The Truth Of Mormonism

[Atlanticmike]

In india, a girl is born in the village of Poovar. Her family is extremely poor so she’ll spend the rest of her life living within a radius of two miles. She’s Hindu and finds comfort in praying daily to multiple gods and goddesses. She ends up living 29,943 days on earth and her TRUTH was found by following the doctrines of samsara. On her death bed she was at peace and never spent one second wondering if the Christians were the ones following the true God. She died surrounded by love ones who shared her TRUTH. My question for the men on this board! Did this woman live a lie?

In Nigeria a boy is born in the state of Jigawa. He will end up living a life in complete submission to Allah. He’ll live 17,520 days here on earth, spending each day praying as if he’s standing in the presence of Allah! This is his TRUTH! His TRUTH brings him comfort and on his death bed he's comforted knowing there’s life after death. My question for the men on this board, did this man live a lie?

In America a young girl is born in the state of Utah. She ends up living a her entire life as a Mormon. She believes the Gospel of Jesus Christ is found within the LDS church. She’ll live 34,679 days here on earth, and every one of those days she’ll live believing Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God! Her Truth is in the belief that the the first law in heaven is obedience. As she dies her thoughts are of a life in the Celestial Kingdom surrounded by her family. This is her TRUTH. Is her TRUTH worthless, is it a lie?


Professor! RFM! Pancakes! Res! Shades! Doc Cam! K Graham and all the other men who spend time trying to prove an individual’s TRUTH wrong, are the lives of the individuals I described fraudulent because they spent everyday of their lives believing in a different God? If their TRUTH helped them reach their deathbed happily, without much regret, surrounded by family and when they close their eyes for the last time they are in complete piece, could they of been better off if they would've lived your TRUTH? Would the Mormon born in Utah lived a better life if she listened to the Radio Free Mormon podcast? What if she watched a Backyard Professor video, would her TRUTH be richer, more meaningful? What if she found this board and read Shulems work in the Celestial forum, would her eyes be opened to the actual truth? Who here can point me to the actual truth in life? Where can it be found? Is there one truth? Or does everyone have their own individual truth?

I’m here to say you can find TRUTH inside the LDS church, prove me wrong!!

[Kishkumen]

These are great questions, Atlanticmike. I appreciate you asking them. Lately I have been wondering very similar things in connection with the gaffes and boners of Brad Wilcox. There was a lot that Wilcox said that very much made sense within an LDS perspective. Of course, I think he really needs to reconsider the wisdom of his little "real question we should be asking" message. That one was just not a good idea at all. On the other hand, his teachings on the Spirit were on the whole, I thought, pretty good, despite what my good friend consiglieri made them out to be in his dissection of Wilcox's views and rhetoric. I appreciate consiglieri's dissection, but I don't necessarily always agree with his point of view.

So, is there truth in Mormonism? I think so. On the other hand, there is truth, as you point out, in lots of different religions, philosophies, and scientific pursuits. It might not be helping Mormonism get its truth across to talk about others "playing church" as Brad Wilcox was doing. That was just plain dumb, dumb, dumb. The historical truth of the matter is this: centuries ago others invented Church, and Joseph Smith reworked the idea according to the needs of his time and place. Priesthood predates church, and it can operate separately from church. Levites did not go to church, and the Jerusalem Temple was not a church. Someone please help Brad Wilcox learn some history. Mormonism has lots of great truth, but phony baloney bad history lessons are not a great example of that truth.

[Physics Guy]

A documentary filmmaker once told me about letting her subjects present "their truth". As a scientist I wasn't used to using the term "truth" for opinions that differ from person to person. I'd rather say "their views of the truth" or something like that. The documentary maker seemed to find a practical value in calling these individual opinions "truth", though: using the word "truth" in that way helped her stay on polite terms with her subjects.

I still want to have a word for the ideal absolute of objective truth. It may be impossible for humans to know for sure that we have that kind of truth, but in some fields at least we can really approach it, if we work hard and limit our focus. And even in day-to-day life, you know, I think there are such things as errors and lies. If you want to use the word "truth" in such a way that a thief can insist that it's their truth that my car is their car, then fine, but I'm going to find a way to say that what the thief said is not just not my truth, it's also not the truth. We still do need a word for that concept. "Truth" is the old word and I don't see why we can't keep it.

