Beyond Mitt's Underwear: Part 3: The Preexistence, Creation, and Plan for Salvation
Father in Heaven (Elohiem) and His wives live near the star called Kolob on a pair of magic stones. They were once mortal humans just like we are and have retained their physical bodies of flesh and bone, but instead of blood they have “spirit matter, a substance which is more refined and pure and glorious than blood”. At the time of creation
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And that is because, when it is boiled down, we are really having two different conversations. You are trying to convince me through pure logic that there is no God, and that my beliefs are nothing short of insanity at worst, and ridiculousness at best. The specifics of my particular theology have no bearing on your basic arguments one way or another.
I am interested in dialoguing. I have zero expectation that anything I say will change anyone's mind (and I am not here to have my mind changed, either), and so I am more interested in hearing what people have to say in order to enrich my view of the world and *learn*. Because I love learning. :)
So after reading everything you write, I shrug, and say, "That was an interesting point of view. It doesn't change my point of view, but in case you are interested, here's mine."
Not to mention that I understand there are many ways to understand and learn truth. Logic is but one of them, but it seems to be the sole tool in your toolbox when you have these discussions. I have a whole set of different tools that I can use in addition to logic, and they have served me well. You try to beat me down with your logic, but I just nod and say, "That's fine. If that was the only tool I used, I'd have the same conclusions, so I totally understand where you are coming from. It is *you* who do not understand where *I* am coming from. You think you do, but since your only tool for understanding the world is logic, than you have no real comprehension of the world I live in."
But of course, you disagree with that statement, and that's fine, too. I'm not particularly interested in revisiting these conversations with you - we've done the rounds here, and we both know how they end. :)
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More, I'm trying to convince you that your assumptions are unjustifiable, and thus your conclusions irrelevant, and that this reflects an ongoing trend in your epistemology - both within theology and without.
The fact that you're a member of one of only two major modern religions to make concrete claims as an article of faith that have been absolutely and conclusively proven to be false? Is just gravy.
I have zero expectation that anything I say will change anyone's mind (and I am not here to have my mind changed, either)
See also: You're DOING IT WRONG.
Logic is but one of them, but it seems to be the sole tool in your toolbox when you have these discussions.
"Rationality", not logic, and it's the only tool that *can* be used, and the only tool that has ever produced results.
Using any other tool necessarily involves abandoning rationality in favour of something that has never produced results.
I have a whole set of different tools that I can use in addition to logic,
And they have misled you into using unjustifiable assumptions to conclude absurdities, AND you deliberately go out of your way to pretend that your assumptions are not completely arbitrary.
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I have been pondering this all weekend to see if I could clearly explain in such a way that might help you in understanding where I'm coming from. Let's see if I have been successful.
"Rationality", not logic, and it's the only tool that *can* be used, and the only tool that has ever produced results.
This is demonstrably, verifiably, absolutely false. Let me give you some very concrete examples.
I deal with addicts every time I go into my office. If your assertion was true, I would be able to point out how what they are doing is harming them and those around them, and they would be able to say, "Oh, of course! I'll stop right now!" However, this approach by itself does not work.
Logic has zero ability to change us or drive action.
Really.
How many people who have been told by their doctors that if they do not change their diet and start exercising, they will die of heart disease that then turn around and do not make those changes?
Rationality dictates that for their survival, they change their habits. They have had it empirically proven to them that they will die if they do not stop, and they do not stop.
I assume, having the geek-cred that you do, that you will recognize the sci-fi movie I describe next. I am leaving it unnamed for spoiler reasons in case you have not seen it or anyone else reading this has not seen it.
The main characters land on a planet where everyone is dead. There has been no violence done, people are simply sitting on the street, laying at their desks, etc. As they explore, they find a video stating the the government had experimented with a new drug in an attempt to make the population more docile, and they succeeded so well that everyone stopped where they were and simply starved to death.
Note: they knew they were starving to death, but they did not care. All the rationality in the world did not convince them to stand up and do something about it.
Logic only has power to move us when we care about it.
Let me say that again in a different way. Without emotion, logic is utterly, completely useless.
All motion comes from e-motion.
I cannot solve my clients' addictions and problems with logic. Rationality does not move them. I must work within the bounds of their emotional issues with emotional solutions. If rationality was my sole tool, I could not do what I do. Rationality and logic can guide my emotion, but emotion is still at the core of it.
If you cling to rationality, it is because you care about it so much that you are willing to embrace utterly illogical, irrational beliefs, convinced that you are being completely rational.
