Street Journal on racism in the church. Since the article came out last Friday, I have been increasingly agitated by the continued belief among the vast majority of Mormons that racism was okay prior to 1978 (or that whites withholding power from blacks, when so directed by God, is not racism). I even had a dream on Friday night that I was acting as a racist, even as I found my behavior offensive at the same time. Not a pleasant dream (particularly as it led to violence against me) but a clear reflection of how I am thinking about this issue these days.

I'm as close as I've ever been to writing a letter to a particular apostle who I understand actually reads his mail (rather than sending it back to a bishop or SP). I just feel that my integrity is demanding that I implore the leaders of the church to see the evil that is perpetuated by not officially forsaking pre-1978 "doctrine." Not that I expect the church to apologize on account of my humble letter, but then I can at least say that I've done something to further what I believe to be the best course of action for the sake of the many members whom I love.

A Spirit by any other name

2007-09-18T03:08:00.000-07:00

What really did me in, in regards to the church, was realizing that the spiritual experiences I considered noetic were 1) experienced by other people in relation to mutual exclusive ideas and 2) replicable using psilocybin.

I've told this to a number of still-believing Mormons. It doesn't phase them at all. I find this very curious. To me, it is like growing up in a family in which we call a certain color red. As I meet more and more people, I find them referring to other colors, such as my yellow or green, as red. At the end of the day, I have to question what it means for something to hold the property of redness. I will certainly reject that an objective redness exists.

So, too, goes the Spirit. I have come across so many recorded instances of people having "spiritual" experiences, I have read testimonials from participants in the Good Friday Experiment (who's drug trips were profoundly meaningful decades later), I have felt similar feelings when passionately discussing humanist principles. People use the same words and describe the same things as a typical Mormon speaker in F&T meeting. I cannot discern some consistent difference between what Mormons (including myself) appear to be describing and what others are describing.

Some people have suggested that I weight my own spiritually noetic experiences (of which there have been several over my life) with more significance. That seems distorted to me--when I think about those experiences, it wasn't that I knew something as much as I felt a profound sense of love. That's a great thing, to be sure, but doesn't have anything to do with knowledge. At least not in any way that I can tell.

I certainly don't think that personal meaning has to coincide with objective reality. It's similar to how my love for my wife and kids is real, but doesn't tell me the state of some extra-subjective thing. They're important to me but they're obviously not important to most people in the world (who are unaware of their existence), so to state that the universe somehow dictates their importance is a great myth (which I subscribe to!), but that's all. I can see the boundaries on the myth without deflating its personal meaning. I can confidently say, "I matter," or "My wife and kids matter," as a statement that transcends myself. For some reason, God doesn't work like that. If I think that God is just my God, but not other people's God, then it doesn't seem like God's really THE Judeo-Christian God anymore. Same for the truthfulness of a church that claims other churches cannot by true.

I'm sorry...not!

2007-09-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

Since "coming out" to my in-laws I have been corresponding with my FIL on all things philosophical, ethical, spiritual and religious in an attempt to be better understood. I think this has gone fairly well (as he has since acknowledged that I didn't stop believing in order to commit whoredoms), but sometimes we get somewhat snippy with each other. In his last missive to me, he referred to the September Mountain Meadows Massacre article in the Ensign and asked if I was disappointed that the church was handling it so well.

Goading attitude notwithstanding, I was actually quite pleased as I reflected on the article. It's a pretty honest account I think--you really can't definitely pin it on BY, and I don't think you have to in order to learn valuable lessons about the dangers of obedience.

Then I heard about Henry Eyring's remarks on the anniversary of the event: We express profound regret for the massacre carried out in this valley 150 years ago today.

I was pretty proud of my little church...a growed up! I realized he didn't say, "we're sorry," but organizations so rarely do. This seemed like an apology to me, so I was going to respond to my FIL that I was, in fact, quite pleased with the church's apparent progress from Hinkley's weasely: That which we have done here must never be construed as an acknowledgment of the part of the church of any complicity in the occurrences of that fateful day. I was really happy.

So, I'm all the more disappointed (slightly angry, even?) to find out that a PR hack, Mark Tuttle, had this to say in response to Eyring's (apparently uncorrelated) apology: We don't use the word 'apology.' We used 'profound regret.' It's like seeing your brother come out of rehab and go straight back to the needle! Why, oh why, must they act this way? The organization is at fault, and it is the same organization that existed when the atrocity occured. Was nothing learned from this mistake? Apparently not. For although "regret" can be construed as an apology, it can also be spoken generally, as in, "We regret the Holocaust." Regret doesn't explicitly invoke responsibility. So now, unfortunately, the bar is raised--"regret" won't cut it anymore because you (through your PR guy, no less) have made sure we realize that you're not accepting any responsibility for it. How sad. How truly sad.

But of course, it's not "the organization" deciding not to apologize, it's the leaders. So the finger of blame does have somewhere to point. Who has not learned the lessons of warning from the actions of President Hale and Bishop Lee? Who has not taken corrective actions to ensure that the organization could not facilitate future moral missteps? Who has decided that "being right" is more important than "being loving" to the survivors, some of whom clearly still feel emotional pain over this past event?

The answer is obvious. And how inspired could such people be by a God of Love?

My Great Shame

2007-08-28T18:09:00.000-07:00

I will now openly admit the sin that led me away from orthodox belief in the church: thinking.

Okay, that's a little antagonistic--let me put it another way: intellectualism. But what is intellectualism? And why is it so frightening to so many people?

As long as I can remember, I've considered myself an intellectual. Why? Because I have always enjoyed thinking about things, connecting disparate ideas, and evaluating existing "knowledge" with a critical eye. Study, reflection, and speculation--these are the words in my dictionary's definition of "intellectual," and I think they sum it up quite nicely.

Study, reflection, and speculation. What exactly is wrong with those? The problem is that they are not outcome focused. Instead, they are focused on the process. An intellectual (when engaging in intellectual pursuits--after all, intellectuals believe and act frequently without complete analysis), absorbs as much information as possible, then tries to weave it all into a coherent myth (anthropologically speaking). When new, conflicting information appears, it must be incorporated as non-judgementally as possible, even if that means the old myth was wrong. Learning is its own reward--one never asks, "Why should I bother to think about this?"

Anti-intellectualism, often inappropriately described as faith (for everyone has faith), is focused on the result. Someone posits a myth, and it is everyone's job to accept it. Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus, as two embodied beings--accept it. The Old Testament is full of literal stories about language confusion, global floods, and divinely sanctioned genocides--accept it. You can accept this by what you feel--accept it. Inputs that do not align with these myths are not allowed to reshape it; they are only to be rejected as lies, half-truths, or misunderstandings. Joseph usually didn't tell the story that way? Other accounts are incomplete. God seems to be acting immorally? Who are you to judge God? Others describe the same feelings when testifying of diametrically opposed beliefs? They must not really be feeling what you feel. To focus on the intellectual process instead of the proscribed outcome is to cast doubt on the myth, and to the non-intellectual this is highly offensive, morally dubious, or just plain dumb.

