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Hello! I call myself Atomliner. I'm a 23 year old male Political Science major at Utah Valley University.
From 2009 to 2011, I was a missionary for the Mormon Church in northeastern Brazil. In the last month I was there, I was living with another missionary who I discovered to be a closet atheist. In trying to help him rediscover his faith, he had me read The God Delusion, which obliterated my own. I can't say that book was the only thing that enabled me to leave behind my irrational worldview, as I've always been very intellectually curious and resistant to authority. My mind had already been a powder keg long before Richard Dawkins arrived with the spark to light it.
Needless to say, I quickly embraced atheism and began to read everything I could about living without belief in God. I'm playing catch-up, trying to expand my mind as fast as I can to make up for the lost years I spent blinded by religious dogma. Just two years ago, for example, I believed homosexuality was an evil that threatened to destroy civilization, that humans came from another planet, and that the Lost Ten Tribes were living somewhere underground beneath the Arctic. Needless to say, my re-education process has been exhausting.
One ex-Mormon friend of mine introduced me to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which I read only a few chapters of, but I was intrigued by the concept of Bayes Theorem and followed a link here. Since then I've read From Skepticism to Technical Rationality and many of the Sequences. I'm hooked! I'm really liking what I find here. While I may not be a rationalist now, I would really like to be.
And that's my short story! I look forward to learning more from all of you and, hopefully, contributing in the future. :)
Welcome to LW! Don't worry about some of the replies you're getting, polls show we're overwhelmingly atheist around here.
Some of that might be because of evaporative cooling. Reading the sequences is more likely to cause a theist to ignore Less Wrong then it is to change their beliefs, regardless of how rational or not a theist is. If they get past that point they soon find Less Wrong is quite welcoming towards discussions of how dumb or irrational religion is but fairly hostile to those that try and say that religion is not irrational; as in this welcome thread even points that out.
What I am wondering about is why it seems that atheists have complete caricatures of their previous theist beliefs. What atomliner mentions as his previous beliefs has absolutely no relation to what is found in Preach My Gospel, the missionary manual that he presumably had been studying for those two years, or to anything else that is found in scripture or in the teachings of the church. So are the beliefs that he gives as what he previously believed actually what he believed and if so what did he think of the complete lack of those beliefs being found in scripture and the publications of the church that he belonged to and where did he pick up these non standard beliefs? Or is something else entirely going on when he says that those were his beliefs?
This doesn't limit itself to atomliner; in my experience generally when atheists talk about their previous religion they seem to have always held (or claim they did) some extremely non-standard version of that religion. So is this a failure of the religion to communicate what the actual beliefs are, a failure of the ex-theist to discover what the beliefs of the religion really are and think critically about, in Mormon terms, "faith promoting rumors" (also known as lies and false doctrine, in Mormon terms), or are these non-standard beliefs cobbled together from "faith promoting rumors" after the atheist is already an atheist to justify atheism?
I know that atheists can deal with a lot of prejudice from believers about why they are atheists so I would think that atheists would try and justify their beliefs based on the best beliefs and arguments of a religion and not extreme outliers for both, as otherwise it plays to the prejudice. Or at least come up with something that actually are real beliefs. For any ex-Mormon there are entire websites of ready made points of doubt which are really easy to find, there should be no need to come up with such strange outlier beliefs to justify oneself, and if justifying isn't what he is doing then I am really very interested in knowing how and why he held those beliefs.
Suppose there is diversity within a religion, on how much the sensible and silly beliefs are emphasized. If the likelihood of a person rejecting a religion is positively correlated with the religion recommending silly beliefs, then we should expect that the population of atheist converts should have a larger representation of people raised in homes where silly beliefs dominated than the population of theists. That is, standard evaporative cooling, except that the reasonable people who leave become atheists, and similarly reasonable people who are in a 'warm' religious setting can't relate. (I don't know if there is empirical support for this model or not.)
I was not trying to justify my leaving the Mormon Church in saying I used to believe in the extraordinary interpretations I did. I just wanted to say that my re-education process has been difficult because I used to believe in a lot of crazy things. Also, I'm not trying to make a caricature of my former beliefs, everything I have written here about what I used to believe I will confirm again as an accurate depiction of what was going on in my head.
I think it is a misstatement of yours to say that these beliefs have "absolutely no relation to... anything else that is found in scripture or in the teachings of the church". They obviously have some relation, being that I justified these beliefs using passages from The Family: A Proclamation to the World, Journal of Discourses and Doctrine & Covenants, pretty well-known LDS texts. I showed these passages in another reply to you.