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Rationality dictates that for their survival, they change their habits. They have had it empirically proven to them that they will die if they do not stop, and they do not stop.
I think you need to take a class on psychology. There is a whole other system for why this happens that explains a great deal more than just addiction, and while you may decide afterwards that the root of that system is "God created humans to have brains that function in this way", if you skip the system itself, you are doing your clients a massive disservice. For you to say that there is no rational way to deal with these problem is completely provably false. There is absolutely a rational way of dismantling the systems that lead people to have those issues in the first place (and also to ignore them until they stop ignoring them), and that system is something you learn in therapy. That is what psychology-based therapy is there for.
Emotions are chemicals in your brain and the perceptions that you have. They are not inviolate. If you have ever successfully attempted to cheer yourself up when you've been a little down in the dumps, you know this to be true. You DO. We both know you do, whether you want to admit it or not. Emotion is absolutely a malleable thing that can be changed with effort. Knowing that on the one hand but then on the other claiming the complete opposite whenever it involves something more serious, something harder, something that could take years of work instead of just a few minutes, is complete intellectual laziness.
If you skip giving your clients the rational, workable tools that will, in fact, help them to dismantle even the biggest of emotional and psychological obstacles, and instead give them a band-aid false panacea of "do it because of God", you are, again, doing them a massive disservice. But I suspect that's only half the case. I suspect that the other half of what you do does involve giving them some of those tools, but only up to a point, and then you attribute the rest to God, without being willing to see that those same tools could go the full distance if you and/or your client actually wanted to push to get there. Which is half intellectual laziness and half intellectual dishonesty.
Not that my opinion, as someone who is living proof that what you have to say about this is incorrect, matters, but: I can accept someone who says, "I see and respect and embrace the rational system, and I think it's beautiful that a higher power created it." I can't respect anyone who says, "I can accept whatever rational systems don't make me uncomfortable, right up until the point where they DO make me uncomfortable, and then I switch to the irrational and throw comfortingly murky subjective bullshit at it until I can stop engaging with the problem."
But then again, rational psychology also tells us why you do that, so.
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Goodness, I would never get any results from my clients if I believed that. Logic and rationality is a fantastic tool! It just isn't the *only* tool. I've taken many classes on psychology, and I am well aware of this.
I'm sorry that you misconstrued my words to mean something they didn't.
But I suspect that's only half the case. I suspect that the other half of what you do does involve giving them some of those tools, but only up to a point, and then you attribute the rest to God, without being willing to see that those same tools could go the full distance if you and/or your client actually wanted to push to get there. Which is half intellectual laziness and half intellectual dishonesty.
It's a good thing you said you only suspected instead of saying you knew, because your suspicions are wrong. :) The people who come see me have found out the hard way that "You and me, God" just doesn't work. I don't discount prayer. I encourage it. But the God I believe in does not help those that don't help themselves, so I don't give them a half-effective way to change. I give them an amazing way to change, and then have them ask God to make it even better.
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> I never said anywhere that logic was stoopid,and dat peepl who tink dat logik is dum r de best peepl evr!
On the other:
> Logic has zero ability to change us or drive action.
You said logic on its own was useless. I said it's not, and can IN FACT be the sole tool and still produce results (please see: me), and that I think your ideas about emotions are bunk and I can prove it with one simple example, which I did. I'm not misconstruing anything. I think you just suck at communicating.
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Anecdotal. :) Lest anyone accuse me of being a hypocrite, I think anecdotal evidence is great when defending an emotional argument. But when you use anecdotal evidence to support your claim that rationality is fundamentally true, you are so shooting yourself in the foot.
Here's the truth - I don't doubt you applied logic to solve a problem. But you applied logic and emotion together, not just logic. If you didn't care about logic, you would not act on it. Logic is awesome to help guide emotion, but logic alone is useless.
I think you just suck at communicating.
Awesome. Love me an ad homimen before I go to bed in the evening.
You are totally welcome to your opinion. :)
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She said "X is true in at least one case, here's proof"
That's not "anecdotal", that's "it only takes one counterexample to disprove a universal. Which she did.
PS: Ad Hominem is "you are a bad person, therefore you are wrong". What she said was "you are a terrible communicator, therefore your points are communicated terribly". This is not ad hominem, and only someone who was really bad ar arguing, like you, would confuse the two.
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Here's another example:
Everyone in this world is driven by emotion, period. Being that we are driven by emotion, we are swayed by arguments that touch our emotions. You are emotionally invested in being rational, therefore, you give rational arguments emotional force. (This is not an inherently bad thing, by the way.)
