Daniel C. Peterson is a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University and currently serves as editor-in-chief of BYU’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. He is a member of the executive council of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University.
Peterson is known for his work as an apologist and scholar on subjects dealing with claims of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), of which he is a member. He has served as the editor of the FARMS Review, a periodical produced by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies. Peterson is a regular participant in online fora about Mormonism where he discusses the LDS faith and its apologetics. One of his most recent projects has been the development of a website featuring the testimonies of LDS scholars.
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Guests: Dan Weatherspoon, Daniel C. Peterson
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Introduction and Welcome
Part 1 of 4 · Ep. 271
John Dehlin [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.
Guest [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber
Dan Weatherspoon [00:00:26] today@mormonstories.org welcome everyone to the newest edition of the Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm excited to be a guest host and interviewer again. My name is Dan Weatherspoon and this has been a joy in my life to be able to interview good friends of mine, interesting people, and I really appreciate the good feedback that we've gotten so far on these other things. Today we have a treat. It is, I don't know, is the term the get, Perhaps it's the get of the year to get Dan Peterson with it.
John Dehlin [00:01:00] He is.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:01:00] Dan Peterson is well known to many of us in our audience as certainly one of Mormonism's leading apologists. He works with farms, he works off and on with fair. He's part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, but he's also a scholar of the ancient near east and especially of Islam. And, you know, he's written a great biography of the Prophet Muhammad. And so we're going to get into all that. But mostly I just want to get to know him. Dan and I have been, I don't know, we certainly have never been not friendly with each other. We've known each other for, for about 10 years. And I've just developed this really fun relationship with him where I enjoy him as a person. I am in shock and awe at his mind and how articulate he is. And yet I know that there's a lot of people out there that don't experience Dan exactly the same way I do as this full fledged fun being with a great sense of humor and a good sense of who he is and what he does and why he does it and all that stuff. So I'm just grateful that he's agreed perhaps to, just on the basis of our friendship, to sit down with us. And I think it'll just be a great conversation. So as a Mormon Stories podcast, we're going to dive right in and welcome Dan Peterson. And this first segment, we definitely want to just kind of get into your life story where you were born, all that good stuff and kind of your upbringing. And let's maybe at least take this first segment up to where you've kind of begun to get into this career of becoming a Mormon apologist.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:02:28] Great.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:02:28] So thank you for Coming.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:02:30] It's good to be here. I feel like I have to explain first of all that this is not my best day. I had an encounter with the dermatologist last week and my misspent youth in Southern California is coming back now to bite me. And this dermatologist loves to freeze things so I've got little scars all over me, but it's not contagious.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:02:49] Good. Well, I agree you are normally very, very pretty. Now you're only one very in the pretty spectrum there. No, but you look great and I don't know how many people actually see the video part of this versus the audio. So it's good and they'll probably most of you on the ipod.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:03:05] Well, this is just a warning to those who might be thinking about it that this is a thing of horror. They may not want to look.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:03:10] Alright, well. Well again thanks for doing this. So you mentioned Southern California. Why don't you get us started with where you were born and raised and kind of whatever details of your growing up life.
Growing Up in California and Early Faith
Daniel C. Peterson [00:03:19] I was born in Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California and I grew up near there in San Gabriel, California. San Gabriel Valley, so a little eastward of Los Angeles and grew up there until I went off to college.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:03:32] Okay. And the college was byu.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:03:34] I came to BYU as an undergraduate.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:03:36] Yeah. And then UCLA for your doctorate.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:03:38] Yeah, and I spent time in between those in Cairo studying there.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:03:41] Okay, good. Well that's a lot of years. So let's go back into parents family background, especially relationship to Mormonism. Where do you fit in the family dynamic and stuff?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:03:54] My, I have only one brother, technically he's a half brother. We've never thought of ourselves that way, but my mother was married to another man who died before she married my father. But my father raised my brother as well as me and so we have always thought of ourselves as brothers. Even though he actually has a different last name, he retained his biological father's last name. So people don't usually guess that we're brothers. But he still lives down there in the San Marino area in California. But I grew up in a family with a mother who was Mormon by heritage and sort of Mormon by practice, but not particularly dedicated. She was semi active I suppose you might say.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:04:37] So this is back then or is that continued to be.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:04:39] That was growing up and then my father was a Lutheran, a non practicing Lutheran. So I grew up in a part member family and sort of going to church, but it wasn't a high priority in life and so on. So I sort of got serious on my own they did eventually come around. My mother became more serious. My father joined the church. I baptized him on the night I was set apart as a missionary.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:05:01] Wow, that's amazing.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:05:02] It was my only convert.
John Dehlin [00:05:03] No way.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:05:04] I know you went to Europe, so we'll talk about that in a minute. So that's probably not that unusual, but, yeah, well. So when you say you became more Mormon or serious about Mormonism on your own, what was the reasons for that?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:05:18] You know, to be honest, I think there were periods in my life probably where I would have considered myself at least an agnostic, maybe an atheist when I was fairly young. And then I gradually began to sense there was something there. To me, church was essentially boring. It was an endless round of boring meetings. I didn't want to be there. I understand. I sympathize with kids who feel that way. Unless you catch some of the things you sympathize with adults who feel like I do. I do. Look, I always bring a book with me to church meetings. I can't just sit there. I'm usually writing things in a notebook or planning out something I want to write or making notes of something while I'm sitting there. I'm listening. I am, But I'm doing something else too, which is maybe disreputable and sets a bad example for my kids and everything else, but that's the way it is.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:06:07] You're making friends on this podcast, let's put it that way, with that sort of profession.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:06:12] I remember Hugh Nibley making a comment once that the thing you needed to remain active in the church was a virtually infinite capacity for boredom. He was being flipped. But there's a certain element of truth to that. Not every meeting is all that exciting. Although I have to say that I think to a certain extent, you get out of a meeting what you bring to it. I mean, I've come out of meetings where I thought, man, that was dull. I'm sure glad it's over. And someone whose judgment I really respect says, wasn't that fabulous? And I'm thinking, man, where was I? And I'm not sure that it was the meeting. Intrinsically, it was that I wasn't really in.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:06:47] It's whatever spiritual space you're in at that moment that you're bringing.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:06:52] But I began getting active because I began learning what there was behind the boring meetings. And I have to say, to me, a large part of that was the plan of salvation, if you will. This vast sweep of pre existence through earth, life, through spirit, world, afterwards, resurrection, millennium, all those sorts of things. Exaltation at the end. It just seemed to me the most dramatic and grand vision I'd ever encountered.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:07:16] And this just snuck up on you when you were 12 years old? 14 years old, yeah.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:07:19] Somewhere in there. I'd like to know exactly what year it was. I know what did it. I stayed home once from school and I. I can't remember if I was staying home for honorable true reasons or what, but we had inherited a book from my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, who was a member of the church. She had a book by Nephi Anderson called Added upon, one of those old home literature books. And I read it. I thought, this is weird. What is this? I read it and it just really caught me afire. I mean, I thought, this is glorious and grand. I don't think I could read the book again. I've gone back to it and I thought, oh, man, the stilted writing and everything else, I just don't think I could do it. But I had never seen anything that explained the whole plan of salvation in that way. And it suddenly struck me as not only grand, but it resonated with me as true.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:08:12] So for those who haven't read Added upon, would you give them a quick summary overview of the plot?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:08:16] Yeah. It's a novel that takes a group of people from pre existence, through mortality, into the spirit world thereafter, and eventually into resurrection and life in a millennial city. And it partakes of some of the spirit of utopian literature in that last section from the 19th century Erawan and things like that. I suppose you could also compare it in a way to Saturday's Warrior, which I guess did a similar thing. Although I think I'm the only person in the church who has never seen Saturday's Warrior.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:08:47] Come on, Dan, you're not a real Mormon.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:08:51] But for some reason that just really hit me. And as I say, I don't think I could read it again. I mean, it's got so many flaws, I'm not holding it up as great literature.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:08:58] But it worked for you.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:08:59] It really hit me.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:09:00] Adolescent.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:09:01] Yeah. I'd never put the picture together. And suddenly I thought, you know, however boring the meetings may be and however prosaic things may be in daily life, although I've come to appreciate that a lot more now than I did when I was a young, arrogant twerp. You know, there's something about living in a community that I now appreciate. But I thought even beyond all that, there's this grand vision. And that, as much as anything, is what's kept me focused. You know, I Just say to people sometimes, look, I can grant a lot of your criticisms of Mormon culture. I really, I do. Some of our pop music is atrocious, you know, so many other things just excruciatingly bad. So we're not living up to the vision. But the vision is there, and it's glorious. It's really astonishing.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:09:47] So you're somewhere in your teens and you have this good experience, and all of a sudden that means, mom, I really want to go to church each week. I want to learn more. Or is it just study?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:09:57] Yeah, I began going to church on my own when they didn't go. My father almost never went. My mother did a lot of the time, but not all the time, but I would go to church.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:10:06] And your brother wasn't?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:10:07] My brother was 10 years older than I was, so he was kind of out of the picture by this point. Yeah, he's very active in the church. He's been a bishop and so on and so forth. But we both went through periods, I think, where we were kind of out of it. He didn't serve a mission, for example, but got active later on and is quite active now. But I began to go to church on my own and to study on my own. I went to seminary, all those sorts of things, and really became quite committed to what I saw as the vision of the church, the vision of the
Dan Weatherspoon [00:10:41] gospel, if you will, just as a wonderful overarching story. Grand narrative.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:10:46] Yeah, it's a great narrative.