Of course, many religious leaders want it both ways--study, reflect, speculate, etc., just make sure you get the right answer! And if that's too much work, guess what? The right answer is still the same! Isn't that convenient?

Opening a Little Wider

2007-08-23T17:24:00.001-07:00

Last weekend my entire family went to a wedding out West. We stayed with some relatives who are extremely intellectual, and a generation ahead of us. It was great fun for someone like me--every night (and during the days if we were together) we discussed the church, politics, or general philosophy. We got into an extended debate of theodicy, which one of them was struggling with. I freely defended my own ideas, although not by explicitly saying, "God doesn't exist." I merely pointed out that if God does exist, God doesn't go meddling in people's affairs--otherwise God is clearly capricious and possibly sadistic. (Check out God's "rejoicing in suffering" in Deut. 28!) It was great fun and left me mentally exhausted.

Unfortunately, they are perceptive people, so they could tell my positions on fundamental doctrines are, shall we say, unorthodox. They immediately had a phone call into my parents, who confirmed the same. So, now I've become an object of pity in two more people's eyes. Future conversations will almost certainly be more polemic, as they strive to "defend the Church" or "save me from myself." I sure hope not, but that's the way it's gone with others--they used to talk freely about their gripes about Church, but now it's all "true and living" all the time. It's an unfortunate wall they choose (subconciously, I'm sure) to erect.

It's made me think about how some believers regularly accuse me of thinking I am smarter than they are. I try to point out that I can (as can they) disagree with someone whom I consider a peer or even a superior intellect. Factual disputes are not contests of intellect in my mind. I discovered what I did because of a fair amount of lucky timing--meeting the right people at the right times, or reading the right articles at the right times. On the other hand, as I usually do not point out it response, they now consider themselves morally superior to me. Even if I do "good works," I am an apostate and bound for much suffering. People can't be morally "different but equal" in any type of moral reasoning that I understand. So now that I've played out some of the steps expected of an apostate, I am clearly morally inferior. It's a little depressing to have yet two more family members feel that way about me.

Disaffected with disaffection

2007-07-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

In April of 2003, Hinkley said:

Each of us has to face the matter—either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the Church and kingdom of God, or it is nothing. -- Gordon Hinkley, Loyalty, April, 2003

For a long time, I thought that was a weird thing to say. Could he be that shallow in his thinking? I doubted it--I figured he was keeping it simple for the masses. A couple of days ago I read the Oaks and Packer interviews from the PBS documentary. I was quite surprised to find almost the exact same declaration from both of them. I have decided that I will have to believe that Hinkley is being completely honest when he says things like that.

So, here's a great example of why I disagree. I had a very interesting experience reading the latest (or possibly one earlier) edition of Dialogue. I was flipping around when I came across a short essay about the recollections of a woman whose sister died of polio in her youth. I read it standing in my kitchen and openly wept.

A minute later I noticed it was in the Fiction section of the journal.

I was furious.

I felt like my emotions had been jerked around. Like I had been used or manipulated in some way. Here I was, emotionally connecting with a phantasm, a figment of someone's imagination!

But it was well written, so a couple of nights later I read it aloud to my wife. I couldn't get through it because, again, I wept. (But less than the first time--I'm not hopeless!) I found this fascinating in a new way--knowing it was fiction, and that I had been annoyed by that, I still was emotionally connecting with the characters in the story! That's the great thing about fiction--it tells truths in a way that simple facts cannot. An author can write, "I am sad," and that may be a fact, but it is nothing like writing an essay about the trials of a fictitious character (or a metaphorical poem). By doing that, I will actually feel what the author is feeling.

So, I can accept the Book of Mormon as fiction and still find value in it. At the moment I don't find much, mainly because I'm also in a state of rebellion against the literalism that is "required" by the church, but if I were having a conversation with others who also approach it as fiction I think I could find more to value. It becomes a commentary on 19th-century America and Joseph's (and/or a co-author's, if that's your fancy) interaction with that society. It's just set in a fictitious pre-Columbian society (which is yet another commentary on 19th-century America!)

There clearly is a middle ground--I live in it, and so do many people that I know and love. It's not the easiest place at times, but ease has never really been my top priority in life.

Reviving Ophelia -- through Mormonism

2007-07-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

I finished reading Reviving Ophelia last week. I've got some young daughters, so I thought I'd try to get a sense for the challenges ahead. It certainly raised my consciousness of cultural messages that get pounded into girls as they approach (and pass through) adolescence.

While I was reading the book, I felt like active involvement in Mormonism could be helpful, in that the culture of Mormonism does not portray women as sex objects and teaches against substance abuse and premarital sex (sources of serious problems for adolescents, obviously.)

On the other hand, the author asserts that part of the turmoil that can arise during adolescence is a result of waking up to the fact that this is a "man's world." Girls begin to experience harassment and gender-based inferior role assignments (don't look or act too smart!), and it crushes their spirits. Needless to say, Mormonism falls pretty flat in this area, by teaching that the superior positioning of men is actually God's divine plan (or, in recent parlance, the Great Plan of Happiness).

How will this all work with my girls? I don't know of course--they're totally unique from one another and a decade or more from their teenage years. I only know that they'll be raised to know that patriarchies are a human invention, not part of some divine ideal! (And then, off to a private all-girls school!)

The Gods and the Bees

2007-07-11T04:51:00.000-07:00

Since coming to the harsh awareness that the myths of Mormonism no longer align with my constructs of ultimate reality, I have been struggling to redevelop meanings for some of the symbols I left behind. The most powerful of these was obviously "God".

I think God is a great support for some of the myths I continue to tell, such as the notion that, "the worth of souls is great in the eyes of God." But problems with theodicy and the (as far as I can tell) inseparability of the "soul" and our gray matter leave me unable to consider a micro-manager God. I've been leaning more towards pantheism, in fact. After all, if we were microscopic creatures studying a living brain, the behavior of neurons would appear completely deterministic, just like the world around us does. (I'm siding with Einstein here, not Bohrs.) Without the quale of being human, we would have no sense of the consciousness of our subject on a larger scale. As I see it, God could be like that, for the whole universe. Likewise, just as a human cannot select a particular neuron to manipulate in a "random" way, pantheistic God can't be manipulating our day-to-day lives. My only problem with this approach is that God then seems to be pointless to some extent.

