We are Being Converted to a Secular Religion

In Christianity, there is a word that you'll often hear: "gospel." The gospel literally means "good news" but it is sometimes used to denote the entire world-view of Christianity. At its core, the gospel is about Jesus and His redemption and resurrection. But to most Christians it means more than that: the Ten Commandments, Christmas, heaven, church weddings, bible study, socials, and maybe even America and country music.

In our modern society, there are some words that are passed around that also seem to entail a lot of ideology and meaning. These words trigger a whole range of ideas and they signal to another person that you are part of their "religion." One of these words is "equality."

What do you think of when you hear "equality?" Do you think "1 + 1 is equal to 2?" Do you think "Pepsi is just as good as Coke?" Probably not.

Rather, you probably have political or social ideas come to mind. Like, how people should behave towards others, how government and society should be organized and maybe about how some groups have more privilege than others.

There's another one of these special words: "privilege." Privilege means that certain groups have been historically favored and others historically marginalized and we have a duty to reverse that favoritism until we achieve equality. Do you see how these ideas work together, complimenting each other? It is the basis of a comprehensive world-view.

On it's face, it's not contrary to Christianity, but it starts to deviate from Christianity in subtle ways. Christians don't usually talk about equality and privilege, but of charity and humility. Of faith and patience. Of gratitude and hope. It begins to become clear what the differences are when you examine the ideas behind these special words used by people in these two different world-views.

Christianity is about redemption of an individual and transforming that individual from a selfish person to a generous person. A dishonest person to an honest person. A violent person to a peaceful person.

On the other hand, the secular religion is about destroying evil power structures and replacing them with a structure that is fair and inclusive. "Fairness" and "inclusivity" are more examples of the special words in the secular religion. The secular religion seeks to transform society and power structures to make them more fair and inclusive, while Christianity focuses on transforming individuals into better people.

It is important for Christians to know that they are being preached to. There are points of conflict where the secular religion will claim that Christianity has been an evil, exclusive power structure, and therefore needs to be replaced. And there is some truth to what they say, when looking at the history of Christianity. But there is rarely an attempt to rationally look at the teachings and philosophies of the two world-views to see what they really mean and where they lead.

Usually, it isn't obvious that people are exchanging one world-view for another, but I've seen it happen over and over again. People start to adopt the "special words" of the secular religion and start to become more and more critical of Christianity. I can't tell if they are critically examining the secular religion or even if they know it exists. I suspect that they are unconsciously adopting new philosophies in an uncritical manner. If they would be as critical of the secular religion as they are of Christianity, they may find that Christianity is the stronger of the two.

But as long as they remain uncritical of their new world-view, they will never doubt that Christianity is false. 

Internet Drama Steals Our Love

A few nights ago, my four-year-old, Gloria, sweetly asked me to play a game with her. She had gotten a hold of a balloon and was hitting it into the air. She wanted me to help her. I didn’t really feel like it, but a wise voice inside told me to spend time with her.

But I couldn’t really concentrate or appreciate the moment with my cute little daughter because my mind was kind of obsessed with some drama on the internet.

You see, I’d chosen to post a snarky meme on Facebook and drama had ensued. Several comments were made and arguments sprang up. It was over an issue I don’t actually care that much about, but I found myself feeling defensive and wanting to “show it to them.” I began to care about “the issue” not because I really cared, but because I had been told I was wrong and I needed to prove that I was right.

Meanwhile I was missing out on something that was actually very important to me: my family. I was emotionally detached when I should have been emotionally engaged.

Maybe other people don’t have this problem. I tend to obsess about some things more than others. But something tells me that I’m not the only one who is distracted by internet drama.

Another way that internet drama steals our love is by making us angry with people we love and respect. It’s so easy to make rude and angry comments over the internet. We don’t have that same interpersonal fear that you get in a face-to-face conversation that makes you hesitate from saying hurtful, dramatic, exaggerated or angry things. But that same instinct is not present when you’re typing.

But you DO feel the pain from comments directed to you. Your ego gets hurt or you feel attacked. So you retaliate and soon you’re bickering with someone you care about concerning an issue you DON’T actually care about. And then you are creating real divisions between yourself and some of your friends or family members who happen to be on the other side of a political divide.

It’s kind of tragic.

The Mormon Church is a Pearl of Great Price.

Last night, I attended a mission reunion for the mission I served in Antananarivo, Madagascar between 2001 and 2003. It was an emotional and fulfilling experience. It was so wonderful to see old friends and people who had such a huge influence on my life.

My mission was hard. For me, it was an emotionally draining experience. But it caused me to have deeper and more meaningful relationships with people and with God than I had ever had. The experiences I had on my mission have had a huge and deep impact on me ever since. Most of the consequences have been blessings. Others have been like lingering scars, occasionally flaring up.  But I wear those scars with pride.

