In this post, I’m taking a break from my normal analysis to report on the non-LDS songs that move me spiritually or uplift or inspire me in some way. Here is a small, eclectic smattering of these songs in random order:

• 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. My favorite piece of classical music.
• John Rutter’s Requiem. Best Requiem EVER!
• August’s Rhapsody from the August Rush soundtrack.
• Piano Man by Billy Joel. A great story told.
• You Make Me So Very Happy by Blood, Sweat & Tears.
• Turn! Turn! Turn! by The Byrds. There’s a great lesson in this song.
• The Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels Band. Making deals with the Devil produces awesome music!
• Listen to the Music by The Doobie Brothers. Great song, great lyrics, great band.
• The Mission soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. Seriously, ’nuff said.
• Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton. Great message, made better when you know the history of the song.
• Shower the People by James Taylor. If more of us took the message of this song to heart there would be much less heartache in the world.
• Perhaps Love by John Denver. Who doesn’t love John Denver? He’s a national treasure.
• To the Summit by Jon Schmidt. I know Jon Schmidt is sort of Mormon-ish music, but his music is really insipiring.
• Don’t Stop Believing by Journey.
• Dust in the Wind by Kansas. Humility is a virtue!
• Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. DUH!
• What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. Indeed!
• Black or White by Michael Jackson. Great message, still sorely needed.
• Symphony #40 by Mozart. Moving, brilliant.
• Exogenesis: Symphony (3 parts) by Muse. Very moving, beautiful, and a strange twist of hard rock, classical, and new age.
• You Get What You Give by New Radicals. Stupid band, but has one song with a great message.
• This Too Shall Pass by OK Go. New song by a great group.
• The entire musical score from Les Miserables. Music from one of the best musicals ever produced from one of the most influential philosophical and sociological novels ever written.
• Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right by Peter, Paul And Mary (obviously a remake of Bob Dylan’s classic). Still brilliant.
• If I Had a Hammer by Peter, Paul And Mary (also a remake). A bit hippy, but was THE anthem for the civil rights movement.
• Take the Power Back by Rage Against The Machine. RATM is a bit over-the-top for me sometimes, but their lyrics send clear messages of pushing back against the “system” which I think we all need to do sometimes.
• Life is a Highway by Rascall Flatts (cover of Tom Cochrane’s hit, but RF does it so much better). Great message, uplifting.
• You Can’t Always Get What You Want by The Rolling Stones. This is the theme song at my house whenever my kids start whining!
• The Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel.
• Joy To The World by Three Dog Night. Uplifting, fun, done by a great band.
• Pretty much all of U2′s albums. Seriously, how does one pick a favorite U2 song? It’s like trying to pick a favorite child!
• Right Now by Van Halen. Current events gone wild!
• Album Live At The Acropolis by Yanni. New age brilliance!
• Album Appassionato by Yo-Yo Ma. Need I say more?
• Laughing With by Regina Spektor. A song about atheists in foxholes.

So now, readers (if you actually made it through my extensive list) what are your favorite non-LDS songs which uplift and/or inspire you in some way?

Determinism

Determinism states that every event is causally determined by previous events. This further implies that if we knew all the events (causes) we could actually predict exactly what a particular agent would do. I think this is where most people have heartache with determinism (i.e. they don’t like to feel controlled, even if only by nature itself). However, I don’t think most people would deny that there is indeed an element of determinism in our behavior. There are enough commonalities between most people that we can quite accurately predict how a person will act in a particular situation (within limitations of course).

Libertarianism

On the other hand, Libertarianism states that agents have free will. Libertarians (again not the political philosophy) assert that free will is logically incompatible with determinism, making the two mutually exclusive. The defining factor for libertarians is that an individual is able to take more than one possible course of action in any given scenario.

Artificial Intelligence and Humans

More recently, as our technology advances, debates over the capability and morality ofartificial intelligence (AI) have become more frequent. We see it in movies, books, and even in scientific journals. The issue explored in movies like iRobot is that AI eventually becomes so advanced it develops free will on its own. This seems to imply superiority of free will over determinism (i.e. the “robot” evolved to a higher state of intelligence making in on par with humans). And indeed, while I have met some who were convinced determinists, most people I know are at least compatibilists (those who assert free will and determinism are not logically incompatible and hence accept both positions), if not libertarians.

Rather than spur a fruitless debate over whether or not humans are deterministic or have free will, I want to discuss why one would be, or is, better than the other? Why, in Mormonism (and in humanity generally it seems to me) do we assume that free will is better than being deterministic? If we are deterministic beings, are we less interesting, or somehow not as good as we would be if we had free will? Is there some benefit that a free will agent has over a deterministic one?

An Aerospace Example

Consider the following example. In my research lab we are interested in autonomous uninhabited aircraft. Though we (as a society) have had autonomous airplanes for a while now, they’re not truly autonomous. There is always a human somewhere in the loop, whether at a computer screen, watching the aircraft, etc. The question is, could we design a fully autonomous (i.e. from launch to landing, including the proper handling of all unanticipated problems) aircraft that would perform as well (or better) than an expert pilot?

Before answering too quickly, consider:

• The laws of physics are well known and generally not subject to negotiation.
• Assume I can build a computer as intelligent as a human.
• Assume the computer can sense, or has access to ALL the information that a human pilot would.

If you believe the answer is no, why? Is there something intrinsically better about free will that makes such an agent better at flying an airplane than a deterministic one? Is having free will a more “enlightened” state than being deterministic? Why?

If you believe the answer is yes, do you also believe that humans are deterministic? Is it only a matter of time before we discover ALL the causal influences that impact human behavior and will thus have the ability to perfectly predict it?

Now, suppose I could actually demonstrate such an autonomous aircraft to you in an arbitrarily large number of flights. Would you concede there is nothing inherently better about free will, or would you hold out that there is always one untested case in which the expert pilot would do better?

How do your beliefs influence your answer?

Optimization

Optimization largely rules our world. Virtually all of management, engineering, politics, and much of science is about optimization. Optimization, in this sense, is the process of determining the optimal solution given all the objectives and constraints. In management, the process may not be that formal. Perhaps there is a board of directors who gather around a table to discuss the optimal set of policies, the direction to go, etc. In politics it is likely similar. The President of the U.S. surrounds himself with experts on a particular topic, they then engage in discussion, and hope to land on the optimal answer given the objectives and constraints.

For engineers the process is much more formal and precise. Usually optimization takes the form of a cost function – a function incorporating, mathematically, all the objectives and constraints. An algorithm (and there are many) is then employed to “solve” the function resulting in the optimal solution. To demonstrate, here’s an example:

Suppose you are designing an aircraft. There are numerous design possibilities, a canard style, V-tail empennages, aspect ratio of the wings, length of fuselage, coating of the surfaces, wingtips, where to place the turbines, height of vertical stabilizer (if having one at all), etc. etc. We would like to find the optimal answer amongst all these parameters such that we maximize lift, maximize cargo space, maximize safety, minimize energy consumption, etc. Of course we also have constraints. We cannot physically manufacture a flexible fixed wing that is 800 ft long and thin as a toothpick. To solve the problem, we can write down a big, long, nasty equation that would mathematically characterize the physics, constraints, and objectives and then pick our favorite optimization algorithm and wait for it to churn out the answer (which may take a long time).

Bayesian inference is one algorithm that can be applied to such an optimization problem. Typically one would choose this algorithm amidst a cost function that was stochastic in nature, having noise and/or error in the system, that expressed our confidence.

Finding the Truth, Optimization Style

In some sense, the Bayesian inference mechanism I discussed in previous posts could be seen as an optimization method for finding the truth. If we assume that all the new information we regularly encounter has some (even if very little) truth therein, and we apply that information in the regular Bayesian inference sense, we could then reliably conclude that we have found the “truth,” with some probability (level of confidence), given all the information.

This is highly related to a comment FireTag made on my previous post. He asked

So there are routes to evolve our beliefs toward truth no matter where we start or whatever the order of our search algorithm?

In the context of this question, Bayesian inference can easily be seen as a search algorithm. And, in fact, if we used a Sequential Monte Carlo method, it really does feel like a search algorithm.

In expanding this notion, my response, in part, was:

Absolutely (at least in my book)! Though certainly some search algorithms are definitely worse than others and some starting places better than others! Otherwise what prayer in the world do we have (unless you’re absolutely certain that YOU’VE got it right, but I sure don’t)? I view my religion/spirituality as a compass that (I hope) points me in a good direction. My hope is that if/when the absolute truth is made manifest to me I will be humble enough (and my definition of humble is “openness to the truth”) to recognize it because/in spite of my current confidence distribution.

From this perspective, we might view the church (or whatever church you belong to), the Gospel, this life, and all our associated experience as tools to help us optimize for, and draw nearer to the truth given the objectives and constraints of our personal limitations and the limitations of this mortal existence. While I have encountered a very few number of Mormons who claim that we have ALL the truth, this is not the claim of the LDS church. Most of us, I believe, accept there are things we don’t yet know and don’t yet understand. The real challenge is to have an appropriate confidence distribution such that you will accept that truth when it is made known to you.

However, I finished my response to FireTag with the following:

However, this really opens another can of worms – namely, what is truth? My explanation thus far has been about our perception of truth which may or may not correlate with objective or absolute truth. To argue over whether or not our perception of truth is objective truth is to argue over what forms of evidence are acceptable and what weight we should apply to that evidence (which is the conclusion of this post and is an argument with no victor).

The Convert

John is a member of another Christian denomination and he was raised as a believer. He has had one discussion with the LDS missionaries and plans to continue these discussions. In the first discussion the missionaries built on common beliefs with John and challenged him to read a few verses in The Book of Mormon and to pray over them. They read Moroni 10:3-5 in which the Lord, through his prophet, provides a recipe for confirmation of the truthfulness of the message taught. John takes this seriously and reads the verses and prays over them. He also has a strong spiritual manifestation. He feels peace, warmth, and what he interprets as an assurance from the Holy Spirit that the message is true.

For John, he has had a number of spiritual manifestations and hence accepts this form of gaining knowledge. He has not had one quite this powerful before so he takes this manifestation as evidence that the LDS church is true. In Bayesian terms, we might claim that John had a confidence distribution with a mean of “my Christian denomination is true” with a fairly large standard deviation (since he was open to other religious possibilities). When he received this new piece of information (a spiritual manifestation of the truthfulness of the LDS message) he incorporated it into his confidence distribution. This, along with further discussions from the missionaries is enough to shift his distribution to one with a mean of “the LDS church is the true church” with a fairly small standard deviation.

In this scenario there are some interesting things going on with regard to faith, knowledge, and belief. John had “belief” enough to take a leap of “faith.” In essence, he was testing the “tail ends” of his confidence distribution by examining a foreign concept. In a Monte Carlo sense, his random walk was probing “less probable” areas of his distribution. For John, he found some valuable information that he then used to modify that distribution. It is easy to characterize his actions as “faith” as he probed heretofore untested waters. His experience exemplifies the allegory of faith given in Alma 32.

The Stereotypical Mormon

Bill is a lifelong member of the LDS church. He was raised in Salt Lake City and has been an obedient member of the church for all of his 39 years. Bill has a strong testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and all of its core principles and doctrines.

Bill has had many experiences which he interprets as support for his view of the Gospel. He has a successful career, a great family, good health, and an abundance of opportunities to serve which he attributes to his adherence to tithing, prayer, fasting, righteous living, and heeding the counsel of prophets. Bill has so much confirming evidence of his life choices and beliefs that his confidence distribution has a mean of “the LDS church is the true church” with a very small standard deviation. Bill acknowledges that others have some pieces of truth, but is grateful that he has the blessing of knowing the fulness. Indeed, Bill claims he “knows” the Gospel is true. He would live and die by this, and admits that nothing could persuade him otherwise.

