Doubt

-   Photo is courtesy of Amy Logan Wengreen, used by permission.

In Utah, the biggest parade of the year is the Pioneer Day parade on July 24th, celebrating the 1947 and later pioneers who came to Utah to be free of religious persecution in the east and midwest.  Each year, communities including religious groups march and exhibit floats, bands, and other stuff to represent something they're proud of. 

This year, a group in Springville, UT marched as the 2000 stripling (young) warriors of Helaman.  This story, from the Book of Mormon, tells of a number of very young men who were recruited to defend their country.  While untrained militarily, they were very believing and faithful, obeying each order with exactness, leading them to be successful in every battle with no loss of life on their side.

Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.  And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.  (Alma 56: 47-48)

For some who saw this parade, the idea of not having any doubt was deeply troubling to them -- we all have doubts of one kind or another.  Doubt is a very important emotion -- it prevents us from accepting things that aren't true.  It helps us survive against deception.  It helps us question our assumptions, and move to a position of knowing truth, if the facts are available to us.

Unfortunately, our culture doesn't countenance doubt.  Within religions, particularly the fundamentalist kind, doubt is a sign of weakness in the faith.  So, the story of Helaman's 2000 stripling warriors is a signal to the doubters to cast aside doubts and march with the faithful...

And that can be painful, indeed.

I have a different view of doubt.  To me, "doubt" is a temporary, unresolved negative feeling toward a given belief. If I no longer believe a given thing, it's no longer in "doubt".  If I decide that the evidence is insufficient to make a belief decision, then I can suspend judgment, but again, I am no longer in 'doubt'.  Doubt is the moment of hesitancy, the point at which one feels that a thing believed may not be 'true'.  I see doubt as a necessary, temporary feeling, motivating me to resolve the area of doubt, and there is a time and place for doubt.

Where "doubt" doesn't make sense.

The story of the 2000 stripling soldiers equates a lack of doubt with success in a military setting.  This is entirely reasonable.  "Doubt" can impair the warrior's ability to act decisively and courageously. If I have been given an order to take a hill, then my exclusive focus is to take the hill without questioning or doubting the merit of taking the hill. This does not mean that I think that there is merit in taking the hill: what I believe is irrelevant to the action taken in faith--therefore I suspend both belief and disbelief and simply do what needs to be done.

Yet, I wonder in a military situation whether 'not doubting' is appropriate in all military situations.  No soldier in a modern, ethical army should obey an order that violates law.  For example, I would hope that soldiers have enough doubt as to question wether their actions might harm civilians, and indeed, in modern armies, soldiers are trained over and over to recognize illegal and unethical situations, and to act accordingly.

Battle is often a difficult endeavor, and decisions are often clouded by the fog of war.  In the actual engagement of battle, the thinking has often to be set aside in favor of training.  In this sense, the training of the 2000 stripling warriors, paradoxically by their mothers, was effective in making correct decisions in the instant of the battle -- they did not doubt, because their training had been effective.  I suspect that part of that training, by mothers who did NOT typically go to war, was to make prudent moral decisions: their training had been sufficient to act morally and effectively without having to ponder and hesitate.

In leading people, establishing a direction for the future, I find that I often doubt as to what direction I should go, fearing failure if I make the wrong choice.   But to the extent that this doubt remains in my mind, hesitating my choices as a leader, I am also making a choice -- to do nothing.  And, such 'doing nothing' can be the wrong choice.  Leadership isn't being certain about the direction, it's about being decisive on the direction when such is necessary.  Leadership demands, at times, decisiveness, as noted by Paul:

For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle? (1 Corinthians 14:8) 

Yet, again, Paul is invoking the battle metaphor for a non-military situation.  In fact, when the metaphor is read in context, it has nothing at all to do with doubt or inability to take action: it's about the futility of speaking in tongues in a preaching situation, because the hearers won't understand the words -- it's about the opposite of doubt: clarity.

Another important battle metaphor from another faith tradition is that of the Bhagavad Gita, in a battle between two kindreds fighting for the right to rule, Arjuna, the leader of one goes with his charioteer to observe the battlefield.  His charioteer is Krisha -- god -- and he does not want to fight.  Arjuna has doubt.  But Krishna helps him overcome doubt to understand that there is a time and place for decisiveness - in any battle.  Later in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that the "field" of battle is really "the body", or in other words, the battle is within us.  The warriors on the battlefield are our attributes -- our gunas -- the things that may serve in some time and place, and in others, not.  When it is time, it's important to kill, or cast aside, our "gunas" -- our desires, our appetites, our passions, and do what is needed. 

But these stories are myths and metaphors: whenever we literalize them, or take them too far, we run the risk of absurdity: we are not military.   For years I set aside the Gita as having a very narrow worldview of killing one's kindred -- I had been taking the text literally.  But when I realized that the Gita is absolutely metaphorical -- a myth that never was but always is -- I learned that the war we are fighting, if any, is with our own selves, to overcome the gunas (worldly attributes) that bind us down and limit our freedom to act with authenticity.
So, to the extent that doubt impairs our ability to act when action is demanded, then doubt is not appropriate.  I might go so far as to say that at this point, it is too late for doubt -- a decision is required, and the time for training has long passed.  In these moments, making a choice, being confident in that choice, and moving forward.  Yet these moments of decisiveness are few and far between.  Our lives are filled with time where we can make considered decisions, where we have time, and where that time allows us to...doubt.

 

Where doubt is absolutely necessary

Doubt is an integral feeling within our emotional mind.  It occurs when we encounter thoughts or sensory input that call into question what we have already stored in our belief structure.  To be precise, I will use the term "schema" to refer to the structure of our stored beliefs. 

We don't store information in our schema in nice neat folders.  We receive input from our senses and our thoughts, and our minds need to store them somewhere.  Instead of an image or recording of those thoughts or sensory impressions, we store associations to what we already have in our schema.  We see a chair made of brown wood in a particular location and we associate that object "this chair" with our sense of what "chair" means, as well as to other objects: wood, "brown", etc.  We may store this chair in our episodal memory -- with this place and time.  Each of these data add to our schema by association. 

Importantly, if we have discovered something about this chair, we may have a positive or negative experience about the chair.  As we sit on a chair, we learn it's usefulness -- we trust the chair.  This feeling of certainty is important, because we have identified "chair" as being something that keeps us alive, it helps us -- we trust it... We have faith in the chair.  As we have come to understand the neurological workings of our minds, "faith" is a neural link to the "certainty" emotion within our mind's schema.

What happens when we sit on a chair and it breaks?  We hurt ourselves, or we certainly see how we could have hurt ourselves.  Within our minds, this new data causes a negative emotional association within our schema about this chair, and potentially all chairs we have associated into our schema.  The link to "certainty" is now in conflict with the link to "fear".  In fact, our minds utterly detest this feeling of fear about something we formerly held as certain.  On a large scale, this feeling of contempt is called "cognitive dissonance", but on the scale of a singular event, it is called "doubt". 

Thus, we cannot avoid "doubt".  It is part of our ability to learn. It keeps us alive, as we learn, through our own experience, to distinguish things that are good for us, or evil for us.  While all other chairs may be ok, there is something now that causes us concern about the integrity and safety of that chair.

But here is the thing: if we allow this negative emotion to paralyze our feelings about all chairs, then we have made an incorrect association within our schema.  Curiously, the permanent neural associations are not made immediately within the mind -- neural connections take time to establish themselves.  Thus, in a learning experience, when something negative happens, it's important to sort out quickly what the cause of the problem was.  For example, when a child learns to ride a bicycle, if s/he falls, it's important to get the child back on the bike quickly in order to complete the positive nature of the experience.  Removing the child at the point of negative experience tends to leave in place a negative experience about bicycles. Thus, when we allow guilt to fester, to remain unresolved, there is a danger of extending the neural negative association beyond where it is appropriate.

