Gemli explains...

[Everybody Wang Chung]

You might point out to your brother that Xenu dropping atomic bombs in volcanos was a pretty far-out idea.

[huckelberry]

I believe things that are not implied by any incontrovertible evidence, that's true, but I don't think I believe anything that is inconsistent with any incontrovertible evidence.

This is where theists plant their flag. I believe because I believe but there are zero methodologies that can dispute me so I am cool with it.

Rivendale, I think theists understand themselves to be believing for reasons that are important to them though they are not incontrovertible. I gather you are stating that believing probably takes place first before people think about whether they should believe. I think that takes place sometimes perhaps particularly with children and people not inclined to question.(I know they exist but I do not understand them very well)

previously above you commented on this idea but I was unsure if you meant the inability to choose applied to all peopel or just to people surrounded and subdued by Moroni promise expectations.

It is circular. You have to believe before you believe. And if you think you're sincere and take the promise; yet get no validation you are not a master of your sincerity. Ultimately you can't choose your beliefs any more than you can choose to breath under water.

a

[Rivendale]

, I think theists understand themselves to be believing for reasons that are important to them though they are not incontrovertible. I gather you are stating that believing probably takes place first before people think about whether they should believe. I think that takes place sometimes perhaps particularly with children and people not inclined to question.(I know they exist but I do not understand them very well)

I agree that a belief is substantiated by the believer but out of their control. I don't think you can choose a belief. You are convinced for a myriad of reasons both good and bad. I think most of the sifting occurs subconsciously. Empirical evidence can feed into this decision making process but most theist I know base their beliefs on emotional feedback loops that need weekly if not daily recharging.

[Gadianton]

Some Mormons have surely distilled some good things out of Joseph Smith's scam, and I can believe that an enlightened form of Mormonism might be as wise as any religion—perhaps all the more so for recognizing weaknesses in its founder. I'm not inclined to defend conservative Mormon apologetics.

Mormonism is unique among NRMs as it is founded explicitly upon a hoax. JW's, in contrast, are grounded in pure vanilla, digging into Hebrew commentaries and reading Bible passages as literally as they can based on what the commentaries say, even if that means throwing out centuries of tradition. Whether they do a good job isn't my concern for this post. The underlying method is mundane in contrast to visions and angels.

Yet somehow, JWs came up with a weirdo patriarchal hell-scape of a church that in every other other way is as bad or worse than Mormonism, right down to child sex abuse coverups and an inability to stop the problem, no matter how much money they bleed over it. It would seem to me that this is yet another weakness in Gemli, as it may also be in your brother's analysis. It would seem that the tendency for humans to form doomsday bunker clubs is so deeply embedded in our psyche that the nature of the initial material hardly matters at all. How do you really say Mormonism is more "obviously made up" than JW's, or even Branch Davidians, who also didn't have any explicitly supernatural claims?

For a positivist-leaning person, it may very well be that Mormonism is more obviously false than any number of other given cults of equal or worse social misery specifically because of its otherworldly yet falsifiable founding claims many of which have likely been falsified. Does that really make the most sense? As you point out, when dealing with Dan, that's the crux of discussion, so I do get that.

But for me, okay, the Book of Mormon is perhaps easier to directly falsify than Jesus dying on a cross for our sins, but it's no more outrageous or unbelievable otherwise. Would Mormonism really be that much better off if the founding story was changed a bit -- Joseph just felt called rather than claimed to directly see God, and the Book of Mormon came in a vision rather from gold plates, such that it is less falsifiable -- I mean, we could keep going, but would these changes really make it more believable?

To me, the supernatural stuff really doesn't make it that much less believable, as most religions are founded on the supernatural, it's just the stories are much older and harder to evaluate in terms of evidence for more traditional faiths, and the motives and responsible parties are all lost to history, and so it's not as easy to point to any one person as lying. For me, at the end of the day, Mormons believe the same level of supernatural silliness as any other Christian does. And then if you factor in certain fundamentalist elements, speaking in tongues, slain in the spirit and all that, Mormonism isn't even very weird compared to what passes for conventional Christianity.

[Marcus]

Earlier in the thread, there was a comment or two wondering why gemli comments. It reminded me of when I first started reading his posts, and Midgley rudely (as usual) made some reference to his being a nytimes commenter. I looked him up back then and found an article with some background. It's from 2015, but I thought some readers here might still be interested in seeing this even now, if they haven't seen it before:

Gemli
Boston

AGE:
66

OCCUPATION:
Computer Analyst

FAVORITE ISSUES:
Fact-based public policy, climate change, inequality

Gemli, who asked that his real name not be used, is by some analytical measures the most popular commenter on The Times’s site.

He averages 354 reader recommendations per comment. There has to be some trick to this, right?