It was sweet, bitter, fulfilling and almost overwhelming to meet, hug and reconnect with some of the people who shared some of those experiences with me. I'm so grateful for it.

A few nights ago, I opened my Book of Mormon and read to my children the 11^th chapter of 3^rd Nephi which is the story of Jesus’ visit to the Nephite people. As I read it, I felt a strong feeling of peace come over me. I’ve had this feeling many times before when I read the Book of Mormon to investigators on my mission and I was grateful that two of my children were listening (the other two got bored). I hope that they were feeling that same peace which I recognize as the Holy Spirit.

I feel a gratitude for the Mormon church for bringing this book to my ancestors.

One of those ancestors was John Linford. John and his family converted to the church in the 1850s in England and joined the Mormon pioneers to Utah in 1856.

John didn’t make it. As a part of the Willie handcart company, he and his family encountered winter and he became sick as the weather turned worse. As he lay dying his wife, Maria, asked him if he regretted leaving England to travel to Utah.

            
            “No, Maria, I am glad we came. I shall not live to reach Salt Lake, but you and the boys will, and I do not regret all we have gone through if our boys can grow up and raise their families in Zion.”[1] 

           
            The vision of "Zion" of the early pioneers is very inspiring. It was a view that motivated them to sacrifice for their posterity. They were leaving their old homes in the hopes of finding a place where they could peacefully build a new society and live their religion without persecution. They weren't fighting to get power or trying to get someone to give them a handout. They were sacrificing for the right to scrape out a living in a desert and they were determined to make it "blossom as a rose" as the bible says. 

         They established a beautiful foundation for my society, which is, on the whole, a peaceful, happy and prosperous one. 

          The church does so much good today. My parents recently completed serving as service missionaries. Their duties were to help women who were transitioning from jail back into society. My sweet mother would sometimes go to the very rough homeless shelter downtown to serve the women there. They would often visit the jails and assist with the transition process which, for some reason, usually happened after midnight. They obtained donations from many individuals: housing, food, clothing, jobs and counseling services. My parents were not paid a dime for their efforts (although they did have expenses reimbursed). The church fosters a culture of service, helping and teaching. There is a massive amount of resources that go from the rich down to the poor and needy in the church and even those out of the church.      

           Is the church perfect? No. But at its core, it's a pearl.

          Its core message is that God is real and that He has a plan for us. Not just us individually (although that's true and important) but that He has a plan for us collectively. In order to bring about that plan, He created the LDS church as His kingdom on earth. It is His instrument in bringing His teachings to the world.
    

            A belief in God changes you. You can't help it. It makes you more willing to sacrifice immediate pleasures for long term joys, including joys for your posterity that you won't personally experience. This belief sustained me in my mission and helped me forge bonds with a lot of people that I would never have met otherwise.

---

[1] https://www.lds.org/ensign/2016/07/true-to-the-faith-of-our-forefathers?lang=eng

Sophistry Part 2: The Shotgun Approach

A few weeks ago I did my first post on sophistry.  Sophistry is defined as plausible but fallacious argumentation, or assertions that sound right, but are actually wrong.

I am trying to help people avoid falling for bad arguments for or against something. Today, I'm talking about the "Shotgun approach."

Let's say you admire a certain historical figure. It could be Rosa Parks, Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln. And then let's say that I despised that historical figure. I could try to ruin your admiration and/or faith in that individual by using the shotgun approach.

The shotgun approach is a method of persuasion where the persuader dumps a quick list of facts (or supposed facts) on the other person in an effort to overwhelm them. The goal is to make it seem impossible for that person to counter the sheer number of criticisms. Even if you were to be able to counter some of these criticisms, there are just SO MANY, you despair of countering all of them.

The goal of the person using the shotgun approach is to stop you from defending that person or having faith or admiration in that person. Or to get you to lose trust in an argument, philosophy or organization promoting that argument or philosophy.

I label this "sophistry" for three reasons. First, it usually takes things out of context and is not a fully accurate or in depth representation of the issue. For example, I could say that Abraham Lincoln was a racist because he once said that he would keep slavery around if it saved the Union.

The second reason I call this approach sophistry is that it is not an attempt at getting an understanding of the issue, nor is it an attempt to engage in a reasonable dialogue among individuals discussing in good-faith. Rather, it's an aggressive, almost bullying approach to persuasion.

The third reason is that the shotgun approach is unbalanced. It never gives you the counter-examples. It never tells you the good things about a person or argument. Only the negatives. 

Here is an example I've made up of the shotgun approach. Let's say you admire Franklin Roosevelt.

Well... did you know...