I was drawn to thinking more about this recently after reading an article on swarm behavior. If you don't want to read it, here's the gist: swarms can solve problems that individual members never could. In essence, intelligence is additive in a universal sense. This clearly holds true for humans as well. Consider, for example, the manufacturing of a jet aircraft. Not the assembly, but the machining and forging of parts, mining of ores, fabrication of silicon wafers in the circuitry, generation of power required to run welding equipment, etc. The knowledge to build an an aircraft from "nothing" does not--could not--exist in a single person. There aren't even organizations with the complete knowledge, but rather groups of organizations that must act together in the simultaneous application of inter-individual knowledge. Yet airplanes are common sights in the sky. The same could even be said of much simpler things, such as ball-point pens. Perhaps we as humans are progressing towards divinity not as individuals, but as a species. I like this new idea, as it captures Zion and God in one idea--a collection of humans united in the pursuit of familial love create Zion and become, in a sense, God.

Obedience -- The Root of All Evil

2007-06-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

In my experience, obedience is the foundation of the Mormon faith. I think it's impossible to overstate the significance of this concept to Mormons, not just to the "laws of God" as is popular in general Christianity, but to Mormon men who outrank you. An upcoming lesson from the Spencer Kimball manual captures it well in the statement:

[Kimball] underwent that complex operation not because it was deemed to be reasonably safe in the opinion of his medical advisers, but because he was obedient to...the leaders of the Church—regardless of personal risk.

Last year's manual included these gems from Wilford Woodruff:

The Lord will lead [the President of the Church] where he wants him to go. We know God is with him, and has led him all the time. … It requires [the prophet] to tell us what is right and what is wrong in many things, because that is his place and calling. … A perfect channel exists between the Lord and him, through which he obtains wisdom, which is diffused through other channels to the people. That we know. We have got to learn to bring this knowledge into practice. 12

The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place.

What is obedience? I will use the following definition: ipso facto compliance to a source of authority. In other words, compliance solely because of the authority vested in the source. In the church world, it's using leaders as the primary justification for an action (e.g. not wearing double earrings because Hinkley said not to).

Why is obedience necessary? For children, it makes a lot of sense. They don't have the rational faculties or experience to understand all of the dangers that surround them, so if a parent says, "hold my hand in the parking lot," they will obey or face grave danger. Parents usually encourage obedience for this very purpose--to protect their children. It's also part of developing the inhibitions that we call maturity. Obedience is very important in small children.

But what about in adults? Does obedience serve a good purpose? It might in situations of serious, immediate peril, such as serving in the armed forces. It's also convenient if you don't like having to think a lot. It's always simpler to do what you're told, rather than think through the issue yourself.

Do either of these conditions properly apply to matters of ethics or faith? Of course not. So, why would a religion need to harp on obedience, unless its precepts were not clearly good ones to adhere to?

For example, the golden rule is a teaching that stands on its own--an adult does not need to be told to obey his leader and thereby live the golden rule, because the golden rule makes sense after rational examination. If two earrings were a bad thing, it would be obvious (or at least could be made obvious through explanation.)

In the Book of Mormon, even God, when telling Nephi to decapitate a sleeping man, explains the reasoning for the commandment. And that's God. Shouldn't we hold humans to a little higher standard than, "your wish is my command?"

After all, obedience is a coin-toss. Obedient people can do great good or great evil--it all depends on who they're following. That's why I worry about teaching my children to follow and obey, rather than to think critically and question (not defy) authority. I understand how the church inherited this core value--pressure to obey is the only way it would have survived in its earlier cult-like days. But now that it's grown up a bit, it's time to move on. I'm just doing my part to help out.

Functional Infallibility

2007-06-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

From the blog that brought you Evolation comes...Functional Infallibilty!

What is functional infallibility? Infallibility that exists in spite of denial of the same. This is easier to demonstrate than explain. Here's how to do it in seven simple steps.

Find a believing Mormon.
Ask if the President of the Church is infallibile.
Wait for the "No."
Ask for an example of a mistake by the current President, or any of his last three predecessors.
Listen to the silence.
Ask for an example of a mistake that might be made in the near future.
Listen to the silence.

Viola, functional infallibility in action. You see, nobody wants to outright claim that another human won't make a mistake, so presidents of the church must not be infallible. But when it comes to leading the church (which requires the kind of spiritual connection Mormons routinely teach comes from strict obedience), devout Mormons generally get extremely uncomfortable at the prospect of such a mistake actually occuring. It just isn't possible.

I have seen this used to defend even the "crazy" statements, such as men on the moon or sun, Native Americans turning white, etc. They simply won't give a single example of a mistaken teaching. It's a beautifully simple example of double-think:

Fallible Prophets Don't Make Mistakes.

Not every devout Mormon believes this, of course, but I don't think I've ever had the seven steps play out differently. The one time I saw it more or less happen in the 'Nacle, an Iron-Rodder asked, "Do you think you're smarter than the Prophet?" at which point the Liahona shut up. Functional infallibility in action.

So while Webster's defines infallible as:
incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals,

Liminal Blather defines functional infallibility as:
incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals, while not possessing the attribute of infallibility.

Simple enough?

Racism--Water Under the Bridge?

2007-06-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, yet another blog post arising from the furious debate raging on my last post. Is the church, today, actually racist? Or, more importantly, am I comfortable with my religion in the context of racial equality?

No.

A more ardent defender of the organization might rightly point out that Brigham Young, John Taylor, Mark Peterson, Joseph Fielding Smith and other bigots are all dead and gone; that we now give the priesthood to blacks; and that Hinkley as told us not to be racists; so the issue is over.

Those things are progress. Definitely. But progress does not equal arrival! Here's what bothers me, for those who care.

1. The Book of Mormon is racist.

Lamanites are given dark skin as a curse for their iniquity. I've heard desperate apologetics attempt to explain this away, but the purpose was to make them less enticing to white Nephites, so this is clearly a visual characteristic. Plus when the Amlicites mark their skin with red paint at one point (Alma 3) it is discussed as a parallel to the dark Lamanites. This comes up many places in the Book of Mormon. In other words, a skin-darkening literally occured, and it is a tainting, a bad thing. The solution: embrace a metaphorical approach to the Book of Mormon. Vestiges of 19th century thinking can be disregarded, just as the violence and misogyny are usually ignored in the Bible.

2. Selling books with racist teachings is racist.

Books written prior to 1978 (and possibly later) referring to blacks as less valiant in the pre-existence are still available through Deseret Books. Solution: stop selling them or switch to new revised editions.

3. Allowing racist doctrines to continue to circulate is racist.

I don't remember much of my life before 1978, being so young and all. I grew up attending church every week. In the 1980's, I learned all about how blacks were fence-sitters in the pre-existence. I'm sure it wasn't in any correlated material, but I learned it just the same. I do not remember (nor do I know of today), any correlated material that proactively dismissed the old doctrines. Solution: actively teach that blacks and whites have always been equal.