In this scenario, faith, belief, and knowledge take on a bit different meaning. Bill hasn’t really taken the same kind of “leap of faith” that John did. He has put his beliefs to the test and received verification that they were correct. While he has somewhat probed the less probable regions of his confidence (the tails of his distribution) he interprets the information as confirming his beliefs. His confidence in his mean is so great it would be easy to classify Bill’s “faith” or “belief” as “knowledge” (which of course he does regularly at testimony meetings). Each successive spiritual experience or life event, properly interpreted, only adds more information which confirms Bill’s knowledge.

The Disaffected Mormon

Fred is in the same boat as Bill. He is a lifelong member of the LDS church, grew up in Salt Lake City, and did all he was asked to do. However, about a year ago he encountered some individuals that posed challenging questions to his worldview. Initially, Fred’s response was much like Bill’s, that is, he interpreted information to confirm his knowledge. But eventually the information became so overwhelming that Fred had to concede he might not have it quite right.

Fred has also had many spiritual manifestations, but his probing into psychology convinces him that much of it can be explained by regular, well understood psychological phenomena. Fred has also been richly “blessed” with a good career, great family, etc. but has to acknowledge that many non-Mormons have also been similarly blessed. For Fred, his confidence distribution is beginning to change. Each new piece of information, incorporated loosely via a built-in Bayesian inference calculator, shifts the distribution away from his mean of “the LDS church is the true church.” Initially, the information only increases his standard deviation as he acknowledges truth in other places, but eventually his mean starts to shift as well when he examines what he considers to be the lack of evidence for the historicity of The Book of Mormon, the myriad conundrums in Church history, etc. Most alarming for Fred is the feeling of betrayal by not realizing these things earlier in life which he attributes to white-washing by the LDS church.

In this scenario it would be easy to claim that “faith” is being destroyed. I think this is erroneous. Rather, I would say that “faith” is shifting. Fred now has faith in other things, though admittedly less faith in the LDS church being the true church. After a year of struggling, Fred admits he no longer has any confidence that the LDS church is the true church.

Contrasting the Scenarios

The commonalities between the scenarios are interesting. Each individual is doing what he thinks is most probable. John and Fred actually took a “leap of faith” to probe the less probable regions of their confidence distribution which turned up valuable information. Additionally, since some previous experiences had modified their distribution, their built-in Bayesian inference calculator was perhaps more able to objectively incorporate the new information. While Bill did occassionally probe the less probable regions of his distribution, the new information was interpreted to add more evidence to his beliefs.

This leads me to conclude that the biggest argument over “faith,” “belief,” and “knowledge,” actually has nothing to do with one’s “faithfulness” and everything to do with the quantity, types of, and weighting given to different types of evidence. For John and Bill, spiritual manifestations are a perfectly valid form of evidence, perhaps even the most important kind, which they weight appropriately. For Fred, this used to be the case, but as he discovered new information he had to modify his weightings, and began to reject some forms of evidence (spiritual manifestations) previously acceptable to him.

I subscribe to the “confidence distribution” model for understanding people’s beliefs, motivations, actions etc. because I believe it drives to the real issues which is what types of evidence are accepted by people, and what importance they place on that evidence.

This kind of reasoning also brings a different perspective to the word “doubt.” We could say that Fred is “doubting” and couch this in negative terms, but I think a more appropriate characterization would be to admit that Fred now accepts other forms of evidence and hence his faith has shifted. For Fred, he is being intellectually honest, as is Bill and John. This doesn’t make one more faithful, or more spiritual than the others, just different!

Bridges built using sound engineering principles are safe. The Bay Bridge was built using sound engineering principles. Therefore, the Bay Bridge was safe (at least when it was built).

This form of reasoning is reliable, at least as far as logic goes, producing correct conclusions from the premises.

In contrast, inductive reasoning is a form of reasoning in which the premises indicate some degree of support for the conclusion but which do not completely support it. For example:

All bridges I have walked across have not fallen. Therefore all bridges are safe to walk across.

This form of reasoning is unreliable in producing valid results. It is a logical fallacy. There are many forms that inductive reasoning can take; generalization, proof by analogy, causal inference, prediction, etc. These forms of inductive reasoning have different strengths and can provide a form of “information” that is most useful albeit simultaneously by themselves unreliable.

There are people at both ends of the spectrum regarding inductive reasoning. Some people are all too willing to throw out the premises since no conclusion can be reliably drawn. These people ignore the “information” contained in the premises. In “information theory” (a branch of stochastic theory), “entropy” (an uncertainty measure) is used to quantify how much “information” exists in a premise. EVERYTHING has some amount of “information” even if it is very little. On the other end of the spectrum are people all too eager to rely on inductive reasoning supposing they have made a fantastic argument all while ignoring the holes in their logic. These people seem to assign WAY too much “information” to the premises.

Of the possible inductive reasoning techniques, Bayesian inference has become the most influential and reliable. In fact, Bayesian inference continues to be extremely important and reliable particularly in fields of science and engineering in which a reliable conclusion is produced in the presence of noise and modeling error.

In my previous post I discussed why I feel faith is not well understood in Mormonism and why I think some knowledge of Bayesian probability, coupled with Bayesian inference does a good job of explaining what faith, knowledge, and belief are and how we can apply it in our lives. In this post I will elaborate on Bayesian inference as a form of inductive reasoning and try to show how I believe it influences our faith, beliefs, and knowledge.

Bayesian Inference

Bayes’ rule relates one conditional probability to its inverse through a prior and marginal probability (don’t worry this will become clear in a sec). The formula is:
[math]P(A|B)=\frac{P(B|A)P(A)}{P(B)}[/math]
A conditional probability (i.e. [math]P(A|B)[/math]) is the probability of some event A given that B occurs. This reads “probability of A given B.” Explaining the formula:

• Let [math]A[/math] represent a new hypothesis
• Let [math]B[/math] represent a new piece of evidence
• [math]P(A|B)[/math] is the posterior probability (i.e. the probability we are interested in) and is the probability of our hypothesis given our new evidence
• [math]P(B|A)[/math] is called the likelihood and is the inverse of what we actually want. This is the probability of our evidence given our hypothesis
• [math]P(A)[/math] is the prior (i.e. what we believe before we start)
• [math]P(B)[/math] is the marginal probability and represents the probability of witnessing the evidence under all possible hypotheses

There is also a form of Bayes’ rule that works for PDFs and/or distributions as well. It is a bit more difficult to follow but the idea is the same.

A Simple Example

A simple example from Wikipedia will help.

To illustrate, suppose there are two full bowls of cookies. Bowl #1 has 10 chocolate chip and 30 plain cookies, while bowl #2 has 20 of each. Our friend Fred picks a bowl at random, and then picks a cookie at random. We may assume there is no reason to believe Fred treats one bowl differently from another, likewise for the cookies. The cookie turns out to be a plain one. How probable is it that Fred picked it out of bowl #1?

Intuitively, it seems clear that the answer should be more than a half, since there are more plain cookies in bowl #1. The precise answer is given by Bayes’ theorem. Let [math]H_1[/math] correspond to bowl #1, and [math]H_2[/math] to bowl #2. It is given that the bowls are identical from Fred’s point of view, thus [math]P(H_1)=P(H_2)[/math], and the two must add up to 1, so both are equal to 0.5. The event [math]E[/math] is the observation of a plain cookie. From the contents of the bowls, we know that [math]P(E|H_1)=30/40=0.75[/math] and [math]P(E|H_2)=20/40=0.5[/math]. Bayes’ formula then yields
[math]P(H_1|E)=\frac{P(E|H_1)P(H_1)}{P(E|H_1)P(H_1)+P(E|H_2)P(H_2)}[/math]

[math]P(H_1|E)=\frac{0.75\times0.5}{0.75\times0.5+0.5\times0.5}[/math]

[math]P(H_1|E)=0.6[/math]
Before we observed the cookie, the probability we assigned for Fred having chosen bowl #1 was the prior probability, [math]P(H_1)[/math], which was 0.5. After observing the cookie, we must revise the probability to [math]P(H_1|E)[/math], which is 0.6.

The most important part of this example is to note that there is information (in a stochastic sense) in the evidence that we observed that a plain cookie was drawn. Bayesian inference gives us the tools necessary to characterize our belief about the bowl from which Fred picked the cookie.

A Practical Example

Let’s walk through a more practical and intuitive example to illustrate how this might relate to faith, knowledge, and belief.

Suppose Mary grows up in San Francisco, regularly traveling over the numerous bridges connecting the peninsula to the mainland. She has traveled over these bridges numerous times. She believes that these bridges were constructed using sound engineering principles. She also believes that standards were in place to help guide the engineers in making good decisions. She believes that steel is very strong, and that the materials used met some arbitrary specification for stress standards and strength. She also believes there are some engineers who regularly inspect the bridge for weaknesses and problems and would alert her if necessary.

These are all fairly reasonable assumptions in our modern society, and we might easily say that Mary “knows” that if she goes across the Golden Gate today that the bridge will not collapse. In this regard it likely takes little “faith” for her to go across the bridge. She doesn’t have to take a “mighty leap” as it were. She doesn’t grow spiritually by exercising this faith/knowledge to cross the bridge. Nevertheless, it is clear to everyone (I hope) that Mary, in fact, does not “know” that the bridge is safe. There is no way she can know. All she could say is that she knows that the last time she crossed the bridge it did not collapse.

In terms of my last post, we might say that Mary’s confidence distribution has a mean of “the bridge is safe” with a very very small standard deviation.

Now, let us suppose that one day Mary goes across the Bay Bridge (which is and probably will be forever under construction) and part of the bridge collapses. Fortunately, Mary is on the part of the bridge that remains safe. But she witnesses the tragedy, including the loss of many lives.

The question is, what information is contained in this observation and how should it effect Mary’s confidence/knowledge/belief/faith in her frequent bridge crossing? The conclusion is very difficult. If we use inductive reasoning we might say:

All bridges built using sound engineering principles will not collapse. The Bay Bridge collapsed. Therefore, all bridges are not safe.

Although this conclusion feels like a real stretch, if we place ourselves in Mary’s shoes it might seem like a reasonable conclusion given the fear associated with witnessing the collapse of a bridge. From Mary’s perspective, from a Bayesian point of view, the evidence she saw was so overwhelming, and she inappropriately placed such great weight on it, that the mean and standard deviation of her confidence distribution shifted wildly. At this point, her mean has likely shifted to “all bridges are not safe” with a very small standard deviation. Now, it does take a “mighty leap” of faith for Mary to cross the bridge, and she may grow spiritually/emotionally by taking that leap.

Of course to a third party concerned relative this conclusion is completely unreasonable. We can poke holes in her reasoning all day long. Just because the Bay Bridge collapsed doesn’t mean another will. Just because the Bay Bridge collapsed doesn’t mean engineering principles are invalid. We don’t even know the cause of the collapse. Just because the Bay Bridge collapsed doesn’t mean the system of inspecting bridges is broken. The list could go on and on. From our perspective, we might say that Mary’s confidence distribution shouldn’t change at all! But that would ignore the information contained in the observation and/or assign far too little weight to it.

The right answer is to acknowledge the information contained in the observation and assign the appropriate weight to it. Obviously this is a completely arbitrary and subjective exercise. Who is to say what the right weight is? Who is to say what the appropriate measure of information is? Bayesian inference gives us the tools to analyze the problem but it does nothing to help us know how to characterize the evidence and assign appropriate weight to our evidence.

The Application to Faith in Mormonism

Since this post is already too long, I’ll only weakly apply this to faith and save a more in depth analysis for my next post (though I think if you give it some thought the connections are readily apparent).

Bayesian inference can be a valuable tool for helping us understand how to apply evidence into our confidence distribution for a specific hypothesis. “Faith,” “knowledge,” “belief,” etc. are measures of confidence from which we conclude that we will perform various actions. The real question regarding our “faith” is what weight we apply to various kinds of evidence. How it effects our confidence distribution is very simply described using Bayes’ rule.