1. Did you know that he was responsible for the Japanese internment camps in world war 2?
2. Did you know that he attempted to pack the Supreme Court with his own hand-chosen nominees?
3. Did you know that many of his policies made the Great Depression worse?
4. Did you know that he cheated on his wife with many women?

And you thought he was a good president... What were you thinking?

Do you notice how I give brute facts without any context or mitigating circumstances? Notice that I also don't mention any of the obviously good things that he did? His conservation efforts, his bold leadership in World War 2 and his efforts to end racism with the NAACP are not mentioned.

So exercise caution when dealing with literature that employs this method of persuasion. It's sophistry and won't really lead you to a full, scholarly understanding of an issue or judgment of a person. 

Bonus: In fact #2 I engaged in what is known as "well-poisoning." I'm trying to get you to disdain Roosevelt by using the term "hand-chosen nominees." Well, all Supreme Court justices are "hand-chosen." From Washington to Trump, there have never been justices who weren't "hand-chosen." It's what presidents do, it's not nefarious. But I'm trying to poison your mind against Roosevelt with a completely innocent fact presented in a sinister sounding way.

Sophistry

As a lawyer, it is my job to persuade. There are a lot of methods of doing that. Some of them are legitimate and some are not.

Not many lawyers engage in blatant dishonesty. But there are a lot of ways that an argument can be made without any technical lies, yet the truth is presented in such a way as to give the wrong impression. Things are left out, wrong impressions made, etc. I strive to not be that kind of lawyer.

It backfires, in any case. A sneaky argument might win one battle, but after a while the judge and jury start to realize that they are making decisions based on LESS knowledge, not more. Contradictions start to creep in and a facade of untruth starts to crumble. Bob Bennett points out that a forgery looks worse and worse as time goes on.

This kind of thing is so common on the internet. There are techniques that people employ that make an argument or assertion seem really convincing, but it is actually mostly trickery. I think that I will do a few blog posts on tricks I have seen on the internet and in my profession. 

This week I'll show you what I call, List of Sillies.

It is where someone knows that the other side has a good argument, so they try to trick you into being biased against it by burying it in a list of silly arguments that are attributed to that other person.

So, let's say that Sam and I are having a debate. And I know that Sam has a good argument, so I'll say, "here are the arguments that Sam thinks prove his argument" and then I'll list a bunch of really stupid arguments, attribute them to Sam, and then bury Sam's good argument in the middle somewhere.

Here's another example. Let's say that I was arguing that the earth is flat. In order to make you biased against believing in a round earth, I could make a list of arguments supposedly made by "round earthers." Most of these arguments would be silly and are probably not arguments made by "round earthers" at all. But by making them look silly, I start to bias you against them. Then I slip in one or two of the good arguments that "round earthers" make to associate them with stupid arguments. Then, when you hear those good arguments, you'll dismiss them without even thinking about them. Here is my list of "crazy arguments by round-earthers."

1. Moon looks round, so earth gotta be round, right?
2. The sky is round, so the earth gotta be round too!
3. Crazy astronauts, paid off by the government, claim it's round because they went to "space."
4. Stars spin around the north star, so earth has gotta spin, right?
5. Flat earth is just a conspiracy theory!

You'll notice that I put the "round earther's" strongest arguments in the middle and spoke about it with disdain, using scare-quotes. People arguing that the earth is round probably don't usually make the first, second and fifth arguments. Usually they'll jump to the fact that astronauts have been to space and seen that the earth is round.

So, by using sophistry, I am trying to get you to associate that argument with the other, sillier arguments. I bury it among the silly arguments and then treat it with disdain. Hopefully you'll just dismiss anyone trying to make that argument without actually listening to them.

Can you create your own List of Sillies? Please do and post it in the comments. Also, if you find one on the internet, please share. There are a lot of good ones.

What if Superman Hurt You?

Let's do a thought experiment. Pretend Superman exists.

And he's even better than the movie Superman. He doesn't spend half his time being Clark Kent in an office. No. He's actually working 16- to 20-hour days saving lives and stopping crime.

And he doesn't just stay in Metropolis.  He's flying around the world saving lives and making the world a better place. He has to sleep a little bit though. Even though he's Superman, he still gets tired, especially after a long day. So he gets 4-8 hours of sleep per day.

And the world loves him, of course. Tens of thousands of people owe him their lives. He has hundreds of millions of adoring fans.

Then let's say that you are at the beach enjoying a nice, relaxing summer day. You're there with your family, your kids (or grandkids, if you want). Everything is going well, until you notice that your 3-year-old has wandered into the ocean, got carried away by the tide and is drowning. She's too far away to get to and she's going to die.

But then someone shouts, "Superman, help!" They point to the sky and there's Superman flying by, not far from the beach.

