All the answers

I have a lot of childhood memories of my mom teaching me. Even though I've rejected the religion she raised me in, I will always be grateful to her for her teaching. She taught me to love learning, to ask questions, and to think my own thoughts. I have several memories of her helping me with math homework. Several times I tried to get her to just give me the answers to the problems I was trying to solve. Like any good teacher, she refused, insisting, "you have to figure out the answer for yourself."

When I stopped believing in the church, the most devastating thing for me was the realization that I didn't have answers anymore. Worries about the the afterlife and how to tell my family of my apostasy were frightening, but the most terrifying thing of all was the realization that where I thought I had knowledge, I had only ignorance. My recurring thought during the month leading up to my final epiphany was that the rug had been pulled out from underneath my feet. I felt like a cartoon character who, after rushing off a cliff, looks down and realizes that there is nothing beneath him.

Not having answers is scary, especially when it comes to big questions like the meaning of life and what happens when we die. Mormonism gave me very neat and sensible answers. Leaving Mormonism meant leaving the answers. But I still wanted easy answers. I realized almost immediately that there probably wasn't a god, but I held on to the idea of him for more than half a year. I wanted him to exist and I wanted him to give me answers. I kept praying, sometimes desperately. I wanted so very much for there to be a wise, all-knowing being who loved me and had my back. But more than that, I wanted answers--solid, sure, indubitable answers.

Those answers never came. When I finally realized what I'd known all along, that pleading with the silence was not doing me any good, I had to accept that there was no cosmic authority figure who would tell me the answers. I had to figure things out on my own, I knew that I was fallible. Life doesn't have an answer key like my math book did. And I wouldn't have it any other way. As my mother taught me when she refused to tell the answer to that long division problem, the point isn't knowing what the answer is. It's knowing how to think for yourself--because when you think for yourself, the answers you find are really yours.

My Last Prayer

In previous posts, I've talked about my gradual change to atheism. The change didn't happen in a rush of realization like the loss of my testimony did. But if I had to identify a point in time when I realized that I was a complete atheist, it would be one night during the summer of 2010. That night was like many nights in that I was feeling very lonely and I had no idea what to do with myself. I went to the temple and sat on the grounds as the sun set and just thought. I thought about how much had changed since the last time I'd been inside a temple--it had been over a year. I looked up at the stars and wondered if there was anyone up there who cared about me at all. I had stopped praying a few months previously, because my desperate prayers just weren't being answered. But I decided to give it one last shot. If I was ever going to regain a belief in God, this was his chance.

I said everything that I had to say to God. I told him about how frustrated and lonely and confused I was. I told him how much I wanted to believe that he was real, but that I really didn't think it was fair of him to expect me to believe in him when all appearances indicated that he didn't exist. I asked him to help me know if he was real. I don't know what I expected. I didn't expect any kind of miraculous vision. I didn't expect a warm fuzzy feeling like the one I had been told to expect when reading the Book of Mormon. Even if I had felt something like that, I wouldn't have trusted it. I think that I was really expecting everything to suddenly make sense, that all my doubts and the apparent problems with a belief in God would vanish in a brilliant flash of logic. Whatever I was expecting, nothing happened. Nothing. In a way I wasn't really surprised by the nothingness, because that was all I had been getting for months, even before I lost my testimony of Mormonism. But this time was different, because I accepted it. No divine answer was forthcoming. I had done my level best to believe in God, and God had failed the test.

As I walked back from the temple to my apartment, I didn't really think much about what had happened. It was almost as if nothing had happened, because nothing had really changed. But I was finally at peace with God--that is, with his lack of existence. Since losing my testimony I had always wondered in the back of my mind if there really was a God, and if he really cared. I had now accepted that I was on my own and that there wasn't any supernatural force to guide me or comfort me, or even to lend me a listening ear. I had talked to God, and no one had heard me. I wouldn't even realize the significance of that night until later. Even though the experience itself was emotionally difficult, my reaction immediately afterwards was really just a shrug of my shoulders. So there was probably no God. That came as anything but a surprise. That night I let go of my angst over the God issue and got on with my life. I haven't worried since.