In all fairness, JohnH wrote his post before you showed him those passages. So that data was not available to him at the time of writing.
IIRC the standard experimental result is that atheists who were raised religious have substantially above-average knowledge of their former religions. I am also suspicious that any recounting whatsoever of what went wrong will be greeted by, "But that's not exactly what the most sophisticated theologians say, even if it's what you remember perfectly well being taught in school!"
This obviously won't be true in my own case since Orthodox Jews who stay Orthodox will put huge amounts of cumulative effort into learning their religion's game manual over time. But by the same logic, I'm pretty sure I'm talking about a very standard element of the religion when I talk about later religious authorities being presumed to have immensely less theological knowledge than earlier authorities and hence no ability to declare earlier authorities wrong. As ever, you do not need a doctorate in invisible sky wizard to conclude that there is no invisible sky wizard, and you also don't need to know all the sophisticated excuses for why the invisible sky wizard you were told about is not exactly what the most sophisticated dupes believe they believe in (even as they go on telling children about the interventionist superparent). It'd be nice to have a standard, careful and correct explanation of why this is a valid attitude and what distinguishes it from the attitude of an adolescent who finds out everything they were told about quantum mechanics is wrong, besides the obvious distinction of net weight of experimental evidence (though really that's just enough).
LW has reportedly been key in deconverting many, many formerly religious readers. Others will of course have fled. It takes all kinds of paths.
The trouble with this heuristic is it fails when you aren't right to start with. See also: creationists.
That said, you do, in fact, seem to understand the claims theologians make pretty well, so I'm not sure why you're defending this position in the first place. Arguments are soldiers?
Well, I probably know even less about your former religion than you do, but I'm guessing - and some quick google-fu seems to confirm - that while you are of course correct about what you were thought, the majority of Jews would not subscribe to this claim.
You hail from Orthodox Judaism, a sect that contains mostly those who didn't reject the more easily-disprove elements of Judaism (and indeed seems to have developed new beliefs guarding against such changes, such as concept of a "written and oral Talmud" that includes the teachings of earlier authorites.) Most Jews (very roughly 80%) belong to less extreme traditions, and thus, presumably, are less likely to discover flaws in them. Much like the OP belonging to a subset of Mormons who believe in secret polar Israelites.
Again, imagine a creationist claiming that they were taught in school that a frog turned into a monkey, dammit, and you're just trying to disguise the lies you're feeding people by telling them they didn't understand properly! If a claim is true, it doesn't matter if a false version is being taught to schoolchildren (except insofar as we should probably stop that.) That said, disproving popular misconceptions is still bringing you closer to the truth - whatever it is - and you, personally, seem to have a fair idea of what the most sophisticated theologians are claiming in any case, and address their arguments too (although naturally I don't think you always succeed, I'm not stupid enough to try and prove that here.)
Disbelieving based on partial knowledge is different from disbelieving based on mistaken belief.
I believe the result is that atheists have an above average knowledge of world religions, similar to Jews (and Mormons) but I don't know of results that show they have an above average knowledge of their previous religion. Assuming most of them were Christians then the answer is possibly.
In this particular case I happen to know precisely what is in all of the official church material; I will admit to having no idea where his teachers may have deviated from church publications, hence me wondering where he got those beliefs.
I suppose I can't comment on what the average believer of various other sects know of their sects beliefs, only on what I know of their sects beliefs. Which leaves the question of plausibility that I know more then the average believer of say Catholicism or Evangelical Christianity or other groups not my own.
[edit] Eliezer, I am not exactly new to this site and have previously responded in detail to what you have written here. Doing so again would get the same result as last time.
As a Grade 11 student currently attending a catholic school (and having attended christian schools all my life) I would have to vouch for the accuracy of the statement; thanks to CCS I've learned a tremendous amount about Christianity although in my case there was a lot less Homosexuality is bad then is probably the norm and more focus on the positive moral aspects...
I currently attend Bishop Carroll HS and even though it is a catholic school I have no desire to change schools because of the alternate religious courses they offer and because it's generally a great school. From my experiences there are a ton of non-religious students as well as several more unusual religions represented. I personally would recommend the school for any HS students in Calgary wishing to have a non-standard HS experience.
How much of this effect do you think is due to differences in intelligence?
Really? It don't think it takes an exceptional degree of rationality to reject religion.
