Dexter I was totally on the same page as you but now that I have kids and seen them grow up I see that genes has a much more powerful presence than I ever could believe.

“The only thing “inherent” here is that you can’t “make sense” of something you don’t have a framework of knowledge and experience for.”

Yes, I really agree with this. and sometimes, even with some of the knowledge and background, it might not make sense.

“It’s curious how you say you had a “strong learned aversion” to Jesus Christ…this suggests that it doesn’t necessarily make it a natural aversion…yet when you heard about the trinity, it seemed you had a natural aversion: that of it intrinsically not making sense.”

Well, again, being brought up Jewish, the first thing you learn is that Jesus was not the Messiah. So, no, its not a natural aversion per se, but I am not sure that Christianity itself would be a natural inclination in any sense. I think that recognizing a ‘higher power” might be that way, but any particular religious persuasion would not.

The trinity, on the other hand, requires some level of faith and belief to even consider it. Let alone some suspension in the laws of nature. My issue was that the bible does not support the traditional Christian view of the trinity. That is not natural aversion either.

I might add that I had a curiousity toward religion in general that, for whatever reason, did not really pertain to my own religion at the time. i looked in Scientology and used to talk to the JWs prior to ever learning anything about the LDS Church.

Andrew, I am just not convinced regarding your “natural inclinations theory when it comes to this. In spite of all my curiousity, I choose to tell the Scientologists and the JWs to leave me alone at some point, even though I liked them as people too. I just lost interest.

Just like I lost interest in my first go around with the missionaries, even though I might have like them as well. After all, my contacts were with the sister Missionaries and I was a 25 year old single guy.

“All it seems to me is that if you’re in a stage in life that mostly makes sense to you, that is enjoyable to you, that allows you to progress and grow, I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

Certainly, after 28 years, a person can get comfortable with their surroundings. But, if I thought that the Church no longer ‘worked” for me and my family, I would leave it and go find something else. I wouldn’t hesitate, even though many of my best friends and acquaintances are Church members.

On the other hand, I am still convinced it was the right CHOICE for me.

Nick,

I do not doubt that we have some things that don’t make sense or which make sense based on experience, but the fact that we can just “fall” into things that make sense without having to work and work and work on them extensively…is meaningful.

I would assert that our framework of knowledge and experience has other things in it then…we are not blank slates…so we also must account for the framework of personal preference, inclination, desires, etc.,

I mean, if things were as you said, then every individual would be a perfect product of his environment. There’d be no way to rebel against the environment, because no one would be able to intuit that there could ever be anything different or better…but in fact…we can do such things. We can in fact, even after learning English, say, “Now, this doesn’t make sense…the language should do something else instead.” We can in fact, even only learning English, find concepts we don’t know how to say. Our thinking isn’t restricted to the words we know.

re 64:

Hawkgrrrl, yeah, I’d want to see (if we could somehow get the numbers…doubt we could, though) where people go. I don’t really think that LDS -> born again evangelical is too tough (not only have I seen a few individuals…there are whole *sites* for it)…I do think that when we look at the transition, it doesn’t really suffice to say that LDS->evangelical is “tougher” because of the “violent break with the past” (anti-Mormonism)…because even this transition can seem very organic and smooth to some (e.g., “waaah I was BETRAYED HATE HATE HATE.”) All of the stones were aligned and it wasn’t a tough transition at all.

There are some natural connections between religions, and this is one of them. Likewise, the UU seem to provide a place where liberal-leaning LDS find comfort if the uber-conservative LDS culture sends them packing. It would be fun to create a tree showing all the most likely movements and the least likely.

Probably the toughest movement is from LDS to born-again evangelical, but I could be wrong. We’ve certainly met some here (so it happens), but it’s not a very easy transition, usually creating a much more violent break with the past (anti-Mormonism).

Thinks “make sense” or “don’t make sense,” in light of our existing knowledge and experience. Look at it this way. I guarantee that when you were born, the English language “didn’t make sense.” It wasn’t until you became familiar with it, and learned it on at least a rudimentary level, that English “made sense” to you. The only thing “inherent” here is that you can’t “make sense” of something you don’t have a framework of knowledge and experience for.

