Friday, May 7, 2010

finally: updates on revised mormon living

You need to study the scriptures more. That was the impassioned plea of a dear friend of mine. I have new scriptures now, the Upanishads, Nietzsche, The War of Art, Doctor Seuss etc. This doesn't go over too well. Moving on while remaining in the same place (i.e. infrequently attending church) hasn't set the world on fire either. These are my people, but this isn't my spirituality. It feels like I'm drifting further and further toward the complete and utter self-serving/centered obnoxiousness that has come to typify many of my most recent posts. I've hoisted myself aloft as the new and improved Golden Calf for the 21st century. Is that what my new bankrupt version of The Meaning Of Life has come down to? Yeah probably, and I want to tell the world about it before Moses gets back. I'm a missionary of my own agenda, and I've found thus far the conversion rate rivals that of my LDS mission.

If that didn't make any sense maybe this will: I'm slowly grasping what form of spirituality is pertinent to my life. So, while I continue to distance myself from the institution, which may yet prove to finally institutionalize me for good, still I can't help but hold doggedly to certain aspects that were instilled in me at a young age, and as the proverb says I find that I cannot now depart from.

The Keepers:

  • Scripture Study and acts of faith
This was a mainstay back in the day. I was one of those people who would pipe up in class about how I could feel a discernible difference in my life by making this a daily practice. I now reserve such self-congratulatory statements for this blog. Of course I can never go back to the BoM, which after all this time, in my mind, has proven itself to be no more than chloroform in print.

The scriptures are like the placebo effect and Pygmalion effect rolled together into a nice hallucinogen inducing joint. Aren't all belief based propositions? Your faith tells you that fulfilling this obligation will lead to ostensibly favorable treatment from your preferred deity. With your attention firmly fixed on full alert for any and all corroborating evidence, minute "miracles" mysteriously materialize (overuse of alliteration: another unfortunate effect of my upbringing). Things like the notorious God helped me find my keys while millions starve in Africa story start to make sense. Dangerous territory. However, perhaps belief when directed toward less insane outcomes can still be useful.

My inertia is a greater stultifying deterrent to action than physical paralysis, performance anxiety, and the stock piling of nuclear armaments for the purposes of staving off a nuclear winter. Combined. To counteract this unfortunate condition, I need constant encouragement and an occasional kick in the pants. Enter reading material that in my limited wisdom and with dubious authority have pronounced holy. I search these things, wrestling with them to discover and at the same time create whoever and whatever the hell I am. I need this. As I (and you) do these things I testify that...blah blah blah. It helps, maybe only because I believe it does, but hey, who can argue with results even if they are only in the eye of the beholder.

  • Sacrament

It's an effective practice to take a moment each week to reflect and rededicate yourself to your chosen path. I am a writer, which means that my highest priorities are browsing the net, engaging in non-productive tasks like alphabetizing my wardrobe and continually challenging my laptop monitor to contests of who can look the most blank (which it routinely wins, but it's always close). I am a writer is like saying God is love. It's only part of the story. If these self-definitions were to correlate with real life output than I'm a shiter would be a more accurate statement. I'm a product of my time, my environment and any other number of factors. Kipple's always trying to get in and distract me (or gift me with raw materials for my work). Wading through the mire and focusing on what's important once in a while keeps me from taking up my true calling as a beach bum whose surfing is strictly limited to the interwebs. Heh, never mind.

  • Service
Speaking of what's important. The more things change the more they stay the same. Service has had more lip service sent its way than the back seat of every teenager's car, ever. Boy we'd talk this up at church. Did anyone act on it? I don't know about everyone else, but I sure didn't, not in an especially dedicated way. Zig Ziglar's favorite saying is "You can have anything you want in life, if you help enough people get what they want." Sure he loses some credibility points, because he's a salesman, but he might be on to something. It may be disconcerting that this maxim suggests that helping people is ultimately a selfish act. You know what? I can live with that. To stop thinking about myself momentarily, even if it wasn't purely motivated by charity, well, that would truly be an act of god and I'm fond of those despite my current (non) beliefs.

9 comments:

Justin said...

