Guest Post: A Rational Approach to Theism

This post comes from JB who was kind enough to send over a well thought out argument for a rational approach to theism.

JB blogs quite effectively over at http://study-and-faith.blogspot.com/.  Not of Mormon decent (or persuasion), JB is a seminarian with an interest in LDS-Evangelical dialogue.

One of the things JB does very well here is take me off whatever perch of self-assuredness I have regarding my own intellect.  JB's brain is way above my pay grade, but I figure I'll muddle through and figure it out.  Maybe you all can help me.  What are your thoughts?  Rebuttals? Questions?  Support?

Here it is:

First, it seems to be a plausible initial premise that whatever has a beginning of its existence is caused to exist. This is actually a very weak sort of causal principle; others include statements like “whatever undergoes change, has a cause for its existence”, or “whatever exists but could have not existed, has a cause for its existence”. These, while perhaps true, are stronger than is necessary for the argument here. The weaker form can easily be defended by invoking virtually any form of the principle of sufficient reason, which itself has weak and strong variants (e.g., “Every true proposition has a reason why it is true”; “every true proposition that entails the existence of some concrete contingent object has a reason why it is true”; “there is a sufficient reason why some contingent concrete objects exist, rather than nothing at all”; “possibly, there is a sufficient reason why some contingent concrete objects exist, rather than nothing at all”).

I'm actually convinced that the strongest forms of the principle of sufficient reason are both true and defensible, based on the work of Alexander R. Pruss (see his The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment; I need to get my hands on a copy of this again to re-review the argument); but, at the very least, it would seem vastly more plausible to accept some weaker form of the principle of sufficient reason (or of a causal principle) than not. Aside from its intuitive nature and its utility as a metaphysical first principle, the causal principle enjoys the utmost in inductive confirmation: we have extensive experience with things coming into being with a cause, and no certain experience of the contrary. Although quantum phenomena are at times suggested to be a counterexample, this is at most arguably true on some interpretations of quantum mechanics such as the Copenhagen interpretation, but is most definitely not the case (to my knowledge, at least) under, e.g., the Everett many-worlds interpretation or Bohmian interpretations of QM. Nothing in the empirical data requires us to deny causality even in the quantum realm. But even on indeterministic understandings of QM, indeterministic causation is causation nevertheless. Moreover, even on the most anti-causation construal, QM still retains a sort of 'material cause' in the energy-rich quantum vacuum itself. Hence, I don't think that quantum mechanics offers much in the way of counterevidence to what is otherwise a principle enjoying the best inductive support as well as the highest prior probability. In addition, some form of causal principle is foundational to scientific inquiry and, for that matter, practical life; were there no prohibition against utterly causeless events, why ought there be a cosmos rather than a chaos? These factors all suggest that, to draw a rather modest conclusion, the causal principle here employed enjoys considerably greater plausibility than its denial, and this is what is required for a successful philosophical argument. Furthermore, as a metaphysical rather than physical principle, this causal statement is universal in scope.

Second, it seems that our universe is a thing that had a beginning to its existence. Our universe can certainly, at least in the relevant respects needed here, be understood as a unitary thing; it exhibits distinctive properties all its own, and this is far more the case during its denser early life. Apart from the ample empirical evidence suggesting a beginning to the universe's existence, there are good reasons philosophically to regard time as finite in the past. For instance, suppose that the contrary is true: the number of physical events or set intervals that have become past is infinite. Then we might consider a thought experiment involving an immortal figure who, existing throughout the entire past, has always been writing an autobiography; stipulate also that he requires a year to record the events of a single day. When confronted with the question of the most recent day recorded, no day a finite time before the present is possible; the answer can only be a day infinitely prior to the present. This, however, is impossible, for the very same reason that counting down from infinity is impossible: infinity has no immediate precursor. The impossibility of the thought experiment cannot be attributed to any factor other than the supposition of an infinite past, which therefore cannot actually be the case. The past must be finite; that is, the temporal series of past physical events is not beginningless. But this just is to say that the universe had a beginning to its existence.

