After finishing the book about gene editing by Walter Isaacson (which I blogged about here), I found another of his books about Leonardo Di Vince. He was a very interesting man, and more up my alley as he was as much an engineer as he was an artist. As the author was summarizing that traits that made Leonardo a genius, he said the following:
Respect facts. Leonardo was a forerunner of the age of observational experiments and critical thinking. When he came up with an idea, he devised an experiment to test it. And when his experience showed that a theory was flawed- such as his belief that the springs within the earth are replenished the same way as blood vessels in humans he abandoned his theory and sought a new one. This practice became common a century later, during the age of Galileo and Bacon. It has, however, become a bit less prevalent these days. If we want to be more like Leonardo, we have to be fearless about changing our minds based on new information.
Leonardo Di Vinci, by Walter Isaacson
I wondered if that attribute could be applied to religious truths/facts.
The Book Of Mormon actually talks about “observational experiments” in Alma 32. First it asks us to do an experiment
32 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.
Alma 32:27
Next it goes into details about comparing the work of God to a seed, and planing it to see if it grows. It wants the reader to try to follow the word of God, and see if good things come of it. Next comes the observational part:
32 Therefore, if a seed groweth it is good, but if it groweth not, behold it is not good, therefore it is cast away.
33 And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good.
Alma 32:32-33
Alma is pretty much following Leonardo Di Vinci’s experimental process. You come up with an idea (the Word of God given by Church leaders is good and correct), then devise an experiment to test it, which is planting (following the word of God through your leaders). After a time, you look at your life and see if it is good. If it is good, it must be because you have been following the word of God. This raises another scientific principle: correlation is not causation. Just because your life is good, does not mean it was caused because you were following God’s word. Some people do not follow the word exactly as your leaders say, and other don’t even believe in God at all and also have a good life (the seed is growing).
So how can we apply Leonardo’s principles to our religious life? From the book it says “If we want to be more like Leonardo, we have to be fearless about changing our minds based on new information.” Does this apply to religion? So much of it is based on faith. I guess if you have faith in something, and then decide you have more faith in a contradictory view, it would be easy to change since both views are based faith, not facts.
But what about views you thought where based on facts? When I was a child, the Book of Mormon was historical, and you didn’t really need faith to believe it, there was so much evidence. All the Native Americans were Laminites, so there you have it. Now new information has come to light, and I have changed my mind, and do not believe the Book of Mormon has any historical basis. The facts do not support the migration detailed in the Book of Mormon. Now members believe based on faith.
Disregarding items of faith since they cannot be proven one way or the other, what are some of the truths about religion in general and the Mormon Church in particular that can be proven with facts?
What facts about the Church have you seen changed in your life time, or moved from the fact column to the faith column like my BofM example above?
Have you done the seed experiment in your life, and has it born good fruit?
Wheat & Tares 
Just because the Book of Mormon is not the history of all American Indians, doesn’t mean that it isn’t historical. Many attempts have been made to place the Book of Mormon history into the history of the Americas. Unfortunately, most of them are trying to prove locations where the Book of Mormon didn’t take place. However, it is interesting to observe Mayan historical records that describe historical events that directly correlate with the events of the Book of Mormon. These records correlate with a Book of Mormon geography that includes the Yucatán peninsula and does not include the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. http://bookofmormonlands.org/ (the site is safe. but not a secure https:).
Claims about the “factual” nature of the Book of Mormon, as you point out, quickly wilt under the light of empirical scrutiny. Things that can be proven with facts have more to do with church history, and that’s where things get dicey. History is, of course, replete with often competing narratives about the same event, but if we judiciously apply even a modicum of skeptical objectivity when looking at church history, the church doesn’t come out looking so good. That goes for everything from Joseph Smith’s version of polygamy (sending husbands away and then approaching their wives to become his “spiritual” wives and then publicly shaming them if they said anything) to the racist priesthood ban (which no modern church leader seems to be able to exactly pin down how that came about; was it doctrine? Was it policy? Who were all the responsible parties?, etc.) to the more recent debacles about finances, LGBTQ issues, and the squeezing of money out of impoverished people with the promise of eternal blessings (an absolutely insidious practice, IMHO. I always think of the line from the live version of U2’s “Bullet the Blue Sky”: “The god I believe in isn’t short of cash, mister”).
And the sort of willful blindness of many members when it comes to this stuff actually has very much to do with the scriptural passages you cite in your post. Both what you quote and other scriptures around the same issue essentially present a way to delude yourself into thinking that, because your life is good, God exists. Mormonism is nothing if not efficient when it comes to such things. If you can talk your members into brainwashing themselves (a “desire to believe” leads to belief, which then could lead to knowledge? That’s not really how things work; that’s more like magical thinking or wish-casting), that makes less work for the church’s leaders. And, as you rightly point out, correlation is not causation.
