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Another line of research identifies two kinds of rationality – one that is adaptive or practical (called "ecological rationality") that deals with things like social and moral behaviour and what is "rational" given a particular social and emotional reality. This is a species of the “bounded rationality” discussed above. And other that is more rational an less emotional in orientation, and is called “deliberative rationality”.
The laws that govern ecological rationality are not absolute in the sense that the law of gravity is absolute. Rather, they are relative to particular social structures and circumstances. For example, while I served a mission in Peru many years ago our Mission President authorized us to drink both tea and Coca Cola (both thought by most Mormons to be contrary to the Word of Wisdom) since they were safer than the water we might otherwise drink, and because he believed (wrongly as it turned out) that both had curative properties relative to stomach parasites. As our presiding religious authority, his instructions to us in that regard changed our “ecology”, and hence our behaviour. What was not socially acceptable in Mormon missionary society generally speaking became so simply because he said it should be.
On the other hand, while visiting Peru with my family a couple of years ago I took a great deal of abuse from some of them for drinking tea made from the leaf of the coca plant, from which cocaine is derived. This is the local remedy for altitude sickness (kind of like a mild case of the flu) in the areas between 11,000 and 12,000 feet above sea level that we visited. A glass of this tea has roughly the same effect as an extra strength Tylenol pill. But, its association with cocaine was off putting for my family because of their 21st century/North American/Mormon ecology. At the time, I was a faithful Mormon as well, but my experience years earlier in Peru had accustomed me to the use of herbs (including the coca plant) for various legitimate purposes. From my point of view, drinking that tea was as legitimate as taking Tylenol, and much easier. And just as Tylenol 3 is regularly abused, so is the drug that can be obtained by processing and refining coca leaves in a particular way to produce cocaine. And if we went back a couple of generations in time in North America, we would find a completely different ecology respecting cocaine itself. We forget that not long ago cocaine made Coca Cola the cultural fixture it is, and that during the same period of time cocaine was sold over the counter in North American drug stores as a cure all. Ecologies change, and as they do so does the ecological reasoning they produce.
A more jarring example of bounded or ecological rationality is the behavior of a battered spouse who chooses to remain with her husband in circumstances where she may not survive without his breadwinning assistance. That is, being physically or emotionally abused is rational if probable homeless and all that goes with it for self and children is the alternative. Other features of human psychology such as denial and cognitive dissonance (described below) often strengthen this process by suppressing information that if consciously acknowledged might compel the abused spouse to action that her unconscious mind fears. The same sort of mental processes may well apply to a male whose mate is having an affair with the most powerful individual in a violent social group, such as a primitive tribe, a Mafioso community or a group of chimpanzees.
Deliberative rationality, on the other hand, includes the kind of reasoning required by the scientific method.
As Matteo Mameli notes:
"Evolutionary considerations (and neurological data) indicate that emotions are very important (and in many more ways than people usually think) … for [ecological rationality, including] social and moral rationality. But things are different with deliberative rationality. Emotions do not help with deliberative rationality. Deliberative rationality is the ability that a person has when (i) she is able to form beliefs about which mental state she ought to be in, (ii) she is able to form the intention to be in this mental state, and (iii) this intention is successful (i.e. the intention causes the person to be in the mental state she thinks she ought to be in). A paradigmatic case of deliberative rationality is scientific rationality. The scientist examines the data at her disposal and (i) she forms the belief that she ought to believe in the truth of theory T, (ii) as a result of this belief she forms the intention to believe in T's truth, and (iii) as a result of this intention she believes in T's truth.
Evolutionary considerations (and neurological data) suggest that emotions limit the extent to which humans can be deliberatively rational. Intentions to have certain emotional reactions and to avoid other emotional reactions are often unsuccessful, and for good evolutionary reasons. The different roles that emotions play in (two different kinds of) rational behaviour explain why the debate about the rationality of emotions has been so long and so messy." (Matteo Mameli, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics, "The Rationality of Emotions from an Evolutionary Point of View", to be published in "Emotion, Evolution & Rationality", Oxford University Press, March 2004)
For example, it is "rational" for me to wish to get along within my family and community, and the thought of being ostracized produces fear – a strong, negative emotional reaction. This is likely due to the historic connection between being shut out of society and non-survival. Hence, behaviour that prevents my expulsion from the safety of society is supremely rational in an ecological sense. And yet, that behaviour may require that I deny reality. To use a crude example, imagine the primitive male who has seen plenty of evidence that his mate may be having sexual relations with the group's powerful male leader. Further assume that a confrontation with the leader would not likely bode well for the first male's survival. It appears that our brains have developed mechanisms that will screen an amazing amount of dangerous information such as this so that we do not need to deal with it. Sometimes this is a good thing, and other times it is not.
While George Orwell did not use the terms bounded or ecological rationality, he recognized these concepts at work in his day. His lovely little book “Why I Write” was written in England during World War II. While providing fascinating insight into why Orwell wrote what he did (“Animal Farm”, “1984” etac.), it is mostly a viciously insightful critique of the British socials ills that he believed led to its national predicament at that time – the British appeared on their way to losing a life and death struggle.
While I recommend the book for a variety of reasons, its utility for present purposes to point out an interesting parallel between the forces that according to Orwell were at the root of Britain’s perspective problems leading up to World War II, and those that currently plague Mormonism. For example, read the following passages, written by Orwell in the context above, as if they had been written by a Mormon intellectual who was fully conversant with the strengths and weaknesses of the institution that sponsors his faith, changing references:
· from “democracy” to “literalist Mormonism”;
· from “totalitarianism” to a religious tradition other than Mormonism that has a cultish;
· from England to “the Mormon Church”;
· from particular British leaders to particular Mormon leaders, etc.
And when Orwell speaks of stupidity, think instead of denial. Here we see a classic example of bounded rationality at work. All page references are to Orwell’s “Why I Write”.
“An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face. The familiar arguments to the effect that democracy is “just the same as” or “just as bad as” totalitarianism never take account of this fact. All such arguments boil down to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are powerful illusions. … Even hypocrisy is a powerful safeguard. The hanging judge, that evil old man in scarlet robe and horse-hair wig, whom nothing short of dynamite will ever teach what century he is living in, but who will at any rate interpret the law according to the books and will in no circumstance take a money bribe, is on of the symbolic figures of England. He is a symbol of the strange mixture of reality and illusion, democracy and privilege, humbug and decency, the subtle network of compromises, by which the nation keeps itself in its familiar shape.” (pages 21, 22)
“In spite of the campaigns of a few thousand left-wingers [who are the intelligentsia of whom Orwell was part], it is fairly certain that the bulk of the English people were behind Chamberlain’s foreign policy [that played into Hitler’s hands, setting up what looked like a war headed for disaster]. More, it is fairly certain that the same struggle was going on in Chamberlain’s mind as in the minds of ordinary people. His opponents professed to see in him a dark and wily schemer, plotting to sell England to Hitler, but it is far likelier that he was mere a stupid old man doing his best according to his very dim lights. It is difficult to otherwise explain the contradictions of his policy, his failure to grasp any of the courses that were open to him. …” (page 28
“England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much–quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr. Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all it cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and it common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control – that perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase. (page 30)
“One of the dominant facts in English life during the past three quarters of a century has been the decay of ability in the ruling class. … The existence of these people was by any standard unjustifiable. They were simply parasites, less useful to society than his fleas are to a dog.
