Religion is dead...how can Mormonism survive?

[huckelberry]

Perhaps faith ‘the power’ is the power of consensus? It’s typically when people act in concert that mountains are literally moved, cities are razed or built, and MLMs make a few people wealthy (heh). If faith is the power of consensus then it could be that God, as manifested through his interlocutors, becomes real because the works of men in concert with faith-consensus are made manifest by that unity of belief, hierarchy, and action.

- Doc

Doc, I think your observation here is completely legitimate. Perhaps it points up the wide variety of things that could result from faith. The madness of Trump support is like a religious faith. It is long on the thrills of believing together and very short on clarification by reason. The rise of this cult has seriously injured my hopes of positive directions for faith .

You have focused on faith as a power of consensus. In that view I do not think any society can survive without it. That statement is certainly not focused upon religious faith, or that alone. A society certainly does not need consensus about everything, it needs enough to avoid tearing itself to pieces.

I have hoped for a Christianity which holds science and reason as having a central importance. Those things help us understand the reality which we share with others. That sharing is necessary for human respect and cooperation between people. I fear I see American Christianity heading in the opposite direction. and

[dastardly stem]

Oops. Looks like my ill-conceived title got more attention then I expected. Religion is one of those things that persists and seemingly gains strength when reason uncovers its faults. I don't expect its death. And I don't know what religion's death would be since its so poorly defined.

This is gonna have to wait since every other sentence is locking this up while typing on my phone. But thanks for the thoughtful replies--promise to get back when I can.

[Philo Sofee]

Oops. Looks like my ill-conceived title got more attention then I expected. Religion is one of those things that persists and seemingly gains strength when reason uncovers its faults. I don't expect its death. And I don't know what religion's death would be since its so poorly defined.

This is gonna have to wait since every other sentence is locking this up while typing on my phone. But thanks for the thoughtful replies--promise to get back when I can.

Oh it's always good when things are hashed out. Reason hashes out everything's faults, since everything has faults. Heck, religion itself hammers on its own faults, that's perhaps why it is thriving in so many areas in the world. Everything waxes and wanes, largely due to, I suspect, the very nature of our reality. We don't get to see the whole, and as particulars are revealed as we learn, so are things concealed simply because we have never been able to grasp the whole. We understand this for the most part. The cool thing is there is always something else to discover.

[Meadowchik]

I don't think "religion" is really a thing. Or at least, it's such a broad thing that it's hard to believe it can ever die. Can optimism die? Can hope die?

Not all hope has to be religious, of course. But I don't believe you can draw a clear line between hope and religion. Like Wittgenstein calling up a good carpenter to defeat any definition of "chair" you might choose, I bet I could find a form of religion that would defeat any simple form you might choose.

I'm afraid I suspect some atheists of committing the No-True-Scotsman fallacy with religion. In effect they define "religion" as "stupidity", and end up insisting that if it's not stupid then it can't be religion. But when billions of human beings self-identify as religious in some way, that's a perverse use of language. We already have the word "stupid" and there seems to be a good use case for "religious" as something not quite the same.

I entirely agree that many forms of religious conviction are dumb. In particular I'm dumbfounded by religious creationists who see Big Bang cosmology as an atheistic enemy. The Big Bang was a scientific scandal because it's so appallingly consistent with "And God said, Let there be light." Science accepted it with clenched teeth, because the correspondence between spectral redshifts and Einstein's equations was too immensely universal to ignore even though the idea of a beginning to time itself seemed so religious.

Big Bang cosmology sets the timing back from thousands of years ago to billions, but thinking that Bronze Age myths ought to be accurate about timing is clearly one of the stupid parts. Even if it had never occurred to any religious person that the basic concept of creation is distinct from any specific chronology, any intelligent modern atheist ought to recognise that the ideas are independent. So in my book, anybody who goes on tarring "religion" with the brush of Young Earth Creationism is clearly not really interested in truth but just in scoring debating points to get back at their fundamentalist parents, or something.

In fact, of course, religious people going back at least to Augustine have been quite agnostic about technical details like the age of the Earth. Expecting the Book of Genesis to get details like timing right isn't "religion". It's American anti-intellectualism.

I'm afraid I think it's going to be especially hard for ex-Mormons to sort out all these distinctions, because Mormonism isn't a typical religion. It's young but it's retro. It's a really unusually retro religion—a 19th century CE attempt to revive the 9th century BCE. It's retro in a way that no real 9th century BCE religion ever was. In their day, the old religions were young. They're OG.

As an atheist, a couple problems I have identified with many religion or any dogma is 1)depending on an authority as a spiritual authority, rather than just being an agreed-upon authority over a given collective (authoritarian/bad vs authoritative/okay) and 2)calling unprovable things provable, claiming to have the proof for the unprovable.

I think that spiritual growth leads to better emotional and cognitive management of uncertainty, one that is a better partner with science, and therefore a world that is less burdened by self-righteous dogma and therefore a kinder world.

[Physics Guy]

Claiming to have proof when you don’t is silly, all right, but I really don’t think that’s an essential feature of religion. Even in the conservative evangelical Christian circles of my youth it was very rare for anyone to claim proof like that.

And for that matter I get the feeling from some atheists that they think their position is somehow objectively and verifiably the only legitimate one, because of some premise about a burden of proof or something, as if there were statute law about this stuff. They don’t say “I can prove there is no God” in so many words, yet their confidence that their view is objectively better than belief seems like the same kind of product in a different package, like chewing tobacco instead of cigarettes.