4. Portraying God as a racist is racist.

Ultimately, the 1978 decision was a great step, but one taken somewhat begrudgingly, by all appearances. I realize that the Q15 have said that they felt inspired to take this self-evident step--I'm sure that if there is a God that inspires anything, God would have agreed with this decision. However, the doctrine of Presidential Infallibility meant that the leaders couldn't, in 1978, say that the ban had been wrong per se, just that it was over. So we are encouraged to believe that God really didn't want the church organization to be an ensign to the world on such an important moral issue, but to merely be a follower. And a begrudging-looking follower, at that. Solution: admit that prior to 1978, blacks really should have held the priesthood, black families should have been sealed, and a black women should not have been sealed as an eternal servant to Joseph Smith.

See, it's not so hard to get this right.

Listening to Darron Smith's podcasts on MormonStories really opened my eyes to the modern experience of a black person in the modern church. There's room to improve, for sure.

God is smarter than you

2007-05-25T14:32:00.001-07:00

Given the sudden turn in comments in my last thread, I decided to throw out a quick thought.

God knows everyone personally.
God knows them better than you know your best friend, spouse, or children.
You are smart enough to recognize your friends, spouses (for the Mormons), or children as individuals--you do not judge, bless, or discriminate against them based on some arbitrary classification beyond their control (e.g. race, gender, etc.)

Ergo, God would not judge, bless, or discriminate against you, or blacks, or women, or Egyptian children, based on arbitrary abstractions of society (e.g. race, gender, etc.)

So, if you want to know if a concept is really divine in origin, ask yourself: Would I be just as happy if the blessings/withholdings were reversed? If my bishopric and church leaders were always non-white or always women? If I had to pledge obedience to my spouse, but she did not have to reciprocate? If you were expected to marry someone you weren't attracted to?

This is a great judge of moral advancement--the ability to act in such a way that you would not mind being any member in a transaction, relationship, or society that you deem moral. In other words, the golden rule, but for everyone.

Instead, we often stereotype: women are better at parenting, men are more authoritative speakers, etc. This obviously isn't true in the whole--every women isn't a better parent than every man. Every man isn't a more authoritative speaker than every woman. Humans rely on these simple heuristics because we're too limited to do otherwise. We can't know everyone. (But we like to imagine we can.)

God cannot discriminate using the simple stereotypes of humans. I don't think God could be so stupid.

Shame vs Love

2007-05-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

About 6 months after my epiphany regarding the church, I found my mind turned to the nature of mainstream Christianity vs LDS Christianity. Now, I'm no expert on the mainstream church (and obviously there's a good bit of diversity of thought), but one morning, just as I was stepping into the shower, it hit me.

Mormons obey to receive grace.
Christians obey because they have received grace.

I'm no mainstream Christian, but somehow that second approach rang so much better in my heart and mind. As soon as I realized it, I suddenly saw how pervasive this approach was in Mormonism. Hardly a GC talk goes by in which you don't hear the caveat, "if we are worthy," or "if we are obedient." Salvation comes through Jesus, but only once you've earned it. It makes Jesus like the token collector at a train station--he's deciding whether or not let you in, but the fare is the fare, so pay up. Obedience comes from knowing that you will not get to live with your family if you miss tithing by 1% and then die too quickly to make amends.

Contrast that with the idea that Jesus has, in his infinite mercy, reached down and pulled you from the depths of your human weakness. As a result, you will obey him in a show of gratitude. Clearly you'll mess up, but he'll help you out anyway. Obedience comes from knowing that you are saved and being thankful for it.

We'll let the LDS.org search engine take it from here (in my completely scientific study!):

"obe*": 7,136
"worthi* worthy": 4,636
"grace": 1,816, including phrases such as, "We cannot be saved by grace alone."

It's an emphasis that really bothers me, in that it promotes a judgemental attitude in others and a deeply negative sense of shame in the believer. I do not find Christ as a valuable symbol if I am using him to promote shame--I much prefer the parental love image of the second approach. My children exist because my wife and I gave them life, a totally free gift. If my children disappoint me, I do not reject them--certainly not for the rest of their lives! Instead, I show them how to live better lives and recover from their stumbles. And I seek their obedience out of respect and love, not fear of punishment.

Just some liminal blather on what Jesus means to an agnostic...

My Spiritual Witness of Humanism

2007-05-18T10:32:00.001-07:00

Last night I was having an extended philosophical conversation with my wife and some good friends. They, like us, are "so-called intellectuals," although they're not Mormon. (Does that make them "real intellectuals?") Whenever we get together it immediately turns into a deep dive on politics, religion, current events, etc. This time was no exception.

We were discussing Fowler's Stages of Faith, which they are going to read on our recommendation (do I mention this book too much?), and I was trying to explain the idea around shared centers of value and power. I explained (hope I didn't mutilate the message too much) that a driving force behind our quest for purpose is the desire for validation of worth in the face of death. That it is the inevitability, incomprehensibility, and finality of our impending end that is in a constant battle with our desire to have intrinsic worth. Nobody wants to think of himself as a random lump of biomass, here one year and gone the next. (Not that we're not random biomasses, just that we don't like using that as our primary construct for existence.)

While I was explaining this--the idea that "fear of death" drives the quest for meaning, I was almost moved to tears by the Spirit. So, I guess that was True. Since it was in the context of religion as a human construct, it doesn't really jive with the other stuff I thought the Spirit told me was True, but I experienced what I experienced.

I am God. No, wait, you are God.

2007-05-17T05:05:00.000-07:00

I posted about this on NOM a little while back, but I wanted to comment on it here, too, so that I can always find it.

The University of Chicago Magazine published a fascinating article on how people tend to see themselves in agreement with God on moral issues. While this seems a truism at first--people naturally align their morals with what God "teaches" them--the interesting thing was that when those moral beliefs were manipulated in a laboratory setting, God's beliefs changed right along with them.

This has played out in my own life, where I cannot believe that God is an exclusivist when it comes to religions. At the same time, I saw God in a totally different way as a believing Mormon, and I can actually remember that.

My take-away from this is that "God's teachings" are synonymous with "your personal beliefs" in the majority of situations. Which means if someone says that "God wants us to do such-and-such," it's identical to saying "I want us to do such-and-such, and ALL CREATION agrees with me."

Seems like a hard pill to swallow if you're a believer in God. But then, you're different, right? You actually do understand what God teaches; the idea that you project your beliefs onto God is ludicrous...right?

I gave a talk today, oh boy...

2007-05-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

I gave a talk today about motherhood. It went over very well--I don't think anyone noticed that I didn't do the typical "bear my testimony" bit at the end, nor did I actually use any scriptures. (I did use quite a few GA quotes though.) I got very emotional toward the end, which tends to happen every time I speak in church about something I care about.

Not long ago I would have attributed these feelings to "the Spirit." Now I have every reason to believe they come from me, like all of my other feelings. But for what purpose? I can give an "objective" purpose for love (procreation), fear (self-preservation), or hope (also self-preservation). But getting choked up in a talk? Less clear. But then, jealousy, excitement, pity, and frustration are also less clear. We obviously can assign whatever meanings we want to the things we feel, but I would expect that there should be some evolutionary advantage for any common feelings (although they could always be spandrels).

