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I was reading the book “when Mormons doubt” and thought the author had some really, really good points. I intend to re-read parts of it in the future. He made one set of points I thought were really profound. He says that people with different religious beliefs (or non-religious beliefs) can get along peacefully by listening to each other, focusing on what they have in common, and raising the level of detail in discourse about religion from specific practices, to instances of goodness, beauty and truth.
Here is where I thought he was interesting. He defines beauty (implicitly) as the feelings we normally attribute to the Spirit. Those peak experiences where you feel overwhelming peace or oneness with others. Truth, of course, is knowledge of reality. There was a poet who said “Truth is Beauty, and Beauty, Truth”. I think most Mormons would agree with that maxim.
But according to the author of “When Mormons Doubt”, beauty and truth are not the same thing. Just because you are experiencing beauty doesn’t necessarily mean the idea you were pondering is actually true. it doesn’t necessarily mean that even what you are experiencing at the moment (a sermon, for example) is true.
Where he really got me was sharing examples of how people conflate “beauty” with “truth”. He shared testimonies from people who belonged to religions that were truly and unarguably false. One example was a testimony of someone from the People’s Temple (Jim Jones’ religious cult). When I read the testimony, it sounded like something I would hear in Sacrament meeting from a Mormon. Yet we know that Jim Jones faked miracles, engaged in sexual abuse with some of his followers, and ultimately, massacred them all. The testimony one of his followers gave of “beauty” (the Spirit whispering the truth of Jim Jones as an inspired leader, the People’s Temple as a true religion) was a misattribution of what the spiritual experience/testimony meant!
It reminded me of a study I read about, regarding attribution errors. The researchers had people meet on a large extension bridge. I think it was kind of flimsy, wobbly, and was over a very high gorge. So, when you walked across it, it created this rush of adrenalin. The male and female pairs that met on the bridge talked, and one of the participants was a plant. The plant would ask the other person on a date. Apparently, the dependent variable was the difference in Yes’s” to the date request compared to people who met in a place that didn’t invoke adrenalin. The Yes’ went way up on the extension bridge because people confused the adrenalin from being on the bridge with the adrenalin you feel when you are attracted to someone.
Now, this has me a bit scared, because there are scriptures that say sin against the Holy Ghost is the worst sin out there. Is this sinning against the Holy Ghost? To separate the beauty of the sensations we attribute to the spirit from the truth? To leave the reason for the beautiful experience unexplained, and to discount it as a reliable indication of truth?
If we don’t have the Holy Ghost-type of feelings to guide us, then what do we have to guide us in discerning truth from error?
On my good days I think of it as story telling. Is the story true? Does it really matter in the sense of it being a good story? It does to some people. For some if it is not historically accurate it is just fabricated fiction from somebody’s mind – good for a bed time fable possibly but not relevant for finding meaning in one’s life.
I like to compare and contrast the tellings that are “based on a true story”. What was changed and why? The unvarnished truth often does not make for very good story telling. Often it needs simplification. It needs to remove the messiness, and complexity, and irrelevant data (irrelevant in the sense that it does not contribute to the narrative that the story teller is trying to convey).
I personally LOVE the beautiful story of Jesus. That the God of heaven would condescend to a lowly mortal existence – to suffer and die for and in behalf of his willful and largely oblivious children. It is so beautiful that it must be true… or at least true enough for me.
Beauty, and by extension truth, is in the eye of the beholder. If Beauty and Truth were always the same thing…we would only need one word for it. But we use these 2 and many other words to try to capture the stories Roy was talking about and the concepts we have in our heads. SilentDawning wrote:If we don’t have the Holy Ghost-type of feelings to guide us, then what do we have to guide us in discerning truth from error?
I recommend Lowell L. Bennion’s book…Religion and the Pursuit of TruthIn it, he gives different approaches to finding truth from error. It isn’t always just the spirit. That’s too simple (and unreliable).
