John Dehlin on the Immorality of Mormonism!

[_Lemmie]

I don’t think it is upsetting if a believer historian simply writes that God appeared to Joseph Smith in the spring of 1820/1.

I didn’t realize you were talking about believer historians. Your statement was:

....There is enough disagreement that some would say there was no First Vision at all. Good historians mostly accept that it did happen. Is teaching that it happened manipulating the facts? Which version represents the facts?

[bolding added]

If a believer who happens to be a historian writes “god appeared” in the context of a religious paper, I wouldn’t mind either, but I would have a big problem with a historian who is writing as a historian saying it.

[_Lemmie]

Just noted something earlier in the discussion,

I really don’t see that being Mormon is necessarily a bad thing unless it really does not suit you

Yes, being a Mormon is necessarily a bad thing in that it really does not suit a woman who isn’t the type of woman the LDS church thinks ALL WOMEN should uniformly be. And don’t suggest a woman doesn’t really have to live that way to be a Mormon. To be an honest person, a woman who stays in the Mormon church does.

I am glad we are in agreement that being Mormon when it does not suit you sucks.

That is not at all what I said and I am not at all in agreement with your flippant and dismissive answer.

My full post addressed a very specific issue:

You mean like how one is a woman but one wants to live a good, productive, family-oriented life, but her choices in that life do not fit the tightly proscribed expectations placed on every single aspect— religious, secular, mental, social, physical, emotional, sexual, relationship-oriented, etc. etc. etc., of a woman’s life by the LDS church?

Yes, being a Mormon is necessarily a bad thing in that it really does not suit a woman who isn’t the type of woman the LDS church thinks ALL WOMEN should uniformly be. And don’t suggest a woman doesn’t really have to live that way to be a Mormon. To be an honest person, a woman who stays in the Mormon church does.

[_Kishkumen]

If you are able to better articulate and defend your argument, by all means. Or is the difference one of willingness to default to ad hominem rather than debate on the merits of one's position?

I articulated my position to my satisfaction. I really don’t think that the problem is in any failure on my part to articulate my position. There is plenty of ad hominem flying in both directions, but that is often the case here. In other words, it’s nothing special and nothing either one of us particularly avoided in this case.

[_Kishkumen]

Let's not neglect the fact that the community is evolving and changing its faith narrative against the wishes of the brethren, NOT in accordance with the wishes of the brethren.

I don’t know that this is universally the case. It is natural that the top leaders of the church would feel proprietary about the church’s narrative, one that millions of people place faith in. But I doubt that each one of them has the same opinion regarding the handling of history. You know, like the different “factions” we speculate about here. So, some may be very dead set against certain historical efforts, whereas others may embrace them.

It is also important to remember the idea of competing goods here. It is the case that different people place different priorities on different positive goals. Unfortunately, this leads to disagreement. Viewed individually, all of the goals in question would likely by consensus be deemed good. Once conflicts emerge, however, the priorities of the various parties push them to fight for their own cause against things that were agreed to be good but a little while before. One can stand back and recognize that this is the case, while continuing to push for what one feels is best, without impugning the intentions and goals of others.

Here we tend to impugn. Here we disagree that there can be a noble goal on the grounds that such goals are the fruit of a poison tree. We struggle to imagine how the leaders could not be acting immorally.

[_honorentheos]

If you are able to better articulate and defend your argument, by all means. Or is the difference one of willingness to default to ad hominem rather than debate on the merits of one's position?

I articulated my position to my satisfaction. I really don’t think that the problem is in any failure on my part to articulate my position.

Oh. I would expect you would be more concerned that it's moral dubiousness deserved clarification and, when pointed out it has every appearance of being arbitrary rather than principled you'd care to point out the principle being overlooked. Unless that principle is participants at MDB are mean towards Mormonism and religion, so someone needed to push back? Even if said pushback means arguing it's ok for the church to manipulate facts to maintain control and influence over the membership.

