Discourse and Tension: Why I need Mike like Batman needs the Joker

There’s a fantastic little movie from the late 90’s called Mystery Men, featuring a ragtag band of second (or maybe even third) rate superheroes.  The motivating plot piece is the first rate superhero, Captain Amazing, who locks up his arch-nemesis, Casanova Frankenstein, and now finds himself… irrelevant.

So, he springs him from prison.  After all, what’s a superhero without a supervillain?

The archetypal enemy motif is embedded deep in the soul of Christianity.  Good vs. evil.  Christ vs. Satan.  The mythological standoff of enemies helps you define your existence.

As an apostate, I have a complicated relationship with the faithful.  This is especially true with the faithful who are willing, want even, to engage.  Let’s hypothetically embody the faithful into one symbolic person, and let’s call him Mike.

First of all, I’m not sure who is attacking and who is defending.  Do I want to attack Mike?  Does he want to attack me?  Am I defending my choices or decrying his?  Because his choices used to be mine, I feel… advanced.  But he is sure of himself.  I don’t feel remiss in saying that he hopes to help me find a spark of my former feelings; to help me remember it.  He wants to rescue the lost sheep; bring me back to the fold.

What do I want?  If I am honest with myself, there are primal moments when I really hope to see his testimony vaporize like mine did.  This is not simply spite.  This is not a malevolent desire to drag people down.  Quite the opposite; I am happy to be where I am, and would be glad to help people see the light. 

And there’s some spite.

And (more) there’s a desire for validation; a desire to have someone say, “Oh, I get it.” 

Do I really want that?  Mike LOVES the Church.  He doesn’t love it mildly.  Mike is passionately involved in the work.  He sees himself as a soldier in the Lord’s army, and he relishes it.  Somehow, I guess it works for him.

So, if I was the cause of taking that away, I don’t know that I would feel any glory in the victory.  What would I gain?  Nothing.  An empty cup.

However, we still engage.  It’s not like I’m pursuing him.  He baits me.  He wants to engage.  He wants the tension and the discourse, and so do I.

In the engagement I have the chance to seriously examine my position; I can look for the places where I don’t have a good answer.  I can look for the chinks.

We engage in a battle that, for me, contains an additional layer of conflict (I don’t think the same is true for him.  He would be exultant to “win” me back). 

I think I have a different view of the stakes.  I see us fighting with real weapons, and see that there is a real possibility of delivering a mortal blow to his vision of life.  He thinks there’s no way that could happen.  In a conversation (fraught with tension) with my bishopric, one of the counselors told me confidently, “We can handle it.”

All I could say in return, “I thought I could, too.” 

I engage in mortal combat, in a fight I don’t really want to win, with a person who is ignorant of the danger of the weapons in hand. (Is that arrogance?  I don’t want it to be, but would be willing to concede that it may be.)

Nevertheless, I engage with no quarter.  And when the battle is on, all of this nice perspective I have right now, goes right out the window, and then, I want blood; then I want concession, and defeat; then I want the moment of painful realization. 

I like Mike in spite of myself.  We share a culture that I no longer embrace.  I spend my time picking it apart, examining it under a microscope.  I like Mike because he is sincere.  I like him because he is willing to stand up.  I like him because he is willing to engage.  And ironically, I worry about him.

I got lucky.  Unlike many apostates, I didn’t get a divorce.  I’m willing to engage, but worry about the consequences.

I’m conflicted in my conflict.

I guess that’s just the way it is. 

The Transfer of Hubris

I offered a conclusion in yesterday’s post for why an acknowledgment of the existence of God, separated from any attendant theology is helpful.

I’m not abandoning that thought, but it kept gnawing at me until I realized the core reason why I want to think this way.

That reason has to do with hubris: extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance.

Humanity has a special talent for hubris.  It is, I suppose, an important artifact of our evolution. 

Hubris has a best friend named confirmation bias, i.e. I will give preference to evidence that supports my position and dismiss evidence that does not.

In the theistic position I have been grappling with, there are two main considerations.

One is the existence of God.

The other is the will of God, or theology.

Does God exist?  Does God want something from me?

In an objective sense, the two possible answers for the first question are mutually exclusive.  God either exists or he does not. 

In a slightly different way, the answers supplied by the various religions about God’s will are also mutually exclusive.  If the Mormons are right, the Catholics are not.  If the Muslims are right, the Christians and the Jews are not.  I am aware of what I would call “universal apologists” that try to make some reconciliation and pretend that everyone can be right.

I am somewhat sympathetic to that attempt.  I think it begins to represent the better part of our natures.

