Green Oasis

Provocative? Perhaps.

But I know that I, personally, am much less willing to ask people to die to secure more oil to maintain my lifestyle now that I believe that once they die they are completely, irrevocably dead. I didn’t realize how precious life is until I knew how easy it is to lose it forever.

No, the soldiers who die won’t see their families again in heaven. Their mothers and fathers, spouses and children will never see the fallen again. Children will have to grow up without Mommy or Daddy. They will never again speak with them, hug them, or kiss them. They will never hear them laugh again.

Who am I to ask someone else to pay that eternal price so that I can drive my car and watch my DVDs?

Does this scenario seem familiar?

Half a century ago, a young social psychologist named Leon Festinger and two associates infiltrated a group of people who believed the world would end on December 21. They wanted to know what would happen to the group when (they hoped!) the prophecy failed. The group’s leader, whom the researchers called Marian Keech, promised that the faithful would be picked up by a flying saucer and elevated to safety at midnight on December 20. Many of her followers quit their jobs, gave away their homes, and dispersed their savings, waiting for the end. Who needs money in outer space? Others waited in fear or resignation in their homes. (Mrs. Keech’s own husband, a nonbeliever, went to bed early and slept soundly through the night as his wife and her followers prayed in the living room.) Festinger made his own prediction: The believers who had not made a strong commitment to the prophecy—who awaited the end of the world by themselves at home, hoping they weren’t going to die at midnight—would quietly lose their faith in Mrs. Keech. But those who had given away their possessions and were waiting with the others for the spaceship would increase their belief in her mystical abilities. In fact, they would now do everything they could to get others to join them.

At midnight, with no sign of a spaceship in the yard, the group felt a little nervous. By 2 a.m., they were getting seriously worried. At 4:45 a.m., Mrs. Keech had a new vision: The world had been spared, she said, because of the impressive faith of her little band. “And mighty is the word of God,” she told her followers, “and by his word have ye been saved—for from the mouth of death have ye been delivered and at no time has there been such a force loosed upon the Earth. Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room.”

The group’s mood shifted from despair to exhilaration. Many of the group’s members, who had not felt the need to proselytize before December 21, began calling the press to report the miracle, and soon they were out on the streets, buttonholing passersby, trying to convert them. Mrs. Keech’s prediction had failed, but not Leon Festinger’s.

(Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), via The Situationist)

Quite a few prophecies have failed, yet people still believe. We’ve expected Jesus to come again for two thousand years, for example. It seems like people have been saying “any day now” forever, at least since the day he died.

Why don’t we collectively say “You know what, we were wrong. Christ really isn’t coming.”? Even if Christ really is coming (the big tease), disbelief would be a reasonable reaction after two millennia of disappointment. Why does the biggest failed (so far?) prophecy in history fail to cause widespread disbelief?

One reason is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort we feel when there are two conflicting beliefs fighting it out in our minds. For example, if I believe myself to be an honest person, but I cheat on my taxes, this conflicting information will cause cognitive dissonance. I will probably do one of two things: I could either stop cheating on my taxes, or I could rationalize my dishonesty, perhaps by saying that I worked hard for my money and I deserve it.

The engine that drives self-justification, the energy that produces the need to justify our actions and decisions — especially the wrong ones — is an unpleasant feeling that Festinger called “cognitive dissonance.” Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent, such as “Smoking is a dumb thing to do because it could kill me” and “I smoke two packs a day.” Dissonance produces mental discomfort, ranging from minor pangs to deep anguish; people don’t rest easy until they find a way to reduce it. In this example, the most direct way for a smoker to reduce dissonance is by quitting. But if she has tried to quit and failed, now she must reduce dissonance by convincing herself that smoking isn’t really so harmful, or that smoking is worth the risk because it helps her relax or prevents her from gaining weight (and after all, obesity is a health risk, too), and so on. Most smokers manage to reduce dissonance in many such ingenious, if self-deluding, ways. (Ibid.)

In the case of the Second Coming, we don’t want to believe that we could be duped. “I’m not the kind of person who could fall for silly stuff like horoscopes, crystals, doomsday cults, and the like. But Christianity is different. Christianity is real. If it weren’t, I would see right through it because I’m not easily fooled.”

Personally, I have spent a lot of time in my life telling people that I knew that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, that Jesus loves us, and God has a plan for our lives. I spent two years doing this full time. I spent countless hours saying this and hearing it repeated in church services. Much of my life has been spent inside the walls of a church. I estimate that I’ve spent at least one full year of my life in church meetings. The church received 10% of my earnings before taxes, my whole life, every last penny. After committing so much time and energy to my beliefs, it was uncomfortable to think that I’d sacrificed all that for a lie.

