RFM v. Midnight Mormons—Debate

[dastardly stem]

Good read, pistolero. I had set the bar pretty low for Cardon. He did better than I thought he would, but that isn’t saying a whole lot. The underlying reality is visible with the vests. You can stop the debate as soon as you see them. No sense in debating clowns.

I'm about the same. I didn't know much of anything about cardon but thought he'd be really really bad. I was surprised to see he was just really bad. Acknowledging he didn't make any sensible case for his position and was far more about complaining that ex Mormons are nihilistic atheists than staying on topic. Virtually nothing he added was positive to the position he was, I thought, supposed to debate. But that was better than I expected. Also to note, I thought kwaku would be really bad, but he was really really bad. They kind of flipped positions on whose the worst Mormon commentor out there.

[honorentheos]

Honestly, I don’t know what you expect that you have been disappointed in here. Go come up with your own answers and by all means share them with us. Until then it sounds like you are merely doing exactly what you bemoan.

Fair. I'll try and be more clear.

First, I believe it's important to see how MM presented their approach and articulate it as they would broadly agree with. To repeat it from earlier in the thread:

The need is to articulate the narrative so one understands when one is playing into it and can, if appropriate, counter it.

That being: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a welcoming shelter in the rising storm brought on by the turmoil of our times and the nihilistic influence of secular atheism and extreme individualism. Those who would use the complicated history of the church to separate you from the safety and joy found in the church do not have your interests at heart but are instead bitterly attacking the church out of negative motivations and not out of concern for the people involved. They are doing this, not because they care, but because they hate. This hate is manifest in virtual attacks against the church and literal attacks against church property and it's members. The storm is increasing and those who follow the Pied Piper song of the critics will find themselves abandoned among hate-filled and hurting nihilistic individuals with no community bonds to share besides when they flock together to shower spite and hate at the church.

Second, I believe the need to provide guidance for what comes after Mormonism exists. There was a time when people dealing with doubts often found themselves on boards such as this, and the give and take of discussion served as a means for working that out. But it seems MM is targeting a problem many are experiencing today where the engagement is at the speed of the internet. When it sounds like the numbers of people who have left are legion and there is a utopia at the end of the quick and easy decision to reject the church, the expectations may not align with reality. It's not just with religion where we see the trajectory of the skepticism toward and rejection of establishment institutions coupled with the preaching of the embrace of radical individualism equals progress that, in lived experience, can end up feeling like an inevitable collapse into nihilism.

What does that guidance look like? I think most of us who have experienced it and lived to tell the tale recognize it took time, it took having people with whom to talk who were also engaging the problem, and it probably benefited from having venues for debate with those who held alternative views. And ultimately it took the benefit of others experience. There was community but that community wasn't a destination.

I think it takes an honest, direct acknowledgment that leaving isn't easy still. There will always be work, whether it comes after the information dump and declaration of independence to then discover who one is as a person and where one genuinely belongs, or as it was for many of us in sorting out why one believed with such conviction in something that doesn't align with the information one has found.

As people we need to recognize the internet primarily facilitates criticism and finding reasons to be against something. But in the end we genuinely need something positive to be FOR. Exmormonism isn't something one can be FOR. It's just a way post to becoming whatever it is ones own version of post-Mormonism becomes.

I think the message is something akin to the need for each of us to find authentic being. That requires being part of a society at different tiers and degrees of identity sharing. It requires taking control of creating the kind of identity capital and authenticity of being that one craves and recognizing that comes with time and work, acknowledging answers are rarely absolute, and relationships matter. Bringing authenticity to ones search for truth, to ones relationships, ones places in society are meaningful in their own right, and finding purpose outside of ones own self is necessary for fulfillment.

[Analytics]

Thoughts on the debate…

I thought it was a pretty good format and overall, and the whole thing was much better than what I was expecting.

Consig did a great job, and I wouldn’t change a thing he said. Well, as an armchair quarterback I suppose there is one thing I would change. When the MMs were arguing that the Church has always been honest about polygamy and anybody having a problem with it is simply suffering from presentism, I wish Consig would have really drilled down on Joseph Smith’s dishonesty about it and how the church publicly denied that it was even a doctrine and practice until 1852.