Spiritual Experiences and Deciding on BYU
Dan Weatherspoon [00:10:47] Was it grand? I mean, other than this added upon caught your attention, Was there any deep spiritual experiences or anything out of the ordinary that you would say from your youth?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:10:58] I had some experiences, I remember, and these are kind of hard to describe, but I remember for some reason, I was standing outside the Idaho Falls Temple once at night. I remember that I was traveling, I think, with my brother and his relatively new wife. And at that time, the Idaho Falls Temple had a kind of glass entryway, and you could see people occasionally walk past dressed in white and so on. And I was looking in there, and all of a sudden I just felt like I was seeing something that wasn't just those people dressed in white. I was seeing something that I remembered, and I still can remember what I was looking at and how it appeared to me. It was a very distinct experience. And there have other experiences like that. I had a few, what you might term, if you want to, prophetic dreams. And so on the night before President McKay died, I had a dream about the death of Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. That was so palpable. I woke up just really depressed, you know. And the very first thing I heard turned on the radio and David O. McKay had passed away. And that doesn't seem chance to me, at least didn't seem to me that what that told me. I thought. What I concluded from that was I know that David O. McKay really is the prophetic successor or was to Joseph Smith, because that dream was just. Again, I don't remember most of my dreams. I remember that one distinctly. I can remember a certain scene from it very, very clearly to me. And then to hear the very next word, President McKay has passed away. That hit me. And there were others, other things like that that I've had since then.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:12:31] Well, down the road, we'll get into how do you trust spiritual experiences versus the intellectual peace that you've bring to it? And stuff like that. But that's great. So your mom and dad are at least supportive of you going to church, so there's no problem with that. When did a mission start becoming a goal for you?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:12:50] Well, I went off to byu and I was thinking seriously of going elsewhere. I grew up not far from Caltech, for example, and at that point I wanted to be a cosmologist. I had a huge picture of Albert Einstein on my wall, and mathematics and cosmology were my thing, and I thought that's what I wanted to do. But I felt really strong inclined to go to BYU instead. And part of the impact, part of the reason that I did that was I remember being dragged off to Education Week. They used to have these old Education week programs where visitors would come. And this particular one was a really impressive group. Truman Madsen gave four lectures every evening.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:13:28] This is the traveling.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:13:29] This is the traveling one.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:13:30] Was it Know your religion was, I guess it called educational week?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:13:32] I think they called it Education Week. Know your religion was a monthly, once monthly lecture. This was a whole like.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:13:38] So they would come there?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:13:39] Yeah, they would come there. This was out in West Covina or Covina or someplace like that. And Elder McConkie came down. He wasn't a member of the 12 yet, but he spoke every day. They didn't do that anymore after that. But we had quite a powerful group. But the one that really stood out for me was Truman Madsen. He gave lectures every evening on existentialism, and he packed people in, which amazed me. Existentialism, logical positivism. I don't remember what the other two were, but. But they were marvelous lectures. And again, I just thought, wow. And there's more depth because he was Giving a Mormon perspective on them, reacting to them as I.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:14:14] So this is an extended version of his Eternal man,
Daniel C. Peterson [00:14:19] which I bought as soon as I heard him. I ran out and bought Eternal Man. Huge influence on me. And I thought, you know, there's really some depth here. This is really more than I'd realized. Again, it was getting beyond the ordinary day to day quotidian life of the Mormon ward. My ward was a, I'd say a lower middle class ward in some ways. There wasn't a whole lot of intellectual vitality to it. Good people. And especially as the years have passed, I've realized people far better than I am. But you know, to a young arrogant kid in high school who thinks he's the brightest thing around, they weren't very interesting. But to realize there were interesting people out there and the gospel had something to say or so I thought about really important issues. I never heard this in primary or in Sunday school, but I was hearing it from Truman and I began reading Hugh Nibley and things like that.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:15:12] So they were at byu. So you were going to go?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:15:14] I wanted to go to byu where I could drink from the fountain straight.
John Dehlin [00:15:17] Good.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:15:18] So you end up at byu and it's just a year. And was it at BYU you decided to go on a mission?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:15:22] Yeah, I think I was already probably planning on it, but I actually spent two years because I came to BYU a little bit young and I turned 19 about midway through my second year. But I just stuck around because I didn't want to mess up my academic schedule. So I came as a mathematics major. And then I decided very early on that though I admired mathematicians, I really didn't want to be one. And there was also another factor. I just don't think that I was that good. I was good, but I didn't think I was that good. And meanwhile, one of my neighbors in the dorm was taking a Greek history class, persuaded me to add it my freshman year. And I loved it. I just loved ancient history and that sort of caught fire with me. So by the second year I was a Greek major with a philosophy minor. Now, interestingly, the cosmology interest persisted when I finally did a doctoral dissertation. It's on an 11th century cosmology, Neoplatonic cosmology. So I guess it never really died.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:16:27] You and I reversed. I was a philosophy major with a classical Civ and Greek minor. That's fun. Well, okay, so you're here, you go on a mission, you get called to Zurich.