I suspect what you mean is that atheists /ought/ to justify their disbelief on stronger grounds than the silliest interpretation of their opponent's beliefs. Which is true, you shouldn't disbelieve that there's a god on the grounds that one branch of one religion told you the royal family were aliens or something - that's just an argument against a specific form of one religion not against god in general.
But I suspect the task would get no easier for religion if it were facing off against more rational individuals, who'd want the strongest form of the weakest premise. (In this case I suspect something like: What you're talking about is really complex/improbable, before we get down to talking about the specifics of any doctrine, where's your evidence that we should entertain a god at all?)
Selection bias maybe? You're talking to the atheists who have an emotional investment in debating religion. I'd suspect that those who'd been exposed to the sillier beliefs would have greater investment, and that stronger rationalists would have a lower investment or a higher investment in other pursuits. Or maybe atheists tend to be fairly irrational. shrug
I agree intuitively with your second sentance (parsing 'beliefs' as 'religious beliefs'); but as I assign both options rather low probabilities, I suspect that it isn't enough to cause much in the way of evaporative cooling.
I haven't really seen that hostility, myself.
Hmmm. It seems likely that the non-standard forms have glaring flaws; close inspection finds the flaws, and a proportion of people therefore immediately assume that all religions are equally incorrect. Which is flawed reasoning in and of itself; if one religion is flawed, this does not imply that all are flawed.
I think John means "hostility" more in the sense of "non-receptiveness" rather than actively attacking those who argue for theism.
Yup, this seems to fit.
Being called a moron seems hostile to me, just to use an example right here.
That was certainly hostile, yes. However, I take the fact that the post in question is at -10 karma to suggest that the hostility is frowned upon by the community in general.
Sorry, I should have specified "except for Kawoomba".
Ah. To my mind, that would be 'neutrality', not 'hostility'.
Ironically, this turned out not to be the case; he was thinking of Kawoomba, our resident ... actually, I'd assumed he only attacked me on this sort of thing.
A common problem when one person tries to explain the words of another to a third party, yes.
Funny thing - I had a brief interaction over private messaging with Kawoomba on the subject of religion some time back, and he seemed reasonable at the time. Mildly curious, firmly atheistic, and not at all hostile.
I'm not sure if he changed, or if he's hostile to only a specific subcategory of theists?
As I said, I'd assumed it was just me; we got into a rather lengthy argument some time ago on whether human ethics generalize, and he's been latching onto anything I say that's even tangentially related ever since. I'm not sure why he's so eager to convince me, since he believes his values are incompatible with mine, but it seems it may have something to do with him pattern-matching my position with the Inquisition or something.
Have you noticed any difference between first and second generation atheists, in regard to caricaturing or contempt for religion?
Really? I would have expected most aspiring rationalists who happen to be theists to be mildly irritated by the anti-theism bits, but sufficiently interested by the majority that's about rationality. Might be the typical mind fallacy, though.
I would assume this is because the standard version of major religions likely became so by being unusually resistant to deconversion - including through non-ridiculousness.
EDIT: also, I think those were intended as examples of things irrational people believe, not necessarily Mormons specifically.
Well, I don't strongly identify as a theist, so it's hard for me to have an opinion here.
That said, if I imagine myself reading a variant version of the sequences (and LW discourse more generally) which are anti-some-group-I-identify-with in the same ways.... for example, if I substitute every reference to the superiority of atheism to theism (or the inadequacy of theism more generally) with a similar reference to the superiority of, say, heterosexuality to homosexuality (or the inadequacy of homosexuality more generally), my emotional response is basically "yeah, fuck that shit."
Perhaps that's simply an indication of my inadequate rationality.
That's possible. Another possibility is that when tribe members talk about their tribe, they frequently do so charitably (for example, in nonridiculous language, emphasizing the nonridiculous aspects of their tribe), while when ex-members talk about their ex-tribe, the frequently do so non-charitably.
This is similar to what happens when you compare married people's descriptions of their spouses to divorced people's descriptions of their ex-spouses... the descriptions are vastly different, even if the same person is being described.
I can confirm that it is indeed annoying, and worse still can act to reduce the persuasiveness of a point (for example, talking about how large groups of people/experts/insert other heuristic here fails with regard to religion.) Interestingly, it's annoying even if I agree with the criticism in question, which would suggest it's probably largely irrational, and certain rationality techniques reduce it, like the habit of ironmanning people's points by, say, replacing "religion" with racism or the education system or some clinically demonstrated bias or whatever.
There's probably a bit of that too, but (in my experience) most atheists believed an oddly ... variant ... version of their faith, whether it's because they misunderstood as a child or simply belonged to a borderline splinter group. Mind you, plenty of theists are the same, just unexamined.
