DiscussMormonism.com

The title seems to imply this is about faith crisis intellectual type issues. That's not the case at all. This guy doesn't seem to have any interest or struggle with any of the typical intellectual/historical issues many people have and doesn't address any of that in his 18 Lessons. His experience seems to be a kid who just stopped going to church and living the commandments. There's nothing unique about someone like that going into inactivity and then getting back involved in the church. Not that there's anything wrong with him publishing these 18 Lessons, and I think they are mostly good concepts. But it's a very different thing to lose faith over intellectual historical issues and then regain that belief. The only person I've heard of doing that is Don Bradley, and I'm skeptical on that one.

Ceeboo wrote:Hey Q!

Quasimodo wrote:
Faith and hope are not the same thing. Not even close.

I agree.

Hope is probably a good thing.

If someone happens to agree with what another individual is hoping for, yes, hope would probably be seen as a good thing.
If not, then no.

Faith is the the thing that allows you to devote your life to a myth. Faith is not required to have a happy life. In fact, it works against it.

This is a very unfortunate and exceedingly narrow description of faith.

Faith is what charlatans sell to separate you from your money. Faith is what people use to feel good about flying planes into buildings or blow themselves up in crowded busses.

This is equally unfortunate and in my opinion - when people start flinging paint wildly across the entire canvas - using a brush this wide - the finished product is not only of little worth - it grossly underestimates, ignores and completely neglects what faith means (not to mention how hugely diverse faith can be and is) to many many millions of human beings - past and present.

Faith is greatly overrated.

Perhaps.
It seems that it is also greatly misunderstood.

Peace,
Ceeboo

As time goes by I turn increasingly to the position that I do *not* want people to just give up their religious beliefs. Many people get good things from religion, in cultures all over the world. We need to understand what and why. The greatest genocides of the last hundred years were perpetrated by people who claimed to be hostile to religion and basing their values and decisions on rationality. The millions who died from democide via Communism can't be waved away.

I would like people to question their beliefs and the institutions they interact with, expect them to be more reasonable, more transparent, less manipulative--to be better. I don't think that religion usually is helpful to the seriously mentally ill; there are too many religious ideas and practices that get in the way of effective treatment of many of these people.

It's the tendency of secular liberals to focus on the belief system and the corporate form of the institution of the religion, and miss one of religion's greatest and more immutable features: a basis for identity. When your tribe and your religion are entwined, you are always a hero in a vast cosmic drama that vindicates you and your family and friends. That's very powerful. Religion is not a belief so much as a binding. Ideology is more than a paint job on identity, but it isn't organic and essential like identity is.

The irony is that most people, not all but most, I’ve come in contact with are less educated about my faith and way of life than I am about theirs.

This is simply apologist drivel to bolster his own reasoning for being a Mormon. Who cares? If he thinks he did the right thing, good for him. but don't insult other people's intelligence because you don't agree with their decisions and conclusions based on the evidence that you claim no one but you (and a few chosen others) knows.

Of course he knows more about everyone else's "faith" then they know about his. How else can he justify that he is right and everyone else is wrong? There is no honesty or integrity here, only trite and rote repetitions of the same old, tired, mantra of "I made a mistake" and everyone else that doesn't realize that they too made a mistake for leaving Mormonism or not being one is "less educated" than I am.

I once ran afoul of one of these types who left the church and then came back and then obsessively had to attack everyone who disagreed with Mormonism. He then set his sights on me because he didn't like the information I was providing about Mormon History and doctrine.

He wrote up his reconversion story, he started multiple blogs and Facebook pages, and tooted his own horn about how wrong he was and how he absolutely now knew that Mormonism was the bees knees, that no one was as educated as he was, and that anyone who dared disagree with him was an evil sock puppet of Satan.

Thing is, his stories were all made up and were easy to check and debunk since he had left a multiple year trail of evidence on the internet. When confronted about this, of course he denied it all and blamed everyone else but himself. A couple of years after this his Mormon wife disowned him and he left the church. http://mormonitemusings.com/2012/05/22/wanna-bees-2/

Now that is something I find truly ironic.

