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Devil’s Advocate mentioned something in a totally different context to what I’m going to say but it’s interesting. The idea of paradox and the “real” world strike me in this case. The “real” world being the harsh reality of the physical world. I saw the documentary “Grizzly Man” over the weekend and it is alarming. Alarming in the total and absolute “immorality” of the physical world. The film was a study of a man who lived amongst grizzlies in Alaska for many years. Of course, eventually, one of the grizzlies killed him and ate him. He had set up a world view wherein he could as a human man, live amongst the wild animals, with the same human ideals of morality. He cried when he saw that wolves had killed a fox cub. He lamented the carcass of a bear cub, killed by other bears so that the mother grizzly would stop lactating and be ready for reproduction sooner. Or, when the salmon didn’t run the river, the bears turned on themselves, eating each other.
And this was all so horrific to the man with his human sensibilities and moralities. But the physical world doesn’t have a moral and an immoral. Humans create morality. Obviously, this morality serves us in communal living but I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t some value in the reminder that we are all part of the cold, heartless, moral-less physical world.
Just a thought.
Good point Swim. I sometimes think it exists so we can transcend. If we walk away, we miss the lesson. It’s scary to think we, individually, or collectively, or as church could use some of these examples as morality ‘get out of jail free cards’ if the conditions warranted. Are those kinds of thoughts what drove things like the Mountain Meadows Massacre, or the idea of Blood Atonement? Tom, Two of my favorite thinkers, Kant and Kierkegaard, struggled with this issue too; they chose to focus their struggle on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Kierkegaard said Abraham displayed an admirable leap of faith in his willingness to do so. He went so far as to refer to Abraham as “knight of faith”.
Kant, on the other hand, a faithful and believing Christian, wrote: “If God should really speak to man, man could still never know that it was God speaking. It is quite impossible for man to apprehend the infinite by his senses, distinguish it from sensible beings, and recognize it as such. But in some cases man can be sure the voice he hears is not God’s. For if the voice commands him to do something contrary to moral law, then no matter how majestic the apparition may be, and no matter how it may seem to surpass the whole of nature, he must consider it an illusion.” He believed that Kant had a duty to disobey the command.
The two stories have been used to help patients/students identify which of Fowler’s stages best describe their current stage of faith.
Sorry, I don’t have any definitive answers here. I will say it’s a shame more don’t share your dissatisfaction, or what the Reverend Martin Luther King referred to as “divine dissatisfaction”.
Peace be with you, my brother.
Nathan
Tom, I hear you man! It is a tough thing to think through when it all is presented literally. I think the underlying issue to ask yourself first is: How do you get a testimony of the scriptures and what worth they are to you? How do you use them to find value?
I view them as stories that have been collected and compiled and translated and canonized to support the religious teachings, so they purposefully teach that to have faith in God as “His way is the right way” is power, and other ways are sin (i.e. obey and prosper, disobey and be humbled), because there must be opposition in all things so we can learn. They really aren’t written as a moral code of acceptable universal truths that apply to everyone in every situation.
However, I think they stand the test of time because individuals can “liken the scriptures” unto themselves to extrapolate out meaning and guidance on how we can live our lives today, even if I will never be asked to sacrifice my own son (like Abraham), build a ship, or go to war. And so there can be meaning in scriptural stories…if you give them meaning. I think the doctrines break down as less meaningful when taken literally, and the moral teachings break down as less meaningful when taken literally as well. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re worthless teachings.
I’ve said this many times, on many boards, and on many threads. I think the beauty and real purpose of scripture is that it is a multi-tool if we use it properly. I don’t think anyone can decypher the meaning with just words or just the spirit. The scriptures I believe are written by design to make you ponder them and think about them by reading and studying them over and over. The same passage can and may give multiple answers to multiple questions. I simply don’t believe they were written this way by accident. I think this is another good reason for a scripture journal and writing notes in the margins as we study. One day a scripture might mean this another day that yet still be true in both instances. Well, after all was said and done, this problemita of OT morality was enough to send me to the Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation today, where I had an awesome worship and social experience. Staying LDS is sometimes a delicate balancing act between being present and being spiritually strong. I’d say right now it is really touch and go for this utter heretical mystic who is living alone in a new ward. I still am orthopraxic and identified as LDS, but I guess at this moment in my life the ward just isn’t working too well for me. Perhaps that is one style of staying LDS. Old-Timer wrote:… although he skipped right over the statement of Rehoboam’s counselors in 1 Kings 12:10 that his little finger would be thicker than Solomon’s “loins”. (Frankly, my favorite quote of the entire OT – especially since flat-out NOBODY mentions it in SS.)