The Bliss of Heresy

I call myself a blissful heretic. I chose that name for a reason. I disagree with the old saying that ignorance is bliss; I have found that as I eliminate ignorance from my mind, I become a much happier person. During the final stages of my belief, the cognitive dissonance was very painful and I would not have called it bliss. When I embraced the truth, the shackles of dissonance fell away from me and I was free to explore reality, unhampered by obligations to ancient superstitions and corrupt authority.

I don't use the word "heretic" flippantly. There was a time when heretics were tortured and burned alive. I consider myself infinitely lucky to live in a time and a place where the worst consequences for my heresy are disapproval and possible rejection from my family. Even that's pretty bad. It's bad enough that, as of this writing, I am still "in the closet" to my family and friends about the fact that I'm an atheist. But the worst that could happen to me really is not that bad.

I have found that there is a strange bliss in heresy. I don't mean that I go about being contrary and unpleasant. But freedom of mind is blissful in a way that is unlike any other kind of freedom I have experienced. If a question needs to be asked, I'm no longer afraid to ask it for fear of the answer. I no longer shy away from difficult philosophical questions like free will and causation. I'm no longer afraid that the conclusions will threaten my "testimony." A friend of mine once asked me if my study of philosophy ever shook my testimony. Naturally, this friend did not and does not know that I am an atheist, and therefore could not have known the irony of her question. No, philosophy does not shake my testimony. Philosophy, philo sophia, is the love of wisdom. I am delighted to pursue my search for truth and wisdom wherever it leads. Perhaps it leads me wrong sometimes, for I am a fallible human being and I don't always think things through properly or have all the available evidence in front of me. But I am not afraid of being wrong, because I am always seeking to find what is right. My best defense against error is hardly going to be blind faith. I should keep my mind as open as possible, on the chance that my view of reality might be wrong or limited. I'm not afraid of my testimony, such as it is (or rather, isn't) being "shaken" because if something is false, it ought to be dislodged from one's mind, and if it is true, then it should stand up under scrutiny. The bliss of heresy is the utter fearlessness with which one can pursue wisdom.

Music Theory

I think that in many ways, religion worships mystery. When I look at the history of religion, one of its main purposes seems to be to explain the unexplainable. Where did we come from? Well, Father Time slept with Mother Earth. Or Kukulkán and Tepeu made humans from maize. Or Yahweh made everything in six days. Where do we go when we die? Well, we go to the house of Hades. Or we spend eternity in some sort of paradise. Or... nothing happens. We're just dead. 


So, when I say religion worships mystery, I mean that it derives its raison d'être from humans' inability to explain the world. In ancient mythopoeic religion, humans explained natural phenomena by anthropomorphizing them. Everything had a persona behind it. There were river gods, rain gods, mountain gods, fertility goddesses, plant gods-- everything had a god behind it. These gods served to explain the natural world, which otherwise seemed completely nonsensical. 


In time, however, humans developed better ways of explaining things. For the Greeks, this was philosophia-- the love of wisdom. During the European Renaissance, "natural philosophy" was the study of the natural world. And this natural philosophy became what we now call science. I don't think I have to reiterate the story of how Christianity fought against science, how people like Galileo were persecuted for being so brazen as to undercut the church's monopoly on "truth." There's a reason that religion was so threatened by rational inquiry. If there were other ways of finding out knowledge, then religion was entirely unnecessary. 


Religion stifles knowledge and inquiry. It worships the gaps in our knowledge by filling them with gods. It tries to get us to be satisfied with answers that aren't answers, to persuade us that we don't need to know, don't need to ask why and how and when, tries to convince us that the ultimate virtue is ignorance. But they don't call it ignorance. They call it faith. 


And religion has been very successful in pulling this off. It has succeeded in convincing people that without ignorance, life is meaningless. Without faith, without mystery, without God, what meaning is there to existence? Without the promise of eternal reward and the threat of eternal damnation, why should one treat one's fellow human beings well? This is the great lie of religion. Ignorance and mystery add nothing to life except fear and misery. 


I'm a musician. For a time, I thought that studying music theory would remove the sublimity of music. Oh, how mistaken I was! I'll admit, my knowledge of music theory is limited, but what I do know has not diminished my admiration for music one bit. On the contrary, my understanding of scales and intervals and overtones has enhanced my love of music. 