I told my wife that it was my "Good for Society" feeling. In other words, the feelings that choked me up were similar to those I feel when singing the national anthem with a group, or watching Extreme Home Makeover, where they renovate a home to help a suffering family. To that end, these feelings seem to serve a very useful purpose--preservation of the tribe, with preservation of the individual as a result. I don't think she thought that was nearly as inspirational as attributing them to the Creator of the Universe. I have to agree, my "Good for Society" feeling isn't the kind of thing you find in songs or poems.

Perhaps I would agree with the statement, "the Spirit testifies of the goodness of something," but not "of the truth of something." That's getting pretty metaphorical, since I don't literally believe in a disembodied supernatural being that plays with my emotions. In this case, though, a more correct way to put it would be, "the Spirit testifies the goodness of something, as I define good, and as I understand the something." When referring to this particular feeling, I can't count on the Spirit to correct me in either the definition of good or in my understanding of reality. But I can still seek out the feeling.

Believers will doubtless point out that, to them, the Spirit does send sudden thoughts into their minds to correct misunderstandings, etc. That I find much easier to explain, given the fact that so much of our brains work is done subconsciously, with the conscious mind seeming to more, perhaps, tell a story about what is happening (even though it thinks it's in control). For more on this, I refer you to the great essay, A Ghost in the Machine.

Lines in the sand

2007-05-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

I got an email recently from the Relief Society presidency, looking for a Priesthood holder to attend the next Enrichment night. Apparently, women cannot be alone in the church. I responded with an offer to show up with a key if that was what was needed, but that I would conscientiously object to supporting any such policies by actually chaperoning adult women. I was sure to include the bishop in the response, since he was included in the original inquiry. So, although it's no bus boycott, I have been feeling more empowered to "call it like I see it" in the church.

How a Western woman can swallow this whole is beyond me--I honestly think that any human being should be offended by this kind of policy. What am I missing?

I know there are some readers of this blog who are more inclined to believe all of these policies are set down by divinely inspired leaders than I am. I'm fairly certain that if you don't believe the LDS church is "the only true and living" church, you'll call out a policy like this for the sexism it is. So to the believers, here's the question--why on earth would such a policy exist? Why are women not to be trusted alone? Might they start to think for themselves?

Heavenly Mother

2007-05-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

I made some comments about this topic on NOM last week, but I want to flesh out my thoughts a little more.

I used to think that Heavenly Mother (HM) was a great doctrine--something that offered a value to believers that they couldn't really find elsewhere. Now I think it's a pernicious doctrine. Not by itself, but in how it's applied.

Traditional Christianity suggests the presence of God, usually referred to in the masculine. This could be because of the terrible stuff He encouraged doing to women (segregation, death for accidentally touching male privates while defending her husband, etc.), but, at any rate, I think modern Western Christians tend to view God as transcending gender. So a person can imagine God being as male or as female as he/she wants to. God becomes gender-neutral.

Joseph Smith threw a wrench into this by suggesting that people become gods, and that God was once a person. As such, God has a gender. One could leave it at that, and say that we happen to have a male God and other worlds have female Gods, but he also introduced plural marriage (more commonly known as Celestial Marriage), meaning that we have both a Father and Mother God.

Mormon doctrine unequivocally teaches that there is a Heavenly Mother (or Mothers), although it provides virtually no details. But one aspect of her existence reign supreme in the modern church--she is an evil topic. People get very uncomfortable in public discussions of Heavenly Mother. If a speaker were to begin expounding on his/her beliefs about Her, a bishop would probably feel compelled to either stop the speaker outright or at least "correct" the talk from the pulpit afterwards. No "good" thing is so completely taboo (even the temple, which is freely discussed in the temple, and isn't really a "doctrine" anyway, but a ritual).

We have no indication that Heavenly Mother serves any purpose whatsoever. There's no question that God was the Creator. There's no question that Jesus is the Savior. The Holy Ghost is the Comforter and testifier of all Truth. So, where's Heavenly Mother in any of this? Making refreshments? Tidying up the CK for our eventual return (as Neal Maxwell once suggested!)? Yes, girls, you get to be a god along with your husband, but that won't mean "God", because God is clearly the male, and His Wife, well, we don't really know what she does, nor do we want to know, nor do we want you to even think about it. In other words, we don't care what she does. You may not be second class citizens in the church (cough, cough), but you clearly will be in the eternities, at least to your children.

This denial of the feminine bothers some believers, even though they may not fully know why. So we see explanations arise for how it can be "good" not to care about women's eternal destiny.

The #1 Mormon explanation for this (as I perceive it) is that God doesn't want her to be criticized. People might start saying, "Oh my Heavenly Mother!" Seems possible--I've heard people "swear" on Mary. So we know one other thing about female Gods--they're emotionally fragile. Heavenly Mother would rather completely distance herself from Her children (even removing their salvation, if necessary) than risk one of them saying something mean about her. Even as a GOD, women will need to be protected by their husbands.

The #2 explanation (and this is a distant second), is that she's the Holy Ghost, or some such thing. (I've also heard that Joseph Smith was the Holy Ghost embodied--whatever.) You know, if this makes someone feel better, I guess I won't get on their case, but the HG has no body. So it can't be the female equivalent of HF.

I wouldn't mind this doctrine so much if women (and men) were free to openly discuss these things, or if Hinckley were to get inspiration to clarify this teaching. Instead, response to spiritual inquiry is hostile. Seriously, if someone feels like they have a spiritual connection to the feminine divine, should that be dismissed as evil? It's just so blatantly wrong! Better to not have Her at all, than to make her a magnet for guilt and self-loathing. If we don't care about the existence or role of Heavenly Mother, what are we saying about the fundamental and eternal value of women in general?

Before All Else: Modesty

2007-04-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

It's prom season, apparently. I don't have kids in school yet, but I do have a brother-in-law who recent went to his senior prom. (I skipped mine and have never looked back, but that's another story.) We talked to my in-laws the night of the event (after his group had come to the house for pictures and had left) and I was really struck by the disdain they seemed to show for all of the girls but one (my brother's date). The reason, of course, was immodesty. It was as if nothing else was visible to them. Was their hair nicely done? Did their dresses look stunning? Could you sense their youthful exuberance on the brink of launching themselves out into the big, wide world? No, they were just immodest. It was like they had just met a bunch of pole dancers.

What is modesty, anyway? My favorite definition comes from a book written by Karol Wojtyla, "Love and Responsibility." I don't remember a lot of the details, but this concept stuck in my mind--immodesty is dressing in a manner to present oneself first and foremost as an object of sexual pleasure. I liked it because 1) it's gender neutral, and 2) it's about your own intentions, rather than how others will view you.