Unfortunately, however nice that thought is, it cannot be.  The Mormon theology, as presented by its scriptures and confirmed leaders, is mutually exclusive to the others.  This is essentially true around the table.

Back to hubris. 

The insistence of any religious society (or atheistic society for that matter) that it has the Truth, and that all others are false is plain, arrogant hubris.

Whatever evidence I can give for the truthfulness of Mormonism can be thrown back at me by any number of other faith traditions.  The door swings both ways.  I can only accept the exclusive validity of the evidence that I like by colossal arrogance.  I am aware of no evidence that I can give for the truthfulness of Mormonism that does not depend equally on ignoring the corollary evidence in another faith.

Acknowledging this (and acknowledging that hubris is NOT to be desired), a strong case can be made for abandoning theology as a path of virtue.  I shed the burden of theological hubris when I shed my Mormon doctrines.

Thus I dispatch the thorny problem of theology, or God’s will.

The problem of God’s existence presents a different quandary.

Let’s first acknowledge that we don’t KNOW either way.  The theists have no more tangible evidence than the atheists, and as has been said, “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”

I have posited that the knowledge of God can only be subjective.  The best we can do to share our subjective experiences is share them in still more subjective ways: art, stories, music, etc.  I would parenthetically argue (once again) that all that is contained in our subjective experience is what makes life beautiful, wonderful, strange, and fantastic.  I shudder to denigrate my subjective experiences.

THE CRUX:  If I take it upon myself to declare your subjective experience with God invalid, untrue, or delusional, I have willingly reacquired the burden of hubris that I just worked so hard to divest.

I have no proof that your experience with God is internal delusion.  I have nothing to show but naked arrogance. 

I have taken upon myself the burden of judgment, which burden I DO NOT WANT.

Subjective vs. Objective Truth

Yesterday, I said that I think the anecdotal experience of many people is enough to support the idea that God probably exists.  (I said a lot of other things, too) 

Let me addend and clarify, if possible.

When I admit that I think the existence of a divine… something is likely, I want to be clear about a few things I am NOT saying. 

I cannot find any evidence in the subjective/anecdotal/narrative experiences mentioned to reasonably suppose that God conforms to any version of which I am aware.  If there is some reason to believe that God is there, I can’t find any reason to believe that we are aware of God’s attributes.  I make no presumption that God is moral, truthful, good, loving, or cares one bit about us.  (I make no presumption against those things either... I just don't pretend to know or to have any evidence).

I cannot find any reasonable evidence that God cares whether I believe or not.

I cannot find any reasonable evidence that the existence of God (or even a belief in the possibility of that existence) brings with it an impelling commitment to action. i.e. God's existence does not reasonably support a theology, philosophical system of beliefs, or a laundry list of rules and dos and don'ts. 

I categorically cannot find any evidence that God wants me to participate in one “spiritual” society over another.  i.e. God doesn’t care in the least bit which church I go to, nor whether I go to church at all.

I think, I hope, this begins to explain why I agree with the conclusion that there is no evidence for believing in a theology, but not the premise that there is no reason to believe in God. 

I think a case for the existence of just about anything can be built quite effectively on the subjective experience of interaction with that thing.  Perception is reality, right?

However, that subjective experience is… subjective.  It carries no moral plan and cannot transform itself into an objective reality.

This is where I want to go:  The difference between objective and subjective.

Objective truth is truth that is independent of the interaction of the subject with the experience.  Your relationship with the object in question does not change the nature of the object, nor the measurable truth.

Subjective truth on the other hand is contained in the relationship between the two objects.  You are the subject, and the “truth” of the matter is the experience of interaction.  Further, that experience is only contained in the interaction itself, and has no bearing on the objective truth, nor does it have any bearing on the subjective truth of an interaction between another subject and the same object.

My wife and I have a relationship.  That relationship exists.  It only exists in our interaction with each other.  It has no bearing on my objective existence (I exist without her), nor does it have any bearing on her relationship with her mother (a fact that I would have been smart to recognize early in our relationship).

Everything about my relationship with her is subjective.  Nevertheless, it is real.  Subjective truth, I would submit, is the beautiful part of life.  In fact, beautiful is, itself, an inherently subjective word.

If I have an interaction with God, it is definitively subjective.  If God tells me what to do, it is only relevant within the context of my interaction with God.  The second I try to extend the imperative relevance of that interaction to my interactions with anyone else… the second I start to proselytize, I am trying to turn my subjective experience into something objective.  This is where I will gladly stand with the atheists.