By 1920 there many people who were aware of all this. By 1930 millions were aware of it. But the British ruling class obviously could not admit to themselves that their usefulness was at an end. Had they done that they would have had to abdicate. For it was not possible for them to turn themselves into mere bandits …After all, they belonged to a class with a certain tradition, they had been to public schools where the duty of dying for your country, if necessary, is laid down as the first and greatest of the Commandments. They had to feel themselves true patriots, even while they plundered their countrymen. Clearly there was only one escape for them – into stupidity. They could keep society in its existing shape only by being unable to grasp that any improvement was possible. Difficult though this was, they achieved it, largely by fixing their eyes on the past and refusing to notice the changes that were going on round them.” (pages 31 – 33)
“It is important not to misunderstand [the leaders] motives, or one cannot predict their actions. What is to be expected of them is not treachery, or physical cowardice, but stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing. They are not wicked, or not altogether wicked; they are merely unteachable. Only when their money and power are gone will the younger among them begin to grasp what century they are living in.” (page 37)
“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.” (page 40)
“It is clear that the special position of the English intellectuals ruing the past ten years, as purely negative creatures, mere anti-Blimps [the uneducated masses], was a by-product of the ruling-class stupidity. Society could not use [the intellectuals], and they had not got it in them to see that devotion to one’s country implies “for better, for worse”. Both Blimps and high-brows took for granted, as though it were a law of nature, the divorce between patriotism and intelligence. If you were a patriot you read Blackwood’s Magazine [a low-brow publication] and publicly thanked god that you were “not brainy”. … Patriotism and intelligence will have to come together again. It is the fact that we are fighting a war, and a very peculiar war, that may make this possible.” (page 41)
That is, England’s ruling class was making decisions that made sense to them in the context of their historic dominance, understandable reluctance to give up power and influence, etc. And these decisions put the entire country at risk. Intellectuals were scorned because they called the established order into question. Among the “faithful” ignorance became a badge of honour. And if shown this situation in any other culture, the British of Orwell’s day and Mormons today would immediately recognize it as a recipe for disaster. Then, if confronted by the proposition that they were headed down precisely the same perilous path, they would distinguish their case from the other on grounds that would leave most knowledgeable outsiders shaking their heads in amazement at the depth of denial these mental gymnastics show.
The parallels between the British leaders in Orwell’s time and Mormonism’s leadership today are particularly striking. Their circumstances blind them to the reality of both their position and the effects of their actions. Time will tell how far Mormonism’s fortunes will have to decline before fundamental leadership change will occur.
In conclusion regarding bounded and ecological rationality, I note that it may well have been Christ’s observation of this universal human trait that prompted him to note that only those who had ears for his teachings would hear them.
| Reflections on Secular Anti-Mormonism
by Daniel C. Peterson
http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/conf/2005...
DP: A prolific ex-Mormon now-atheist writer on Mormon historical topics,
asked last week whether he was planning to attend this FAIR symposium,
responded that, no, he wasn't.
bm: Those awful atheists! Peterson seems to believe that few slurs are more
potent than this given the number of times he used it in this essay, and how
he used it. I don't find the term to be useful and observe that it is mostly
used by people like Peterson as a derogatory term rather than a way of
communicating useful information about what someone else believes.
A "theist" is a person who believes in a god of some kind. An "atheist" is a
person who does not so believe. But what kind of god are we talking about?
Einstein referred to "god" as whatever caused the amazing reality he spent
his life exploring. He said that this reality must have been created by an
intelligence of such staggering magnitude that we cannot comprehend it and
should reverence. However, he had no idea what kind of intelligence that
might be or where it came from. It could have been a three line algorithm
created by random chance, a nice old man with white hair, or who knows what.
Was Einstein a theist (he believed in a god of some kind) or an atheist (he
thought most of the ideas people have about god have an extremely high
probability of being false)?
It is clear, however, that Einstein was uncertain as to about god's nature
to such an extent that his idea of god would not be called god by most
literalist religious people, and hence it is reasonable to say that he was
agnostic (he did not know) about god. Hence, I would call him an agnostic
instead of an atheist or theist. I use the same label for myself. I am
agnostic regarding god. Or I am a non-theist. And many thoughtful people
whom Peterson would call atheist because they don't believe in the kind of
god he does, have beliefs similar to mine.
As an aside, I have found a great deal of wisdom in Einstein's writing
related to the formation of culture and how his personal spirituality
worked. I recommend in that regard:
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-...
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Albert-...
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Theolog...
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/q...
And, by the way, how many people to whom society owes a great deal were
agnostics, deists (a lot like agnostics) or full blown atheists? Many of
America's founding fathers were somewhere between atheist and deist, for
example. Many of our greatest scientists and social innovators have held
similar views. And what about all of those Buddhists, Taoists, etc.? Pretty
much all atheists.
It is unreasonable to suggest that lack of any particular religious belief
denotes moral defect. In fact, it is worse than unreasonable. It is foolish
and increasingly tending toward the unwise if not immoral in our highly
interdependent world. It is this kind of tribalism that must be broken down
in as many aspects of society as possible if we are to avoid the kinds of
disasters that occurred on 9/11, the riots that are currently going on in
the Muslim world as a result of a few religious cartoons published in
Europe, and a host of other silly and/or dangerous things. Furthermore, the
kind of ignorance Peterson trumpets is precisely what must be overcome as
people around the globe digest the facts regarding their interconnectedness
with each other, their dependence on the planet's limited resources, and the
tremendous difficulties humanity faces as a result of a population that
continues to grow and consume ever more resources.
DP: I will, as advertised, reflect on "secular anti-Mormonism." I'm grateful
for the assignment because, frankly, anti-Mormonism of the evangelical kind
has come, with a few exceptions, to bore me intensely. It's not only that it
tends to be repetitious and uninteresting--I think I've mentioned here
before the film that my friend Bill Hamblin and I have laughed about doing:
Bill and Dan's Excellent Adventure in Anti-Mormon Zombie Hell. It's not
merely that the same arguments reappear ad nauseam, no matter how often
they've been refuted, and that reviewing essentially the same book for the
thirty-second time grows tiresome.
bm: "To refute" means to establish or prove that a proposition is false.
While I don't think the Evangelicals come at Mormonism from the best
perspective for the most part, I have read enough of Peterson, Hamblin and
Midgely's responses to the Evangelical critique to know that most of the
time they do little more than kick immense amounts of dust into the air for
the purpose of showing that the Evangelicals have not quite pinned the
Mormons to the mat on this or that point. To call what Peterson does in this
regard "refutation" is offensive to anyone who understands the subject
matter. However, he is likely convincing to the faithful Mormons who read
this and assume on the basis of his hyperbole that there is nothing to be
concerned about.
This reminds me of the FARMS reviews I read while still faithful of Todd
Compton's book "In Sacred Loneliness". The book deals with the Joseph Smith'
s plural marriages. FARMS tore the book apart. I had read a troubling review
in a local newspaper, and heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that the
scholars at BYU had panned it. Years later while beginning to investigate
Mormonism using real scholarly sources I found Compton's rebuttal to the
FARMS reviews, and felt ill. In a few minutes of reading Compton I realized
that his approach was reasonable, and that I had been duped as a result of
trusting FARMS and so not bothering to read Compton myself. See
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracl... This approach, whether
conscious or not, characterizes what I read in Peterson's work.
I do not suggest that Peterson is dishonest, just completely taken in by his
point of view. People like him fascinate me, and before I could happily
relegate Mormonism to the rear view window I needed to feel that I
understood how smart, well-intentioned, kind people (and I presume Peterson
is all of those) could do what they do on behalf of something so obviously
false as Mormonism. While writing a number of lengthy essays on this topic I
found that people like Peterson are common in most religions and other
ideology based social groups. See
http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.do%2... for example.
Time and again as I made my way through Peterson's essay I was struck by his
denial of probabilities. We can't be certain about anything in the
historical or current world. However, some things are demonstrably more
probable than others. The best strategy for any purpose where knowing what
is real is important is to adopt the information most likely to be correct
as time passes. Apologists like Peterson tend to do this as long as that
information does not conflict with their faith, which requires them to start
with certainty as to what is real in certain cases, and defend that position
against any disconfirming information that comes along. I examine the
pattern of belief that this causes in many social groups, including
Mormonism, at
http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.does....
So, as you read below something Peterson has suggested to be a real state of
human or physical affairs and I propose an alternative, ask yourself which
is more likely to be a reasonable estimate of reality.
