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Recently, I had a phone conversation with the only traditional believing Mormon I have ever shared the truth about my spiritual feelings and Mormonism. He tried to convince me that I was wrong in seeing things the way I do (as you would expect). I commented that changing my perspective would mean denying my repeated life’s experiences – in other words, the evidence that led me to draw my current conclusions.
CAN YOU deny your life’s experiences that lead you to certain deeply-seated conclusions? Aren’t our repeated life’s experienced part of the fabric of who we are? And if you think you can deny, or somehow override your life’s experiences, what does it take to be able to do it?
Experience is the only tangible evidence we have – whether physical, emotional or spiritual. The rest is faith – our hopes for what we eventually will experience. Thus, even our faith is based in “experience” in a very important way.
I can’t deny my experiences and that’s why I am where I am. Were I to deny them, I would probably be an active Mormon but a very unhappy and conflicted one. We do tend to explain our beliefs in terms of experiences, but according to Jonathan Haidt, the beliefs come first, followed by the rationalizations. So it’s not a matter of changing your experiences. You really can’t change your beliefs intentionally. You can change your story about them, but that’s about it. hawkgrrrl wrote:We do tend to explain our beliefs in terms of experiences, but according to Jonathan Haidt,
the beliefs come first, followed by the rationalizations. So it’s not a matter of changing your experiences. You really can’t change your beliefs intentionally. You can change your story about them, but that’s about it. What exactly does this look like? Looking back at when I was young and things were being presented to me: The Book of Mormon doesn’t seem like a record of actual people, but they say it is…. I really don’t think God commanded men to take dozens of wives, but they….. Is this me never really believing in the first place, and are the critics of “doubters” right in saying I never “had a testimony” to begin with? And right now church culture doesn’t really let people change their story about their beliefs.
We ask non-members to consider what their gut is telling them. Would God deny blessings to people who weren’t fortunately-born? Does it make sense that we wouldn’t live in heaven as families? Etc., etc., but members sorta don’t get to have a gut.
hawkgrrrl wrote:We do tend to explain our beliefs in terms of experiences, but according to Jonathan Haidt, the beliefs come first, followed by the rationalizations. So it’s not a matter of changing your experiences. You really can’t change your beliefs intentionally. You can change your story about them, but that’s about it.
I’m not sure I agree with this, Hawkgrrrl. I did indeed wholeheartedly believe in God and his infinite love, down to finding my car keys so I could go to church or work. You are probably aware of my more deist view of God these days, but I’m a bit agnostic also and went through a stage of near atheism. I agree that in the beginning of my faith crisis the belief did come first, but as the experience progressed the belief really did change based on the experience. I did try to rationalize and was an apologetic for God for a time as well, but the experience continued to progress. I do understand the point about the story changing, but I’m not changing the story – that’s the way it was. I was true as any believer, swung to near atheism, and now am much closer to atheism than I where I was before.
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