I find (at this point) that the proclamations of people about the objective nature of God, based on their subjective experiences, are inherently flawed in this problem.  It is clear that there is no objectivity in the discussion of God’s attributes or aspirations for us.  As much as I appreciate attempts to say otherwise, I don’t see how a discussion of the existence of deity cannot be subjective in nature.  It simply cannot be demonstrated that God is there objectively.

Ok… [wiping sweat from furrowed brow]

To summarize:

I find the weight of the anecdotal evidence to be compelling as to the probable existence of something that we would call divine.

All of that anecdotal evidence (taken collectively) contains no implication of some divine agenda for mankind.

All of that anecdotal evidence (taken collectively) doesn’t say anything to me about what God wants me to do, if indeed, God wants anything from me at all.

Is it useful then to tentatively acknowledge God’s existence?

I think the benefit is this: If I recognize that God can exist independent of the people who claim authority in the divine narrative; if I recognize that divine existence doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with human preachers; then I am free to let go of the implications they want me to cherry pick.

So, does God exist?

Ok people, let's just jump on in... no reason to screw around.

Yeah, I think, probably, maybe, God does exist.

There is a lot of great evidence (to my way of thinking) for the existence, or presence, of a higher power.

However, there's a funny attribute of pretty much all of that evidence.  It's all anecdotal.

Can evidence be anecdotal?  Well, yeah.  That's the nature of a witness.  In a court case, you don't have much in the way of statistical, objective evidence from the witnesses, you have anecdotal narrative; a story from someone about what they experienced first hand.

Testimony is, of course, the same word as witness.  The idea of testimony meeting is to get up there and tell about your EXPERIENCE with God. To witness.

Parenthetically, I will give homage to one of my very favorite musicians, David Bazan, who says simply, "Let go of what you know, and honor what exists.  Son, that's what bearing witness is." (yes, that's the type of witness he's talking about).

So, we run into this problem that God, however God is manifest, is not manifest in statistically relevant, consistent ways.  This is true even when God makes promises that sound provable.  The promise of the Book of Mormon at the end of Moroni is ostensibly given in the spirit of a test, like a scientific test.

If you do X, Y will happen.

The problem lies in the spotty results.  Some people think they got an answer, some don't.  I can't invalidate the spiritual experience of someone else, but I can easily point out that since there is no consistency of result, then despite the validity of the spiritual experience, it doesn't do anything for the truth claim.

What I mean is, if you were to take Moroni at his word, and then try to apply a statistical reading to his promise, you would almost certainly have to conclude that the Book of Mormon is false.  The promise is clearly not working for very many of the millions of people who have exposure to the book.  It's really not even working for the people who bought in and got baptized.  There's just too damn many of them that leave. The economics are all screwed up (a subject for another post).

Plus, the same experience that makes you think God is telling you the Book of Mormon is true is being identically replicated by a Muslim about the Koran, and a JW about their wacky theology.  And, if you bothered to look , you would find people who claimed a spiritual experience telling them the Book of Mormon isn't true.

It takes a special kind of hubris to presume that your experiences are authentic, while those of everyone else are not.  (Not surprisingly, humans are demonstrably blessed with just that sort of hubris.)

Let's bring this around.  I have completely abandoned the idea that acknowledging an encounter with the divine can reasonably be expected to provide me with metaphysical meaning, or any other kind of truth.  But I won't deny encounters with the divine.

It's an experience.  It's a subjective experience.  It is NOT objective.

I experience art subjectively.  That doesn't invalidate my interaction with art.  I just doesn't attempt to infuse it with greater objective meaning.

Anecdotal vs. Statistical
Subjective vs. Objective
Artistic vs. Scientific
Emotional vs. Rational

Are these false dichotomies?  I don't think so.  But I could be wrong about that.

There are so many experiences people have with the divine.  Why do I need to explain them away?  It is such a substantial part of human history and experience.

The only reason I can think of that I have to explain them away is if I am afraid of what they might mean.

But I have a simple answer for this:  They don't mean a damn thing.

I can weep in front of a painting.  I can feel spiritual rapture at a rock concert.

You may have a great (anecdotal) story about receiving a flash of inspiration.  You may have experienced a serious miraculous healing.  This stuff happens.  There is so much narrative experience that is not to be explained by the "it's all in your head" materialist response.

Once I acknowledge the probable existence of God, now what?  One of the biggest errors I see in the human experience is attempting to turn narrative experience into objective, and especially metaphysical, meaning. (I happily recognize that the very human desire to turn our narrative experience with the unexplained into theology is VERY evolutionarily ingrained in us.)