Mission to Switzerland and Formative Experiences
Daniel C. Peterson [00:16:39] Yeah, I got called to Switzerland. Zurich.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:16:42] German speaking.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:16:43] German speaking Although. And I was thrilled because I'd done a trip to Europe right after my high school year, senior year, and we had gone briefly into Switzerland. We went to Zas Fee and Zermatt and the Matterhorn, which are now not my favorite parts of the country. But I fell in love with Switzerland. And I thought if I could go anywhere on the planet, it would be Switzerland. The most beautiful place I've ever seen. Well, to my astonishment, I was called to Switzerland.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:17:10] It usually works out the opposite. You pick some place you don't want to go and then you called. That's right.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:17:15] There I was in this place that I still describe as tracting in a national park, for good or for ill. It was about as effective as tracting in a national park, but it was gorgeous. And I fell in love with the country. And I go back whenever I can. Whenever I go to the Middle East, I usually contrive some way to drop through Switzerland, which is sort of the anti Middle East. Clean, orderly, peaceful, green. Everything in the Middle east is not. But yeah, I was called to Switzerland, Zurich. Although interestingly, when I was set apart by my stake president, he said, well, have a good time in Beirut. And I said, excuse me. And he said, well, Beirut. And he showed me his copy of my mission call which said, Switzerland, Zurich, parenthesis, Beirut. Now, this was not as crazy as it sounds because Switzerland, being a neutral country, was the country out of which much of the world was run at that point. We didn't have an international mission yet, so there was actually a district of missionaries in Beirut. Now, oddly enough, I never went there.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:18:22] So you weren't called to that?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:18:23] No, I mean, I. I didn't know. I kept asking people in Salt Lake and elsewhere, where am I going? Well, they had two sets of papers on me. I didn't know until I arrived in Zurich. I asked my mission president, am I staying here or am I going on? He said, no, no, no, you're staying here. Now, oddly enough, my best friend at the time was called to the Switzerland Zurich mission. We had a mission conference. He came just after I did, but he wasn't there at the conference. And I remember thinking, I didn't know these were invitationals. Where is he? Well, then someone came up to me, Elder Ricks, Stephen Ricks, who is now a colleague of mine at byu, One of my best friends who said, by the way, Elder so and so says hello. And I said, well, that's really nice. Where is he? Well, he's been sent to Beirut. So he wasn't called to Beirut. I was. He went. I didn't. So it was a matter of timing and so on and so forth. But that kind of got me thinking. The grass is greener on the other side, you know? Although actually, it wasn't greener at all. But I kept thinking Beirut. Gosh, that would be so exotic. I'd love to do something like that in the Middle East. So it kind of piqued my curiosity.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:19:30] So while you're on your mission, are you kind of studying that or at least your radars open for.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:19:35] You know, I'm already a Greek major. Right. I'm doing the Ancient World, and I'm really interested, not so much in classics, but in ancient religion and so on and so forth. And so the idea of going to the Middle east just intrigued me. But I didn't go on my mission.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:19:50] And now you go too often, right?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:19:52] Now I do, yeah.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:19:54] I know. Knowing you, it seems like you're awfully always going over there and not always excited.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:20:00] I am. You know, I have to say, I don't mind it when I'm there. It's fascinating, but I hate getting there. I just hate it. And I realize I shouldn't complain. In the old days, it would be three or four months on a boat, but still.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:20:14] So, on your mission, any particular experiences that either were turning points in your spiritual life or, again, your academic orientation that came?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:20:24] Well, learning German was a really wonderful thing for me. I've used it all the time. I use it every day. A friend of mine once described German as the most important Semitic language, something that Adolf Hitler, I'm sure, would have loved to hear. But there's an element of truth to it that in the old days, the great days of Orientalism was mostly in German, great grammars and so on. And I have access to all those. That's a really wonderful thing for me. Very comfortable access to them. I've kept my German up. I've lectured in German and so on. I would say one of the things that came out of the mission that was remarkable for me was that I became a sort of, I suppose, the mission apologist. I was the guy who. Well, on several occasions, when missionaries would get into battles with people they couldn't handle, they'd ask if I could come and deal with it.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:21:14] And is this just because you're willing to read really fast and digest information?
John Dehlin [00:21:18] Yeah.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:21:18] It wasn't necessarily from your preparation before?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:21:21] Well, some of it was. I mean, I remember once getting involved with a guy who obviously was trying to intimidate us. He sat us down. He was a teacher at some Bible school. And he sat us down and pulled out his Greek New Testament and laughed and said, almost in this tone, you wouldn't happen to know Greek, would you? Well, I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out a Greek New Testament and said, actually, it's my specialty at the university, and put it down on the table. And I wish I had a photo of his face. The smile faded, the smirk was gone. He never brought it up. Now the fact is he probably could have killed me. I wasn't that good at that point. But he didn't know it. He was playing poker and I'd called his bluff. And I thought, yeah, this is important to know. And I remember another fellow, a theologian, who used to sort of mock us. He'd invite us over, but then he'd make fun of us a little bit. Well, you're just Mormons, basically, because you don't know anything. You're stupid. I have a Ph.D. and I thought, I'm going to have one. It's just a matter of time. Unfortunately, I can't remember his name. I'd love to write to him and say, by the way, I have a PhD now and I still am a Mormon. But that idea of being called in to deal with critics and so on, I came to actually hate it. There was one experience in particular, and this will shock some who think I really enjoy beating up on people. But there was a Jehovah's Witness who came, and he and his, I guess his supervisor were confronting the missionaries. They had me come to deal with them. Well, I creamed them. I mean, just, frankly, it was embarrassing. They were just. They weren't that good. And I just beat them into the ground. And at the end of it, I felt awful. I thought this accomplished nothing. It humiliated them. They're no closer to joining the church. They haven't accepted the gospel. And I feel terrible. It was not a good use of my time. And I told the missionaries basically throughout the mission, any who asked me, don't invite me to things like that again. I don't want to do it. It's not interesting if they're going to be that way. If they just want to fight, move on. It's not worth our time and it doesn't contribute to the spirit. I don't like it. I am, despite the fact that I'm willing to engage in argument, I'm really not a contentious person, and I didn't enjoy that at all. So I've tried to avoid it since then. And again, I'M getting ahead of the story, but I have a lot of friends who are critics, anti Mormons, apostates of various kinds, atheists and so on. And I get along just fine with them. I'm not interested in having a battle with them. Oh, we'll disagree. I'll argue about the points, but I won't fight with them.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:24:02] They're not fundamentally flawed individuals because they don't believe.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:24:07] No.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:24:07] Interesting. So you're on your mission and you come home and you're back at byu. You meet Debbie then or when did you meet Debbie?
Marriage, Graduate School, and Arabic Studies
Daniel C. Peterson [00:24:16] Well, I met my wife Debbie when I was in a ward at byu. The conventional BYU story. She was from Colorado, I was from California. And it was a torrid courtship of two dates in two years.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:24:30] Oh, wow.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:24:32] Each time I took her out, she intimidated me and I thought, she really doesn't like me. So it really didn't click until after I'd left byu. I'd graduated and I was down in California. I was working there for a while before going off to graduate school. And she came through and she tells me now that she'd had. When she first saw me, she knew that she was going to marry me. She actually fought against it.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:24:58] You were too intimidated by her?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:25:00] I don't know. I don't know why. She just didn't want to be quite, you know, forced into something like this. She's down in California. She was driving with a non member friend of hers past the town that she knew I was from. Suddenly thought of me, stopped off, got a phone book, called my mother. My mother said, well, it was a Sunday. He's speaking in the ward that he grew up in over in San Gabriel. And she said to her non member friend, would you mind if we went to hear him? They're both dressed in Levi's, right? They came into the back of the sacrament meeting. As soon as she walked in, I thought, okay, this is it. So the irony is I was settled at that point on going over to Cairo, rather to Jerusalem. At that point I had applied. This is a funny story. I had applied to the American University in Cairo. No response, nothing. And I began writing to them. This is before Internet and so on. You couldn't just call them and I'd write to them. And finally I was saying, look, if you've rejected me, I can handle it, just tell me. No response at all. So my friend Kent Brown, on the faculty at byu was going over to Jerusalem for a semester abroad and I asked, can I come? And we worked out kind of a special Program of study for me, because I wasn't an undergraduate anymore. I did Judaism in Late Antiquity and Early Christianity with him. And I had a little thing where we read the Greek and New Testament together and so on and so forth. But some of the other courses I did with the other. With the other students just being in the Middle east, finally, I was just eating it up. I loved it. I wanted to know what the place felt like. But one of the first things we did was go through Cairo before we went to Jerusalem, actually. And so I marched on over to the American University and said, what's the story? I went to the admissions office and they looked through their files and they said, oh, yeah, you were accepted. Well, you never told me. Well, here's your letter. And they handed it to me right then. This is January. Right. And it was a letter dated October 11th. I still remember that. Accepting me for the term that had begun in the previous August.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:27:00] Oh, wow.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:27:01] So the letter's not even written until October. And they don't send it. They hand it to me in January,
Dan Weatherspoon [00:27:05] and so they're wondering, where is this guy?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:27:07] Yeah. But, you know, I kept thinking, do you guys not notice something odd about this? That the acceptance letter wasn't even written until two months, three months after. After I was supposed to be there. And then you never bothered to send it. It should have told me a lot of what I needed to know about life in Cairo. That's the way Egypt works, sort of. I love Egypt, but efficiency is not its strong suit. So I studied in Jerusalem, left my fiance. By that time, we were engaged because I was already programmed to go. And she couldn't get away. She had a job that she couldn't leave. And then I came back, married her, and dragged her off to Cairo.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:27:45] Has she been traveling with you a lot?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:27:47] Oh, yeah, she travels with me a lot. She loves Cairo. We had a great experience there. It was a fabulous place to be, a young newlywed couple. Difficult. I mean, with the passage of time, you forget how awful it was. Sometimes we just laugh.
