06.26
I haven’t written a new installment to my “Why I Don’t Believe” series since last year. The series demanded a lot of my time, and I quickly got burnt-out. For a while, I toyed with writing a “Why I Don’t Believe” post about the Book of Mormon. That, though, proved to be a rather daunting undertaking. There is so much that needs to be said about the Book of Mormon that I couldn’t possibly distill my thoughts into a single post. So I’ve decided to devote an entire series to the Book of Mormon.
In the October 2009 LDS General Conference, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said that those who leave the LDS Church must do so “by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit.” Holland argued that apostates have to ignore the Book of Mormon, because they cannot explain it.
Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator.
I disagree with Elder Holland that the only available answer is that Joseph Smith translated an ancient American history by the power of god. That is a textbook example of an argument from ignorance. But I do actually agree with Elder Holland on this point: Some critics are too quick to dismiss the Book of Mormon. And while the burden of proof rests primarily with its believers, I nonetheless think we owe the Book of Mormon more than just an indifferent shrug or rolled eyes. That’s why I’m writing this series—to grapple honestly with the Book of Mormon.
Here’s why I think the Book of Mormon merits our attention: Consider how it was produced. Joseph Smith, a young and uneducated man, somehow dictated a 531-page history of ancient Americans in a relatively short period of time and with his face in a hat! No easy feat, in my opinion. And more than that, he convinced many people that this book was divinely inspired. Even those Book of Mormon witnesses who later fell away from the church never denied their testimonies of the Book of Mormon.
Do these facts justify belief in the Book of Mormon? I don’t think so. But they should at least pique your curiosity and spur further investigation.
Finally, by way of preface: My series will not be comprehensive. All I hope to do is make some cogent criticisms of the popular (and untenable) LDS understanding of the Book of Mormon as “a record of God’s dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas…”
Expect the first installment of this series within the next few days. Thanks for reading.
[...] view things, and why I view them that way. The first post is the first of a series (right, Jon?) on why Jon doesn’t believe in the Book of Mormon. The second was a post from Tim “We All Need a Reason.” These two posts address why [...]
“Exceeding awesome” indeed, I look forward to it.
I’m looking forward to this series, but as I have written a post on it, I’m intrigued at why “we” “owe” the book more than a shrug. (That’s not to say I think some people dismiss too quickly). I feel pretty idiosyncratic here, so I can’t really explain in a short comment.
By “we,” I meant those of us here who are earnest truth-seekers (and I’d hope that’s all of us). And we owe the Book of Mormon (and any truth-claim) its due diligence, because we owe it to ourselves to ascertain the truth. So that, in short, is why we owe the Book of Mormon something.
What exactly is it owed? That’s a harder question for me. I don’t think we owe the Book of Mormon a lifetime of studying. Maybe we don’t even owe it its own blog series ha ha. But I am convinced that we owe it more at least some consideration—again, more than the shrug that some meet the Book of Mormon with.
Honestly, though, I’m attracted to your apparent apatheism, Andrew. As intriguing as I find the atheist-theist debate, I often wonder if my level of involvement in that debate is irrational (hours spent on this blog each day, etc). Ultimately, I do think it’s an important debate, but I also recognize that there are better uses of my time. I really need to be more politically engaged, for example. I also desperately need to find work ha ha.
I am far far far far far more politically apathetic, so don’t even get me started there. Work killed my blogging, even though now I’m not working, so I can’t say I fully advocate that, LOL.
(I’m going through your comment in reverse order).
I don’t think your involvement is irrational, per se. Or rather, I don’t think rationality matters all that much, so if it is irrational, I don’t really care. My idea is that people have motivations, likes, dislikes, preferences. These things aren’t the same for everyone. If you are motivated to spend hours on this blog or others, what can I say against that?
I’m just calling out your turning a particular hobby into a universal imperative. “As earnest truth-seekers…” what a guilt trip!
Not only that, but you’re not being all that universal. Craig addressed this aptly. When are you going to get into the Quran? How much time are you going to spend with that? Is this kind of pursuit subject to the Fairness Doctrine or the Equal Time rule?
I still chafe at the second part of Craig’s comment, but probably because I’m going to say something controversial.
I’m going to disavow you of any fantasy that I am part of your gang of earnest truth-seekers. I know, I know, it’s shocking.
But I’m not really seeking truth, so much as what I feel or believe to be true. Since my feelings and beliefs can often be deceived or misinformed, I don’t confuse the latter with the former. If I feel a shrug, what am I to do with that further? Anything more sounds like the old LDS idea, “well, you have to endure to the end…a sign will only come after the trial of your faith!”
On the other hand, I do care about what is true or real. I’ve just already been convinced by the evidence against the Book of Mormon. However, I’m very interested to see what points you come up with, and I’m sure I’ll be commenting.