To refer to your question about changing our minds based on new information, I actually think the church, by example and by its institutional nature, actually tends towards the opposite; when new information comes to light, it doesn’t admit its previous errors and it doesn’t make a 90-degree turn based on the new information. What it does do is simply incorporate the new information into its pre-existing narrative. For just one example of this, take a look at how the church’s rhetoric has changed (or not) about women and the priesthood. Women don’t hold the priesthood. Well, they do, just sort of “through” their husbands. Women can give blessings. Well, they can’t really, or maybe they can. Oh, and they sort of hold the priesthood in the temple. Oh, and they sort of hold it “jointly” with their husbands. So they don’t really need to be given the priesthood, because they sort of already have it. Except they don’t really, because they aren’t formally given the priesthood and they can’t hold any priesthood leadership callings. See what I mean? New information and even new thinking about gender equality is sort of woven into the narrative, but the basic doctrinal “facts” don’t change.
“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated— And when we obtain any a blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.”
I’ve always been intrigued and confused by this portion of D&C 130. It seems to present a quasi-empirical approach to our interaction with Deity which somewhat resembles Cause And Effect. When broken down, it reads like this:
1. There exists a universal law. Since it’s referred to as “a”, it sounds singular here.
2. It cannot be repealed or recalled.
3. It was decreed (i.e. a legal proclamation) in Heaven – presumably declared by God/Gods before this earth came into being.
4. All blessings (i.e. things that flow from God and contribute to happiness and welfare) are predicated (affirmed and/or declared) upon this law.
So…
When we obtain any blessing from God, it is because we were obedient to that law upon which it is declared. Here, it sounds a bit like there may be many laws, each one with it’s own set of blessings that match up to that law’s requirements. Something like: if you want to swim in the deep pool (blessing), you have to be 12 years old and have completed two swimming classes (requirements of the pool law).
So, basically, I read this as saying “do this – this happens”, an irrepealable cause and effect promise from God, as universal as gravity. But here, for me, is where the confusion comes in. It doesn’t work…at least, not very often. Pavlov’s Dog experiment produces a more accurate stimulus/response. And what happens for those people who live a near-perfect life and everything falls apart for them is they are told that the blessings only come after this life and they need to read Why Bad Things Happen To Good People and Job. The scriptures send all kinds of mixed messages concerning gifts for the righteous and a lump of coal under the Christmas tree for the wicked. It is these mixed messages that fuel The Prosperity Gospel – which really works, just ask Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes and Benny Hinn who have gotten filthy rich off the blood and sweat of believers. And I see nowhere in D&C 130 or other scriptures that the blessings apply only to the afterlife. If I were God – and my calling and election is still pending – and I wanted to convince people to follow me, I would put D&C130 into effect. Once there was visible evidence that the only way to be prosperous in this world is to clean up your act, things would change fast, my friend. Would this do away with faith or agency? God forbid, as Paul would say. It would just put some teeth to cause and effect scriptural statements like “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it.” Now, that would be sweet.
I’m out of the Church because I don’t believe the Church’s truth claims, including the origin of the BOM, yet….I still believe the BOM is a powerful testament of Christ. Inspired fiction can be very powerful.
Some members don’t actually care about the truth claims, they really don’t. Or at least they are remarkably incurious about them. For me though, I’m willing to discard 50 years of belief and tradition and sociality because I find the Church to be illegitimate. But again, not everyone cares about the same things.
One final point: it is absolutely possible to have faith in something that is untrue. And sometimes that’s a good thing if it provides hope, peace, etc. It doesn’t work for me but it might work for you and I respect that.
I think the Mormon church perverts the meaning of faith, where the church requires belief in things even when they are clearly contradicted by the evidence. From millions of Jews in pre-colombian America, to the first two humans living in Missouri, to no death or reproduction before the fall, to a world younger than 7,000 years, to a common Egyptian funerary texts actually being a story about Abraham. Each one of these stories requires belief in the face mountains of evidence to the contrary.
The church could shift the faith narrative and get in line with both the evidence and common sense and say that these items/events are symbolic or allegorical, but they teach us some important lessons about god/man/morality and so they’re still relevant.
But instead church leaders teach members to doubt anything that contradicts the narrative, be it (“so-called”) experts, the facts , the scientific method, or just common sense.
It’s been almost a year since I left the church and turned in my temple recommend to the SP and asked to be released. Part of me worried that I’d experience calamity and tremendous loss. I still have my job, health, home, etc. the hardest part has been a mixed faith marriage but we’re managing. In some ways it’s been the best year of my life, having traveled more, exercised more, got promoted at work, and gone off my anti-anxiety meds (partially attributable to less church related stress and cognitive dissonance).
Unfortunately my data sample size is too small because this was only one year. . I was in the church for decades and hopefully will have a few decades w/o the church before my little experiment is finished. So far the results are promising – life and difficulty still happen but I’m happier and healthier w/o the LDS.