John Dehlin [00:28:03] Ah.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:28:03] You know, so mud comes through your faucet, so the electricity goes off for four days, you know, and Sadat bands meat for a month or something like that. Well, you know, you live with it. It's kind of funny in retrospect, but. But to live there in a place where I literally passed by the pyramids at least twice each day going into and out of the city. We were all the time wandering through the medieval Islamic portion of the city just to the point where I could Go to the Egyptian Museum, one of the great museums of the world, any day of the week and take it in small bites. We loved it, absolutely loved it.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:28:39] And at this time, you weren't thinking about doing Ancient near east for your doctorate, or had you?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:28:43] I was already. I was kind of trying to decide which way I wanted to go. But living in Egypt, I began thinking, you know, Islam is a big, unstudied, virgin territory, especially for Latter Day Saints. There weren't that many people doing Islamic studies in those days. Now it's a big subject, especially after 9 11. But there weren't that many Westerners doing it. And so I decided this is where I wanted to go. Hugh Nibley had given a talk at BYU once. He was in one of his Arabic phases. And I discover now reading his biography, that this happened periodically. He'd go into just an obsession with the Arabs, read Arabic and so on. He always liked it. And then give up on it for a while. Well, he was in one of his phases. It may have only been a week long this time, I don't know, but it was long enough to get me. He gave a speech. I don't remember what it was about, but at the end he said something like, whatever you're doing, drop it and study Arabic. Whatever you want to study in the Middle East. There's some Arab chronicler there writing down important information, and nobody's studying this, okay? That's it. That's what I want to do. So I decided that I wanted to go that direction, study Arabic and Islam. And I've really enjoyed it. It's been enormously interesting to me ever since.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:30:00] So formal education was then at ucla?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:30:03] Yeah, I went to ucla. It was kind of fun. When I first went there to check it out, I wanted to do it partly because I'd been away from my parents for so long and they were getting up there. I wanted to have some time around them. In retrospect, there are other places I could have gone, but UCLA was a really good program then. I think it still is, but it certainly was then. The International Journal of Middle East Studies was headquartered there. It was a real hot spot. They have a fine Near Eastern Studies Center. But I went and I remember talking with the secretary to the Near Eastern Studies center, and she was quite hilarious. I'm sure she's retired now. She was so smug and arrogant. I thought she said. Well, she said, let me caution you, you're not a native speaker of the language, and so there's no possible way you could succeed in our program. And so that was kind of what sold me on the place. I thought, oh, yes, I can, and I'm going to. And I did.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:31:01] And what was your Arabic like at this point?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:31:02] At that point, it was getting better because I was living in Cairo, you know. But it's true, I'm not a native speaker. But, you know, at the end, when I did graduate with my PhD, I dropped by and wished her well. And I just wanted to make the point, you know, I did get a PhD. Yeah, yeah, I made it. But it was an interesting program. I mean, the fact was there were a lot of Arabs studying then. I don't know how long that had been going on, but a lot of. A lot of native speakers were coming to the US to get their degrees. So I was often up against native speakers. It was difficult sometimes, although I learned one interesting thing. I remember a course I took on medieval Arabic poetry. And the thing was, I could not understand the poems. They were really hard, but at least I knew I didn't understand the poems. The native Arabs in the class didn't understand them, but thought they did. So I thought, I actually have an advantage here. And I remember taking a Persian class. I skipped through Persian really rapidly. It's much easier than Arabic. And I ended up in a graduate class in Persian taught by a native Iranian Persian speaker to all native Persian speakers except me. And I was kind of there, you know, like, I'd skip the third year of grammar and everything else to be there. And that class was the nightmare of my life. It was on Tuesday. By Sunday, I was getting sick. By Monday, I was official physical wreck. Tuesday was just horrible. Getting ready for this class. Tuesday evening was great because it was over for another week. But I'd go there and all these Persians were sort of giggling because when I read Persian, they thought I had an Arab accent, which is probably true. And it was just a struggle, but again, I made it. And by the end of it, my Persian was getting halfway good. And it's a language I love. I sometimes have thought if I discovered that earlier, who knows where I would have gone. Persian poetry is wonderful.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:33:01] I mean, I would love to dive in there. I know that you've done some, like Abraham, divided your book and things that came out. Let's figure out how it is that your specialty is sort of to feed in with Mormon theology and things like that again. So I'll just let you figure out a way to make that transition.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:33:21] Well, farms had been founded in the late 70s. I was pretty isolated over in Cairo. Didn't hear much about it. But when I got back to ucla, I began to be in more close contact with farms, got on their mailing list and so on. I had friends who had similar interests. Stephen Ricks was already involved with it. My old missionary companion. He'd in the meantime finished, or was finishing finished, I think a PhD in ancient near Eastern Religions at Berkeley. My friend Todd Compton was studying classics down at UCLA and had real FARMS type interests. And so I got involved in that. I'd always thought that an organization like this needed to be founded. I'll tell you why. A because I was interested in the topic. But a specific instance when I was in Jerusalem, I was looking through the files of the Jerusalem branch one night. I can't remember why. I'm sure there was some honorable, legitimate reason why I was doing this. But I found a mimeographed paper in it called King Benjamin's Address and the Feast of Tabernacles by John Twentnes. And I pulled it out and began to read it. And John was arguing that what was going on in the backstory, the context of King Benjamin's address is Sukkot, the Festival of Booths or Feast of Tabernacles in ancient Israel, and the people in their little tents and all that sort of thing. And I read it through and at the end of it I thought I my word, obviously true. How could I have missed that? But once you've seen it, to me at least it was so obviously right. But I thought what good is this paper doing sitting here in mimeographed form in a manila folder in the files of the Jerusalem branch? John Twentnes was a counselor in the branch presidency. It's doing nobody any good. There needs to be some sort of organization that would be a clearinghouse for this kind of thing. But there was no venue for it at the time, so I thought something needed to be done. And when FARMS was founded by Jack Welch, this guy sort of raised up by Providence with degrees in ancient history and a specialty, tax exempt foundations, it was like he was designed to do this. I would have talked about it for the rest of my life, but I wouldn't have done it. He did it. I thought, I've got to be involved in this. And when I came to byu, I got more involved and eventually was asked to edit the. To launch the new. What was then called the Review of Books on the Book of Mormon and so on and ultimately was added to the Board of Directors of farms. And that's how I got involved.