Jeff, thanks for the personal story.

I’m just still trying to think about a few things from it, so please stop me if I get too rude.

It’s curious how you say you had a “strong learned aversion” to Jesus Christ…this suggests that it doesn’t necessarily make it a natural aversion…yet when you heard about the trinity, it seemed you had a natural aversion: that of it intrinsically not making sense. It wasn’t that you had necessarily learned that the trinity doesn’t make sense, and it isn’t necessarily that it might never have made sense without some kind of epiphany, but most certainly, the first reaction…the reaction from yourself…was that it didn’t make sense.

It seems that your interactions with the church were just a bit different. It seemed that, despite your learning, you *liked* the missionaries and you *liked* the story of Joseph Smith and the idea of living Prophets. You naturally *wondered* what happened to Prophets after the OT. I would suggest that these are things that you were naturally inclined to do…or did you *choose* to like the missionaries, the story of Joseph Smith? Did you choose to wonder, or is that what made most sense to do?

I don’t want to presume too much based on limited information, but it seems to me that if I were to classify things, the “natural” inclinations were 1) against the trinity and 2) for the ideas of the church. Aversion to Jesus Christ seems, from your story, more of a learned, cultural, social thing that tried to overwrite and provide a competing inclination against any natural ones you might have had, and not something that came from the core. And above all of that, you did have a spiritual experience which ultimately convinced you. So even if aversion to Christ was a natural inclination, that spiritual experience would be the experience that changed the inclination from ‘away’ to ‘to’. It, along with the discussions, along with your wife most certainly, along with all of these other experiences, worked in tandem to change the way you think and consider so that some things would be more “convincing” than others.

In the end, I am not trying to suggest you’re in a right place or a wrong place. I don’t know enough to make statements like that. All it seems to me is that if you’re in a stage in life that mostly makes sense to you, that is enjoyable to you, that allows you to progress and grow, I don’t see anything wrong with that. But I would suggest that these metrics (what makes sense, what is enjoyable, what we view as “progress”) are not “chosen,” while our actions are.

Sorry for the long deeply in responding but I was actually trying to do my job for a bit yesterday.

“But I’m curious…with all of your experiences, do you think that you somehow have experientially and circumstantially supposed upon the truth? Or do you feel your belief and your position now is more due to circumstances and could be “not even right?””

This is a bit hard to describe I think. I can give you something from my experience, not the somewhat contrived strawmen examples we all like to use from time to time.

Having grown up Jewish, I had a strong learned aversion to Jesus Christ. Even though my family was not very active in the faith, that was one thing I did learn. In high school, many of my friends, even some Jewish ones, were getting “saved.” And along with that new found faith, was their zeal to proselyte to thees. So, imagine the cognitive dissonance that occurred when one of my friends from one of the most observant Jewish families was telling me about how Jesus was the Savior and I need to confess and take him into my heart. You know the line.

I am standing there in wide-eyed disbelief going, “Do you have any idea what you are saying? What in the world would your parents say, if they heard you? Are you crazy?” And as she is explained the trinity to me, I am thinking, this makes no sense.

The general Christian explanation of the trinity never made sense to me and still does not.

Fast forward to a later time before I was married and I took missionary discussions. I like the missionaries and I liked the story of Joseph Smith and the idea of living Prophets (I always wondered what happened to those guys after the old testament?). But, I didn’t seriously consider joining the church until after I was married to my member wife.

Would I have joined if I had not married her? Probably not. Would I have become more observant as a Jew. Probably not. But I also recognize that I might never have joined the Church had my parents been more observant at home and taught me more about Judaism.

OK, so why tell that story? I made several choice there in spite of some “natural inclinations” that I though I had. Especially an aversion to Jesus. On the other hand, I had some spiritual experiences that I cannot deny, which ultimately convinced me that I was in the right place in spite of the flack I would receive for joining a Christian Church.

To answer your other question, I have supposed that I might not be right. In fact, I wrote a post about it some time ago. (So, What if it isn’t true?)In fact, I question that a lot. Not in a doubting way but to strengthen my own testimony. but I always come back to the same place. I had experiences that I cannot deny and so I am in the right place. And the Lord comfirms that for me.

“Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without.”

(Bonus points if you know the source of the quotation–grin!)

Here is a fun example from Rev. David Sanford (1737-1810), a Congregationalist minister in Medway, Massachusetts. Portraying Adam as an archetype of Christ, Sanford emphasized that we are not accountable for Adam’s sin . . .

The Paradise law is not the same as the law that is to regulate the judgment at the great day of account.

This law is the law of the old and new testaments; comprising the sanctions of all moral and evangelical precepts, which have ever been revealed to men. It will treat mankind, individually, as free, voluntary agents. By this rule, every one shall be judged according to his works, whether they be good, or whether they be evil. . . . But the law of Paradise treats mankind, not as agents, according to their [p. 11 ends] works, but according to the works of their father, their publick head, in which they had no hand or agency. “By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation.”* The law of Paradise, therefore, is not the same as the law, that is to regulate the judgment of the great day.

—David Sanford, TWO DISSERTATIONS. First. The Nature and Constitution of the Law, Which Was Given to Adam in Paradise; Designed to Shew What Was the Effect of His Disobedience. Second. The Scene of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane; Designed to Shew the Nature of the Cup, Which He Prayed Might Pass From Him. . . . Boston: Published by Farrand, Mallory and Co., Suffolk Buildings—and Lyman, Mallory, and Co., Portland, 1810, pp. 11-12, with footnote, ” * Rom. v. 18.”

According to Rev. Sanford, Christ suffered bodily anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane as Satan tried to destroy Him physically before He could pay for our sins on the cross: a sort of apology for the prayer that the cup should pass from Him.

Comment #8 (correctly) only refers to the term “free agency”. “Agency” is what our scriptures say. Our scriptures did not use the common term “free agency” (which even then is not completely synonymous with the idea of freedom to choose). I think “Agnecy” follows the dictionary maeaning more closely than we usually assume.

Also, Free agency began to fall out of favor in conference talks in the mid 80s. Packer gave a talk in the early 90s which brought the non-scriptural term “free agency” to most peoples’ knowledge, so it has since continued to dwindle in usage. A speaker (Texiera?) used the term “free agency” last conference, but the transcript and the Ensign have “agency”. I’ve still got his talk on my DVR.

So, I “choose” to reject that and “choose” to believe I have the power to choose. In my mind, I have no other choice – so perhaps it’s not a choice. Perhaps it just is. I really don’t care about the distinction.

It’s a step up from the believer believing that the doubter is 100% free to choose to doubt, and that it is therefore a sin to have this unexplained and inexplicable malady (why would one choose to doubt, egads!) Or that the doubter recruits believing children to the side of doubt and should therefore be avoided at all costs.

If so, then religious believers, accepting that a doubter’s “brain is already inclined” to doubt, will conclude that the doubter has a brain defect. Perhaps the doubter will be told that there’s no sin in having this unexplained malady, so long as the doubter doesn’t act on it!

We are both engaging in a chicken or egg problem.

But I take my position precisely in response to things like seed/word analogy.

So it’s enough to desire to believe? But can you choose what you desire? Oops. No you don’t. Your desires are related to inclinations you did not choose. And as I wrote in my article about alma 32 (and in other comments here or elsewhere), regardless of your desire, you can come away with nothing. People can desire to believe all they want, but if they don’t, they don’t.

Note: I understand that a person may desire to believe at one point in life and yet emphatically not desire to believe at other times…but I also recognize that these are not chosen. Your desire to believe is based on events and circumstances that happen to you, and your lack of desire to believe is also based on events and circumstance. Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to reliably “turn on” or “turn off” by targeting circumstances…it’s random and unchosen.

Alma’s whole seed/faith analogy in The Book of Mormon (even if it was written by Joseph Smith, rather than translated) is a rather perceptive look at this process. To Alma, it’s enough to “desire to believe,” and then start interpreting the evidence in way that supports belief. Alma implies, of course, that if you do not “desire to believe,” the same evidence won’t influence you.

You may argue that the “desire” cited by Alma is the natural “inclination” you referred to, but that tends to ignore the fact that a person may “desire to believe” at one point in life, and yet emphatically not “desire to believe” at other times.