Maksutov wrote:
As time goes by I turn increasingly to the position that I do *not* want people to just give up their religious beliefs. Many people get good things from religion, in cultures all over the world. We need to understand what and why. The greatest genocides of the last hundred years were perpetrated by people who claimed to be hostile to religion and basing their values and decisions on rationality. The millions who died from democide via Communism can't be waved away.

I would like people to question their beliefs and the institutions they interact with, expect them to be more reasonable, more transparent, less manipulative--to be better. I don't think that religion usually is helpful to the seriously mentally ill; there are too many religious ideas and practices that get in the way of effective treatment of many of these people.

It's the tendency of secular liberals to focus on the belief system and the corporate form of the institution of the religion, and miss one of religion's greatest and more immutable features: a basis for identity. When your tribe and your religion are entwined, you are always a hero in a vast cosmic drama that vindicates you and your family and friends. That's very powerful. Religion is not a belief so much as a binding. Ideology is more than a paint job on identity, but it isn't organic and essential like identity is.

^^I like this, Maksutov.^^ Well done. Your final two sentences might even be profound (or very close to it).

You have provided an important insight that secularists should keep in mind when interacting with religionists.

On the flip side, as you have probably noticed, some of us tend to get a bit defensive when folks make wholesale, broad brush attacks on science, scientists and their technology. And make no mistake, there are those in science who are less than honorable. Thankfully, they are few and far between.

What I keep coming back to, though, are the vast differences in credibility among the foundational truth claims upon which various tribes (as you designate them), or tribal groups are based.

Some 1.6 billion people on this planet coalesce around the sayings of a hermit who spent years in a cave being instructed by an imaginary angel. Now they kill one another and others not of their tribe over arguments about what this hermit said or meant.

In the same way, some 5 million coalesce around the tall tales of a 19th century conman who lived a lifestyle that would have him excommunicated from their midst today in less time than it takes to say polygamy, polyandry, adultery, lying and glass looking.

It would seem to me that a group or tribe whose common nucleus of beliefs (or foundational truth claims) are based on reason, fact and evidence, rather than on fantasy, myth and magic, is going to make better decisions and therefore do better in the long run.

Maksutov wrote:
As time goes by I turn increasingly to the position that I do *not* want people to just give up their religious beliefs. Many people get good things from religion, in cultures all over the world. We need to understand what and why. The greatest genocides of the last hundred years were perpetrated by people who claimed to be hostile to religion and basing their values and decisions on rationality. The millions who died from democide via Communism can't be waved away.

Let's not forget that before this some of the greatest genocides were perpetuated in the name of those religions beliefs. The problem with religion or secularism is of course with man's penchant for fanaticism and too often they get defined by those fanatics. The core tenants of most religions are to co-exist peacefully with each other, and secularism at its best is all about human rights. It is only when fanatics rule that things get f'd up. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but I get what you mean and agree that the identity stamp of religion can be (and often is) a good thing.

DrW wrote:

Maksutov wrote:
As time goes by I turn increasingly to the position that I do *not* want people to just give up their religious beliefs. Many people get good things from religion, in cultures all over the world. We need to understand what and why. The greatest genocides of the last hundred years were perpetrated by people who claimed to be hostile to religion and basing their values and decisions on rationality. The millions who died from democide via Communism can't be waved away.

I would like people to question their beliefs and the institutions they interact with, expect them to be more reasonable, more transparent, less manipulative--to be better. I don't think that religion usually is helpful to the seriously mentally ill; there are too many religious ideas and practices that get in the way of effective treatment of many of these people.

It's the tendency of secular liberals to focus on the belief system and the corporate form of the institution of the religion, and miss one of religion's greatest and more immutable features: a basis for identity. When your tribe and your religion are entwined, you are always a hero in a vast cosmic drama that vindicates you and your family and friends. That's very powerful. Religion is not a belief so much as a binding. Ideology is more than a paint job on identity, but it isn't organic and essential like identity is.

^^I like this, Maksutov.^^ Well done. Your final two sentences might even be profound (or very close to it).

You have provided an important insight that secularists should keep in mind when interacting with religionists.

On the flip side, as you have probably noticed, some of us tend to get a bit defensive when folks make wholesale, broad brush attacks on science, scientists and their technology. And make no mistake, there are those in science who are less than honorable. Thankfully, they are few and far between.

What I keep coming back to, though, are the vast differences in credibility among the foundational truth claims upon which various tribes (as you designate them), or tribal groups are based.