These examples are not at all analogous. Claims about the existence of divine agents - or the accuracy of old textbooks - are epistemological claims about the world and not up to personal preferences. What do I know and how do I know it?
Claims about preferences can by definition not be objectively right or wrong, but only be accurate or inaccurate relative to their frame of reference, to the agent they are ascribed to. Even if that agent were some divine entity. Jesus would like you to do X, but Bob wouldn't.
Or, put differently:
"There is a ball in the box" - Given the same evidence, Clippy and an FAI will come to the same conclusion. Personal theist claims mostly fall in this category ("This book was influenced by being X", "the universe was created such-and-such", "I was absolved from my sins by a god dying for me").
"I prefer a ball in the box over no ball in the box" - Given the same evidence, rational actors do not have to agree, their preferences can be different. Sexual preferences, for example.
The reason that theists are generally regarded as irrational in their theism is because there is no reason to privilege the hypothesis that any particular age old cultural text somehow accurately describes important aspects of the universe, even if you'd ascribe to some kind of first mover. Like watching William Craig debates, who goes from some vague "First Cause" argument all the way to "the Bible is right because of the ?evidence? of a supernatural resurrection". That's a long, long way to skip and gloss over. Arguing for a first mover (no restriction other than "something that started the rest") is to arguing for the Abrahamic god what predicting the decade of your time of death would be to predicting the exact femtosecond of your death.
Such motivated cognition compromises many other aspects of one's reasoning unless it's sufficiently cordoned off, just like an AI that steadfastly insisted that human beings are all made of photons, and needed to somehow warp all its other theories to accommodate that belief.
Well, this explains the mystery of why that got downvoted by someone.
Firstly, you're replying to an old version of my comment - the section you're replying to is part of a quote which had a formatting error, which is why it forms a complete non-sequitur taken as a reply. I did not write that, I merely replied to it.
You know, I agree with you, homosexuality isn't a great example there. However, it's trivially easy to ironman as "homosexuality is moral" or some other example involving the rationality skills of the of the general populace.
The fact that something is true only relative to a frame of reference does not mean it "can by definition not be objectively right or wrong". For example, if I believe it is correct (by my standards) to fly a plane into a building full of people, I am objectively wrong - this genuinely, verifiably doesn't satisfy my preferences. I may have been persuaded a Friendly superintelligence has concluded that it is, or that it will cause me to experience subjective bliss (OK, this one is harder to prove outright, we could be in a simulation run by some very strange people. It is, however, irrational to believe it based on the available evidence.)
Ayup.
As I said earlier, it's trivially easy to ironman that reference to mean one of the political positions regarding the sexual preference. If he had said "abortion", would you tell him that a medical procedure is a completely different thing to an empirical claim?
Forgive me if I disagree with that particular empirial claim about how our community thinks.
"The Bible is right because of the evidence of a supernatural resurrection" is an argument in itself, not something one derives from the First Cause. However, the prior of supernatural resurrections might be raised by a particular solution to the First Cause problem, I suppose, requiring that argument to be made first.
I guess I can follow that analogy - you require more evidence to postulate a specific First Mover than the existence of a generalized First Cause - but I have no idea how it bears on your misreading of my comment.
Source? I find most rationalists encounter more irrational beliefs being protected off from rational ones than the inverse.
How is that example any different, how is it not also a matter of your individual moral preferences? Again, you can imagine a society or species of rational agents that regard homosexuality as moral, just as you can imagine one that regards it as immoral.
By objectively right or wrong I meant right or wrong regardless of the frame of reference (as it's usually interpreted as far as I know). Of course you can be mistaken about your own preferences, and other agents can be mistaken when describing your preferences.
"Agent A has preference B" can be correct or incorrect / right or wrong / accurate or inaccurate, but "Preference B is moral, period, for all agents" would be a self-contradictory nonsense statement.
Of course "I think abortion is moral" can widely differ from rational agent to rational agent. Clippy talking to AbortAI (the abortion maximizing AI) could easily agree about what constitutes an abortion, or how that procedure is usually done. Yet they wouldn't need to agree about the morality each of them ascribes to that procedure. They would need to agree on how others ("this human in 21th century America") morally judge abortion, but they could still judge it differently. It is like "I prefer a ball in the box over no ball in the box", not like "There is a ball in the box".
I forgive you, though I won't die for your sins.
It is ... an argument ... strictly formally speaking. What else could explain some eye witness testimony of an empty grave, if not divine intervention?