Developing Interest in LDS Apologetics
Dan Weatherspoon [00:35:49] Yeah, now it sounds almost like. Because when we think of apologetics now, it's usually coming after critics. Yet this piece that interested you was just making connections and whatnot. When, I mean, what percentage of today's farms or is part now the Maxwell Institute, what percentage of it is simply a real robust interest in the ancient world? And if it connects with Mormonism, great. If it doesn't, Versus we're trying to really ground the Book of Mormon in this context.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:36:21] Well, a lot of people don't understand what we're doing. First of all, they think we're all about apologetics. That isn't true. Actually, a large chunk of our effort, our budget, everything else goes into things utterly unrelated to Mormonism. My Islamic translation series, what we now call the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, is a major part of what we do and has nothing to do with Mormonism at all.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:36:44] Give a one minute version of what that is.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:36:46] Yeah, that's. And maybe we'll want to come back to it in terms of historical chronology. But it's an attempt to produce dual language editions of books out of the classical Islamic world, mostly Islamic texts, but also Jewish and Christian texts. And, you know, that's one third, in effect of what we do here, another third. How it really turns out in the budget, I don't know exactly. Couldn't give you off the top of my head. The figures, and it'll vary from time to time, but another clear third of the overall purpose is what we call the center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, which. Which has produced computer searchable digitized versions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, done computer searchable databases of Syriac documents out of the Vatican, hieroglyphic texts and murals out of Bonampac and Southern Mexico, things out of Herculaneum, so on and so forth. I mean, this is a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with Mormonism, but it does flow out of our general interest in the ancient world. We are very interested if you want a common denominator in texts. Ancient texts, religious texts. And so that unites the whole thing. But many of them are Muslim or Jewish or, you know, Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Christian or whatever. They might be texts out of Qumran or even in some cases pagan texts, Herculaneum, which we've now kind of spun off to a separate group in the classics department, really was pagan Epicurean philosophy. Now I tried to make the argument that even Epicureanism is religious in its way, but I lost out and the classics people got it. But we launched that. That grew out of our efforts here. And so only a part, a third, if you will, of our effort is apologetic. And even that is mostly not about going after critics. People think that's all we do. I guess I've succeeded in making that part really visible, but that's not even a large part of what I do. Certainly not all of what I do.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:38:49] Yeah. I don't sense that that's the thing that drives your life.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:38:53] No. Even leaving out the Islamic stuff, which I spend an enormous amount of time on, even the apologetic things I do, I would rather, on the whole, make a positive case for my beliefs than smite the critics. But I do think that, you know, as in football, you have to play defense as well as offense. So I do, but I don't get as thrilled by that.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:39:15] Yeah. Okay, so we're at a point here where we can leave autobiography and start diving in here, and I can start asking you a little more questions that might seem like they have an edge, just because I know the sort of volleys that get lobbed in. I know you and Debbie end up with three sons, and they're all grown and doing well. Is there any piece of your autobiography? I mean, obviously things will come up as we go, but is there any more parts you want to share before we start in with that?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:39:47] No, I don't think so. I've traveled a lot. I've done a lot of lecturing and so on. People will ask me sometimes, what is your favorite topic? I guess I'm unstable enough to say that. It's usually whatever I've just been talking about. I get really excited. If they want me to talk on Mormonism, I'm excited. Get me talking about Islam. I'm really excited about that, too. I love teaching about other religions as well as my own. So in some ways that makes me jack of all trades, master of none. I suppose I'm spread pretty thin. People have asked, well, has apologetics or whatever cut into your Islamic output? Yeah, it has. I mean, frankly, There are only 24 hours in the day. You can only do so much. Would I do it otherwise? No, I don't think I really would.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:40:38] All parts of your personality need to have expression somehow.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:40:41] Yeah. I mean, I'd like to have. There's lots of books on Islam I want to write. I haven't written them yet. I hope I still will. But there are a lot of books on Mormonism I want to write. I haven't written them yet, and I still want to do those. So something is going to give, I suppose. I'M sure when I die, I will not feel that I was done.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:40:58] Interesting. Well, I know. Let's just go ahead and talk about some of the books that you have produced. So Abraham Divided. Was that one of your earliest ones?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:41:05] Yeah, it was.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:41:07] And that was about.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:41:09] When was that Jews and Muslims and the whole. It was not long after the first Gulf War, I think, that I was approached by a representative of a now defunct publishing company in Salt Lake Aspen Books. And they came to me and wanted to know, would I be willing to write a kind of brief, primary introduction to the Islamic world from a Mormon point of view. And I said, well, how long do I have to write it? And I remember him being kind of embarrassed and saying, well, we'd really like to have it in by such and such. And he named a date about three months away. Well, that actually caught my attention. I thought, okay, it's spring term. I'm not teaching. I wonder if I could do this. And I did. I write fairly rapidly and I don't rewrite much, but even I was astonished that the book actually came together. Now the fact was by this point I had a PhD in the subject. I had been teaching it, so a lot of it was in my hand. A lot of research due to deal after that. So it just kind of spilled out. It wrote very rapidly and it got a fairly good response. It's been through two editions and actually I'm long overdue. Deseret Book has been wanting me to do a rewrite of it, and I just met with some of them a couple of weeks ago and have promised. I promised I'm going to do it. So I've got to cut back on message boards and write that stupid book. We'll talk about those message boards because it needs to be heavily revised at this point. The last two chapters in particular are obsolete. There's no mention in it of the Middle Eastern Text Initiative, for example, which I founded and directed. But there's also no mention of 9 11. They were written before that. I was still talking about Yasser Arafat in the plo. That's really water under the bridge now. We're in an entirely different world.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:42:53] Okay, and then I know your last book was on Muhammad and very well received, and I know this is why you're traveling so much lately. Keynoting here and there and stuff. So tell us about that real quick. What did you do?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:43:07] I was asked by. By a couple of friends, David Noel Friedman, the late David Noel Friedman, and Michael McClymond, who's in Missouri, St. Louis to write a chapter for a book on the founders of the world's great religions. It's called the Rivers of Paradise. And I did that. It was a fun book, way overpriced. Nobody bought it, but it had an introduction by Hans Kung, which I'm kind of proud of. I don't know any other Mormon who's had an introduction written to his work by Hans Kung. I don't make anything of it, but I chuckle about it sometimes. But then they decided they wanted to take at least a couple of those chapters and turn them into freestanding books. And so I took my chapter and went through it again and turned it into a book for Eerdman's called Prophet of God. Now, I didn't give it the title. I first saw the title on the mock up of the COVID and I remember thinking, hmm, should I say something about that? And then I finally decided, no, no, I'm fine with it. A, because that's how they regard him, and B, I'm not sure that's not how I regard him. You know, I remain a little ambivalent on Muhammad, but I'm not altogether certain that I can rule him out as someone who received genuine revelation or inspiration. So I thought, I'm going to leave it. That's fine with me. The book has been pretty well received. Some of the things I've been happiest about have been notes I've gotten from Muslims who've said, thank you, you did a fair job. That matters a lot to me. And frankly, when I do do battle with critics, one of the things that I always say is, look, you should describe your target religion in a way that adherence to that religion will at least recognize. I've tried to do that with Islam. If they tell me, no, you're seriously wrong, then I want to know, okay, how am I getting it wrong? How can I get it more right? If people keep saying, no, no, no, that's not what we believe, then you're doing it wrong. And, you know, I don't hold myself forth necessarily as an example of how it ought to be done, but in that book, I think I did pretty much do what I preach. The other thing that amused me was there was one very vocal anti Mormon down in Arizona who just threw a fit about this, that Eerdman's, a supposedly Christian publishing house, is publishing a book by a Mormon that is favorable and sympathetic to Muhammad. Well, I got a huge kick out of that. I loved it. Anna Rudmans didn't seem to be bothered by it. Either. So we're all happy except the guy in Arizona.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:45:45] And then any of the key writings or books, I mean, we'll get into your editorship.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:45:51] I'll tell you something, I've done that I kind of want to. I play down. I did a two volume set called the Last Teachings of the Prophets and so on. I was asked to do that by one of the principals at Aspen Books. I won't get into the politics behind it, but the fellow who had put the quotes together was not acceptable as an author for various reasons. And the Church had said, yeah, you can use general authority quotations, but don't try to make money off just quotations from general authorities. We don't mind if you use all the quotations, but. But turn him into a book, not just a quote book. And so they approached me about it and I did it and it was kind of fun to do. But of all the people I know, I'm one of the least obsessed with the Last Days. And yet I found that that has had transiently, I hope, a kind of funny impact on my reputation. When the Austlings did their book on Mormon America, wasn't it? I show up, I think, three times in that book, as I recall. And in all three cases they've got me so completely wrong. And one of them is they talk about how well obsession with the Last Days is pretty well died out in Mormonism, but it survives in some pockets. And then they cite me and I think that's funny. I did the book as a favor to a friend, you know, and I am not obsessed. I don't have a three year supply and a stockpile of weapons in southern Utah, you know, so I don't talk those books up very much. They're sort of mine, but sort of not, you know, what else have I done? I've edited some books at the Maxwell Institute and I wrote a book called Offenders for a Word.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:47:27] Right.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:47:27] I remember that, which really was mine. I was so tired of the charge that Mormons aren't Christians that I decided to look at all the arguments that I could find for that and see what I could make of them. And in every case I think I could show that there is some distinctly Christian group whose Christianity, nobody would deny that taught exactly the same thing or did exactly the same thing, that Christianity is a big tent. Now. I remember speaking at Sunstone once and Jeffrey Silliman from Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church was my respondent when I delivered the paper that that book grew out of. And at the end of it he said, you know, I think Professor Peterson's probably convinced me Mormons are Christians, they're heretics, but they're Christians. And he said, somehow I think that doesn't bother him as much. And I said, you're right, it doesn't. Because calling someone a heretic is clearly a statement that's made from a particular theological vantage point, and everyone knows that. So you consider me a heretic. Fine. You know, I probably consider you a heretic, too. You're at least as distant from my views as my views are from yours. Right, but when you say someone's not a Christian, that sounds like a factual statement, but I think it's a pseudo factual statement in a lot of these cases. When I say a Buddhist isn't a Christian. Yeah, nobody would debate that. But when I say over someone's protests, he's not a Christian, and he says, yes, I am, and I say, no, you're not, that's moving away from any kind of factual use of the term, But I dislike the specious factual character of it. You know, there was an ad once, I remember, in a. In a small newspaper where my parents lived in California, and it said, mormons are not Christians, and announced that as if it was some fact. And I thought, yeah, but I know the people who put the ad in, they also don't consider Catholics Christians. Now, if the people reading the ad, probably at least half of whom were Catholics, knew that, they'd say, oh, okay, all right, I know what to make of this claim. But they don't. It's presented as if it's some factual thing, like, gee, Hindus aren't Christians. Well, thank you. I was confused on that, but now I know. But it's not a factual statement in that way.
