Fred, you sound like you’re lashing out because you are afraid. Exactly what are you afraid of?
Look, you want to be treated kindly? It’s easy. Be kind.
And I never demanded that you be willing to give up your faith. I asked you to be willing to discuss it. Because I can’t give you the feedback you say you want if you won’t talk about your assumptions.
You are correct that what you seem to want from this community is hopeless given your defensiveness. I doubt you’ll find what you are looking for anywhere unless you change how you treat people.
Despite your dismissal of cognitive dissonance, you sound like you are suffering from a hefty dose of it now. Most of us here understand what it feels like and it sucks. I’m afraid your idea of compartmentalizations is only going to make things worse for you. It’s leading you to lash out when people respond to you in a way you don’t like.
If you want to be judgmental in the guise of being honest, you should not whine about people being mean to you when they give you an honest response. That’s kind of how honesty works.
I hope you are able to find a story that allows you to be happy.
he/him When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.
Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
I only dropped in to say that I typically don’t regard people as irrational, so much as believe that rational people can have irrational beliefs.
That is all. Have a great day.
-cp-
So anything that goes beyond science is irrational with the exception of Atheism which is unsupportable by science to prove itself and untestable. That makes so much sense to the rational mind.
You’ve read too much into my post.
Start simpler: Do you believe that a person cannot possess an irrational belief?
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
I feel bad for the guy. Imagine what it must be like to be him.
He's got a brain that is telling itself a story. And the part that hears the story doesn't care so much that the story is true, but that it makes sense. And I think part of "makes sense" is minimizing cognitive dissonance.
I think that Mormonism is a cognitive dissonance generating machine. First, it holds members to an impossible behavioral standard: be ye perfect. But the members aren't and cannot be perfect. The inconsistency between belief and action creates cognitive dissonance. Other Christian denominations have a mechanism for reducing CD: formal confession where sins are regularly forgiven or forgiveness as a gift that only needs to be accepted. In Mormonism, confession of sin is a test of one's worthiness.
Second, it makes factual claims and has an extensive, documented history. The story told by the leadership is at odds with facts on the ground. More CD. And from Daniel Peterson to Jeff Lindsay to the Givens to Dehlin to any of the fundamentalist or restoration factions that regularly break off from the LDS church, you see brains struggling to try and figure out a story that makes sense. Just like mine does, although I think my brain is pretty happy with the story it tells itself about Mormonism.
His apparently isn't. And it looks like he's trying to it while accepting science and evidence, rather than simply denying it. But, damn, that's hard. And trying to construct a story that makes sense has driven him to construct a version of Mormonism that is so unorthodox that apparently he can't discuss it with orthodox Mormons or apologists. So he comes here, pretending to be different individuals, to see if he can find somebody to endorse his story. When he can't, he retreats and works on his story, and comes back and tries again. All this energy and emotional investment in trying to create a story that preserves some core of Mormon religion. The lengths he's gone through to do that effectively isolate him from anyone that might be able to give him feedback.
He's grabbed on to "compartmentalization" as a solution to CD. Certainly, the brain can compartmentalize. But is it something we have conscious control over? It sounds to me like a riff on putting uncomfortable questions or ideas on a shelf. And, given his high level of defensiveness and lashing out, I'd wager that his shelf is under lots of strain.
I'm not sure which school of meditation he's studied, but compartmentalization is a new concept to me in that context. In fact, trying to exercise conscious control of thoughts in this manner is kind of the antithesis of what I know of meditation and Buddhist philosophy. The message I get is something like: You are not your thoughts. When you have a thought that is painful or makes you unhappy, don't try to fight or suppress it, don't cling to it. Just acknowledge it as a thought -- something the brain involuntarily generates all the time -- and let it go.
Where does he go from here? Back again in a few months under a new nickname? Go full on Dunning Kruger and drift off into crankery?
Catastrophic failure of compartments? I dunno. But looking back at his posts, he sure looks fragile to me. Look how fast he went from: "I amuse myself by seeing you guys as cartoon characters" to "you guys are so mean to me." Gives me whiplash.
he/him When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.
Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
Maybe the big hello is a cry for help? Cognative dissonance has to wear one out eventually.
So, Fred/Bob, try this: keep telling yourself that it could be made up over and over again for the next 6 months while taking a deep dive into the historical issues. Look at what Dan Vogel put out on YouTube, read books published by signature on the controversial issues and take a look at how the apologists answer the questions. If you do with an open mind, trusting logic and sincerely wanting to find reality in it all, you will see Mormonism for what it is .... nonsense.
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
Well. A one day burnout, I believe, sets a forum record for a Mormon poster. I don't recall such a live-fast-die-young poster having made such a splash before.
- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
Maybe the big hello is a cry for help? Cognative dissonance has to wear one out eventually.
It is a cry for help. He's hurting and is looking for answers through new perspectives. He admitted that he's not willing to dismiss the Book of Abraham in this life no matter what. Considering everything he knows about the Book of Abraham, I find that rather fascinating that the human mind is willing to hold in the smoke for that long.
I guess it will take Joseph Smith himself, walking up to him and saying, "I made the Book of Abraham up in order to increase faith and build the Church".
I think the poor dude will snap before that ever happens. He knows the Book of Abraham is fiction but is in denial -- what a miserable state to be in. Snap out of it! Pull your head out of your ass.