Only when some nonsense about "that cause must be a non-physical mind" (without defining what a non-physical mind is, and reaching that conclusion by saying "either numbers or a mind could be first causes, and it can't be numbers") is dragged in, even then the effect on the prior of some particular holy text on some planet in some galaxy in some galactic cluster would be negligible.
"I can confirm that it is indeed annoying", although I of course admit that this is branching out on a tangent - but why shouldn't we, it's a good place for branching out without having to start a new topic, or PMs.
Not everything I write needs to be controversial between us, it can be related to a comment I respond to, and you can agree or disagree, engage or disengage at your leisure.
What do you mean, protected off in the sense of compartmentalized / cordoned off?
We seem to be using "moral" differently. You're using it to refer to any preference, whereas I'm using it to refer to human ethical preferences specifically. I find this is more useful, for the reasons EY puts forth in the sequences.
If you can be mistaken - objectively mistaken - then you are in a state known as "objectively wrong", yes?
Again, I think we're arguing over terminology rather than meaning here.
Zing!
Because that's the only eyewitness testimony contained in the Bible.
Well, since neither of actually have a solution to the First Cause argument (unless you're holding out on me) that's impossible to say. However, yes, if you believed that the solution involved extra-universal superintelligence, it would raise the prior of someone claiming to be such a superintelligence and exhibiting apparently supernatural power being correct in these claims.
What does the relative strength of evidence required for various "godlike" hypotheses have to do with the annoyance of seeing a group you identify with held up as an example of something undesirable?
Uh ... sure ... I don't exactly reply to most comments you make.
Yup.
This^
That said, my hypothetical atheist counterpart would have made the exact same comment. I can't speak for JohnH, but I can see someone with experience of Mormons not holding those beliefs being curious regardless of affiliation. And, of course, the other two - well, three now - comments are from professed atheists. So far nobody seems willing to try and reconvert him or anything.
Welcome to LessWrong!
Good for you! You might want to watch out for assuming that everyone had a similar experience with religion; many theists will fin this very annoying and this seems to be a common mistake among people with your background-type.
Huh. I must say, I found the GD pretty terrible (despite reading it multiple times to be sure,) although I suppose that powder-keg aspect probably accounts for most of your conversion (deconversion?)
I'm curious, could you expand on what you found so convincing in The God Delusion?
I think we can all say that :)
Thank you! :)
I apologize. I had no idea I was making this false assumption, but I was. I'm embarrassed.
I replied to JohnH about this. I don't know if I could go into a lot of detail on why it was convincing, it was almost two years ago that I read it. But what really convinced me to start doubting my religion was when I prayed to God very passionately asking him whether or not The God Delusion was true and after I felt this tingly warm sensation telling me it was. I had done the same thing with The Book of Mormon multiple times and felt this same sensation, and I was told in church that this was the Holy Spirit telling me that it was true. I had been taught I could pray about anything and the Spirit would tell me whether or not it was true. After being told by the Spirit that The God Delusion was true, I decided that the only explanation is that what I thought of as the Spirit was just happening in my head and that it wasn't a sure way of finding knowledge. It was a very dramatic experience for me.
I've always wondered about that. People talk about praying for guidance and receiving it, never quite got what they were talking about before now.
Yeah, I suppose what you describe fits with it being more that the book encouraged you to reexamine your beliefs than it's arguments persuading you as such, which makes sense.
Incidentally, I can't help wondering what would you have done if the Spirit had told you it was bunk ;)
I like to think I still would have debunked Mormonism in my own mind, but maybe not! That experience was extremely important to my deconversion process, because the only reason I believed in the LDS Church was because of the Spirit telling me the Book of Mormon was true and that Jesus Christ was my Savior. As soon as the Spirit told me something so contradictory as The God Delusion was true, my whole belief structure came crumbling down.
What kind of theist are you, personal or more of the general theism (which includes deism) variety? Any holy textstring you believe has been divinely inspired?
About as Deist as you can be while still being technically Christian. I'd be inclined to say there's something in all major religions, simply for selection reasons, but the only thing I'd endorse as "divinely inspired" as such would be the New Testament? I guess? Even that is filtered by cultural context and such, obviously,.
If you can readily articulate your reasons for evaluating the New Testament differently from other scriptures, I'm interested. (It's possible that you've already done so, perhaps even in response to this question from me; feel free to point me at writeups elsewhere if you wish.)