I have wondered many of these same things about how we teach faith, what it actually means, and why we conflate it with certainty, instead of being open to the “Mystery” of Godliness.
Religion, for all its possibility and potential for good, has painted itself into a corner by making it more about “Facts” (truth claims) instead of what it’s most equipped to offer, “Values”. As a result, it largely abandons and rejects any process of intellectual humility or honesty.
Eric Facer, in his essay on critical thinking wrote, “True scholarship, by definition, must “be conducted without bias, and results published, regardless of whether they confirm any particular hypothesis or doctrine,” If you begin with a desired conclusion, you must ignore contradictory evidence. “That is not scholarship (or faith); it is propaganda.”
This statement is a stinging indictment against any intellectual or spiritual endeavor that begins with the need to confirm what has already been decided. This problem, in my opinion, not only threatens “True Scholarship”, but also meaningful “Faith”. If my faith is pinned, at every turn, to confirming that “The Church is true”, then it already lacks what I think Moroni is teaching us in Moroni 7. Moroni seems to suggest that faith carries with it an ethical responsibility, which is, a willingness and humility to continually place my beliefs back into the experiment of mortalities crucible, to be tried and tested, to bring forth fruit meet for repentance. For as Moroni says, “Ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith”.
Faith is not a clinging to what I know, it’s taking the assurance I have and using it to hurl me towards the unknown. It’s exposure to the mystery of what God is and what I am capable of becoming. We might say faith is where rationality meets intuition. It’s when we have enough evidence to make things, not seen, plausible, and our common sense, moral compass urges us forward into the unknown. Thank you for your beautiful writing.
Alexis De Tocqueville captures in two paragraphs, what I believe, summarizes perfectly, the cycle of human failure. Shakespeare’s Hamlet says it this way, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. Human beings, and unfortunately, Latter day saints who tout themselves as truth seekers, have instead relegated themselves, without even knowing it, to “Proposition defenders”. We are no better than the corrupt version of science that Terryl Givens calls “Scientism”. Our seeking instinct has been obstructed by our loyalty to truth claims, instead of our commitment to God. And why wouldn’t it be? Why would one seek when what they know seems to be all there is?
“Provable Mormon Truths” – the ultimate oxymoron. Mormon religious truths are not provable without using serious mental gymnastics. However, there are more secular-oriented provable truths:
1. Women of the Tab Choir are relegated to wearing oversize cloth sacks posing as dresses.
2. Men averaging 80+ will always make the important decisions. Women need not apply.
3. The vast majority of orthodox Mormons support Trump and his minions.
4. Most TBMs have a soft spot in their hearts for the Tim Ballards of the world.
5. The Strengthening Church Members Committee protects us from exposure to dissenters and those with differing opinions. Think how quickly a Mormon da Vinci or Galileo would be excommunicated.
6. Sacrament meetings consist largely of repetitive emotionless hymns and mind numbing talks quoting our Dear Leaders.
There must be more.
Toddsmithson –
5 stars (of 5).
I used to take a very fact-based approach to my membership in the church. It wasn’t serving me. And it didn’t ultimately result in anything I could rightly label “faith.” Now I don’t know that I come to religion looking for anything that can be proven with facts. I’m not even sure I come to religion for the questions science can’t answer: why is there something, instead of nothing, etc. I’d rather read on my own, or take a philosophy class.
I come to religion for things like ritual, which I enjoy. Whether it’s mass with my grandma, sacrament meeting in my ward, or puja at the local mandir, ritual moves me. I come to religion for community. I come to religion to feel connection. It’s a beautiful and good thing to have a people, and by extension to realize we are all a people—or we should be. We belong to each other. We need each other.
Me too Margie!!
I gave a talk about Faith in sacrament meeting and went over Alma’s experiment. As part of the talk, I talked about seeking to find truth, and that asking questions and seeking answers is part of having faith. I shared that in doing Alma’s experiment I found that some of the things that I used to believe turned out not to be true (although I didn’t get specific about which things).
Not as part of my talk but as part of my own spiritual practice, I wrote out my own 13 articles of faith. One of my articles of faith states “In my search for TRUTH, if there is something that I believe, and then I find out there is something that is more true, or there’s a better conclusion that is closer to the truth, then I should drop my old conclusion and embrace the new conclusion.” It seems to go along with the process that Leonardo Da Vinci followed and Alma’s experiment with faith. I’m taking church leaders up on their offer when they say that we should seek to embrace and accept ALL truth (I do it even when the truth seems to be different than what the church teaches).
DeNovo: Your list is devastating and familiar. The slide into autocracy has been swift and total.