“Not only that, but you’re not being all that universal. Craig addressed this aptly. When are you going to get into the Quran?”
You and Craig are off the mark with this criticism. First, this point does not show that we owe the Book of Mormon nothing. At best, it just shows that we owe the Quran something as well. Second, while I did argue that we give each truth-claim its due, I never said that each truth-claim is due the same thing. I focus on the Book of Mormon at the expense of the Quran because I’m impressed by the former and not the latter.
I tried to make this all rather clear in my original post.
“Here’s why I think the Book of Mormon merits our attention: Consider how it was produced. Joseph Smith, a young and uneducated man, somehow dictated a 531-page history of ancient Americans in a relatively short period of time and with his face in a hat! No easy feat, in my opinion. And more than that, he convinced many people that this book was divinely inspired. Even those Book of Mormon witnesses who later fell away from the church never denied their testimonies of the Book of Mormon.”
To be sure, Mormons bear the greatest burden of proof. But let’s not use that fact as an excuse for intellectual laziness on our parts. It’s not as though Mormons are going to present BoM evidences to us on a silver platter. More often than not, the evidence doesn’t find you, you have to find the evidence.
Also, if we are going to make the positive assertion that the BoM is not true, that does place a burden of proof on us. So maybe an indifferent shrug is an appropriate reaction for someone who is agnostic about the BoM. But you owe the BoM something more (namely responsible critiques) if you’re going to contend that it’s not true.
Bleh. My head hurts. Look, don’t get hung up over my assertion that we owe the Book of Mormon something. I’m having a hard time articulating why and what we owe it. Just enjoy the series lol.
The point is to show that, at some point, you look at things that some people would say are just as complex and perplexing and special, and you simply shrug. You don’t pretend to say, “Well, I really will get to all of these things.” You say, “I really have no interest in looking at x, y, or z.”
You say that this shows that we SHOULD be interested in the Quran just as well…but when things hit reality, that isn’t the case. And most people do not go on a world tour of religions (nor find it necessary).
We can summarize it all in what you yourself said:
“I focus on the Book of Mormon at the expense of the Quran because I’m impressed by the former and not the latter”
It’s not about anything universally owed. It’s about something you personally feel. There’s nothing wrong with personally wanting to investigate something but not another.
I missed a spot.
To the extent that you want to make claims like, “The Book of Mormon is not true” or “God does not exist,” then yes, I think you should back it up. If you’re going to make positive assertions like this, then yes, back it up or admit faith.
But my point that I’ve always tried to stress is that that is not what it means to disbelieve in the BoM or to disbelieve in gods. I do not have to assert there is no god, or the Book of Mormon is not true. I am simply pointing out that I do not believe, am not convinced, etc., that gods exist, or that the BoM is true.
I don’t think it’s intellectually lazy to dismiss the BoM. So much research has already been done to prove that it’s total bunk.
Secondly, I don’t think we owe any truth-claim anything. Those who make the truth-claims are the ones who owe us. They have to back up their assertions, and show why it is reasonable to believe what they’re claiming. Otherwise it is reasonable to default to the “I disbelieve in what you’re saying”. I don’t have the time to research every truth-claim that is made. While I do research the ones I’m particularly interested in (as you apparently are in the BoM), it’s not my duty to prove everyone right or wrong.
“It’s not about anything universally owed. It’s about something you personally feel. There’s nothing wrong with personally wanting to investigate something but not another.”
Not true. We UNIVERSALLY owe truth propositions their due diligence, but each truth proposition is due DIFFERENT diligences, if you will. There is no contradiction there.
And it’s not that I want to investigate the Book of Mormon over the Quran, it’s that I think it deserves to be investigated over the Quran. This isn’t some arbitrary aesthetic judgment. I mean, do we study evolution over creationism because we just want to arbitrarily study the former over the latter? Of course not.
Now, it may well be the case that I ought to be as impressed or more impressed by the Quran than the Book of Mormon. I plead ignorance about Islam. So my privileging the Book of Mormon or the Quran is admittedly conditional, but not arbitrary.
“You say that this shows that we SHOULD be interested in the Quran just as well…but when things hit reality, that isn’t the case. And most people do not go on a world tour of religions (nor find it necessary).”
This is just an argument from pragmatism, though. You aren’t arguing that we shouldn’t go on a world tour of religions, only that it may be imprudent to given our limited time. So I think your point is non-responsive.
“But my point that I’ve always tried to stress is that that is not what it means to disbelieve in the BoM or to disbelieve in gods. I do not have to assert there is no god, or the Book of Mormon is not true. I am simply pointing out that I do not believe, am not convinced, etc., that gods exist, or that the BoM is true.”