From the causal principle mentioned above (“whatever begins to exist has a cause to its existence”) and the premise that the universe had a beginning to its existence, it follows that the universe had a cause to its existence; the universe's existence is not a brute fact. Note that the argument is not circular, nor does it commit the fallacy of petitio principii, since neither of the two premises utilized so far rely on the assumption of the conclusion. One could be an atheist and accept the causal principle while (mistakenly, I think) denying that the universe had a beginning. Or, one could be an atheist and accept that the universe had a beginning while denying (very mistakenly, I think) the causal principle. Nor was theism invoked in the defenses of either premise above.  So far as I can tell, the argument involves neither formal nor informal fallacies.

All that remains, then, is to investigate what could be inferred of the attributes of the cause of all space, time, matter and energy. (Even if the region we know as our cosmos were somehow spawned from a previous cosmos, as in certain controversial and highly speculative novel cosmologies, the above argument would apply just as well to any precursor cosmos; there can be no recourse to an infinite regress of cosmoi. Therefore, it is all space, time, and mass-energy that must here be accounted for.) The cause cannot, at least apart from the existence of the cosmos, be spatial, temporal, or material in character, as these are logically posterior to it. Whatever this cause is, then, it seems to be immaterial and eternal. It must also have the power to create a universe, which presumably is no simple task. Moreover, in contemporary philosophical discussion, there are only two known candidates for an immaterial and eternal entity: abstract objects, and minds. Abstract objects, by definition, are incapable of standing in causal relationships to anything; and therefore it stands to reason that, plausibly, the cause of the universe is an eternal mind (or minds, but the singular origin of the cosmos and Ockham's razor together suggest that the singular is more likely). This is further supported by noting that, of the two fundamental sorts of explanation ('scientific explanation' and 'personal explanation'), the lack of any possible (physical) laws to govern the origin of the first state of the universe indicates that the first sort of explanation is here inapplicable; the explanation must be of a personal sort, dealing in agents and volitions.

Hence, the conclusion I'd draw is that the more-plausible-than-not independent premises above lead to the conclusion that there is some cause of the first state of the space-time-matter universe; and that the most plausible characterization of such an ultimate, ultramundane cause is as an immaterial, eternal mind capable of generating the universe by an act of will. I would naturally hesitate to say that this argument proves that God exists, much less that this cause or God is adequately described by any particular religion or theological tradition. That would be overreaching the boundaries of this single argument. After all, nothing has been established about the cause possessing any other traditional divine attributes – nor, however, has the argument been intended to do that. However, it does seem to me that the conclusion drawn here renders theism of some sort more probable, in that no non-arbitrary non-theistic system tends to provide for such a mind causing the universe. A rather modest conclusion that I draw here is that the argument described above offers non-negligible rational support to theism.

It seems to me that the premises of this argument are both highly plausible and in fact true; the same is the case for many other modern 'theistic arguments' (e.g., modal ontological arguments, arguments from cosmic fine-tuning, moral arguments, arguments from consciousness, and so forth). Naturally, I think it at least very rational to accept those premises. Consequently, given the degree of support that those premises afford to the theistic case, I regard some form of more-or-less-classical theism as the most rational stance for me to adopt based on these sorts of grounds. This, of course, is excluding consideration of plausible epistemologies in which theistic belief is properly basic and hence intrinsically warranted; and also excluding consideration of apparent perception of the divine, which – when used to support simply the existence of God rather than any particular religious doctrine – is perhaps a stronger basis for belief than I had previously been prepared to admit (see, on this, Jerome Gellman's Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief). As a result, I submit that it is fully rational, in light of the evidence (that is, including philosophical considerations as well as mere empirical data), to be a theist of some sort.

 

Why I was a Good Mormon… Why I was a Bad Mormon

This is a bit of a confession.  This is not the story of my disaffection.  This is the story of my life in fragments that I feel are indicative of my journey.  I think back on all of these steps frequently.  I wonder how free agency was supposed to work differently.  I wonder if there was any possibility whatsoever that I could have stayed in the Church my whole life.  It goes without saying that there is much missing here.

I feel like it is important that I not recast my life story as one continuous slide out of the Church, away from faith.  It would be a great disservice to myself, and the people I love, to try to revise my personal history to seamlessly fit my present convictions.  Likewise, many of us will agree that whitewashing is a great disservice as well.  I want to be honest, even honest about my sins.