Regarding Alma 32, I’ve always been kind of hard on this method because it feels like a recipe for confirmation bias. If you want a thing to be true, then voila, it’s true. It’s all based on your feelings, after all. What else is the metaphorical seed (the idea? the thing you want?) “growing” and being “good” supposed to be? It’s entirely subjective. But on the other hand, some answers we seek ARE sujbective. If you pray about whether to go to college or whether to change your job or whether to have a child, these are answers that are really subjective. There’s no “truth” to be had. Applying this method to facts, though, like whether or not the BOM is about real historical people, is not scientific. Unfortunately, it’s kind of the norm nowadays for people to base their beliefs on feelings alone, and then accuse those whose values or beliefs differ of doing so. Realistically, basing our beliefs on feelings is a pretty human shortcoming that we all have to work tirelessly to combat because it’s the natural state of being.
I think one of the greatest problems plaguing society isn’t a lack of spirituality or religious devotion. It isn’t ignorance to science and its intended capabilities, limitations, or built-in skepticism. It’s both of those things combined.
The ignorance to science largely transcends political divides, though you do get slightly different brands. Conservatives are often quick to condemn new findings in science because it goes against their current beliefs and what science said before. That’s a strength of science, not a weakness. Liberals are often too quick to accept new science while disregarding built-in skepticism inherent to it. Society at large often seems so drunk with the scientific advancements of the last 200 years that it seems at times incapable of conceding that a lot of what we know could be upended in just a few decades.
My conservative friends will often brush off the latest nutritional study since the idea may have been upended multiple times before. I still don’t think that precludes our ability to apply what little we know to the best of our abilities. My liberal friends will often take the latest study making the rounds on the hourly news and tout it as gospel, never bothering to check up on the unreported fact that five other studies of greater and more randomized sampling may have failed to get the same results over the next few months. In fact, a depressingly high number of studies, regardless of how the results might align with your current views, simply can’t be replicated. Acknowledging that isn’t a rejection or disdain of current science. It’s simply an acknowledgment of its proper function.
I also look at some of my friends who got a PhD and the pressure they got to publish “meaningful” research. I look at the funding sources for some of these studies and wonder whether pressure points start to affect the flow and integrity of a study. I don’t think that science being used simply as a means “to know” something exists as purely as it was once intended.
Likewise, the faith component gets misunderstood as well. I have tried the experiment in Alma 32, and whatever feelings may have accompanied the process (often mistaken as THE process), I do feel I’ve had experiences with pure intelligence flowing into me, informing me of Gospel truths. I do think it’s improved my life, and have come to believe “the mind doth begin to expand” means having a mind capable of accepting truth wherever it can be found, including in the sciences.
I’ve slowly come to concede there really isn’t anything in life that we can know with 100% certainty, but we can come extremely close—close enough that it does start to change our behavior. Many things in the Gospel have done that for me.
Humans have been studying the stars since we could crane our necks upward, and we still regularly have discoveries that upend what we thought we knew about Astronomy. It’s foolhardy to believe Genetics won’t have similar moments in upcoming decades. And with North and South American geography, I think I’ve heard multiple times that we’ve only scratched the surface (literally in some cases) as to what’s there. Our sample size is severely lacking. There is simply not enough data to prove or disprove the Book of Mormon as Historical. I say that as much as a humble student of science as I do a man of faith.
Alma 32 is actually contradictory reasoning.
Verse 28: “Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts”
OK so I give place in my heart to a seed, meaning I open my mind to the idea of what someone is saying is true. Fair enough. Fine. Now how do I know that this is a true seed? 1) I don’t cast it out because of unbelief and 2) it begins to swell within my breasts. So in essence, I need to give it more of a chance. That’s fine. And I need to have a growth of it in my heart. So what if the seed isn’t growing? In comes verse 32: “Therefore, if a seed groweth it is good, but if it groweth not, behold it is not good, therefore it is cast away.” So a good seed will grow and a bad seed won’t. So, the seed isn’t growing in my heart, it is a bad seed. Fine. Just cast it away. Ah, but I’m not supposed to cast it away because of unbelief. I’m supposed to be giving it a chance, am I not? Then more of a zinger comes in at verses 38 and 39: “But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out. Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof.” In other words, if the seed isn’t growing or stops growing and bearing fruit that’s because your ground is barren. So wait, is a seed good if it grows. But if it doesn’t grow it is a bad seed. Later that is contradicted by saying that the seed isn’t bad but it is you who are bad. The burden of proof is always placed not on the preacher but upon the receiver. At what point can someone declare a seed to be bad and cast it out? How long must a person give an argument a chance when they just don’t see any evidence or any growth of the seed? It is pure confirmation bias. It is pulling a testimony out of thin air. It is believing something to be true because it is true. Circular reasoning.
The scientific method is backing up claims with evidence and also by showing alternative hypotheses to be false. Claims should be falsifiable due to the discovery of evidence being bad or the discovery of new evidence that adds to older evidence. Our views should shift with new evidence. The truth claims of the LDS church mostly lie within the realm of unfalsifiable. They are true because they are true. And maybe because of some so-called evidence shown. But if you question the evidence and find it to be bad or insufficient, that doesn’t mean that the truth claims aren’t true. How do I know that the truth claims are true? Well, I search, ponder, and pray and try to identify some sort of feeling as a witness to the truthfulness of the teachings. OK, how do I identify this feeling? Well, you feel it’s true by feeling it’s true.