Returning to the chair, if I allow the experience of the broken chair to sit in my mind, or to affect my impression of all chairs, then my doubt is harmful to me.  On the other hand, if I come to realize that "this chair" has a specific attribute or flaw, then my "doubt" is resolved: I have a justified belief that such attributes or flaws are the issue, and not all chairs. Once I know the truth, then my faith is restored in chairs, albeit with a new-found exception.  My schema has been altered by this experience, or in much simpler terms: I have learned something.

This is what I might call "experiential learning", or "learning through our own experience to distinguish good and evil".  It is a powerful method of teaching and learning.  It involves making mistakes, experiencing doubt, and by resolving doubt at the point of experience, we become more intelligent and enlightened beings.  Being open to doubt allows us to be humble: to recognize that we could be wrong, and then to correct it based upon the new facts.

Doubt as the Antithesis of Authoritarian Faith

 

In the military metaphor and in the example of the chair, "faith" was a learned behavior -- a trust in something that empowered action.  For stripling warriors, their action in faith, without doubting, empowered them to be successful in their military endeavors.  In the case of the chair, my faith in the usefulness of a chair means I can confidently act -- to sit down on the chair and make use of it.

I have no doubt that unresolved doubt is nearly the opposite of faith.   One cannot trust in faith that which one does not trust due to doubt.  But what kind of "faith" fears doubt?  If doubt is a necessary part of learning, then shouldn't doubt be part of the enhancement of our faith?  Once I understand what flaws there are in certain chairs, then is not my faith more mature in chairs?

To answer these questions, we need to go back to the concept of our mental schema -- how we construct what we believe within our minds.  There is another type of learning than "experiential learning".  We call it "indoctrination", and it is used by authoritarian systems to instill the principles required by the system. 

Authoritarian systems dictate a specific, hierarchal schema of knowledge and behavior.  The hierarchal nature of the schema is due to the underlying core principles of the authoritarian system -- the autocratic rule it must instill upon its adherents.  Within fundamental religions, the core principles are that an authoritarian god has dictated his will verbatim to his prophets, and that this prophetic word is infallible and inerrant.

Authoritarian systems often try to monopolize the education process.  We see examples of this in the way the Taliban have attempted to terrorize teachers and children within secular schools, and the push toward teaching creationism or "intelligent design" in order to preserve the infallibility of the literal interpretation of the Bible. 

Authoritarian systems use the process of "indoctrination" to create in the minds of adherents their specific hierarchal schema, or tree-structure, of knowledge of good and evil.  Concepts such as infallibility and inerrancy are used to connect this schema with the emotional feeling of certainty.  Distinctly illogical concepts and behaviors are taught as being essential, in order to alter the adherent's ability to use logic as a means to determine truth -- instead, "truth" is defined within the bounds of the schema, and anything else is suspect.

Doubt in the authoritarian teaching is considered a weakness, and is never countenanced.  Thus, adherents in an authoritarian system tend to have to put aside feelings of doubt, and embrace the authoritarian schema without questioning or doubt.  Manipulative techniques such as splitting ("You're either for us or against us", "It's either all true or the biggest fraud in history"), combined with lock-in techniques holding entire families into the system and shunning those who doubt create a hostile environment for any doubt.

When Doubt Leads to Faith Crisis

Authoritarian control over doubt does not last forever, particularly in today's climate of open information sharing via the internet and other means.  As the adherent to an authoritative faith schema shelves doubt, at some point, the doubt is too overwhelming to ignore. 

I think of this moment of faith crisis is a collapse of the authoritarian schema.  When the core principles of infallibility are questioned and found wanting, and when the authoritarian approach has been to split the adherent with the false, "all or nothing" dichotomy, then all the values and doctrines associated with the hierarchal, dogmatic schema are likely to collapse as well.  The adherent in such a condition finds him or herself without an anchor within the faith.  To those friends and family still within the authoritarian system, such a faith collapse is seen as simply the working of evil "doubt" or the influence of "Satan", "the World", or other such sources.  To those still in the system, faith collapse and doubt are simply weaknesses or trials to overcome.  Friends and family will hope and pray that the doubter will return to the blissful position of full faith.

This forces a choice on the doubter: either to ignore the cognitive dissonance caused by flaws in the core principles of the authoritarian system, or to leave the system entirely, if no middle ground is found. 

Let me explore concrete examples.  For those in Christian fundamentalist systems that insist in biblically inerrancy, infallibility, and literalism, the creation stories are not to be questioned.  Miracles stated in the New Testament that are clearly outside of scientific possibility are literal facts.  When a person within that system learns the history and origin of scripture as taught by sholars, coupled with legitimate science, then the literalism becomes untenable: The earth was not created in six days or even six thousand years.  Adam and Eve did not live at the same time based upon DNA analysis, and death was not introduced into the world by virtue of partaking of forbidden fruit.  These are clearly and unambiguously myths, embraced by a semitic tribe and incorporated into the Torah used by Jesus and his followers.

To Mormons, the sacred experience is the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham.  These are posited as absolute evidence that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God and restored the original Church of Jesus Christ on the earth.  Doubters in the literalism of the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham are effectively shunned in the Church: the former apologists who left the Maxwell Institute to form their own self-appointed "Interpreter of Mormon Scripture" categorically reject any non-literal approach to the Book of Mormon as incoherent and apostate.  Yet, the evidence against Book of Mormon literalism is overwhelming, and the evidence against the Book of Abraham is concrete and absolute: Joseph Smith did not know how to translate egyptian heiroglypics.  Period.

Mormons are particularly attuned to prophetic infallibility.  Questioning leaders or doubting that which is proclaimed at General Conerence will find one on the way to apostasy and within a church court if one is not careful.  Statements like "The Lord will never lead the prophet astray" must be reconciled with flawed principles such as "Adam-God" and "Blacks and the Priesthood" -- indeed the Prophets did lead the the prophet astray and all the members along with him in many occasions.  Early leaders warned against the principle of prophetic infallibility, but today's church instills it in children from the earliest years of primary.

Where does that lead the person who no longer can accept scriptural or prophetic infalliblity?

As I see it, there are some ways through this faith crisis:

1. I can return to full faith, ignoring the evidence that these texts are mythological qne that prophets have always been fallible.  The challenge is that doubt will always be in the my schema.  I will have to live with unresolved doubt, trying to reconcile scientific fact with scriptural and prophetic infallibility and literalism.  Living with such cognitive dissonance and doubt can adversely affect the soul, and prevent me from embracing the full spectrum of truth and life.
2. I can pretend.  This is to live in constant conflict with the faith system, and to struggle constantly with personal integrity and authenticity.  While I may have resolved cognitive dissonance by simply rejecting faith, the lack of authenticity of this path is cancerous to the soul.
3. I can leave the faith system entirely.  True, there may be consequences to friends and family who remain behind in the faith, but if personal integrity is important, then perhaps my friends and family will understand.  They often do not, and this path often does not retain those family and friend relationships.
4. I can adopt a Middle Way -- one where I am in charge of my spirituality, and while I may participate in a given faith system, I no longer am bound to its authoritarian control of my personal faith schema.  I am honest about my personal beliefs or lack thereof, but at the same time, compassionate and accommodating of those who don't share my beliefs. Of the three, this is not only the least common, it may be the most difficult.

