Doesn't "presentism" cut both ways?

[_BishopRic]

On another thread, Will said:

If you want to understand how people thought during the age of Mormon polygamy, there is much to read out there. Read their journals and their letters to one another. Read letters to home from Civil War soldiers, for example. There is a good example of how a man thought in 1860s America.

They didn't think like us! They didn't write like us! They didn't have the same sense of morality, or decency, or propriety.

In many ways, I think we would greatly offend them. That's why any discussion of plural marriage in the 19th century has simply got to take place after a serious study of the times in question. Our current discussions of the practice in that era are so rife with presentism that it distorts the entire conversation, and leads to no greater understanding about what was really going on at the time. <sigh>

I think I understand what Will is saying...and I can appreciate it. I'm not a historian, so if some of my facts are wrong, please correct me. But as long as we are trying to understand the early church and the culture then, isn't it appropriate that we also look at the dramatic claims of visions, angelic visitations, spiritual witnesses, etc. as presentism of that era?

In other words, I've been reading here that we really need to stop looking at their culture with modern eyes, and try to see it from their perspective. So what about the visions? Isn't it possible that what we understand as a literal visitation from God, Moroni, etc, really wasn't that at all? When viewed from their eyes, maybe it was all dreams, results of hallucinogenic sacramental wine, or otherwise -- but not a physical event as we would picture it today?

I've been told that around that time (I'm not a lawyer, so this is "hearsay"...) dreams were admissable as evidence in a court of law. If so, and what we understand the placebo effect to be today, shouldn't we look at the truth claims to possibly be very different than the way we are told they were?

[_DarkHelmet]

On another thread, Will said:

If you want to understand how people thought during the age of Mormon polygamy, there is much to read out there. Read their journals and their letters to one another. Read letters to home from Civil War soldiers, for example. There is a good example of how a man thought in 1860s America.

They didn't think like us! They didn't write like us! They didn't have the same sense of morality, or decency, or propriety.

In many ways, I think we would greatly offend them. That's why any discussion of plural marriage in the 19th century has simply got to take place after a serious study of the times in question. Our current discussions of the practice in that era are so rife with presentism that it distorts the entire conversation, and leads to no greater understanding about what was really going on at the time. <sigh>

I think I understand what Will is saying...and I can appreciate it. I'm not a historian, so if some of my facts are wrong, please correct me. But as long as we are trying to understand the early church and the culture then, isn't it appropriate that we also look at the dramatic claims of visions, angelic visitations, spiritual witnesses, etc. as presentism of that era?

In other words, I've been reading here that we really need to stop looking at their culture with modern eyes, and try to see it from their perspective. So what about the visions? Isn't it possible that what we understand as a literal visitation from God, Moroni, etc, really wasn't that at all? When viewed from their eyes, maybe it was all dreams, results of hallucinogenic sacramental wine, or otherwise -- but not a physical event as we would picture it today?

I've been told that around that time (I'm not a lawyer, so this is "hearsay"...) dreams were admissable as evidence in a court of law. If so, and what we understand the placebo effect to be today, shouldn't we look at the truth claims to possibly be very different than the way we are told they were?

Absolutely. And not to get sidetracked, but on the same subject of presentism, I believe it is a term that is misused. If we apply modern western values to pass judgment on David and Solomon's multiple wives, we are guilty of presentism, because it was a cultural norm for that time and place for powerful men to have multiple wives and concubines. Slavery was also a cultural norm in early America, and we shouldn't pass judgment on slaveowners using our modenr morals. However, we can praise those who were more progressive than others on that issue. And we can celebrate those who saw the evils in slavery and helped pave the way for abolition, without demonizing those who did not think it was evil because of their culture and upbringing. However, polygamy was not a social norm in America in the 1800s. These women needed to be talked into it. The church was persecuted by outsiders because of it. We may look at Mormon polygamy differently than non-mormons in the 1800s did because we are in a different time period, but it was NOT a cultural norm at the time. We do not think polygamy was wrong because of presentism. We think it was wrong because it WAS "wrong" in America in the 1800s.

[_Ray A]

I think I understand what Will is saying...and I can appreciate it. I'm not a historian, so if some of my facts are wrong, please correct me. But as long as we are trying to understand the early church and the culture then, isn't it appropriate that we also look at the dramatic claims of visions, angelic visitations, spiritual witnesses, etc. as presentism of that era?

This is basically Palmer's argument about "second sight". "Visions/dreams" then could be interpreted as veridical (material, real). Today they are not.

2 And it came to pass that while my father tarried in the wilderness he spake unto us, saying: Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision. (1 Ne.8:2)

[_Sethbag]

Also remember that with Joseph Smith and many who followed him, and many in the community at that time, gods and demons were the go-to explanations for all sorts of things that we would now understand in terms of psychology (or physics, or geology, or whatever).

Sam Harris uses the story of the Virginia Tech killer. That kid had some serious psychological problems. His pentacostal Christian mother interpreted those problems in terms of God and devils. The kid had problems because he was possessed. The Devil was a very real, and sensible, and logical explanation for what her son was experiencing, in her world view. She shopped around until she found a church that would perform an exorcism on her son. And that's in the 21st Century, and yet we still see people who think like her.

Now go back to the early 1800s, out in the country. There were all kinds of people like this. Magical thinking was rife, if for no other reason than that modern science was still being developed, and most people would not have been able to know that there were very good naturalistic explanations for all sorts of things - these people would have seen these things in terms of angels, devils, spirits, etc.

