The other day I had an interesting conversation with my mum and wife. "Interesting" to me, at least, in how it revealed the cognitive processing of a TBM when confronted with a fact that goes counter to their programming.

I can't remember how we even got onto the topic, but I mentioned how there had been gay general authorities in the past. I was refering of course to Joseph Fielding Smith, the former church Patriarch.

(Now, I forget sometimes that my perspective on matters LDS is quite different to my wifes and parents'. I genuinely did not say anything that I believed to be controversial. I wasn't aware of whether or not they knew about this aspect of relatively modern church history, but I certainly didn't expect any kind of reaction.

For those interesting in reading about the "outing" of Joseph Fielding Smith, this is a concise history: http://www.affirmation.org/history/joseph_fielding_smith.shtml )

Anyway, they were both immediately on the offensive against me, like I had just made a slanderous and false accusation against one of their friends. I might as well have accused Tommy Monson of being a pedofile as far as they were concerned. Whatever we were talking about before was irrelevent now - for the next half hour I had to justify my "accusation" against a double-team of TBM anti-logic and anti-reason, where nobody can win because the "testimony" trumps everything.

Them: "Who said that? Where did you read it?"

Freeman: "I can't recall exactly where I read it." [Truthfully. I wasn't preparing for a battle when I made the passing comment.]

Them: "Was it on the internet? Anybody can make something up an put it on the internet."

Freeman: "I read it online, yes, but the medium isn't important. It wasn't just "made up", it was documented and researched by a qualified historian."

[Freeman is frantically Googling]

Freeman: [explains that it was compiled by D. Michael Quinn who had access to many primary sources including the private diaries of general authorities]

Them: "Was he excommunicated?"

Freeman: "Who? Joseph Fielding Smith or D. Michael Quinn?"

Them: "Both?"

Freeman: "I believe D. Michael Quinn was, but not specifically for making that claim. It isn't really relevent to the truth of the claim is it?"

Them: "Ah, well that explains everything. The historian obviously had an axe to grind, and the general authority can't have been gay [and had sexual relationships] because otherwise he would have been excommunicated. I know how these things work. He would have been excommucated within days of finding out."

Freeman: "Are you honestly saying that without any evidence to the contrary, you are disbelieving that he was gay on the grounds that he wasn't - to your knowledge - excommunicated?"

Them: "Well, that, and the fact I just don't believe it."

Freeman: "Huh?"

Them: "My feelings tell me that it isn't true. And that is the only way we can be sure of anything unless we investigate it for ourself by seeing the primary sources directly."

Freeman: "So nevermind that a highly regarded professional historian has seen the sources and made obvious conclusions, you would refuse to believe a word he says unless you saw and read the diaries yourself?"

[I wonder whether they apply the same burdon of proof requirements to everything else they accept as fact... the Book of Mormon *cough cough* for instance?]

Them: "Anybody could have made a claim and written it in a diary or journal, so even that wouldn't prove it was true. Besides, I just can't believe that he wouldn't have been excommunicated, or that the church would be trying to cover it up. If you believe that the church would cover this up this must test your faith. Your faith isn't being challenged by this is it?"

[Taken back a bit, I ponder whether she is trying to challenge me to admit that my faith IS tested, or whether she is so confident that it isn't being tested, that she is making me refer to my personal testimony for "proof" that the church is true and D. Michael Quinn must be wrong...]

Freeman: "I don't understand why you are connecting a probably gay general authority to the truth of the church. It is possible for the church to be true AND Joseph Fielding Smith to have been gay!"

Them: [trying a different approach] "Freeman, there are plenty of people out there with axes to grind against the church, who write and produce anti-Mormon material and put it on the internet. We need to be able to discern the truth by staying close to the spirit. You need to be really careful when you are reading things on the internet. Sometimes people write things that are obviously not true, like about the temple endowment for example..."

Freeman: [this sounds interesting] "What do they say about the temple endowment?"

Them: "It doesn't matter. I'm not saying. But it is obviously not true. But sometimes you can read things on the internet that might sound plausible, but it is really just anti-Mormon literature. You need to rely on your testimony because the church is true and if you read something that doesn't sit quite right with you then trust your testimony."

Freeman: "Is that your argument against the claim I made? That your have a testimony of whether or not he was gay?"