DP: (You've heard the definition of insanity as when you keep doing the same
thing over and over and over again, and expect to get different results.)
It's also the deep streak of intellectual dishonesty …
bm: That's it - accuse everyone else of intellectual dishonesty. That is
probably what is going on. Don't look for patterns of similar behaviour in
similar groups and use that to understand Mormons, post-Mormons and many
other groups of similarly behaving people. Consider, as an alternative
hypothesis for post-Mormon behavior (as well as Mormon apologist behaviour),
denial of the sort I describe in my essays linked above. Or how about
cognitive dissonance? Denial and cognitive dissonance apply to post-Mormons
as well as Mormons and other groups of humans. Emotional and social "proofs"
are also applicable to one group as much as to the other. Once you get
beyond dishonesty and stupidity as the presumed causes of behaviour with
which you disagree a lot of things make much more sense. Some Mormon
behavior is irrational, and some post-Mormon behavior is irrational. If you
to think in these terms, you have a chance to sort out error, in your camp
as well as that of others, from accurate observation.
The greatest gift I have received as a result of my exodus from Mormonism is
increased humility. That is, I am now prepared to admit that I not only may
be wrong in many of my current positions, but that I most assuredly am. This
teachability does wonderful things, as does the idea that reality is what it
is. It does not have to be what anyone, no matter how old or presumably
sacred or wise, said it is. It just is. The respected biologist John Maynard
Smith expresses beautifully the consequence of adopting this point of view
in his interview at www.meaningoflife.tv, which is another fine source of
useful big picture thinking.
DP: that runs through much of the countercult industry, the triumphalism
that exaggerates and even invents problems on the Mormon side while
effectively pretending that no problems remain to be addressed on the
so-called "Christian" side.
bm: Peterson is being highly selective here. Many believing Christians apply
the same scholarly standards to their own faith as to Mormonism. Throughout
this essay, Peterson sets up straw men that will be recognized as such by
most who are familiar with the relevant literature or phenomena. However,
since his target audience is generally speaking ignorant of these things,
many of them will find him persuasive when he says ridiculous things like
this.
DP: (This couldn't possibly be more clearly illustrated than in recent
evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant use of DNA data to cast doubt upon
the Book of Mormon. In what can only be described as a display of either
stunning ignorance or appalling cynicism, these anti-Mormon crusaders ignore
the fact that the assumptions fundamental to current deep-historical DNA
studies flatly contradict traditional and widely held conservative
Protestant understandings of the book of Genesis.)
bm: As already noted, many believing Christians apply the same scholarly
standards to their own faith as to Mormonism. But Peterson would likely
disparage the faith of Christians of this type because they also tend not to
be literalist believers in the Bible. And Peterson's assessment of the DNA
research is laughable. This is classic apologistese. Even then-BYU
microbiologist Scott Woodward is on record to the effect that the DNA case
against the Book of Mormon is probably correct. However, it is not 100%
certain. He did not mention that nothing in the empirical world is 100%
certain.
DP: No, I'm quite content, for today at least, to concentrate on secular
anti-Mormonism, which I often find much more interesting and intellectually
challenging, and which, I'm coming to believe, constitutes the real locus of
action in coming years.
bm: Not if Mormons are still trying to cozy up to the Evangelicals as
Mormonism's traditional foundations, like the Book of Mormon and Joseph
Smith's trustworthiness, continue to crumble.
DP: I will pass over very quickly a message board that I like to monitor
that is, in its way, a kind of wildlife preserve for secular anti-Mormons.
bm: The Recovery from Mormonism message board to be found at [link removed]
which I will refer to as "RFM". (NOTE FROM INFYMUS: Link Removed For Archive Purposes)
DP: Some of you are probably familiar with it. Although it is of
unquestionable sociological and psychological interest, it offers little if
anything of intellectual merit. What was once said of William Jennings Bryan
could be said of even many of the star posters on this message board: "One
could steer a schooner through any part of his argument and never scrape
against a fact." Several, even, of the posters with the greatest
intellectual pretensions on the board have consistently demonstrated
themselves incapable of accurately summarizing Latter-day Saint positions
and arguments, let alone of genuinely engaging them. It's hard not to think
in this context of Groucho Marx: "From the moment I picked up your book
until I laid it down," Groucho wrote to the novelist Sydney Perelman, "I was
convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend to read it." Many on this
particular message board seem to be of the same mentality as the academic
who was asked whether he had read the new book by Professor Jones. "Read
it?" he replied. "Why, I haven't even reviewed it yet!"
bm: Hilarious! These people at RFM (including me I presume) are obviously
not worth listening to in any way and are to be pitied. What fools! Let's
not compare RFM to anything that would put it in context or help us to
understand it. And particularly, let's not compare it to any of the many
other Mormon related on-line communities that display ignorance, ill will
and silliness of similar as well as other types.
So, what is RFM? First, it is not designed as a forum for intellectual
discussion. It is supposed to be a safe place to vent, and a lot of venting
occurs there. Venting is not pretty, and usually contains a lot of
irrationality. See the essay on my website titled "Chaos and Forging the
Self" for a summary of my take on RFM in general. Until posted there it can
also be found at [link to RFM Removed]. However, despite RFM's lack of academic pretension, I have read some
brilliant stuff there as well as a lot of silliness, funniness, pathos and
humanity. And I can name a dozen people who are either successful practising
lawyers, respected university professors and/or practising scientists who
regularly post at RFM right now. I am sure there are many more of this type
who post there and I have not had the chance to get to meet in real life.
As he does consistently throughout this essay, Peterson has here set up a
straw man to knock down to the cheers of those who are generally
unencumbered by the relevant facts and trust that he is telling them an
accurate story. As you read remember that I am one of the ill-willed,
blasphemous, idiots Peterson has described.
DP: What the board does offer are displays of bravado, strutting, believers'
arguments completely misunderstood and misrepresented, bold challenges
hurled out to those who are barred from responding, and guffaws of triumph
over enemies who are not permitted to reply. Dissent is rigidly excluded
from this board, even as its denizens criticize the Church for its supposed
"repressiveness.
bm: As already noted, RFM is a place for venting and recovery, not argument.
Many topics are verboten there, such as political discussion of all kinds.
And there is a certain amount of exercise of questionable judgement about
how things are done there, as is the case in all human groups. Many people
who post at RFM go to many other places to engage in debate and find
information. Should this be surprising?
DP: However, notwithstanding the rigorous exclusion of all troublesome
dissent from their domain, the faith these posters have in their own
unanswerably brilliant selves is oddly refreshing to see in atheists, whom
you wouldn't expect to believe in any God at all.
bm: More Peterson hyperbole. More straw-men. As noted above, RFM is a
recovery site. And is it reasonable to assume that what happens at RFM is
the sole source of information for people who participate there or that just
because a person vents (or does anything else) at RFM that they have
personally subscribed to everything said there? And what does God have to do
with this?
DP: Voltaire once explained that "My prayer to God is a very short one: 'Oh,
Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' God," he said, "has granted it."
bm: Brilliant! Let's not mention that Voltaire was one of the leading
atheists (shiver) of his day who spent much of his time skewering the
silliness of people where were apologists for the Christian position, much
like Peterson. Peterson is precisely the kind of person Voltaire likely had
in mind while making this statement.
DP: But this doesn't exhaust the pleasures of that message board. It is rife
with personal abuse and bloodcurdling hostility, not uncommonly obscene,
directed against people they don't know and haven't even met--against
President Hinckley, Joseph Smith, the Brethren, the general membership of
the Church, and even, somewhat obsessively, against one particular rather
insignificant BYU professor.
bm: And some there, like me, are regularly dismissive of what I call the
"stupid, lying bastards" approach to Mormonism. This does not do the people
or social psychological mechanisms involved near enough credit. However, a
lot of post-Mormons lose their marriage, relationships with their kids and
countless other important aspects of life as a result of what happens when
the deceptive actions of Mormon leaders come to light. And there is lots of
scientific research that shows how violent a response should be anticipated
when we learn that even small scale deceptions have been practised on us. I
wonder why emotions run so high when people find out that they have
consistently through out their lives purposefully deceived by religious
leaders in whom they vested almost complete trust?