It may be obvious that I favor the Middle Way approach.  I have tried all of them, and found them wanting.  On the other hand, the Middle Way has helped me embrace the good things of my chosen religion, while being open to many possibilities from many different sources.

Atonement

I've always been intrigued at the Jewish idea of Atonement: once a year, between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the Book of Life is opened, and Jewish people draw inward to determine where their life does not fit into the Book of Life, and then, identifying behaviors that aren't consistent with what is expected by God, they place their 'sins' on what was a 'scapegoat' -- a type of sacrificial lamb, and make a determination to live in tune with the better life.  The scapegoat, no longer sacrificed or sent afield as in ancient days, is symbolic of where we set aside our sins.  What is fascinating is that "Atonement", to the observant Jew, involves deep personal responsibility.

As the Jewish Christian community evolved, and the temple was destroyed in 70 CE, the community came to associated Jesus Christ as the "suffering servant", the "scapegoat", in a symbolic sense, that would take upon himself our sins.  It was clear to the Jewish Christians that Jesus Christ as the "Atonement" symbol was deeply symbolic.

On the other hand, Paul proclaimed the Corinthians that he had taught them that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." (1 Cor 15:3)  To the Greek converts, who became the majority of Christians by the end of the first century, the idea of "Atonement" had departed from the association with Yom Kippur.  Paul had seen in Christ a relief from his personal feelings of depravity, that the unredeemed man was condemned to death.  Later, Augustine would magnify the concept of original sin and guilt, leading to the Calvinist concepts of total depravity of mankind.

Along with the evolving idea that mankind was inherently evil were an evolving set of ideas around Atonement.  Whether these were "Moral Influence" -- that God needed to send Christ to put mankind back on track, or "Ransom" theory -- that God needed to pay Satan a ransom for the sins of mankind from Adam, to the Penal Substitutionary Model -- where mankind was so inherently evil that someone had to satisfy God's justice by paying the penalty for our sins in order to redeem mankind to the justice of God.

But here is the deal: all the Christian concepts of Atonement, including those taught in the Book of Mormon and in the LDS Church, are based upon man being completely estranged from God: the natural man is an enemy of God.  And while there might be some aspect of our personality that is worldly and evil, LDS beliefs are more that we have divine nature, an uncreated intelligence, co-eternal with God, that is better reflected that we are truly, literally, in ways we cannot fully embrace, children of God.  All of us. 

Given all this history of Atonement and the our true, divine nature, I do not believe the standard definition of Atonement: the concept that God is so hung up on justice that Jesus had to be tortured and killed in order to satisfy his thirst for vengeance for our sins. All the stories told in the church to try to explain this concept simply have failed to convince me that this makes any sense.

As well, I'm also reject the idea that original sin has any relevance to us today.  LDS Doctrine is that Christ's atonement has saved us (past tense) from the fall and therefore man is free. Since all this has already happened, the concept of original sin and fallen man is now moot: we are free agents, and I believe this deeply. The symbolism, however, of fallen man and redemption is very important.

As humans, we seemed to be easily estranged from ourselves, from each other, and from whatever God may be defined as being. The Atonement is an amazing principle: we are forgiven already, so stop feeling guilty and get on with living. Oh, and be One with your self, with god, and with each other. At-one-ment means just that.

If we accept that because of the Atonement of Christ, then the original Jewish principle of the Yom Kippur scapegoat symbolism is deeply meaningful.  Let us cast aside our sins and move on to the enlightened life, each day (yom) can thus be the day of atonement (literally, what "yom kippur" means, when we recognize our deficiencies, cast them onto the symbolic atonement sacrifice, and embrace the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

To me, atonement is best explained in the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery. When Jesus asked where her accusers were, she didn't see any. Then he said, "Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." He forgave her, releasing her from the bondage of her sexual addiction, then charged her to live her life in harmony with the gospel (as it were).

It's important to note that he had already forgiven her before any act on her part. The idea that the atonement is conditional places conditions and limits on God's love, with is both infinite and unconditional. He has forgiven us from the foundation of this world -- we need only accept this atonement: he stands at the door and knocks, we need but to open up the door. We do not earn atonement, we embrace it -- we become one with it.

My testimony of the Atonement is a personal one. I was once addicted to alcohol, mainly because of the guilt I felt when I took a drink. I could never drink moderately, because I felt that I had already sinned, so I might as well enjoy it. It became an obsession -- i simply could not stop. I went into AA, because frankly, all church repentence processes, including going to bishop after bishop, failed to work. At the point that I 'turned my will and my life over' to a higher power, whom I felt was 'christ', I had a complete removal of even the desire to drink at all. ever. I did not have to go through a period of "repentance" and proving myself worthy, although when I did go to the bishop after this release from addiction through the atonement, I had to go through church discipline hell. (given the power of my atonement experience, I have an un-testimony of CD as a result of this). I came to the deep realization that atonement is absolutely real and tangible. I attribute this personal miracle to Christ. While this release from addiction could have been a result of releasing myself from church-imposed guilt, I don't know, nor do I care. The personal, spiritual experience I had from this release was very tangible to me.

Now I really don't know whether Jesus Christ will serve as my judge someday in the eternities as part of an entrance examination in the the "heaven" per the 'standard definition' -- to me, he already has judged me and found me to be acceptable to him. Completely and totally. The arms of his love completely encircled me and he has stood by my side since. So to me, Jesus atoned for me, and is my personal Savior and Redeemer.

Badoit

 

I absolutely love Badoit water.  I'm here in Brussels, Belgium, and having "just" a pedestrian lunch of a baguette, ham, cheese, salad, and other stuff, I saw that Badoit was on sale at the sandwich shop.  This stuff goes for $3 a bottle in US, but much more common and cheap here in Europe.

 

It's very lightly and naturally carbonated, rich in good minerals, not over-packed with Sodium -- it's a pleasure to drink and very tasty.

Is the Church true?

Every Sunday, I greet my former Bishop and very good friend with the statement, "Well, Bishop, is the Church still true?"  His normal response is, "What does that word mean?"  We laugh. 

His wife has been struggling for some seven years about whether the truth claims and hagiography around the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are valid.  She's researched all sorts of evidence that there are challenges with these claims, and she views that the Church tends to whitewash its leaders and history in the most positive of light.  She especially struggles over Joseph Smith's hidden polygamy and polyandry as being inconsistent with the role model we paint as what a Prophet should be.  Having been through all that, I certainly know where she is coming from.

Over dinner with my wife and her husband, she asked me, "Can you say that the Church is the only true church on the face of the earth?"  I simply answered, "Yes, it is for me."  This, from a wayfaring fool who believes none of the truth claims as being literally the case.

The "Mormon Apologists", or "mopologists" claim my Middle Way is incoherent nonsense.  Do they have a point?  Is it possible to have the Church be "true for me" when I don't believe in its historical truth claims?

I think what drives me to declare that the Church is "True for me" is the way many insist that since some of these truth claims are not valid, it must be "not true".  One ex-mormon thinks my Middle Way is "intellectually dishonest", because I fail to reject the whole because some of the parts are not valid.  Another non-mormon observed:

"The church is obviously not true because it's pretty obvious Joseph Smith just made things up, it's not at all clear that any of his more substantive claims, such as to have had hands laid upon him by resurrected or "translated" beings to confer authority on him from the Creator of the Universe, involve actual occurrences or are in fact later inventions designed to bolster his influence over his followers. Supposedly ancient scripture allegedly translated by Joseph Smith appears to have been of modern invention, etc."

 

This triggered something inside of me. 