No disrespect to the meaningful discussion occurring on this post, but I wanted to mention that when teaching this lesson in a YSA ward a few years ago, I decided I absolutely HAD to mention that scripture because it is awesome. So I said something along the lines of “And then he made a rather insulting comment about Solomon’s virility, feel free to read it yourselves…” and got chuckles from most of the guys in the class. One of the bishopric members commented to me afterwards with a bright red face that he’d never seen that scripture before, but perhaps it wasn’t the best choice to bring attention to it. I think I just laughed.
Tom, I think your actions are fine, perhaps good for you at this time and in the ward you are in. But I wanted to challenge the notion that mere association with people whose ideals differ from our own personal ideals is morally damaging. You don’t have to swallow everything you hear hook, line, and sinker, and neither do your kids. And they won’t, just like you don’t! You might as well say being an American is morally damaging so best to get out. Because it clearly is too. Americans are often shallow, materialistic, superficial in understanding global concerns, etc. Our education system is not top notch. There are lots of issues. Yet there are many positives, too. And you can be an American without succumbing to those bad traits. You can be a conscientious American with your own virtues and morals. Just like you can be your own kind of Mormon.
The literalist interpretation of OT is just so laughable, it’s not worth attacking. I feel sorry for people who aren’t smart enough to realize how ridiculous it sounds to take these stories at face value. But I agree that we can find meaning in paradox and in the mythology of these stories. The Baal priests and worshippers were a corrupt, superstitious, scary lot. So were many of the ancient Israelites. And while the stories have doubtless been exaggerated and corrupted over time, I have been to a cemetary in Tunisia where children and animals sacrificed to Baal thousands of years ago are buried. Very interesting stuff.
Nathan wrote:Tom,
Two of my favorite thinkers, Kant and Kierkegaard, struggled with this issue too; they chose to focus their struggle on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Kierkegaard said Abraham displayed an admirable leap of faith in his willingness to do so. He went so far as to refer to Abraham as “knight of faith”.
Kant, on the other hand, a faithful and believing Christian, wrote: “If God should really speak to man, man could still never know that it was God speaking. It is quite impossible for man to apprehend the infinite by his senses, distinguish it from sensible beings, and recognize it as such. But in some cases man can be sure the voice he hears is not God’s. For if the voice commands him to do something contrary to moral law, then no matter how majestic the apparition may be, and no matter how it may seem to surpass the whole of nature, he must consider it an illusion.” He believed that Kant had a duty to disobey the command.
The two stories have been used to help patients/students identify which of Fowler’s stages best describe their current stage of faith.
Sorry, I don’t have any definitive answers here. I will say it’s a shame more don’t share your dissatisfaction, or what the Reverend Martin Luther King referred to as “divine dissatisfaction”.
Peace be with you, my brother.
Nathan
I really like this dichotomy, but I wonder how these different perspectives can inform your stages of faith. It seems that in Stage 5 you engage with the myth and try to learn something from it, regardless of whether it is true or not. I suppose the difficulty I see is that these two particular myths (Nephi and Abraham) are difficult to engage. I choose to engage with this myth by recognizing that by the very fact that the story of Abraham (and Nephi) are in the biblical record, I face straightway the proposition between loyalty (to your perception of God in a particular instance) and morality (to your perception of God’s ethics). While Kant falls down on the side of morality, Kierkegaard falls on the side of loyalty. I fall on the side of Kant, but I don’t think that is a sign of stage 4. I think it is an effective way to engage the myth and learn something about God, even if you don’t accept the future veneration of Abraham’s actions. On the other hand, I can also see how someone in Stage 5 could engage the myth and come away with the impression that one should follow God’s directives wherever they lead, despite our deeper moral sensibilities. I find that position difficult, but I don’t think that puts me in stage 4.
