I believe it is to an extent that varies among individuals.

Either there was an apostacy from Christ's gospel or Not

Either Joe saw & talked with God / HF or Not

etc.


with their pat answers (It will be revealed as necessary), the binary approach provides an excuse not to deal substantially with real issues.

the GAs are conspirators against truth (Facts) and Love - loving, they've successfully substituted obedience as the panacea for all wrongs

of living by ideology/belief -- here is the rule, and that's it.
Binary.
No thinking involved because thinking is haaaard.
No need to pay attention to evidence -- which often is unpleasant.

The downside is it always necessitates willful blindness -- even to the self -- which is why always there is hypocrisy.

To the public I am a keeper of the rule; but in secret I am not.
Because the rules inevitably involve base drives.

It also means there is in these judgmental condemnation - or conversely, envy - of fellows. Keeping up with the Joneses.

But the benefit (or curse) is there are no hard questions with which to wrestle, plus you have more friends.

A comfortable, cushioned life of self-deception.

Some of us do better in a padded cell.

I am not a binary thinker in the great majority of situations, but when it came to the church, I sometimes fell into that trap.

As I was approaching my nineteenth birthday, I was struggling with the decision of whether or not to serve a mission. I wasn’t really under any pressure, but I wanted to do the “right” thing. After a lot of back and forth in my mind, I decided that it simply came down to the question of if the church is true. If it’s not true, not only should I not serve a mission, but I shouldn’t waste my money on tithing, and I shouldn’t waste my Sundays in meetings. If it is true, the church is worthy of my serious devotion.

I did have doubts even back then, but framing the choice as binary, I decided it was true. That lead me to not only a mission, but countless hours of service over many years and tens of thousands of dollars of tithing and other donations.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2022 10:53AM by CrispingPin.

Well . . . there's two ways to look at this--haha.

I'm kind of tired of so many things being over-defined.
You either make your own decisions or you let others dictate them.

Now with Mormons it's a "twofer". They do let the church and prophet tell them what is true, but., if you ask them---they will avow being a devout Mormon was their decision--that they "CHOSE" Joseph's claim after thought and prayer. And they "KNEW".


As a BIC I can testify this was not the case. Though I had been thoroughly soaked in Mormon style thinking, something inside me just wouldn't stop thinking outside the box--which is a much better term than non-binary which sounds as limited as binary. I personally started thinking way, way, way outside the box. ;) (That was for you, EOD)

Not just Mormons though. But all religions are the same.

Saint or Sinner. Your choice.

Heaven or Hell. What you gonna pick?

The Lord's Bible Truths or Satan's Trickster Lies?

The Worldly Natural Man or the Mormon Unnatural Man? Oh brother.



This thinking marinates your brain from childhood. But lucky for some of us we found the antidote: Exploration.

When you explore you don't have to define or label, just open your eyes.

The desire for certainty plays a part in it. Also some degree of mental and moral laziness. Simple choices, A or B, no shades of gray, no need to examine a situation and come to your own conclusions.

Binary thinking frees you from responsibility for your decisions and actions. The Great External Moral Authority declared The Right Answer is A, so it's not my fault if things went very badly. I was't wrong, everyone else was.

Very well put.

Maybe I don't understand exactly what binary thinking is. To me, it is more like inconsistent thinking. At any time they might change the criteria for how they arrive at anything.

Image someone is writing a geometric proof and one of the steps they list is "God did this part." The Mormon (or religious person) often seems to accept it. Others, like me, find it inconsistent. The God of the Gaps is still the automatic answer for the unknown, and it shows up inconsistently.

If there is a topic that comes up, due to repetitive conditioning, the person will often parrot what he has been taught at church (or whatever we hear over and over). It's usually easier for the brain to go with the well worn neuron highway thought than forge a new way of thinking about things.

that once I accepted it was not true--over a lengthy time period--then I could see that a lot of things I tried to convince myself of, I never really believed, like Joseph Smith, the bofm. So much really just didn't click, but I thought I HAD TO BE MORMON or go to hell. So I worked hard at being a good mormon.

It actually finally all just fell apart one day when I was out walking. The temple was a big issue. Working with leaders over my gay boyfriend/husband was a HUGE issue. It just all chipped away at those issues that never seemed real or seemed unbelievable.

Then when my dad realized I was never going back, he started telling me his issues with the church. Discernment was a huge one.

If the book of mormon is true then

- it would not need a correction stating the Lamanites are NOT the primary ancestors of the native Americans butony "among" the ancestors.

- if it is translated correctly the there would be no made up words like ziff and curmins.

- there would be no need to say steel means brass or horses means deer etc etc.

- if it contains the fullness if the gospel there'd be no need for Doctrine and Covenants to explain and add things.

- Moroni could have just written it in English using the "translators"

If there are many problems then the book must be false.

Isn't that a binary question?

Incidentally, all questions asked by the ego are not true questions. They are instead propaganda for one's own point of view, one's assumptions (the assumed 'true' premise of the question). When people ask them, they have already decided the scope of the question and therefore of the answer. Such questions are a way of looking, not a question asked, and thus are pseudo-questions: they dictate the answer even as they are asked. An honest question asks for something that you do not know. Only when the mind is still can it hear an answer that is not entailed within the question asked.

You may say questions asked by the ego are a certain kind of question, but to say they are not a question is an assertion from the ego.

Yes, they are "a certain kind of question"...the point is, they are questions that do not seek beyond the questioner's present mindset. Therefore, they are actually seeking confirmation of that mindset. Think about it--isn't that true from what you see?

And yes, an ego can also make that assertion as a self-serving pose, but that isn't really following through on the idea. To say that it, too, is just an ego assertion is to condemn the mind to perpetual ego-ness without any inkling or hope of transcending that limitation.

We are able to use words to indicate things beyond the words themselves, and we do not (usually) dismiss those things as "just more words."

There's a "fundamental immaturity" to it that's obvious when one considers a child's "world view." The strict LDS adherence to such an upbringing creates what we call "shame-based" individuals who value conformity and "social acceptance" over independent thinking.

I find a "visual metaphor" more appropriate than a "numerical" one.