“The first sentence of the comment is key, and it’s usually the hardest to write,” Gemli said. “I can spend a half-hour writing and rewriting the first line.”

“Reading conservative pundits usually gets my goat, especially when they’re denying climate change, or recommending the continuation of economic inequality,” he said. “When they inject theology into public policy I have been known to write a mildly-worded rebuttal or two, after my left eye stops twitching and I regain my composure.”

Education occurs when you’re exposed to the world, and shielding yourself from it means that you’re not receiving an education. If there are things that you find too sensitive to bear, then you shouldn’t attend that meeting or take that course. Stay at home, in your room, with the windows shut and the TV off.

– Gemli

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... nters.html

[Rivendale]

The New York Times description of Gemli occurs at about the same time as this reddit post titled "Probably the best comment ever on Dan Peterson's blog post" by fearless fixer. https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/co ... _a_dan/

"It's not that I don't know enough about Mormonism. It's that the miraculous details of all religions are of a piece, generally consisting of sworn attestations of things that violate our integrity as rational, thinking beings while leaving no other evidence. It becomes a virtue to believe without evidence, which we call "faith," but then it's claimed that, by the way, there's lots of evidence. Otherwise we'd have to admit that groups of people will sometimes swear to things that aren't true.

Well, people swore to the miracles performed by Sathya Sai Baba, who turned magic tricks into a following of millions. Scientology, a truly made-up-for-profit religion, still has thousands of sad dupes on the rolls. Under the right circumstance, people will believe anything.

It seems that the truth of religion is to be found in the psychology of belief. This is especially true regarding beliefs that cement social groups together and create tribal identities. It's extremely difficult to extricate oneself from a culture that indoctrinates children into the prevailing religion, and whose self-worth and societal acceptance is tied to depth of belief. Most kids so raised don't have a chance. Intelligence is no defense. On the contrary, smart believers are capable of weaving more complex nets of justification and clever apologies that make doubt, which should be our most cherished condition, almost impossible to achieve."

Who is this gemli? Come join us over here, my friend!

[Marcus]

The New York Times description of Gemli occurs at about the same time as this reddit post titled "Probably the best comment ever on Dan Peterson's blog post" by fearless fixer. https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/co ... _a_dan/

"It's not that I don't know enough about Mormonism. It's that the miraculous details of all religions are of a piece, generally consisting of sworn attestations of things that violate our integrity as rational, thinking beings while leaving no other evidence. It becomes a virtue to believe without evidence, which we call "faith," but then it's claimed that, by the way, there's lots of evidence. Otherwise we'd have to admit that groups of people will sometimes swear to things that aren't true.

Well, people swore to the miracles performed by Sathya Sai Baba, who turned magic tricks into a following of millions. Scientology, a truly made-up-for-profit religion, still has thousands of sad dupes on the rolls. Under the right circumstance, people will believe anything.

It seems that the truth of religion is to be found in the psychology of belief. This is especially true regarding beliefs that cement social groups together and create tribal identities. It's extremely difficult to extricate oneself from a culture that indoctrinates children into the prevailing religion, and whose self-worth and societal acceptance is tied to depth of belief. Most kids so raised don't have a chance. Intelligence is no defense. On the contrary, smart believers are capable of weaving more complex nets of justification and clever apologies that make doubt, which should be our most cherished condition, almost impossible to achieve."

Who is this gemli? Come join us over here, my friend!

Wow, thank you, Rivendale. I didn't know gemli's comments on SeN went that far back. What a great find!

[Rivendale]

Unfortunately DCP's blog does not keep comments after two years. I understand that particular post had some interesting exchanges in the now inaccessible comment section.

[drumdude]

Unfortunately DCP's blog does not keep comments after two years. I understand that particular post had some interesting exchanges in the now inaccessible comment section.

That’s an unfortunate recent change. And it doesn’t appear to be limited to DCP’s blog.

[Physics Guy]

One of my brothers has described Mormonism as "the most obviously made-up religion". My liberal approach to religions makes me want to defend most religions as having at least some amount of good insight, but I haven't been able to argue against my brother on this one.

You might point out to your brother that Xenu dropping atomic bombs in volcanos was a pretty far-out idea.

I think you're completely right, Scientology is a clear tick beyond Mormonism. I give Mormonism a lot more credit than Scientology for being a genuine religion that exists for much the same reasons that any other religion exists. I don't think my brother counts Scientology as a religion at all; I haven't discussed this point with him because it wouldn't interest him.

It's not that he's a Philistine. He's an engineer and a business executive with another Bachelor's degree in philosophy. His philosophy only makes him less interested in debating exactly what counts as a religion. He knows good debates and he knows that this isn't one.