Human beings love the experience called wonder. But there are two kinds of wonder. One comes from ignorance, and the other from understanding. Having experienced both, I can say that the wonder of understanding is much deeper, much more beautiful, and infinitely preferable to the wonder of ignorance. God is not necessary to explain the universe. We don't need religion to be good. These artificial, two-dimensional explanations only cheapen our experience of the beautiful universe that we are a part of. 

Ennui

The fundamental problem of the human experience is that of satisfaction. It is in our nature to want things. But when our desires are satisfied, we always find ourselves desiring something else. It does not matter what the desire is; it could be a material object, or something more abstract like education or financial stability or a fulfilling relationship or political power. But each desire always seems to give way to a new one, and then we cannot be happy again until we have achieved our next desire.

It could be said that the ultimate human desire is to be freed from this seemingly inescapable cycle of desire, boredom, and desire. Religion, philosophy, and even consumerism are all attempts to find true happiness—to find release. But in every solution, the release is only temporary.

Perhaps what we call “spiritual experiences” are really only suspension of our desires and ennui. When we find ourselves in an altered state of mind, where we have no desires to be fulfilled or unfulfilled, no despair at the seeming futility of existence—this is our nirvana.

It is the lot of sentient beings to be aware of our own existence, and for the atheist, the inherent meaninglessness of existence. We’re born, we live, we die, and that’s all there is to it. This awareness causes us to reach for something more, because our unhappiness with the futility of existence is unsettling. It drives some to madness or suicide. So we lie to ourselves, tell ourselves that there is more to this life than there appears to be. That there is some part of us that does not depend upon the beating of our hearts and the breathing of our lungs. But this lie, although a comforting one, is still a lie. Our earnest desire for Something More does not mean that it exists.

Is it possible to find this release, fulfillment, nirvana, or whatever you’d like to call it—without relying on comforting lies and fairytales? I think so. I think that there’s something to meditation. I find release in music, in quiet evenings spent in reading and introspection, in conversation and laughter with friends. At these times, I find that although I am not pursuing any desire, I am happy. And, in the end, what more can I ask of life?

What do I believe in?

"Atheists don't believe in anything."

"Atheists believe that life has no meaning."

"Atheists have no values."

I'm an atheist. The word atheist literally means "one who does not believe in God." And that is quite accurate; I do not believe in God. But I also find the word to be unsatisfactory. I may not believe in God, but there are many things that I do believe in, and those things have a much more profound impact on my life than the mere fact that I don't believe in God, souls, or afterlife.

What do I believe?

I believe in truth. I'm not entirely certain that humans can ever reach certain truth, because our limited faculties of knowledge and perception can be, and often are, mistaken and deceived. Science is always changing, because what we know is always changing. But really, this is the strength of science-- that it changes in accordance with the known facts. You can't say that about religion. Religion claims to know truths about the universe a priori, and it refuses to alter itself.

Have you ever respected someone less because they admitted that they were wrong?

The search for truth is not for the weak of mind or the faint of heart. If you really want to find the truth, then no belief must be too sacred to challenge. If you don't challenge your beliefs, how can you know that they are true?

I believe in integrity. Atheists are often accused of arrogance. In my case, becoming an atheist was easily the most humbling thing that I have experienced. I had to come to terms with the non-existence of god, the soul, or an afterlife. I had to let go of my self-centered beliefs in my eternal nature and eventual apotheosis. And I had to admit that I was wrong. It was the hardest thing that I ever did. Why would anyone want to believe that when the people you love die, they're gone for good and you'll never see them again? Why would anyone want to believe that humanity is nothing special, that the universe does not revolve around the earth? An honest person does not believe something out of choice. An honest person follows where the facts, evidence, and logic lead. Even if it leads into the seeming abyss of atheism, my integrity demands that I follow.

I believe in individual initiative. Perhaps the most apparently depressing aspect of atheism is the fact that it implies a lack of inherent meaning to human existence. There is no God in heaven observing your actions, totting up the good and the bad like some kind of divine cosmic banker. There is no afterlife where you will be judged for your actions. And there is no prescribed meaning to your life.

This was shattering to me. I was like a child presented with a sheet of blank paper after becoming accustomed to coloring books. There was no plan for me to follow; there were no lines for me to color in. I had to make my life my own instead of painting by the numbers of religion. My life is now mine, and I create its meaning myself.