Earlier in the thread stem pointed to the discussion on the first vision and noted it serves as a good example in defense of the church essentially making editorial choices. You concurred it was well said. Now, I don't know if stem is familiar with the actual history around the 1832 account or not. In fact, it's likely he isn't given his reply and the church's penchant for hiding information which appears to be his main source of information on the subject.

But that subject is hardly a case of the church simply making editorial decisions. We have discussed it rather extensively:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42159

So why note that stems comment was well said when it was missing critical information and he might benefit from knowing that? Did you not know? Or just making choices based on sides in the debate rather than any allegiance to facts and history?

[_Kishkumen]

Oh. I would expect you would be more concerned that it's moral dubiousness deserved clarification and, when pointed out it has every appearance of being arbitrary rather than principled you'd care to point out the principle being overlooked. Unless that principle is participants at MDB are mean towards Mormonism and religion, so someone needed to push back? Even if said pushback means arguing it's ok for the church to manipulate facts to maintain control and influence over the membership.

The alleged moral dubiousness of what? What has the appearance of being arbitrary? The Church's relationship with history? My contribution to what passes as a discussion of it?

The principle that I am arguing in favor of here is that of being realistic and understanding in the face of complicated situations, of acknowledging the bad and the good, and in not painting things in overly simplistic terms, whether those terms are flattering or unflattering.

Earlier in the thread stem pointed to the discussion on the first vision and noted it serves as a good example in defense of the church essentially making editorial choices. You concurred it was well said. Now, I don't know if stem is familiar with the actual history around the 1832 account or not. In fact, it's likely he isn't given his reply and the church's penchant for hiding information which appears to be his main source of information on the subject.

But that subject is hardly a case of the church simply making editorial decisions. We have discussed it rather extensively:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42159

So why note that stems comment was well said when it was missing critical information and he might benefit from knowing that? Did you not know? Or just making choices based on sides in the debate rather than any allegiance to facts and history?

I am assuming that given the purpose and constraints of inculcating a certain faith narrative, the people who are responsible for overseeing that process will make decisions that are not guided by the standards of academic history. In the case of Joseph Fielding Smith squirreling away the 1832 account, I find his actions immoral but not entirely unsympathetic. If the question is why the Church does not have classes and literature in which it explores the various versions in depth, I think the problem is actually quite complicated. That is my point. It is easy from where we sit to say what is clearly the right thing to do; it is less easy to be in the position of the leaders and do the right thing.

Scholars are still struggling to understand Joseph Smith's visions. It is indubitably the case that the handful of versions contain significantly different accounts of what is purported to be the same event, but it is not altogether certain why or what the significance of the differences actually is. One can see it as obvious evidence that Joseph Smith was just making it up--and also claim he never had such an experience--or one can try to understand the meaning of the differences in a more positive light. There are a lot of options, many of which I have omitted for brevity's sake.

For the Church the First Vision is not just a historical event like any other; it is a foundation myth that is pregnant with symbol, meaning, and even kernels of theological ideas. How it deals with the accounts will be very different from how a historian argues regarding what happened in the spring of 1820/21. For the Church and the historians, these narratives are quite different things and will be dealt with quite differently. Both are making choices (Stem said editorial choices, and I thought that wasn't such a bad shorthand at the time). As we evaluate what they are doing with the narratives, we might take their different roles and purposes into account.

[_kairos]

Not sure how this fits into John's conclusion that Mormonism is immoral (narrow or widely defined) but when i read literally hundreds of stories on RFM, EX-mormon reddit, here and other places, there is often a complaint(more than a complaint ) that the member, now exmo was "brainwashed" by family, local and non-local leaders, church materials- study guides, magazines, GC talks, scriptures,commentaries on issues( eg polygamy, the Book of Abraham, FV etc,) that the member literally formed a strong testimony that the church and all it taught was "true" such that some members have stated they would die to defend those teachings and the church history narrative that the church defined- and simultaneously WARNED against members seeking answers or clarifications outside church sources. These hundreds,maybe thousands, of exmo's somehow found a crack in the church narrative and went slowly or sometimes quickly down the rabbit hole as their shelves broke down. Even after that happened, their stories often state it took many years/decades to free themselves from the grip of what they had been "brainwashed" (often their words) to believe. Almost all have found a "freedom" of mind/conscience/lifestyle after pulling out of the Morg even though some complain their feelings of guilt are deep seated and may be with them for a lifetime.