For most members of the church, spiritual manifestations are a critical piece of evidence that validate their beliefs. They therefore place high weights on those pieces of evidence, giving them a mean of “the LDS church is true” with a very low standard deviation. For others, spiritual manifestations may be too wrapped up in psychology, emotions, etc. to be reliable. Hence they place low weight on such evidence and although they may have the same mean, they may have a larger standard deviation on their confidence. Those who experience disaffection may throw the “baby out with the bathwater” and dismiss the experience altogether, eventually allowing their mean to shift to “the LDS church is NOT true” with a low standard deviation.

Humans have a very good Bayesian inference mechanism built right into their intelligence. We can perform Bayes’ rule calculations internally with very little effort and often very appropriately draw good conclusions amidst a plethora of evidence particularly when we have no psychological attachment to the outcome. But when we do have psychological attachment, it becomes VERY VERY difficult to not allow the internal Bayesian inference mechanism to become biased.

Our Concept of Faith

We typically turn to two scriptural sources for understanding faith. In Hebrews 11:1 we read:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Additionally, in Alma 32:21 it says:

And now as I said concerning faith – faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

In Mormonism I think we have a hard time reconciling faith in large part because of our scriptures coupled with the “faith” it requires to believe our foundational truth claims. For example, why doesn’t God just come down to all of us and show us an “unmistakable witness” such that everyone “knows” beyond doubt that he is God? Furthermore, rather than a prophet expounding God’s plan, he himself could give it to us so we “knew” it came from him. From The Book of Mormon we have several examples where such “knowledge” was quickly turned to doubt and sin. We use these examples to show that such “knowledge” doesn’t produce the faith required for salvation. Many Mormons will argue that if such manifestations occurred it would be too easy to “know” the truth and faith would no longer be required (which we know is unacceptable since faith is required for salvation). As a sidenote, I’d like to point out the irony that most members “know” the church to be true, which, according to this reasoning means faith is no longer required for most members.

This feels tragically flawed to me. Did Joseph Smith have faith? I think so, yet he ostensibly saw God and Jesus Christ many times and surely “knew” beyond a reasonable doubt that they existed. Was Joseph somehow at a disadvantage because he had actually seen God? Was his faith destroyed by his “knowledge”? Why was Joseph’s vision acceptable, not destroying his faith, but a “sign” would not be acceptable because it would destroy faith?

The situation gets even worse. When someone expresses doubt in the church’s truth claims, they are often labeled as lacking faith. This may feel (to the doubtful individual) like an accusation of being too weak to accept things on faith. Or perhaps that the individual must check their logic and reasoning at the door in order to have the faith necessary for salvation. It marginalizes those who have different thresholds of faith, belief, and knowledge, and elevates those who have faith no matter how ridiculous the claims may be. This type of sentiment may also be responsible for the cultural notion that the widow who sacrifices her last dollar to tithing, rather than buying food for her children is somehow more righteous/spiritual/faithful than one who would not. Examples of faith are couched in terms of individuals who appear to act irrationally to a non-LDS third party observer.

Stochastic Processes

Stochastic processes are processes that are non-deterministic. In other words, they are random, or based on probability theory. To fully elaborate on this theory we need some definitions (I apologize to the mathematics averse, but please bear with me as it will give us some powerful tools to discuss some very important topics):

• Random variable: a random variable is neither random, nor a variable (crazy I know). Rather it is a function (a mathematical function). A random variable maps the possible outcomes of a random event to a set of unique numerical values. For example, a random variable for a fair two-sided coin might be X=1 (if heads), 0 (if tails).
• Probability Density Function (PDF): the probability density function describes the relative likelihood for the outcomes of a particular random variable. An example of this could be a regular “bell curve” distribution describing how a group of students performed on a test. We may also refer (with an abuse of notation) to a PDF as a distribution. (NOTE: for the mathematically inclined, I am intentionally blurring the lines between discrete and continuous random variables. Additionally, for simplicity sake I am merging the concepts of probability density function and probability distribution, though they are in fact different)
• Frequentists: frequentists interpret probability as a measure of probability of an event in a large number of trials. For example, if I tell the frequentist that the probability of landing on either heads or tails of a fair two-sided coin are 1/2 the frequentist may reason as follows: since the probability of landing on either heads or tails is 1/2, that means if we toss a coin a certain number of times, I expect that half the time it will land on heads, and the other half on tails.
• Bayesians: bayesians interpret probability in a more subjective manner using probability as a measure of personal confidence. If I tell the bayesian the same information he/she may reason as follows: since the probability of landing on either heads or tails is 1/2, and I had to place a bet on what the outcome of one specific coin toss might be, I have no reason to have more confidence in the coin landing on one side over the other. Therefore placing my bet on heads is just as good as tails.
• Let A be an event or outcome (doesn’t matter what it is), P(A) is the probability of said event occurring.
• Mean (describes a PDF or distribution): let us loosely define this to be “the most probable event or outcome.” It could also be simply an arithmetic average, but the first definition is better for my purposes. In reality, the mean is the expected value of the random variable where expected value has a precise mathematical meaning analogous to the concept of the center of mass in classical mechanics.
• Standard deviation (describes a PDF or distribution): let us loosely define standard deviation as the variability from the mean. Often the standard deviation is an indication of how confident we should be in the mean. The proper definition is the square root of variance. Variance is the second central moment of a real-valued random variable.
• A normal distribution (Gaussian distribution, or bell curve): a normal distribution is the one you are all most likely familiar with – a regular bell curve.
• The prior distribution: our distribution of confidence before we add any data (may be a uniform distribution, indicating all things are equiprobable).
• The posterior distribution: the distribution of confidence after accounting for all the data.

Using Stochastic Theory

Stochastic theory allows us to quantify our uncertainty in various processes. This relies heavily on the bayesian concept defined above (for now let’s forget about the frequentists). Bayesians use probability to describe their confidence in a certain event or outcome. Let’s walk through an example:

Let’s suppose I have a class of 30 students. I am going to give them the same exam I gave a similar group of students 5 years ago. From my previous class the results yielded a very nice bell curve (normal distribution) with a mean of 75% and a standard deviation of 2. If I am to predict how well a single student will perform (ignoring all other extraneous information), I might say, with a fair amount of confidence, that the student will score a 75%. The small standard deviation gives me this confidence.

Conversely, let’s consider the same scenario, only this time the previous resultsyielded a bell curve with a mean of 75% and a standard deviation of 10. This time, I might be much less confident in predicting a student scores a 75%, but I still would predict a score of 75%.

We can see that a combination of the mean, and standard deviation, in this example, gives us a mechanism for predicting a student’s score as well as evidence for assessing our confidence in that prediction.

Faith as Confidence

The tools of stochastic theory give us a method of modeling and understanding our confidence in various outcomes or events. I propose a new mechanism for understanding and discussing faith, knowledge, and belief – namely the bayesian notion of confidence. I think this has several major advantages:

• It levels the playing field and creates understanding. We no longer have to argue over the semantics of faith, knowledge, or belief. We can shift the argument to what really matters – the evidence.
• It admits all forms of “evidence” including personal spiritual manifestations and allows each individual to weight the evidence as he/she sees fit. That “evidence” can then easily be incorporated into the confidence distribution.
• It removes the tendency to label. That is to say, it would be acknowledged that those who doubt truth claims have different weights attached to certain pieces of evidence. We might argue over the proper weighting one ought to give to a certain piece of evidence, but one’s weighting does not make him or her more or less faithful, just different.
• It is intuitively satisfying and generally describes human behavior. I don’t think I’m really elaborating on anything that most of you don’t already know or have thought about. I’m just spelling it out more clearly and hopefully giving you some technical tools for visualizing it.
• The only definition of irrational is not acting in accordance with one’s confidence. Even those who act according to a “whisper from the Holy Ghost” against their better judgment are seen as rational since they clearly weight the “whisper from the Holy Ghost” more than their judgment.

In part two of this post I will walk through an example of how I think this theory enlightens the faith discussion, levels the playing field, and accurately describes what we really mean when talking about faith, knowledge, and belief.

I recently read Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman. One of the interesting realities on which Ehrman elaborates is that early Christianity was anything but homogeneous. More specifically, there were many factions, some heterodox, some orthodox, some in the middle. Some of the books of the apocrypha, gnostic texts, and other early Christian writings seemed to support various theological ideas not represented, and in fact, even repressed in what became the canonized New Testament.

A few of particular interest are adoptionist (Christians that thought Jesus was fully mortal), docetic (Christians who thought Jesus was only divine and merely “appeared” to be human), and separationist (Christians who thought Jesus was two separate beings, one Jesus (human) and one Christ (divine)). There were many other heretical ideas that various Christian groups espoused. Some parts of our canonized New Testament were intentionally modified to suppress these views.

Translations in Mormonism

In Mormonism we have a very strange use of the word “translation.” Joseph “translated” the golden plates to produce The Book of Mormon. He “translated” some egyptian scrolls to produce the book of Abraham. In each of these instances I think that “translation” is probably a bit misleading. “Divined,” or “revealed,” perhaps, but “translated” in our modern colloquial usage is quite a stretch in my opinion!

To me, “translation” as it relates to Joseph’s work with the Bible, seems to imply that Joseph was a textual critic, much like Ehrman. That is to say, his goal, like a textual critic, would have been to correct the errors in translation and copying to return the scriptures to their original form. The 8th Article of Faith further gives weight to the idea that Joseph would have been interested correcting the translation, as it was the thing that had errors (as opposed to the original manuscripts themselves).

Yet, it is reasonable to me to question whether or not the original manuscripts of the canonized New Testament actually contained accurate teachings of Jesus. Surely if there were many different theologies, all of which claimed to be Christian, differing radically in their implications for modern Christian understanding, is it safe to assume that the books that “made it” into the canon even represent Jesus’ teachings? What of the process that came to finally accept a “canon” of scriptures? It was a process of gradual (read: hundreds of years) consensus among orthodox Christians (read: the Roman Catholic church), culminating finally in the Council of Trent in the 1500′s! Is this really what we now authoritatively accept as Jesus’ teachings and doctrines? And if Joseph’s goal, as translator, was to revert the text to the original, have we really made much progress in understanding the true Gospel as Christ taught?

Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible

Fortunately, as I’m sure many of you are silently screaming about, I think the Joseph Smith “Translation” is, again, a misnomer. It seems to me that Joseph had no business being a textual critic (despite being rather schooled in the Bible), and in fact, I don’t think this was Joseph’s goal at all. A casual glance at the Wikipedia article on the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible indicates that Joseph seemed to be using the Bible as an impetus for revelation. From that article, Philip Barlow thinks there are six different types of changes in the JST:

• Long revealed additions having no Biblical parallel (including visions of Moses, Enoch, and passages on Melchizedek).
• “Common Sense” changes.
• “Interpretive additions” often signaled by the phrase “or in other words.”
• “Harmonization” in which Joseph reconciled seemingly conflicting passages.
• Grammatical improvements.
• Unclassifiable changes.

I think this is a fair list, but I would add to it. I think the Doctrine and Covenants is a form of the JST. That is to say, Joseph was not a textual critic, and the JST is not a translation at all. It is a series of revelations that hoped to obtain what should have been in the Bible. I think Joseph was interested in discovering, through revelation, the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, not in a restoration of the words of the original manuscript of the books that make up our canon.

In this vein, I am completely baffled as to why the LDS church does not adopt the JST and why we don’t rely more on Joseph’s revelations, and less on the Bible. I would even go so far as to argue that Mormonism shouldn’t even really care about the translational accuracy of the Bible. Between The Book of Mormon, D&C, and modern revelation, it seems we have a rich, full theology, that are Christian in their own right!