However, most of the rest of the world does not do this, as stated in this old truism, "You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar."
When I bring this to your attention, I am telling you, "This is reality." You reply, saying, "This is a stupid reality, and I refuse to be a part of it." (This is where it becomes a bad thing.)
This is entirely your call, and I respect your ability to make that choice. However, you are living in an irrational world when you fight against this truth. You call it a tonal argument, but it's not a tonal argument when I tell you, "You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar." I am simply telling you how reality works among human beings that are driven solely by emotion.
You are passionate about rationality, and that passion blinds you to the truth of the reality around you, the reality that you do not (and will never) live in a purely rational world, and in fact, a purely rational world be very very bad, since we would then all wind up like the people on that planet - dead because we did not care enough to feed ourselves.
You can pity me all you want, but pity is not rational. It is emotional. It is, in fact, arrogance thinly veiled by pseudo-compassion. I see that clearly, and your pity as absolutely no power to move me to change because it is you trying to play a game whereby you place yourself in a superior position above me using a tool that you deny has any power in the first place, a tool I use constantly in my counseling office and in my daily life, and am very adept at recognizing and using.
Your position is untenable. If you wish to have more influence over people, accept that emotion drives them and seek to understand the principles and techniques related to influencing humans. I again recommend Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends And Influence People. It would be very helpful to you.
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And no - you may get more people agreeing with you that the sky is red, but that's irrelevant, because regardless of how many people agree with you, you're still wrong. More particularly, you still can't demonstrate your correctness or defend your assertion, and thus you fail miserably in the face of challenge that *does* address facts.
it's not a tonal argument when I tell you, "You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar."
Yes, it is. It is the definition of a tone argument. It is an argument that my position is wrong because it is not presented nicely enough, which is, say it with me, A TONE ARGUMENT.
None of which addressed the ACTUAL issue, of course, which I note you have attempted to deflect.
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It's only a tone argument if I say *I'm* blowing you off because you're being a jerk, which I'm not. I disagree with you on a completely different level. I may not choose to engage with you if you're being a jerk, but that's still not a tonal argument because you could be a jerk and tell me that the sky is blue, and I'd still not want to engage. I desire to have polite, respectful debate, and when that vanishes, I have no desire to be a part of it.
Still not a tonal argument so far.
All I am doing is trying to be helpful by pointing out to you that people are primarily emotional, and that no rationality can take hold if your jerkiness gets in the way of your message when you are talking to other people.
That's telling you that since many people get wrapped up emotionally, you can very easily deliver your message in such a way that your emotions do not cloud your argument with them. The tonal argument exists, and many people do it, and it's wiser, when you are serious about trying to persuade them, to not invite them into that place.
So, no - not a tonal argument. The fact that you act like a jerk sometimes is a true statement, and that statement has nothing to do with my personal acceptance or rejection of your message.
None of which addressed the ACTUAL issue, of course, which I note you have attempted to deflect.
I can totally understand how it might look like that. The truth is that 1) I am working (at home, but still working), 2) I have several meetings today so my time to write is limited, and 3) right when I was sitting down to draft the next part of my response, a child my wife was babysitting puked everywhere in our bedroom (the joys of having a very small apartment - I don't have a single place I can go to to be isolated from the chaos), so I got drafted to help clean up. It took all my extra time this morning.
I may have some time this afternoon to respond, but I may not. Could be a day or two before I can continue. Everything I just said applies, so you'll have to wait until I can get to it this afternoon or tomorrow.
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Oh, I see, you're just CONCERNED that if I keep talking that way OTHER PEOPLE might blow me off because I'm not nice enough - but not you, no, not you at all, you're just CONCERNED that I might offend OTHER PEOPLE.
Which is to say: it's still a tone argument, but you've couched it as a concern troll.
Not better.
I can totally understand how it might look like that. The truth is that
Oh you WOULD have responded to what was actually said, but you have a REAL LIFE and you're just TOO BUSY so you spent all that time not answering the question but ran out of time to answer the question because you do REAL things, right? Someone who had enough time would obviously not understand the REAL WORLD, right?
Hint: "deflection for dummies" and "how to hide when you're losing an argument" are not guides, nor are they checklists. You should not be running through them and making sure to hit every point.
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Not better.
You= not interested in hearing any kind of constructive feedback (probably just from me, since I cannot imagine you'd be like this in your IRL world), and actively re-construing said constructive feedback as offensive. Check. That's cool, I'll stop.
Hint: "deflection for dummies" and "how to hide when you're losing an argument" are not guides, nor are they checklists. You should not be running through them and making sure to hit every point.