Indeed, we need to think a bit more critically about what it means to engage others when we try to move ourselves into stage 5. I almost feel that people perceive of stage 5 as accepting others to believe whatever they want. For the most part this is true; however, others’ exegesis of biblical texts, I feel, must be done with a spirit of charity. To those who have not charity in their interpretations (or compassion as Karen Armstrong labels it), I feel no obligation to accept that their interpretation is valid, even for themselves. For instance, just because I am in stage 5 does not mean that I accept an interpretation of the Koran that would lead to Jihad against innocents. I don’t feel obliged to accept an interpretation of scripture that would be uncharitable towards those with same sex attraction either. In this sense, I think we need to be a bit wary, and even critical, of very literal interpretations of Abraham, Elijah, and Nephi. This, of course, goes to the very issues of the limits of tolerance. Is it appropriate in stage 5 to tolerate others intolerant actions or interpretations?
It is important is that we recognize that stage 5 still deals with reason. It is not as if stage 4 is the realm of reason and stage 5 the realm of spirit or emotion. (in fact, I think it is practically very difficult to separate reason from emotion and spirit, especially given our current understandings in cognitive science). Stage 5 simply isn’t as concerned with the Truth (capital T) and is more concerned with usefulness–in stage 5 we must find some use for the myths. It is difficult for me to understand how in stage 5 one can accept that one abandons reasons to immerse in the myth by “doing” rather than “thinking”. This, I find very difficult in this instance, because this clearly is not a case of “doing” but rather a case of “understanding.” (Of course this understanding may effect our doing on different actions, but not with respect to murder.) I think few would accept it as worthwhile to try out what Abraham did, just to see what you can learn from it.
hawkgrrrl wrote:But I wanted to challenge the notion that mere association with people whose ideals differ from our own personal ideals is morally damaging. You don’t have to swallow everything you hear hook, line, and sinker, and neither do your kids. And they won’t, just like you don’t!
But wait. I did! Don’t you see? I did buy it hook, line, and sinker. And so are they and others. Ask the average saint, “If President Monson asked you to kill me, would you do it?” I don’t think you will very often get a straight “Heavens, no!”
I don’t fancy that I am making the situation any better by staying away. If I could keep my kids away, that might help some. But just keeping myself away does nobody any good except for one little nuance explained by two facts: 1) I am still (after years now) paralyzed into silence when I hear outrages in church, and 2) my presence there that engenders my personal frustration weakens me spiritually, which disables my parenting skills. So I am, I think, a better parent when I stay away, not because of the moral message, but because I am not spiritually capable of dealing with the outrages at this time (See? I call them outrages.)
As I am able, yes it would be better for me to be there in all my heretical glory, especially if my children are going to be at some ward somewhere in the church hearing similar fundamentalism. At least I can know what they are hearing. And at least I can stand/sit/be for diversity.
I guess they and I will be at home tomorrow.
Quote:Ask the average saint, “If President Monson asked you to kill me, would you do it?” I don’t think you will very often get a straight “Heavens, no!”
I am quite certain the average saint would not do it – and wouldn’t give it serious thought. I have no doubt there are a few who would – but I think they are the VERY rare exceptions who prove the rule.
I would do a double take, I could never see him coming out with such a statement. But if he asked it, no I wouldn’t. Not unless you were an apostate. 😆 SamBee, of course you would answer me “No, I wouldn’t.” You are a heretic. I’m still thinking a surprising and disheartening number of traditional believers would waffle with something like, “He would never ask me to do that!” Quote:I’m still thinking a surprising and disheartening number of traditional believers would waffle with something like, “He would never ask me to do that!”
Tom, that doesn’t have to be waffling. That can be a sincere statement. It doesn’t mean they would if he did; it simply means they can’t believe he actually would – so they can’t imagine ever having to face that scenario. I’m sure to them it’s like an unfathomable challenge – something they simply can’t imagine being possible – so they react, essentially, by couching their commitment to not do something like that in a rejection of its possibility.
I still think the real question is how many actually would do so, and I am convinced it is a truly tiny number – again the very rare exception that proves the overwhelming rule. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever known a member well whom I believe would do it.
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