 

It didn't trigger "doubt" -- I don't doubt the claims, for I have set aside belief entirely.  An empirical claim is either true, not true, or unproven, and doubt doesn't have a lot to do with it.  True claims I accept.  False claims I reject, and the Middle Way between them -- the area of the unproven, I suspend both belief and disbelief and hold such things in "Faith". 

 

No, I think it triggered "loyalty".  I think I objected to the buying-in of the "all or nothing" proposition -- it's either "all true" or "all fraud", and such absolutes don't work for me anymore.  My response was as follows:

I really have a serious issue with the proclamation, "It's obvious the church isn't true".

What does it mean for a 'church' to be 'true' or 'not true'?   I could look at a photograph, and say, is that photograph a true and accurate representation of the subject, and perhaps it is or perhaps it isn't. If I make a claim and say that the photograph is a picture of bob, when it really is a picture of 'fred', then we might be justified in saying 'it is not true'.

But the church is not a photograph. It is meant to point to something, and that something is 'Christ'. Does the church accurately point to Christ? Can I come closer to Christ by reading the Church's scripture (the book of mormon, etc.)? Is my daily life closer to Christ when I live in harmony with what the Church teaches?

Something within us all points to Christ. Something within Joseph Smith pointed very well to Christ. And that something, which I choose to call God, revealed to Joseph a powerful scripture that leads people to Christ by speaking to that spark of Christ within us all. We can choose to look at Joseph Smith's methods for getting that divine spark across.  We can pretend that he translated some ancient records and swear on our testimonies that he did. But any literal claim or lack thereof doesn't change whether or not the product of his prophetic experience points to Christ or not.

And the proof of that claim is entirely in the person experience one has. We have a word for that personal experience: "Testimony".

To say, "The Church is true for me," is to declare that it is mine.  I may not like everything it does -- it is full of people with whom I may agree or disagree.  Sometimes, I profoundly disagree.  But in the end, this is my tribe, my culture, and my Church.

This doesn't mean a blanket acceptance of harmful falsehoods.  Sterling McMurrin said in an interview in Dialogue, "I really have a genuine love for the Church and a concern for its well being."  He often stood in opposition to orthodoxy that didn't make sense, and was counted as a true "heretic".  I think his example is very critical.

To love the Church is to stand tactfully against those things it does to harm its members and others.  I struggled mightily with the Church's position on Proposition 8, as I did with its position on blacks and the priesthood on my mission.  On my mission, I caved and taught the principle of exclusion from the priesthood.  Proposition 8 had me distancing myself from the Church.  I find neither of these approaches satisfactory.  To be concerned with the welfare of the Church is to remain engaged and find the way to mend the harm done by the institution when it does harm.  This is the Middle Way of appropriate activism: to remain faithfully engaged in helping the church not do harm to itself.

Because the Church is mine, I bear responsibility for its actions, even and especially when I don't agree.  This is what it means to me to "sustain" its leaders.  I have no illusions that I can change any aspect of the Church.  The leadership is somewhat autocratic, and my voice is nothing.  But I can be very engaged.  I can and must stand in opposition, as I do, to those "mopologist" voices whose supposed defense of the Church does far more harm than good.  I will continue to oppose the blurring of boundaries between Church and State.  But these efforts often bring me down, emotionally, and do not bring out the best in me.

Where I think the Church matters the most is in the individual service we render.  I can sit, one on one, with those who struggle with faith, and find the way to lift them while lifting my own soul as well.  Here is where the church is truest to me -- in the quiet, loving service we render in support to another human being.

 

My responses to an apologist

You probably know by now that I don't think much of apologetics.  I had some conflicts with a noted LDS apologist last month, for which I regret some of my reaction to his antics.  I lowered myself to his level, and that's a bit embarrassing. So I need to leave these things aside. I apologized on webpages I can no longer access, he refused to acknowledge it, so that is life.

Yet this apologist continues to blog about me -- I think it must be a bit of an obsession for him to have someone who tries to live a faithful Middle Way -- it does not compute in his worldview. Here is his post:

I ran across [sic] the following pseudonymous comment on a Mormon-focused message board dominated by formerly active members of the Church who are now atheists and agnostics. It comes from an outspokenly atheist former Mormon — an exceptionally bright one, though one who is seldom fair in his remarks — and is addressed (sincerely, I think) to another pseudonymous poster who had been wondering, given her own unbelief (I’m simplifying here; her position is somewhat obscure and perhaps incoherent), whether she still belongs in a church in which nasty people like me insist so firmly on the literal deity of Christ, his physical resurrection from the dead, and the literality of Joseph Smith’s First Vision and of the visits from Moroni. I’ve corrected the punctuation very slightly:

The Church just got rid of its official apologetics outlet and turned it into a Mormon Studies outlet. Mormon studies allows anything, from creative apologetics to existentialism and atheism, and is a huge win for people like you. They [Mormon apologists, specifically including me] know this, blog quite openly about it, and now have even more reason to make you the enemy, so why are you so disheartened? Today is the day for you, my friend. The field is ripe.

Worthy of reflection, I think, even though the Church, as such, played no role whatever in the recent purge.

I responded as follows:

In doing a little research on your post here, I believe I am the "pseudonymous poster..." you refer to above.

I love the Gospel of John. In it, a well-educated, rational Jew named Nicodemus interprets Christ's words literally that we must be born again. He asks, "How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?" After which Jesus explains that there is a difference between heavenly things and earthly things, and that spiritual things are equally real even if not physically so. That's why Jesus taught in parables -- the truth is the normative value of the story, not the physical literalism thereof. ."

Nicodemus continued to be caught in a literalist mindset, so Jesus asks, "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?"."

I have stated that it is possible to be a fully faithful member of the Church in good standing and not have a literal belief in certain claims. Faith is distinct from belief, in that faith recognizes explicitly the difference between knowing something, and hoping for and acting on something while not knowing it is true. Belief is passive, faith is active. Belief does not recognize the difference between knowing and not knowing, but simply claims to know. Belief does not distinguish whether something is true or not: faith in something not true, by Alma's definition is not faith at all. ."

To recognize that someone can have faith in something without knowing it is true seems to be entirely consistent with Alma 32's definition of faith. This is and has been my position. I hold this position because by not anchoring on the literal, my faith can withstanding the knowledge, for example, that the Book of Abraham was not a translation of the Papyrus as Joseph Smith claimed, or that the Book of Mormon is not a literal history of the native americans as a whole as prophets have claimed up until recently. ."

To be specific, I do not know that Jesus physically resurrected from the dead -- I neither believe it nor disbelieve it -- there is no *reason* to believe it -- meaning that it defies logical proof ("reason") -- yet I know through personal experience and testimony that He lives. How is an honest self-appraisal of the lack of valid empirical evidence for something an obscure or incoherent position? Yet you and others "insist so firmly on the literal", implying that those who are honest and sincere about their lack of knowledge are somehow lesser Mormons than you. Your colleagues have gone so far as to call those who don't believe 'anti-christs', and having asked you to repudiate this, you have firmly stood behind it.."

I consider you, Dr. Peterson, a master of Mormon Israel. How is it that you do not know these things?

I am not surprised, but my response did not survive his moderation. His terms of "dialog" are always to do so in a safe environment where he can have his say without thoughtful response...

At the same time as I posted -- knowing he was responding to other comments, I noted that this apologist saw "Les Miserables", being grateful that it promotes "religious faith".  I responded as follows:

Like you, I find the message of Les Miserables sublime and clearly faith promoting.  I'm not sure I would agree that such faith is 'religious' per se.  The message of forgiveness, of redemption, and of walking the right path is clearly in common among many religious and non-religious.