I believe in beauty. My appreciation of beautiful things has greatly increased since I gave up religion. In the ubiquitous words of Douglas Adams, "isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it?"

As a theist, I believed that the world existed only to be exploited. God had created all things for the use of humanity. Animals were not full beings. The earth's resources existed only for my use. Now, I see myself as no different from the rest of the world. I have no more "soul" than an animal does. A cat's, dog's, or dolphin's pain is no less distressing than my own. I believe that I have a responsibility to treat other living things well, because they are really not all that different from me.

I believe in love. The problem of evil in the world is vexing. Why do innocent people suffer? Because the world itself is amoral. There is no god, benevolent or otherwise. No god is going to help a starving child or a captive woman. If these people are to be relieved of their suffering, then I and people like me must do it. And I believe that I should do this, not out of any desire for eternal reward, but because I am genuinely distressed by the suffering of others. Do I need any more motive than that?

My lack of belief in gods does not mean that I don't believe in anything. On the contrary, I find that I am a better person because of my atheism. I judge not-- not because I fear the judgment of God, but because I have no reason to judge. If I can help even one person, then I am glad-- not because I desire a great reward in heaven, but because I genuinely care for the rest of humanity.

I am an atheist, but that does not define me. I am not defined by what I am not, but by what I am.

Belief

In the culture that I grew up in, belief was treated as a virtue. It was important to believe in God and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. It was bad to ask too many questions, or to be too skeptical. Even today, I feel slightly guilty for expecting religious claims to be backed up by logic and evidence. I don't think that this is necessarily a Mormon thing. I've noticed it in American culture in general (I can't speak for other countries), especially this time of year. Christmas movies are full of statements about belief.

"Seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing."

"Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see."

"If you can't believe, if you can't accept anything on faith, then you're doomed to a life dominated by doubt."

All these movies, of course, are about Santa Claus. I haven't believed in Santa Claus in years. But I believed in God and Jesus and Joseph Smith until about a year ago. Why is it that grownups don't believe in Santa Claus anymore, but so many still believe in God-- when there's about the same amount of evidence for God as there is for Santa Claus? At least I got presents from Santa under my tree. God doesn't even have that to his credit.

I'd like to talk about this whole "seeing is/isn't believing" bit. I don't necessarily think that seeing is believing. I believe in lots of things without having seen them-- the existence of New York, for example. But beliefs have to be based in reality. They have to be based on evidence, and they have to stand up to evidence against it. I've never seen any evidence to refute the existence of New York, but there is lots of evidence that refutes the veracity of Mormonism and the existence of God.

Why is it that our culture places such great value on believing? An honest person doesn't believe something because he or she wants to believe that. They believe what they believe because they find the evidence, arguments, etc. for that belief to be convincing. Anyone who would try to make himself or herself believe something, in spite of evidence against it, just because they wanted to believe it, is being foolish and dishonest.

Okay. Now I've completely poo-pooed Christmas. I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge. Bleh.

My Position on Religion

I'd like to write a bit about my current position religion and its role in society. I've mentioned several times that I consider Mormonism to be harmful, and that I do not subscribe to any religion, nor do I believe in any kind of god or gods.

On reflection, it is a bit ironic that I'm an atheist, since that is a total 180-degree turnabout from where I was a little over a year ago. In my pre-enlightenment era, atheists were the bane of the world, intent on removing anything and everything that remotely referenced God, the supreme creator of the universe. I was also convinced that atheists were a large, powerful, and militant group that exercised great power over the embattled faithful.

I view religion quite differently now; in my previous post I gave an extremely condensed version of my transition to atheism. To be completely honest, I view religion as kind of silly. None of it makes any sense to me whatsoever.

So-- do I wish to remove religion from the world entirely? No, not exactly. I'd like to see religion get out of American government. I would like to see "In God We Trust" removed from the currency and "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. I see these actions as essential for proper separation of church and state. And just like I would like to see all traces of religion removed from government, I would never condone any atheistic expression in government. Religious belief (or lack thereof) is an important consideration, but neither theism nor atheism should play a role in governmental affairs.