Unbeknownst to you, Superman is coming off of a 48 shift because there was an earthquake in Pakistan. He has saved thousands of lives and he's exhausted.

He looks at your 3 year old daughter.

Then he looks at you, rolls his eyes and flies away.

He's close enough that you can actually see him roll his eyes. It would have taken him just 10 seconds to save her. But he leaves.

She drowns.

How do you feel about Superman?

From a philosophical point of view, is Superman a bad person? Keep in mind that he just spent 48 hours saving people's lives. He could have spent all of that time relaxing at any resort or tropical paradise on earth.

Is he a bad person?

To the parents of that little girl, he's the worst person in the world. Why does he save all those people but not your daughter? You'll hate him for the rest of your life, probably.

I bring this up because I think that this situation is analogous to my church and to potentially all other churches. It is analogous to many other good, charitable organizations and even the government. 

Let's look at the Catholic Church. Everyone knows about the child abuse scandals and the attempted cover-ups that led to more children being put in harm's way. The Catholic church has no excuse for how it handled the situation for many years.

Is the Catholic church evil? In the eyes of the people abused, absolutely.

Does the Catholic church do good? Yes. How many priests and nuns are innocent, good people who have given up everything, including family, to serve God and people? Catholic charities serve the poor in hundreds of places around the world. Priests go into prisons and comfort and teach the prisoners. Nuns teach school for little compensation.

So is the Catholic church good or bad? I would say, "yes."  

If you are going to look for the bad in a person or an institution, then you will find it. If you are looking for the good in a person or institution, you will also find it. The important thing to me in judging, is to see what they are trying to do, most of the time.

As for my church, it spends 99% of its time doing good. But the 1% gets the attention from critics. The critics aren't always wrong about the criticism. But they don't explain the bigger picture (earthquake in Pakistan) and they draw the wrong conclusions. It is akin to saying that Superman is a bad person and shouldn't exist because of the eye-rolling at the beach incident.

Please notice that I am not justifying the eye-rolling incident. It was very wrong of Superman. But he was thinking, "I can't save everyone, I'm trying my best and I need sleep in order to do my best to save more people tomorrow."

That seems like a lame excuse to the parents of the drown girl, but it might have made sense to Superman in the moment.

Religion: Beautiful or Ugly?

Let's talk about horror movies.

Have you ever noticed how some of the most terrifying antagonists in horror movies are things that are normally innocent and sweet?

I mean, you expect a horror movie to have a lion chasing you. Or maybe a guy with a chain saw. And there are those.

But then there are those movies with a haunted porcelain doll, or an eleven year old girl, usually in a nightgown. 

Why are these terrifying?

My theory is that we are horrified by things that are supposed to be good (but aren't) because we can never let our guard down. The least terrifying thing should be a sweet young lady or a fancy little doll.  So you know that not only do you need to be on guard against the lion and the murderer, but also the most innocent things; the things you thought you could trust.

So you just barred the door against the werewolf, but wait! There's a toddler behind you! Look out!

I think that religion can be this way. It is supposed to be a good thing. It is supposed to be a source of hope, love and encouragement. A comfort. not a horror.  A source of social and spiritual support and joy.

Sometimes it's discouraging and hateful. Or worse. Sometimes it is a horror, like when you have a priest who molests children. That's a true horror, made doubly worse because a priest is supposed to be good, comforting and safe.

If this kind of thing happens enough, people can start to think that religion is always evil. A person once bitten is twice shy. We should be careful to not become so cynical because religion, and churches, when done right, can be very, very good. Let me give you two personal examples.

A few weeks ago, our church held an activity where we went to a neighbor who is not a member and replaced his roof, which was falling apart. He was shocked when we'd told him we'd do it, but he accepted. We went on his roof, tore off the old shingles and replaced them with new ones (the neighbor paid for the shingles). He asked us several times why we would do this for no compensation. We told him that that's what neighbor's do for each other. And Jesus said, love your neighbor.

This was church and religion done right.

My second example comes from an answer to prayer. I have been praying a lot lately about my career.  And I keep getting answers that have nothing to do with my job. Like last month, I got into work early, shut the door to my office, and got on my knees. I prayed for several minutes, sincerely seeking an answer. The answer I got was a feeling of benevolence and peace. I started thinking about my co-workers and my family and I kept feeling like I wanted to be nice to them. To improve my relationships with them. Or apologize to them for times I had been impatient.

This wasn't the answer I was seeking, but it was a good answer. This has happened more than once.

This second example, is, to me, another way in which religion can be beautiful.

So, in answer to the question in my title: religion can be beautiful and ugly. But I think its true nature is beautiful. When done the way it is supposed to be done, it's amazing.