Some 1.6 billion people on this planet coalesce around the sayings of a hermit who spent years in a cave being instructed by an imaginary angel. Now they kill one another and others not of their tribe over arguments about what this hermit said or meant.

In the same way, some 5 million coalesce around the tall tales of a 19th century conman who lived a lifestyle that would have him excommunicated from their midst today in less time than it takes to say polygamy, polyandry, adultery, lying and glass looking.

It would seem to me that a group or tribe whose common nucleus of beliefs (or foundational truth claims) are based on reason, fact and evidence, rather than on fantasy, myth and magic, is going to make better decisions and therefore do better in the long run.

Thank you for your thoughtful post, DrW. One of the much maligned "New Atheists", Daniel Dennett, had advocated study of religions as imperative--studying them scientifically, empirically. I've always thought that he got short shrift in the critiques.

I think we're starting to see the disturbing outlines of a pattern that might indicate that many, if not most, of religious (and nationalist) traditions had their origins in fraud, deception, violence, political and economic gain, etc. These have been obscured by layers of propaganda and forgeries so that only the sugarcoated legends are left.

Except with Mormonism. Mormonism has taken place during (more or less) literate times. There are plenty of criticisms of Joseph Smith that we can read and analyze, unlike the criticisms of the Christians written by the Roman Celsus. The Christians managed to destroy all Celsus' documents save the bits quoted by Christian apologists. We have more contemporary documentation on Joseph Smith than any other religious figure up until his time. This presents us with a lot of information that is damaging to the sanctified image. Oh well.

It's a fascinating laboratory for understanding the inception and internal dynamics of a religion. I wonder what Weber and Durkheim would have done with the sociological treasures of Mormonism.

As to the fraudulence of Mormonism and religion in general...that's a whole other subject worthy of exploration.

Maksutov, your comment about Celsus writings being destroyed by early Christians got me wondering... I wonder if Mormon Church Leaders, especially Packer, don't today wish that all of Joseph Smiths papers, journals writings, speeches and revelations not in the D&C were burned and destroyed. How much easier their lives would be today if there were no smoking guns of past indiscretions.

grindael wrote:

Maksutov wrote:
As time goes by I turn increasingly to the position that I do *not* want people to just give up their religious beliefs. Many people get good things from religion, in cultures all over the world. We need to understand what and why. The greatest genocides of the last hundred years were perpetrated by people who claimed to be hostile to religion and basing their values and decisions on rationality. The millions who died from democide via Communism can't be waved away.

Let's not forget that before this some of the greatest genocides were perpetuated in the name of those religions beliefs. The problem with religion or secularism is of course with man's penchant for fanaticism and too often they get defined by those fanatics. The core tenants of most religions are to co-exist peacefully with each other, and secularism at its best is all about human rights. It is only when fanatics rule that things get f'd up. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but I get what you mean and agree that the identity stamp of religion can be (and often is) a good thing.

All of the Abrahamic religions have had periods of great violence. Some have argued that monotheism is especially liable to religious violence, but the classic polytheist Romans didn't mind a little violence either for business or entertainment.

Any belief system that can mobilize a lot of people in a lethal way is scary.

Zadok wrote:Maksutov, your comment about Celsus writings being destroyed by early Christians got me wondering... I wonder if Mormon Church Leaders, especially Packer, don't today wish that all of Joseph Smiths papers, journals writings, speeches and revelations not in the D&C were burned and destroyed. How much easier their lives would be today if there were no smoking guns of past indiscretions.

There used to be campaigns to get rid of BRM's Mormon Doctrine, especially the earlier editions. I loaned out copies of Wilford Wood's facsimiles of the 1830 Book of Mormon and the Book of Commandments to faithful brothers in law and never got either of them back. Just an anecdote.

Just sitting here thinking that if Joseph Fielding Smith, when he was Church Historian, had ordered all of these documents destroyed, all the journals which had been given the Church over the years, all of Joseph's writings, letters, and notes. All the pages that he tore out of diaries and kept hidden in his desk drawer... If only.

Sure we would all admit that it was a terrible crime against history and throw J.Fielding Smith under the bus in righteous condemnation. But think of all the lost tithing money he could have saved the Church!