It’s obvious that between the ages of 18 and 33, Consig studied more about the church than these three clowns have studied it in their entire lives. Combined.

A particularly important and well-articulated point Consig made was how the MM’s were defending the church that they personally wished it was—not the church as it actually is.

Something the MMs seemed to completely concede is that the Chruch and the prophets are an incredibly unreliable source of truth.

The MMs—especially Kwaku—are incredibly cynical. They basically concede that despite having faith in the contrary, the truth claims of the Church are tenuous at best, but that doesn’t matter because they foster community, meaning, and self-esteem. Accuse me of being a starry-eyed optimist if you must, but I believe people can have lives full of meaning, goodness, morality, and community while also being grounded in what’s actually true.

It’s obvious that Cardin hasn’t “studied the crap” out of anything. So in the end when he was exhorting his audience to “study the crap” out of the Church, was he just bluffing, knowing that it sounded good and hoping nobody would actually take his advice? Or did he honestly have faith that if somebody does something he personally hasn’t done (i.e. study it in depth), that it would be a faith-promoting exercise?

Does Kwaku know anything whatsoever about world history and what the morality of the Judeo-Christian tradition actually is? From my seat, ethics of Christian societies didn’t begin to be commendable until the Enlightenment, which was a rejection of revealed religion more than the true expression of it.

[honorentheos]

There is a broader sociological context here as defined in Identity Capital theory. The idea behind it includes the premise that traditional societies defined milestones that, on fulfilling, affected ones social currency within those societies. Mormonism is still very much such a society. As members one experienced developmental milestones from baptism through adolescence in priesthood and young women's to mission service and callings. Achieving the milestones affected ones identity within the social order, and ones capital earned by doing so varies but the structure made the decision making feel much more defined. Late-Modern secular society has broken from traditional mileatones. One doesn't marry or fulfill career milestones the same way, building up ones identity capital is largely the responsibility of the individual who may find themselves with limited capital having lacked the guiding structure of social norms to chart a path.

How does this play into post-Mormonism? I think what we hear from MM is a siren song declaring the safety of conformity to the order of church and Mormon structure as antidote to the more radical freedom and responsibility that comes when society no longer outlines the map through adulthood. Where the midlife crisis may have been the result of someone in the past finding out they'd just climbed whatever ladder was put in front of them and they realized too late they weren't choosing the destination, there is now a crisis at thirty of realizing one has been kinda going along and waking up one day wondering what they have to show for the last couple of decades?

People want to feel fulfilled. Tools and guidance, mentoring and giving of ones self outside the structure of established institutions is plausibly the best available options for having genuine concern for those on the threshold out Mormonism's door.

[Kishkumen]

Second, I believe the need to provide guidance for what comes after Mormonism exists. There was a time when people dealing with doubts often found themselves on boards such as this, and the give and take of discussion served as a means for working that out. But it seems MM is targeting a problem many are experiencing today where the engagement is at the speed of the internet. When it sounds like the numbers of people who have left are legion and there is a utopia at the end of the quick and easy decision to reject the church, the expectations may not align with reality. It's not just with religion where we see the trajectory of the skepticism toward and rejection of establishment institutions coupled with the preaching of the embrace of radical individualism equals progress that, in lived experience, can end up feeling like an inevitable collapse into nihilism.

What does that guidance look like? I think most of us who have experienced it and lived to tell the tale recognize it took time, it took having people with whom to talk who were also engaging the problem, and it probably benefited from having venues for debate with those who held alternative views. And ultimately it took the benefit of others experience. There was community but that community wasn't a destination.

I think it takes an honest, direct acknowledgment that leaving isn't easy still. There will always be work, whether it comes after the information dump and declaration of independence to then discover who one is as a person and where one genuinely belongs, or as it was for many of us in sorting out why one believed with such conviction in something that doesn't align with the information one has found.

As people we need to recognize the internet primarily facilitates criticism and finding reasons to be against something. But in the end we genuinely need something positive to be FOR. Exmormonism isn't something one can be FOR. It's just a way post to becoming whatever it is ones own version of post-Mormonism becomes.