Well, I mentioned I'm technically Christian (despite my deist leanings), right? I think the evidence in favor of Jesus being, well, the Son of God is good enough to over come my prior, although to be fair I have a significantly higher prior of such things than the LW norm, because theism. If Jesus was God, naturally anything that can be traced back to him is in some sense "divinely inspired" - so the Gospels, mostly. I'm less confident about the status of the rest of the NT, but again, probably miracles (albeit lower certainty than those of Jesus, I guess) so probably some level of Godly origin, at least for the parts that claim to have such an origin.
(nods) That answers my question. Thank you.
Be careful. There's a noted tendency to fill the void left by god with very god-like artificial intelligences, owners of the simulation we might be living in, and the like.
I am Mormon so I am curious where you got the beliefs that Homosexuality would destroy civilization, that humans came from another planet, that the Ten Tribes live underground beneath the Arctic? Those are not standard beliefs of Mormons (see for instance the LDS churches Mormonsandgays.org) and only one of those have I ever even encountered before (Ten Tribes beneath the Arctic) but I couldn't figure out where that belief comes from or why anyone would feel the need to believe it.
I also have to ask, the same as MugaSofer, could you explain how The God Delusion obliterated your faith? It seemed largely irrelevent to me.
I have visited mormonsandgays.org. That came out very recently. It seems that the LDS Church is now backing off of their crusade against homosexuality and same-sex marriage. In the middle of the last decade, though, I can assure you what I was taught in church and in my family was that civilizations owed their stability to the prevalence of traditional marriages. I was told that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because homosexuality was not being penalized and because of the same crime the Roman Empire collapsed. It is possible that these teachings, while not official doctrine, were inspired by the last two paragraphs of the LDS Church's 1995 proclamation The Family. In the second to last paragraph it says:
I have a strong feeling my interpretation of this doctrine is also held by most active believing American Mormons, having lived among them my entire life.
I don't think that most Mormons believe that mankind came from another planet, but I started believing this after I read something from the Journal of Discourses, in which Brigham Young stated:
This doctrine has for good reason been de-emphasized by the LDS Church, but never repudiated. I read this and other statements made by Brigham Young and believed it. I did believe he was a prophet of God, after all.
I began to believe that the Ten Tribes were living underneath the Arctic after reading The Final Countdown by Clay McConkie which details the signs that will precede the Second Coming. In the survey he apparently conducted of active Latter-day Saints, around 15% believed the Ten Tribes were living somewhere underground in the north. This belief is apparently drawn from an interpretation of Doctrine & Covenants 133:26-27, which states:
I liked the interpretation that this meant there was a subterranean civilization of Israelites and believed it was true.
I apologize that I gave examples of these extraordinary former beliefs right after I wrote "I'm playing catch-up, trying to expand my mind as fast as I can to make up for the lost years I spent blinded by religious dogma." That definitely implies that these former beliefs were actual official doctrine of the Mormon Church. I did not intend that.
I am going to make a prediction that you likely grew up in a smaller community in Utah or Eastern Idaho.
In regards to the Journal of Discourse quote, the actual doctrine that Brigham Young is talking about it is very much emphasized and is found in the D&C, the Book of Abraham, and explicitly in the Temple. A dead giveaway is his reference to philosophers, he isn't talking about us being aliens but that our spirits always existed and come from where God is rather then being created at birth as thought in the rest of Christianity. Given this and your explanation of The God Delusion I take it you aren't that familiar with non-LDS Christian philosophy and the vast differences between us and them.
The church has not changed at all its position on same-sex marriage and just filed an amicus brief on the subject. I can see how your conclusion on the subject was drawn though.
Wrong. I moved to Utah already an atheist. I didn't grow up in any one area, my family moved several times when I was younger. For example, I lived in Arizona, California, Georgia, and North Carolina before moving to Utah. The state I feel most confident in calling my home is California, since I lived there from 2004 to 2009.
I highly disagree that this is what Brigham Young actually intended to teach. For example, in another part of the Journal of Discourses he says:
It does not seem at all that he is talking about the creation of their spirits, but the creation of their bodies.
I have to admit I didn't regard myself as extremely familiar with Christian philosophy before my de-conversion, but I've learned a great deal since coming home from my mission. However, I don't think this was a very fair assessment of my knowledge on your part. There is nothing I've written that gives strong evidence for me being ignorant of Christian and Mormon theology. It seems to me you want to de-legitimize what I have to say by painting me as unintelligent and inexperienced with my own religion. Now, do you really think a person who has studied the Journal of Discourses wouldn't also most likely be a person who has spent a lot of time and energy investigating the rest of Mormon theology? I mean, a scholar I am not but I definitely know my way around Mormonism, more than most Mormons I know at the very least.