On the other hand, though, "opinion" and "belief" are stretched a bit thin as words, if we ask them to cover everything from "I believe in monogamy" to "I believe I'll have another drink." It's probably worth distinguishing the kind of opinions that are deeply held and highly valued from more casual views. And when people's opinions of that kind differ from each other, I still wouldn't say that both can be true, but I have to admit that there may be no practical way of telling who is closer to being right. The different opinions may have an equal chance to be true.

In the end I don't necessarily mind all that much if someone wants to use "true" and "truth" in a relativistic way, because I agree that the concept to which they are trying to refer in that way is a concept worth having. I just think it's important to acknowledge, if we do that, that we are talking about a different concept of "truth" from what people usually mean when they say things like, "It's not true that this is your car."

It could be harder than you'd think to keep that difference in mind, but I think it's important to do it. You can insist as much as you like that by "truth" you mean a relative, individual kind of truth, but I really don't think you'll be able to discuss anything for very long without falling back, at some point, for something, on the old non-relative this-car-really-is-my-car kind of truth. So if you're using "truth" to mean individual truth, you're very likely to be juggling two different meanings for the same word. That's a good recipe for bait-and-switch equivocation that lets you trick yourself into thinking you've made more sense than you really have. You have to be pretty careful, I think.

[Gadianton]

She ends up living 29,943 days on earth and her TRUTH was found by following the doctrines of samsara

n Nigeria a boy is born in the state of Jigawa. He will end up living a life in complete submission to Allah

In America a young girl is born in the state of Utah. She ends up living a her entire life as a Mormon. She believes the Gospel of Jesus Christ is found within the LDS church. She’ll live 34,679 days here on earth, and every one of those days she’ll live believing Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God

I don't have a problem with any of these three, except one minor issue with the young American girl who is Mormon. As she got to her twenties, she put her papers in and was called to a mission where she ended up telling the young African kid that her gods are false and she needs to follow Joe Smith and Rusty the tin man. The African kid's parents were furious and disowned the child. But she was a survivor and made it, and went on a mission herself later on. In her lifetime, she paid a modest amount of tithing, much of which got filtered back to SLC for shares of GameStop. The young Mormon girl tells the heroic conversion story for the rest of her days: the astounding faith of this young girl who left behind her family and culture in order to believe the way she did.

(nice try at doing some critical theory / postmodernizing though. I'm surprised given this plea, that you'd be so opposed to critical race theory)

[Binger]

These are great questions, Atlanticmike. I appreciate you asking them. Lately I have been wondering very similar things in connection with the gaffes and boners of Brad Wilcox. There was a lot that Wilcox said that very much made sense within an LDS perspective. Of course, I think he really needs to reconsider the wisdom of his little "real question we should be asking" message. That one was just not a good idea at all. On the other hand, his teachings on the Spirit were on the whole, I thought, pretty good, despite what my good friend consiglieri made them out to be in his dissection of Wilcox's views and rhetoric. I appreciate consiglieri's dissection, but I don't necessarily always agree with his point of view.

So, is there truth in Mormonism? I think so. On the other hand, there is truth, as you point out, in lots of different religions, philosophies, and scientific pursuits. It might not be helping Mormonism get its truth across to talk about others "playing church" as Brad Wilcox was doing. That was just plain dumb, dumb, dumb. The historical truth of the matter is this: centuries ago others invented Church, and Joseph Smith reworked the idea according to the needs of his time and place. Priesthood predates church, and it can operate separately from church. Levites did not go to church, and the Jerusalem Temple was not a church. Someone please help Brad Wilcox learn some history. Mormonism has lots of great truth, but phony baloney bad history lessons are not a great example of that truth.

Great stuff. Very very very good.

Along with these truths, as you refer to it, there were customs, communities, rites, connections and families that predated Mormonism and continued with Mormonism. I sometimes look back and think, what would be different, if, instead of lying and saying we knew that unseen things were "true," when they were not in fact true, if we had just stood up in fast and testimony meetings and other places and said that we liked each other and why? Or, said that we did not like each other and why? Maybe then, we would still be doing road shows and going on handcart walks for fun, exercise and to get selfies, instead of doing it to gain a fake testimony.

[Kishkumen]

A documentary filmmaker once told me about letting her subjects present "their truth". As a scientist I wasn't used to using the term "truth" for opinions that differ from person to person. I'd rather say "their views of the truth" or something like that. The documentary maker seemed to find a practical value in calling these individual opinions "truth", though: using the word "truth" in that way helped her stay on polite terms with her subjects.

