The Arrogance of Knowing "The Church is True"

[_KimberlyAnn]

I'll just watch from now on.

Why would you do that? I think your input is valuable!

I know you can only judge by what you've seen because you've never been a Mormon, but an objective viewpoint is always nice. I'm sorry if I somehow implied otherwise.

KA

[_Coggins7]

You could also talk about the arrogance of presuming to know that it isn't.

[_Sethbag]

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration in applying this broadly to Mormons (though I do know people who are like your mom, unfortunately). What I think is going on is something a little less dramatic. When you're told that your good feelings are from God and they constitute absolute knowledge, then your testimony becomes reality. The church isn't simply true; it is reality; it is the way the world works.

Right. And how it the world could anyone possibly be blinded enough to accept things contrary to reality? Answer: Satan, the Deceiver, blinds your mind, and leads you astray. It all comes back to Satan. When you "know" the church is true, that is indeed a defining aspect of your reality, and only something like The Adversary, The Deceiver, yea verily, even The Devil could get you to be blinded to reality in this way.

]So, when you find evidence that the church isn't what it claims to be, that evidence is literally contradicting reality.

Right. In other words, evidence that the church isn't true is somehow lies planted by Satan.

And nobody is going to be happy about denying reality.

You mean, nobody is going to be happy accepting the lies of Satan.

To steal from Thomas Kuhn, when the crisis of faith comes, it's not easy to redefine your paradigm, much less to dismantle it. It's painful, and sometimes you think you're going crazy. And yes, it is one hell of a humbling experience.

That's because you have to be willing to break with the mindset that contrary evidence is necessarily from Satan, and that considering such evidence is tantamount to inviting Satan to deceive you. But this attitude is so entrenched, and ingrained in peoples' minds, that it's very hard to do that. Seriously considering contrary evidence is to risk something, and what it's risking, from the LDS believer's point of view, is their salvation. That's a pretty hard thing to get over. I think a lot of difficulty comes, as well, after that point, when one faces the fact that church isn't really true, and how their whole worldview is a big fantasyland, a virtual reality created and maintained through superstition and mythology. But that difficulty comes, really, after one can get over the idea that even considering the evidence is to risk being deceived by Satan.

[_marg]

When one claims or an organization claims to have universal certain knowledge about anything, they can not by virtue of their assumptions/paradigm, critical thinking process be open to any other possibility than their beleif in their particular universal certain knowledge. If the Mormon(LDS) church claims to have universal certain knowledge of an afterlife, of a particular God or Gods, or how one becomes a God, then it's an arrogant assumption. No other belief system could possibly be more true, superior than theirs. A belief in universal certain knowledge of anything is irrespective of what mankind can experience and determine evidentially, because it can always be argued that mankind is limited by what he/she can experience via the senses.

If it is an impossibility to ever show a particular belief system to be in error, then it is held with arrogance. No other belief system could possibly overturn it or be superior to it.

[_Hoops]

Anyone's belief systems are exclusionary by definition. Many here exclude religous people from the rational world simply due to their own system. How is that any less exclusionary? Because one is excluded from another's religous expression may, indeed, be arrogant. The question is, in my opinion, is it right?

[_Runtu]

You could also talk about the arrogance of presuming to know that it isn't.

Never mind. Too easy. ;-)

[_Scottie]

Honestly, think about it. From the time you could talk, you were taught to bear the kidamony.

I'd like to bear my testimony. I know this church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I love my mom and dad and brothers and sisters. Inthenameofjesuschristamen.

How could you blame people for using the term "I know" in place of "I believe"? It's all they have ever been taught.

My parents used to use the term "I jewed 'em down". It never even crossed my mind that this was an anti-semitic phrase, it was just something my parents said when they talked about bargaining with someone. In my late teens, I innocently used it in front of a Jewish couple. Luckily they didn't hear me, but one of the other girls heard it and was appalled. It was then that it clicked that it was an EXTREMELY anti-semitic remark and have never used it since, except in retelling this story.

[_Runtu]

Honestly, think about it. From the time you could talk, you were taught to bear the kidamony.

I'd like to bear my testimony. I know this church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I love my mom and dad and brothers and sisters. Inthenameofjesuschristamen.

How could you blame people for using the term "I know" in place of "I believe"? It's all they have ever been taught.

My parents used to use the term "I jewed 'em down". It never even crossed my mind that this was an anti-semitic phrase, it was just something my parents said when they talked about bargaining with someone. In my late teens, I innocently used it in front of a Jewish couple. Luckily they didn't hear me, but one of the other girls heard it and was appalled. It was then that it clicked that it was an EXTREMELY anti-semitic remark and have never used it since, except in retelling this story.

That's exactly it. It's been pounded into us for so long that feelings = knowledge that to question that is to question reality. And Sethbag is right that one of the responses to that questioning is to believe that Satan doesn't want us to accept "things as they really are." The other responses are predictable: we're prideful, we want to sin, we never had a testimony, ad nauseam.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Mormonism seems to me to be all about exclusivity.

Whereas, to me, it seems quite exhilaratingly the opposite.

Oh well.

De gustibus non disputandum est.

[_ktallamigo]

Again, I'm struck by your enthusiasm for pointing at a whole group of people and declaring them all "arrogant."

Their religious beliefs are arrogant. Of course, they may not be arrogant about other things, but they do have an arrogant belief system, and the idea that one is more special than others or chosen is arrogant. The concept of becoming eventual Gods while the less worthy will be servants is also arrogant. Mormonism seems to me to be all about exclusivity.

KA

I've been doing a little bit of reading over at MAD. This kind of arrogance is everywhere over there. Notice the arrogance of say, Pahoran. Notice the way he treats people who question.

If you question the truth as they perceive it you are are an idiot who hasn't done their research, or you are just looking for an excuse to be the evil sinner you really are at heart, or you are too weak to live the gospel.

The mindset I've noticed throughout my life: We have the truth and you don't. So it doesn't matter how sucessful you are, how rich you are, how intelligent you are, how much integrity you have, you don't have the truth and we do. So you are wrong, and you will be very sorry in the next life when you find out how wrong you were.

You may be smarter and more sucessful than me, but in the next life I will be elevated over you because I have the truth.