DP: Ordinary members of the Church--Morgbots or Morons …
bm: This is often, in my experience, the result of the unhappy (or happy)
way in which keys on computer keyboards are set up. I can't count the number
of times I have typed "Moron" while trying to type "Mormon" and have had to
correct it. Believers in gods who disagree with the Mormon god may find in
this a divine sign instead of the comic coincidence I see.
DP: or Sheeple, in the jargon of the board--are routinely stereotyped as
insane, tyrannical, cheap, bigoted, ill-mannered, irrational, sexually
repressed, stupid, greedy, foolish, rude, poor tippers, sick, brain-dead,
and uncultured. There was once even a thread--and I'm not making this
up--devoted to discussing how Mormons noisily slurp their soup in
restaurants.
bm: Go read some posts at any of many LDS bulletin boards and you will find
similar displays of ignorance and inanity.
DP: Posts frequently lament the stupidity and gullibility of Church leaders,
neighbors, parents, spouses, siblings, and even offspring …
bm: Much of this is reasonably accurate.
DP: --who may be wholly unaware of the anonymous poster's secret double life
of contemptuous disbelief.
bm: And what is the penalty in most Mormon communities for disclosing that
kind of disbelief? And there is nothing of secrecy or information
suppression within Mormonism, is there? I wonder where this tendency toward
secrecy and suppression of information comes?
DP: It is a splendid cyber illustration of the finger pointing and mocking
found in the "great and spacious building" of 1 Nephi.
bm: One of the many ironies in this circus piece is that Peterson does not
see how that metaphor can be used the other way. In Utah particularly, those
who stand up and publicly dissent from Mormonism are often mocked in various
ways by those who control the great and spacious buildings that literally as
well as metaphorically dominate Mormonism.
DP: Whenever the poisonous culture of the place is criticized, however, its
defenders take refuge in the culture of victimhood, deploying a supposed
need for therapeutic self-expression as their all-encompassing excuse.
bm: There is a lot more to it that that, and I don't know anyone who I
consider thoughtful who would gives RFM top grades in all important
categories. But there is some justification to the recovery approach.
I disagree with some aspects of the Alcoholics Anonymous program and
philosophy, but would I be justified in going into an AA meeting and
starting to debate my concerns with the people there who are struggling to
put their lives back together? That is what people like Peterson have been
shown to do time and again if given the chance at RFM. That he does not
consider Mormonism to be a problem from which one needs to recover would put
him in the same class as those alcohol vendors who say the same thing about
alcohol. That kind of person, for good reason, would be barred from AA
meetings.
I have no problem with the designation of a safe place where those who are
critical of Mormonism can vent in peace and recover perspective and the
security that goes with it (see Lee Kirkpatrick, "Attachment, Evolution and
the Psychology of Religion"). Active Mormons have dozens of similar bulletin
boards not to mention their meeting houses. And when you check out
communities of people who have left or who dissent from other religious
groups, you find much the same kind of thing.
We see here again Peterson's penchant for exaggeration and his attempt to
present RFM and those who spend time there as particularly evil rather than
looking for ways to understand RFM by looking for parallels in other groups.
This is understandable given Peterson's apparent objective - to warn members
of the Mormon community away from those inhuman beings at RFM. The is a lot
of social psych literature along these lines (see Elliott Aronson, "The
Social Animal" for example). We tend to dehumanize those we wish to justify
ignoring or treating badly.
DP: Contemplating a depressing number of the posters on that board, I've
thought to myself, "If this is what liberation from the Mormon 'myth' makes
you--a vulgar and sometimes duplicitous crank, cackling with malice and
spite--then I would prefer to spend the few brief years left to me (before I
dissolve into the irreversible and never-ending oblivion many of the board's
posters prophesy for me and all humankind) with people who haven't been
liberated.
bm: Beautiful! What a move! Two birds with one stone! He nailed those
terrible atheists again, while suggesting that people who leave Mormonism
and spend time at RFM are scum!
DP: I think of the apostates of Ammonihah, mocking Alma and Amulek in
prison, "gnashing their teeth upon them, and spitting upon them, and saying:
How shall we look when we are damned?"1 Surely the damned will not look much
different than this.
bm: This is wonderful. I could not have written a better foil myself. For
the second time in a few paragraphs Peterson refers to a Book of Mormon
passage as if it described a real event that could be used to shed light on
other real events. Without attempting the kind of useful contextual analysis
that Craig Criddle provides at
http://www.i4m.com/think/history/Book..., let me make a few quick
points of a similar nature.
If you were starting a new religion that would of course be small and likely
to attract a lot of negative attention from other social groups, wouldn't it
be great if you found some scripture that showed how God's plan included
this kind of thing and it was predicted to recur in your case (the great and
spacious building), but that anyone who disagreed with you would ultimately
meet with terrible life events? And better yet, what if this scripture
predicted that someone with your name would be the leader of this new
religion? That would be too good to be true, right? Oh, and why not in God's
name predict that when people found out that you were misleading them or
maybe even trying to have sex with their wives or daughters that, that they
would get really mad and try to prevent you from continuing to do that to
other people?
So Peterson, after characterizing everyone at RFM in the worst possible way,
uses a fantasy from the Book of Mormon in an attempt to legitimize his RFM
fantasy. Two fantasies = one reality?
And if you good Mormons wish to avoid the pain all of those people at RFM
suffer, you'd best not spend any time at RFM … And don't acknowledge that
anyone who left Mormonism or changed their belief regarding God was ever
happy about that choice. Don't refer to people like Robert Ingersol, for
example (see
http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.reli... at page 80. Etc. This is wonderful stuff.
DP: But I'm troubled by the capacity even of far less malevolent message
boards to supply a supportive sort of ersatz community as an alternative to
the fellowship of the Saints, and I worry about what participation on even
relatively benign boards does to some Latter-day Saint souls. I have in mind
one frequent poster in particular, who claims simply to be doubting and
troubled, but who in fact never misses an opportunity for a snide remark
about his Church, in which he remains active, and its teachings. These
teachings involve weighty matters of utmost import. Millions have placed
their hopes in the gospel's message, and, if this were false, it would be
tragic and unutterably sad. Perhaps the cynicism that this poster and many
others cultivate is no more than a psychologically understandable defensive
shell, a self-protective whistling past the graveyard of doubt. But, even
so, it is a shell that will, I fear, block the Spirit.
bm: I wonder if all forms of doubt block the access the Spirit presumably
gives us to a greater reality? That seems implied. Since Peterson's
spiritual leaders have all the answers, we need do nothing more than obey
them. How comforting, and is there any idea that is older than this one?
Just get in line and obey. Stop questioning and doubting.
DP: I am not optimistic about his long-term prospects, barring a fundamental
shift in attitude (and, even less hopefully, perhaps in personality).
bm: Well, it looks like Peterson has buried RFM now, so I will give a brief
description of the place myself. You judge whether his or mine makes the
most sense.
There is a great deal of evidence that justifies the perception that many
Mormons have been systematically deceived throughout their lives by
well-intended religious leaders and family members. Whether this perception
is right or wrong, those who come to have it should be expected to suffer
serious trauma. The DSM-IV (used to diagnose psychiatric illness) has a
category that deals with this. See
http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.art%... This type of trauma is experienced by a wide of range of people who come
to regard their views with regard to religion as inaccurate and suffer a
loss of relationships and other forms of security and/or self identity as a
result. And there is a lot of literature about how to deal with/heal from
this kind of trauma. Most of this recommends something along the lines of
the well-known Kubler-Ross grieving process (see
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/kubler_ro
ss.htm). Expressing anger is one aspect of this process. And people tend to
pass through it and move on.
