What's the most evil/controversial thing the Prophet has asked you to do?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by woot

It's always fun when a faith-head, as a last resort, will try to accuse his interlocutor of exactly the sin of which he himself is most guilty. In my experience it happens nearly every time. Strange.

"faith-head"? You've got to be kidding me. That's hilarious.

[woot]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

"faith-head"? You've got to be kidding me. That's hilarious.

Yea, I'm not a huge fan of the term, but it seemed appropriate. It is evocative of someone who is unable to reason due to faith clouding their brain. I think it can be properly applied to anyone who, rather than seeking out evidence and then drawing appropriate conclusions, espouses a position based on faith and then seeks to create ad hoc justifications for it.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by woot

Yea, I'm not a huge fan of the term, but it seemed appropriate. It is evocative of someone who is unable to reason due to faith clouding their brain. I think it can be properly applied to anyone who, rather than seeking out evidence and then drawing appropriate conclusions, espouses a position based on faith and then seeks to create ad hoc justifications for it.

How little you know me.

Are you even familiar with Fowler formerly of Emory University?

[woot]

Originally Posted by Archaea

How little you know me.

Are you even familiar with Fowler formerly of Emory University?

No, other than looking it up and skimming an article about his steps of faith development.

[woot]

Ok I went back and read it. While I like many of the ideas he presents, there is way too much detail there to be universally applicable, and he certainly doesn't account for the many divergent paths that people take. I suppose I went through step 1 and definitely step 2. I was in an altered version of stage 3 for perhaps a very short time, at which point I went off the map. 4 and 5 are well thought-out and probably describe some of the religious scientists I know to some extent or another. I'm not sure what to make of 6, as it seems so very specific that it seems likely to only describe about one person.

That's a great example of "soft science" though. My work in paleoecological reconstruction, stable isotope analysis, and dental micro-wear seem even harder after having read that.

So where do you fall on that scale, if at all? It's interesting that where I would put many devout mormons, and indeed where I would place myself for most of my religious life, is in stage 2, as that seems to contain the most literal interpretations, justice and precise reciprocity, an anthropomorphic deity, guilt, etc., yet it is described as being mostly found in childhood.

[ERCougar]

Originally Posted by woot

Humans seem to have a desire to understand the world around them, and again, this desire as it pertains to natural things would have been evolutionarily beneficial and likely to be passed on. It makes sense that societies would create myths to explain things they couldn't otherwise understand.

So that may explain the prevalence of a belief in God. How do you explain all of the complicated moral obligations that seem to always accompany these beliefs?

[woot]

Originally Posted by ERCougar

So that may explain the prevalence of a belief in God. How do you explain all of the complicated moral obligations that seem to always accompany these beliefs?

I have some thoughts on that, but John Wilkins is working on a summary that promises to be pretty good. There's some good discussion about these issues in the comments of the two relevant entries. He's trying to find published sources for everything, so I'm not sure how far he'll get. The explanations I provided above are those that make sense based on what I know, but I'm not sure how falsifiable any of them are and therefore how likely they would be to appear in journals. This stuff seems pretty tangential and potentially offensive, and a lot of it resides squarely in speculative, popular books as far as I know. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with.

His preliminary list of explanations includes social cohesion factors that I also find fairly compelling.

[ERCougar]

Originally Posted by woot

I have some thoughts on that, but John Wilkins is working on a summary that promises to be pretty good. There's some good discussion about these issues in the comments of the two relevant entries. He's trying to find published sources for everything, so I'm not sure how far he'll get. The explanations I provided above are those that make sense based on what I know, but I'm not sure how falsifiable any of them are and therefore how likely they would be to appear in journals. This stuff seems pretty tangential and potentially offensive, and a lot of it resides squarely in speculative, popular books as far as I know. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with.

His preliminary list of explanations includes social cohesion factors that I also find fairly compelling.

Forgive me, but the intellectual bulls*** bantering back and forth above got a little boring. Could you summarize the specifics here, as in, what evolutionary advantage is there to a complicated, or even simple, moral code? I'm not arguing with you here. I've heard this argument before and haven't the atheist's response to it. I'm just curious.

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

The point is I get sick of people on this board engaging in this "Indy would pull his pants down around his ankles and fart in President Bush's face if the prophet told him to do so" hypothetical nonsense.

The point is that we are asked to do things that are neither evil nor controversial by our prophet.

In light of that, I think the leadership of our church, even beyond matters of simple faith, have established enough of a track record that obeying their counsel should neither be called blind, robotic or ignorant, nor predisposed to future debauchery and homicide. Rather, our obedience to the Prophet is a combination of faith and rationale, given their established track record of giving good counsel in the past.

To make the laughable "logical" voyage from obeying counsel on such things as "being nice to the birdies", "voice your opinion to your elected officials", "everyone pays 10% tithing", "obey the laws of the land", "turn your hearts to Christ, not to armies and weapons" to becoming religious hitmen requires a vehicle fueled by one part paranoia and four parts cowdung.

I am trying to understand your problem. Is your problem with those who would chide someone for following the bretherns counsel? If that is the case, I would agree with you.

Would you agree with me, someone should not be chided for not following the counsel. I think in most cases the blind obedience comes up in response to someone who chides another for not following the counsel.

Counsel in context of my post means the counsel given does not equate to a commandment. For instance counsel for every young man to serve a mission is not the same as counseling young men not to have premarital sex.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by ERCougar

Forgive me, but the intellectual bulls*** bantering back and forth above got a little boring. Could you summarize the specifics here, as in, what evolutionary advantage is there to a complicated, or even simple, moral code? I'm not arguing with you here. I've heard this argument before and haven't the atheist's response to it. I'm just curious.

I'm not an atheist but I think there are manifold social "goods" that come out of almost all religions. Some of these are the very things we tout when when we share the gospel. But off the top of my head, community, charitable service toward the poor, orphaned, widowed. In many cases there are dietary advantages. There are certainly others I'm overlooking.

There are plenty of atheist explanations. Marx's idea that it an "opium of the people."

Marvin Harris has some interesting thoughts about this, particularly when he talks about cargo cults. In short, at the end of WWII in the south pacific there were a lot of materials being airdropped in, often to stranded soldiers or pilots. Some of the local people began to believe that the Americans were Gods or at least prophets because they could make food and other goodies fall from the sky. When the Americans left, the locals still attempted to make the "cargo" fall from the sky by building runways, carving telephones out of wood, and builing mock ups of planes from wood and straw. Of course, more cargo never actually came but this was seen by the cultists not as evidence that there was not more cargo coming, but as evidence that they were simply not righteous enough. Thus their belief system self encapsulated. Some cargo cults still exist there.

Think of the things that religion has motivated. The building of the pyramids and many of the other wondrous ancient edifices. Cathedrals, our temples and the tabernacle. The crusades, the Muslim conquest of much of Europe, the reconquista. Religious thinking is a magnificent collective motivator essentially without peer. It is not hard for me to imagine that those early tribes and societies that could focus their collective efforts through these thoughts and processes were more likely to survive.

I think there are plenty of mundane explanations for the prevalence of religion if you take a completely atheistic view (which I don't). I'm sure others will have better examples than those I have given.