The retainer analogy.

[_Gadianton]

What physicist needs to constantly, or at least often, spend time reading Einstein's papers about Relativity or risk stopping believing in Relativity?

LOL. Great Seth!

[_Scottie]

One thing you seem to be forgetting. LDS believe that Satan and his minions, as real live entities, are constantly chipping away at the testimonies of the faithful. The armor of God must be repaired daily lest Satan penetrate it and send you down the slippery slope to apostasy. Add that in with the natural man being an enemy of God and you have created a need to reaffirm testimonies.

Yeah, LDS believe that, but couldn't these explanations just be rationalizations for why there's this constant need for Gospel immersion in order for it to remain plausible? That is, the observation is made that constant immersion is required. This demands some kind of explanation, because it really ought not to be the case, as my physicist examples helps show. Yet the need for Gospel immersion is really there, and needs an explanation. So they come up with the "well, Satan did it!" explanation. This satisfies the need for an explanation, and supports the Church belief at the same time. Simultaneously, it acts to scare people who may be wavering in wearing their mental retainer, to keep doing it/start doing it again, because after all, one wouldn't want to subject oneself to Satan, wouldn't one?

Of course, that's exactly what it is! The church is giving a name and a face to something that is, in reality, just human nature. If they give it a name and a face, it suddenly becomes a boogie man of sorts. Something concrete that can be used to frighten us. If we can be frightened, we can be controlled.

However, you're suggesting that it's odd that nobody has questioned the need to reinforce our testimonies. I'm saying that I don't blame them one bit for not questioning. After all, if you put yourself back inside the TBM mindset, with the perfectly sound argument that Satan is there ready to strike, the need to keep the testimony up is completely logical.

[_asbestosman]

I know a few TBMs who don't do much in the scripture-reading department. It's not that they hate reading either. Some of them are avid-to-voracious readers. Yet, someohow, their scripture reading is very poor and their scriptural knowledge is even worse.

And yet their testimonies are probably stronger than mine. Go fig.

Choose any science, or field of engineering, or really, almost any human knowledge area or pursuit you care to mention, and ask yourself, in which of these fields is it necessary for those trained in (and presumably who "believe" in) these fields to constantly immerse themselves in the written works and treatises underpinning these fields, or risk having their knowledge and "belief" in these principles undermined by other ideas?

It's true that my confidence in enginerring isn't diminished by time, but my confidence in my memory of it is. While I am unlikely to doubt that the concepts taught in my engineering books are now false (aside from the few errata many books contain which I occasionally notice because I get confused), even so I think it wise to refresh myself with it so that memory of it is correct and so that I can also remember things I had forgotten--or possibly even missed.

[_The Nehor]

Pardon me, but this doesn't jive with the experience of a lot of us. The fact is, many of us wanted to believe way more than we wanted to disbelieve. With the family pressures, the social pressure, the concept of going to the Celestial Kingdom and becoming a god, or becoming worm food (tough choice, eh?) there were a zillion reasons to want it all to be true. What were the reasons for wanting it not to be true? So I could save 10% of my money? So I could have a few beers or drink tea or something? You almost sound like the typical TBM here, giving the knee-jerk "he just wanted to sin" reason for why I stopped believing.

Kimberly Ann, the reason your mental retainer didn't work is because, to keep the analogy going, you fell and slammed your teeth into the curb, and no retainer will reverse the effects of that. :-)

Yeah, the retainer doesn't always end up succeeding, but my point is, keeping our minds in line is what it's for, and it actually does work on a lot of people, to a very great degree. And the expectation is that it works, and that's the expecation of the TBMs, hence them seemingly always asking, as soon as they find out you don't believe anymore, if you've been reading the scriptures, going to the temple, etc. They assume that you probably haven't, and that that's the reason why you've lost your belief. They assume that not doing those things regularly puts you at risk for losing your testimony. They're probably right, and my point is that that ought to be a giant red flag, and yet that's completely lost on the TBMs.

I want it to be true but I had a different paradigm when I learned it was. I really wanted it not to be true. I wanted out, not because I had some burning sin but because I wanted independence, a corner of me that I could call mine completely and utterly and that no one has any business there. With God there is no such place. It's all his. A part of me still wants that.

[_Sethbag]

However, you're suggesting that it's odd that nobody has questioned the need to reinforce our testimonies. I'm saying that I don't blame them one bit for not questioning. After all, if you put yourself back inside the TBM mindset, with the perfectly sound argument that Satan is there ready to strike, the need to keep the testimony up is completely logical.

Yeah, you're totally right on this. That's really part of how TBMs keep being TBM. They have created a virtual reality which addresses just about everything, and provides an answer (even if it's really a bogus answer) for just about everything. So there's nothing obviously wrong from the TBM point of view, and it all makes complete sense.