However, I would never, ever, ever support anything that would regulate private religious belief or expression in any way, provided that all religious expression does not infringe upon the rights of any person-- e.g., if you want to believe that there are Quakers on the moon, knock yourself out. I do not care. However, if you believe that these Quakers on the moon require that you sacrifice a virgin to them on the 31st of March, then that religious expression ought to be illegal.

Do I believe that religion is a force for good or for evil? I don't think that the question is as black-and-white as that. I absolutely believe that brainwashing is a force for evil, and I am convinced that many religions, Mormonism included, do use brainwashing. To the extent that a religion brainwashes its members, I consider it to be evil. Allow me to clarify: "brainwashing" is a loaded word, and I'd hate to come across as vitriolic. I don't just throw that word around at any group or ideology that I happen to disagree with; I use it in a literal sense. When I say that a group brainwashes its members, I mean that said group uses harmful persuasive techniques, such as coercion, guilt, distrust of one's own rationality, etc., to convince its members to adhere to its tenets. A brainwashing organization will tend to treat obedience as a virtue, vilify apostates and skeptics, and employ methods of making its members feel different, special, or "peculiar". Mormonism, for example, manipulates its members into using false methods of seeking truth (see my post "Oh Say, What is Truth?"), among many other things.

Many religious groups, including many Christian groups, do use brainwashing techniques-- some more than others. My personal test for identifying a cult is to ask oneself if one is afraid to question the group, and to follow those questions to their ultimate conclusions even if they mean leaving the group. (Great-- now I'm going to have to add "cults" to the list of things I intend to blog about.)

A second aspect of religion that I consider to be harmful is its promotion or justification of violence on the basis of ideology. Crusades, the Biblical account of the Israelites conquering Canaan, and jihad are all examples of religious violence that is not only justified, but commanded by religious ideology. I cannot condone this, and I consider any religion that allows, promotes, or justifies violence to be evil.

This analysis of religion is based entirely on my personal rubric for morality: does it cause harm? If a religion advocates, justifies, or allows any kind of harm to anyone, then I consider that religion to be harmful and a negative force in society. Inasmuch as religion supports tolerance and kindness, I consider it to be a positive force. I do not believe that religion is necessary in order for positive virtues such as tolerance and kindness to exist, but I will say that anything that supports those virtues is a good thing, including religion.

To sum up: I view religion in and of itself as neutral. It doesn't bother me if my neighbor believes in a moon god or reincarnation or Santa Claus. Beliefs, by themselves, are generally harmless. However, insofar as religion creates negative effects, I will decry it as harmful.

Becoming Atheist

After I rejected Mormonism, I wasn't sure what I believed anymore. It wasn't like I had a Plan B for my religious beliefs. For the first few weeks I avoided the subject. I had strong suspicions that no true church existed, but I knew that I'd just gone through a long and complex process of giving up my childhood faith. I didn't want to be reckless and reject all religion out of hand. However, after spending so much time in a religion that claimed to be the One True Church, I had difficulty with the idea that there was a single true church. The whole idea of faith was suspect to me.

I remember one day in particular. It was a Sunday afternoon in early November, about a week after the final remnants of my testimony shattered. My roommates were all taking their Sunday afternoon naps and everything was quiet. I wrapped myself in a blanket and stood on the balcony outside my apartment like I had the night I lost my testimony, only this time the sun was out and it was almost warm. I looked at the grass, the trees, the sky, and I asked myself if all of it could be just chance. If it was possible that there was no God at all. I didn't like that idea. It was nearly incomprehensible to me. I wanted there to be a God. If there wasn't one, what was the meaning of life? What was the point of doing anything, of existing at all? In spite of my these thoughts and feelings, however, I strongly suspected that there was no God. I'd already rejected the Mormon concept of "The Holy Ghost" as a manipulative hijacking of my own feelings. Besides the Holy Ghost, I had absolutely no experience with God. I had absolutely no basis for believing in him.

I stood out there just thinking for a long time. I think I knew, even then, that I had no real reason to believe in God, but I didn't want to admit that to myself. My internal conversation went nowhere. I didn't come to any kind of conscious conclusion that day.

I wasn't comfortable declaring myself an atheist, even to myself. I didn't actually talk to anyone else about my redefinition process. It something I did purely for my own benefit. I told myself that I was agnostic, and that was true, more or less. I wasn't comfortable with taking a position one way or the other yet. For a few weeks I let the issue rest.