I still want to have a word for the ideal absolute of objective truth. It may be impossible for humans to know for sure that we have that kind of truth, but in some fields at least we can really approach it, if we work hard and limit our focus. And even in day-to-day life, you know, I think there are such things as errors and lies. If you want to use the word "truth" in such a way that a thief can insist that it's their truth that my car is their car, then fine, but I'm going to find a way to say that what the thief said is not just not my truth, it's also not the truth. We still do need a word for that concept. "Truth" is the old word and I don't see why we can't keep it.

On the other hand, though, "opinion" and "belief" are stretched a bit thin as words, if we ask them to cover everything from "I believe in monogamy" to "I believe I'll have another drink." It's probably worth distinguishing the kind of opinions that are deeply held and highly valued from more casual views. And when people's opinions of that kind differ from each other, I still wouldn't say that both can be true, but I have to admit that there may be no practical way of telling who is closer to being right. The different opinions may have an equal chance to be true.

In the end I don't necessarily mind all that much if someone wants to use "true" and "truth" in a relativistic way, because I agree that the concept to which they are trying to refer in that way is a concept worth having. I just think it's important to acknowledge, if we do that, that we are talking about a different concept of "truth" from what people usually mean when they say things like, "It's not true that this is your car."

It could be harder than you'd think to keep that difference in mind, but I think it's important to do it. You can insist as much as you like that by "truth" you mean a relative, individual kind of truth, but I really don't think you'll be able to discuss anything for very long without falling back, at some point, for something, on the old non-relative this-car-really-is-my-car kind of truth. So if you're using "truth" to mean individual truth, you're very likely to be juggling two different meanings for the same word. That's a good recipe for bait-and-switch equivocation that lets you trick yourself into thinking you've made more sense than you really have. You have to be pretty careful, I think.

Language is slippery, as you know. The same word will be used creatively in many different ways, and meanings evolve. It seems to me that there are experiential senses of meaning of the word truth that relate to how an individual feels connected to certain ideas, communities, rituals, etc. I have the impression that truth of this kind is something akin to "experienced as salutary," and, yes, I apologize for the clumsy and clunky circumlocution.

On the other hand, I would prefer that we use the word fact instead of truth to refer to realia. "It's not a fact that this is your car" is perhaps more precise than "it's not true that this is your car." At least this is how I respond to the differences shade of meaning between the two statements. We should all agree to be governed by the same facts but feel free to argue over their meaning and relative significance.

[drumdude]

I recently listened to a podcast with a Muslim man who was in a room in Egypt about to be tortured. One by one they took his Muslim brothers into another room and tortured them. The rest of the men waiting their turn could hear the screams.

This man was number 42 in line. The man who was number 41 turned to him and asked him desperately to help him escape this torture. Of course number 42 could do nothing. But he began reciting a passage from the Koran called “the story of the ditch” It is about people who were thrown into a ditch and set afire, due to their belief in Islam by the polytheists. There is a specific soothing way to recite the Koran which the man used to great effect.

At the end of the recitation, the man was calmed and ready to face the ordeal. He thanked him, saying “you are a good man.”

There is truth in humanity. You can find it wherever you look. In Islam, in Mormonism, in atheism. What most of us on this board despise, is Mormons saying that they have a special truth, or the whole truth, or that everyone else are lacking truths.

[Kishkumen]

Great stuff. Very very very good.

Along with these truths, as you refer to it, there were customs, communities, rites, connections and families that predated Mormonism and continued with Mormonism. I sometimes look back and think, what would be different, if, instead of lying and saying we knew that unseen things were "true," when they were not in fact true, if we had just stood up in fast and testimony meetings and other places and said that we liked each other and why? Or, said that we did not like each other and why? Maybe then, we would still be doing road shows and going on handcart walks for fun, exercise and to get selfies, instead of doing it to gain a fake testimony.

Thank you.

OK, so there was a time when I would have completely agreed with you. But at some point I came to see myself as unnecessarily hewing to an artificial rigidity in how I viewed testimonies. The real problem here, in my opinion, is not that an LDS person will say, "I know the Church is true." The problem is that our culture has increasingly moved to a frankly narrow sense of what all of this means. There are different ways of knowing and different kinds of truth. I am happy to concede that a happy LDS person can "know the Church is true."