Eli, to your last paragraph. Sure there is lots we don’t know. How exactly does that help the truth claims of the church, which are very bold and absolutist?
Alma 32 prescribes an open (non-blind) trial with subjective observations and a sample size of one (which, among other problems, means no control group). As far as experiments go, this one has virtually zero scientific value.
As Angela C said, many decisions can be made by trying something and seeing how it makes us feel, but the problem is in making the leap from personal feelings to inference of objective fact. If we enjoy dating someone, should we take it as a sign that God intends us to be together, or should we get married simply because we want to keep feeling good?
What would happen if the Church stopped telling investigators what to infer from what they feel? (“That’s the Holy Ghost, witnessing that the Book of Mormon is true, therefore our church is true.”) What if people joined simply because the fruit tastes good? As Douglas Adams said, “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Bishop Bill, with regards to your question about facts getting moved into the faith column, for me that describes pretty much all religious truth claims. And it’s not a matter of resorting to faith because science and logic have nothing to say about the truth claims, but rather it’s a matter of suspension of disbelief because I see science and logic actually providing reasons for disbelieving them. I don’t see Stephen Jay Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria” as an accurate model. It seems to me that science has been invading religion’s turf since day one, with religion in perpetual retreat.
And yet I’m still a somewhat religious person because that’s who I like to be.
This is what I have found to be the general reasoning of church members since growing up:
1) You are an active church member and bad things happen in your life = God is giving you trials and testing your faith, just keep praying and keeping your covenants and it will all turn out OK, even if it is just in the afterlife
2) You are an active church member and good things happen in your life = you’re being blessed for your church activity
3) You are an inactive church member and bad things happen in your life = you’re being punished by God. You need to repent and become active again for things to get better.
4) You are in inactive church member and good things happen in your life = just you wait, things are going to get bad soon and you’ll regret leaving the church. Even if things don’t get worse for you in this life, they most certainly will in the afterlife.
Brad D – In other words, good things and bad things happen to everyone and church activity or inactivity and keeping the commandments don’t make a difference one way or another.
I am not one who is real emotional so “feeling the Spirit” has never been something I can rely on. So I rely on logic which is something I do relate well to. (I have degrees in economics and accounting and am currently an auditor) Last time I tried to use the spirit I was humiliated in front of the Ward Counsel. Bishop did nothing. I find it easier now just not going and I am much happier. No one ever talked to me at church so the social aspect was never there anyway.
Brad D:
“In other words, if the seed isn’t growing or stops growing and bearing fruit that’s because your ground is barren. So wait, is a seed good if it grows. But if it doesn’t grow it is a bad seed. Later that is contradicted by saying that the seed isn’t bad but it is you who are bad. The burden of proof is always placed not on the preacher but upon the receiver. At what point can someone declare a seed to be bad and cast it out? How long must a person give an argument a chance when they just don’t see any evidence or any growth of the seed? It is pure confirmation bias.”
When the seed has grown into a sapling then it should be obvious that it was a good seed to begin with. And so when Alma speaks of neglecting the tree there is no logical discord with his initial statement about determining whether or not the seed is good at the outset.
Robert:
“Alma 32 prescribes an open (non-blind) trial with subjective observations and a sample size of one (which, among other problems, means no control group). As far as experiments go, this one has virtually zero scientific value.”
I could say the same thing about the love I have for my wife. I know what I feel–and my knowledge is close to absolute. In fact, I could say the same thing about my confidence in my wife’s love for me. It’s all very subjective–but real nonetheless.
What if you put the seed in a glass of water in your kitchen window, and it fails to grow?
I have an unscientific method of faith. My theory is that whenever we hear something that matches what is inside of us, that feels like “TRUTH” to us. I propose that we all have divine dna inside of us, but we all have different portions of the divine. Since we all have different truths inside of us, we all latch on to different truths when we hear them.
Even though you feel strongly that something is true, and I feel strongly that something else is true, it’s entirely possible that we are both right and we have both found pieces of a much larger truth.
(One system that describes the different truths that are inside of us is the enneagram. One of the aspects of the enneagram are that some people rely more on emotions, some rely more on thinking, and some rely more on instinct. It states that all of these methods are valid, but each type thinks that their method is the most valid). It’s totally new age wacko stuff, but it seems to me that this is how people actually operate and how the world works. Since it’s what is happening, I suppose maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I have an unscientific method of faith. My theory is that whenever we hear something that matches what is inside of us, that feels like “TRUTH” to us. I propose that we all have divine dna inside of us, but we all have different portions of the divine. Since we all have different truths inside of us, we all latch on to different truths when we hear them.