To me, the lesson of Javert is an extraordinarily important one.  Javert represented the best of righteousness and justice - his integrity was impeccable.  Yet, Javert could not accept that there was another way to be acceptable to god other than through the exactness of obedience: Justice must be served.  He could not accept that Jean Valjean was a redeemed person, that although they may have believed differently with respect to the law and justice, that both were indeed good and righteous people.

This is the beauty and irony of Javert: perfect goodness can also be perfectly evil.

We find in the Church today many who believe in a very specific and rigid definition of mormonism.  They claim that anyone who believes differently, particularly those who have a non-literal belief, to be "anti-christ", citing specifc scriptures out of context.  These are the "Javerts" of the church -- their testimony is strong, their righteousness is unquestionable, their integrity the highest of all -- yet because they fail to understand the real principle behind "atonement" -- that is, "If ye are not one ye are not mine" -- they lose track of the "more excellent way" of Godly love.

"Take my hand, and lead me to salvation,
Take my love, for love is everlasting,
And remember the truth that once was spoken:
To love another person is to see the face of God."

It is my hope and prayer that in this new year, we can lay aside the conflicts of the past and embrace one another in full fellowship.  That, to me, is to love another person.  That, to me, is what Jesus asks us when he says, "I say unto you 'be one', and if ye are not one, ye are not mine."  That, to me, is to see the face of god as we welcome diversity of spiritual gifts without judgment and exclusion.

Can we walk this Way together?

I'm not sure this will have any effect. I doubt it will survive his moderation. But it truly is my hope that such 'defense of mormonism' that causes such antipathy be done away.

And in another post, this same blogger quotes Bertrand Russell out of context claiming that the atheist worldview provides no comfort to mourners. He fails to recognize the purpose of Russell's charge to focus on the present rather than on a powerful god that is supposed to make things right, because in Russell's view, the universe doesn't seem to care in the least about humans. Instead, he charges us to make the most of today -- a very different message than the caricature of Russell's beliefs by quoting Russell out of context. Here is what I wrote:

By quoting Bertrand Russell out of context, it certainly paints a bleak picture. But the title of the article is "A Free Man's Worship", and while he certainly paints a bleak picture of death, his purpose is to enhance the free man's ability to make the most of the present -- to establish morality and goodness amidst what he views as the cruelty of the omnipotent universe. This is what Russell's point was:

"Let us learn, then, that energy of faith which enables us to live constantly in the vision of the good; and let us descend, in action, into the world of fact, with that vision always before us."

I would hardly think this charge to have faith in a way that leads to action for good is a message at odds with what we as LDS believe. To seek a world of 'fact' is to embrace the gospel as it was meant to be taught: all truth is circumscribed into one whole, to have faith in something proven to be not true is no faith at all.

Well, this is often the Way of apologetics -- to defend one's beliefs regardless of the truth or objectivity of the matter. I always liked the late Rodney King's response to all the polemics following his beating by the LA police: "Why can't we just get along?"

Update: Our "Apologist" has posted his response onto Mormon Dialogue and on his own blog. Evidently, his blog server lost all three of my entries above, or so he claims. Uh-huh...right.

The God Within

What triggers my post today is a concern, by many, about why does God not prevent disasters like what we've recently seen in Connecticut. 

 

I could argue that the Standard Definition of God, that is of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, and all-good God is a logically impossible concept in the presence of evil.  Free agency of one person does not justify the senseless suffering of others. 

 

So the god of creeds, to me, simply does not exist -- it's the wrong definition.  I will submit to you that this does not mean 'there is no god', but what it really means is undefined.  And, as to the god that is 'out there', I'm going to leave that alone for a bit.  What I talk about here does not deny or address the existence of any god outside of ourselves -- And to be clear, what I talk about here is about our perception of god, and how that forms within us.

What I think of God

 

For the sake of this discussion, let's consider that the only god with which we have to do resides within six inches between our own ears, yet is distinct from our own consciousness.  Regardless of whether this is an interface to some power beyond, I think it is accurate to say that all perception of god happens within our own minds.  So let's explore how that affects our definition of god.

 

In my impression, historically, the understanding and doctrines of an external god emerged from our conscious attempts to explain that which we do not understand. In particular, all of us have thoughts and ideas that seem to appear from no-where. Some people even have minds structured to hear voices or see things outside of our consciousness.  Because some thoughts, most dreams, and even voices and images arise outside of and independently from our own conscious control, many become convinced there are beings out there that are "not us".

 

There is truth to that, but it need not be in any magical or supernatural way.  The truth is that the majority (if not all of) these "other beings" are not "out there", but rather "in here".

 

Sigmund Freud recognized distinct tendencies of the mind: id, ego, superego; but thought them to be part of a single thing, our psyche.  Even to today, the concept of separate, independent sentient identities within the mind has not been part of the literature.  however, new technologies, such as fMRI, as well as large-scale parallel processing architectures are radically changing our understanding of the wonder -- the absolute miracle -- of our minds.

 

To make a very long story short, the fact is that we DO have an entity within us, an eternal companion, that shares all of our memories, thoughts, and controls our feelings.  think of it as another program running in your brain-computer in parallel but completely independent from your consciousness program.  it doesn't talk to you in the same way that you talk to other people, but because it shares your thoughts, it is aware -- more emotionally aware of what is going on than your consciousness is.

 

The Mind Within is the Only God With Which We Have to Do

 

My view?  This mind within is god.  Or, at least "a god". 

 

Now, to not have all believers stop reading and get the impression that wayfarer is a dirty apostate heretic, we have three scriptural concepts that support this: (1) our divine nature coming from Heavenly Father, (2) the light of Christ, given to us at birth equating to our conscience, and (3) the Holy Ghost, which dwells within as our constant companion.  Whatever we may believe about the gods out there, I think we can and should agree that there is a god 'in here', and least, and set aside rejecting what I write here for a bit.

 

Back to my view; This god, the one 'in here', has always has been, and ever shall be -- it is eternal.  This is the god that has spoken to prophets and holy men and women in the past, and speaks today.  This god, properly understood, consists of millions of years of genetic evolutionary programming, and allows us to intuit things naturally. The god within communicates to other nonconscious minds around us through subtle nonverbal and sensory exchanges.  Importantly, this god within manages the interface between fear (right amygdala) and reward (left amygdala) so as to determine what we are to do to protect ourselves.  

 

How again does that work?

 

This is not some new-age mumbo-jumbo.  because of modern technologies, and due to research in the field of large-scale parallel processing architectures and machine intelligence, we are fundamentally changing our understanding of the mind.  The brain is a highly modular, asymetric parallel neural network processing architecture with both embedded firmware as well as adaptive self-learning nodes.  Our primitive von neumann computers of today barely scratch the surface of the massive parallelism of the brain, and it is only when we put massive numbers of processors together, particularly like a hadoop file/processing architecture, do we get a little of the idea.  

 

Think of our "consciousness" as one program within this processing architecture.  And think of our nonconscious god within as the network operating system -- and while this metaphor is primitive, you system geeks will understand the idea.

 

What understanding the God Within does for us:

 

I believe it is time for us to set aside the focus on the speculatively-defined god of our primitive religions and come to a full understanding of our true eternal companion: our god within.  When we do, we realize that our god within (1) listens to our prayers, because by articulating our needs, we implant them into our minds where our god can process them, and (2) answers our prayers through our feelings and new insight implanted by extensions to our neural network.  When we understand how this neurology works, we understand that our god within takes time to answer our prayers, because neural connections take time to emerge.  Particularly, we often need to sleep on things...allowing our conscious minds to let go of the problems -- unlocking memory structures -- so that our god can work on the problem. 