Guest [00:49:38] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out@sabre-rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.
John Dehlin [00:49:53] Come, come, ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy Wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better find far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to listen Jo hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well. Why should we mourn? I think our love is hard
Guest [00:50:58] Tis
John Dehlin [00:50:58] not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shoot up your lo. Fresh courage take our God will ever us forsake soon we'll have tale to tell oh, all is away well, all is well oh, all is well all is well. Sam. And should we die before our journey is through Happy day is well we that are free from toil and sorrow
Guest [00:53:06] too
John Dehlin [00:53:09] with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the saints the rest obtain I will make this chorus well oh, all is well all is well all is well all is well all is
Guest [00:53:49] well Is well
John Dehlin [00:53:53] oh, is well. All is away all in the way. Ra.
Faith, Scholarship, and the Ancient World
Part 2 of 4 · Ep. 272
John Dehlin [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.
John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org
Dan Weatherspoon [00:00:29] well, Dan, I am ready to play devil's advocate occasionally here and stuff like that. Anything I throw at you, here's my rules. Coming from a place of affection for me, thinking of a lot of people and voices from the background. And whenever you feel like me saying you, Dan Peterson, I'm probably most likely meaning the apologetic enterprise in general. And so however you want to always say I'm upset with that too, you know, feel free to do all that stuff. So we're going to kind of. You're our guy representing, but I know that you're not necessarily always.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:01:11] Now, this is the point where I snarl and lie a lot. Okay.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:01:15] Yeah, your head spins around. Good.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:01:17] Yeah. Project Foul vomiting.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:01:21] Yeah. Give us enough distance here. I'll risk that. Okay, so as you began, you began to introduce a little bit about farms and a third of the budget. This third of the budget. This. So snarkle puss or smart demon in the back of my head saying, okay, you say it comes out of an interest in the ancient world. Does it really? Why would byu, why would this nonprofit organization that it began as, attract people that really just want to do that unless there was some sort of sense of, we love the ancient world because we think the Book of Mormon fits within the ancient world. We love the ancient world because we think our religion hearkens back and has its roots in that. So address that sort of connection there to full on. The critic that sort of suspects you to do something.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:02:14] Well, I won't deny that I think a substantial part of my interest in the ancient world comes from my religious interests. I mean, whatever interest I have is a function of me as a whole person. My whole personality goes into it, my whole background, my whole sensibility, everything else. So I don't know that I can surgically disentangle the one from the other. Yeah, I'm interested in it. On the other hand, I write about topics in antiquity and Islam that have nothing to do with Mormonism sometimes. And there's no sense of, no, no,
Dan Weatherspoon [00:02:41] I should be doing something more important that might save us all.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:02:44] Right. You know, it's my job. It's what I do. I mean, I think an engineer does engineering. Maybe that's not saving souls, but it's important to do. And so I've devoted a lot of time to teaching Arabic grammar, you know, and I can actually, believe it or not, sometimes get kind of excited about Arabic grammar. It's kind of interesting. I look at the language, the verbal system of Arabic and think, who came up with this? It's genius. It's totally unlike the English system. And so those sorts of things interest me. I get interested in certain philosophical issues. I have other interests besides religion. I'm very political, for one thing. Political philosophy interests me. And so Al Farabi and people like this are major political philosophers as well as philosophers of religion. So you have someone like Leo Strauss, the great University of Chicago political philosopher who spent a lot of time on Al Farabi and Maimonides. So do I, and I'm interested in those topics. There are other things that get me going, other articles and so on that I write or have written on topics that are quite unrelated to religion. But my primary interest, I'll admit, in the ancient world is the history of religion. I'm not interested particularly in the history of trade or something like that, though I almost once thought of being an economist. And even that can get me. I can go into a bookstore, and in any section of the bookstore I can find half a dozen books I'd like to read. So I'm that broad. I mean, I don't claim that as a virtue. It's a disability in some ways, but it keeps me going all over the place.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:04:17] But FARMS actually fund. How does the funding work? You're a BYU professor. So is all of your salary really byu? And you're an ancient Near Eastern professor, and that's where your money comes from.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:04:29] You know, it's all actually quite confusing.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:04:31] Okay.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:04:32] I'm not even sure I understand the accounting of it. I'm in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages, and so I'm a full professor there. I teach there and in supporting departments. That is, I've taught Middle Eastern history when the historians weren't available to do it. I have routinely taught Islamic humanities in the department of humanities. I've taught in the philosophy department, Islamic Philosophy and Medieval Philosophy and so on. So I get around. But my home is in Asian and Near Eastern languages. And yet.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:05:05] So all those Maimonides and, you know, these interests are fed by that?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:05:09] Oh, yeah, this is what I teach.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:05:12] So FARMS really has nothing to say about any of that?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:05:15] No. Although the reason those books came into this organization is simply this. When I started what is now the Middle Eastern Text Initiative. I found that I was having to go over and do contracts in the administration building. I was having to deal with subcontractors, I was having to deal with the budget, I was having to deal with all those things. It was taking an enormous amount of my time and I wasn't very good at it. Meanwhile, there was an organization over here that I was serving on the board of. Actually, I think I may have even been chairman of the board. So I came to them at one point and said, look, you have an accountant, you have people who deal with contracts. This would add 10 minutes a week to their workload. It takes 10 hours a week of mine. Would you be willing to let me transfer this? Because it really has no home, it's just me. And they said, yeah. And so it moved over here and it actually has fit rather well because again, it has that common interest in texts. Ancient texts or medieval texts in this case. So those are legitimate interests of mine. I'm genuinely interested though, I have to say. We just published a book on Avicenna's physics in two volumes. It's a major masterpiece of medieval philosophy. Boring as all get out. It is so boring. We hosted a conference here about a year ago now up in Park City of the world's experts on Avicenna's physics. It was sort of like being anthropologist in an exotic foreign tribe. These guys are passionate about it. We'd be driving along, they're not seeing anything. Beautiful waterfall. I try to point it out. They're locked in a debate about Aristotle's theory of essential motion. This is so dull. But there are other areas of philosophy that captivate me that one doesn't happen to but useful to do it. It's an important fundamental work in the field.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:07:02] And is it okay? So the reason farms would say yay. I support this because we're bringing these guys to Utah. We're exposing. Is it purely a matter of let's looks good for the church?