Even though you feel strongly that something is true, and I feel strongly that something else is true, it’s entirely possible that we are both right and we have both found pieces of a much larger truth.
(One system that describes the different truths that are inside of us is the enneagram. One of the aspects of the enneagram are that some people rely more on emotions, some rely more on thinking, and some rely more on instinct. It states that all of these methods are valid, but each type thinks that their method is the most valid – It also breaks it down into 9 ways people view the world and what is important to them). It’s totally new age wacko stuff, but it seems to me that this is how people actually operate and how the world works. Since it’s what is happening, I suppose maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
CosmoTheCat – Very interesting and insightful. That works nicely with Paul’s use of the “Body of Christ”, and in Corinthians 12 as he discusses gifts of the spirit. His implication is not that we all must individually acquire each gift, as good a goal as that might be, but to experience each of them as a function of belonging to the body. Christ is Paul’s word he uses, not as Jesus’ last name, but to describe the collective union of parts, each bringing their own gifts and weakness, to be shared, and in the sharing, we find wholeness, completeness (telios), the word translated as “Perfection”. In that way, perfection in Christ becomes what we gain by participating in the reciprocal relationships formed and shared within the “Body”.
Often, well-intentioned (even science-minded) TBMs might counter such an argument by saying “you can’t apply the scientific method to matters of faith, because God is way bigger than science, God’s ways are not man’s ways (etc)…and testimonies and matters of faith and spirituality are deeply personal, individual things that aren’t meant to be proven empirically anyway.” I’ve heard variations of this over the years, most recently from a friend in my ward who is a reputable PhD research scientist at a nearby state university, who is very sincere in his faith but also seems to be very good at keeping a solid firewall between his professional life and church life. There is a lot to unpack in that counter-argument, for sure, but the most obvious failing in it (for me at least) is that in LDS culture, one’s own faith is not truly personal and private. There is an expectation to perform it publicly, such as in bearing one’s testimony, or praying out loud, or making comments in Sunday School, where there is specific language that a faithful member is expected to use. Every day, missionaries are challenging people to pray about whether the Church/Gospel/BofM are “true”, but there is only one correct answer they expect to hear. Mormons don’t have permission to have a private faith, because we are expected to conform and perform a very narrow, correlated version of it throughout our lives. A good Mormon must be able to publicly profess that they “know” something is true based only on personal feelings, even with a lack of (or contrary to) evidence.
I am aware that are less-rigid bishops out there who sometimes tell struggling members (privately, behind closed doors) “you can believe anything you want to in this Church, just keep it to yourself” which may be either charitable or disingenuous, depending on your perspective. Personally, I long for a Church that publicly embraces nuanced members, regardless of what they believe or don’t believe. There may be some wards out there that are like this, but again, leader roulette.
This topic reminds me of the philosophical battle of Hegel vs Kierkegaard:
-Hegel would argue that the universe is systematic and ordered – if we can just understand and analyze the system well enough we could unlock all the big questions.
-Kierkegaard argued that there may be some high systematic order in the universe, but it’s way beyond us mortal humans to prove or use it. So better just to do our best, accept that some things are beyond humanity, and get on with actually living.
Kierkegaard asks the following question: Is there more truth in someone worshipping the “one true God,” but who does it with no passion and just goes through the motions, or in someone who may worship the wrong God but also puts their full heart into it?
He left the question open, and it’s worth thinking about.
This topic reminds me of the philosophical battle of Hegel vs Kierkegaard:
-Hegel would argue that the universe is systematic and ordered – if we can just understand and analyze the system well enough we could unlock all the big questions.
-Kierkegaard argued that there may be some high systematic order in the universe, but it’s way beyond us mortal humans to prove or use it. So better just to do our best, accept that some things are beyond humanity, and get on with actually living.
Kierkegaard asks the following question: Is there more truth in someone worshipping the “one true God,” but who does it with no passion and just goes through the motions, or in someone who may worship the wrong God but also puts their full heart into it?
He left the question open, and it’s worth thinking about.
Jack,
“When the seed has grown into a sapling then it should be obvious that it was a good seed to begin with. And so when Alma speaks of neglecting the tree there is no logical discord with his initial statement about determining whether or not the seed is good at the outset.”
Seeds, saplings, and trees can all fail in good ground (besides, who even determines whether some proverbial seed has grown in someone’s heart? It’s just the individual themselves, right? It could be that what someone is imagining to be a tree is nothing but an illusion). The contradiction in the parable is that it starts by saying that the plant could be bad and then ends by saying that it is the ground that is what is bad, never the plant. Alma says what the truth is and it is up to the listener to figure out how it is true. It is a backwards parable. It is the equivalent of making a list of outrageous claims and instead of backing them up and showing evidence in a logical framework to a skeptical audience, just telling them to “do your own research.” Science most certainly does not work that way.
Brad D,
That last paragraph was less intended as a support for the absolutist claims of the Church, and more as a caution against making strong claims that potentially go beyond the self-imposed limits and capabilities of science.