 

When we come to embrace the truth of our god within, we lose a lot of misconceptions about god.  our god within cannot restore a limb, but s/he can encourage our bodily systems to step up and fight disease, and in some cases heal us in a seeming miraculous way.  our god within cannot change another person, but can perceive feelings and concerns of another person so that we can better serve them.  our god within cannot change a natural disaster, but can motivate us to be prepared.  our god within is not just a "man", but is also both man and woman, father and mother, husband and wife, parent and child, and our true friend...that we mostly ignore.

 

Importantly, when some horrible event occurs, when a person does great evil and harms innocent children, our god within weeps with us as we come to grips with the magnitude of the horror.  And just like a good friend, rather than blaming our god within, we should draw near to him/her to help us both deal with the pain and sorrow of the tragedy.

 

"Be still and know that I am god"

 

In order to achieve the peace of mind so needed at these times of sorrow, and maybe always, I believe we need to be one with our god within, to be whole and better people.  We need to pray to our god within, and not assume that s/he is just part of our ego.  Far from it: our god has a distinct identity from us, and when we ignore him/her, we are non-integrated people.  Oneness with god, achieved through prayer and meditation, leads to an integrated state where our conscious mind and the separate god mind are in harmony.  

 

But you know?  Whenever I have tried to pray to myself, it doesn't seem to work.  It is my premise that our ancestors have been praying to this god, and s/he has been answering for thousands of years.  Hence, they created symbols and ritual to help us connect with god, and we are 'programmed' by that experience to draw to god through these symbols.  As I see it therefore, the symbols of our religions are a reflection of this unique relationship.  

 

I get a lot of value participating in the worship service, praying to a god 'out there', and performing the rituals of religion.  Paradoxically, these help me connect me to my god within.  This is why I am an active LDS...the spirit speaks to me, when I worship, pray, and participate.  When I serve in love, visiting families and giving, somehow I find peace and support from my god within.

I walk the Way alone

It started innocuously enough.  It was date-night last night, and we were talking about our youngest daughter, and how, if she were a boy, I might have had a son to accompany me to LDS general conference Priesthood meeting.  I have always gone alone, because we have no sons. 

We talked about how our youngest daughter, were she a son, would not go with me this time because at 20 she would be on a mission, because, as my wife said, "Going on a mission is a commandment."

I replied, "No, going on a mission is guidance, not a commandment."

She retorted, "Let me stop you right there.  We're not having this conversation."

I felt a bit hurt by that, but said as nicely as I could, "Why not?  That kind of shuts down dialog doesn't it?  I feel strongly that when we impute a 'commandment' from 'guidance', we create too many laws, too many rules, and isn't this exactly what Jesus objected to of the leaders of his time?"

Silence.

We went on to play miniature golf, trying our best to talk about nothing meaningful.  At one moment, delayed in our play, I mentioned that our delays give us a chance to talk.  She shook her head...no we're not going to talk.  At the end of the evening, were were sitting down over ice cream, and I realized we had nothing to say to each other.  I felt as awkward as I did at 16 on some of my very first dates. 

I recall my first date with my wife to be 34 years ago, I did ask her "What is the meaning of life."  She laughed and thought me strange.  We continued to date and got married a year and a day later.  We have had some very good times together, five wonderful daughters, and all the usual challenges and joys of a married life.  But we have never been able to talk about the Way and the answers, if any, to my very first question to her.  She merely tolerates my pursuits into the unknowable unknown, content in the certainty the Church gives her of the correctness of her path as a true believer.  I admire her constancy and certainty, but I am profoundly sad that we cannot share the joy I have found in the Way.

So, I walk the Way alone.  Sure, there are many others who share a view of the Way, but they are not here, and there is only so much we can do through words expressed on computer screens.  The nature of humanity is that we need each other, physically, emotionally, and spiritually present.  We communicate through nonverbal symbols and meaning that we cannot express in words.  Without this interpersonal presence, we are lacking -- I am lacking.

I have discovered that without the loving feedback from another human we cannot truly know ourselves: we emote things from our non-conscious mind that only can come back to us through the reflective non-conscious response from other humans.  Even animals can reflect our emotional status back to us, hence in touching and making eye and face contact with others, both human and otherwise, we see into ourselves and vice versa.

Peering into the eyes of another soul, and having that soul peer back at us creates a connection that cannot be simulated anywhere else.

Yet, as we become fearful of the influence of others; as we become resentful, tired, and frustrated at the wearying things we detest in our closest family and friends, we construct emotional walls in our emotional non-conscious minds that prevents the spiritual connection one with another.  In so peering into the eyes of another, instead of the joy of spiritual connection, we feel nothing.  We don't connect, because there is nothing to connect to -- the wall creates a defensive boundary that cannot be traversed.  I know I have done this in the past, and probably still do; but in the Way, one lets go of the fears and emotions that prevent one from sensing the Way and following it.

I have come to recognize, years ago, that it is impossible to change another human being.  I cannot force love, happiness, openness, or anything else.  I fail to do so many things that would be nice, to try to listen, to absorb, and to give in ways that might help.  I try to love unconditionally, but I fail, over and over again.  I keep hoping that giving, serving, loving unconditionally, and trying my best to listen, I will do that which is right and good.  Love needs no justification, it is beyond explanation.  I love because I must and cannot avoid it.  Sometimes, I do not feel love, acceptance, and validation in return -- maybe I expect too much.  But it does not change my love in the least. 

So, while I would guess that others may have companions and loved ones that share their path fully, this is not the case for me.  I walk the Way alone, today. 

Lao-tzu said,

How great is the difference between "eh" and "o"?
What is the distinction between "good" and "evil"?
Must I fear what others fear?
What abysmal nonsense this is!

The multitudes are peaceful and happy;
As if climbing a terrace in springtime to feast at the tai-lao sacrifice.
But I'm tranquil and quiet—not yet having given any sign.
Like a child who has not yet smiled.
Tired and exhausted—as though I have no place to return.

The multitudes all have a surplus.
I alone seem to be lacking.

Mine is the mind of a fool—ignorant and stupid!

Others see things clearly;
I alone am in the dark.
Others discriminate and make fine distinctions;
I alone am muddled and confused.

Formless am I! Like the ocean;
Shapeless am I! As though I have nothing in which I can rest.
The masses all have their reasons;
I alone am stupid and obstinate like a rustic.

But my values alone differ from those of others—
For I value drawing sustenance from the Mother.

I am certainly glad that no-one reads this stuff.

Mystery and the Middle Way

When I listen to Rachmaninoff's Vespers, I get a spiritual uplift that I really cannot explain.  There is something amazing from the very first "Amin" to the very last.  What is this feeling?  Is it the manipulation of the music?  Is it a cultural message that I've been brought up to know?

Rachmaninoff wrote the Vespers in 1916, shortly before the overthrow of the Tsar, when much was amiss in Russian society.  Sadly, the spiritual traditions from which Rachmaninoff wrote this amazing music would be lost for nearly a century.  Perhaps he suspected something would be lost.  There is deep in us, seemingly, a sense of the unknown that motivates, inspires, and alters our consciousness through its mystery.

I was reading a wonderful piece this morning entitled "Meaning of the Rachmaninoff Vespers", by Dr. M. R. Brett-Crowther:

Rachmaninov wrote this music in 1916, when the future of Russia was about to become a prolonged, dehumanizing catastrophe, through the Revolution which Nicholas II and Alexandra by their appalling policies had made inevitable. Even Nicholas’ abdication was the result of his incompetence.  But there is in Russian history, and in the heart of all Russians, a depth of sorrowful love, which receives catastrophe as a kind of revelation.  At least, this is the general argument of Nicholas Berdyaev, one of Russian Orthodoxy’s greatest writers and advocates.  As he says:

The mystery always remains; it is deepened by our knowledge.  Knowledge destroys only false mysteries created by our own ignorance, but there are other mysteries which confront us when we reach the depth of knowledge.  God is a mystery, and the knowledge of God is communicated in mystery.  Rational theology is false theology, for it denies the mystery that surrounds God.