*shrug* I can say that I'm not doing that, but it seems as though you are in "Take offence where none was intended" mode. That's fine - I don't think anything I say will change your mind at all, but I *am* having a lot of fun challenging myself to express myself better.
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Shorter you: "Irrational people are irrational, and therefore my irrationality when discussing rational things is more correct thatn your rationality when discussing rational things"
Actually, no. I was directly refuting that single statement you made ("Rationality", not logic, and it's the only tool that *can* be used, and the only tool that has ever produced results.)that I quoted at the beginning of my comments. This statement is putting words in my mouth and stretching the argument beyond where it was intended.
And no - you may get more people agreeing with you that the sky is red, but that's irrelevant, because regardless of how many people agree with you, you're still wrong. More particularly, you still can't demonstrate your correctness or defend your assertion, and thus you fail miserably in the face of challenge that *does* address facts.
And I'm telling you that rational facts only make up a part of the total whole, since emotional facts are just as (and usually more) important than the rational facts. Rationality untempered by emotion leads to irrational conclusions when talking about people, individually and in groups.
Rationality is fantastic when discussing the physical world, but it is irrational to assume that you (or anyone) is ever completely rational since your rationality is driven by emotion, making you subject to irrationality.
As evidence, I point out your claim that rationality is the sole tool that should ever be used (or generates results), and yet you try to use emotion as a large club against me to punish me for what I believe, trying to get some kind of "result". Clearly, you say the words, but your heart is not in them, making you as irrational as you claim me to be. And if you are irrational, then your perception of the "facts" become deeply suspect since you are emotionally invested in those "facts" being true. This blinds you to any other facts that may come up that may refute your desired result.
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So here's where all of this applies on the level of our larger discussion:
Religion is emotional. Being that emotion is more important than pure rationality, I see how religion provides emotional support and healing to people on a level that atheism (or non-religion) cannot match.
But you try to justify your position of atheism with pseudo-rationality disguising the passionate emotion underneath, all while attacking me with the claim that I am being irrational and emotional about a rational subject, when you are the one that is actually guilty of it (not saying that I am not, but I've never claimed it).
In other words, you reject any emotional evidence that I may bring to the table, while whole-heartedly embracing your own emotions as absolutely accurate and trust-worthy at the same time. Indeed, your emotions are proof that you are right and I am wrong, because they are your emotions.
So it relates first because you claim an untenable position, making all of your subsequent claims suspect. It relates second because trying to understand an emotional organization sans emotion (which is a lie in the first place, but hey) is like trying to understand the beauty of the Mona Lisa by closing your eyes and feeling across the surface of it.
"Hey, this is just a bunch of bumps! Why is everyone making such a big deal about it? Stupid people! They clearly have no idea what they are talking about since I have empirical evidence that it's just a bunch of stupid bumps on a canvas."
Note that the claim is technically accurate, but the person speaking is blind to the bigger picture because they refuse to accept that other sense.
You already are emotional about religion. Why is it so hard to see that someone else who does not have your range of emotions might be having a completely different experience?
People are irrational and say and do stupid things. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are not immune to this. They were products of their time, and limited in their knowledge of many things. God cannot prevent people from being irrational and stupid, but He can still let an irrational person (since we are all irrational anyhow) speak as a prophet, and their irrational moments do not prevent them from still speaking as a prophet on the deeper matters of the human heart. They may get some of the facts wrong, but that's not really what religion is about, anyhow.
Does this help?
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That is such a fantastically shitty argument. I'm pretty sure that "I will die if I don't eat, and also I enjoy food" is both 100% rational and 100% going to get me to eat, specifically because I am rational. Someone irrational is more likely to say, "Oh, I don't need to eat, because the biological science of how bodies work is just heresay and actually I can live off air and the sweet sight of daisies in my garden!" And then die. Me, who knows, rationally, that nutrition is essential for my body? I eat.
I also don't understand how you can't see that "emotions are important, therefore work with them in a combination of logical argument and strategic emotional couching to influence people" is, at its heart, also a rational strategy. The irrational version would be to, say, assume that everyone else should know exactly what you mean and agree with you because you have magical psychic powers that should translate all of this directly to their brains.
Seriously, I don't care if you believe in God. Some of my good friends are PhD physics genuises who are smarter than you or I will ever be, and studying the rational, logical, cause-and-effect, science-based systems of the universe has either reinforced their belief in a higher power or actually created that belief where before they had none. (Seriously, science has converted them to theism.)
I just wish you'd stop saying phenomenally stupid shit.
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