I’m not sure I understand the circular reasoning claim. I think the implication of Alma 32 is that there are a number of seeds out there, the true Gospel just being one of them. If I buy two different types of seeds from the store, give them the exact same prescribed treatment, only to find one is a dud and one is thriving– possibly even giving the dud a second try with another seed– that would start to lead to some questions about the viability of certain seeds. If I start comparing my treatment and seeds to those of others with the same seeds, I think I could make some reasonable conclusions, if still more subjective than a lot of other things.
Going back more to the OP, I think the scientific method and faith have more in common than we’d like to admit. Although I’ve heard a few different ways of describing the scientific method, a simplified version is as follows:
1. Make an observation.
2. Form a hypothesis.
3. Devise a testing mechanism for determining if your hypothesis is true, if one doesn’t exist already.
4. Run the test a sufficient number of times.
5. If not proven false, assume it’s true.
(6.) Understand there is not really a final word on your hypothesis, and that someone could come along a day or a century later and prove your hypothesis wrong.
Testing that hypothesis, in reality, does take some amount of faith, no matter how small or alternate word you might use for it.
With Faith,
1. I observe the people around me. I read or listen to their words. Many of them have made claims of seeing God while others have had experiences with The Spirit. I observe what this does to them and the fruits that they bear.
2. I form a hypothesis. Even as Primary kid, listening to my teachers, I can remember thinking in the back of my mind “Maybe this lady really does know something I don’t.” This fruit could actually come from something they’ve experienced.
3. Devise a testing method; “Ask of God.” I’ve got to admit, as an adult, I was somewhat surprised and even a little saddened to find that any likeness to Moroni’s promise, beyond James 1:5-6, is actually somewhat rare among other religions.
4. Run the test. Pray.
5. Receive the truth.
I realize that’s a comparison that will evoke a ton of eye-rolls and is extremely rough in nature, breaking down in parts. Fair enough. Additionally the greatest divergence between the two comes after prayer. With regular science experiments, you’ve got results that can readily be demonstrated and shared with those around you. With prayer and what comes after, that information transfer from the Holy Ghost is intensely personal. Not being to explain or share that intensely personal experience is a frustration that affects both believer and non-believer. Somewhat ironically and paradoxically, however, I think it’s part of that intensely personal experience that makes that knowledge so beautifully convincing, and of which reasonable conclusions can be made. As a Church community, we share the lead up and aftermath of those experiences, and go about helping others to experience the same, but it’s ultimately an experience between us and God.
Brad:
“The contradiction in the parable is that it starts by saying that the plant could be bad and then ends by saying that it is the ground that is what is bad, never the plant.”
I don’t know much about these things–but it seems (to me) that wisdom literature can be filled with mixed metaphors and various forms of symbology. Even so, in Alma’s case I think it’s pretty clear that, at the beginning of his discourse, he’s talking about determining whether or not the *seed* is good. And then as he begins to develop the parable–it is when he speaks of the plant as a *tree* that he mentions that our ground might be barren if the tree is not thriving. So, IMO, he’s saying that a even though a seed may be good it can fail during it’s growth cycle if we don’t nourish it.
Re: Science: Perhaps I’ve misunderstood you–but I don’t think it’s important that the process of getting spiritual knowledge lines up with scientific methodologies. There are many ways of knowing. Science isn’t very useful in determining the quality of art, or quantifying matters of love, or settling moral ambiguity. So too with spiritual knowledge science doesn’t have all the tools necessary to falsify spiritual knowledge in an objective manner. In Alma’s parable we see right from the get-go that the experiment he proposes differs from modern scientific methodologies. There’s an added step in proving “x” by first allowing the listener to process Alma’s witness. And then he outlines a way of knowing that can only be understood subjectively. It may not be objectively falsifiable–but it is a real way of knowing. And we are enmeshed in that kind of epistemology pretty-much 24/7–with the understanding that even though spiritual knowledge goes beyond the five senses it is no less real.
There’s a lot of talk about knowing and Alma 32. The seed metaphor can only go so far. Knowing in a scientific sense is not the same as “knowing” in a spiritual sense.
Yes, at some level it is possible to scientifically know all these religious ideas and which (if any) are right, but that’s beyond the scope of us mortals (Kierkegaard again). We can, however, know how it moves and inspires us to live our lives then say we “know” that seed sprouted into something useful for us.
The trouble is that churches will say that your spiritual “knowledge” is only valid if it lines up with their ideas of truth. Mormonism tends to get very absolutist in this sense, when in reality it’s still just a bunch of humans claiming to understand things way beyond the scope of mortals (whether they’re inspired or not).
The funny thing about is humans is that we are always very confident that we know a whole lot more than we actually do…this happens in religion and in science. Science just tends to do a better job of self correcting when new evidence arrives.