I think the message is something akin to the need for each of us to find authentic being. That requires being part of a society at different tiers and degrees of identity sharing. It requires taking control of creating the kind of identity capital and authenticity of being that one craves and recognizing that comes with time and work, acknowledging answers are rarely absolute, and relationships matter. Bringing authenticity to ones search for truth, to ones relationships, ones places in society are meaningful in their own right, and finding purpose outside of ones own self is necessary for fulfillment.

Yes, I am not sure why exactly we are having this discussion. So is it the case that, given a world of options that exist outside of Mormonism, the burden rests with those who point out Mormonism's deficiencies to come up with better alternatives for other people?

I can't even believe this is a question. Better alternatives exist for people who leave Mormonism. No doubt. But who is best equipped to find them other than the people who decide to leave Mormonism? This is not a one-size-fits-all situation, as you know. Finding a meaningful path in life is a very personal thing. Why would any of us presume to dictate to others things that we cannot know? Would I honestly know what is best for you, honor? I wouldn't begin to presume.

People find their way. The Midnight Morons are preaching about bogeymen. It will all be OK. Some of those who leave will come back. Some will turn to other philosophies and communities. Let's not confuse those who hang around the door talking to people as they leave for anything more than a temporary companion on the journey to the next place.

Seriously, I think the Midnight Morons are just trying to freak people out. The sky is not falling, and in the end people will make communities and help each other out. To say that the job for doing all that is RFM's burden is, in my opinion, absurd. They don't care, because they don't think things through. They gesticulate and emote for the purposes of scaring people back into line.

As I read your prose, I am not sure we disagree on a lot of things. I agree that we need things to be positive for, but I am not sure that the Midnight Morons are either sincere or helpful in the way they raise this issue. The assumption they bring to the table is that Mormonism is the thing people need. That is what the LDS Church does. The fact that it increasingly fails is not going to be fixed by Midnight Morons continuing to claim that Mormonism is the sufficient thing to provide meaning and purpose to people's lives. Those who leave aren't simply duped and misled. They are recognizing that the advertising is not supported by lived experience in the LDS Church.

If anything RFM and people like him simply say to the people who are unhappy: "Hey, I hear you. You are not crazy. Something really is not working there, and you have every right to feel validated in that." My God that can be so important to people. Where they go from there will be up to them, but it was so important to have people out there who would affirm that, no, they were not broken, crazy, or wicked for not believing what the LDS Church was peddling. And I do think RFM does give thought to how people can be happy in the LDS Church. To say he is interested in kicking people out the chapel door is just plain false.

I would he happier if the LDS Church did a better job than it is doing. I am pretty sure RFM would be too. But the LDS Church keeps us from doing much of anything on the inside to make it change. So, all people generally can do is criticize from the outside, not because they only see the negative, but because they are barred from positive participation. So, I say "I am not LDS but Mormon, and I am not interested in leading people out of LDSism." Simple enough. I think the world is full of lovely alternatives to the LDS Church, and I am happy to talk about them. At the same time, I am not barred from criticizing the LDS Church as I see fit, and I am not barred from interest and comment on Mormon history, culture, and doctrine. Neither is RFM.

[Kishkumen]

Thoughts on the debate…

I thought it was a pretty good format and overall, and the whole thing was much better than what I was expecting.

Consig did a great job, and I wouldn’t change a thing he said. Well, as an armchair quarterback I suppose there is one thing I would change. When the MMs were arguing that the Church has always been honest about polygamy and anybody having a problem with it is simply suffering from presentism, I wish Consig would have really drilled down on Joseph Smith’s dishonesty about it and how the church publicly denied that it was even a doctrine and practice until 1852.

It’s obvious that between the ages of 18 and 33, Consig studied more about the church than these three clowns have studied it in their entire lives. Combined.

A particularly important and well-articulated point Consig made was how the MM’s were defending the church that they personally wished it was—not the church as it actually is.

Something the MMs seemed to completely concede is that the Chruch and the prophets are an incredibly unreliable source of truth.

The MMs—especially Kwaku—are incredibly cynical. They basically concede that despite having faith in the contrary, the truth claims of the Church are tenuous at best, but that doesn’t matter because they foster community, meaning, and self-esteem. Accuse me of being a starry-eyed optimist if you must, but I believe people can have lives full of meaning, goodness, morality, and community while also being grounded in what’s actually true.