People tend to visit RFM often for a period of months and perhaps for as
long as a couple of years, and then move on. While at RFM these people form
a complex human community that includes idiots, savants, socializers,
clowns, scientists, philosophers, bullies, babies, etc. As I said, it is a
diverse human community, and has the strengths and weaknesses one should
expect from such.
DP: Characteristic of much secularizing anti-Mormon participation on the Web
is a corrosive cynicism that, in my experience, will erode anything with
which it comes in contact.
bm: Are we talking about the same cynicism that led to the Renaissance,
Enlightenment, American Revolution, etc. or some other kind? My guess is
that Peterson welcomes cynicism that overturns blind obedience in old
Catholicism, the Divine Right of Kings, the Muslim faith, etc. but wants to
attack cynicism that questions any of his dogmas. Let's see how this plays
out.
DP: It is not so much a reasoned intellectual stance as an attitude, or
even, perhaps, a personality type. Those afflicted with such cynicism are
like the dwarfs in the last book of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, who
are, as Aslan expresses it, so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be
taken out. Such people claim to know the price of everything and everyone,
but they seem to recognize the value of nothing. But the problem may well be
in the cynic rather than in the object of his scorn. "No man," as the French
saying goes, "is a hero to his valet."2 Why? The German philosopher G.W.F.
Hegel is surely right when he responds: "This is not because the hero is no
hero, but because the valet is a valet."3
bm: Nice. Let's again dehumanize those who disagree with us instead of
looking for patterns in history and the social science literature that might
help to explain persistent patterns of disagreement among groups of people.
See http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.deni....
DP: A more interesting form of secular anti-Mormonism springs out of, or at
least is related to, elite European secularism generally.
Some years ago, with time on my hands following the close of an academic
gathering in Graz, Austria, I spent the better part of a day looking through
the city's bookstores. The dollar being weak, prices being high, and my
luggage being cramped, I did much more looking and browsing than buying. I
soon discovered an extraordinarily interesting topic: The treatment of
Mormonism in travel books published for America-bound Europeans. Since then,
I've enjoyed many similar books in French and Italian bookstores as well as
across Germanic Europe. Almost uniformly, the tone is one of
astonishment--subtly expressed or, often, quite open--at the stupidity and
gullibility of the Latter-day Saints. Additionally, Mormon history and
doctrine are plainly deemed too patently absurd to justify much effort at
accuracy.
bm: Are we surprised at this? Are travel books known for their depth and
accuracy? Or are we to believe that Mormonism is subject to a conspiracy by
those who write these books?
DP: But Mormons represent merely an opportunity for a more general European
attitude to focus on a particularly ludicrous target. In a recent book
attempting to explain the American mind to bemused German-speakers,
Professor Hans-Dieter Gelfert observes that,
"To Europeans, American religiosity must necessarily seem naïve, if not
primitive. Here [in Germany], educated people are assisted, above all, by
enlightened [aufgeklärte] theologians who reinterpret Christian teaching as
an ethical doctrine suited for the everyday, but at the same time
philosophically abstract. In the meanwhile, there are pastors who believe
that they can get by altogether without mentioning God's name. It's
completely different in America, where the Bible is still the Word of God."4
bm: Again, is this news? See http://wvs.isr.umich.edu/fig.shtml for a
University of Michigan produced summary of where the US fits into the world
picture in terms of secular v. religious values. Americans should be
expected to appear Neanderthal to Europeans.
DP: According to Phil Zuckerman, of Pitzer College, rates of agnosticism or
atheism in Scandinavia, the Czech Republic, and France reach levels higher
than fifty percent.5 There and elsewhere, underused churches are being
converted into concert halls, museums, art galleries, stores, restaurants,
condos, even nightclubs. In Scandinavia, for some reason, it is popular to
transform churches into carpet stores.6 It is well known that the late Pope
John Paul II believed that the future of Catholicism lay not in spiritually
dying Europe, but to the south, in Latin America and, perhaps even more so,
in Africa. Benedict XVI appears to share that view, with reason.
bm: More news?
DP: "In the eyes of many if not most Europeans," Professor Gelfert observes,
"American taste is equivalent to tastelessness."7 (One is tempted to suggest
that, given their own still relatively recent history of something rather
worse than poor taste, a bit of humility might be in order for the Germans,
at least. And I say this as something of a Germanophile.) Thus, European
disdain for American religiosity functions as part of a broader contempt for
American culture, nicely embodied, as a surprisingly large number of
residents of both the Continent and the British Isles see it, in our
religious fanatic cowboy president. And what could be more American than The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known for its
freshly-scrubbed, naïve, nineteen-year-old missionaries, hailing mostly from
the American West?
bm: That is correct. Americans in general are seen in Europe as naïve and
silly, and Mormons particularly so. This has been the case since near
Mormonism's beginnings.
DP: Anti-Mormonism in Europe is overwhelmingly of the secular variety;
evangelical anti-Mormonism, on the whole, is no more than a minor irritant
because the same general European secularism that directly challenges
missionary success on the continent and in the British Isles also confronts
and hampers our evangelical friends. But secularist anti-Mormonism is doing
real damage to many fragile testimonies there, and an adequate response has
still not materialized. This is a challenge that apologists in Europe itself
but also in the Church's American home base urgently need to address.
bm: Europeans regard Mormonism as merely another indication of America's
tendency toward magical thinking. America's infatuation with various forms
of New Age belief is another symptom of the same thing (see
http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.what... for
example), as is Young Earth creationism, the popularity of alien
abductionist beliefs and a variety of other things in America. And the same
kind of arguments are mustered in defence of each of these points of view by
people like Peterson.
DP: [Peterson summarizes material to indicate that an increasing divide is
visible between America's elite (secular) and regular (religious/magical
thinking) populations. Then he says:]
In a recent magazine article, Joel Kotkin, an incisive observer of social
trends, supplies a nice, concrete example:
When Fargo, North Dakota, businessman Howard Dahl boards a plane for the
East Coast or flies to Europe and beyond, he is often struck by the views of
the people he encounters, especially their preconceptions about his part of
the country. "There's a lot of condescension. You'd think no one here ever
read a book," Dahl says, "or ever had a thought about anything. They think
we're religious fanatics." 8
bm: This condescension is regrettable, but understandable. There are many
well-educated people in the US mid-west and west whose views are similar to
those of well-educated people in New York, Paris or London. And there are a
surprising number like Peterson. He is well-educated. He has read a lot of
books, as he is demonstrating in this essay. And he is well-travelled, as he
is also at pains to let his readers know. This man is a citizen of the
world. And most well educated Europeans would regard him as hopefully
parochial not as a result of what he has not read or not seen, but as a
result of what he has absorbed from his experience as demonstrated by what
he writes. As Einstein said, the theory we accept determines what we see.
DP: How much more so, then, Salt Lake City? Since, as studies have shown,
journalists strongly tend, on the whole, to be secular, politically liberal,
anti-corporate, and socially and morally "progressive," Mormonism
constitutes a perfect target. They will be naturally antipathetic to The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a church that is widely
regarded as socially retrograde, politically conservative, and
hierarchically corporate.
bm: Yup.
DP: "Still today," writes Hans-Dieter Gelfert,
"Americans promote a striking hero cult with regard to the great figures of
their history. In England, a tendency to dismantle onetime heroes set in
after the First World War, with Lytton Strachey's book Eminent Victorians
(1918). The same thing happened in Germany after the Second World War.
Whenever, among us, an article appears in Spiegel about a once-revered
heroic figure from German history, one can just about wager that this person
will have lost his luster thereafter."9
In this regard, American journalism seems very, very European. Since the
days of Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate, it has tended to be
adversarial, very often operating on the presumption of a guilty cover-up.