JST in the LDS Church

The JST manuscripts were preserved by Emma Smith after Joseph’s death. As a result, the then Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS, now Community of Christ church) published and copyrighted the JST in 1867. The LDS church had only a partial collection of the JST manuscripts.  Ostensibly the LDS church was unable to verify, independently, whether or not the compilation of the JST by the RLDS church was indeed accurate and, possibly, to avoid simply accepting the JST as espoused by the RLDS church (relations have not always been good), perhaps the LDS church just used what it had. That copyright has long since expired, and as recently as 2004 the LDS church, with full support from the Community of Christ church, produced a full facsimile of all the original manuscripts. So why not adopt it now? Here are some possible reasons why we have not adopted the JST:

• Tradishuuuuuun, tradishun! Yep, the LDS church is very slow to part with tradition. As we have officially used the KJV (with a few additions) for many years, and have gone to great lengths to print it and bind it, and have incorporated it into many lesson manuals, perhaps we are just sluggish to change.
• Perhaps we are afraid of the label “Joseph Smith Translation.” We already know that “translation” as used in other contexts is a stretch, so maybe we’re nervous about adopting another, possibly erroneous “translation.”
• Maybe there is some interest in differentiating ourselves from the CoC church. After all, from an LDS perspective, it would be easy to view the CoC church as having gone astray. If we adopt their book, who knows what will happen.
• There may be changes in the full JST that cast doubt on LDS church policies, procedures, rules, revelations, culture, etc. (I have not read the full JST so this may be a stretch).
• Doctrinal salmagundi was the modus operandi in Joseph’s day, but today’s church is quite sensitive to new, unprecendented doctrine and/or changes. We seem to be moving toward mainstream Christianity, and adopting the JST might send us in the other direction.

So what do you think? Was the JST really a “translation” in the sense that Joseph was trying to restore the text to the original, and is this even a useful thing to do for Mormonism? Or was Joseph really more interested in getting to what he believed Jesus actually taught? Why do you think the LDS church has not adopted the JST?

Suzy: Dad, I’m sorry I scratched the couch!
Dad: It’s okay, just don’t do it again.
2 minutes later
Suzy: Dad, I’m sorry I picked my nose.
Dad: Yeah, we don’t pick our noses or they bleed.
2 minutes later
Suzy: Dad, I’m sorry I kicked the chair.
Dad: Yeah, it’s okay, don’t worry about it.
repeat ad nauseum
next day
Suzy: Mom, I need to tell you a secret.
Mom: Suzy, if you’re saying sorry for something, I don’t want to hear it!
Suzy: I won’t mom, I just need to tell you a secret.
Mom: okay
Suzy: Mom, I’m sorry I jumped on the floor.
Mom: Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
repeat ad nauseum for 2 weeks
on a car ride home one afternoon
Suzy: Dad, I need to tell you something
Dad: Sure Suzy, what is it?
Suzy: I’m sorry I kicked the seat in the truck
Dad: Okay, thanks for telling me, just don’t kick it anymore.
dad turns on music
Suzy: Dad…Dad…DAD!
dad turns down music
Dad: Yes Suzy?
Suzy: I’m sorry I pulled out one of my hairs.
Dad: Okay, okay, just try to sit there and listen to the music.
dad turns music back up
repeat, AGAIN, ad nauseum (yes, my child is obsessive/compulsive)
Suzy: Dad…Dad…Dad…
dad is ignoring 5 year old
Suzy: DAAAADDDDDD!!!!
dad turns off music
Dad: WHAT! If you tell me you’re sorry one more, I’m gonna lose it!
Suzy: I’m sorry I wiped a booger on the seat.
Dad: Look, Suzy, you don’t have to say sorry for everything okay!
Suzy: But dad, I’m supposed to say sorry when I do something wrong.
Dad: speechless

I’ve been on my daughter’s case since she was born. “Don’t do that!” “Knock it off!” etc. She also has learned to say sorry when she does something wrong.  Honestly, I never thought this would come back to haunt me in quite this way!

I’ve laid out so many things that she should and shouldn’t do, and she violates so many of them just by nature of being a kid. But it was getting extremely tedious when every time she opened her mouth we had a confessional! I told her to stop apologizing all the time. Of course that’s not really what I meant. When she told me she was supposed to say sorry when she did something wrong, I simply didn’t know what to say. Of course she should apologize when she does something wrong, but clearly not everything was wrong, or at least it wasn’t a big enough deal to warrant guilt and/or shame. But is it a big deal? I had taken the time to tell her (repeatedly) not to do those things in the past, how should she know what is a big deal and what is not? How should she know when she’s apologizing too much, and which things warrant a real apology? How should she know which rules are really the important ones to keep, and which ones aren’t?  Perhaps I should have been more careful in my criticizing her actions.  Perhaps I should have just let some things slide, picking my battles more wisely.  After all, a parent can only handle so many confessionals!

It is Sunday, and Mike and his new bride, Valerie, are up visiting Mike’s family for the weekend. Mike is a physics major and has just finished finals. He is looking forward to some much needed freedom, as well as catching up on neglected chores. Although Mike’s parents typically plant a garden each year, this time Valerie is particularly interested in harvesting her own set of vegetables. The ground was prepared last weekend, but rain has prevented them from planting, and even more rain is in the forecast for the coming week. Now is the time to plant! Unfortunately, contrary to the weather forecast, it also rained yesterday. That means today, Sunday, is likely the only day Mike and Valerie will be able to get their vegetables planted.

But Mike is concerned. He wants to keep the Sabbath Day holy. He approaches his mother and asks “Mom, is it okay to plant the vegetables today, even though it’s Sunday”? “I think it’s okay, but you should do what you feel is right.” she responds. “Do you think the vegetables will grow okay? Do you think they’ll be safe for us to eat”? Mike asks innocently. “Why wouldn’t they be”? mom questions. “Well, because, you know, we’re planting them on Sunday”?

Mike’s mom smiles a little at this, but recognizing the innocent nature of the question responds “You know Mike, in today’s global economy there’s a good chance some of the vegetables you buy at the store were planted, nourished, or even harvested on Sunday. And yet they grew large and ripe, and you don’t get sick when you eat them.” Still a bit apprehensive, but feeling more confident, Mike and Valerie proceed to plant the garden on Sunday after church.

Mormonism has its roots in the magical worldview. While this worldview has been molded and shaped, and is admittedly less prominent than in times past, it still carries on in subtle ways. I admit that I shared this worldview, in similarly subtle ways, before my faith crisis. Perhaps some of this is nothing more than innocence of youth, or one’s choice of friends, or one’s longing to be a dedicated Saint, etc. But I think the language we use in church settings encourages this worldview, and sets our youth (and adults in many cases) up for disappointment, and disaffection.

Recently, in priesthood opening exercises, a councilor from the Stake Presidency was giving us a special message. The Stake Presidency had been in our ward that day, and we had already heard from the Stake President. The topic was missionary work, and the presidency was emphasizing the goals of our stake to share the Gospel with more people. Specifically, this particular goal was for each member to invite at least one person to hear the missionary discussions each month. The Stake President, in sacrament meeting, had recapitulated this goal, and testified he had, since stake conference (when the goals were set), met this goal. The councilor, in priesthood opening exercises, also had met this goal, but admitted all his invitations had been turned down. The councilor then said (paraphrasing) “I testify that as we live righteously, and strive to complete the goals our Stake President has set for us, the Lord will place people in our path who are ready to hear the Gospel.”

I think this type of promise is a fairly common one. We promise, and testify of many great things that will happen if we are obedient to God’s commandments. Paying tithing, keeping the Word of Wisdom, reading scriptures daily, all have associated promises from the Lord. Because the promised blessings are vague, however, if one obeys a commandment, they have license to claim anything they want as a direct blessing from God. It is certainly a valid claim that one has financial success because he/she paid tithing. This may or may not be supported by reality but the claim, at least according to scripture, is a valid one.

From D&C 130:

20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-
21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.

In logic, these scripture verses can be taken as sufficient and necessary conditions. That is, obtaining a blessing from God implies we obeyed the corresponding law.  And similarly, if we obey the law, we receive the blessing.  This works in the negative as well.  If we do not obey the law, we won’t get the blessing, and, worst of all, if we don’t get the blessing we didn’t obey the law.

These two verses, along with misinterpretations of “blessings” and “laws” upon which blessings are predicated, coupled with the vernacular of grand promises in our meetings, gives rise to the magical worldview.

Having said that, I actually think the solution to squelching the magical worldview (if it indeed ought to be squelched) is also found in those same verses. It is up to us to appropriately understand which laws are associated with any particular blessing. Financial success (blessing) is not predicated on tithing. Rather, it is based on making sound financial decisions, wise investment, saving, and thrift (law). Growing large, ripe, non-poisonous vegetables (blessing) is based on watering, healthy soil, proper sunlight, and other proper growing conditions (law). Additionally, spiritual growth, particularly in the Mormon context, may be predicated upon adherence to tithing, keeping the Sabbath Day holy, fasting, etc.

I think as we more closely scrutinize the blessings and associated laws, our tendency to make grand promises for physical life, predicated upon adherence to spiritual laws, will decrease, thereby diminishing the magical worldview.

What say you?  Is the magical worldview a setup for disappointment and/or disaffection?  What do you think causes it and what can be done to diminish its significance in the lives of people?

We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

While these verses lay out the principles/ordinances, they do little to explicate what these terms actually mean. And indeed, the confusion over these principles is the subject of many theological debates in Christianity. In Mormonism, however, I think we have some fairly clear explanations for how these principles/ordinances are used in our theology. For example, to establish a definition of faith, most Mormons will refer to Hebrews 11:1, or perhaps Alma 32:21 (not quoted for sake of brevity).  Additionally, at least to me, I sense a kind of loose cultural consensus for what faith is, and is not.  For baptism we can look to D&C 20:73. As for the Gift of the Holy Ghost, modern revelation confirms the method of the “laying of hand by those who are in authority,” and we have a ready explanation of the difference between the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the influence of the Holy Ghost.

I confess, I find some of the typical Mormon explanations of these principles and ordinances somewhat (okay, at least for faith very) unsatisfying. Faith, when described as “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” leaves me wondering about the difference between God and electromagnetic waves or general relativity! In the case of Alma, it is worse because we bring a new term “knowledge” into the mix without an appropriate definition. After such standard definitions it is little wonder to me why we argue over semantics, and describe those who either fall away, or reject the church, as “faithless.” Faith often becomes the lynchpin for anyone who doesn’t see things our way!

Likewise, even the explanation for baptism in D&C 20 leaves me wanting. What is so magical about immersion in water? Is it entirely clear from the New Testament that Jesus was “completely submersed” in the water like we believe is necessary in LDS theology? It feels like there should be more to this ordinance than simply a bath!  Even coupling it with repentance (as it should be) just clouds the waters of my mind.

In “A Rational Theology,” Widstoe lays out a compelling alternative for these standard definitions. Not that he repudiates them, but he explicitly differentiates between the abstract meanings of the principles and ordinances, and the concrete implmentation on terra firma. I think his words are enlightening:

In God’s Plan for life on earth is a system of laws representing eternal realities, to which man must conform. Such a law, for instance, is faith, which, in its simple, universal meaning, is man’s certainty that in the universe is found everything he may desire for his upbuilding and advancement, and that the eternal relations of universal forces will prevail in the end for his good. Another such fundamental law, to which man must conform, is that of repentance, which in its larger sense is merely faith made active. Passive faith can do little for man’s advancement. Yet another such law is that of baptism, which is essentially obedience to existing laws. And still another such law is that of the gift of the Holy Ghost, which perhaps means that a man may place himself in touch with the whole of the universe, including the beings of superior intelligence that it contains, and draw knowledge from forces beyond the earth. – John A. Widstoe, “A Rational Theology” pp 42-43

Here, it is clear that the first four principles and ordinances of the Gospel are eternal laws, are independent of the LDS church, earth, priesthood, or any other convention, organization, or authority in the universe. I believe this offers us perspective on the larger context in which the specific LDS implementation resides. It also makes allowances for God’s other non-terrestrial children to experience different forms of these basic laws and principles.
Widstoe goes on to say:

Life on earth deals directly with gross matter and the forces pertaining to it. The laws formulated for the guidance of man are especially devised for earth conditions, and belong to the earth. For instance, water baptism, the symbol of obedience to God and acceptance of his love, is essentially an ordinance of and for this earth. It is not thinkable that water baptism is practiced in a future estate for water is an earth substance. If this be true, then all who enter upon the earth-career, and who desire the perfected joy derived from the Gospel, must have baptism on this earth. – John A. Widstoe, “A Rational Theology” pp 44-45

Then the all-encompassing explanation provided formerly, couched in the reality of earth life, offers a surprising explanation of vicarious ordinances, necessarily performed here, on behalf of those who did not receive them while “in the flesh.”