Several months later, I started talking with a friend of mine who had left the Mormon church for Christianity. We had several long conversations about Christianity and I explained many of my reservations about it. My friend did clear up some of these for me and gave me some resources to research Christianity some more. I realized that after my testimony shattered, I hadn't really given Christianity a fair shake. I didn't know much about traditional Christianity except what the Mormon church had taught me about it, and that could hardly be fair. So I researched.

For about a month I was very close to becoming a Christian-- albeit a much more liberal Christian than most. I prayed nearly every night. I read the Bible and Christian apologetic literature. But I never felt totally comfortable with Christianity. Sure, it seemed to have a lot more internal consistency than Mormonism, but that still didn't make it true. It still made absurd, unprovable claims. And the more I read and researched, the less I was satisfied with it intellectually.

Emotionally, I liked Christianity very much. I was very depressed at this time, and I was really desperate for something to hold onto. I'd lost Mormonism; what was left? I prayed to God and asked for comfort, but I knew I wasn't being completely honest with myself. I was taking a totally emotional approach. My conscience wouldn't let me accept Christianity without adequate evidence. When I prayed, I would say something like this: "Dear God, you know I'm looking for the truth. You know I'm doing the best I can with what you gave me. If you're really there, if you really exist, then show me somehow. Help me find the evidence of your existence. If you're real and if you are what they say you are, you'll understand that my integrity won't let me accept an unsubstantiated proposition. So if you're really there, I ask that you not play mind games with me. Just show me that you actually exist."

My answer?

Nothing.

It was the same as with Mormonism. I found lots of apologetic stuff that looked pretty convincing on the surface but fell apart on close scrutiny. I found a lot of stuff that I considered complete hogwash-- the doctrine that all non-Christians go to hell, for instance. I found the whole concept of heaven and hell to be utterly ridiculous. What kind of a psychopathic god would create a giant lake of brimstone for everyone who didn't join a particular sect? What kind of god would hide his own existence from the world, demand that everyone accept his existence on "faith", and then throw everyone who didn't believe into said lake of fire and brimstone? I found this and many other Christian doctrines to be untenable.

So I got no emotional or spiritual confirmation of any kind, and the more I looked at the evidence, the less likely Christianity looked. I can't pinpoint a specific moment when I finally concluded that it was false like I can with the loss of my Mormon testimony. It was a more gradual process, and the emotional stakes were much lower. I wasn't holding myself hostage, so to speak, torturing myself for not getting the "right" answer.

After that, I toyed briefly with a few other ideologies, primarily paganism and Buddhism. I wasn't so much looking for the "one true religion" anymore as I was trying to create my own religion. I still felt like I needed some kind of organized religious creed and practice, some set of rituals and beliefs. So I went through a brief "Build Your Own Religion" phase. It didn't last long, however. I was coming out of my depression, and realizing that I didn't need religion to be happy; that I was happier without it, in fact.

At this point I was back to agnosticism again, mostly because I still didn't want to admit to myself that I was an atheist. But I dropped the issue. I was at peace with not having all the answers. In short, I moved on. However, I eventually realized that there probably isn't a god, and that until and unless I see some good evidence for one, I'm not obligated to give equal weight to the proposition that there is one. I had chosen agnosticism because it seemed to me to be the most intellectually honest position. However, I now think that the existence of a god of any kind is highly unlikely, and I don't have to reserve judgment on the subject any more than I have to reserve judgment on the existence of unicorns.

Oh Say, What Is Truth?

"I'd like to bear my testimony that I know this church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that my Heavenly Father loves me, and I am thankful that we have a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson, to guide us through these latter days. I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, and I know that God hears and answers my prayers. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Fast and Testimony meetings are among the more interesting of Mormon practices. On the first Sunday of every month, Mormons fast for the first two meals of the day, and donate the money that they would have spent on food to the church to be used to help the poor. In church on this day, instead of the usual sacrament meeting with prepared talks by pre-assigned speakers, the pulpit is opened up to all the members-- to anyone who wishes to speak. At these meetings, Mormons do what is called "bearing one's testimony."

