Recovery from Mormonism - The Mormon Church: Why We Believe, Bob McCue Serie

The Edmonton Sun Spirituality Series

A Critical Review

April 25, 2006

bob mccue

My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Albert Einstein

The tendency to turn human judgments into divine commands makes religion one of the most dangerous forces in the world. Georgia Harkness

Introduction

A few weeks ago I gave a long telephone interview and several email interviews to Jeremy Loome, the writer at large for the Edmonton Sun. The Sun is part of a large chain of daily newspapers in Canada known mostly for their daily, scantily clad “Sunshine Girls” and “working man’s” journalistic style. Loome persuaded his editors to allow him to try a more intellectual style of journalism than was usual for the paper, and the positive readership response resulted in him being given free rein. My interaction with Loome was part of the research he was doing for a five day, two full pages per day, series on spirituality.

Loome summarizes the series as follows:

Day 1: THE GURU AND THE GIRLFRIEND. An Edmonton based guru promises the path to inner truth. But to some, John de Ruiter is the latest in a long history of people substituting psychobabble and self-worship for spiritual growth.

Day 2: LOSING HER ILLUSIONS. Joyce De Ruiter's time as the wife of Edmonton spiritual guru John de Ruiter taught her that being enlightened isn't always what it's cracked up to be. But plenty of others still disagree.

Day3: GOD ON THE BRAIN. For every person who's had a spiritual awakening, Dr. Andy Newberg has a message: we're all the same when we have God on the brain. Newberg's research may revolutionize how we view faith.

Day 4: LATTER-DAY DEBATERS. This is the story of two Albertans named Bob, both lawyers, both smart and, as bookends in the debate over the roots of the Mormon Church, proof that faith can affect how anyone interprets facts.

Day 5: TRANSFORMING RELIGION. In Chicago and across the U.S. and Canada, formerly orthodox Jews are reinterpreting their faith and concluding man created religion, not God. But they're also among its biggest fans.

My intent with this essay was to critically review Loome’s series. However, it evolved into an excuse to pull together some thoughts regarding spirituality in general – its upside and downside – that I have been toying with for some time. I will do this by reviewing Loome’s series day by day, and adding my thoughts.

Loome said that of the many people he spoke to while preparing for this piece, I was among the most helpful in terms of bringing spiritual issues into focus for him. And the structure of his series reflects much of the information I summarized for him, and people I suggested that he call. For example, I introduced him to Andrew Newberg’s research (see Day 3) and told him I was sure that Andy would be pleased to speak with him[1]. And, I told him about David Oler’s secular humanist (that is, atheist) Jewish synagogues that are headquartered in Chicago, and introduced him by email to Oler – see Day 5.

Day 4’s two lawyers are Bob White, who when last I heard was a Mormon Area General Authority[2] whom I have known for over twenty years, and me. Loome told me that I would likely be disappointed with the way day 4 is reported. He was correct for the reasons noted below rather than the ones he expected.

Loome used Day 4 to illustrate how two relatively bright, well-educated people can review the same evidence and come to radically different conclusions. I will use it to illustrate how the Mormon institution defends itself. Day 4 became another in my series of pieces that analyze how Mormon apologists do their work[3]. Bob White is a classic Mormon apologist in most ways.

I should also say that I had the pleasure of lunching with Jeremy Loome a few weeks ago in Edmonton after he had finished writing the articles. I was impressed by the amount he had learned about religion and the social science related to it since we first spoke. He ingests and processes information at a rapid rate, and taught me a number of fascinating things during out interaction. He also told me that doing the series had changed his view of literalist religious people – he understands them now far better than before writing the series, and his respect for them has increased.

While I hope that this essay puts spiritual issues in an understandable context for people considering (or reconsidering) their relationship to Mormonism and other literalist religious traditions, two sections may be of particular interest to Mormons. The first is titled “Leaving the Fold” under Day 3, and the second is titled “Faithful History” under Day 4.

At this writing, the full text of each day’s articles can be found on-line at the following sites:

Day 1 - http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2006/04/16/1536247-sun.html

Day 2 - http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2006/04/17/1537340-sun.html

Day 3 - http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2006/04/18/1538669-sun.html

Day 4 - http://edmsun.canoe.ca/Lifestyle/Columnists/Loome_Jeremy/2006/04/19/1539827.html

Day 5 - http://edmsun.canoe.ca/Lifestyle/Columnists/Loome_Jeremy/2006/04/20/1541502.html

Days 1 – 3 are only accessible by payment. For some reason, days 4 and 5 are free.

Overview of Principles

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair. G.K. Chesterton

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. Dalai Lama

I thought Jeremy Loome did a great job of summarizing many of the critical issues related to spirituality. The forces that drive our behaviour in this regard are so deep that they are hard to understand. I don’t think that it is reasonable to expect those of us who were raised in literalist religious communities to understand them without a lot of help from people with a much broader perspective than our experience tends to provide.

The purpose of this segment is to set out the broadest principles related to spirituality, and so provide context for the excellent points Loome make.

Perspective

How many people would come to the conclusion, by only looking at the Sun move across the sky, that the Earth is spinning at high speed as it orbits the Sun? Our perspective does not allow us to understand phenomena that are so much larger than we are. Without tools like telescopes and people to help us interpret what we see through them, we should be expected to believe that we are the center of the Universe.

Our relationships to