Should some of the spirits refuse, while on earth, to accept the Gospel, or fail to hear it, baptism, belonging to the earth, must be done for them, vicariously, on earth, so that they, having had the work done for them here, may accept or reject the ordinance in their life beyond the grave. This is the motive of the work for the dead. The earth ordinances must be done by or for every soul born upon the earth so that the earth-experience may not be in vain, should the Gospel be accepted in the remotest day of eternity. This view becomes more important when it is recalled that the ordinances of the earth, belonging primarily to the earth, stand for vast, eternal realities, indispensable to man’s progress. – John A. Widstoe, “A Rational Theology” p. 45

For me, I find the deeper theology here enriching, satisfying, and meaningful, particularly in my state of uncertainty with regard to the plenitude of truth claims in the LDS church.

So how do you view Widstoe’s rational “first four principles and ordinances”? Do his explanations provide you with more insight? Is he right? Or is this just another attempt by an “apologist” to justify his belief system? Is there scriptural backing for his claims? We do not emphasize such distinctions in the church today. Is this because we don’t really know, or is it just not important?

But I want to give credit where credit is due. If you have not seen the church’s new Combating Pornography website, may I suggest you check it out. It is not just for those struggling with the addiction of pornography (yes, I said addiction), but for spouses of those struggling, parents, leaders, etc. I think everyone could glean some useful insight about an epidemic that has proved to invade nearly every life in one way or another.

In short, I think the site is brilliant, and I give much kudos to the church for the content and purpose. I really think it’s great! Here’s what I like about it:

1. The star article (IMHO) is a well researched, well documented, elaboration on the nature of pornography addiction, by a renowned expert in the field. The second to last paragraph is my favorite:
   

   Why is it important to understand that compulsive pornography use is an actual addiction? By recognizing this, we will treat it with the respect required to overcome an addiction. For instance, no spiritual leader would tell a member who confesses an alcohol addiction to pray and repent without recommending counseling and 12-step support in such programs as the Addiction Recovery Program with LDS Family Services and Alcoholics Anonymous. Similarly, with the proper perspective on sexual addiction, we should also recommend that those afflicted with pornography and other sexual addictions, in addition to proceeding through the steps of repentance, will also seek recovery with therapy and group support.

2. The site references sources and scholarship about overcoming pornography. While I am not a social worker, or clinical psychologist, I recognize the most commonly accepted patterns in treating addiction/depression. See here, and here for great examples.
3. There is practical advice in Mormonism’s favorite form – a checklist.
4. There is a good mix of emphasis on moral cleanliness, openness in discussing human sexuality, physical reality, and spiritual ideology. When I read the articles I get the impression that we’re not in the business of simply condemning this as sin and parroting to people they “pray and read scriptures” more diligently. We are acknowledging a deeper problem in human psychology/biology that warrants our most sincere efforts.
5. The church is sincerely dedicated to helping people with this problem. There are conference talks (at least one every six months), there is a website, there are very inexpensive counselling and other professional services, there is a booklet and associated meetings for overcoming addiction, etc.

I really do believe that the LDS church does a lot of great things in this world. There are people who are hurt by the culture, there are social and cultural problems I wish were different, and there are issues in our theology that don’t work for me. But for this very uncertain Mormon, I am truly grateful to be a part of an organization that does try, in many ways, to influence people for the better.

I’d like to do a series of posts pulling interesting gems from this book and contrasting them with our modern conceptions in the church. Some of this has been done by Matt W. over at New Cool Thang. You can find his various posts here, here, here, and here. I’d like to build on this analysis, and further examine the rational theology Widstoe tries to build up. In this first post, however, I’d like to contrast the type of scholarship that led to such books with the scholarship in the church today.

The Trajectories of Mormon Scholarship

“A Rational Theology” was written during what seems to be the heyday of Mormon intellectual thought. Over at Boap.org, there’s a great post that gives an outline of the time and shows two main schools of intellectual thought that were being developed at the time. The first school of thought, represented by James E. Talmage and Widstoe, attempts to build a Mormon theology from basic principles, coupled with the Bible. The second school of thought, characterized by B.H. Roberts, relied more heavily on the records of Joseph Smith, and tried to systematize Joseph’s theology, and defend his claims, including The Book of Mormon.

In part due to his relationship with then President Joseph F. Smith, Talmage’s school of thought won out and the “rational” theology became the face of the church’s efforts, including Widstoe’s “A Rational Theology” as the new Sunday School manual. But Roberts’ work was to live on in part thanks to his work on the history of the church. Since then, various influential individuals have augmented these approaches to the church’s theology. Subsequent President Joseph Fielding Smith took the Talmage approach to the extreme, favoring a very literal interpretation, and applying the Bible to many facets of life. Henry Eyring arguably favored a more rigorous scientific approach to knowledge, all while easily (for him) resolving conflict between science and religion, and maintaining his faith in Mormonism. John L. Sorenson dove into the archaeology in Latin America to bolster claims about the historicity of The Book of Mormon.

However, it might well be asserted that Hugh Nibley started (or at least popularized) the apologist movement within Mormonism. Attempts up to this point by Talmage, Widstoe, and the like were to build up a theology from scratch, using a few basic principles, and relying much less on the historicity of The Book of Mormon, or even Joseph Smith’s teachings. Nibley’s approach was a reach back in time to the days of Roberts to yank the goal of systematizing Joseph’s work into the late 20th century. Nibley studied everything from Hebrew, to Egyptology, to Islam, to early Christian history. Modern apologists (seem to me) to be more along the vein of Nibley, and they continue to find success, funding, and support from the church both officially and unofficially.

Scientists and Apologists

I’m interested in the contrast between the Talmage/Widstoe method, and the current apologist method as inspired by Roberts, and most recently, Nibley. Both methods are an attempt at an intellectual justification for Mormonism (or at least parts of it). Talmage/Widstoe addressed Mormon theology as a whole, relying little on Joseph’s cosmology, idealistically asserting that, in time, the LDS Church would embrace all truth. Roberts/Nibley became defenders of Joseph’s claims, charting a rational walk through the apparent irrationality of The Book of Mormon, priesthood, revelations, etc. However, even so, for those who have tried to tie Joseph’s cosmology together, the task is daunting. Contradictions appear, and Joseph himself was learning line upon line, sometimes later ideas casting confusion on what previous claims were intended to mean.

The Talmage/Widstoe method appears to be more insulated from the truth claims of the church, relying more completely on logical reasoning, and small assertions to take us to the next reasonable step. Moreover, the works of these two individuals are very academic, citing hundreds of books, research, and other well verified material. This perhaps gives their points of view more credibility.

Current apologists attempt to apply logical thinking and reasoning to their (Joseph’s or the church’s) claims, but admittedly, they are doing most of the work themselves (it’s not a mystery why most apologist papers on the historicity of The Book of Mormon reference Sorenson’s work). There is much less scholarship on Mormonism outside of the church, whereas Talmage/Widstoe could build on basic theological principles, hundreds of years of philosophical thought, as well as hundreds of years of research on the Bible and its manuscripts.

When I look around at the current Church landscape, it appears that the attempt at rationally building a theology from scratch has all but gone away. I don’t see any new books at Deseret Book that attempt to describe the Gospel in this way, and indeed the church does not produce manuals that aspire to such a lofty goal.[1] On the other hand, I do see plenty of apologist books, articles, and institutions dedicated to defending Joseph’s claims, The Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price, Joseph’s revelations, etc. In fact, we even saw a talk in general conference in October that had a familiar apologist ring to it.

So what think ye? Are the rational theologians in Mormonism dead? Are apologists the new rational theologians, or do they have a different goal in mind? Is a rational theology realizable, and should we try to find it, or should we accept things purely on faith? Or should we seek for both? And where do we draw the line?

[1] In all fairness I have to give credit to Blake Ostler who absolutely attempts to provide a “rational theology” in the context of Mormonism. Although his work is not endorsed by the Church, or sold at Deseret Book.

I recently read a biography of Muhammad “Muhammad, A Prophet For Our Time” by Karen Armstrong. It was a fascinating read and I learned a great deal about this ancient prophet.

I must admit that most of my thoughts while reading the book revolved around the parallels to Joseph Smith and the early saints. Frankly, I find the similarities startling in one sense, and yet unsurprising in another. On the one hand, the similarities feel so extraordinary to me that I cannot understand how I could possibly believe in Joseph Smith’s story and reject Muhammad’s (or truthfully that I never even gave it a chance). On the other hand, this is the story of the mystics and visionaries of the world. Their methods, works, books, and revelations are very similar and the truths they bring forth have striking similarities.

Here is a list of similarities that I found while reading this biography.

1. Muhammad, like Joseph Smith did not seem to necessarily ask for the role he eventually took on. Their journeys initiated with simple questions, desires, and events that seem ordinary, but resulted in the extraordinary. In both scenarios, these men seemed to be rather surprised by their visions and revelations.
2. Both men brought forth inspired books given to them by an angel. Many claim that the Qur’an could be nothing if not divine based entirely on the language alone. This does not sound too unlike Joseph’s claim of The Book of Mormon being “the most correct book on earth.” One difference, however, is that Muhammad did seem to recognize more fully the importance of the Qur’an. In other words, the Qur’an was what defined Islam, as it was a compilation of the revelations Muhammad had received (not unlike the Doctrine and Covenants). Joseph, on the other hand, didn’t seem to put quite as much emphasis on The Book of Mormon, almost to the point where one has to wonder whether Joseph really understood what was in The Book of Mormon and the impact it would have. On the other hand, Joseph, like Muhammad, did seem to put a large emphasis on his revelations.
3. Both Joseph and Muhammad seemed to slowly grow into their calling. In Mormonism, I find there are many people who ostensibly think that Joseph knew what he was doing from the get-go. In fact, revelations to both men came at spontaneous times and left the men wondering how to enact, or implement the revelation. They had to learn and grow in wisdom and understanding as pieces of their theology came to them. In short, both prophets learned and authored the concepts of “line upon line” within their culture.
4. Both men tell a similar tale of receiving revelation. Note the similarities between Armstrong’s characterization of Muhammad and some of the descriptions of Joseph Smith receiving revelation. Here are Armstrong’s words:
   

   Under the inspiration of Allah, Muhammad was feeling his way towards an entirely new solution, convinced that he was not speaking in his own name, but was simply repeating the revealed words of God. It was a painful, difficult process. He once said: ‘Never once did I receive a revelation without thinking that my soul had been torn away from me.’ Sometimes the message was clear. He could almost see and hear Gabriel distinctly. The words seemed to ‘come down’ to him, like a shower of life-giving rain. But often the divine voice was muffled and obscure: ‘Sometimes it comes unto me like the reverberations of a bell, and that is the hardest upon me; the reverberations abate when I am aware of their message.’ He had to listen to the undercurrent of events, trying to discover what was really going on. He would grow pale with the effort and cover himself with his cloak, as if to shield himself from the divine impact. He would perspire heavily, even on a cold day, as he turned inwards, searching his soul for a solution to a problem, in rather the same way as a poet has to open himself to the words that he must haul from the depths of himself to the conscious level of his mind. In the Qur’an, God instructed Muhammad to listen intently to each revelation as it emerged; he must be careful not to impose a meaning on a verse prematurely, before its full significance had become entirely clear.” – pp. 56 – 57