What could be a more inviting target for contemporary journalists than a
corporate church with a highly controversial, very visible, and widely
documented history, wielding considerable economic power, and claims to be
led by living prophets and apostles? It's heroes and valets, all over again.
bm: Let's see. We've got a prophet who purports to speak for god; who lies
about his sexual activities; who controls his church and city through secret
quorums; who runs for the US presidency; who has himself ordained King of
the Earth; who smashes printing presses that are about to publicize what he
is up to; etc. Why would any journalist want to write about that?
And against the odds, one branch of the church he forms becomes a vastly
wealthy asset holding corporation estimated to rank at about no. 200 on the
Fortune 500 list of the worlds largest business corporation were it in that
category, that exercises political and cultural influence in the US in a
manner that many people elsewhere find both disturbing and discouraging. Not
newsworthy?
Or how about the habit leaders of this organization still exhibit of
deceiving those who deal with them both by silence and by the publication of
clearly deceptive accounts of their own history? How about their history of
lying in public (including before federal government committees in the US)
and justifying this on the basis that protecting the power that backs up
their alleged divine mandate requires them to wield justifies these
deceptions? None of this is newsworthy?
And to cut off an argument I often hear Mormons make, the Mormon Church's
wealth has nothing to do with truth. The Catholic Church is incredibly
wealthy. Quakers controlled huge assets bases at one time. Lots of other
examples can be given to support this point. You get money by doing the
things that get money. Telling a story that will persuade people to give you
money is one of those. Mormonism's wealth is no more indicative of the truth
of its message than is Amway's. In fact, there are many parallels between
those two organizations.
DP: The prominent Pennsylvania State historian of religion Philip Jenkins,
commenting on secularism among political and social liberals, notes
"a rich vein of bilious anti-clericalism, that class-based contempt that
imagines every pastor as Elmer Gantry, every believer as a budding recruit
for the Christian Taliban, and every Catholic as a mind-manacled helot of a
pederastic priesthood. This tendency reached its apex at the [Democratic]
party's 1992 convention, at which liberal and pro-labor Pennsylvania Gov.
Bob Casey was excluded from the rostrum because of his opposition to
abortion, while feminists handed out badges caricaturing Casey in papal
robes."10
Amusingly, every element of the attitude toward mainstream Christianity
mentioned by Jenkins, down to the very language, can be paralleled--indeed,
finds almost daily parallels--on my laboratory message board with regard to
Mormonism.
bm: Oh oh. Back to RFM.
DP: But this attitude isn't confined merely to the fever swamps of Web
bigotry
bm: Ouch! More insightful, helpful analysis.
DP: In an article published as recently as 15 July 2005, in a New Zealand
periodical but evidently also many other venues, the American leftist
journalist Suzan Mazur, reporting on the corporate machinations of us Mormon
theofascists, even included purported illustrations of the Latter-day Saint
endowment ceremony. They were reproduced from that essential and utterly
reliable 1882 classic, J.H. Beadle's Polygamy or the Mysteries and Crimes of
Mormonism, and were accurate right down to details like the bishop's
miters--clearly modeled on the popes' hat--worn by temple officiators.11 (To
those who have actually attended the temple yet seen no such garb and no
such rituals, Mr. Beadle might well say, with apologies once more to Groucho
Marx, "Who are you gonna believe? Me, or your lying eyes?")
bm: So, let me get this straight. The Democratic national convention in the
US, New Zealand newspapers and the American press see things pretty much the
same way? And we have already dealt with the godless Europeans. This must
mean that the good Mormons are pretty much surrounded. Are they an island of
goodness floating in an evil world? Or maybe Peterson exaggerates. And maybe
if so many people do think the Mormon worldview is unjustified, Mormons
should take a hard look in the mirror. Sounds like someone might be spending
a lot of energy arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. I almost forgot -
history tells that when almost everyone things the claims of a religion are
silly, those claims are usually proven true eventually. Right? And the truth
claims of a religion do not change over time in light of secular/scientific
findings. Right? And Mormon truth claims have not changed over time. Right?
Whew! I thought I was in hot water for a second there.
As an aside, see James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds" for a summary of
how to tell a crowd that is likely to give us accurate advice from one will
not. In a nutshell, the more diverse, independent and well-informed a crowd
is, the more seriously we should take its judgement. Compare the Mormon
crowd to the crowd of non-Mormon academics who study Mormonism in this
regard. Which is more likely to render accurate opinions on questions like
"was Joseph Smith trustworthy?".
"But," many Mormons are likely to say, "the scholars don't have the Spirit
and so we can ignore what they say" or some other excuse ("these are
spiritual not intellectual matters") will be offered to justify dismissing
all opposing points of view. And the fact that this is how countless
religions (many of whom now seem laughable) have defended themselves since
at least the Ancient Greeks does not matter to those who wraps themselves in
these flimsy arguments now.
DP: Agnosticism or atheism is the default setting in most circles of elite
opinion, in the United States nearly as much as Europe.
bm: Those elites. They usually do not know what they are doing. Particularly
the scientists and other scholars. Intellectual pride causes this, as well
as most of what makes our society the wonderful place it is to live. Go
figure.
DP: To an extent, secular anti-Mormonism is merely an illustration, or even
an echo, of that broader phenomenon.
bm: I would say that secular anti-Mormonism is such a small ripple in a huge
current that it hardly matters. One of the few things that make it
interesting for anyone other than the Mormons affected by it is that what
most Christians went through generations ago Mormons are going through now
as a result of having been until recently enclosed so effectively that they
did not know what the rest of the world was doing. And then the Internet
blew the doors off the cloister.
DP: An important articulation of this view is the British philosopher Antony
Flew's essay "The Presumption of Atheism"12--though I note with considerable
satisfaction that Professor Flew, probably the most vocally atheistic
English-speaking philosopher since the death of Bertrand Russell in early
1970, recently announced that, compelled by what he sees as evidence for
intelligent fine-tuning in the universe, he has abandoned his atheism and
come to embrace a form of deism.
bm: But don't define deism (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism) or
mention that it is merely atheism-lite. I am a deist or close to it because
I revere whatever caused the universe, but I have no idea what it was (three
line algorithm caused by chance, an old white haired guy or a pink unicorn)
and I don't believe that whatever it is (if it is) has any idea about me.
DP: Some non-theists are rather passive about their unbelief--one wit
recently coined the term apatheism to describe the indifference to religion
and religious issues that he regards as a distinguishing mark of modern
intelligence--but some are extremely aggressive, even if they rarely descend
to the crudity of the message board that is my preferred research location
for field studies in intellectual pathology.
bm: He can't seem to get enough of bashing RFM - someone there must have
really gotten under his skin. But to give credit where it is due, I note
that I like the term "apatheism". That describes many of my friends. They
can't get worked up about religion in any way. That was Grandma's issue;
Grandma's world. There are so many other things worth thinking about now,
like how do we get the Earth's population under control and learn to live
within the constraints of its environment.
DP: It is not uncommon, for example, to hear and read references to faith as
"religious insanity."13 "Religiosity," said the psychologist Albert Ellis,
"is in many respects equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional
disturbance. ... The elegant therapeutic solution to emotional problems is
to be quite unreligious. ... The less religious they are, the more
emotionally healthy they will be."14
bm: Amen, as far as literalist religion (like most of Mormonism) is
concerned. But I think the metaphoric use of religious concepts has a great
deal to commend it. See Karen Armstrong "A Short History of Myth" for
example.
DP: In this, Ellis was only following the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund
Freud. Religion, Freud wrote, is "the universal obsessional neurosis of
humanity."15
"Religion imposes equally on everyone its own path to the acquisition of
happiness and protection from suffering. The technique consists of
depressing the value of life and distorting the picture of the real world in
a delusional manner.
. . . At this price forcibly fixing them in a state of psychical infantilism
and by drawing them into a mass-delusion, religion succeeds in sparing many
people an individual neurosis. But hardly anything more."16
bm: For more recent and reasonable views, see Lee Kirkpatrick, "Attachment,
Evolution and the Psychology of Religion", or Pascal Boyer, "Religion
Explained", or Loyal Rue, "Religion is not About God".