There is a big difference between an "official position" and what is taught in the chapel and at the dinner table.
Since it appears that you grew up in a pluralistic society then I have no idea why you considered everyone different then you to not be a good person and feel you were never exposed to the idea that they possibly could be a good person. Considering that Jesus (Matthew 25:40), Paul (Romans 2), Nephi, Benjamin, Alma, and Moroni all say that it is action more then belief that defines who is saved, who has faith, and who is good, happy and healthy then I don't know how it was a shocking revelation that those who do not have the law but that act by nature according to law are just as much blessed as those that have the law.
I fail to see how blood atonement, Adam-God, racist theology, and polygamist theology gave you the slightest impression that the Journal of Discourses was a good source of doctrine. It is my personal experience that generally those that spend the most time reading it are those least familiar with the gospel, on either end of the spectrum. The biggest fans of the Journal of Discourses seem to be those that are trying to prove the church wrong and those that are seeking "deep" doctrine while ignoring the weightier parts of the gospel, by which I mean those that try to square Adam-God statements or that speculate on the location of the ten tribes or Kolob.
For instance nearly everyone that has taken the time to figure out what Christians say of God in their arguments for God and what the D&C says on the subject quickly realize that the two are wholly incompatible. That those beliefs on God and the arguments in favor of those beliefs are mixing Greek philosophy with scripture to synthesis a new belief. Not that members of the church are not also guilty of mingling the philosophies of men with scripture, that is a very common occurrence as you note with "what is taught in the chapel and the dinner table", me, I tend to focus on the current authorized messengers from God and the Holy Spirit as I feel that is what I have been instructed to do.
I never said that I considered people different than me to not be good. What I said in earlier comments is that I liked The God Delusion because it introduced me to the concept that you can be "a good, healthy, happy person without believing in God". I believed that those who did not have faith in God would be more likely to be immoral, would be more likely to be unhealthy, and would definitely be more unhappy than if they did believe in God. The book presented to me a case for how atheists can be just as moral, just as healthy, just as happy as theists, an argument I had never seen articulated before. I apologize that I had never conjured this idea up before reading The God Delusion, it just seemed obvious to me based on my study of the Gospel that they couldn't be.
What passages in the scriptures tell you that you can be moral, healthy, and happy without faith in God? It seems pretty consistent to me that in the scriptures they say you can only have those qualities in your life if you believe in God and follow his commandments.
I believed in blood atonement, the Adam-God theory, much of the racist theology, and in polygamy. Why wouldn't I? The prophets speak for God. God would not let a prophet lead the Church astray. My patriarchal blessing told me to always follow the prophets. No one ever told me I could question and disagree with the prophets and still be a member of the LDS Church in good standing. I apologize that I didn't come to the same understanding a you, but I don't see any reason I would have with the life experiences I had.
I really liked "deep doctrine". :) If I had been alive during the Roman Empire I think I would have been a sucker for the mystery cults. Still, what do you even mean by the "weightier parts of the gospel"? I feel like that is so subjective as to be meaningless in our conversation. How can we determine objectively which parts of the Gospel is more important?
Great. I have no problem with you finding a way to make it all work in your head. Obviously I couldn't discover how to make it work in mine after discovering things that I did. No amount of instruction could keep it all from unraveling.
I wish you weren't so hostile against me just because I'm making your in-group look bad.
I already pointed you to Romans 2, specifically in this case Romans 2:13-15, did you want more?
A prophet is only a prophet when they are acting as a prophet. More specifically there are multiple First Presidency statements saying Adam-God is wrong; Statements by Apostles saying that the racist theology was created with limited understanding and is wrong (as well as more recent church statements saying explicitly that it is contrary to the teachings of Christ); I am not referring to polygamy as a practice but the belief that polygamy is the new and everlasting covenant itself, which again has revelation and first presidency statements and even the scriptures on polygamy saying that is wrong; Also given that none of those theories were presented to the Quorums of the Church and that Apostles and a member of the First Presidency disagreed vocally with Adam-God at the time I would have thought it was clear that one can disagree with ideas not presented as revelation and not sanctioned by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. I mean, the D&C has procedures on how to conduct a disciplinary council of the prophet so while the prophet will not lead the church astray they are quite capable of sinning and of theorizing based of revelation and their own prejudices as anyone else, though they seem to have mostly gotten better at not doing that.