On the other hand, I do not allow for people to "know that the Book of Mormon" was written in antiquity. There simply is insufficient evidence to support such a claim, and this is also quite a different thing from saying "I know the Church is true." Here we are talking about factual claims of a non-subjective kind. My willingness to claim a book was written in antiquity does not change events on the timeline. Here is where the LDS Church has problems. LDS leaders and scholars insist it is important to believe that the Book of Mormon's narratives describe events that occurred in antiquity.

I consider that demand a deal breaker. I could stand up in a meeting and say "I know the Gospel is true," and so forth, but I will not support the idea that there are these otherwise unknown ancient civilizations described in a book that Joseph Smith appears to have written in the late 1820s. I can even support the idea that the Book of Mormon is a miraculous work, but that does not entail, in my mind, a belief that it is describing events that occurred between the 6th century BC and the 5th century AD in ancient America.

There is something wrong, I think, with fabricating false histories and imposing them on people as though they were factual. Joseph Smith had a very unusual epistemology, and so I am not comfortable saying that he composed a false history. What he did was compose an American Bible, which was not ever history in the sense we understand it today. Over time it was inevitable, thanks to changes in how people view history, that the factual and historical nature of "Bibles" would be rightly challenged. In that new light, the treatment of the Book of Mormon as history is no longer tenable, and it should be abandoned. Unfortunately, it will require a lot of work to change views on the Book of Mormon without fatally undermining Mormonism altogether.

[drumdude]

There is something wrong, I think, with fabricating false histories and imposing them on people as though they were factual.

The cognitive dissonance that comes from sitting in the pews being forced to believe this ridiculously absurd alternate history is probably the biggest reason I'm here on this board ranting about Mormonism.

It's Orwellian.

[Binger]

Great stuff. Very very very good.

Along with these truths, as you refer to it, there were customs, communities, rites, connections and families that predated Mormonism and continued with Mormonism. I sometimes look back and think, what would be different, if, instead of lying and saying we knew that unseen things were "true," when they were not in fact true, if we had just stood up in fast and testimony meetings and other places and said that we liked each other and why? Or, said that we did not like each other and why? Maybe then, we would still be doing road shows and going on handcart walks for fun, exercise and to get selfies, instead of doing it to gain a fake testimony.

Thank you.

OK, so there was a time when I would have completely agreed with you. But at some point I came to see myself as unnecessarily hewing to an artificial rigidity in how I viewed testimonies. The real problem here, in my opinion, is not that an LDS person will say, "I know the Church is true." The problem is that our culture has increasingly moved to a frankly narrow sense of what all of this means. There are different ways of knowing and different kinds of truth. I am happy to concede that a happy LDS person can "know the Church is true."

On the other hand, I do not allow for people to "know that the Book of Mormon" was written in antiquity. There simply is insufficient evidence to support such a claim, and this is also quite a different thing from saying "I know the Church is true." Here we are talking about factual claims of a non-subjective kind. My willingness to claim a book was written in antiquity does not change events on the timeline. Here is where the LDS Church has problems. LDS leaders and scholars insist it is important to believe that the Book of Mormon's narratives describe events that occurred in antiquity.

I consider that demand a deal breaker. I could stand up in a meeting and say "I know the Gospel is true," and so forth, but I will not support the idea that there are these otherwise unknown ancient civilizations described in a book that Joseph Smith appears to have written in the late 1820s. I can even support the idea that the Book of Mormon is a miraculous work, but that does not entail, in my mind, a belief that it is describing events that occurred between the 6th century BC and the 5th century AD in ancient America.

There is something wrong, I think, with fabricating false histories and imposing them on people as though they were factual. Joseph Smith had a very unusual epistemology, and so I am not comfortable saying that he composed a false history. What he did was compose an American Bible, which was not ever history in the sense we understand it today. Over time it was inevitable, thanks to changes in how people view history, that the factual and historical nature of "Bibles" would be rightly challenged. In that new light, the treatment of the Book of Mormon as history is no longer tenable, and it should be abandoned. Unfortunately, it will require a lot of work to change views on the Book of Mormon without fatally undermining Mormonism altogether.

Excellent. I gotta think about this some more. This is stretching my brain a bit.

I agree though, asking me to believe that the Book of Mormon is a factual history of the Navajo people is beyond anything I can wrap my head around. That is a deal breaker.