It’s obvious that Cardin hasn’t “studied the crap” out of anything. So in the end when he was exhorting his audience to “study the crap” out of the Church, was he just bluffing, knowing that it sounded good and hoping nobody would actually take his advice? Or did he honestly have faith that if somebody does something he personally hasn’t done (i.e. study it in depth), that it would be a faith-promoting exercise?

Does Kwaku know anything whatsoever about world history and what the morality of the Judeo-Christian tradition actually is? From my seat, ethics of Christian societies didn’t begin to be commendable until the Enlightenment, which was a rejection of revealed religion more than the true expression of it.

Great review, Analytics. I think you nailed a lot of it here.

[Kishkumen]

People want to feel fulfilled. Tools and guidance, mentoring and giving of ones self outside the structure of established institutions is plausibly the best available options for having genuine concern for those on the threshold out Mormonism's door.

Good thoughts.

[Analytics]

Great review, Analytics. I think you nailed a lot of it here.

Thanks.

To their credit, I think the points the MMs made were genuinely heartfelt, and it made me think of think of things I haven't thought about in a long time. From RFM's perspective (and mine as well), the most interesting and important stories of Church history are the stories of Church leaders who were on the spectrum of being somewhere between uninspired mortals and outright conmen. The MMs didn't engage in those aspects, but instead chose to focus on the faith and dedication of the rank-and-file members who were having faith and trying to build a better world.

I'm thinking a lot about my mission right now. Cardon mentioned how scary it was being an American missionary in Buenos Aires when America invaded Iraq. I can relate, because I was an American missionary in Buenos Aires ten years earlier when America invaded Panama. Since then I've spent a considerable amount of time in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil, and I understand how Argentina in general and Buenos Aires in particular has an intense anti-imperialism sensibility that is distinct from what you see in other parts of Latin America. When that brief war started, wearing a Mormon missionary uniform went from an invisibility shield to a bullseye. I remember it vividly.

And it takes me back. It makes me think about judging Mormonism on the good that it does and the good that it promotes rather than merely on the literal truthfulness of its truth claims. But for me in particular, Mormonism fails the hardest when evaluated this way (although I readily admit that other mileages may vary). My mind is overflowing with horror stories about how awful life was for me as a Mormon. My mission was the most painful thing I could imagine. This wasn't because it was challenging in the way that, say, hiking Mount Kilimanjaro is challenging. It was awful in terms of sacrificing your intellectual and spiritual integrity on the alter of obedience to a priesthood hierarchy that was acting in the name of God but was absolutely stoned off its @$$ with unrighteous dominion.

When I was a teenager, my bishop was my best friend's father, and he and I knew each other pretty well. That bishop was a super-Mormon and went on to be a stake president and then mission president. In an interview once he told me that I was too "sober." He explained to me that being sober is taking serious things seriously, and explained being sober is a good thing. But he said I was taking it too far. And on this point, at least in terms of Mormonism, he was exactly right. It's unhealthy to take it completely seriously. It's meant to be metaphorical. An allegory. Not literal reality.

Fast-forward about 10 years to when I left the Church. I was in my mid 20's. I had no spiritual home. No paradigm. I hadn't replaced Mormonism with anything. I was driving to work. I wasn't yet accustomed to not wearing garments and I felt cold. Naked. I wasn't one of the chosen. I wasn't a priesthood holder of God. I was just a guy. And the song "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia came on the radio. I turned it up and I felt connected to humanity. Intensely.

So I guess the fortune teller's right
Should have seen just what was there and not some holy light
But you crawled beneath my veins and now
I don't care, I have no luck
I don't miss it all that much
There's just so many things
That I can't touch, I'm torn

I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
You're a little late
I'm already torn

Sometimes, it's better to honestly say "I don't know" than to have faith in the wrong answer.

[Jersey Girl]

Could some nice poster please identify the three gentlemen, by name, 1-3 from left to right for me please?

[Shulem]

Could some nice poster please identify the three gentlemen, by name, 1-3 from left to right for me please?

Curly, Larry, and Moe.