It’s time to unpack the back half of the previous post. Let’s talk about approaches.
When we say that something is true, what do we mean? Honestly, I usually hate this question because I associate it with impending dissembly.
True means… true. So, that’s not very useful (some truth, after all, is not very useful).
True means… an accurate description of reality? Yeah, I think so.
Why is something an accurate description of reality? How does it qualify?
I guess something is an accurate description of reality when it is PREDICTABLE. Not sometimes predictable. UTTERLY predictable.
Let’s take an example. Is math true? Yes, I think so. 2+2=4. This is really an abstract principle, right? It’s not describing anything in particular. It describes a lot of things in general. But it describes them always, and accurately.
Now, some smartass will want to go all quantum and talk about Heizenberg. That’s fine. Heizenberg’s uncertainty principle is… certain. At the right moment it is ALWAYS there. Heizenberg’s uncertainty principle is PERFECTLY CERTAIN.
Science describes the evidence in PREDICTABLE ways. So, the same smartass may point out that physicists don’t believe Newton the way they used to, that truth is somehow changing. And I will punch that smartass in the face to demonstrate Newtonian principles. Newtonian physics are predictable. There are contexts where they are no longer predictable. That doesn’t make them false. It makes them inapplicable for the context.
Humans have incredibly complex brains, but our conscious capacity is not incredibly complex. You can effectively prove the fallibility of free will by simply asking someone to memorize a 7 digit number and then offer them a snack. In the previous post I glossed over the fact that when it comes to complex decisions, we have a huge subconscious process that provides us answers in the form of… feelings.
I think there are a few things that are worth pointing out here.
One. The programming for that subconscious process is NOT a product of modern technology. Our programming harks back to the early days of man, i.e. yesterday in an evolutionary time scale. Back to the time when societies didn’t exist, when food was what you found and killed, when religion was what you thought about the sound of thunder and the stillness that crept into your friends when they wouldn’t wake up again (where the hell did they go?). This is fine except that it means that our programming is susceptible to all kinds of shenanigans by those who would manipulate it. Those systems are easily fooled by modern sophisticates. We have names for all these ways of fooling each other, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. I can explain confirmation bias and Stockholm Syndrome to you and you will still exhibit them.
Two. Humans are the most successful species on the planet because we are the most social. The most effective forms of torture are isolation techniques. We are absolutely wired to CARE ENORMOUSLY about our social ties. When people do not exhibit normal sympathetic responses to the pain of others, we label them sociopaths. They are socially broken. There is no form of human breakage that we regard as more hopelessly broken than social breakage.
Three. That subconscious mechanism is not all that concerned with figuring out philosophical truth, per se. It is concerned with figuring out how to make decisions. Our big brains want to figure out the way to predict the effects of our actions. We’re not going for INTERMITTENT predictability. We want CONSISTENT predictability. Which brings us back to truth. When I can consistently predict outcomes, my modern brain takes a number of abstract principles and tells me that I have found TRUTH.
Four. Evolution has wired us to fool ourselves with regard to our ability to predict. One easy root to look at is the problem of type one and type two errors. Type one errors are false positives. Type two errors are false negatives. Type one errors are evolutionarily harmless. If I hear the rustle in the grass and believe it to be a snake, when the snake isn’t there, I am still alive. Type two errors will win you a Darwin award. When I hear the snake in the grass and think it is just the wind rustling, I die. Evolution favors type one error makers. Hence, evolution favors credulity. Evolution favors faith.
Let’s talk about Church, shall we?
Assuming that you, like I, were brought up in the faith it looked something like this:
I was taught from the beginning that the Church is TRUE.
The vast majority of my social group (family and friends) reinforced this to me.
I believed it.
I liked it.
I found “evidence” (in the emotional epistemology presented to me) to help confirm the belief structure that strengthened my primitive primate relationships.
Sound familiar?
So what happened?
We can approach this from MANY directions. I would say that we could approach this from ANY direction and the result would still be the same.
The Church makes a number of TRUTH claims. I am positing here that TRUTH ultimately boils down to PREDICTABILITY.
So, when the Church makes a truth claim, it is hard for me to not compare that with a scientific claim.
What about faith, you say?
Let’s take a look.
When I went to Church and heard nice, comforting stories about how much Jesus loved me, and how special and lucky I was to be born in a chosen generation, and how lovely it would be to be one of the few lucky ones to live with my mommy and daddy forever, I was told that the nice, comforting feeling I had was God’s spirit. As I got older (and the messages became less warm and fuzzy) I didn’t feel that comforting feeling so much. Life got complex, and frequently uncomfortable. The feeling became UNPREDICTABLE. The feeling wasn’t TRUE.