This is still subjective, obviously. People gladly tromp around at the beach in clothing that would be considered immodest on a date. Acceptable skin-baring has varied considerably over the last 200 years. And different cultures simultaneously to accept different levels of exposure, as a quick trip between Europe and the US will show.

Is it immodest to try to look attractive? That seems a little draconian--like requiring a burqa. So if we're not expecting people to make themselves hideous, we should expect them to flatter themselves with their clothing. In the US, this frequently means showing shoulders and back if you're a woman. I have to admit that when I see most formal dresses, I think that they are lovely articles of clothing, not the uniform of a street-walker. I've seen a couple wedding dresses go from the original stunning design to "temple-worthy," and it always seemed like a sad sort of aesthetic destruction--like the Taliban scratching the faces or heads off of artwork in Afghanistan.

But somehow, in mainstream Mormon culture, modesty has become extremely legalistic. It's like temple garments (whether you wear them or not) are the imagined line of acceptance. Dress off the shoulder? Immodest. Collarbone visible? Immodest. Muumuu? Modest. The fact that the garments themselves started showing lots of skin in 1923 is conveniently forgotten in this approach.

It seems like modesty is falling in line with smoking for the church. It's very easy to draw defined boundary, then look with disdain at those on the wrong side of the line. My thoughts are drawn to the message of Sister Nadauld, YWGP in 2001: You can recognize women who are grateful to be a daughter of God by their outward appearance.

Sure makes it simple to determine who is good and bad, doesn't it?

HOFRS

2007-04-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

HOFRS--Helping Other Feel and Recognize the Spirit

This was a lesson I learned in the MTC. It was the most important part of developing conversion--you taught a lesson, showed a video, etc., then would say something to the effect of, "You feel that nice happy/warm/peaceful feeling? That's the Spirit telling you this is true."

This all seemed very straightforward. Having never felt the Spirit, how could we expect people to recognize it?

But, according to many faithful Mormons, the Spirit is not a feeling. It's something different and unique. According to my FIL, it's a combination of a feeling and knowledge. According to many believers (not just Mormons), the Spirit can make you just "know" something.

So, here's the problem.

Why doesn't the Spirit self-identify? Is it just me, or is that not the most obvious thing for the Spirit to do? You've got an investigator discovering a "true" message; why would the Spirit suddenly decide to be so coy? If it's just a feeling, then it makes sense that you need someone to frame the meaning: "That feeling (which is just a feeling) means what I just told you is true." If they feel the same thing in the presence of an annuity salesperson, they'll have it framed another way: "You can trust me--this is a good investment for your family." Con-artists probably get people to feel good about dubious propositions all the time--that's why their called confidence- artists.

If it's not a feeling, why would it have to be explained? I do not understand how Spirit=Knowledge can be reconciled with Spirit=Unusual Feeling. Given that even the church acknowledges the latter, I have to seriously question the former.

God--the great Because

2007-04-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of raising 3 pre-K kids, each about 2 years apart. As any experienced parent (and many a non-parent, frankly) knows, kids go through a stage of asking "why" over and over again shortly after becoming verbal. I always try my best to answer these rapid-fire inquiries, even if the final response is, "I don't know." I can't stand it when people say, "because," simply because that's really NOT an answer. It's a conjunction, folks. Yet it gets used a lot, even between adults.

On to the point, and another story. Last night, my wife and I were discussing the interview question at the back of Stages of Faith. It's a good exercise, because I think it's demonstrating to her that our values haven't diverged. One question was about core values or something to that effect. I answered that I had two primary one's--living the golden rule, and questing for knowledge. She said that hers were faith in God and faith in Jesus Christ. This was a critical moment, for my recent agnosticism/disbelief in the Mormon God causes her great angst. So I drilled down:

Uj: What does that mean?"
DW of Uj: What do you mean, "what does that mean?" You know what it means.
Uj: No, I told you values that you can map directly to how I will act in given situations. You told me you believe in God. What does that mean when the rubber hits the road?

Of course, it came back to the golden rule for her, too. I pointed out that God was kind of an unnecessary addition to that value--you could adhere to the golden rule with or without the belief that God cares.

That got me thinking this morning about why so many believers throw God out there as an answer to moral questions. Does it really mean anything? Not in terms of actions--if I were going to tell someone I'm gay (which I'm not--just a good example for where I'm going), I'd rather tell a person who claims to live the golden rule than one who claims to be Christian. The Golden Ruler will not hit me, because he himself does not like to be hit. The Christian is a gamble--might be a moral person in the sense of the golden rule, might be an executor of God's Will. There are still advocates of jail time for homosexual behavior! So a person's belief in God tells me nothing about their values.

You might suppose that that makes God a neutral assertion--that "God told me so" has no true meaning. But, unfortunately, it's not. God is also a conversation stopper. "God told me so" = "I am right, because." There's nothing following the because, so it's not really supporting the "I am right," but a believer doesn't usually see that. So, God becomes the Great Because, seeming to resolve things when it fact it does not.

Should I stay or should I go now?

2007-04-20T04:15:00.000-07:00

Why do I want to leave the church? It's a fair question, particularly from an active member. Let's face it, lots of religions offer lots of good things to many people--why not just pick the one you're born with, and which most of your family affiliates with, and make the best of it? Why leap into the great unknown?

The factual errors behind the church aren't really the biggest issue for me. They're important to identify, of course, because without them you can't question anything. I mean, if Smith really did see God and Jesus, and they really told him to sleep around and make up the Book of Abraham, then you've got to think that you'd better keep studying the Book of Mormon, etc. But realizing that the church is built on a sandy foundation isn't sufficient justification to begin smoking, obviously. There are still some good ideas in there.

On the flip side, family is a huge issue. I can't do anything without profoundly affecting my wife and I'm sensitive to that. As long as she is a believer I feel compelled to support her by attending weekly, holding a calling, etc. But that's not really a defense of the church.

So let's pretend...if she were at the same point in her faith journey that I am...

The main reason I would stay in the church is for the opportunities it gives me to teach my kids and bond as a family. I believe that family myths and shared rituals are very important. I know full well that these can be developed by any family, but I also believe that it takes a lot more energy to do it completely on your own. Take FHE, for example. Attending church reminds you to do it, and I think sitting down as a family for some quality discussion, singing, etc. is good. Without the church I'd have to develop my own ritual, then stick to it without any external cultural support. Not impossible, but difficult. I'd also have to make concerted efforts to talk to my kids about smoking, drinking, sleeping around, being nice to others, etc. Right now I can rest assured that if I skip a week or two, the Primary teachers have my back. That's helpful, because I think that singing "Follow the Prophet" is less dangerous than never being taught avoid drugs. (Again, I'm not saying that I would never talk about that stuff, but isn't it easy to forget?)