5. Both Joseph and Muhammad became generals (basically). While Muhammad was certainly more violent in achieving his goals, both men resorted to militias and violence to retain their rights of freedom to worship. Additionally, I think that Muhammad’s increased use of violence was primarily a product of his time and culture. It was not uncommon to raid camps, caravans, and cities merely to prove a point and gain favor with a certain tribe. In all fairness, Joseph’s violence was most often in self-defense, whereas Muhammad was clearly on the offensive at times.
6. Both men worked fervently against their culture to bring to pass their ideals. In other words, both men seemed to be ahead of their time socially, and culturally, and dreamed of a society that many resisted. In fact, these utopian societies had similarities. Both dreamed of a society in which divisions between classes were blurred, or removed, where universal human rights were respected. Both wanted all things to be equal, and for there to be peace and harmony amongst all people. In fact, the commonalities of their desired societies seem to exist among religious leaders of many times and places, including Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama.
7. Both pushed against cultural norms for women and instituted polygamy as part of their respective theologies. Ironically, (depending on your point of view) both men also instituted polygamy which had a tremendous effect on the cultural norms for women. In the case of Muhammad, his treatment of his many wives set a new precedent of respect that men ought to have for their wives. And Muhammad’s primary reason for polygamy was to provide care for the numerous widows created during war. Furthermore, in the Qur’an women are revered and held up as important figures in society. Clearly Joseph instituted polygamy as well although his reasons are much less clear (depending on your point of view). Whether or not this had the same uplifting effect upon women is certainly debatable and a matter of opinion, but Joseph certainly attempted to influence the culture for women by his creation of the Relief Society with a number of powers and privileges.
8. The followers of both men were fiercely loyal, perhaps to a fault in the eyes of many. On the other hand, that seems to be what is needed in order for such religions to grow and become large movements. Both religions seemed to divide families and create intense hatred among their opponents. It seems to be a direct product of the brilliance of their respective leaders in combatting that hatred that allowed their ideas to progress to later stages of development and continue to the present day.
9. Both men led their followers away from their original location due to persecution (“No prophet is accepted in his own country.” Luke 4:24).
10. Both men got involved in politics and were successful. For Muhammad the politics were mostly inter-tribal, and Muhammad initially used violence (although later he used peaceful methods) to coerce the politics in Mecca and Medina to his liking. Joseph was mayor of Nauvoo, and eventually even tried his hand at the presidential elections. I wonder if this similarity is caused by being the leader of a growing religious faction, or whether the two men were just so charismatic that the “shoe fit” as it were.
11. Needless to say, both men had many many attempts on their lives, as they both a large number of enemies, both politically, and within their own group. One significant difference is that Joseph’s enemies eventually did succeed in their attempts. Muhammad, in contrast, lived until an old age and died in the arms of his favorite wife.

Although theologically Islam and Mormonism are very different, the characteristics of their founders, and nature of the initial followers have striking similarities.

So what think ye readers? Why do you lend your beliefs/souls/trust/etc. to Joseph Smith’s claims and reject Muhammad’s? Or do you? Or do you believe that Muhammad only had partial light and knowledge (despite the fact that Islam and Mormonism are radically different)?

Articles of Faith of Mormon Culture

1. We believe in SUVs and minivans, as the form of transportation, and in knee length shorts, which are always nice, and in the multilevel marketing.

2. We believe that church ball players should be punished for their own fouls, and not for unsportsmanlike aggression.

3. We believe that through bread crumbs, cheese, creamy soups, and rice all casseroles can be saved through obedience to ward cookbooks and creativity in the mixing bowl.

4. We believe that the first layers and ingredients of the Dip are: first, beans; second, cheese; third, chopped tomatoes; fourth, the gift of sour cream; fifth, olives; sixth, salsa; seventh, guacamole, that is, if you have it.

5. We believe that a Mormon should have a distinguished or a cute name, that it is appropriate to name a child after a church leader or a historical figure including an ancestor, that alternative spellings and French prefixes only add to a name, and that when referring to the names of General Authorities, middle initials should be a part thereof.

6. We believe in the same wall decor that exists in many Mormon homes, namely, framed family proclamations, vinyl lettering, inspirational word signs, family photos, pictures of temples and Jesus, and so forth.

7. We believe in the gift of the re-gift, church books, crafts, family photos, baked goods, emergency supply kits, and so forth.

8. We believe in sparkling grape juice so long as it is nonalcoholic; we also believe in bringing root beer and sprite to ward parties.

9. We believe in all that we have scrapbooked, all that we will now scrapbook, and we believe that we will yet scrapbook many great and important things pertaining to our family, friends, pets, and vacations.

10. We believe in the literal mixing of ketchup and mayo and in the generous application of ranch dressing; that CBAs (church-based acronyms) will be used to describe YM/YW, PEC, the Y, NCMO, and CTR; that Mitt Romney will get Mormons to vote for him any time he runs; and, that the Mormons will enjoy reading Twilight and The Work and the Glory.

11. We claim the privilege of trying to identify common acquaintances with any visitor at church, and allow all other people at church the same privilege, and let them name drop the names of Famous and general authorities how, where, or what they may.

12. We believe in being subject to scoutmasters, pampered chef hostesses, and the writers of the U.S. News and World Report Rankings for professional schools, and in obeying, honoring, and sustaining Glenn Beck.

13. We believe in being above average, good at crafts, optimistic, and being fifteen minutes late everywhere we go. Indeed, we may say that we follow BYU football. We believe rumors about famous people joining the church, we hope to meet the three Nephites, we have endured many pyramid schemes, and hope to be able to endure all pyramid schemes. If there is anything cheap, free, sold in bulk, or given away when somebody is moving, we seek after these things.

Feel free to add your own cultural articles of faith in the comments.

During the last two years, the U.S.A. (and the world in general) has seen tremendous economic hardship. It has been dubbed the “Great Recession” by many – a nod to the 1929 “Great Depression.” I recently read an interesting piece in The Christian Science Monitor (which I generally find to be a good, mostly unbiased source of information – this article being a noteworthy exception) entitled Recession’s silver lining: falling divorce rate.

This article presents some profound, highly methodical research, and is very well written. There are absolutely no poor leaps of logic, it is based on sound science, and it certainly does not equate correlation with causation. Okay, okay, so the article leaves a lot to be desire.

Here is the key:

These tough economic times may have at least one positive side effect: they might be encouraging greater family solidarity. The evidence for this? The US divorce rate fell during the first full year of what might be called the Great Recession. That’s the first such decline since 2005.[1]

And then:

But others may be rediscovering why they got married in the first place. Recession reminds them that marriage can be more than an emotional relationship. It is also an economic partnership and social safety net, points out the National Marriage Project report, “The State of Our Unions 2009″ (WARNING: pdf file).

If this is true (and since it’s in print, it must be!) maybe the church is “barking up the wrong tree” to preserve the sanctity of marriage. My suggestion would be to increase tithing to 20% or 30% even. Furthermore, a strong campaign pushing for legislation raising taxes, and further government intervention in the way of fixing higher prices would be just what we need to truly preserve the sanctity of marriage! After all

There’s nothing like the loss of a job, an imminent foreclosure, or a shrinking 401(k) to [help spouses] gain new appreciation for a wife’s job, a husband’s commitment to pay down debt, or the in-laws’ willingness to help out with childcare or a rent-free place to live.[2]

What do you think? Discuss.

[1] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2009/1208/p02s04-ussc.html

[2] http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/pdfs/Union_11_25_09.pdf

Posing the Questions on a Personal Level

Since these two bloggers did such a nice job, I will not attempt to address his remarks directly. Rather, I am interested in discussing the address from a personal standpoint. Particularly, I’m interested in how I, jmb275, can understand and deal with his remarks since I clearly do not agree with him.

Let me be very clear here, I do not agree with Elder Hafen’s remarks, and I recognize the poor research, logical fallacies, and dogmatic approach to this issue. I understand that it seems to be a step backwards for the church, and I recognize it is not in harmony with some other messages being sent from the church on this issue (see here, here, or here). I also recognize that Elder Hafen was very bold, possibly to the point of establishing new doctrine (resurrection is, definitively, a mechanism which removes homosexual feelings?). However, none of this is what I want to deal with. What is done, is done, and his remarks have been analyzed. I’m interested in answering the following questions:

1. Is this the last straw? Should I simply leave the church?
2. If not, do I have to agree with Elder Hafen to be a member in good standing?
3. How can I categorize, or otherwise deal with Elder Hafen’s remarks?
4. What is my relationship with the church, and does my membership imply my consent for, or agreement with what has been said?

Answering the Questions For ME

• Answering #1. I am not in the business of trying to convince people to stay in the church, or to leave the church. I see great arguments on both sides. However, I have made my choice to stay, and find spiritual nourishment in my choice. There’s simply enough good, to me, in the church, and I am sufficiently attached to it psychologically, and physically (through family) to convince me to remain. If your choice is to leave, then we’re done here and you can move along. Since I choose to remain we will move on to answering the other questions (and since it wouldn’t be a very interesting blog post if I didn’t).
• Answering #2. I think there will be many who would answer “yes” to this question. I believe this is a product of our Mormon culture. Indeed, from my reading of Joseph Smith’s life, I think the very idea would strike against what Joseph said and did! The good news is that despite what many might think, there is nothing in any doctrine of which I am aware that says disagreement with one of the Brethren puts my membership in jeopardy. Certainly I can “sustain” the Brethren, and recognize their authority in the church without agreeing with everything they say!
• Answering #3. It would seem like there are some relatively straightforward answers to this question.
  • Elder Hafen is a man, so we could conclude that his remarks are “the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.” After all, I have chalked up lots of things said by prophets to this idea. There certainly is truth in this analysis since each of us “see[s] through a glass, darkly”(1 Cor 13:12).
  • Elder Hafen is not the prophet, nor does he speak for the prophet (at least he didn’t indicate that we was). Hence, we can conclude that this does not represent the position of the church collectively, and may not be God’s will.
  • Elder Hafen is using apologetics, coupled with suspect research, all as a dogmatist to draw invalid conclusions. Indeed, rather than examining the evidence and drawing conclusions (the scientific method), the dogmatist already knows the “truth” (has drawn the conclusions) and must interpret the evidence accordingly.

  These are all valid points, and possible answers. But notice that they focus on characterizing Elder Hafen himself, or his remarks. I am interested in something more. How can I understand his remarks, disagree with them, but still respect him and his position?

  For this, I feel I must turn to an attempt to understand Elder Hafen in a Christlike way. Are his intentions good? Does he believe that what he’s doing is right? Does he really seek to hurt people, or does he seek to help them overcome what he believes is a temptation to be conquered? In other words, rather than dismissing his words and analyzing their negative effect on people, I am seeking understanding as to what leads him to make such remarks in the first place. After all, most of us do what we think is best, not intentionally trying to hurt each other, although that effort may be misguided!

  What does this approach buy me? Empathy, and understanding! Not agreement, and not consent, but understanding. It seeks nuance when the tendency is to be dismissive (black), or accepting (white). It gives me the tools I need to avoid letting anger dictate my actions. And, ultimately, at the end of the day, I personally believe that this kind of understanding helps me to transcend my natural inclinations, and use a higher model of human interaction.

• Answering #4. Answering #4 is an important key, for me, in understanding my relationship with any of the organizations to which I belong – church, work, country, school, etc. For me, it is a balancing act. I must sufficiently care for the organization (since I receive benefit from it) to desire to stay a part of it, and desire that it remain intact. But in contrast, I must be sufficiently divorced from the organization in order to avoid the personal pitfalls that come with being a part of it (groupthink, mind control, defending the indefensible, etc.).How do I directly apply this balancing act to the church? I have separated my spiritual growth from the organization! Currently, I find the church a useful mechanism for me to serve, pray, introspect, and otherwise grow spiritually. Arguably, some of this may be attached to being raised LDS. That’s irrelevant to me, as the important point is that I grow spiritually in this particular environment. It also means I can look at Elder Hafen’s remarks and not feel inclined to defend that with which I do not agree. In contrast to the response to #3, this balancing act does allow me the ability to dismiss his remarks (should I feel so inclined).