  

I do feel like you can look at those pieces and give a general indicator of whether they point to faith or away from it, so I have provided indicators as I see them.

Some people will read this and focus on my sins and satisfy their righteous judgment at my apostasy.  Some will see my sincere faithfulness and sympathize with my efforts. 

We are all wrong when we try to measure out the pieces of a life and come to simplistic judgments about the net balance of those pieces.

Good: I remember when I was eight, at my baptism that coming out of the water I felt so happy, sort of glowing happy.

Bad: I was more than a little put out that I had to share my baptism ceremony with a little girl in the ward.

Good: I sort of worshipped Joseph Smith.  I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t struck by the story of his religious search, by his earnest testimony of having seen a vision; he knew it, and he knew that God knew it.

Bad: I remember starting to have fantasies about women and their bodies in kindergarten.  I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by female nakedness.

Good: I LOVED to sing the songs in primary.  I was in primary for the golden age of new songs (Armies of Helaman, Where Love Is, Love is Spoken Here), and I sang with gusto, on key, with my whole heart.  When we would visit other wards, the primary choristers were disappointed to learn that I wasn't going to be a permanent addition.  

Bad: As a young Boy Scout, when they told me I couldn’t bring a cassette player on campouts to play music, I brought it anyway.  By the time I was 14, I was firmly antagonistic towards the scouting program.  I refused to finish my Eagle with only two merit badges and my Eagle project to go.

Good:  The first time the Bishop asked me if I had a problem with masturbation, I had no idea what he was talking about.

Bad: Pretty soon I figured it out.

Good: For about 20 YEARS, I felt really, really bad about it.

Bad: That never stopped the behavior.

Good: I loved to go to the temple for baptisms for the dead.  I honestly tried to feel the presence of the spirits receiving their ordinances. 

Bad: I had my first real kiss at nearly 16 and never looked back.  I never felt guilty at all about serious make-out sessions.

Good: I never went past second base with any girl until I was married.  Somehow, I had the presence of mind to stop a few from going farther with me.

Bad: Over time, as an adult, I have resented my lack of normal sexual experiences as a kid (which my wife has repeatedly reminded me is both silly and useless).

Good: I had more than one strong spiritual experience that I felt was a confirmation of Joseph Smith as a prophet.

Good: I went to EFY at BYU as a teenager, and LOVED it.

Bad:  My best friend and I went there with our Young Men’s president’s suggestion to have a competition to kiss as many girls as possible there.  I lost… but didn’t get shut out.

Bad: I went to a high school for the performing arts, and developed friendships and love for many teachers and fellow students who were quite obviously homosexual, setting me up for serious cognitive dissonance later on as I would begin to seriously think about the doctrines surrounding the family and homosexuality.  I played a small part as a gay soldier in Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues.

Good: I went to early morning seminary and learned the scriptures.  I am a well-above-average scriptorian.

Bad: I eagerly looked for opportunities in seminary to say ass, damn, and hell when reading the scriptures.

Bad: I loathed the musical The Music Man.

Bad: I absolutely adored edgy, questionable musicals like Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney Todd, and City of Angels (I was in all three in high school).

Good: I started to apply to Princeton out of high school, but after praying about it, I felt like I was supposed to go to BYU.

Bad: My favorite novel in high school was On the Road by Jack Kerouac.  I reveled in the stories of tearing across the continent in sex-soaked prose.  My favorite poet was Charles Bukowski.  I loved the old man and his horse, and red wine, and whores.

Good: At BYU I had an amazing Book of Mormon class taught by Vern Sommerfeldt.  It was from that class that I learned to love the Book of Mormon. 

Bad: I HATED my time at BYU.  I was depressed most of the year. 

Good: I was as earnest a missionary in Italy as you could find.  I put my whole heart and being into the work and loved it.  It was easily the best two years of my life.

Bad: In Italy I was faced every day with feminine nakedness everywhere I turned. 

Good: On my mission, I read MANY conference reports, and developed a real love of General Conference. 

Good: I read Believing Christ by Stephen Robinson and had a nearly pentecostal experience in really understanding the atonement for the first time.

Good: I remember reading a first presidency message by Pres. Hinckley about a young Asian man that gave up everything to join the Church.  “It’s true isn’t it? Then what else matters?”  That story stuck with me, knowing that nothing else mattered as long as it was true.