I’m no fool, or so I like to tell myself. If my beliefs were false, then I’d have realized it a long time ago. False prophecies? You’re reading them wrong. Polygamy? It was God’s will. Racism? Talk to God ’cause I didn’t make the rules. Christianity borrowed from previous mythologies? No, the mythologies borrowed from Christianity. Contradictions in Holy Scripture? Errors in translation. Unanswered prayers? Maybe the answer was “No” or “Wait”, or maybe you weren’t faithful enough for God to speak to you.

I rationalized from morning till night. Evidence against my beliefs surrounded me. I constantly battled to preserve my self image as an intelligent, independent thinker. The truth was that I spent my intelligence in rationalization and followed like a sheep because I was too proud to admit that I didn’t see the Emperor’s clothes. I was the very thing I pretended not to be. I held on to my beliefs kicking and screaming until I was forced to see their absurdity.

I’ve been spending a good chunk of time at Clark Goble’s blog, Mormon Metaphysics. He posted about the problem of evil. I spent a little time over the past month challenging and examining some ideas that people proposed to overcome the problem of evil.

Things got more interesting (and more verbose all around) when Blake entered the fray (I believe this is Blake Ostler). The discussion has veered to the topic of the validity of “spiritual” experiences as a foundation for knowledge and a philosophical attack on naturalism.

Interesting, wide-ranging discussion.

Dear Brother Dastrup,

On several occasions you’ve expressed a desire to speak with me. I’ve refused your offers because I don’t recognize the authority of your position as bishop in the LDS church and because I don’t see any good that could come from it. I understand your purpose is to help me see the error of my ways, but any discussion on this point could only end in continued disagreement, if the tenor of your public remarks are a true indication of your thoughts on the matter.

Your public remarks last Sunday are the occasion for this letter. Given my situation, I think you’ll understand why I feel that your remarks were directed partially to me, or at least to my situation. It is your job to warn your congregation against heresy, so I shouldn’t feel singled out, yet I do. Perhaps you have reasonably given up on me and this is just a sign of my self-absorption, but I feel like you’re still trying to have your say despite my refusal to meet with you.

You used your bully pulpit to preach against my beliefs, so I will use my modest platform to respond. I realize that you are aware of this blog, but I don’t know if you read it. I would be surprised if you did, but I write this letter so that if you ever feel the desire to speak with me on this subject, I can point to this post and you’ll have a taste of what that discussion would be like.

Please excuse me if I didn’t hear all of your remarks. I was busy single-handedly keeping my girls from typical childhood mischief during a long meeting. Even the fact that their mother was speaking didn’t distract them for long.

When the speakers concluded their talks about the importance of education, you felt the need to fill a little of the extra time by warning against an education untempered by faith in Mormon doctrine. I’m sure you would have preferred for someone to quote 2 Nephi 9:29: “But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.”

The first point of your remarks that stood out to me was your use of the phrase “educated idiot” to paraphrase Paul’s warning to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:7 against those who are “[ever] learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Your phrase, educated idiot, is nothing more than an ad hominem attack to distract and amuse the congregation. It confers no true understanding. I merely serves to circle the wagons by insulting anyone who doesn’t believe in Mormonism. Your congregation’s pride in Mormonism was increased while you taught them nothing. I wish I was surprised by such reactive anti-intellectualism, but am not. It has infected all levels of the church.

Perhaps there is one thing to be learned from your use of the phrase. I can infer that you feel that anyone who disagrees with your beliefs must be lacking in intelligence or character. Life teaches us that good, honest, intelligent people disagree with each other. The fact that I or anyone else who is intimately familiar with Mormonism would reject it does not mean that we are evil, dishonest, or stupid. It means that we see the world differently. Humility and civility dictate that we acknowledge that disagreements will happen, and that we can be wrong on occasion. I did not hear any evidence of this humility in your remarks.

On the other hand, on your side you have Paul who identifies the people you call educated idiots with people who are “lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures…” and who “creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,…” (2 Timothy 3:2–4, 6) Do you truly think this of me?

Let’s leave the schoolyard insults to the children.

The second point that stood out to me was your use of the 747 argument, that old chestnut, to defend creationism. I presume you did this to demonstrate how education can go awry. You wanted to show how the educated conclusion (i.e. belief in the theory of evolution) is nonsensical. You wanted to foster the congregation’s dependence on the church for truth (i.e. creationism). There are a number of problems with this.

First, creationism isn’t an official doctrine of the LDS church. There was some controversy on the issue over the years, but the church has no official doctrine against evolution. The BYU Packet mentioned in the Deseret News article contains a few official statements showing that the church’s position is neutral.

So you should feel no compulsion by the requirements of your religion to abandon the evidence of science and reason. The First Presidency in their Christmas message of 1910 said:

Diversity of opinion does not necessitate intolerance of spirit, nor should it embitter or set rational beings against each other. The Christ taught kindness, patience, and charity.