Fair enough. But when I was talking about critics who were dismissive and met the BoM with indifferent shrugs and rolled eyes, I was not talking about people like you, Andrew. I was talking about those who would be so unimpressed with the BoM as to totally write it off as bullshit. So insofar as you’re willing to afford the BoM a kind of agnosticism, you’re giving the BoM what I think it is owed.
“I don’t think it’s intellectually lazy to dismiss the BoM. So much research has already been done to prove that it’s total bunk.”
Its historicity is almost certainly bunk, yes. That is not what I find impressive about the BoM though, Craig.
pragmatism – GLORIOUS MASTER PHILOSOPHY.
I am arguing that we should do things that are prudent to do. If you can admit the imprudence of something, you cut away all the idealistic ideology. You say, “We should study a, b, c, d, e, f, g…,y, z.” I point out the imprudence of it and the prudent thing is what you will live, not the ideologically lofty thing.
It may be imprudent for me to write this series, but I hope it won’t be too imprudent for you to follow it.
it wouldn’t be imprudent for you to write this series.
It would be imprudent for you to write a series on every religious truth claim.
You openly admit that you will not do this. I take this as admission of your sanity and my victory :3
I’m with Andrew on this one. Do we also owe something to the Bible, Pearl of Great Price, the Theogeny, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the dozens of Buddhist, Confucian and Hindu texts, Book of the Dead, Dao De Ching etc.?
I’m interested in this series, but I do think that debunking the BoM point by point isn’t necessary in order to declare that it’s a made-up book. All religious texts are made-up because the supernatural beings and events they describe don’t exist. It’s not necessary to examine in detail every religion to know that all religion is false.
I agree with the probing questions of the first.
I disagree with the second part. We aren’t really getting at all into whether supernatural beings and events don’t exist at all. We are merely getting into whether we are convinced or persuaded to believe that they do or not. In that extent, debunking the BoM point by point certainly isn’t necessary in order to realize that the book does not draw us in, does not seem plausible, does not stir us, does not inspire us, does not seem likely, etc.,
Yeah, I get your point (I think). I was just speaking for myself from the larger atheist perspective that all religious texts are by their nature fiction. But fiction can be inspiring and useful, so yes, that’s another issue entirely. I personally don’t find the BoM to be either inspiring or useful, but those are very subjective things. If someone does, that’s fine, and a totally different thing from them thinking it’s historically accurate or in any way an indicator of reality.
Looking forward to it, Jon!
I suggest you mosey over to http://www.bomchristian.com for some enlightenment on the Book of Mormon from a NON-RELIGIOUS view point. Because you are looking into its witnesses, please take a test a http://www.bookofmormontest.com
I haven’t said this in a long time but I feel bad for you man. I mean to not believe in wickedness or righteousness when righteousness refers to “Morally upright; without guilt or sin: a righteous parishioner. Or In accordance with virtue or morality: a righteous judgment.” Per dictionary.com im sorry that you don’t believe in morality or being virtuous. More horrid is the fact that you state on your profile that “religion turns your brain to mush” when some of the most intelligent people in history (Einstien, Galileo, Talmage (a Mormon)) believed in a higher deity or God. Truly someone who is so cynical about God should have need to be pitied. I know that nothing I say in this blog truly has any importance to you or could possibly change anyone’s position but I would like to point out as jon did (in his other blog) that every person who took part in the translation, writing, or put there name down as a testament in the front cover of the BoM never denied that testimony that the book is actually the work of a higher deity known to us as God. Including the thousands of innocent people in the last 200 years who have suffered for that same testimony. Personally I know of no other book besides the bible or the Koran that has such a powerful influence in the lives of millions. Maybe it deserves a little more thought than just a cynical approach to any chapter therein. Just a thought
If you must pity me, go right ahead. It doesn’t do me any harm, and if it makes you feel better, then I’m glad for you.
Millions have died for one idea or another, but neither the amount of people who believe a thing, nor the amount of people who die believing a thing makes that thing true. Nor does the fact that some very intelligent people believed in some version of a god make it so that any god is real. These are logical fallacies of the most basic kind.
Two final points, 1) I definitely believe in virtue and morality (or rather ethics – to me they’re the same thing, but I prefer the word “ethics” because it’s mostly devoid of religious meaning, unlike “morality”). What I don’t believe in is absolute moralities where humans need an outside influence or being to tell them what is and is not right. We can figure that out for ourselves.
2) If you were to find out what Einstein’s “god” really was, I doubt you’d believe in it. He was effectively an agnostic, perhaps even atheist.
[...] while back, I was reading an entry from a friend introducing his series into the Book of Mormon. He, like me, does not believe, but he stated: I disagree with Elder Holland that the only [...]