I wrote a post once encouraging people to think carefully before they use deception as a way of dealing with the potential problems that arise from having reinterpreted one’s faith in the LDS Church. I gave several examples of the types of deceptions that I’ve seen. I, myself, have been personally hurt by such deceptions. For example:
- Technically, they believe the Book of Mormon is “inspired” because “inspired” means something more nuanced than what most believers mean [e.g. “inspired just means it teaches good things.”]
- Technically they believe Joseph Smith is a prophet, because a prophet is something more broad than most believers understand [e.g. “prophet” is what we call the leader of our Church. Or maybe a “prophet” is someone that teaches at least some good moral principles..]
- Technically they believe the church is “true” in the sense that… [e.g. The church is “true” because all religions that teach good ethics are “true” because religion is really just about teaching ethics. There isn’t really a God.]
- They gave about 10% directly to a charity of their choosing instead of the church, so technically they are a “full tithe payer”;
- Since the Word of Wisdom says people should eat meat sparingly, and people who eat a lot of meat answer the temple recommend question about obeying the Word of Wisdom in the affirmative even though they clearly don’t obey all of what it says, they also technically can say they obey the Word of Wisdom, even though they regularly drink coffee or alcohol; technically,
- Faith is the same thing as Doubt because Faith means that you don’t know for sure, and not knowing is technically doubting….
- Elder Holland’s quote meant the Church is moving away from Book of Mormon historicity, so its okay to claim that anyone having a discussion on how the Church does in fact teach that The Book of Mormon is historical is really going against LDS Church teachings.
One commenter, in part, said this as a response to me (and JMax, though I remove references to JMax because its unfair for me to blast him without his permission):
The pure love of Christ is not about establishing an asymmetrical moral discourse with those who disagree with us so that we can elevate them to our own level of righteousness. We are called upon to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows with the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection. …
Knowledge doesn’t work in such a way that we can pick and choose our beliefs on a whim, and most Mormons who hold to those beliefs that you outline are doing the best that they can. They’re giving it their all. But you… (a) contribute to an environment that makes it impossible for them to communicate their beliefs candidly without causing controversy, and (b) condemn them for being reticent about expressing these beliefs. I can think of nothing more Pharisaical than that (to use your term as you understand it). …
Next to greatness of God, we are as puny and as minuscule as almost any wayward soul, but your… myopia has fooled you both into thinking that it’s a big deal.
More than one commenter replied that they felt this was a beautiful reply.
But why wasn’t this person inspired by the pure love of Christ to lighten my sorrows with the balm of sympathy and giving me the pure joy of a never-tiring affection since I’ve been hurt by such untruths? Why does he feel its okay to start with the assumption that I’m not doing the best I can to grapple with a difficult moral issue and that I am not giving this my all? After all, knowledge doesn’t work in such a way that I can pick and choose my beliefs on a whim. Nor does morality work in such a way that we can simply pick and choose our sides and the ends justify the means.
What makes this even worse is that this comment contributed to an environment that makes it impossible for people like me to communicate their beliefs candidly without causing controversy. [1]
I suppose this is a really good example of Popper’s “Myth of the Framework.” We ‘choose sides’ so to speak and it’s difficult – maybe impossible in some cases — for us to be fair to each other. And we are not always very nice to the ‘other side.’ We often (in fact, usually) demand of others that which we will not give, as does this commenter.
But I am no longer convinced this is such a bad thing. Communication did take place and continues to do so. So the possibility of progress still exists despite, apparently, our best efforts to shut it down.
I would prefer tolerance in our discourse, of course. But sometimes it just isn’t within us because we are human. And besides, once you look past the tone there really was something said worth discussing, wasn’t there? It might even be beautiful.
One of the underlying ‘hurts’ for practicing-but-no-longer-believing religionists is that they become sort of second class citizens within a community they value. What they really want is to be able to speak candidly about their beliefs but feel they cannot because people will then work to convert them and they don’t want to be thought of in that way. And this might not be the only worry if they speak up with how they really feel and what they really believe.
This is the truth, as far as I can see. Yet it is simply not the whole story nor the whole truth. There is an ‘other side’ that must also be considered that also has moral claim upon us. In this case that misrepresentations to get out of a potential hurt are themselves a potential hurt.
We want to place moral demands on each other in a situation like this. Indeed, we honestly feel that we can because we believe our morals to be objective and real. (See also here and here.)
Here’s to our joint faith that such moral demands actually mean something and thus real progress can eventually be made.
Notes
[1] And I was certainly not condemning them for being reticient for expressing their beliefs unless by ‘reticient’ you mean ‘misleading’ so that people think you believe one thing when you really believe something else. Reticience was what I was suggesting at the alternative to lying.