I have spoken on this blog about how the Middle Way is one of truth, of sorting out or oneself what is true, discarding things that are not true, and adopting things that are.  Yet there are many things which remain 'unknowable' in my journey along the Way.

If I am honest with myself, really, truly, deeply honest, then I have to realize that much of what I believe is based upon assertion: My belief is not based upon a systematic, epistemological method, but rather, that it feels good to me.  I have suggested in other posts that this feeling of certainty can be dangerous, as it allows blind acceptance of things not true.

But to objectively put everything I believe into a 'true' or 'not true' category based upon critical thinking perhaps denies something that I cannot explain, or that upon explaining it and 'demystifying' it, it loses power to me. 

Objective pursuit of truth can be starkly depressing, as so much of what we believe of spiritual things cannot be proven or disproven.  And if I adopt the 'all or nothing' paradigm, then 'nothing' is a lonely place. 

I love the statement, above, by Nicholas Berdyaev.  The pursuit of knowledge in the Middle Way has allowed me to reject some things that simply are not true: literalism in things.  But as I plumb the depths of this knowledge, there is something that remains -- a mystery not of the unknown, but of the unknowable.  There is a connection between humans that cannot be fully explained in science.  Sure, I can surmise that the mechanisms of non-verbal communication, of the subtleties of our non-conscious mind connecting through subtle signals can connect with others in their non-conscious perceptions, but this hardly satisfies. 

Even the 'why' can be explained: evolution required us to relate together, to flock, much as birds do to survive the winters. 

But to rationalize the unknowable, the mystery of not only human connection, but the spiritual basis of all that is, is to lose sight of the wonder of all that is. 

If I think of agape, 'godly love', I don't think there are words to justify it, to explain it, to defend it.  It simply is.  Why I love, how I love...these are all a very deep mystery.  Yet I love -- that is a fact, an undeniable, unalterable fact.  And more so, I feel loved by something greater than myself, outside my conscious self.  The moment I try to explain this love, to rationalize it, I lose the sense of awe and mystery.

How many times have I heard music or spoken word that touches me to the core.  It isn't the words, it's the feeling.  How many times have I heard chant of scripture, any scripture, and been transported to another plane of existence: yet hearing the translation of the words, it has no power at all. 

If the Middle Way is about sorting out truth of things, I have to also admit the truth of spiritual feelings.  At one extreme, religious people tend to define these feelings of spirituality within the confines of their belief and arduously defend their beliefs.  At the other, the rational mind tends to reject the idea of spiritual feelings as being simply a manifestation of brain chemistry and emotion.  To these two poles, I ask, "Where does Godly Love (agape) fit"? 

And I would answer, "In the Middle". 

When I am into a mode of studying principles that defend my beliefs, or of arguing things about whatever, somehow I seem to lose a sense of awe and mystery that accompanies a faith in the unknowable.  I need that sense of awe and mystery.  I need to feel the wonder -- maybe it's just my personal feelings of inadequacy, or a program I was grown up to follow, I don't know or care.

How many times in my life have I realized how important it is to daily feast upon the Word and feel of the spirit.  A discipline of reading and praying tends to feed the soul in ways that cannot be achieved with intellectualism.  I need this, and yet, my reading and praying, of whatever form it is, cannot be and should not be an escape from reality.  My feasting upon the Word, my communion with god must lead me to a better, more fulfilled life, one connected with the realities of my personal situation and context.

This is a great paradox: by opening up my mind to the Mystery, I return to reality with a sense of purpose, of focus, and armed with the ability to sort out truth and what I need to do about it. 
 

On Being an Agnostic Mormon

Love the title, but I wouldn't immediately say that about myself, because I hate labels...

Being agnostic is formally the very most honest way to be a Latter Day Saint.  I say this with all sincerity and accuracy.  Consider the following quote:

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.  But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

(Paul to the Corinthians, first Epistle 13:9-12)

The most prominent difference in sentiment between the Latter-day Saints and sectarians was, that the latter were all circumscribed by some peculiar creed, which deprived its members the privilege of believing anything not contained therein. Latter Day Saints have no creed, but are ready to believe all true principles existing, as they are made manifest from time to time.
(Joseph Smith, History of the Church, v5 p215)

Joseph Smith started his journey with the First Vision, condemning creeds and their professors, not because they said wrong things -- they did not, not really -- but because the creeds declared an orthodoxy, and that orthodoxy would get in the way of honest investigation of truth.  The professors were corrupt by virtue of the fact that they claimed to know that which was not knowable.  To say that you know something when you don't know it is both dishonest and corrupt, because it contaminates one's ability to see truth when it comes along 'from time to time'.

To say "I don't know" can be the best and is often the most honest answer.  To say "I know" and then to say either "...the church is true" or "...the church is not true", is not an accurate statement.  While some might defend the statement 'the church is not true' because the church says things it knows to be false (justified by the "milk before meat" idea), the reality is that the church addresses, through prophecy, the vast unknown.  Paul's use of the word "prophecy" is interesting -- it's a method of filling in the gap between what we "know in part" and that vast unknown.  Prophecy, as applied in scripture, is that which is given by inspiration, to the mind and heart of the prophets -- it's not a perfect, flawless process -- it's the ability to accept in faith our best, inspired guess.  It is not to know a thing. -- and in recognizing our 'not knowing', one can best sort out the truth of things.

Alma defined faith in this way: "Faith is not a perfect knowledge of things, therefore if ye have faith, ye hope for things that are not seen, but are true."  What makes faith different from belief is the explicit aknowledgement that I do not know, but am willing to trust and try something out (act on it).

Alma lays out a speciic test of any given principle: either it grows or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, and you've given it a chance, you can, appropriately, throw the seed out.  What's important about the Alma 32 experiment is that it is specific to a given principle -- "In that thing" -- and not the entire garden.  Too often, the idea to test an unknowable belief, or an entire belief structure, is not a valid test, because it goes beyond what one can know with a simple "yes, it grows" or "no, it does not grow" answer. 

For example, to test the question, "Is the church true", by Alma 32 is fraught with problems.  Being a vast set of beliefs, it is an untestable proposition by Alma 32 -- it's not specific to a specific thing, because the truth of the church is mixed with human judgment and sometimes profound errors.  So, in exercising the experiment, one can either feel good about it -- it grows, or feel nothing -- it doesn't.  If I feel good, and then conclude 'the church is true', then there is a danger of accepting a blanket orthodoxy containing both truth and the human judgment and profound errors in the church as being 'true' as well -- not wise to do.  If I don't feel good about it, the I might conclude 'the church is not true', and then reject things that really are in fact useful, helpful, and uplifting.

Instead, Alma suggests testing a specific thing:  I can test to see if a specific teaching or practice has value to me, and in so doing, I get a comfort with that principle or practice.  I can ask the question, in faith, "Does the Book of Mormon contain truth and relevant teachings for me and my family?".  It's a specific question, and in reading the book, discovering the value, and then praying about what I've read, I can come to a knowledge that the Book of Mormon has significant value to me, and teaches truths relevant to my life.  I exercised faith by reading the book because I recognized that I did not know if it had value.  I did not cast out the book because of my unbelief, in whatever form that may have taken, but I gave it a legitimate test in faith.  As a result of my test, I came to a specific piece of knowledge -- the book contains valuable, relevant truths for me.  Test complete.  Faith exercised.  Knowledge gained.  Alma 32 works in the specific. 