 Bad: I bought Italian suits and shoes and bootleg CD’s of my favorite bands on my mission; filling my suitcase for the journey home with the contraband and bottles of perfect, unfiltered olive oil.

Good: On my mission I decided to abandon my dream of being an actor, feeling strongly that I was to return home and move back to (dreaded) Utah.

Bad: God led me to my bride-to-be well past midnight, putting to bed the silly notion that the Holy Ghost goes to bed at 12.

Good: Although we were wildly horny, we somehow managed to make it to the temple without major incident.

Bad: I was definitely copping a feel outside the temple right after the ceremony.

Good: I told my young bride, who was happy to slide on the issue of wearing our garments at night, that I felt strongly we should.

Bad: I immediately discovered, to my tremendous disappointment, that all of the complexities, temptations, and problems around sex that I thought marriage would magically fix, did NOT get magically fixed.

Good: When we still didn’t have any kids, I proposed that we not watch any more R rated movies (a serious spiritual concession for someone who loves movies as much as I do).

Bad: Several years later when we were starting to have kids, I decided I couldn’t come up with a strong rationale why blind adherence to a standard about movie ratings made sense.  I couldn’t figure out a way to think about movies and literature separately, and I certainly couldn’t figure out how to reconcile all the things I loved about life with a life in cloister.  So we stopped.

Good:  In spite of the above statement, my favorite scripture was Adam’s declaration, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me.”  My wife put it in calligraphy for me and framed it as a special present.

Bad:  I would never have accepted the premise that evidence could (or should) be conclusively contradictory to the truth.

Good:  For virtually our entire marriage until this year, we paid tithing on the gross and kept fast offerings at around 5% of our gross income, believing that God would be generous with us if we were generous with Him.

Good: I never once broke the word of wisdom until after I left the Church.  I never had a drink of coffee or alcohol, never smoked, and never got high.

Good: I seriously wanted to be consecrated.  When Prop 22 was going on (the first version of Prop 8), we squashed any internal turmoil and went to meet with the Stake President, determined to give whatever he asked.  When he asked for $1000, I told him he could have more if he wanted, that we would give everything the Lord asked.  He took the $1000.

Bad: After we had kids, I remember the moment when I decided I didn’t want to sing in ward choir any more.  I wasn’t struggling in my testimony, I just didn’t enjoy it.  It felt like the real moment when I started to take my consecration off the table.

Good: I named my first son Joseph because of my love of Joseph Smith.

Good: I requested to be an early morning seminary teacher, and taught my heart out for four years.

Bad:  There was never a time when I didn’t strongly feel that the most wonderful things in life are the imperfections and flaws.

Good: When we didn’t have kids, we drove the hour each way to the San Diego temple twice a month.  We consistently went once a month until the last few years when I really started to have issues.

Bad:  When I turned 28 I decided if I didn’t get a rock band together, it would never happen; so I did.

Good:  I LOVED the temple, especially the veil and initiatories.  The first time I went through the veil I had a wonderful spiritual experience that has never left me.  Even now, I think about the veil fondly.

Bad: I started a company to work in the action sports industry and we threw parties at work for hundreds of kids with live bands.

Good:  When my (non-member) partner got a stripper for the birthday party of one of my seminary students and brought alcohol for our Christmas party, I decided I had to get out.  It wasn’t a good scene for a young, faithful, seminary teacher with little kids.  I told my partner I had to get out.  My wife and I prayed about it and felt inspired to move back to Utah.

Bad:  At the worst possible moment, I got the idea to start a hedge fund.  I prayed about it and felt strongly that it was a good idea.  I raised $1 million in the third quarter of 2007.  In January of 2008, the market went ballistic and the fund hemorrhaged $500,000.  It is a gross oversimplification to say that I have not been willing to pray for guidance since.

Good:  I watched every session of General Conference for over 12 years.  I got the conference CDs and listened to them over and over.

Bad:  I have always loved rock and roll and pop culture.  I have never felt the least bit guilty about worldly or suggestive music.  I never felt bad about not feeling bad about that, since I figured if the Holy Ghost wants me to feel bad about it, I will.

Good:  Until this February, in my entire life, I probably missed Church less than five times just because I didn’t want to go.

