Reasoning with True Believers

[_Yoda]

When I began posting on FAIR, I was shocked at the anger and condescension that came primarily from Church members. For the most part, the critics were much more friendly. I really didn't understand this. I still have yet to receive an answer as to why members choose to act this way. I enjoy learning from people like Blixa and Beastie, who have devoted a lot of time to different aspects of Mormon research.

What saddens me is that a few bullies, as Blixa has pointed out in other threads, can ruin the process of honest discourse for the rest of us.

I also find the actions of those Church members in KA's ward deplorable. Talk about complete cog dis! How can you call yourself a Christian, and shun someone to the point that you won't say hello to them on the street because they have chosen to attend a different Church? Ridiculous!

[_karl61]

can one use the word true right before the word believer?

[NorthboundZax]

Good post, Beastie. And I love Eric Hoffer. (By the way, a lot of the links don't work on your website. Do you have the threads saved somewhere?)

In response to some of the other comments, I think there is somewhat of a difference when we debate matters with those pre-committed to empiricism and rationalism, than with those pre-committed to opposing them; for with the latter, there are no agreed upon constraints of any kind, even theoretically. No boundary of logic is recognized by the anti-empiricist/anti-rationalist, no weight of fact. This is in evidence on the evolution thread I started recently, where you have Mormon true believers claiming that mutually exclusive propositions can both be true, inventing all sorts of ad hoc hypotheses with no textual warrant whatsoever, issuing brute denials, creating private word redefinitions a la Hugh Nibley, and doing so even in the face of clear evidence contradicting their conclusions, etc.

Debating things with these folks is like trying to disabuse someone of the belief that there are silent, invisible monsters under the bed - their belief didn't depend upon facts or logic in the first place, so facts and logic have no force now.

[_Jason Bourne]

I'm going to quote merc's comments which deserve conversation outside the discussion about the offensive language he used.

Merc said:

There is no hope of honest debate with most Mormons. It is a futile task. Given the mountain of evidence showing in plain means that Mormonism is a laughable farse, they still will find a way to ignore it and run back to the false comforting fallacies ensuring that the cult gets their ten percent, paid in blood and enforced through stupidity.

The change has to come from inside. It is not until the slave realizes that the shackles of Mormonism are around his neck that he can change. It is not until tehy willfully step outside the comfort zone and look hard that true change can be invoked.

Anyone who is monolithic in their views are difficult to reason with. It does not matter if they are a believer or non believer. Look at some of the ex LDS who post here. Infymus is the mirror image of say someone like Coggins. Merec himself while seemingly fairly bright seems to degenerate into tunnnel vision and even smugness on this topic. Hell look at his comments above. His smug post offers no hope of reasonable dialogue. None at all. And speaking of smug how about our resident Rock star Mr. Bachman? His Sunstoned OP was nothing but smug. People work from all sorts of angles.

For me it was people like you beastie and TD and Runtu as well as others that caused me to start reconsidering my world view. When I found decent and rational thought from those who have chosen no longer believe and they presented it in a polite and rational way I understood that not all LDS were angry rabid and big time sinners. Here were some people who left for respectable and understandable reasons even if I did not agree with all their reasons. I could see why they did leave and it started to open my world to a different thought process.

That said, I agree that true believers can be difficult to reason with. But is it a laughable farce that they believe? Not really. Not at all. There are many reasons people stay and stay believing very strongly and they are not stupid, not at all.

[_Sethbag]

I agree with what you are saying here. But it was that "nagging feeling" that made you open to considering other views. That is what I am talking about. You first had to decide on some level to consider seriously the other side.

Yes, the actual transition point for me in my belief from believer to non-believer was the moment in time, and I think it probably was really a moment, or at most an hour or two, where I made the conscious decision to force myself to consider seriously the possibility that I was just as wrong about my own religion as billions of other believers in false religions are about theirs. Those nagging feelings, and the disheartening experience of reading FARMs and Nibley apologetic excuses for some things, made me feel in my heart of hearts that taking the possibility of the non-truth of the LDS Church seriously was the only honest thing to do, however difficult it was. Realizing that, and facing it rather than suppressing it, was exceedingly difficult for me. Suppressing such things is, IMHO, the natural course of action for a believer.

I don't think there is much evidence that arguing with people tends to produce that nagging feeling, at least not very often. That doesn't mean it isn't fun, though. :)

Yeah, it's fun in its own way, but I hope that a good discussion with people, where good points are made and driven home, will help people, even if only later, to think more about it and possibly realize they were wrong. I guess it's like planting seeds, only this time it's seeds of doubt. ;-)

[_beastie]

Good post, Beastie. And I love Eric Hoffer. (By the way, a lot of the links don't work on your website. Do you have the threads saved somewhere?)

cool, another visitor! :)

Are you talking about the links to past debates? Remember you have to copy and paste the MAD/Fair links because they disabled the links from my website (in fact, they disabled it the first day the site was up). I did save a few of them, but the copy/paste thing should work. Let me know if it doesn't.