I think God probably exists.  And that's it.  I don't see how I can reasonably attempt to draw additional meaning from that acknowledgment.    

I think God probably exists because people from everywhere, believing everything, brush up against... God.

I believe I would be arrogant to dismiss their experiences, but I would be foolish to accept their conclusions.

The two phases of this spiritual journey - Act II

The critical events of the second act took place in one intense week, for which it will be helpful to zoom in on the action.

On Sunday, February 13, 2011, I went to Church with my family like normal.  I had a copy of Gerald Lund’s new book Divine Signatures with me, lent by my Mother-in-law (my wife had asked me to read it), and I intended to distract myself from the talks by starting it.

The book is essentially a treatise for those who feel that the Gospel isn’t providing the comfort it should; lovely anecdotes of the hand of the Lord helping other people so that I can feel better that His hand is nowhere visible in my own struggles. 

I grasped the issue immediately: if the yoke isn’t easy and the burden isn’t light, and it isn’t so for enough people that books to explain the problem are in strong demand, it’s not because we’re all broken, it’s because it doesn’t work.  The promise is ineffectual.

I put the book down.  No need to waste my time and frustrate myself.  The adult speakers began. 

They were thankful they had been asked to give a talk on faithfulness because (of course) they needed it more than any of us.  For some time they had been frustrated with life and the Gospel because they felt like it wasn’t working for them, but because they had been asked to give this talk, they knew it would be all right.

Oh my God.

The anxiety attack lasted past midnight.  The next morning I wrote a short story, called it a parable, and emailed it to my wife, and then my Dad and Bishop for good measure.

_______________________________________________

A man walked through life in the way men do, acquiring loved ones and relationships that filled his life with beauty and joy. 

As he grew from boy to man he learned more about the world around him and grew to appreciate the complexity and diversity of life. 

Over time he understood that the things he thought as a boy were not the same things he now thought as a man. Although this seemed natural, it brought him at odds with the culture of his family, friends, and the love of his life. 

The man saw that he could choose the path of virtue and selflessness by subordinating his conclusions to the peace of his family. 

The path of virtue thus cost him his integrity. 

This gave him anxiety at 1:00 in the morning. 

________________________________________________

After sending the messages, I typed www.postmormon.org into my web browser determined finally to find someone with whom I could really talk.  By the end of the day I had found the Iron Rod and Liahona talk by Richard Poll, and I had found NOM.

Home at last. 

Most reading this will already understand what it feels like coming into the DAMU for the first time, frustrated, scared, angry, sad.

Finding the DAMU for the first time is like breathing again when you think you’re about to drown.

I called my wife to tell her, and she was happy that I sounded happy and hopeful.

I jubilantly wrote my Bishop again to tell him that I had found a community to help (ok, yes, I’m a bit naïve).

I spent the day on the DAMU reading articles that confronted my conclusions without fear or apology.

But.

A few nights later I followed a link from NOM to MormonThink and read for the first time about the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith and Polyandry.  It felt like torture; physical and mental anguish.  I freaked out.

I had been beating myself for years to try and make it work, but Google could have told me in two clicks that it was never going to work.  The anxiety and agony I had been feeling for years was all for a complicated, easy to disprove, lie. 

I could not allow my children to be set up for the same fall.

As far as I was concerned the house was on fire and we had to get out.

Silly me.

I got out.  I took off my garments.  I went with my wife to see the Bishop and explain that I was done.  I handed in the hard-fought-for recommend.  I told my family.  My wife told our good friends and key members of the ward.

At first she didn’t understand.  Something in her brain wouldn’t let her understand.  We talked and talked.  Some of the talks went well; some not.  We kept on trying.  After about a month, I read Palmer’s Insider’s View, and after I finished, she read it, too.  Miraculously, providentially, instantly, we understood each other.

Sigh.

Conclusions?

I realized recently that it isn’t that the “Restored Gospel” turned out to be “false” that upsets me most. 

I am upset by the way with which I was dealt.  I’m upset that my trust was abused.  I’m upset that the organization that taught me to be honest and seek after The Truth (capital T, mind you), is willing to lie, and bully, and endlessly justify its bad behavior in the most ludicrous ways.

I’m upset that the story of the emperor’s new clothes turned out to be the story of my life.  But when it’s my life, IT’S NOT FUNNY! 

Finally, I am upset that I have been told that I am being prideful.  I’m upset that I am expected to have faith against the evidence, not built upon the evidence. 

However…

I know the truth now.

And the truth set me free.

The two phases of this spiritual journey - Act I

It would be unfair to not start off by informing you that I am an apostate Mormon.