Bad:  When I was starting to really struggle with doctrinal issues, I flat out told the bishop that if God required living in a bubble to qualify for the spirit, I wasn’t willing to do it.

Good:  I started to read Rough Stone Rolling specifically because I felt like I needed a boost to my testimony of Joseph Smith.  When I could feel that it wasn’t helping, I put it down.

Bad:  After reading The Tipping Point, I got hooked on sociology books and behavioral studies.  I began to think seriously about the psychological underpinnings of human decision making and motivations.

Good: While active, I never read anything that could be considered anti-Mormon or even questionable.  I knew that there was danger there.

Bad: For as long as I can remember, I had a nagging awareness that if the Church wasn’t so totally true, it looked an awful lot like a fraud.  I became more and more aware that it was a self-confirming system.

Good: I tried to comfort myself by imagining that the truth would have to appear that way; that faith was necessary.

Bad:  Things began to nag at me.  Noah’s ark would not leave me alone. 

Bad:  I started to listen to NPR and watch TED talks.

Good:  I truly believed that all truth had to circumscribe into one great whole. 

Bad:  I refused to compartmentalize.  In fact, I tried not to.  I tried to think of how doctrines would look from different angles, and how they held up as you peeled back the layers of necessary implication. 

Bad:  The results were not encouraging.

Good: I believed in it all very literally.

Bad:  When I couldn’t believe in it literally any more, I couldn’t believe in it at all.  

Tossed About With Every Wind of Doctrine

For most of the last two months I’ve been having a fairly constant email dialogue with an extremely intelligent, sort of apologetic, faithful Mormon guy.  We’ve talked about apologetics, morality, theism, epistemology, and a little bit of everything in between.  At times the conversation has gotten… tense; more than a little snappy.  I won’t claim it’s all him, and I doubt it’s all me… sometimes it’s just hard to stay totally dispassionate when we feel passionate. 

I sent him a message that was... a little less on the gracious side recently.  As a way of trying to reach out an olive branch I said this:

Concession:  It occurred to me early this morning that my thesis is understandably threatening to you because it appears you are a) actually a true believer, b) clearly invested in your new theory that you shared with me, and apparently if I am right then it messes it up, and c) operating under the demonstrably false doctrine that trees only bear one kind of fruit, and therefore all good must be treasured up and all bad must be apologetically explained away.

Now, in the spirit of self-deprecation, occasionally I have a flash of insight and realize that my olive branches are sometimes shaped more like baseball bats.  In his remarkably gracious response, he had this to say to my little quip:

As for the "concession" that you made that boiled down to essentially telling me that I'm brainwashed and unable to think straight because I'm emotionally invested and that I will always insist that my tree (religion in this case, not specifically Mormonism) must "bear one kind of fruit, and therefore all good must be treasured up and all bad must be apologetically explained away."

I plead guilty as charged. Completely guilty.

I just believe you're equally guilty, that's all. I wish you could see that.

Ouch.

Let’s clear one thing up immediately:  I’m not going to talk about the false doctrine of trees and fruits.  I don’t really feel like I need to.  When compared with the contradicting doctrine of the universal imperfection of man, the fruit doctrine is obviously the one that needs to go.  In my personal epistemology, when black and white clashes with complexity, complexity wins.  

But am I equally guilty?  I certainly like to think that I am not.  But humans are notoriously self-deceiving.  So... 

Here’s where I think he’s right:  I am just as susceptible to self-deception as anyone else.

Here’s where I think he’s wrong:  I am not particularly interested in defending my “cause” at all costs.

This reminds me of two scriptures, which rather neatly package up my apostasy as well.

Ephesians 4:14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed like waves and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, or by clever strategies that would lead us astray.

Ether 12:4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

Guilty?  Yes.  Absolutely.

I definitely feel tossed about frequently.  Am I steadfast and immovable?  No, I’m pretty movable.  

In short, although I understand the thought process behind these scriptures (and I suppose behind the practice and art of apologetics) I don’t personally agree with them. (And you all thought my self-labeling as an apostate was for dramatic effect… Silly people.)

I change my position ALL THE TIME.  Chronically.  All it takes for me to change my opinion is a really good argument. 

Alright, that sounds compelling.  Let’s go with that.  Then I read a strong rebuttal and have to admit that I like that as well. 