Back to one of the questions in the OP:
Bruce R. McConkie made a whole pile of assumptions that were regarded as facts both biblically and in the BoM that were entirely baseless. Some of his disproved ideas are still considered facts by many LDS members.
He was responsible for the 1981 BoM introduction saying that Lamanites were the principal ancestors of Native Americans. Later DNA studies of native Americans showed no evidence that their “principal ancestors” came from anywhere near Jerusalem. So the church updated the intro to say, “Nevermind, they are AMONG the ancestors of American Indians, ” and now agrees that there isn’t conclusive DNA evidence at present to prove the Book of Mormon…but also says there’s not conclusive evidence to disprove it either (which is technically true).
The truth is, that it was never a fact…a smart, smooth-talking lawyer named Bruce made seemingly-logical claims turned out to be provably false and it impacted the credibility of the whole church.
The Pirate Priest,
What you say toward the end of your comment is a good example of how science can be very useful in a religious setting. We were wrong about a lot of things vis-a-vis the logistical elements of the Book of Mormon’s narrative. And it wasn’t until scientists brought their expertise to bear on the text that a different picture began to emerge with regard to the BoM’s geography and other areas of scientific inquiry. And so, I for one, am glad to see the church make appropriate adjustments that reflect the findings of science.
That said, I’m quite certain that no amount of scientific deduction or inference will ever cause the church to change its position on the resurrection of the Savior. It is a core doctrine that has been revealed through both the scriptures and modern prophets.
And as to the first part of your comment: I’d say that not only is spiritual knowledge a knowing of sorts–it is also a way of knowing through experience with the charismatic elements of the spirit. And the more we open ourselves up to those elements the more they manifest to us the larger realm of the upper world. And so we’re talking about something that goes beyond feelings in our heart and knowledge in our head. It’s an experience with a tangible world that is just as real albeit much larger than this fallen sphere.
Alma’s “experiment” is no such thing and can’t be compared to a process of falsification (like what DaVinci or Galileo were trying to do). So, I’m lost at the very start of Bishop Bill’s post. As others here have pointed out, Alma’s “experiment” contains an internal contradiction. It’s also a recipe for confirmation bias. But Alma wasn’t dumb. He wasn’t using the word in a scientific sense at all. A better word for what Alma’s saying here would be “invite” or “exercise”. Instead of a scientific plea, I read this passage as equivalent to Alma saying, “For those of you who want to build your faith, I invite you to try this exercise…”. That’s very different.
Alma comes closer to articulating something resembling a scientific argument two chapters earlier. This is the part where Alma tells Korihor that, “All things denote there is a God.” That little section right there may be the first intelligent design argument in all ancient scripture. (Are there even any others? Please tell me. ) It’s an argument that gets used even today. Now, intelligent design arguments have their own set of weaknesses. For starters, they’re not claims that that can ever be falsified (again, the process that DaVinci was describing). For example, I’d love to ask Alma, “Okay. But what things about the earth and space, Alma, would you need to observe to conclude there was no God? Can you think of anything”? ) But again, Alma wasn’t dumb. He knew it’s limits. He was entirely correct in sayimg that these attributes about the earth and stars merely “denote” there is a God. And in the context of countering Korihor (who was failing even worse at an opposing argument) it was an appropriate response.
Brother Sky says, the racist priesthood ban (which no modern church leader seems to be able to exactly pin down how that came about; was it doctrine? Was it policy? Who were all the responsible parties?, etc.
Prince says, in “David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism,” that McKay undertook an investigation of the origins of the ban, concluded that it was policy and not doctrine, but still concluded that it would take a revelation to change it. That might be more a comment on the LDS cultural mindset than on anything else, frankly.
It’s “Da Vinci,” darn it.
I used to think that a testimony could be gained, essentially, by use of the scientific method – read, ponder, put it to the Moroni prayer test. Then I realized that for the scientific method to be valid, an impartial observer was required. I’m a convert, but I won’t pretend that I didn’t have some emotional skin in the game.
I think, this post stimulates the imagination about (my term) matching-logy or fit-logy. It was like finding a coincidence between religious teachings and what happened next in human life.
Science and faith have their respective domains, have their respective roles, but both remain in one unity.
In science, it is stated that the human brain has 2 main parts, one dealing with logic, the other one dealing with the things beyond logic (instinct, belief, consciousness, love, etc.).
It is also depicted in the “Yin & Yang” symbol where white & black can not be mixed, but remain in one unity.
Have you ever imagined that all sophisticated electronic devices such as computers, smartphones, TVs, fans, can function only from “positive” and “negative” electrical signals. Just connect it to an electrical socket or battery that has positive and negative pole. The mechanical parts (visible) inside the devices (such as transistor, chips, gears, shaft, switch, etc.) is the parable as human body. The electrical signal (invisible) is the parable as the soul.
Fortunately, humans have the both realms to be able to deal wisely with this mortal world and Almighty (The Owner of the soul).