DP: This is more sophisticated than the description of "Morgbots" given in
my message board laboratory, but its general content is remarkably similar.
bm: So, Freud is as bad as those evil people who post at RFM? Or are they as
bad as Freud? What about all of the other psychologists and psychiatrists?
Remember, the DSM - IV provides for the diagnosis of a clinical disorder
related to the stress of leaving religions precisely like Mormonism. The
evil circle widens.
DP: Yet it is demonstrably wrong. The data rather consistently demonstrate
that Latter-day Saints who live lives consistent with their religious
beliefs experience greater general well-being, greater family and marital
stability, less delinquency, less depression, less anxiety, and less
substance abuse than those who do not, and there is very little evidence
that religious belief and practice are harmful to mental health.17
bm: That is lovely. Refer to the studies that support your point, but do not
mention the mountain of data that questions them. Duwayne Anderson, for
example, has debunked many of the statistics Peterson references (The only
data of his I could quickly google is found at
http://exmormonfoundation.org/2005con... in the form of an audio file).
And what about the stats re. Utah in general? It leads the US in various
unflattering categories, like anti-depressant use, personal bankruptcies,
some kinds of fraud, some kinds of spousal abuse, some kinds of sexual
abuse, some kinds of suicide. And attempts by Mormons to show that active
Mormons do not suffer from these problems are either flawed, or raise
another serious question - what is it about living cheek to jowl with active
Mormons that sends these statistics into the stratosphere for everyone else,
because if active Mormons are not affected that means the incidence of these
problems for non-Mormons and less active Mormons in Utah are astounding.
DP: As James R. Lewis argues in his 2003 book Legitimating New Religions,
"attacks on alternative religious groups are attempts to
psychologize--medicalize--a controversy that, on deeper examination, is
clearly a controversy over ideology and lifestyle"18 In language that cannot
possibly fail to remind Latter-day Saints of evangelical anti-Mormonism but
that, oddly, forms a point of contact with the most virulent forms of
secular anti-Mormonism as well, Thomas Langham, reviewing Lewis's book for
the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, remarks that
opponents of new religious movements have worked to delegitimate them
through acting as 'moral entrepeneurs' who have used anti-cult ideologies to
market negative stereotypes, like the 'cult' label, to the broader
community. Such activities have led new religious groups...to be classified
as illegitimate "dangerous organizations."19
bm: This is delicious. Some new religious/cults are dangerous. And those who
recruit are highly disruptive to the families of many of their recruits so
it stands to reason that they will be resisted. And these are among the most
emotional issues known to humankind (kids being distanced from parents;
marriages being broken up; etc.) so we should expect the rhetoric used to be
extreme.
Now, turn this around and see how it applies to Peterson's inhuman
caricature of the people at RFM. There we have REALLY dangerous people who
the good Mormons should stay away from at all costs.
DP: Yet, Lewis says,
it is not self-evident that secularism should be the standard by which
religion is evaluated. ... [A] humanistic methodology...should attempt to
describe religionists as acting out of reasonable motives rather than from
errors of judgment or psychopathology.20
bm: I agree. That is what I try to do. Perhaps Peterson could try that with
RFM and other aspects of the post-Mormon movement.
DP: In fact, as is increasingly recognized nowadays, religious people tend
to be healthier, not only mentally but even physically, than their
irreligious counterparts.
bm: Let's cast the net a little broader. Are Buddhist and Taoists
irreligious? They are atheists. And yet psychologists are finding that the
ways of life embedded in the practises that come from these traditions are
particularly healthy for today's westerners. See Martin Seligman "Authentic
Happiness" and Marvin Levine, "The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga".
To make sense, Peterson should define which kind of atheists he is talking
about before making comparisons. Anderson (see above) used this technique
over and again to show how the Mormon use of statistics uses a comparison
point that skews perception. One he did not mention was the oft cited
statistic that Mormon missionaries are safer while on their missions than
19-21 year old men generally. This is used to make people feel better when
missionaries die or are severely injured while serving their missions. I
have not chased this down yet, but I am willing to bet that the "19-21 year
old men generally" category does not take into account the fact that we are
comparing Mormon missionaries whose alternative would likely be university
somewhere in the US west or mid-west to a Mormon mission. That is, most
deaths in this age group occur in urban ghettos, where you are unlikely to
find young men who would otherwise be serving Mormon missions. When you
compare apples to apples, I would be astounded if the death and serious
injury rate for Mormon missionaries was not higher than for the reference
group.
DP: With specific regard to Mormons, Utah death rates are below rates in the
nation at large and in the mountain states for most major causes of death,
including heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, accidents,
pulmonary disease, pneumonia/flu, diabetes, liver disease, and
atherosclerosis. Utah suicide rates are higher than the national average,
but lower than the mountain states as a whole. Studies of specific LDS
populations in California, Utah, and Alberta, Canada, show that LDS men are
about half as likely to die of cancer as other men. LDS women also have
lower cancer mortality, but the difference is not as great as for men. Death
rates are lower for Latter-day Saints who have higher levels of religious
participation. In short, adherence to the Mormon code of health appears to
lower death rates from several diseases.21 The benighted Morgbots seem to be
doing rather well.
bm: See my comments above.
DP: But what of the atheists and the agnostics? Let's take a look at another
laboratory: contemporary Europe, which has not altogether unfairly been
called a "godless continent." Europe is in a state not only of demographic
but, arguably, of cultural barrenness …
bm: Europe is uncultured compared to what? Utah? Peterson has an unusual
definition of culture as well as rationality. I suppose that I should not be
surprised. Mormons have long believed that they would become cultural lights
to the world, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. See "What is the
Challenge for LDS Scholars and Artists", John and Kirsten Rector, Dialogue,
Vol. 36, No. 2, Summer 2003,
http://www.dialoguejournal.com/excerp... and
http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.crea....
DP: , and it is certainly afflicted, these days, with a profound historical
amnesia: Thucydides and the Enlightenment are mentioned in the preamble to
the new European constitution as constituents of European identity--but not
Christianity.
bm: See the U of Michigan studies above. We don't need Christianity or any
other religion as a moral compass. There is a huge mass of social science
literature to this effect. I can tell numerous stories of agnostics/atheists
who I know personally and who live exemplary lives. One is a brain surgeon
who spends one third of his time working for free each year in the Amazon
jungle. This guy is smart, fun to be with, full of life, the kind of person
most people want to be near because he emanates a feeling of love and good
will. Sounds a lot like "the Spirit", doesn't it. Probably just Satan
deceiving us, right?
However, a metaphoric Christianity could be helpful. I buy into Gould's
"non-overlapping magisterial ("NOMA") concept, to a degree. See
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/librar....
DP: A striking drop has occurred in European birth and marriage rates, which
Pitzer College's Phil Zuckerman connects with the equally striking decline
in religious belief. "Religion," he says,
"seems to be critical to people's decision to raise children. People in
these advanced industrial societies see children more and more as a
liability. Some realize that this life is better without children. And you
don't even need to get married since there is no legal advantage to doing
so."
bm: Peterson might want to bone up on some population science. This is
arguably the planet's most critical issue right now, and he is lamenting a
decline in birth rates? This is Mormon ignorance in full flower.
DP: But Zuckerman, who is himself professedly anti-religious, is alarmed at
the contrast of the low European birthrate with the high birthrates of the
rapidly growing Muslim minorities within Europe. Muslims already make up at
least a quarter of the residents of Rotterdam, Marseilles, and Malmö,
Sweden, and fifteen percent of the residents of Brussels, the capital of the
European Union. Within the next few decades, several European cities will
acquire Muslim majorities.22 Observers have begun to speak of "Eurabia," and
"Europistan." Others have alluded to what seems to be a "collective death
wish" among Europeans, as their birth rates have fallen below levels
required simply to replace themselves.
bm: Hmmm. The Muslim countries take religion very seriously, even more so
that the US. And they have huge birth rates and an aversion to scientific
knowledge that contradicts their beliefs, similar to religious people in US.
