Although I left the Mormon Church a little over 7 years ago, there are many aspects of it that still puzzle me. After doing my own independent research, and discovering that what I once thought was the "one and only true church on the face of the earth" is actually built on a stack of lies, I have continued to find it very puzzling as to why there are so many intelligent people who strongly believe in its tenets. And that is one of my main remaining fascinations with Mormonism and its hold on people. Why do they continue to believe when it is seems to be very clear that it is not true? Why do they simply accept it, right down the line, relying on blind faith rather than actual reasoning? Why do they cite "feelings" as a supposed valid reason for their belief when there is a mountain of evidence against it being true? Why do they assume that "Anti-Mormon Propaganda" is the explanation for whatever negative stance is taken against the Mormon Church when in actuality what is being stated is valid information against Mormonism? Why don't members do their own independent research instead of just going along and deciding to "just believe"? Very puzzling.
The membership of the Mormon Church is made up of a diverse array of people - and includes a wide spectrum of very educated people with advanced degrees (undergraduate, Master's Degrees, Ph.D's, Juris Doctors, Medical degrees, etc.) and people whose professions include doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, and so on. So if the church is actually an elaborate web of lies, why do these types of obviously intelligent people continue to believe in it? For me, that is the ultimate question - and it fascinates me.
What it seems to come down to is that these types of people, who are true believers, apply one type of reasoning to their lives in general, and another one to their religion. Although they obviously apply critical thinking skills to situations in their careers and lives in general, the same degree of scrutiny is not applied to their religion. They very simply "just believe" without examining and/or analyzing their belief system. One example of that is a Mormon man who I have exchanged several messages with on Facebook - first in commenting on a friend's thread, and then in several PMs. He is a lawyer, and is obviously very intelligent. He writes very well, and obviously puts a lot of thought into his comments and messages. But he is also a very devout Mormon who does not, by any stretch of the imagination, apply the critical thinking skills that he was taught in law school to his religion. He cites the Mormon Party Line down the line, and defends each and every precept as if his life depends on it. I have asked him why, since he was taught critical thinking skills in law school, he does not give Mormonism the benefits of such skills and look at it with an examining eye.
In fact, in one of my comments, I asked him, "...you're obviously a very intelligent man, evident not only from your writings but also from the fact that you have a law degree and a clerkship at the USDC. I'm sure in law school you learned how to analyze and dissect information... to scrutinize ideas and concepts. I'm curious as to why you haven't applied that scrutiny to Mormonism, particularly since from the evidence, it appears to have been a hoax from the get-go."
And this was his reply: "@Diane: Well, someone did their homework. There are two answers to your question: When it comes to my unquantifiable testimony, I can’t scrutinize it adequately. If you can’t tell, I’m obsessed with having good information and properly identifying what assumptions are being made to make a premise hold or fail. Regardless of what you believe, there are some real complexities to the human experience that simply can’t be analyzed rationally because the occurrences that happen would otherwise be irrational, except that they really happen. What that means for me is there is information that is unavailable. There’s stuff that I can’t sort out in my head. And in all the teachings of the Church, etc., I have found a certain degree of comfort that all these unquantifiable happenings accurately translate into a testimony. Now, that means nothing to you. I get it. But it means something to me, and it’s very persuasive. Second, if you want to examine truth apologetically, I am intellectually convinced the Church is true. That’s not to say there are no holes. But taking everything together and looking at all the evidence, my judgment is that the preponderance of the evidence swings toward a conclusion of truth. Now, the important part is that although we can disagree on the result, we cannot, however, disagree on the presentations of the evidence. And a big problem in the critical arguments against the Church is that they are premised on bad assumptions. For every issue you can raise, there is a bad assumption (I think). For example: Why did God change his mind about black people? There are multiple major false assumptions in that statement. And so applying “my scrutiny,” I take a step back, analyze the question, dissect it, and realize that the question is a bad one because it improperly begs a variety of questions. Once I can identify the fallacious portions, the analysis is actually really easy. So the question is: can you see the false assumptions? Something that magnifies the problems of this critical analysis is that Mormon culture really, really gets in the way. If we take Brigham Young at his word that most Mormons are going to hell, then we can’t very well rely on the idiosyncrasies of the membership to accurately reflect doctrine. And if we are critically analyzing practice instead of doctrine, the conclusion is wholly illusory. Problem is that many of these idiosyncrasies take on a life of its own. I think a perfect example is the Salt Lake City Council and how close they were to throwing the gay-rights ordinance to curb before the church stepped in and said it should pass. The same thing has happened on immigration, etc. Church members have misinterpreted the church’s (conservative) actions in one sphere, and become zealots for a false cause in another. As far as affirmative apologetics, there is a lot. But since I’m in the court system, let me give one example that resounds quite strongly for me: The three witnesses. Now, I’m aware of the holes (generally based on false assumptions and contexts). But the uncontroverted evidence is that each died with a dying declaration that what he said about the Book of Mormon was true. And that includes Whitmer, whom never came back to the church. Sure – they generally disliked (if not hated) Joseph Smith at some point, and even thought of him as a fallen prophet. But they never denied their experiences and affirmed what they had previously seen with their dying breath. As a policy matter, such evidence is very reliable. And the critics have been completely unable to explain it away. Being part of a team that sits, listens, and weighs evidence, I can’t objectively conclude anything else except to say there’s probably something to it."
Interesting response - very well thought out and expressed. The fact is that this man is obviously very intelligent, but the way in which he analyzes information about the Mormon Church seems to always end up putting him on the side of belief, even though there are (it seems to me) some very flawed methods in his "analysis." Circular Reasoning. Beginning from the pre-conceived notion that the church is true, and framing everything that he "analyzes" to that end. After this, we exchanged a few PMs, and his take on it all continues to puzzle me.
So although I've put Mormonism behind me, I still like discussing it and blogging about it, mainly because I am puzzled by why so many obviously intelligent people buy it, lock, stock and barrel. But I am convinced that if these people would just use their brains and their critical thinking skills instead of simply accepting the Mormon Party Line, they might actually see the lies, deceptions, cover-ups and contradictions embodied within Mormonism.
And this is the theme of my latest hymn parody.
JUST USE YOUR BRAIN
Sung to the tune of Do What is Right, #237
Just use your brain,
Your reasoning powers,
Inquiry with your own mind just makes sense.
Don’t follow blindly and simply accept it,
Don’t be a sheep, let your thinking commence.
(Chorus)
Just use your brain,
Let your reasoning powers
Tell you what’s right and what you should believe.
It makes more sense to use critical thinking,
Blindly obeying, don’t be that naïve.
Just use your brain,
Your rose-colored glasses
Simply obscure what reality shouts.
If you believe it without proper study,
All you are doing is squelching your doubts.
(Chorus)
Just use your brain
Let your reasoning powers
Tell you what’s right and what you should believe.
It makes more sense to use critical thinking,
Blindly obeying, don’t be that naïve.
Just use your brain,
Don’t just shelve your issues,
There is no wisdom in stifling yourself.
Don’t stuff it down, and then suffer in silence,
As you place more and more there on your shelf.
(Chorus)
Just use your brain
Let your reasoning powers
Tell you what’s right and what you should believe.
It makes more sense to use critical thinking,
Blindly obeying, don’t be that naïve.
© Diane Tingen, 6/19/2011