Does this make me right?  No.  It almost always makes me wrong.

Does being steadfast and immovable make someone right?  No.  It usually makes them wrong, too.

Then what’s the point?

That’s a tricky question.  Maybe it’s just what you value more.  I tend to be a very black and white thinker (a deficiency of which I am completely aware and constantly trying to fight against).  When I was a teenager, I remember trying to think through the objective of being right.

(Ok, take a deep breath and hang in there for the next 30 seconds.)

It seemed to me that everyone likes to be right, but that the only way you could be as (truly) right as possible was to not be concerned about appearing right.  So when you discovered you were wrong, you had to simply change your position.  My reasoning supposed that after you have been shown a better one there is nothing laudatory about defending a position you now know to be incorrect just because you previously thought it was correct.  It’s just stubborn.  It seemed that you just need to know that you will frequently be wrong, so change your mind quickly and often.

(This is not a good way to maintain a Mormon testimony, I eventually discovered.)

Would I describe myself as consistently malleable my whole life?  Hell no.  But, it's like Heber J. Grant said: That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.  (BTW, that's actually Emerson... Grant was just borrowing it for a little while.) 

Am I as good at abandoning beliefs as I'd like to be?  No, not yet.  

As an important side note, my hero in this respect was Malcolm X.  When I read his autobiography as a teenager, I was blown away by his willingness to abandon his position in favor of a better one.  For that trait, he is one of my true heroes.

There are, of course, downsides to this.  You look kind of flighty, uncommitted, unsure.  Do you stand for something?  Yes, but it could change.  It’s hard to explain.  You may appear untrustworthy.  (It kind of gnaws at me that I'm still registered as a republican.)  

Example:

I recently discovered Sam Harris.  He is brilliant and appeals to my growing distrust of organized religions, in particular those that resemble MY religion.  Then I read recently an amazing article by Jonathan Haidt, defending the good of religion in very compelling ways.  Ok, I can go with that.  It’s a little painful, but what can you do?  Then I read the rebuttal by Harris.  Pretty much totally agree.  I’m a little nervous to read Haidt’s counter-counter; I’ll probably like it, too.

Am I a flake?  If you say so. 

What is the most influential book in my life?  The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, of course.  (For sheer daily applicability to life situations, The Tipping Point takes The Book of Mormon out to the woodshed.)

The Tipping Point is where I learned about context (and, of course, many other things).  Context changes everything.   For instance, did you know that no matter how strong your personal moral code, context is a greater determinant of your behavior? (Take that, phantom notion of free agency!)

Mormons talk about moral relativism as if we don’t believe in it, but we explicitly do.  We believe judgment is contextual.  What could be more relative than God judging you relative to your own experiences, knowledge, capacity, gifts, situation, etc? 

Context is the key to our not noticing essentially all of the contradictory doctrines of the Church.  We are trained to consider certain doctrines only in the appropriate context.  We know which doctrine is applicable at the moment and we supply the appropriate platitude.  Context is the key.

So… do I think I’m right?  Yes… until I change my mind.  Am I ok with that?  Yes.  Am I invested in my positions?  Not particularly.  Am I still subject to confirmation bias?  Absolutely, but I’m also aware and wary of that fact.

I don’t know.  It works for me.     

A knock at the door

Imagine yourself at home, enjoying the peaceful autumn afternoon.

A knock at the door.  Two well-groomed young men smile through the peephole and you open up.

“Good afternoon, we are representatives of the island nation of Tuffala.  We have an important message to share with you.  May we come in?

“Not many people know about Tuffala, or the fierce war that is taking place there.  We have decided to dedicate ourselves full time to the cause we believe in.  A despotic warlord has been waging war for control of Tuffala for many years.  The president of Tuffala fights bravely with his good soldiers, but they need help.

“Tuffala is a unique island, with massive gold deposits.  The despotic general waging war there wishes to exploit the natural richness of Tuffala to wage war on the rest of the peaceful nations of the world.  The president of Tuffala has enlisted the help of volunteers to support the cause of Tuffala.  At the end of the war, we will all be invited to live in the reclaimed island paradise and enjoy together the bounty of its riches. 