The two great commandments: Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself, and the actual gospel: faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Statements of the effect of that being sufficient for anyone or even that being the doctrine of Christ and the only doctrine of Christ and anything more or less being declared as the doctrine of Christ being evil seem fairly objective in stating which parts of the Gospel are most important.
Yes. I don't see anything in Romans 2 that shows me that you can be moral, healthy, and happy without faith in God.
But you have to admit it's hard sometimes to distinguish whether or not a prophet is acting as one.
I never believed that Adam WAS Elohim, but I did believe that what Brigham Young and others intended to say was that Adam was the God of this Earth.
I never believed that black people were cursed for being fence-sitters in the War in Heaven, but I did believe that it was because of the curse of Cain that they couldn't have the priesthood until 1978. In my defense I started believing around 2009 that the priesthood ban was just an incorrect Church policy. Still, I never read anything from the Apostles saying that the priesthood ban was wrong, just that it was unknown why there was a priesthood ban.
I always believed that the new and everlasting covenant was referring to celestial marriage, but I did believe that polygamy would eventually be re-instated being that before the Second Coming there would have to be a restitution of all things.
I really only developed an understanding of Official Doctrine after my deconversion. Before, however, my understanding was that every member of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were prophets, seers, and revelators and that they spoke directly with Jesus Christ, therefore they were incapable of teaching false doctrine to the members of the Church.
You were saying how those who read the Journal of Discourses "seem to be those that are trying to prove the church wrong and those that are seeking 'deep' doctrine while ignoring the weightier parts of the gospel". I think you were trying to put me in the latter category, suggesting that I was ignoring what was really important in the Gospel. Now that you've explained what these "weightier parts" are, I assure you that I did not ignore these teachings. Those are incredibly simple and basic concepts that I had known for years and years. How could anyone ignore these parts of the Gospel while studying "deep doctrine"?
How long have you been a member of the LDS Church?
I wonder how common this is?
Paul saying those that didn't know God and that didn't have the law but that acted justly being justified because of their actions doesn't imply to you that it is possible to be moral, healthy, and happy without faith in God? How about this, where in "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 blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated." does it mention anything about having faith in God being a prerequisite for receiving a blessing? Where in "if ye have done it unto the least of these they brethren ye have done it unto me" does it say that one must believe in God for that to be valid?
"Till you have learnt to serve men, how can you serve spirits?"
" Would God that all the LORD'S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!"
Very easily, as Jesus repeatedly stated.
I am not sure how the first part of this lead to the second part of this, but I will believe that was your belief.
My whole life.
Who authorizes messengers from God? It's not like He has a public key, after all...
God obviously.
There are actually quite a few rules given to determine if a messenger is from God. Jesus for instance said "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself", then there is the qualification in Deuteronomy, the requirement in John, the experiment in Alma, the promise in Moroni, and some details in the D&C. It is somewhat of a bootstrapping problem as one must already trust one of those sources, or the person presenting those sources, enough to move forward in trying to verify the source and messenger.
Well, the usual method is to simply check if they're consistent with earlier messages. Which is great until you remember that the Devil can quote scripture to his purpose.
The canonical method, on the other hand, is to check if the messenger professes Jesus as Lord, since as we all know demons can't do that, so by process of elimination it must be an angel (and therefore true.)
No, I don't know what you're supposed to do if it's a hallucination.
Can't they?
Nope. Well-known fact.
Seriously, that's official doctrine, that is. Actually, come to think, don't some demons call him Lord in the NT?
Hey, people make mistakes. That it's fairly easy to come to erroneous conclusions on these topics should be evident from the JoD itself.
The arguments seemed to make more sense to me than those made for the existence of God? I don't know, it's a long book. The parts I liked the most was about the prayer experiment that showed no correlation between prayers and the recovery of hospital patients and how you can be a good, healthy, happy person without believing in God. Those were things I had never heard before.
Hmm. I can't speak for JohnH but I had heard those before - maybe that had something to do with it.
How many of your younger Mormon peers and friends do you think are secretly atheists?
I've only had two of my Mormon peers/friends/relatives reveal to me after knowing them for a substantial amount of time that they are atheists. Based on that, I would guess the percentage of active Latter-day Saints that are closet atheists is pretty low, around 1%-3%?
That implies that you have more-or-less a hundred close friends/peers/relatives, who you have known for a substantial amount of time and would expect them to tell you if they are closet atheists.
Mormons have lots of friends, and lots of relatives.
Over twenty-three years the numbers add up. I think I could easily find more than a hundred active Latter-day Saints just counting members of my extended family that I routinely encounter every year.