This goes hand in hand with the other points I've been trying to make, because really, this same thing is true for Jehovah's Witnesses and others. They have their own virtual realities, in which all the questions have answers in Jehovah's Witness style, and to a TBJW, there's nothing obviously wrong about it all, and it all makes complete sense. They're able to explain things in terms of JW answers and the JW viewpoint, and it's all just completely normal, obvious, and correct in their minds.

[_Sethbag]

It's true that my confidence in enginerring isn't diminished by time, but my confidence in my memory of it is. While I am unlikely to doubt that the concepts taught in my engineering books are now false (aside from the few errata many books contain which I occasionally notice because I get confused), even so I think it wise to refresh myself with it so that memory of it is correct and so that I can also remember things I had forgotten--or possibly even missed.

Yeah, a refresher simply to remember things that have been forgotten is one thing. There being a need to constant refresh or risk starting to doubt the veracity of the material is something else. I mean really, the whole point of this retainer in LDS thought is that if a person doesn't constantly immerse themselves in the scriptures, in testimony bearing, prayer, and temple attendance and so forth, that person risks starting to view it all as less plausible than they did before, less believable, less obviously true, etc. and therefore they risk "losing their testimony" of it all. And that's something that's unique to this religious perspective. I can't think of any non-religious fields of thought where ideas are so at risk that constant immersion is thought to be necessary to maintain belief.

I guess the former Soviet Union communist ideology might be an example. Constant repetition, and constant immersion, were features of life to as great an extent as the state could manage, and I'm guessing that the underlying fear was that if they didn't put communism, and the heros of the state, and so forth, out there constantly in peoples' minds, they might start to question the veracity of the underpinning communist ideology. That might be a good "secular" example of a similar kind of mental retainer. Just picture communist countries with ubiquitous iconography, constant repetition of the ideology in the form of, say, a "little red book" that everyone must have a copy of, and use and refer to frequently, "adoring history" being taught, etc.

[_Scottie]

And that's something that's unique to this religious perspective. I can't think of any non-religious fields of thought where ideas are so at risk that constant immersion is thought to be necessary to maintain belief.

I'm not sure about that. Why do you think they have kids repeat the pledge of allegiance every morning in school?

Perhaps it's not to the degree that they do it in religion, but I think the government does little things to keep us pro-America. Heck, for all I know, we're the worst country in the world and I've been spoon fed a bunch of lies about how great America really is. Maybe we really ARE the evil country and that's why everyone hates us. But since we have been born into America and were brainwashed at an early age, and have been given small doses of patriotic "testimony" for lack of a better word, we think America is the greatest.

[_wenglund]

I like the metaphor of a retainer in relation to the Chruch (as long as it is not taken too far). However, because of the purely intellectual nature of physics, I am not sure it is a useful analogy in comparison to LDS testimonies (which entails more than just intellect).

To me, a better analogy than a physicist is the love between a husband and wife (after all, the epitomy of the restored gospel of Christ, and one's testimony therein, is Godly love). How well might one "retain" their love for and with their spouse absent periodic revisiting and re-affirming the elements of your love? Doesn't one's spousal love require some form of "retainer"? I believe so, and likewise for one's testimony.

Another illuminating analogy is one's physical health and growth in physical strength (not unlike spiritual health and strength). With the forces of entropy as an unavoidable reality during mortality (speaking of physics), what do you think the chances are of "retaining" or growing one's health and physical physical strength absent periodic exercise and ingesting good food? Doesn't one's physical health, like spiritual health, require some form of "retainer"?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Gadianton]

Wade is right, there is a comparison between doing the repetitious little things in a relationship and reading the Book of Mormon 1/2 hour a day - the same stories, over and over again. Relationships and dogmatic ideologies are comparable in that way. And that goes hand in hand with something a teacher told me, "Before you get married, keep your eyes wide open, and after, keep 'em shut". In other words just like in a marriage, after one joins the church they are to immerse themselves in hypnotic little activities that fixate their eye single to the ideology, eyes closed, fingers plugged in ears, and screaming. They are bound and willfully ignorant to any other idea or opinion.

[_wenglund]

Wade is right, there is a comparison between doing the repetitious little things in a relationship and reading the Book of Mormon 1/2 hour a day - the same stories, over and over again. Relationships and dogmatic ideologies are comparable in that way. And that goes hand in hand with something a teacher told me, "Before you get married, keep your eyes wide open, and after, keep 'em shut". In other words just like in a marriage, after one joins the church they are to immerse themselves in hypnotic little activities that fixate their eye single to the ideology, eyes closed, fingers plugged in ears, and screaming. They are bound and willfully ignorant to any other idea or opinion.

If your view of love is as overly simplistic and crass as you just stated, then that would explain why you grossly misconstrued what I meant.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-