“Many people have joined our cause.  In fact, several of your neighbors are ardent supporters of the cause of Tuffala.  Participation in our cause brings a wonderful sense of belonging and will bring peace to the earth.  Your children will live safer, better lives because of your support of the Tuffala cause.  We have documentation and videos to share with you to give you a sense of the importance of supporting freedom in Tuffala.  We also have geologic assays certifying the gold and mineral deposits present.

“We meet together once a week on Wednesday evenings to discuss the important cause.  It is a wonderful chance to socialize with like-minded people who believe in freedom.  Once every six months, we also have a worldwide broadcast from the president and cabinet leaders of Tuffala.  They update us on the progress of the war, and provide us with inspiration to continue the fight.  We know that it is vitally important to support this cause.”

The young men come back several times to explain the significance of their message and the urgent need for support by means of time and money.  You grow to like them and you trust their youthful exuberance and disarming dedication.  You attend meetings and see that many friends of yours and prominent members of the community are engaged in supporting the cause of Tuffala.  Your children enjoy the friendships they form.  You are entranced by the photos of the tropical paradise that awaits you and the promise of extraordinary shared wealth is appealing, too.

You throw your weight behind the cause, contributing a significant percentage of your income and most of your spare time.

Fifteen years pass and your children have also gone to foreign lands to share the importance of the message.  Your social life is entirely based around your Tuffala friendships.

Then, one day, you discover through reliable sources that the Society for the Liberation of Tuffala, is an elaborate, carefully administered confidence scheme.  The island doesn’t actually exist, and the president is an imposter.  There is no war.  Your money is gone and you feel like a fool.  You start to tell your friends and family about it.  They grow upset and turn their backs on you.  You despair at the loss of years, friendships, and money.

Questions:  Does the sense of purpose you received and the satisfaction you felt, lessen the seriousness of the deception?  Does the presence of any benefits need to be weighed against the tort?  Would you take legal action?  Is there something wrong with you if you are upset at being deceived?

If the people who presented the message were victims like you, would you lose your right to sue the institution?  If the vast majority of the employees of the institution were sincere believers in the cause, would you lose your rights?

If the organization claims religious status… do you lose your rights?  Is a fraud, perpetrated in the name of God, be protected by the law?

What is a religion?  

Before you get all righteous about this post, I want to say that this is not an unsubtle attempt to say that the Church needs to be sued, or a whine about how I have been defrauded of my life and money.  I also understand that the analogy breaks down at some point (as all analogies do). 

I think it is interesting (and maybe important) to consider the synthesis of two concepts that we usually think of separately.  Is religion fraudulent?  What is the difference between a presentation of religious convictions and the presentation of a confidence scheme?  How are they similar?  Do they play on the same weaknesses in the human character?  What is fraud?  How is it defined?  

One of the key components of fraud is deliberate misrepresentation of facts.  Language is precise in meaning and loose in use.  What is the denotation of statements that begin, “I know”?

Another component is justifiable reliance on the expertise of the accused.  Did the organization or persons hold a position and appearance that validated your trust?

The third element of fraud is the obligation to investigate.  Legally, it can be difficult to prove that you did your due diligence.  How would one properly investigate the claims of religion?  How is it properly falsified?  Can it be falsified according to the message presented?  What is the burden of due diligence?  How is that defined?  

Then I think about the ethical considerations that are above the law.  Does fraud exist that can’t be prosecuted?  Just because you can’t effectively prove it in court, does it mean that you weren’t deliberately misled to your damage?

The best con men make their victims feel like they received something valuable in the experience.  Tom Sawyer got the fence painted that way.  We know he was clever.  Was he moral?

I confess I’m not totally sure of the answers, but I think it is worth thinking about. 

I will reiterate till I’m blue in the face that I have developed serious reservations about religion as I have realized the stakes it proposes and the control it seeks to exert.  I am skeptical of the return on investment we receive for giving up control of our money, time, sex life, and other desires and convictions.  Religion asks for tangible wealth, but only promises treasures in heaven.    Religion levies threats of destruction, punishment, misery, and torment… without irony, and without reservation.  If a bank robber points a gun at you, but it isn’t loaded, is he less liable?  Are you expected to know somehow?  

Do the limitations of human reason, upon which religions and con men prey, create a Darwinian justice that robs humankind of an expectation to be dealt with honestly?