Them: "No. I don't believe he was gay because I know the church is true and the spirit tells me that it isn't true."

[Conversation tails off. You just can't argue with that! You can't beat a feeling.]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2011 04:16PM by freeman.

There's really nothing to say to that...

Believe it or not, this behaviour is taught behaviour. When I was new in the church I would come across people who challenged what I believed or thought I believed after joining the church, even though a lot I didn't know. I started mimickin the missionaries by, you know, saying that the spirit would tell you, even when I knew it had not told me. At a fireside I head a speaker, maybe a Mission President or someone in the Stake Presidency tell us that if someone was asking too many or too uncomfotable questions to bear our testimony, then he said "nobody can argue with your testimony". Since then I've heard that many times, if I didn't have the answer or didn't want to continue the argument I would bear my testimony and end it with that. In my TBM mind I had won because the other person didn't continue after that, in fact they looked puzzled, poor souls.

D

haha!

UNLESS, of course, the feeling that you got that the BOM wasn't true, or the feeling that you got that the GA was lying, etc.

Any feeling that YOU get that is negative about the church is BS.

The argument from feelings doesn't work in one direction only, even from the most mystical of New Age adherents.

Anagrammy

It's one thing to rely on a testimony for spiritual, unseen beliefs, such as a belief in a deity. It's quite something else to have a "testimony" that provable facts are not true. It means the Mormon can take any scientific or historical fact that they disagree with and claim their testimony says otherwise.

Interesting.

They DON'T believe what a qualified historian working from authenticated source documents says, never having seen those source documents themselves.

But they DO believe an uneducated farmer from upstate NY w/ a criminal record, who said he saw angels and gold plates, without ever having seen those particular source documents themselves.

You need to follow up on the temple comment by pointing out the changes that have been made to the endowment process.

Another good one is to confirm with them the date that Elijah restored the sealing keys. (1836)
And then examine when Joseph Smith entered into polygamous unions. You will find that the earlier ones cant possibly have been eternal sealings because the keys weren't restored. So what were they?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2011 07:43AM by Stumbling.

all religions act like this to a greater or lesser extent.

as soon as people start investigating any religion, they find very little evidence for the temporal claims (for example, that Jesus (Yeshuah) ever existed) and zero evidence for any paranormal claims.
from then on it's all down to 'feelings'

to the saints because of his homosexuality and excommunication.

He has been blocked from assuming posts at several universities because of the threats of wealthy Mormon donors and alumni.

I feel for Quinn, and I think he has done some wonderful work. As a person, I think he's very messed up...he clings to belief that Joseph Smith really found gold plates, etc. I think for all that he has found discomfirming the Mormon myth, he still feels a very powerful need to believe. I wish him well, but I think he needs therapy.

This is an excerpt for an email I sent to a TBM friend who was trying to bring me back into the fold. It goes hand in hand with what you have noticed about feelings and emotion trumping logic and evidence.

“I’ve been doing a lot of reading and contemplation about epistemology. The church’s process for finding and establishing truth was not working for me. It’s entirely based on emotion. More than a billion Muslims in this world and a billion or so Hindus and a billion Catholics and probably close to that number of Buddhists can all pray and feel that God is answering their prayers. Who am I to tell them that my emotional response to a Mormon prayer is any more real than theirs? Unless we can establish that some people’s emotions are more valid than other’s then it became clear to me that either everybody’s emotional response was valid or nobody’s was. I recognize that this could be a false dichotomy but I just can’t see a reasonable middle path, especially since god claims to be “…no respecter of persons.”
Emotions simply are not a reliable method for establishing truth. Therefore, anything that I could claim as truth must stand apart from my emotional response to it. “

I'm pretty sure that, at least in his eyes, this qualifies as denying the Holy Ghost.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2011 08:24AM by peregrine.

It was that basic, logical observation that first planted the seed of doubt for me whilst still a child. It took another 20 years before I acted on it. I could never figure out why billions of religious people believed in a different religion to me if the spirit was available to everybody.

Either the feelings they claimed were not really the spirit (in which case how can I know whether my own feelings were valid?) Or my church was not the only true church.

Today I believe both of the above statements to be true. There is no "spirit" or "one true church".

As if Mormons and their leaders, missionaries, members and apologists don't have a HUGE ax to grind.