I rather appreciate the designation “apostate” these days.  It’s a word with guts; commanding attention.  I am disaffected, discomfited, discouraged, disillusioned, and disenfranchised.  The prefix of all of these tells you the things I am not.  Apostate tells you what I am.  Take it how you will.  I will take it with some cream and sugar.

I think I arrived at this state in two acts, or phases.

In the first, I started as an intensely devout Mormon guy who took it all VERY seriously.  I loved my mission.  I loved the Church.  I loved Joseph Smith (weeping regularly during a rousing chorus of Praise to the Man).  I loved Boyd K. Packer (he clearly takes it seriously, too).  I loved the temple (especially the veil).  I loved the Book of Mormon.  I loved teaching seminary and Sunday school.  I was one of those people that watch all 10 hours of conference.

I loved contemplating faith, sacrifice, and consecration. 

I believed devoutly that all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole.

I completely embraced John Taylor’s electrifying declaration, “The Kingdom of God, or NOTHING!”

Some of you can see where this is going.

I studied the safe stuff: the standard works (especially, according to plan, the Book of Mormon) and general conference mostly.

I also studied stuff that I considered safe having nothing to do with Mormonism: behavioral economics, sociology, behavioral neuroscience, some philosophy, psychology.

Other factors in the mix:

I never embraced “Mormon Culture”.  Ever.  I thought the doctrine of Christ and the culture of green jello and hair bows on grown women could, and should, be separated.  I went to BYU for one year and intensely disliked the culture.  I love counterculture literature and music and thought.  I put a lot of effort into trying to demonstrate that devout Mormons can fully embrace the Gospel and the rich culture of humanity simultaneously.

I mostly believe that any social skills I have didn’t come naturally.  I’ll oversimplify it by saying that autism seems to run in my family and when my son was diagnosed with it, in the process of learning about him, I kept on catching glimpses of myself.  My perception is that most people seem to know the “rules” of society without having to figure them out explicitly; they just cotton on.  This is not my gift.  But I made an intense effort to explicitly teach myself how to get along (which effort has largely paid off).

I am by nature, highly literalistic.  I can’t seem to help but believe that there is an objectively correct answer to everything.  This answer is supplied by functionality.  Between the quality described in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Dr. Phil’s classic, “how’s that working out for you?” I am very comfortable. 

I prize introspection, analysis, and logic.  I want things to make sense.

Ok…

I think of Act I as the slow process of ingesting the complexity of the world, bit by bit, and consciously  creating (and filling) a “shelf” with troublesome details.  Noah’s Ark.  Joseph’s ego.  Brigham’s… Brigham.

One can do that for many years without noticing how many items are on the shelf.  The point of the shelf is not to examine, but to store. 

Somewhere around four years ago, I became more acutely aware of the troubling nature of some of the knick knacks I was shelving.  I was becoming aware of irreconcilable doctrines.  I realized how much we contextualize everything, and so, the doctrine we apply is dependent on the situation, rather than the other way around. 

At some point, I allowed myself to ask the question, “What if it isn’t true?”

Willing to look at the answer, I slowly discovered that the world makes so much more sense if the Mormon Church is not God’s ONE TRUE ORGANIZATION on the Earth. 

I began to peel back the doctrinal layers to try to understand them better.  I ran into all kinds of logical problems, circular reasoning, non sequiturs. 

One thing I could clearly see (and to be perfectly honest, I had seen this from an early age, but shelved it); the whole system was designed to support itself.

After about a year of this, I confided to my wife that I wasn’t sure if I believed the Church was true.

She thought it would get better.  I thought it would, too.  I thought God would come to my rescue. 

Another year or so later, I went in for a temple recommend interview and couldn’t get past the first question.  The alarmed, sincere, well-intentioned counselor in the Bishopric referred me to the Bishop.

He referred me to scriptures and conference talks I had already read.

I had increasing anxiety at Church.  I learned what cognitive dissonance was and had no trouble identifying it. 

My poor, faithful wife watched as I spiraled further and further down the rabbit hole away from our safe, LDS, life.

I went from contemplating, to suspecting, to believing, to knowing that the Church could not be true in the way that it presents itself.

[Act I curtain]

A quick note about the name of this blog:

‘The door swings both ways’ is a phrase that I have started using frequently as I consider the implications of arguments for metaphysical positions.  The thought process used to bolster one side can almost always be used just as effectively to prop up the opposing side.

The door swings both ways…

This lovely phrase gets its own place in my list of perseverative favorites such as “it’s a story about redemption” and my current favorite, “the primary motivation of human behavior is social”.