[_beastie]

I don't think there is much evidence that arguing with people tends to produce that nagging feeling, at least not very often. That doesn't mean it isn't fun, though. :)

I think that the arguments can help lurkers who are looking for information about specific subjects. But aside from that, I have seen people on both sides alter their positions about certain topics... although admittedly it doesn't happen often. Some apologists are "in the fight" mainly because they're trying to work out what in the heck they DO believe, and even if they don't show it, their minds are slowly being changed. Can't think of a case where the reverse has happened, though.

[_Sethbag]

Some apologists are "in the fight" mainly because they're trying to work out what in the heck they DO believe, and even if they don't show it, their minds are slowly being changed. Can't think of a case where the reverse has happened, though.

Well, there was that time I read DCP's comments and thought "wow! He's right, there's no way Joseph Smith could have known about NHM! That must mean he didn't make up the Book of Mormon after all, and by extension, he couldn't have made up the Book of Abraham either, which means that the Egyptian funerary spellbook must indeed be just mnemonic devices intended to call to Joseph's mind the story of Abraham, and this also must mean that an angel with a drawn sword really was going to slaughter Joseph if he didn't take some teenager has his 20somethingth secret "plural wife". Wow, how could I have been so dumb as to miss this?!?"

But then I woke up, and realized it was just the indigestion talking...

[_Jersey Girl]

I'm going to quote merc's comments which deserve conversation outside the discussion about the offensive language he used.

Merc said:

There is no hope of honest debate with most Mormons. It is a futile task. Given the mountain of evidence showing in plain means that Mormonism is a laughable farse, they still will find a way to ignore it and run back to the false comforting fallacies ensuring that the cult gets their ten percent, paid in blood and enforced through stupidity.

The change has to come from inside. It is not until the slave realizes that the shackles of Mormonism are around his neck that he can change. It is not until tehy willfully step outside the comfort zone and look hard that true change can be invoked.

Anyone who is monolithic in their views are difficult to reason with. It does not matter if they are a believer or non believer. Look at some of the ex LDS who post here. Infymus is the mirror image of say someone like Coggins. Merec himself while seemingly fairly bright seems to degenerate into tunnnel vision and even smugness on this topic. Hell look at his comments above. His smug post offers no hope of reasonable dialogue. None at all. And speaking of smug how about our resident Rock star Mr. Bachman? His Sunstoned OP was nothing but smug. People work from all sorts of angles.

For me it was people like you beastie and TD and Runtu as well as others that caused me to start reconsidering my world view. When I found decent and rational thought from those who have chosen no longer believe and they presented it in a polite and rational way I understood that not all LDS were angry rabid and big time sinners. Here were some people who left for respectable and understandable reasons even if I did not agree with all their reasons. I could see why they did leave and it started to open my world to a different thought process.

That said, I agree that true believers can be difficult to reason with. But is it a laughable farce that they believe? Not really. Not at all. There are many reasons people stay and stay believing very strongly and they are not stupid, not at all.

I just wanted to affirm something that you touched on here, Jason. Not one extreme polemical poster ever penetrated my thinking regarding examining my own beliefs, worldview or religious beginnings. Not one. There are posters who make it a regular practice of provoking the person rather than provoking thought. Not that I can't descend into provocation myself, however those discussions that were useful to me were those when two minds quietly and calmly shared information and thoughts with an underlying given of mutual respect.

[_Some Schmo]

I just wanted to affirm something that you touched on here, Jason. Not one extreme polemical poster ever penetrated my thinking regarding examining my own beliefs, worldview or religious beginnings. Not one. There are posters who make it a regular practice of provoking the person rather than provoking thought. Not that I can't descend into provocation myself, however those discussions that were useful to me were those when two minds quietly and calmly shared information and thoughts with an underlying given of mutual respect.

Yeah, it's truly a mystery to me that people come to these boards with debate on their minds at all. It honestly cracks me up when I'm accused of not being able to debate because I don't engage in it (which sounds to me like something people say to help them sleep at night). Why on Earth would anyone expend the effort to debate someone else on a board like this? The only reason I can think of is because they either enjoy exercises in futility, but more likely, they think what they have to say is impressive and are trying to show off (usually a spectacular failure).

Sharing ideas is one thing. That's pretty much all I do. People either agree with me or they don't, and I'm indifferent either way. Debating in an attempt to convince is simply stupid and a waste of energy, because it never works. When the student is ready, the teacher appears, and that's that.

So rather than debate the debaters, I'd prefer to just provoke them, because it's far more entertaining to me (especially when they think I'm trying to provoke them because I can't debate... good times!) It's usually the case that I'd rather comment on the way a conversation is going than whatever's being talked about anyway. The fact is, many of the most contentious believers are the ones least worthy of respect, and there's no way I'd waste my time trying to have an honest debate with someone not worthy of respect.