Translation Series and FARMS Publishing Work
Daniel C. Peterson [00:07:16] Oh, I don't doubt that some of that plays a role. The fact is it does. I'll tell you how the series, the translation series got started. When I was in graduate school, I began to notice that the fundamental texts in Islam were not translated. The Quran was and a few others, but most of them you couldn't get them or if they existed, they were in obscure translations published 80 years ago in Pakistan, unobtainable and so on. And yet coming out of classics, I knew that almost everything in classics you go to an ordinary bookstore. The Loeb Library is sort of My model. But you go to the bookstore and you find five translations of Homer, four translations of Plato, it's easy. So a non specialist can get a pretty good idea of what the Greeks were up to just by going to a good bookstore. But you can't do that, couldn't do that for Islam. And I began to see that as a major gap. Well, at a certain point when I'd come here, I got a call from Alexander Morrison of the 70. And Elder Morrison wanted to know. He wanted to come down and talk to me, he said, and when he got down, we just met one on one for about three hours. And he wanted to know, were there ways the university could help us to send a message of friendship to the Islamic world that the church as a church could not, because the church would scare them off? For some reason, people have this notion that Mormons are missionary minded. I don't know where it comes from, but they have that. But the university could do something academic that would send a message of respect and friendship. There's no dream of getting missionaries into Riyadh or into Mecca or into Tehran right now, but sending a message of friendship. And we went through a whole bunch of ideas. One idea was an endowed chair of Islamic studies at byu. I loved the idea because I thought, I have no competition, I'd get it, I'd almost certainly get it. But that wasn't the best idea because it'd be sort of like having an endowed chair of Mormon studies at Notre Dame held by a Jesuit. We'd wonder, well, we're flattered, but what's he doing? We might be more paranoid than anything. Likewise, I didn't think that would send the message, but I suggested having a series of translations where we would allow them to speak in their own voice. We wouldn't be doing anything to them except Englishing them, if you will. And he loved the idea. He's a former academic himself, went back to Salt Lake and they said, they didn't give me any money. That was up to me. It was an unfunded mandate. But that was the approval to go ahead with it, which I loved, because when I was teaching Islamic philosophy, especially early on, I was limited in what I could teach by what texts were available. It would be sort of like teaching Greek philosophy, but there are no translations of Plato or Aristotle. So you have to go with Theophrastus. And you say, look, there are these two really big philosophers, but we don't have anything from them. So it gives you a distorted view. Well, Avicenna had almost nothing Transl. Now we've got stuff. So it's a legitimate contribution. Does it have an underlying ulterior motive? Yeah, I suppose.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:10:11] Friendship.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:10:11] Friendship. Nothing more than that.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:10:14] Okay. From Elder Morrison and maybe a few others. I also, I would guess, and you can say yes or no, there's this sense that Mormons are pure pro Israel, only Israel, basically, whatever that government does is just fine and dandy, I imagine. I know President Hunter was one to make sure that we look at both sides and all that. So is there a bit of that behind this too? Maybe a little bit. Balancing out our.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:10:42] That's a message I personally want to send that I am not an uncritical supporter of Israel. I am by the standards of my profession, very sympathetic to Israel. Most Arabists are not at all by the standards of Mormon Zionists. I am really critical of Israel. I think I'm right about where I want to be. I find myself in gatherings when people are going on and on and on about Israel as just this wonderful shining knight, our ally in the Middle east. Practically guiltless. I can't take it. And I have to say things very critical of Israel. When I'm with people who are really pro Palestinian, I start pointing out, you know, they've done a lot of terrible things. This is not unfortunately a conflict with white hats and black hats. I have good friends on both sides. I feel terrible about what happens over there, but nobody is guiltless. But I think it's important to send a message because historically we do have this pro Zionist leaning. It's been pretty clear. I remember when I was first going over to the Middle east to study. Before I left I was married, just married, but hadn't quite left yet. And we went to a. Maybe I was standing in my own line. I don't think so. I think I was going through someone else's line and someone said, so you're going over to Egypt? I said, yeah. He said, what are you going over for? I said I'm going to be studying Arabic. And he said really seriously? Well, I'm on the Lord's side and I just don't react well to things like that. I think to say the Lord has a simple minded side in this is idolatry.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:12:13] Crazy Definitely. All right, so we're back to Fair Farms and sort of the question of, I don't know, working backwards from the conclusion to the evidence. And again, I know that people who send in money generally want their religion to look good and if they're going to get funded partially from the church, partially from These donors and stuff like that. There's sort of an expectation that you're only going to discover and publish the stuff that matches up. Where does that fall out? How accurate is that?
Defending the Book of Mormon and Its Historicity
Daniel C. Peterson [00:12:55] I don't think it's really accurate. I think it misunderstands, misconceives what we're doing. We rarely publish articles that argue for the proposition simply the Church is true or the Book of Mormon is true. There'll usually be an argument that the most likely river for the riverside and the Book of Mormon is the Grijalva or something like that. Now, there's nothing in the faith of a Latter Day Saint that entails that conclusion, and there's nothing in the Book of Mormon that would be damaged if we decided it was instead the Usuma Sinta or whatever other river you want. So we're usually not dealing at that macro level. But I think what the implicit argument is that if the Grijalvo works, if it fits, well, that's, that's a nice pointer in the direction of plausibility. It fits. It makes sense. It makes sense of the data in the Book of Mormon. There is a real world river that fits all the criteria we can isolate, but we don't triumphantly come away from that and say, ah, see, we've proven the Book of Mormon true and we rarely are doing that kind of thing. Very rarely. And I don't think most of us even believe that it's possible to prove the Church true or prove the Book of Mormon true. I do argue that you can make a cumulative case. It's not one that will convince everybody. It's not one that compels belief, but it's enough to tell you that you don't have to crucify your mind to be a believer.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:14:18] Okay, well, do you want to outline a little bit what that case would look like or point us to books that you feel like are at least pieces of that larger case? What's your best stuff?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:14:29] Yeah, well, I'm really impressed with one that wasn't published by farms, the Maxwell Institute, but came along long before that, and that's Richard Anderson's investigating the Book of Mormon witnesses and all of the other things he's written on the witnesses and some things that other people have done, Lyndon Cook and people like that. I think the witnesses are extremely impressive and I don't think they can be explained away very well. They seem to be sane, they seem to be honest. They're. They're sincerely convinced of what they claim to have seen and held. I find that Most people now grant their sanity and their honesty. There are a few hardcore anti Mormons out there who don't. But they're pretty fringe. The most powerful current argument is to say well they didn't really see or hold anything they saw with their spiritual eyes. I think that's privileging certain fringe statements because overwhelmingly the statements of the witnesses, the eight, for example, talk about holding, turning the pages. It's as matter of fact as can be. And when John Whitmer says, for example, well they were shown me by spiritual power, I don't know what he means by that. Maybe simply that God granted him the privilege of seeing them. Because when he describes the experience he had, it's very matter of fact. Afternoon in a clearing in the woods, turning the pages. They weighed about 60 pounds and so on and so forth. To me that's pretty impressive matter of fact testimony.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:16:01] So how could plates only weigh 60 pounds?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:16:04] Because I don't think they were pure gold. I think they were a gold alloy. And if you allow for the fact that a block of plates is not a solid block but has air between each of the plates is not made out of pure gold but a gold alloy. We actually reprinted an article from years ago in the improvement era called were the plates of Tumbaga or something like that by Grant Putnam where he argued there was an actual pre Columbian alloy gold alloy that if you used that as the basis of the plates would come out to about the right weight. I think it's likely to be something like that. It would have the appearance of gold. A non metallurgist wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But pure gold would be bad for a whole lot of reasons. One too heavy, B way too malleable. It wouldn't retain the writing.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:16:49] So in the defense of the witnesses you're saying that's fairly impressive to you. But are you playing offense or are you playing defense there?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:16:57] Because I'm probably playing defense there. I don't know. It could go either way. I don't know. I would simply say that the witnesses are good evidence that. Well, what do they say? They say that this is not some subjective experience of Joseph Smith's alone because other people are seeing and hefting and turning the pages of these objects. And it's not just the official witnesses, it's Lucy Mack Smith and, and Emma Smith and his sister Catherine and so on who hold the plates, who feel the rings and flip the plates and they feel like a book, only thicker. And Emma describes rustling the top plate on the Ones underneath. It seems to me that there's pretty clear evidence that there was some sort of material object there.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:17:46] And then the hiding and the moving around and all those different things, that