  Certainly this can be taken to the extreme, and if the church started sanctioning secret assassinations I would be the first one out the door. But I don’t see this type of evil in the LDS church (contrary to what some critics may infer). I love this church, and want it to succeed. But I maintain sufficient distance that I need not accept every piece of doctrine or opinion.

I appreciate what has been said regarding Elder Hafen’s speech by others in the bloggernacle. I make no excuse for the backward step his words seem to imply. However, I do wish to transcend his remarks and take them in stride. These words from Denise Turner in the Ensign a few years back seem particularly appropriate:

Regrettably, there are times when others’ motives are not entirely innocent. This may particularly cause pain and confusion when the offender’s actions seem to contradict the religion he or she espouses; yet even in these difficult situations we are not justified in nursing our anger or turning away from the Church. President Stephen L Richards, First Counselor to President David O. McKay, said, “Does one offense wipe out another? Does weakness in one, even one who has been given a testimony of the truth, justify transgression of the law or failure to listen to its precepts?” (“Encouragement for Repenters,” Improvement Era, June 1956, 398). Our testimonies must be based on Jesus Christ, not on imperfect and fallible individuals. (Denise Turner, “If Any Man Offend Not”, Ensign, August 1998)

Whether your testimony is literal, metaphorical, or you are TBM, non-Mormon, or a middle-way advocate, I think we can learn to understand our fellows better, and while not agreeing with them, can still respect and honor them.

So how do you plan to deal with Elder Hafen’s remarks?

Background

A bit of background information is necessary.  My family is of “pioneer stock” through both sides of my family, so we have a rich heritage of Mormon tradition.  However, my parents actually never forced, coerced, or otherwise tried to get me to go to church.  I honestly never felt pressured to live a certain way, obey any particular rules, go to church, or anything else. Part of this may be because I never gave them any reason to.  I have always been a straight shooter.  I have always tried my best to obey my leaders, earn all the awards, sing in the choirs, read all the books etc.  From a very early age (probably around 14 or so) I began reading my scriptures every night.  Because my patriarchal blessing told me to familiarize myself with the life of Joseph Smith, I read several hagiographic biographies of him.  I was no expert in Church History, but I thought that I had a good feel for it (snicker).

However, much of this was a cover up for the questioner inside.  I also had a lot of heterodox ideas that I kept bottled up.  As a young teenager it occurred to me that the general authorities, and past prophets often contradicted each other a great deal.  I was so concerned about this I even saw my bishop for it!  I also had some strange ideas about absolute Truth.  Typical answers for Nephi killing Laban seemed very unsatisfactory to me.  I concluded that the only truth could be whatever God wanted but I admittedly didn’t know how I would know what God wanted.  As a good Latter-day Saint, I deferred to my leaders and their revelations as God’s will.

I paint this picture to illustrate that my tale is, what I have come to learn, a typical disaffected Mormon story.  Often the culture in Mormonism is such that those that try the hardest, fall the hardest.

Unleashing the Analyst Part I

At BYU I decided to go into engineering.  While I had a propensity for analysis and questioning, I had no formal training in it, and I often deferred to authorities on various issues, assuming they knew much more than myself.  At around the beginning of my graduate work it occurred to me that I could do my own analysis.  I didn’t need to rely on any experts, or authorities.  I could do my own analysis and draw my own conclusions from my research (a necessity in order to obtain a graduate degree).

However, having said this, I only applied this thought process to my professional life, and politics.  As far as church was concerned, I still deferred to my leaders.

Proposition 8

After graduating from BYU in Electrical Engineering, I took a job in California.  In May 2008 Prop 8 came to the forefront of nearly every Californian’s life.  I won’t go into any details since it is more than familiar to everyone I’m sure.  Let me say that I started out determined to follow the Brethren.  I walked precincts, went to firesides, donated to protectmarriage.com, put up signs, and did the other things I was asked to do.  However, about three weeks before the vote I started wondering what the other side had to say.  I learned that in reality both sides (protectmarriage.com, and the “No on 8″ campaign) stretched the truth, used scare tactics, and were otherwise less than honest.

Political Craziness

About this point, since I was now outside of Utah, I felt a bit less pressure to toe the Republican line.  I had always felt that I didn’t align with either the Dems or the GOP.  I then discovered a commentator that was more aligned with my ideals (mostly Libertarian, although I hate assigning labels).  I started being very active on the forum on his website.  The majority of people on this forum seemed to be agnostic/atheist, and there were very very few who stood up for the traditional, conservative values.  Since I was not very well versed in politics and political history, I found myself mostly commenting on the social issues.  Many people challenged my opinion in ways that were very new to me, and I did not have adequate answers to their challenges.

I started to realize that maybe I wasn’t really different than other religious people.  In fact, maybe my choice of religion was/is just as arbitrary as those I thought were not in the “true” church.  Maybe I was/am wrong altogether and have not realized it.  This caused me to question why I believed the LDS church to be the one and only “true and living church” on the earth today.  I started to ponder my own spiritual experiences.

I will admit that I have always found it difficult to discern the spiritual promptings I receive.  It has always been befuddling to me why some thoughts are just thoughts and others are the promptings of the Spirit.  Furthermore, I have always wondered what it meant to have a spiritual witness that the church is true.  Did this mean I needed to cry?  Do I just need to feel peace?  And how could these things be separated from just regular emotions?

As I started rehearsing the spiritual experiences I held dear, I began to realize there was often a common pattern in them.  Namely, that I was going through a rough time in my personal life, I had a lot of anxiety, and generally had an important decision to make to which I needed some confirmation or answer.  I also realized that in many cases, in fact, even my most serious life questions, I actually didn’t get any answer at all.  In those cases I did what I thought was the most logical thing to do, and often attributed it to the Spirit.  This seemed to happen in the most serious of life decisions, and I was left to wonder if God had any interest in me at all.

Psychology

I started to develop an interest in understanding more about my emotions, “revelations,” and other cognitions.  I started looking into psychology and was fascinated by what I found.  I felt that my experiences could often be very easily explained in normal psychological terms and were really no different than people of other faiths.  I began to distrust my spiritual experiences, considering them to not be adequately reliable to tell me the truth about such a perplexing question as to which religion was “true.”

Ultimately, this was the lynch pin.  I felt that I had never received an “unmistakable witness” as President Packer has indicated:

Sometimes you may struggle with a problem and not get an answer.  What could be wrong?  It may be that you are not doing anything wrong.  It may be that you have not done the right things long enough.  Remember, you cannot force spiritual things.  Sometimes we are confused simply because we won’t take no for an answer. … Put difficult questions in the back of your minds and go about your lives.  Ponder and pray quietly and persistently about them.  the answer may not come as a lightning bolt.  It may come as a little inspiration here and a little there, ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’ (D&C 98:12).  Some answers will come from reading the scriptures, some from hearing speakers.  And occasionally, when it is important, some will come by very direct and powerful inspiration.  The prompting will be clear and unmistakable.

- Elder Boyd K. Packer

A Search for Evidence

All of this led to a search for some confirming evidence for the veracity of the church.  I didn’t know anything about all the conundrums, controversies, and tough questions surrounding the historicity of The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, polygamy, and Church History in general.  As most of you will realize this led to a lot of problems.  Of course, one cannot address these issues without discovering lots of anti-mormon literature, as well as FARMS, and FAIRlds.org.  Upon discovering these sources I began to devour information about these topics.  However, I quickly discovered that while there was plenty to read about these topics, there was so much antagonism, polemics, distaste, and lack of good scholarship so as to destroy any confidence in most of the sources.  It seemed completely hopeless to discover any sort of truth in all the madness.  Ironically, I started to feel very much like what I envisioned Joseph himself must have felt like.

Unleashing the Analyst Part II

By now, I was prepared to finally unleash the analyst to the realm of religion and spirituality.  I had been doing it in my professional career, and in other realms of life for a number of years.  I had become good at doing my own independent research, both for my professional decisions, and life decisions (you don’t even wanna know what a pain it is to shop for a major purchase with me).

Discovering Church History for Myself

So, having unleashed the analyst, I was prepared to do my own study of church history.  I wanted to find the “truth” about Church History.  Of course, when I say “truth” I note that in fact it isn’t really “truth” per se.  It is the best guess that honest scholarship can make.  History is an interesting pursuit for a multitude of reasons.  We don’t have all the resources we would like, the resources we do have are biased, and the researcher himself may have his own biases.  Joseph Freeman once said

Everyone falsifies history even if it is only his own personal history. Sometimes the falsification is deliberate, sometimes unconscious; but always the past is altered to suit the needs of the present. The best we can say of any account is not that it is the real truth at last, but that this is how the story appears now.
Joseph Freeman

StayLDS.com

At about my point of deepest despair, when I wasn’t sure whether or not I would leave the church, I discovered the Mormon Stories podcasts, and StayLDS.com.  For those who don’t know, StayLDS.com is a site, with forum, in which disaffected, or otherwise questioning Mormons can go and discuss tough issues with the intent of remaining LDS.  At the time, I actually wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to remain LDS.  However, I did know that I didn’t need anymore negativity, nor did I need anyone to feed my ego, or validate my ideas.  I needed someone to show me another side – a perspective in which people with heterodox ideas remain an active part of the community.

The site has been tremendously helpful for me.  I feel much like John Dehlin does.  I am a Mormon, through and through.  It is my culture, my tribe, my people.  And I love them, even with all the quirks.

So Where Am I At Now?

At the present, I am still in pursuit of learning about Church History.  I have learned a lot, and formed some opinions which I loosely cling to.  I still have much to learn in this regard and I remain open to any number of possibilities.

I do a great deal of study about philosophy, and psychology, and don’t feel any need to fit this into a Mormon theological box.

I have not forgotten what has brought me to this point, so I am still fairly skeptical, and try to remain firmly grounded in reality.  In this way, I think I often come across as faithless.

I also like to explore the “Middle Way” in Mormonism.  I believe that a metaphorical belief in the Gospel benefits me every bit as much as a literal belief.

I love serving others, and find that Mormonism offers me a great way to accomplish this.  I also like having my heterodox ideas challenged in new ways because this helps me learn and grow.

Finally, I am a 100%, dyed in the wool, Buffet Mormon.  Yep, I pick and choose what I like, and what I don’t like.  I have separated my spiritual growth from the LDS church, and view the LDS church as a tool to help me obtain that growth.

Now go ahead and let me have it!!

For much of my life I really loved the Bible Dictionary definition of prayer. This definition emphasizes our need to communicate with God as His children. More specifically it states:
“Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them.”

I often wonder about the form of prayer. You know how it goes: address Heavenly Father, thank Him for blessings, ask for blessings, close in the name of Jesus Christ. What does this mean?

Recently I read “The Demon-Haunted World” by Carl Sagan. There is a portion where he pokes at our understanding of prayer. He says:
“Does prayer work at all? Which ones?  There’s a category of prayer in which God is begged to intervene in human history or just to right some real or imagined injustice or natural calamity – for example, when a bishop from the American West prays for God to intervene and end a devastating dry spell. Why is the prayer needed? Didn’t God know of the drought? Was he unaware that it threatened the bishop’s parishioners? What is implied here about the limitations of a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient deity? The bishop asked his followers to pray as well. Is God more likely to intervene when many pray for mercy or justice than when only a few do? – Carl Sagan, “The Demon-Haunted World”, p. 276″

I think Sagan’s point is a good one. Many literalist religious folk are sure that their prayers make the difference and that God blesses them, or others because of their prayerful efforts. At the very least they have confused correlation and causation, not to mention several other logical fallacies. They tend to ignore the times that God doesn’t bless anyone, or at least not in the way we want, and they regular find convenient explanation for God’s actions, or lack of actions. Many of them even stand in disbelief that a skeptic cannot see the hand of God in a recovery after well-meaning prayers on behalf of the afflicted. The entire idea of God answering prayers seems, to me, to be a bit presumptuous by assuming we are capable of speculating on God’s behavior. Worse than that it feels a bit too puppet-like for me.