What is a testimony? I've used the word on this blog a few times already. Mormons talk a lot about testimonies, but looking back, it's difficult for me to put my finger on exactly what the word means. As best I can tell, a testimony is a sense of the truth of the LDS church-- a feeling, really, a "burning in the bosom" that tells you that this is the truth. To bear that testimony is to share it.

Here's the thing. It's often said in the church that one's testimony is found in the bearing of it. As I look back, that disturbs me. In testimony meetings, the vast majority of testimonies given are variations on the same theme, which I used as the opening of this post. Everyone says more or less the same thing, often with personal anecdotes or a focus on a specific principle, such as faith or prayer. The phrase, "a testimony is found in the bearing of it", sounds a lot to me like, "if you tell a lie often enough you start to believe it yourself." The church openly encourages people to get up in front of the congregation and say things that they don't necessarily believe, because if you say it, you will start to believe it.

How does one know if the LDS church is true? If you ask a member, they will tell you to pray about it. They say that God will tell you, by way of the Holy Ghost, that it's true. What does the Holy Ghost feel like? It's said to feel different to everyone. Some people get goose bumps, some feel a burning in the bosom, and others just feel a sense of peace. According to members, you know the church is true if the spirit tells you in your heart.

I always had difficulty with this concept as a member. How do you tell what's supposed to be the Holy Ghost, or the Spirit, from your own feelings? Feelings are great things that serve several functions, but identifying truth isn't one of those functions. I might feel all warm and fuzzy about the car I'm buying, but that doesn't mean that it's a good car. Only a naive fool would buy a car without taking it for a test drive, checking the engine, and generally making sure that they were getting a fair deal on it. Would you buy a car that sounded funny when you drove it, just because you had a good feeling about that car? Of course not! Your feelings can tell you whether or not you like the car, but whether or not the car runs well is independent of your feelings.

The gap between feelings and evidence is a difficult problem in Mormonism. Sometimes what the evidence tells you is different from what the church tells you. How does one reconcile these things? The answer, in Mormonism, is faith.

Faith-- that's enough of a topic to merit a blog post of its very own, but I'll try to address it here. When I have shared my concerns about the LDS church with friends, family, and ecclesiastical leaders, the people I talk to do not have any logical answers for me. They often try, but ultimately we come to a dead end. They-- and I-- cannot reconcile the facts. When we reach this point, we invariably return to the concept of faith. I've spent hours trying to get some of these people to tell me what, exactly, "faith" means. From these conversations, the best definition I've been able to come up with is the ability to set aside your rational concerns and objections and just believe in something regardless.

I don't see any merit in this. To quote Sigmund Freud, "Am I to believe every absurdity? If not, why this one in particular?" There are hundreds of thousands of unfounded propositions that one could make. I could propose that the sky is purple, but all the faith in the world won't turn the sky purple. Mormonism has unfounded claims. Why should I believe them without evidence, while rejecting the unfounded claims of Catholicism or Buddhism or Islam? At this point we come to the Holy Ghost. But the way the Holy Ghost manifests itself is supposed to be through feelings. In my own personal experience, the feelings that I or others have attributed the Holy Ghost have been indistinguishable from my own feelings. I have felt the "Spirit" in church; this is true. But I have felt those exact same feelings in movie theaters, libraries, and practice rooms. The feelings that I have experienced while reading the Book of Mormon have been indistinguishable from the feelings I felt while reading the Lord of the Rings, watching Ever After, or playing Beethoven's Pathetique, Opus 13. Does the fact that I felt those things mean that a hobbit named Frodo really traveled across Middle Earth to throw a ring into a volcano? No, of course not! So why should the fact that I felt those things mean that a guy named Nephi and his posterity really did the things that the Book of Mormon says that they did, in spite of evidence to the contrary? I could go into the anachronisms and other problems in the Book of Mormon, and I probably will in a future blog post, but that isn't my point here. My point is that my feelings about the Book of Mormon-- or anything else in the church-- don't make anything true. Certainly those feelings have value, but they are not indicators of truth. Furthermore, members of other faiths feel just as strongly about their beliefs as Mormons do about their own. Who is to say who is right? The only person who can comprehend a person's feelings is the person who felt them. What right do I have to say that another person's experience regarding their faith is invalid? The only conclusion that I can accept in good conscience is that feelings, while valuable and valid, are not indicators of truth.