Haven't read it extensively myself, but maybe you'll get something out of it.
http://mormonscholarstestify.org/

I've arrived in Korea, things are going well. I probably won't get much internet time, but I'll try to keep contact.

In an ideal world I'd love to get on with the discussion on whether the Book of Mormon is true or not. Mark Twain's review doesn't do it justice in my mind.

Loren said...

Sounds good, we should definitely talk some time. I've heard about the site - haven't looked at it - I hear they don't get too specific with any of the go to issues that commonly arise these days. Mainly typical testimony bearing, not that there's anything wrong with that, it just doesn't particularly spark my interest, but I'll give it a quick browse and keep my eyes open for some insights.

Justin said...

Loren, regarding the 3 and 8 Book and mormon plates witnesses. How would you explain them? hallucination? tricked by forgery? misrepresentation/exageration of the testimonies? or other?

Loren said...

Here's a story I stole off the internet....

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp"

2 guys can look at exactly the same experience and see 2 very different things. This is where I see this discussion going, but let's have it anyway.

With the witnesses, like almost all things from early church history, the real story (or what we can gather from the remaining evidence) appears to be far less cut and dry than what the church has presented generally.

See http://mormonthink.com/witnessesweb.htm for a lengthy treatment of certain issues surrounding the witnesses. This could be interpreted as an anti-mormon site which may put you off somewhat, but they do at least attempt to present information in an objective manner. They site their sources and link to pro-lds pages, so you can get the big picture.

Anyway some highlights in my mind that cast doubt...

-every witness was either related to Joseph, was good friends with Joseph, or had money tied up in the BoM printing, or all of the above. Why not get some skeptics in on the fun?

- the statements from the different witnesses found at the front of BoMs were prepared by Joseph Smith and not the witnesses (they signed off on it later). Given Joseph's other suspect actions surrounding the restoration e.g. multiple and varying accounts of the first vision, using peep stones to hunt for treasure, than the same stone to "translate" the plates, doesn't real affirm faith for me.

- By 1847 none of the surviving original 11 witnesses were members of the LDS church. With many accusing Joseph of being a liar (didn't seem to deny their testimonies though, which is a point in their favor) and Joseph responding in kind.

- a few of the witnesses went on to follow James Strang, who claimed to be a successor to Joseph based on a letter he (Strang) wrote stating as much. If they were in tune with the spirit wouldn't they have followed Brigham? Why were they so easily swayed. That doesn't really fill me with a whole lot of confidence.

- and now for the most salient point in my mind: given what we know about how the world operates it's more likely that they were confused or tricked than that an angel actually appeared to them. I mean the early saints were seeing angels and the 3 Nephites every other week. What happened? 'cause things seem a lot different today (no more angels).

That was crazy long, sorry dude.

Justin said...

Wouldn't it be best job in the world to have these discussions and actually get payed for it? ... hahah, I'll get back to you on your post soon.

So I take it you lean more toward all three possibilities I asked then? or one in particular?

Justin said...

OK, nothing comprehsive but here goes...

"every witness was either related to Joseph, was good friends with Joseph, or had money tied up in the BoM printing, or all of the above. Why not get some skeptics in on the fun?"
Try to imagine it's all true for a moment and put yourself in Joseph's shoes. The forces aligned with satan want the plates or want you dead. So, who do you trust to view and handle the plates? someone you have enough trust in of course! Relatives or friends tend to be more trustworthy than strangers (though some may disagree with me on that), doesn't mean they didn't have skeptism tho, some of my closest friends and family members (who I trust well)are skeptics on things that I outrightly believe in... based on interviews I've seen Martin Harris was ititially skeptical about the reality of the plates.

Regarding the witnesses, if you look at each of them based on all the documentation that exists, it's very hard to deny that These witnesses were capable, perceptive, and intelligent enough to know if they were the victims of a deception.

"- the statements from the different witnesses found at the front of BoMs were prepared by Joseph Smith and not the witnesses (they signed off on it later)."
The statements from interviews of the witnesses (when you look at them in their totality) absolutely affirm the statements at the front of the book of Mormon, and do not contradict it. So this is a non-issue.

"Given Joseph's other suspect actions surrounding the restoration"
Separate topics, so it's best not to chase them yet.