This same church indoctrination, however, is my main reason for wanting to leave. Especially for the sake of my girls. I shared some quotes from a YW lesson in an earlier post, but those just scratched the surface. A few months ago I spent some time (an hour or so) looking at topics in both the YM and YW manuals. The differences were mind-boggling. It made me ill. Here's a smattering of what bothers me:

Homemaking lessons. YW are taught that this is a critical way to improve the world and bring the Spirit into their lives. This year's manual (#2) has two in a row (Home Environment & Sharing Work in the Home). YM do not have a single lesson on this topic.
Picking a particular topic, e.g. obedience, shows a focus on roles for women (obey so that you can be a mother and helpmeet, #1 commandment is multiply & replenish the earth) and on freedom of choice (obey so that you can have more options) for boys.

I'm not trying to be exhaustive here--just giving a quick example. But this kind of thing drives me crazy. They've fixed this in the RS/PH split by going to single manuals. Why haven't they done this for YM/YW? Exposing my girls to this kind of indoctrination is supremely frustrating--I am left to deliver conflicting messages: teaching them humanist ideals at home while sending them off to YW every week! (Of course, I'm 9 years from having a girl in YW....)

Evolation

2007-04-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

That's my new word of the day. It's the development of interpretations for a revelation. I'm writing about this because I'm watching it happen right in front of me, and it just kills me.

I have a family member who's engaged. She got engaged to this guy pretty quickly, following lots of personal revelation all around--to both parents, both lovers, friends of parents, etc. This included some of the "miraculous" simultaneous revelation that is so desirable. Amusingly, the one apostate in the crowd, yours truly, was getting his own revelation--Danger, Will Robinson! Of course, I wasn't wrapping mine in the pretty veneer of God-imbued knowledge, so it didn't get a lot of respect. The obvious signs of problems that I was seeing were being seen by everyone else; it's just that to them, GOD had spoken--relationship problems could be worked out after the marriage. I felt like I was watching a train wreck unfolding before my eyes. Call me Cassandra.

Well, last week the boy expressed serious reservations about going through with the impending wedding. Not, "I'm nervous about this big step," but "I don't think I love you," kind of reservations. The wedding's not officially off, of course, because my family member had it revealed to her that they should get married. But at least the parents have finally gotten off the bandwagon--how could you not when your daughter is talking about marrying a guy that "doesn't love her enough?"

But...there's this problem of the revelations. Enter, Evolation. This boy was important for you to be dating right now. But God couldn't have just told you that? God wanted you to think you were getting married. So God tells lies that sometimes really mess up your emotions? The boy has made an unrighteous decision to flout the revelation. So call him to repentance and insist on marriage? Etc. Etc. Those are all real statements I have heard. Let me add some of my own. You'll get married in 50-60 years, after your first spouses have passed away. You'll become one of his plural wives in the CK because your earthly husband will not attain sufficient power and priesthoods to keep you.

No credit to the secular humanist here, who applied his extremely limited EQ to identify that this was a match made in lustful attraction, not heaven.

What's really scary is that this family member still wants to marry him, based on her revelation. I'm hoping she receives some evolation, and soon.

Evolation is one of the great hurdles to seeing the supernatural for what it really is. It doesn't allow for any mistakes to be made in the revelation channel, simply misinterpretations. The great logical flaw here is that if you can so easily misinterpret a "spiritual prompting," how can you call it "knowledge?" Maybe you're misinterpreting that the Church Is True?

Appeals to Authority

2007-04-12T04:27:00.000-07:00

I've recently begun to notice an interesting aspect of modern Mormon teaching--there not that modern. Take the following, the Young Women's Manual 1 lesson, Patriarchal Leadership in the Home. It's a great read to understand why the church bothers me so much, but that's for another post.

This lesson is extremely simple, and dwells on a concept that is one of the crucial differentiators between Brighamism and mainstream churches. It starts with some directions to the teacher to be sensitive to the fact that only some girls will "have fathers who are righteous patriarchs in their homes." Then there's a quiz, the answers, and a story.

The answers (except for one) all come from quotes from dead General Authorities. The most recent quote is from 1984--23 years ago! Not a single answer cites Hinckley, nor do any of them simply use their own "authority" as a church publication. Even the story at the end, where a daughter learns that she can love her non-Mormon Dad, comes from 1978. (Don't worry, he becomes a member of the church in the end, so loving him was worth it after all!) Now, the copyright is from 1992, so that lowers the gap to 8 years at the time of publication (with most quotes 15+ years old), but that also means that supposedly nothing has happened in the last 15 years that might impact how we discuss family structure.

I've noticed this same trend toward constant quoting in Conference talks, as well. Maybe they were always like this, but I was never struck that way when reading the Journal of Discourses or talks by McConkie. Now, using past sources can be a valuable way to reach across a philosophical divide (such as quoting C.S. Lewis when proselyting to Christians), but how is that relevant here? Do current leaders feel like they have to win over active members (i.e. the only people who care about the cited authorities)? Or are they just afraid to step out of correlated discussions?

As an aside, consider the following two quotes from the lesson:

In the Church there is full equality between man and woman. (John A.
Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1960], p. 30).
The patriarchal order is of divine origin and will continue throughout time and eternity. There is, then, a particular reason why men, women and children should understand this order and this authority in the households of the people of God. … It is not merely a question of who is perhaps the best qualified. Neither is it wholly a question of who is living the most worthy life. It is a question largely of law and order (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, p. 287).
To the comment, ‘My husband [or father] is not a member of the Church, nor does he respect it,’ I with love and compassion answer: ‘Dear Sister, whether he is a member or not, he is still the father and head of the family (Richard G. Scott, “Father Is Head of the Family,” Ensign, Feb. 1977, pp. 84–85).
In the home the presiding authority is always vested in the father, and in all home affairs and family matters there is no other authority paramount (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1975], p. 27).

As the old classic song goes, "One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong." Unfortunately, my faith lies in the one that doesn't belong.

Reconciling Suffering

2007-04-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking more about theodicy. I have a hard time believing that God answers seemingly trivial prayers, while at the same time allowing incredible suffering elsewhere. So I'm thinking more about how the world would look if all of the suffering was actually "taken care" of by a benevolent God.

What if we had a world in which, as sometimes is suggested, no one suffered? It seems like the first challenge is to narrow down what that means...does it mean that one never fails to meet budget in a business, never misses a goal in sports, or never has a car breakdown? These are simple examples for illustrating the incompatibility of expectations--usually another party must "suffer" for these things to occur.

So what if we limit this to more grave suffering--physical pain for example? If we posit a world in which there is no, say, starvation, then what does it matter whether a business makes its budgets or not? The danger of a minor failure turning into a major one is what makes them significant in their own right. I don't want to go hungry, ergo I don't want to lose my job, ergo I work hard. Without the "real" suffering at the end of the road, what would "small" suffering even mean? So some threat to livelihood must exist for any sense of danger to exist. If nothing bad could ever happen, life would seem somewhat sterile-perhaps even void of meaning. What's the point of doing anything if the outcome is never threatening?