On the other hand, I think Sagan has missed a very important metaphysical aspect of prayer. I will try to elucidate these points by responding to Sagan’s questions.

• Sagan: Does prayer work at all?
• jmb275: Yes, but I don’t think it works in the way that many believe – both skeptics and orthodox alike.
• Sagan: Which ones?
• jmb275: All that are asked in sincerity, because that’s what makes the prayer effective.
• Sagan: Why is the prayer needed?
• jmb275: It isn’t needed in an external, literal sense. But it may be helpful in a personal sense.
• Sagan: Didn’t God know of the drought?
• jmb275: Yes, I suppose so, but that’s irrelevant because prayer is not about God.
• Sagan: Was he unaware that it threatened the bishop’s parishioners?
• jmb275: This is once again irrelevant.
• Sagan: What is implied here about the limitations of a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient deity?
• jmb275: Absolutely nothing is implied because many skeptics, like many literalist religious people, have largely misunderstood the purpose of prayer.
• Sagan: Is God more likely to intervene when many pray for mercy or justice than when only a few do?
• jmb275: No, because prayer is not a matter of God intervening, or about numbers, or about blessings.

So what is prayer? To me, prayer is a personal yearning. It is our opportunity to commune with the inner god, the god in embryo. It is our opportunity to clear our mind, to focus on our most fundamental wants and needs, and decide what is really important in our lives. Most importantly, I believe it is our opportunity to reflect, and show gratitude – whether to a personal God or just something other than ourselves. Similarly, I also find great value in meditation, clearing my mind, focusing on breathing, living, and just being. It is my own personal and literal study of ontology.

Recently President Monson, in an Ensign article said:

“Will you join me as we look in on a typical Latter-day Saint family offering prayers unto the Lord? Father, mother, and each of the children kneel, bow their heads, and close their eyes. A sweet spirit of love, unity, and peace fills the home. As father hears his tiny son pray unto God that his dad will do the right things and be obedient to the Lord’s bidding, do you think that such a father would find it difficult to honor the prayer of his precious son? As a teenage daughter hears her sweet mother plead unto the Lord that her daughter will be inspired in the selection of her companions, that she will prepare herself for a temple marriage, don’t you believe that such a daughter will seek to honor this humble, pleading petition of her mother, whom she so dearly loves? When father, mother, and each of the children earnestly pray that the fine sons in the family will live worthily that they may, in due time, receive a call to serve as ambassadors of the Lord in the mission fields of the Church, don’t we begin to see how such sons grow to young manhood with an overwhelming desire to serve as missionaries? – President Thomas S. Monson, “Come unto Him in Prayer and Faith”, Ensign, March 2009″

Let me offer my interpretation of the above remarks. I believe that family prayer, like personal prayer is for us. We do it because it helps us show our love, reverence, and respect for those we love. We do it because it is our opportunity to plead aloud for solutions to the problems each family member faces, announcing our support, and love for that individual. We do it because it instills in our children, and ourselves, a reverence for a cause more noble than preservation of self. We do it because it gives us a chance to count our blessings, and name them one by one.

I submit that prayers are more about us than they are about God; that family prayers are effective because of what we say (overheard by our loved ones), not necessarily by any acts of God; and that the purpose of prayer is to align our will with what’s really important in our lives. Hopefully, what’s really important are other people, and our relationships with them. In this way we become the agent to secure the blessings that God is willing to grant to us and others. God’s blessings, I submit, are not conditional upon us asking for them, but are dependent on us recognizing the needs of others, placing them above our own, and becoming the means of providing those blessings.

So what do you all think? Does God literally answer prayers? Or are the prayers answered because we focus on what we need? Is there an unseen force in collective prayer, whether in large groups, or just a family that God recognizes? Or is it an exercise in coming together in a unified purpose?  Take the following two polls and tell us what you think.

[poll id="45"] [poll id="46"]

Discuss.

In Hinduism we read “Ekam Sat Vipra Bahuda Vadanthi” or “Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names.” I’m a big Joseph Campbell fan. He pointed out the goal of religion is to take us beyond the dualistic conception of reality, or “pairs of opposites,” to a stage of transcendence. I think we find this in Mormonism as well. The words of Lehi in 2nd Nephi 2:11:

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.

juxtaposed against Christ’s admonition in John 17:11, 21:

11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

Ultimately, I wonder if there is a duality, each side of which is to be satisfied, maybe it is our mission in life to overcome it and become one?

2.  What does it mean to be “spiritual”? And an extension of this, do religions always help us be more “spiritual”? This is where I’d like to focus my thoughts. Joseph Campell’s message, research, and ideas can be summarized by the phrase “Follow your bliss.” Might I suggest this as a definition of “spirituality.” I am convinced that this could be science, mathematics, scholarship, religion, mythology, music, pottery, philosophy, languages, poetry, etc. etc. etc. From Campbell:

The way to find out about happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you are really happy – not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what is called following your bliss.[3]

As a case study, I’d like to compare Joseph Smith with Albert Einstein. Joseph Smith needs no explanation to this audience. He was a visionary, a mystic, a prophet, a charismatic leader, superstitious, an author (depending on your POV). But no matter how you spin it, he was a deeply “spiritual” man in the traditional sense of the word – that is, he was concerned about God and religion, afterlife, premortal life, ordinances, revelation, and authority.

The less traditional case is Albert Einstein. When most of us think of him, we might think of general, and special relativity, and more specifically E=mc^2. What we don’t think of, are his profound thoughts on nature, religion, God, oneness, etc. From Albert Einstein:

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.[1]

It seems to me, from this statement (and many others he made) that he was “following his bliss” via his scientific endeavors. It would appear that Einstein was deeply “spiritual” in this sense. He was passionate about the subject that, for him, led him to a place of appreciation, love, respect, and kindness for all things living. A kind of transcendence above the need for “opposition in all things.” Note the following:

“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty… The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. (Albert Einstein, 1954)”[2]

But lest you think that his convictions came from religion, or traditional “spirituality,” observe this statement:

“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)”[1]

My point, at the end of the day, is twofold: first, the seeming duality is, possibly, something we are to overcome, and second, that “spirituality” can be defined as following whatever means leads us toward this realization.  Religion, God, the Holy Ghost, prayer, and Mormonism is one way to achieve that end. I suggest there are as many other ways as there are human beings!

What say ye?

[1] http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-ei … eology.htm

[2] http://www.spaceandmotion.com/

[3] http://thinkexist.com/quotes/joseph_campbell/

Let’s start with faith.  There are many definitions of faith, and each religion seems to place a slightly different emphasis on faith and its meaning.  From Wikipedia: “faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth of or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.”  In Christianity faith is an act of trust or reliance on Deity.  In this way it is distinguished by the object of its faith rather than the faith itself [1].  In Islam, faith is a complete submission of will to Allah.  In Hinduism it means an unshaken belief and purity of thought.  In Buddhism faith connotates a feeling of conviction, specifically a conviction that something is, a determination to accomplish one’s goals, and a sense of joy deriving from these two.

There is another important aspect of some people’s faith – fideism.  Fideism is the idea of having faith for the sake of having faith.  That is to say, it does not rely on logic, or reason of any kind.  It is independent of reason, and even holds that reason and faith are diametrically opposed.  This may lead us, in the church, to shun intellectualism and focus instead on faith.  For many TBMs, faith trumps logic.  Some believe that the events of the restoration were physical, external realities.  This can result in viewing our own spiritual experiences as evidence of external realities.  We are taught from a young age that the “Spirit” will direct us, put thoughts in our head, prompt us to do things, not do things, comfort us, and even tell us what is “true.”

Intellectualism (rationalism, reason, logic, etc.) is “any of a number of views regarding the use or development of the intellect . . .”  It is sometimes synonymously viewed with “rationalism” the idea that knowledge is derived through reasoning [2].

In my life I have had thoughts come into my head, felt comfort, and felt promptings.  However, it has never been clear to me, since some of these thoughts were wrong and uninspired, how to distinguish “spiritual promptings” I should heed, from just plain ‘ole regular thoughts.  In other words, my “thoughts,” or “promptings” or “experiences” have not always been a manifestation of external truth or reality.

Science is often the “poster child” for intellectualism.  But it indeed has a strong track record.  It is repeatable, reliable, and effective at describing the physical realities that surround us.  Although science is imperfect, its mechanisms are very good, indeed inspired.  On the downside, science is not spiritual.  Science doesn’t write poetry, compose music, paint pictures, or do other activities meet humanity’s spiritual needs.  Science is a utility.  It is one of many tools in the toolbox of life.  It complements faith.

Faith, on the other hand, inspires us, makes us happier, makes us feel good.  It serves as a guide to help us know right from wrong.  It gives us comfort, something to rely upon, and hold to.  I believe that faith is the soul’s innermost desire to express itself, to be born, to come out, to manifest itself in the world around us.  Arguably most importantly, faith moves us to action, and that action is a manifestation of the spiritual being within.  There is great worth in this concept.  It is in this sense, that I believe that faith, like science, is a tool in our toolbox of life.

Having said this, why is it that so many view intellectualism as mutually exclusive to faith?  Might I suggest one possible cause; that religions and people have a psychological affinity for treating the spiritual as physical realities.  Studies have shown that people who have sleep-paralysis, after having an episode, associate the events with reality.  They literally are unable to distinguish the fact that it was a dream.  Is it possible that this happens at the subconscious level even while awake?  Certainly for some people this will be more pronounced than for others.  This can help explain why Joseph had many visions, revelations, etc. which he deemed external realities, yet many, and even most, prophets after him have not.  Joseph was a visionary, for whatever reason.  That does not necessarily mean that his experiences were literal, external, physical realities.  And what if, indeed, they weren’t?

This does not, in my mind, diminish the idea that the metaphorical ideas shared through these experiences can help us in our lives.  Nor does it mean that the organization that he started was worthless even if it’s origins were slightly less miraculous than we like to tell.  Muhammad had visions, and conversations with the angel Gabriel which were eventually written down to form the Quran.  The idea that Muhammad wrote that book himself is heretical to a Muslim.  Yet if it really came from the angel Gabriel should we not heed the teachings contained therein?  But in Mormonism we don’t.  In fact, we don’t give it a second thought.  My solution to this conundrum is the same as that of Joseph.  Muhammad was a visionary.  He even wrote a beautifully inspired book that is every bit as sacred, special, and inspired as the Book of Mormon. However, I would suggest that the truths therein, and even his conversations with the angel Gabriel were internal experiences and metaphors.

This viewpoint makes it a lot easier for me to have faith in Joseph’s teachings, Christ, God, etc.  I have internalized these concepts.  They are metaphors for my spirituality.  I don’t need to reconcile them with science.  I don’t need to reconcile them with reason, or logic, or rationalism.  And I don’t need to reconcile them with any specific brand of religion as they all have metaphors that can help me in my life.  I can have the celestial kingdom right here, right now in my life, by being humble, kind, loving others, etc.  If we will live the way He advocated, we can unleash the inner god and in this way have a testimony of the doctrine.  This, I believe is what Jesus meant when he 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.”  (John 7:17)

Is faith in an external reality necessary for spiritual growth?  If faith moves us to action, is faith in metaphorical ideas as powerful as faith in physical realities?  Does intellectualism present a problem for faith in external realities?  Is that problem reduced if we only have faith in metaphorical ideas?

Discuss.

[1] Wikipedia article on faith.
[2] Wikipedia article on intellectualism