So I prayed and I studied the scriptures. The scriptures describe a process of communication with God that we call prayer. In the scriptures, prayer is answered unambiguously, and CONSISTENTLY. There is no second guessing the answer. There are no unanswered prayers in the scriptures.
The process of prayer in the scriptures is PREDICTABLE. The practice of prayer in modern life is NOT PREDICTABLE.
But we all know that life doesn’t work like it does in the scriptures….. Woah! Hold on a minute. Why doesn’t it?*
Spiritual phenomena in the scriptures are commonplace. Spiritual experiences in the 21st century are remarkable. In the scriptures they are PREDICTABLE. In modern life they are NOT PREDICTABLE.
But what about faith, you say?
Yeah, what about it?
Faith is action/obedience/loyalty/trust based on a conviction of… PREDICTABILITY. Faith is when I do something because I believe the result will be a certain way. The scriptural concept of faith (consistent with its other bronze age philosophies) presupposes the desired result.
But, you say, maybe God is testing you.
Maybe He should indicate somewhere that He is going to screw with me this way, then.
You just have to believe.
Well, maybe God is a liar.
No, you say, He says he isn’t a liar.
Every liar says he isn’t a liar.
No, you say, God says that if He lied, He would cease to be God.
I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. Better yet, I’ve got an MLM scheme I want you to join up with.
You say, God can’t be consistent in His responses or it would obviate the need for faith.
Well, a) you’ve forgotten that we already established the fallibility of that premise above, and it just brings us back around to the lying problem again.
But don’t you want to have faith? Don’t you want to believe?
No, why would I? Is it PREDICTABLE? No. Is it TRUE? No. So, is it useful in my life? No.
What, in all of this tortured theology IS PREDICTABLE?
Nothing. There is nothing for me to hang my faithful hat on.
BUT YOU COULD MAKE IT WORK ANYWAY!!!!! (The last ditch effort)
…… I’ve got to stop now for a second, because I’m about to burst into obscenities.
I’m sorry that it makes you feel so uncomfortable that I don’t believe the same way you do. I understand that it is built into your primate DNA; that your humanness is not built to appreciate plurality.
There are two main points left to make.
One. If it makes you feel good, live it. I understand that the human need to succumb to social pressure is MUCH MUCH greater than the need to conform to truth. We can’t get around it. I can’t get around it. We’re built that way. The need I have to conform to social pressure is MUCH greater than my need for truth.
If it makes you feel good, follow your feelings. If the GOOD it does for you, outweighs the BAD, please, feel free.
I wasn’t happy any longer inside. I did not feel good. It did not work for me. Please stop asking me to pretend it did. There should be absolutely no surprise that what I believed as a child, shifted as a man. That doesn’t mean I was an insincere child… it means I am a sincere man.
Two. If it works for you, it’s not because it works as advertised. We all acknowledge that it doesn’t work as advertised through all kinds of doctrinal subterfuge. “God is testing you.” “He was speaking as a man.” “The Church is true, but the members aren’t.” “It was the Lord’s will.” “Sometimes the blessing doesn’t come until the next life.” “You should pray more, then you will understand.”
It doesn’t work as advertised. None of it. It works (at best) INTERMITTENTLY. But TRUTH is PREDICTABLE. If it works for you; if it makes you feel good, it’s because you are reconstructing it to fit your circumstances. Take a good solid look at the way God interacts with people in the scriptures, and then take a good solid look at the way He interacts with you. Then mull over the uncomfortable fact that if you were to actually have the kind of spiritual life the scriptures describe, you would be locked up as a lunatic (see William James first essay in The Varieties of Religious Experience).
Gerald Lund’s recent book Divine Signatures is one long discussion about how IT DOESN’T WORK AS ADVERTISED.
I thought it was so thoroughly, refreshingly honest when Daniel Peterson said (on his Mormon Stories podcast), “If you want to believe, I can help you. If you don’t want to believe, I can’t help you.”
Exactly.
The reiteration of my simple, still a little sad, conclusion: I can’t find a single direction from which to approach it that will provide a toehold to begin. I can’t find a single satisfactory angle.
If it were TRUE, it could be approached from EVERY direction.
If it were TRUE, it would be PREDICTABLE. It would be CONSISTENT. It is not.
The TRUTH does circumscribe into one great whole, but THIS is not IT.
*Any conscious admission of this constant shifting space is simple proof that it’s all made up. The greatest proof of the untruth of the New Testament is the Old Testament. Even 5,000 years ago, an everlastingly loving God is not allowed to be an immoral reprobate.