Here is are a few answers from the book Heber13 recommended: Quote:
Here are some additional quotations from the book:“One gains knowledge in four ways: (1) by accepting it on the authority of someone else, (2) by thinking, (3) by experiencing, (4) and by feeling which may be called intuition, mysticism, inspiration, or revelation.” (Pg. 24)
“Revelation, like intuition, is a private communication. How can we decide between the claims of Micah and the popular prophets whom he condemned? Their respective teachings must be tested by reason, by experience, and by the witness of the Deity to us.” (Pg. 38)
“The primary purpose of all scripture is religious, not philosophical, not scientific, not even historical in the contemporary meaning of the word.” (Pg. 49)
“To know in one’s heart by the witness of the Spirit that God lives does not mean that one knows all there is to know about God.” (Pg. 63)
“However, the philosopher or scientist who is also a person of religious faith, finds much in his chosen field to study to enhance his vision of the greatness and the holiness of God. The philosopher and the man of faith pursue different paths to God—the way of reason and the path of revelation. Some philosophers, however, have been able to accept both as fruitful approaches to an appreciation and understanding of God.” (Pg. 81)
“A person of religious faith … is willing at least to experiment through faith with ideas, ideals, and great possibilities which he believes to have come from God.” (Pg. 113)
“Latter-day Saints do not believe that all truth is contained in the standard works, or that all the truth that is not contained therein comes from the pulpit… We believe that our religion is big enough to accept well-established truth from sources other than scripture and the prophets.” (Pg. 115)
“Our most basic beliefs about God, Christ, and man rest in good part on faith… It is logical, therefore, that the first principle of religion is generally considered to be faith.” (Pg. 121)
I just started this book and it is good. Not to deep. I am going to ask my wife to read it. I like the way he framed the following discussion with his young son (Pg. 64). His son said that any movie that didn’t have “bad guys” was boring. He asked his son why does the show have to have bad guys in it.
Quote:“Because I like seeing them defeated,” he said.
I wonder how often we all have that desire. Do we crave separating people into groups of good guys and bad guys? Do we crave seeing our opponents defeated?
As I’ve witnessed debates about Mormonism over the years, I get the sense that the answer is yes I’ve seen believing Mormons label those who leave as wayward apostates, as projects in desperate need of reconversion. I’ve seen former Mormons label those who stay as blind followers, as sheep trundling down a path rife with subtle intolerance. To each way of thinking, the wayward and the intolerant are the bad guys.
I’ve wrestled with these tensions myself. Before I learned how messy Church history is, I thought everyone who doubted was misguided I felt sorry for them and proud that I was still on course for the many blessings that await the righteous.
Now that I’ve learned a few uncomfortable things about Church history, I sometimes feel superior to people who are less informed on the topic. I find myself looking down on people who say incorrect things about the Church-things I would have said just a few years ago.
When I catch myself in these unkind moments, I’m disgusted. What’s wrong with me How can I such mean-spirited thoughts when there is still think so much I don’t know? What’s wrong with me is that, like most people, struggle to think outside of my own ideology. I struggle to think beyond binaries
I wish DFU would give a talk as blunt as above.Quote:As I’ve witnessed debates about Mormonism over the years, I get the sense that the answer is yes I’ve seen believing Mormons label those who leave as wayward apostates, as projects in desperate need of reconversion. I’ve seen former Mormons label those who stay as blind followers, as sheep trundling down a path rife with subtle intolerance. To each way of thinking, the wayward and the intolerant are the bad guys.
I like these quotes…they are well stated and thoughtful.
I think in life there is a real need to sometimes label things so we know how to talk about it. How do we know what we believe if we don’t state what is not what we believe.
Can we live in a society with no labels? Let’s all just give ribbons to every soccer player…don’t keep score…everyone wins…there are no losers or winners??? Do we want that?
Or can we allow others to win and us learn to accept we will sometimes win and sometimes lose. We may change teams, but we still want to keep playing the game. That means sometimes we will be offended at church. But we focus on the game. Not on if the other players are good sports or not.
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