Is it really so hard to understand how Joseph was able to find so many people to believe his claims? He would have a much, much harder time today, I think, because people who see everything through the lens of magical thinking, to the exclusion of most modern scientific knowledge, are in the minority today (in the West anyhow). Were they in the early part of the 1800s?

[_BishopRic]

Also remember that with Joseph Smith and many who followed him, and many in the community at that time, gods and demons were the go-to explanations for all sorts of things that we would now understand in terms of psychology (or physics, or geology, or whatever).

Yes, and I find Beckstead's 07 Sunstone presentation on possible hallucinogens compelling as well. A few quotes:

"Joseph Smith recorded

… we partook together of the emblems of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ … many of our members … had the heavens opened to their view, [and beheld Jesus Christ].28

Heavenly manifestations occurred in a March 18th 1833 sacrament meeting held in Kirtland Ohio under the direction of Joseph Smith.

Bro Joseph … promise[d] that the pure in heart that were present should see a heavenly vision … after which the bread and wine was distributed by Bro Joseph after which many of the brethren saw a heavenly vision of the savior and concourses of angels.29

In the afternoon of March 27th 1833, Ebenezer Robinson reported that after the administration of the bread and wine

Frederick G. Williams bore record that a holy angel of God came and sat between him and Joseph Smith, Senior.30

A meeting in which visions were occasioned by the application of anointing oil, which can also be laced with entheogenic material31 occurred on January 21, 1836. Joseph Smith was anointed first and in turn he anointed several of the Brethren. Joseph reported that after the anointing,

The heavens were opened upon us and I beheld the celestial kingdom of God, and the glory thereof, whether in the body or out I cannot tell… Joseph said that many of the brethren “saw glorious visions also.32 "

http://mormonelixirs.org/

I think it's possible they may have even considered these pharmacologic means of eliciting visions completely acceptable and a real avenue to draw on the powers of the heaven. It may even explain why/how some of the witnesses didn't see the conflict we see today of "never denying their testimony of the Book of Mormon..." and their also testifying of other (non-LDS) prophets, visions and experiences, such as James Strange, etc.; if they really "saw" what they claimed under the influence of hallucinogens, they obviously would not deny it.

[_Gadianton]

Hi BishopRic,

You are correct. "Presentism" completely damns the entire point of God bringing forth the Book of Mormon.

The apologists are willing to sacrifice the whole point of scripture in exchange for mitigating the evil deeds of the protagonists therin or covering up the questionable historicity.

[_harmony]

Is it really so hard to understand how Joseph was able to find so many people to believe his claims? He would have a much, much harder time today, I think, because people who see everything through the lens of magical thinking, to the exclusion of most modern scientific knowledge, are in the minority today (in the West anyhow). Were they in the early part of the 1800s?

Do you really think so?

How many people did he preach to, for every convert he baptised?

What kind of people were his converts... poor? wealthy? learned? gullible? people who wanted something for nothing? people of integrity? landowners? members of other churches? dissatisfied folks?

And what did they expect? Power? Riches? A sense of community?

[_Dr. Shades]

In many ways, I think we would greatly offend them. That's why any discussion of plural marriage in the 19th century has simply got to take place after a serious study of the times in question. Our current discussions of the practice in that era are so rife with presentism that it distorts the entire conversation, and leads to no greater understanding about what was really going on at the time. <sigh>

What Will needs to remember is that people in 1833-1844 felt precisely the same way about plural marriage that we do now. If it were otherwise, Joseph wouldn't have needed to keep it secret and lie about it from the pulpit.

[_EAllusion]

Absolutely. And not to get sidetracked, but on the same subject of presentism, I believe it is a term that is misused. If we apply modern western values to pass judgment on David and Solomon's multiple wives, we are guilty of presentism, because it was a cultural norm for that time and place for powerful men to have multiple wives and concubines.

That's not really what presentism is. Presentism doesn't say it is wrong to judge historical cultures from the norms of the present. That's a misinterpretation of a more respectable academic concept Julian developed when attempting to argue that critics were wrong for judging past Mormon behavior wrong according to their modern standards. Somehow, it spread like wildfire among a segment of the FAIR apologist crowd. Nothing like endorsing a cultural relativism to defend a religion filled with people who love to shadowbox with "relativism."

As a normative matter, I take a standard view that it's sometimes Ok to forgive behavior in the light of the cultural context in which it occurred. Suppose we blame ancient hebrew society for it's misogyny. That would be Ok, but we may also be inclined to forgive individual Jews on the grounds that a person can't be expected to rise very far above his cultural milieu. But forgiving a person presupposes judging his behavior to have been wrong. There's a difference between assigning blame and deciding what is and isn't wrong.

What presentism actually is anachronistically interpreting and depicting past events in terms of present day ideas. When I think of presentism, the first thing that pops into my mind is televangelists talking about the meaning of Biblical scriptures in anachronistically current, even American ways vs. credible historical Biblical scholarship. Your mileage may vary.

On the moral dimension, the idea is supposed to be that you separate out what occurred from your moral judgments about what occurred when describing it. You don't write a history of ancient Israel by calling it horribly misogynist. You describe ancient Israel's treatment of women matter of factly and then if you wish in a separate thought condemn it.

I think that's a bit naïve, but it isn't at all the culturally relativist notion being pimped. Arguing that this kind of presentism becomes the "presentism" you are talking about is essentially criticizing it as a bad idea.

[_EAllusion]

You know how hardcore evangelicals are always finding ways to read Daniel and Revelations as some epic, coherent end-times narrative about our modern society? We're all familiar with those. Mormons aren't exactly far apart from that crowd. That's blatant presentism. Calling the ancient practice of boiling people alive in oil wrong? Not presentism.