Given this, I see the LDS church's approach to epistemology as dishonest and harmful. Encouraging people to say things until they believe them and insisting that feelings are a firm basis for decision-making is not honest. I have never, in all my time as a Mormon, been encouraged to look at actual evidence for and against the church. Historical documents, the archaeological record, and logical processes are not seen as valid methods for finding out if the church is true. The way you're supposed to find out is by praying and getting a "spiritual confirmation" in the form of a feeling.

There is another problem in the Mormon church's approach to finding truth-- one is expected to start with the answer predetermined. To consider the possibility that the church might be wrong is considered a bad thing, a road to apostasy, a thoughtcrime. Honest intellectualism doesn't work this way. A true seeker of truth will welcome doubts and questions. If something is true, then it can withstand whatever questions or evidence I can throw at it. One should never be afraid to ask hard questions. If you feel uncomfortable asking difficult questions of your belief system, then something is terribly wrong. You should never, ever be afraid to think.

Out of all the different problems with the LDS church-- the history, the doctrine, the culture-- its attitude toward truth and the search for truth is the one that disturbs me the most. When I was getting ready to go to college, I mentioned to an adult friend that I was considering studying philosophy. This friend warned me against doing that, as she had known a girl who had studied philosophy at BYU and then apostatized. This bothered me. Philosophy, when you break it down to its Latin roots, literally means the love of truth. I love truth; why should I be afraid of it? There are times when I wish that the LDS church was true and that I could believe it-- but wanting doesn't make it so. As a humble seeker of truth, I am morally obligated to follow wherever the facts, the evidence, and logic may lead me. I may be wrong sometimes. People who look for truth often revise their views. Einstein's Theory of Relativity supplanted much of Newton's work. Does that make Newton's work invalid? Most of what Newton discovered was "true", in a limited sense. But it was incomplete. Similarly, I may be wrong about some things; in fact, I most certainly am wrong about many things. But I am aware of that possibility. I do not get up the first Sunday of every month-- or any other time-- and proclaim that I "know" that mass is attracted to mass. I have no need to keep reminding myself to believe in that. If I stopped believing it without evidence, that wouldn't make me bad (although it would make me gullible and intellectually irresponsible). On the other hand, Mormons-- and members of many other religions-- have to constantly remind themselves to believe, lest they "lose their testimony." The way I see it, truth stands on its own. I don't have to keep reminding myself and bearing my testimony of gravity. That would be silly.

Religious people sometimes speak as if accepting something without evidence is a virtue. I see that as a heinous crime against sanity. Evidence is vital when one is attempting to form a worldview that is anywhere near reality. Without evidence, one would be subject to believing any irrational proposition that might come one's way, regardless of its truth or falsity.

I am reminded of a video clip that I saw in one of my college history classes about Galileo. Galileo Galilei's work supplanted much of what Aristotle had said. One of those things that he supplanted was the idea that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. In the video that I saw, Galileo was sitting at dinner with some church and political figures, discussing his theories with them. He told them what he had discovered-- that objects fall at the same rate, regardless of weight. His dinner companions asserted that this was not possible, as Aristotle

had told us that Galileo's assertion could not be true. Galileo proposed that they test the idea, but his dinner companions objected, saying that that was not necessary. Aristotle had already told us what was so, and there was no need to test the matter any further. But Galileo proposed that they test it, just for fun. He picked up a grape and an orange from the table, and he dropped them. Each hit the table at the same time. His dinner companions were astonished, but still refused to accept what was right in front of their eyes.

The Mormon approach to spiritual truth is a lot like that, in my view. Once you've had that spiritual witness, once you've felt good about the church, you don't need to test it anymore. Once the prophet has spoken on something, there's no need to debate the issue further. A real seeker of truth, once they think they have found the truth, will always keep the caveat, "but I could be wrong." A real truth seeker will welcome the opportunity to be proved wrong, because if you are wrong, wouldn't you want to know about it?

So this is why I'm a Mormon heretic. Everything I've written on this blog is subject to review. All the evidence I've seen against Mormonism is subject to reevaluation in the face of new information; I'll gladly reconsider in the face of new evidence. But I cannot in good conscience accept a certain set of feelings about a given proposition as evidence that said proposition is true.