Bottom line: the Mormon church seeks to have tight control over every aspect of a members life from nursery to classes/organizations, callings as adults to serve. A lot of that control is church instigated but "group/peer pressure" enforced. Guilt fed by "families forever", or temple requirements to get to celestial glory is a major contributing factor, i believe, to keep members in the fold. To me a nevermo with TBM family that level of control is immoral!

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I'm pretty sure the argument has been that the behavior of church leadership in deceiving the membership into making immensely impactful life choices under the pretenses of authority...

I think Kish, due to being an academic, might be intellectualizing this issue more than is necessary. Honor is right. For example, this is from r/exmormon:

My widow mom’s bishop just told her that he was disappointed in her for not paying tithing on her $20,000 per year social security income (her sole income) because “plenty of widows pay tithing on their social security and the lord always provides.”

I mean, that is is just so, damned, evil. Brainwashing is a real thing, and the Mormon church has gaslit so many believers into demonstrably self-destructive behaviors. I don’t think we should be giving this billion dollar real estate corporation masquerading as a church any quarter.

- Doc

[Guest]

The alleged moral dubiousness of what? What has the appearance of being arbitrary? The Church's relationship with history? My contribution to what passes as a discussion of it?

The principle that I am arguing in favor of here is that of being realistic and understanding in the face of complicated situations, of acknowledging the bad and the good, and in not painting things in overly simplistic terms, whether those terms are flattering or unflattering.

Early in the thread you defended the Church hiding information on the grounds the church deserved special consideration. I somewhat tongue in cheek confirmed this by making sure you suddenly hadn't found Fox News Jesus. You hadn't, and confabulated a few reasons why religion should be treated differently than a news organization or the office of the President or government in general. You know, areas where I knew your biases leaned against them. Turned out you weren't arguing for a principled position that I hadn't known about but instead just appear to want to see certain categories of things treated with respect for complexity and to have shrugged off whatever harms they do to individuals because other people don't share that view of their being harmful.

Now, there have been a few honest comments in the thread regarding complexity and treating immoral behavior distinctly from calling the leadership themselves or even the impact of the church overall immoral. Even the OP quote makes a distinction in narrowly discussing a particular behavior as immoral. I'd argue people following that method are actually following the principle of "being realistic and understanding in the face of complicated situations, of acknowledging the bad and the good, and in not painting things in overly simplistic terms".

So again, it is unclear that your approach rises above privileging certain groups you favor or, perhaps, reacting to your belief MDB is unjustly antagonistic towards Mormonism so you are defending it with no more complexity to the actual argument than what you rationalize post to post.

So, applying the categorical imperative to that behavior - preferentially arguing in favor of maintaining authority through deceit and infantalizing adults through manipulating information and abuse of authority, it seems your own position here is ethically questionable. It would certainly do serious damage to the world were it to become a universally accepted rule. I mean, look at Fox News and the Republican party...

I am assuming that given the purpose and constraints of inculcating a certain faith narrative, the people who are responsible for overseeing that process will make decisions that are not guided by the standards of academic history. In the case of Joseph Fielding Smith squirreling away the 1832 account, I find his actions immoral but not entirely unsympathetic.

Cutting pages out if primary sources to hide them in a safe isn't good historical practice let along moral behavior. But I appreciate the further illumination on what you find sympathetic...because it supports the argument your principle here is defense based on ranked emotional attachment.

[_Kishkumen]

That is not at all what I said and I am not at all in agreement with your flippant and dismissive answer.

My full post addressed a very specific issue:

Yes, I read it. It looked like you were making a case for the absolute impossibility of the vast majority of Mormon women being happy to be Mormon. I honestly don’t know how to respond to that. That looks incredible to me. Some seem to be reasonably happy.

Those who are definitely not, we seemed to agree, are not well suited to be Mormons.

I don’t think that is a dismissive answer.