"didn't seem to deny their testimonies though, which is a point in their favor"
Yes, it does work in there favour, and here's an important point: The witnesses were motivatated to expose if there was a conspiracy; they did not. Any specific documentation about people calling each other lyers you can send my way.

"a few of the witnesses went on to follow James Strang, who claimed to be a successor to Joseph based on a letter he (Strang) wrote stating as much. If they were in tune with the spirit wouldn't they have followed Brigham? Why were they so easily swayed."
I'm not very familiar with process of how people went to follow Strang, I am also not aware of the extent to which they followed strang. However, we do know that Strang possessed real physical plates (although only 3 of a small size), that is not in question. I also assume that I lot of church members where desparately looking for leadership at that particular time. Finally, I think it's silly to assume that a witness of the plates would always be filled with the spirit throughout their lives, and I have never heard any claims that they were.

"I mean the early saints were seeing angels and the 3 Nephites every other week. What happened? 'cause things seem a lot different today (no more angels)"
I'm not sure if this is a deliberate exageration or real, but assuming that they were, come on man, this was the restoration! wasn't it a special time? As for no more angels, I'm not sure that's true. I've heard quite a bit of pretty wild stuff directly from people's mouths on their supernatural experiences in solid detail.

"it's more likely that they were confused or tricked"
Later, we'll look at different ideas on how they could have been tricked and by whom, and the translation process of the Book of Mormon, but once those are included in the view, I find it harder to concieve of how confusion or trickery had anything to do with the Book of Mormon plates.

Justin said...

Regarding MormonThink, they seem to put a lot of effort into claiming different things should have happened a different way, and if it did then somehow it would be more believable to them, but I suspect that even if things did happen their way, they would turn around and wish it had happened yet another way. I suspect they are consciously looking for reasons to not believe. But what they lack is any coherant theory, and far too often they provide speculation rather than strong documentation.

Richard Lloyd Anderson probably knows more about the topic of the witnesses than anyone else. So, I recommend you take the time to digest the following articles, or at leas tthe first one. Then we can talk about how likely the witness thing was based on delusion, trickery or fraud.

Explaining Away Teh Book of Mormon Witnesses
http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2004_Explaining_Away_the_Book_of_Mormon_Witnesses.html

Book of Mormon Witnesses
Richard Lloyd Anderson
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/transcripts/?id=21

Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=14&num=1&id=357

Justin said...

Sorry, long links not posting right (let me know if you know how to do this a better way!).

Explaining Away Teh Book of Mormon Witnesses
http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2004_
Explaining_Away_the_Book_of_
Mormon_Witnesses.html

Book of Mormon Witnesses
Richard Lloyd Anderson
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu
/publications/transcripts/
?id=21

Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu
/publications/jbms/?vol=14&num=1&id=357

Loren said...

Hi, again. I'll address all the points you've raised thus far. These musings will take place in various posts on the blog, partly because there seems to be a character limit to the comment section and we both have a tendency to waffle on ad nauseam, and also because we've strayed far from the original topic of the post we are now commenting on. An admission off the bat, I very rarely read all of the original source material involved (e.g. all the documentation regarding the various testimonies of the witnesses), because much of the historical information is not readily available i.e. locked away in some vault in Salt Lake somewhere, in out of print books etc. and it would take far too long to do so anyway. Thus I do something very dangerous (that we all do) I make decisions based on incomplete information. I read both sides, realizing that each side is pushing an agenda and that they'll both likely stretch the truth where they can to make a more convincing argument, and come to a conclusion based on what I think and feel makes the most sense. Like I said I've made a decision already. I'm sitting on a relatively stable paradigm at the moment: Where the church is not literally true, science is very useful, there are weird things that happen sometimes that people can't explain, belief in a personal god is ridiculous, but acceptable because the whole world is ridiculous and existentialism is a good philosophy. Also another confession: it may be interesting to note that I have little to no interest in the witnesses of the gold plates, their testimonies are about as convincing to me as alien abductees. Everything for me hinges on Joseph, but we will get to him eventually. For now I'll humour you since this topic seems to be important in your mind, with the understanding that we'll get to (what I think is) the juicy stuff later. Shalom.