Why??????

Ok, let’s just get one thing out of the way:  The primary motivation of humans is social.

To my sweet wife’s chagrin, this is my new mantra.  It came as such a shock to me when it hit me.  We were in Portland, Oregon, walking to the second location of Voodoo Donuts right before we needed to catch a plane home. 

It’s a moment that has crystallized in my brain.  I remember the sticky heat of the afternoon; the shrub I was looking at as we rounded the corner to arrive at the donut shop.  I remember the kind of nauseous feeling as another piece of my positive worldview slipped away, and a new corner of surreality fell into its place. 

Despite what they say, truth is not the most important thing to humans.  They don’t realize it.  They aren’t cognizant of it.  But observation is absolutely clear; truth is not the primary motivation of humans.

It was another in a moment of horrifying Stepford realizations.  So much of my world has slipped out from under my feet in the last few years, but I really didn’t see this coming (although, like so many other things, I should have).

What do people care about most?  Social pressure.  Relationships.  Acceptance.  Tribe.  We are the MOST SOCIAL SPECIES on the planet.  (Consequently, also the most successful.)

I don’t know if this is testable or not, but I am reasonably convinced that my brain is seasoned with a dash of autism (there are some reasonable heritable validations of that thought).  Whatever the reasons for that, I have had to teach myself to appreciate many of the social quirks of life.  Frequently I still don’t get it.  Take, for instance, the moment when I am engaged in ANY KIND of debate.  The world narrows around me and I am able to focus enthusiastically on the words and the concepts, and I am able to resynthesize and verbally parry… quite well.  But I am completely unable in that moment to give a flying f*** about the emotional impact of my words.  I exhibit all kinds of unvirtuous attributes in those moments, which happen to coincide with a cold-blooded love of objective rationality.  Hardly anyone appreciates this, even those who appreciate rationality.  I come off wrong; condescending; cold; intense; inhuman. 

On the one hand, I don’t like this.  On the other, I think it’s interesting… See, that’s my problem; I think everything is interesting.  I think it is interesting to verbally back someone into a corner and see what happens (nothing constructive, I can tell you; but it’s still interesting).  I think it’s interesting to ask my wife what the difference is between giving a baby up for adoption after having four kids and giving one up before you’ve had them.  I know she finds the question… wrong.  I don’t know how to regard it that way.

In the last 6 months I have had many, MANY conversations about the Church.  Conversations about truth, God, testimony, faith.  On top of the real conversations, I’ve had 100 times more conversations in my head, circling around this in every possible way.

I have heard all of the constructive suggestions about stage 5 faith, the rich theology, everything else.  I’ve thought about approaching the Gospel metaphorically.  I’ve thought SO MUCH about the impact of this on my relationships; family, friends, professional.

I guess I’ll make everyone a little happier and concede that life is long, and that I may change my position, but the thing I keep running up against is this: it can’t be true. 

There isn’t any single thing that is necessarily false, it is the whole.  In whole, the LDS Church narrative, as presented, cannot be true.  It has to be adjusted in a multitude of ways from the standard narrative.

Let me be absolutely clear on this; the shocking thing is not uncovering that after following a massive trail of subtle clues.  The shocking thing is realizing how COMPLETELY OBVIOUSLY FALSE it is, and yet there are millions of people who have literally bet everything on it.  There are BILLIONS of people who have bet everything on other traditions that are just as transparently nonsensical. 

You don’t get to feel like a smart guy for figuring this out.  You get to feel like a complete idiot for not having seen it when you were 11.  It should have been obvious right about the time that Santa Claus took permanent leave from your childhood belief structure.

Although none of the apologists, or even the reasonably thoughtful faithful, talk about it in such a straightforward way, they all participate in some modification of the narrative to try to make it work.

In fact, you have to.  Despite Russell Nelson’s insistence otherwise, everyone has to pick and choose because, at the very least, there are doctrines that are mutually exclusive. 

But does it work?  Does it bring good?  I imagine I’ll get around to talking about those things another time.  The thing I can’t get around is, I can’t think of a single reason to believe.  Once I tore back enough layers of the onion to see it through, it became obvious to me that there is only ONE reason people believe.

The primary motivation of humans is social.