Alma asks, is this all there is to know?  And he says "no, you've only exercised faith in that specific thing".  You don't know at this point, whether the book is historically true.  You can ask that question, but if you don't put it to a test, including both mind and heart, acting in faith on that thing.

What does that mean when it comes to whether the book is historical?   It means openly and honestly probing whether the book indeed has that history.  If it turns out that my test in faith does not result in mind and heart agreeing that it's history -- then I have to recognize that I do not know (unprovable), or I know it doesn't (be careful here -- requires proving a negative absolute).   As long as something is not proven to be false, I can still hope, I can still have faith, but I need to recognize that I still don't know.  So many of the Church's teachings are in this category.  Faith continues, because we recognize we don't know -- and that's just fine.

This process of defining what we believe through our own experience is actually at the core of both Joseph Smith's teachings (as noted above), and as well, in the temple endowment, in both the creation as well as garden of eden dramatization -- man was to learn through his own experience to distinguish good and evil -- and not partake of the predefined tree of orthodox knowledge of good and evil.

Unfortunately, the church through "correlation" has managed to create the appearance of an orthodoxy, enforced by things like the 14 fundamentals and other social pressure. Nothing could be further from the original purpose of the church -- I hold hard on the idea that there are no creeds -- no orthodoxy -- and only the challenge to discover "all true principles existing." In my humble opinion, suspending naive belief that too early asserts knowledge, and recognizing that we truly don't know, is the very best way to discover truth

As Lao Tzu said, "Not knowing is true knowledge".

So...perhaps being a Mormon Agnostic is not such a bad thing, when we really, honestly, don't know.

Baal Shem Tov and Joseph Smith

Baal Shem Tov, "Besht" for short, was the founder of the Hasidic movements, and was an 18th century mystic in what is now Ukraine.  Besht was to Judaism what Joseph Smith was to Christianity: he had mystical experiences, and turned Judaism upsidedown, fighting against the moribund rabbinical talmudic scholars as Joseph Smith fought against the creeds and orthodoxy.

Of all things last night, his name kept coming up in my dreams.  So, reading this morning the wikipedia entry about Baal Shem Tov this morning, I read about his teachings about god and man.  Here are some excerpts:

He declared the whole universe, mind and matter, to be a manifestation of the Divine Being; that this manifestation is not an emanation from God, as is the conception of the Kabbalah by Mitnagdim, for nothing can be separated from God: all things are rather forms in which God reveals Himself. When man speaks, said Besht, he should remember that his speech is an element of life, and that life itself is a manifestation of God 

Whoever does not believe that God resides in all things, but separates God and them in his thoughts, has not the right conception of God.
(wikipedia)

In Doctrine and Covenants 88, Joseph Smith states the same thing: that god, or at least the power of god is everywhere.  Joseph Smith thought of god as being everywhere in the beginning of his teachings, but towards the end said unequivocally, that god is a man, with material flesh and body.  Besht is panentheistic in a way that LDS might not accept, yet if we accept that the Holy Ghost dwells within us, then at least the HG is physically resident in us.  As for panentheism, consider these two verses:

D&C 88:13 The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.

Moses 6:63 And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me.

My feeling is that Joseph Smith was a mystic, and did not fully comprehend his own thoughts and revelations about the integral nature of god and man.  He came as close as any Christian had done until that time, and by bringing god out of the ex-nihilo idealism of plato, Joseph Smith did much to move the needle.   Perhaps JS did understand, fully, this mystical vision, but at the time, the Saints were only ready for a conventional definition of god.  Milk before meat.

It is equally fallacious to think of a creation in time: creation, that is, God’s activity, has no end. God is ever active in the changes of nature: in fact, it is in these changes that God’s continuous creativeness consists.
(wikipedia)

Again, in section 88, the idea that the power of god is god and that it is the laws of nature within its respective kingdom.  Besht had identified three dimensions of reality similar to three kingdoms of glory.

Besht's concept of eternal creation is a marvellous concept.  Getting away from a physical point-in-time creation narrative, this idea that the act of creation, the garden of eden story as taught in temples, is not merely an historical event, but the ongoing creation narrative as humans deal with god and the world here and now.

The first result of his principles was a remarkable optimism. Since God is immanent in all things, all things must possess something good in which God manifests Himself as the source of good. (wikipedia)

This as well characterizes LDS thinking: Rather than the totally depraved world of the Calvinists and Catholics, LDS believe in the divine nature of creation, the world, and humans.  We are inherently optimistic (or at least should be).

For this reason, the Besht taught, every man must be considered good, and his sins must be explained, not condemned. One of his favorite sayings was that no man has sunk too low to be able to raise himself to God. Naturally, then, it was his chief endeavor to convince sinners that God stood as near to them as to the righteous, and that their misdeeds were chiefly the consequences of their folly.
(wikipedia)

This is a lesson many of us should realize in the church, especially on the topic of church discipline, and on how to treat those who don't share the TBM point of view.

From the very beginning Besht fought against that contempt for the world which, through the influence of Isaac Luria’s Kabbalah, had almost become a dogma among the Jews.

Again, back to the idea of the sacredness of creation.  This concept of the world's inherent goodness puts perspective on the hasidic concept of tikkum olam/repair of the world into context -- we should be caring for the world, treating it with utmost respect -- an inherently green viewpoint so needed today.  Not sure I see that attitude, politically, in LDS thinking, although many prophetic teachings speak of caring for the land.

He considered care of the body as necessary as care of the soul; since matter is also a manifestation of God, and must not be considered as hostile or opposed to Him.
(wikipedia)

This is doctrinally identical to LDS thinking.  All spirit is matter.  And it adds life to the idea that the Word of Wisdom, in its original intent and not current interpretation, is to care for the body.

...he fought the rigidity and sanctimony that had accreted to strict Talmudic viewpoints while not abrogating a single religious ceremony or observance. His target was the great importance which the Talmudic view attaches to the fulfillment of a law, while almost entirely disregarding sentiment or the growth of man’s inner life.
(wikipedia)

I sense that Besht was a bit of a Middle Way Jew.

While the rabbis of his day considered the study of the Talmud as the most important religious activity, Besht laid all the stress on prayer. “All that I have achieved,” he once remarked, “I have achieved not through study, but through prayer”. Prayer, however, is not merely petitioning God to grant a request, nor even necessarily speaking to God, but rather (“cleaving”, dvekut)— the glorious feeling of ’Oneness with God Almighty’, the state of the soul wherein a man or woman gives up their consciousness of separate existence, and join their own selves to the Eternal Being of God Supreme. Such a state produces indescribable bliss, which is the foremost fruit of the true worship of God.
(wikipedia)

This.  I cannot say more or better than the above.  This is the essence of the mystical experience -- that which is achieved through revelation.  Joseph Smith said that all members "who receive the holy ghost receive revelation, for the holy ghost is a revelator" -- thus to 'receive the holy ghost' upon confirmation, is to seek revelation daily in one's life as befitting one who has received the gift of the holy ghost.  Sometimes revelation comes in words, but only rarely.  The mystical experience is a oneness with god that cannot be described in words.

I believe Joseph Smith was a mystic like Baal Shem Tov.  Besht lived a longer life, and his followers picked up much more of the mystical message than Joseph's successors, who were more inclined to create the more traditional Christian LDS church that we have today.  I, for one, love to embrace Joseph's original mysticism as a pattern for my own spiritual journey.