This issue is of great concern to population scientists. Peterson has
obviously seen this data, but it has not penetrated him.
DP: During a trip to England a few years ago, I went beyond my accustomed
haunts into certain relatively nondescript parts of the country. While I've
long been accustomed to the large Muslim population of London, I was
astonished to see halal butcher shops and Muslim garb in the most ordinary
towns--everywhere.
bm: Low growth areas allow immigration from high growth areas in order to
keep the low growth area economies going and for other reasons. This
incidentally helps to educate the Muslim populace, which for the moment may
be our best hope to change the way that culture thinks. How is this bad?
DP: Immediately after his assassination a few years ago, the Dutch
politician Pim Fortuyn was portrayed in the media as anti-immigration, which
was true. But he was also portrayed as right-wing, which was false. The
reality was considerably more interesting than initial stereotypes
suggested: He was, in fact, a man of the left, and a practicing homosexual,
who feared that the demographic ascendancy of scarcely assimilated
conservative Muslims in his country would doom the ultra-free sexuality that
he and many others value as essential to the culture of the modern
Netherlands. And, surely, the recent murder of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh
on a midday street in Amsterdam by a Dutch Muslim, and the very recent
London bombings carried out by British Muslims, seem to bear out his
worries. "The best lack all conviction," wrote the Irish poet William Butler
Yeats, "while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
But, of course, however much she may wish she could, and however clearly she
may see the benefits of belief, an unbeliever probably can't, in most cases,
simply will herself to believe. It doesn't work that way.
One vocal ex-Mormon critic explained at the most recent Sunstone symposium
that it was a specific case of God's apparent failure to intervene to
prevent evil that, rather suddenly, killed his faith. I take him at his
word. I find his reaction plausible, even understandable, and see his
subsequent arguments against Mormonism as derivative from that initial
conclusion, which serves as their presupposition.
bm: Or how about this. There is no god, or perhaps a deistic god. Who can
tell? But here is what we can say with a high probability of being correct.
Really bad things happen on a regular basis. And, our individual and
collective choices determine the kind of society in which we and our
children will live. We have plenty of reason for moral behavior, to keep our
promises, be faithful to our spouses, etc. on this basis alone. And the
social psych literature shows that our behaviour, regardless of religious
belief, tends in this direction. We also have plenty of reason to simply
enjoy life as it presents itself to us each day.
DP: But, here, an observation needs to be made: If, as in this case, the
unbeliever's loss of faith stems from what she might well regard and
characterize as a particular, almost revelatory, realization, then whatever
arguments she puts forward afterward will be, to some degree or other, ad
hoc, designed--no less than those of apologists for belief--to support a
paradigm that was actually chosen on different grounds.
bm: Huh? I must not be smart enough to follow this. Peterson will at least
agree with me on this point.
DP: Dan Vogel's take on the Witnesses, for example, strikes me as
embarrassingly strained and almost desperate. From his presupposed
atheistic …
bm: How awful he must be!
DP: point of view, however--having conceded that the Witnesses were both
sane and sincere, but still unwilling to grant the accuracy of their
statements--it is necessary, almost unavoidable, that he explain them away
as nineteenth century visionaries to some extent culturally incapable of
distinguishing fantasy from reality.
bm: I haven't read Vogel on this point. But how about this. The early 1800s
were lousy with people who saw visions that supported the truth claims of
various religions. Angelic visitations were common. Affidavits were sworn to
this effect. Martin Harris (I think - I am going from memory here)
eventually testified to the legitimacy of some of Strang's heavenly
visitations.
Were only Smith's "revelations" valid? If so, how do we distinguish his from
the rest? Of if they were all of the same kind, how do we explain them?
There are plenty of scholars, staring with William James ("The Varieties of
Religious Experience") and including more recently people like the
neurologist Andrew Newberg (himself a deeply religions person with whom I
spent a week last summer) ("Why God Won't Go Away") who do this nicely. The
bottom line is that there are many explanations for this kind of experience
that do not require a belief that what is reported to us really happened.
See the section on "spiritual experience" at
http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.deni... staring at page 101.
DP: It's a matter of what are sometimes termed "prior probabilities." As
Sherlock Holmes said to Dr. Watson, "First, you eliminate the impossible,
and then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth."
bm: Prior probabilities is one of the keys to Bayesian probability theory,
generally regarded, along with scientific investigation, to give us our most
reliable understanding of what is real. It has nothing to do with Sherlock
Holmes.
DP: The problem of evil itself--so lethal to the faith of that Sunstone
atheist--will serve as an illustration of how paradigms and prior
probabilities function in these matters. To an agnostic or an atheist,
someone who assigns a very low probability (or even none at all) to the
existence of God, the existence of massive human and natural evils in this
world constitutes a serious and perhaps fatal, if not merely redundant, blow
against theistic belief.
bm: That depends entirely on the kid of god one worships. Deists, for
example, have no problem with this. I have no trouble with it.
DP: To someone, however, who regards the existence of a benevolent and
powerful God as probable, even highly probable or certain, on other grounds,
the existence of such massive evils represents merely a problem to be worked
out in the light of her theistic presuppositions. Her proposed solutions
will seem gratuitously ad hoc to atheistic critics, but, from within her
paradigm, function much the same way as refinements to broad scientific
theories function under the stimulus of new data and problems.
bm: One of the many problems with that position is that is can be used to
defend anything. It does not give uncertainty its due. See the essay at
http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.does... for more on this point.
Why should we believe in the Mormon God instead of the Muslim God or the God
of a pygmy tribe in the Amazon? Each is equally defensible, as well as
indefensible. And there is more evidence of alien abductions than for any of
these gods. Once we accept as probative of reality the feelings on which
religious faith is based, we can prove anything and hence nothing.
DP: Similarly, defenders of the Book of Mormon are sometimes accused of ad
hoc improvisations when, from their point of view, they are merely refining
and making more precise a paradigm that they regard as reasonable and
supportable on other grounds.
bm: I presume this to be a reference to the "limited geography" theory of
the Book of Mormon. Or how about that paragon of logic and probability, the
"two Cumorahs" theory? These theories tend to only be attractive to those
who have deep seated social and other needs to believe. Mormon scientists
have indicated that the limited geography theory and the Mormon response to
the DNA research of people like Southerton (see
http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index...) is improbable.
The best Mormons can do on this front with justification is to say that the
case against them has not been proved with 100% certainty. The Young Earth
Creationists, holocaust deniers, alien abductionists and countless others
Mormons regard to be cranks have long used precisely the same defence for
their points of faith. This runs back at least as far as the ancients Greeks
(see http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.apol...).
DP: However, as I've tried to illustrate, such refining is not restricted to
theistic paradigms; it occurs just as clearly in naturalistic attempts to
explain away claims of the divine. It's not a matter of black and white, but
of relative plausibility and richness of explanation.
bm: Let's see how quickly we disappear down a post-modern rabbit hole now.
DP: Some atheists are positively giddy with the good news of unbelief. One
reason, of course, is the sadly checkered history of religious believers.
"When one considers how much blood has been shed in the name of faith--in
whatever God it might be--one might perhaps wish," says Hans-Dieter Gelfert,
speaking this time not as a mere observer of the Americans but as, himself,
a religiously skeptical European, "that the founders of expansionist
religions, among which Christianity figures, had chosen not faith but humble
doubt as the royal path to God."23
bm: Consider how well those terrible atheists in Scandinavia are making out
in most social categories important to Mormons.
DP: The very notion of strong religious belief has become suspect in the
modern era, and particularly since 9-11. Take, for example the words of Sen.
Charles Schumer (D-NY), a very intelligent man who represents, in more ways
than one, one of the bluest of the blue states, during a June 2003 hearing
on the nomination of William Pryor to serve as a United States appeals-court
judge:
In Pryor's case, hi | |