What I certainly concede from my experience is that a lot of people really want certainty. They want some authority to which they can appeal to settle hard questions and keep them settled. Quite often people will all but admit that quite quickly, saying things like, “If we couldn’t trust the Bible well then how could we be sure about anything?”—as if that were a clinching argument for Biblical inerrancy rather than an admission that what they want more than truth is authority. They’d rather be confidently wrong than uncertainly right.

[Meadowchik]

Claiming to have proof when you don’t is silly, all right, but I really don’t think that’s an essential feature of religion. Even in the conservative evangelical Christian circles of my youth it was very rare for anyone to claim proof like that.

For the record, I did include dogma, and did not say all religions. But I do think it has historically probably been most religions.

It is a Mormon tenet to be able to prove the unprovable through the faith process described in Alma 33.

Other Christians and believers, not all, will also say that if we only exercised enough faith, we'd get the proof.

And for that matter I get the feeling from some atheists that they think their position is somehow objectively and verifiably the only legitimate one, because of some premise about a burden of proof or something, as if there were statute law about this stuff. They don’t say “I can prove there is no God” in so many words, yet their confidence that their view is objectively better than belief seems like the same kind of product in a different package, like chewing tobacco instead of cigarettes.

What I certainly concede from my experience is that a lot of people really want certainty. They want some authority to which they can appeal to settle hard questions and keep them settled. Quite often people will all but admit that quite quickly, saying things like, “If we couldn’t trust the Bible well then how could we be sure about anything?”—as if that were a clinching argument for Biblical inerrancy rather than an admission that what they want more than truth is authority. They’d rather be confidently wrong than uncertainly right.

Atheists being closer to a more accurate worldview is possible, but it does not mean they're more accurate about everything. All atheism is is an absence of belief in God.

What I mean to do is identify the most harmful aspects of religion or any other dogma. I do think it's possible for religion to operate without authoritarianism and without presumed certainty, and I also agree that atheists are not immune from depending on them both. But what we're dealing with at this moment in history is a mostly religious world and, beyond that a very dogmatic world. It's better in my opinion to identify the specific problems because then it is more likely to correct these weaknesses surgically rather than wage stupid wars over them.

If we get better at managing uncertainty, all of us, then the better versions of human institutions, religious and non, will rise to the top.

[mentalgymnast]

It is a Mormon tenet to be able to prove the unprovable through the faith process described in Alma 33.

Are you referring to this scripture in Alma 33?

23 And now, my brethren, I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith. And behold, it will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life. And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son. And even all this can ye do if ye will.

If not, you may be referring to Alma 32?

There is this:

38 But if ye aneglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.
39 Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your aground is bbarren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof.
40 And thus, if ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the fruit of the atree of life.
41 But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with apatience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree bspringing up unto everlasting life.

I’m not finding a scripture in either Alma 32 or 33 that seems to be stating the message you’ve given from the Book of Mormon. If there is a scripture that rather explicitly says what you’re referring to maybe you could quote it? The way I was taught is that we ought to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good. I was never taught to believe in the unprovable, although I can see how you might reinterpret scripture differently, being an atheist.

Regards,
MG

[Meadowchik]

It is a Mormon tenet to be able to prove the unprovable through the faith process described in Alma 33.

Are you referring to this scripture in Alma 33?

23 And now, my brethren, I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith. And behold, it will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life. And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son. And even all this can ye do if ye will.

If not, you may be referring to Alma 32?

There is this:

38 But if ye aneglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.
39 Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your aground is bbarren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof.
40 And thus, if ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the fruit of the atree of life.
41 But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with apatience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree bspringing up unto everlasting life.

I’m not finding a scripture in either Alma 32 or 33 that seems to be stating the message you’ve given from the Book of Mormon. If there is a scripture that rather explicitly says what you’re referring to maybe you could quote it? The way I was taught is that we ought to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good. I was never taught to believe in the unprovable, although I can see how you might reinterpret scripture differently, being an atheist.

Regards,
MG

Oh yes, my bad. I mean Alma 32 where the process of faith results in "perfect knowledge."

Thanks for the correction.

[Meadowchik]

This is seen in Mormon language about knowledge, where LDS habitually couch their testimonies about the divine in terms of knowledge.

[Shulem]

I was never taught to believe in the unprovable, although I can see how you might reinterpret scripture differently, being an atheist.

Regards,
MG

You only need to remember General Conference, October 1959.

Prove it as a fact, and it is, that Christ did appear after death as a glorified resurrected Being, and you have the answer to the question of the ages: "If a man die, shall he live again?"

Many tell miraculous experiences — experiences of miraculous healing, experiences of divine guidance, experiences of to accomplish what otherwise would be impossible — and the Lord has said to us that "signs shall follow them that believe." I would like to emphasize the word follow just a little bit. He did not say they would precede and be a guide and a testimony to us to prove in advance that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said that the signs shall "follow" those that believe, and I find this to be the case in the stories that I hear.

Unbelievers may doubt the First Vision and say there were no witnesses to prove it. Critics may scorn every divine manifestation incident to the coming forth of this work as being of such an intangible nature as to be unprovable to the pragmatic mind, as if the things of God could be understood other than by the Spirit of God. They may discount our theology.

Indeed, members of the Church are taught to believe the unprovable First Vision account and we know today that there are more than just one account of the telling of that so-called miraculous event.

MG, do you believe the account(s) Smith gave of the First Vision?

Prove it.