Our religion is not hostile to real science. That which is demonstrated, we accept with joy; but vain philosophy, human theory and mere speculations of men, we do not accept nor do we adopt anything contrary to divine revelation or to good common sense. But everything that tends to right conduct, that harmonizes with sound morality and increases faith in Deity, finds favor with us no matter where it may be found.

Many faithful members of your church believe the theory of evolution to be the truth, especially among those most familiar with the evidence.

Second, the 747 argument is based on a misunderstanding of how the evolution of species works. The basic argument is that assembling something as complex as a human being from raw materials by random chance is as unlikely as a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a fully operational Boeing 747. We obviously don’t expect this to ever happen, so evolution can likewise not explain the origin of man. Or so the argument goes.

Unfortunately for this analogy, evolution isn’t a purely random process. It doesn’t create complexity randomly. It gradually fosters greater complexity through random mutation only if that mutation is conducive to enhanced survival and reproduction. Randomness may be evolution’s fuel, but the engine of natural selection is brutally non-random. The synthesis of the two builds up complexity over time producing a result which is not purely random.

For illustration, imagine dipping a jar into a muddy river and scooping out the water. Inside that water are many small particles randomly distributed. In the absence of gravity, those particles would remain randomly scattered within the water. On Earth, where there is gravity, if you leave the jar undisturbed and wait long enough, the sand and silt will settle to the bottom. Gravity acting on the random distribution and random movements of particles leads to a non-random result: water and sand in separate layers. Biological evolution similarly confers order on a random process.

Third, we could turn this argument on its head. Imagine walking to the junkyard, seeing a Boeing 747, asking the junkyard owner “Where did that come from?” Imagine your confusion when he answers “That has always been here. Since before the beginning of time it has been there.” You would probably doubt this man’s sanity.

Yet you ask me to believe that God—an entity much more complex than a 747 or even a human being—has existed for all eternity. You might counter that God hasn’t always been there, that he was once a man. (Are you sure that’s still official doctrine?) That only delays the problem. It simply replaces an eternal personal God with an eternal procession of Gods. Appealing to God or Gods to explain the complexity of the world doesn’t answer the question. It just leads to more complexity that still requires an explanation.

If you still want to discuss how the all things denote that there is a God, you can read how I imagine our conversation might proceed.

If you want to bear your testimony to me, I have also imagined how that conversation might go.

The message of the your remarks seems to be “Learn all you can, but remain ignorant of anything that contradicts what I, Brother Dastrup, personally believe.” In contrast, Elder Hugh B. Brown said:

Be unafraid of new ideas for they are the stepping stones to progress. But you will respect, of course, the opinions of others [but be unafraid to dissent if you are informed.]… Now I mention the freedom to express your thoughts, but I caution you that your thoughts and expressions must meet competition in the marketplace of thought, and in that competition truth must emerge triumphant. Only error needs to fear freedom of expression. Seek truth in all fields, and in that searching you’re going to need at least three virtues: courage, zest, and modesty. The ancients put that thought in [the] form of [a] prayer. They said, “From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all the truth—O God of truth, deliver us.”
(Man and What He May Become, BYU Speeches of the Year, 29 March 1958)

This blog is an open air marketplace of the truth. Anyone can peddle their wares here as long as they are respectful. I invite you to engage in the conversation here, in the light of day, where the truth can have a chance to emerge triumphant. Show me where I am in error, and I will try to show you where you stray from the truth, in the spirit of brotherly love.

Sincerely,

Your Brother

When I try to step into the religious frame of mind, I get a deep urge to scream and run for the hills. Religious ideas feel like ill fitting clothes on a sweaty, sticky summer day. They chafe and confine. Their irksome restraint gives me no moment of peace. I want to leap out of my confining clothes and into a refreshingly cool shower.

Such has been my experience as I try to explain why we need compassion for people whose inclination and perhaps action deviate from cultural norms. I hoped to demonstrate the need for compassion by using religious ideas and doctrines so that my religious interlocutors could see the need. I don’t expect them to become atheist. I just hope to speak up for true compassion.

But God looms large over the shoulder of the faithful. They might want to be more compassionate, but they first check with God who gives a slow, stern shake of the head. The faithful turn back around and say, “Sorry. God says homosexuals can’t get into heaven.” God hampers our native inclination to compassion. God kills our humanity.

People think they know the mind and will of God. The arrogance! Then they justify their own bigotry in his name. Their false idols sycophantically echo the believers’ prejudices back to them with the appearance of authority. When the compassion of their views is challenged, they assume that since God is Love, his laws are loving. The believer is satisfied that all is well in Zion (2 Nephi 28:21, 25).

If anyone needs me, I’ll be outside tilting at windmills.