I suppose one could be motivated by a desire to do "good" things. But what is "good" if pain is nonexistent?

Of course, this is the popular notion of heaven: bad stuff doesn't happen. If it's not that way, then what's so great about it? Just an endless existence full of joys and disappointments? I'm not so sure that non-existence seems so bad in comparison.

This isn't fully developed, but the point of this blog is to capture things as I think them...sorry.

Fowler's Stages of Faith

2007-03-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

It seems like this book gets mentioned a lot of NOM, so I finally got a copy and read it. (I purchased By His Own Hand on Papyrus at the same time--I'm excited to read that next.) I'll admit that I'm writing this review a little prematurely, in that I've got about 10 pages to go, but I read a lot of it today in one sitting and found Fowler's stage model incredibly True in my life.

I am a solid Stage Four. I found it interesting reading about Stage Five, and I imagine that that would be a better place for me, but I don't see a completely clear path to it yet. My Dad is definitely a Stage Five, which is probably why I always have felt like he was a member of a "different Mormonism" than I was. I always felt like he used the same words as every other Mormon, but with completely different meanings. I can also see how most of the members I know appear to be Stage 3 or 3/4 hybrids.

What's interesting is that when I talk to active members about this, their reaction is , "so you think you're at a higher stage than me?" It's a question of simple arithmetic, I suppose, in that 4 is higher than 3; however, there is an implicit question: "so you think you're better than me?" The answer to this is equally simple: no. To suggest that a Stage 4 is "better than" a Stage 3 is like suggesting that my 5-year-old boy is "better than" my 1-year-old daughter. The value-based comparison is ludicrous--people are at different stages in many aspects of their life, and their current stage is usually a result of external triggers. It's not like smarter, kinder, more sensitive, etc. people move through the faith stages faster--Fowler makes no such claims, nor do I. I suspect that a person at each stage views people at previous stages as peers at a different place in their life journey, while simultaneously viewing people successive stages as hostile or confused. Thus a Stage 3 will feel threatened by a Stage 4, much to the bewilderment of the Stage 4 (unless they remember what they felt when they were at Stage 3).

At least that's how the stages seem to play out in my life. I think some people who leave the church can be pretty hostile toward the members (as opposed to policy and doctrine), which I think is unfortunate. But everyone's different.

At any rate, this book really seemed to describe my journey thus far. It's amazing that something so personal and unique can be so universal to humanity.

My Story

2007-03-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

Allow me to start with a quick run through how I got from point A (born and raised in an active family, returned missionary, BYU grad, married in the temple, fully active me) to point B (hmmm, none of the above have changed!). So what did change?

Well, as you can probably guess, I gradually came to realize that I didn't know as much as I thought I knew. Life can be interesting, in that it seems to present itself as a series of seminal moments, without any explanation as to what made those events possible. In my case, the defining moment in my journey from full-fledged believer in Mormonism to complete skeptic was the reading of Wild Swans. It's an autobiography of a woman who grew up in Mao's China. It was a great reminder of just how fortunate I am to live in the US. But it was also a powerful lesson in the epistemology underpinning religious belief. This was the passage that moved me so immensely, from the authors experience as a 13-year-old girl:

In the light over the square, the characters on the hanging were shining: "Long Live Our Great Leader Chairman Mao!" Tears sprang to my eyes. "How lucky, how incredibly lucky I am to be living in the great era of Mao Zedong!" I kept saying to myself. "How can children in the capitalist world go on living without being near Chairman Mao, and without the hope of ever seeing him in person?" I wanted to do something for them, to rescue them from their plight. I made a pledge to myself there and then to work hard to build a stronger China, in order to support a world
revolution. I needed to work hard to be entitled to see Chairman Mao, too. That was the purpose of my life.

This passage hit me like a ton of bricks. Her experience with the Cult of Mao was being described exactly how I described my experience with Mormonism. I had learned that having a testimony produced the powerful feelings she was describing, as well as a desire to "spread the word," which she had.

My wife read this, her mother read this, I suppose lots of Mormons have read this, but it wasn't to them what it was to me. For some reason, this put an immediate check on my confidence in what I had traditionally called "The Spirit." I still believed in the metaphysics of Mormonism; I still enjoyed church. But the seed was planted. And it was a good seed.

Over the next seven years, a studied church history from a variety of biases, witnessed (not first-hand) 9/11, and lived in fairly liberal wards which allowed for continued free-thinking on these issues. All of these things nourished the seed, at it began to swell.

One day, I suddenly realized I was arguing on blogs against Christian friends, not about some Mormon vs Christian thing, but about Secular vs Supernatural things. And I was the secularist. Somebody told me I'd be out of the church within a year--I was very offended by that. Ironic.

About six months later the seedling broke out of the earth to finally bathe in the warmth and beauty of the sun. It was incredibly liberating to my soul, albeit fraught with anxiety regarding the reaction of others. It was like I finally said to myself, "what if it isn't true," and BAM--the world suddenly made more sense. It was emotionally and intellectually (dare I say spiritually?) incredible.

The seed has continued to grow. The roots have dug deeper and the branches have put forth desirable fruit. I am much happier in my relations with others, I am less judgemental of family members who have left the church, and I have much more desire to help others. I have lots of room for improving myself, to be sure, and I'm sure I always will, but I now have a sense of hope and faith in humanity that I didn't use to have. Orthodox Mormonism may work for some, but leaving it behind as worked much better for me.

So now I continue as a Heterodox Mormon. I enjoy the conversations on the New Order Mormon board immensely, as they maintain a level of respect that should be granted that faith community. I think the teachings of the church have some good ideas and some very bad ones, but I realize that many active Mormons agree with me there. The leaders may speak for the church, but it's the laity that is the church. I would be happy to walk away completely, but immediate and extended family relationships will never allow that--as many post-Mormons know, you really can't leave it alone because it never leaves you alone! So I make the best of things--using my influence to help one person at a time.

Yet another blog...why?

2007-03-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

A thus is born another "post-Mormon" blog. Of course, I'm not post-Mormon. Not technically, and not, honestly, at heart. As much as I loathe some of the teachings of the church, I know that most of the members are good, honest people. In fact, when I get to know most of them more deeply, I find that they tend to agree with me on lots of the questionabl teachings of the church. I have to believe there's room in my church for divergent beliefs, even if it's in a bit of a dark ages right now.

So, why this blog? Simple. Since coming "out of the closet" to my wife about a year ago, I find that I think constantly about issues of belief, faith, epistemology, apologetics, etc., but I feel like most of my thoughts and insights slip away into the mist of memory. Or they get captured across 50 blogs and forums across the Internet. This is my way of consolidating that--a public journal of sorts. An entirely selfish endeavor.

That said, I have found many of the self-directed musings of others very helpful during my journey up out of Mormonism, so if this blog ends up serving that purpose for any of my readers, I will feel that I have done some good. It's nice not to be alone.