Daniel C. Peterson [00:17:51] takes it out of the realm of subjective hallucination. Which means, to me, you can't just rule Joseph Smith out as nuts and say, you've explained Mormonism away. That means he's saying at least. This is very blunt language. He could be lying. He could have faked the plates. I think Dan Vogel's position, I don't see it. One of the projects I really like someone to undertake is to make some plates. I want to know exactly what goes into it. I've tried to persuade some engineering friends to do it, but for some reason they're not as excited about my hobbies as I am. They've got other things to do and lives to lead. But I would still like to see people try to create false gold plates. And what goes into it? How much effort would it take? I mean, this is not something that Joseph Smith, I think, had the skill to do. So who did he get to do it? Where's the conspiracy? Where's the evidence for it? On the other hand, you could say everybody's just lying. There were no plates. But I don't see any evidence for that. Again, these men strike me as well, David Whitmer, for example, honest to a fault. I mean, pigheadedly honest. He would not compromise. I just can't see him going along with a lie. It's not in his character. So it seems to me that the witnesses force the issues in certain ways. I can, for example, look at Mohammed. I did a paper when I was first in grad school at ucla, Professor. I was doing a paper for him on the prophetic call of Muhammad, and he saw a draft of it and said, well, I'd like you to do something comparing him to another prophet. Well, it was at the end of the term. I didn't have much time, and so I thought, gee, okay, I know one I can do it on. I did it on Joseph Smith and Muhammad, and I didn't mean it to be any kind of apologetic paper, but at point after point after point, I thought Muhammad could be explained away. I'm not saying I do, but he could be explained away on the basis of subjective hallucination. Nobody else ever sees anything, nobody else ever hears anything. There are no material objects that miraculously appear anything like that. So it's all within his mind. Now, it could still be divine revelation, but Joseph Smith's not that Easy to explain away. And I think those material objects, the witnesses, force the issue in a way that it's not forced for Muhammad.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:20:08] Yeah, the plates are a scandal in the sense of you have to deal with them and it takes it into a different realm.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:20:16] So I remember a conversation with a friend of mine who's since left the church, a very bright guy whom I like very much. But he said at one point, well, the plates don't seem to have been used in the translation process. And that's certainly true in a lot of cases they were in another room or something. He said, well, what function do you think they served? Well, my immediate reaction to him was, well, I think for one thing they're an absolutely indigestible lump in the throat of people like you who want to say that it was just Joseph Smith imagining things. They just rule that out if they really existed. Either he deliberately or somebody deliberately made them or something. But he's not just in la la land. There's a 60 pound material object there. And if you trust some of the other witnesses, there were other objects, lots of plates, Sword of Laban, the Liahon of the breastplate. I mean these are being treated fairly. Matter of factly, Lucy Mack Smith is holding it and according to some accounts, I almost think that she saw it uncovered the breastplate and everything. And so where do these things come from? It's hard to explain them away as just. Well, it's impossible I think, to explain them away as just hallucination. So to me that's a basic chunk of the argument, the cumulative argument I would make
Dan Weatherspoon [00:21:33] and Richard Lloyd Anderson is where you say start.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:21:36] I always recommend that book to people. I think it's a great book. Even though he's written more since then. I think it's very, very good. That's the starting point. You know, there are other things. The farms ish side of me would say, well then let's look at the content of the book and there are things in it that to me Joseph gets right about the Middle east, for instance, that I just wouldn't expect him to. Now there are still outstanding issues. Some people accuse me of saying, well, we've proven it true. I don't believe that there are still outstanding issues, but heavens, there are still outstanding issues regarding Homer. There's still the Homeric authorship question, all these sorts of things. So I don't expect to have all the questions nailed down. But to me the Book of Mormon ought to be after it's been examined for as long as it has, it ought to be if it's a fraud, a pretty obvious fraud. I mean, it's gotten a lot of attention from a lot of bright people. You can make arguments against it here and there, but on the whole I think it endures pretty well. And I'm really impressed, for example, now with Grant Hardy's book on understanding the Book of Mormon. I think it's wonderful. I don't think. He certainly won't admit to any apologetic purpose in having written it. I've even pushed him and he won't. And he all the way through the thing he says. Now, I'm just assuming for purposes of argument that it's historical, these are real characters. But he's created a really good case, I think, for three very distinct authorial voices in the Book of Mormon. And to me, the most parsimonious explanation of that is there are three distinct authorial voices in the Book of Mormon who happen to correspond very neatly with Nephi, Mormon and Moroni. To me, that's another argument for authenticity. But I see all sorts of links with the ancient near east and things like that. I find the account of Lehi's travel down the coast of Arabia very, very, very persuasive. The location of this site of Nahum in what I see as the right place, the right time, right relationship to another site. These are things that Joseph just isn't likely to have come up with out of the blue. Now some people will say, well, it's just sheer chance. I suppose so. I mean, this is all subjective, sure, at a certain point, but it's a
Dan Weatherspoon [00:23:46] cumulative sort of thing.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:23:48] I may be convinced you're not. I mean, that's why we have differing opinions on politics and everything else. But it's a rational case to me.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:23:56] So what about all the outliers? What about all the 19th century evidences? Or at least what seems to be. So if you're making your positive case, you also need to sort of deal with the negative.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:24:06] Yeah, and I think there are those. There are things we still can't explain. Some of them, I would say, could possibly be explained by the nature of the translation. That is, I hear people arguing about whether it's a literal translation or a loose translation. I myself don't know why it has to be either or. When I translate, I go from loose to tight to loose to tight, depending on the sentence, you know, that sort of thing. But I could easily see 19th century vocabulary, even phrases, showing up in the Book of Mormon. Nibley years ago did a translation of the Syriac hymn of the Pearl. And he starts off with the opening line, in my first primeval childhood. Now, that's not literally what it says. On the other hand, that's really what it's trying to say is something like that. And I think, given his interpretation of the poem, I thought that was a brilliant way of rendering that opening line. I'll tell you an experience I had in graduate school about translation that I've still gotten a kick out of after all these years. I had a seminar in the morning with a professor of Arabic who for some reason brought up Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubeiyat, Omar Khayyam. And he described it as, without question the single most irresponsible, inaccurate, dishonest translation ever done from an Islamic language into a Western language. Which is true. I mean, you can't use Fitzgerald's translation to help you understand the Persian. No quatrain agrees. I mean, it's just. It's very periphrastic. So he's right. That afternoon I had a seminar with a Persian professor. I was the only common element between the two classes. And I don't know why Omar Khayyam came up. This fellow described it. It was hilarious to have it happen. That afternoon. He described Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat as, without question, the finest translation ever done from an Islamic language into English because it captured the spirit, the point of the poem, even though it's not literally accurate. And I thought, he's right, too. That's the funny thing. They're both right. It depends what you want from a translation. Translation is, by definition, betrayal of the original text. The only question is how, in what way?
Dan Weatherspoon [00:26:14] Right. So besides the translation literal and his phraseology and 19th century isms getting in there, what about the. It's fairly convenient that he just. Let's just make infant baptism a big issue here for Moroni. At the end of. Is that where you. How do you say that? Mormon would pick that out, at least from a scholarly thing? I guess you can say if God. If the Book of Mormon really was prophetic and all that stuff, it works. But can you deal with that piece from a more academic.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:26:49] Yeah, we don't know enough about. If there was Mesoamerican Christianity, were they having this issue? It's conceivable they were for the same reason that they began to have it in the Old World. There's certain logic to it, you know, that if you're not saved, if you're not baptized, we better move it up and make sure that people are baptized early. Because we have a high infant mortality rate, I might have recourse to the religious answer and simply say, look, if this book really is designed for our day, then you've got to give God some ability to inspire the prophet to put in what's going to be relevant to the time that it comes forth.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:27:25] But if you were writing a book, you don't want to go there, right?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:27:31] I'd say there are some issues. Look, I'm quite comfortable with ambiguity. I'm quite comfortable with standing back and saying, look, I can conceive of several responses to this. I don't have a slam dunk on this one right now, but I think there's enough pro to allow me to say, you know, I'm going to give the book the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not going to convince you on that specific issue. Taken in isolation. No, probably not.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:27:55] But adding it all up. So who is writing that book now? Who should write that book? Has it been written? And I'm just not aware of this
Daniel C. Peterson [00:28:02] sort of cumulative case.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:28:03] Yeah, this is sort of the cumulative positive case that because everyone else is like, okay, dear taper all that. You add up all the little things that. Okay, at a certain point, if you have to explain so many things away, it just doesn't feel. Yeah.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:28:20] And of course, it's always going to be subjective where you decide. That is just getting to be too much fudging on the edges for me. Some people will say, no, I'm fine. I'm convinced enough of the central core that you can have a few more of those if you want. It's not bothering me. Others will say it's too much. That's a matter of personal sensibility and taste and personal history and everything else. We are not computers. And so we arrive at decisions at different points and. Good.
Joseph Smith, Polygamy, and Difficult History
Dan Weatherspoon [00:28:49] Somewhere along the line, I want to kind of, especially as we'll talk a little bit later about some of the most difficult issues in Mormonism, that sort of the key apologist issues. I kind of want to know that calculus of how much weight do I
Daniel C. Peterson [00:29:02] give to this versus this when it's hard to articulate. I mean, I can't come up with an algorithm, but certain principles sort of.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:29:09] I weigh this this way and this this way.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:29:12] Well, I'll give you an example if I can jump ahead on a very different issue, but a huge issue, and that is the question of Joseph Smith and plural marriage. You know, if you look at just that issue, I think that's a very difficult issue for us. I don't think it's quite as difficult now as I used to think it was, say a year or two ago. I think some new things have come out. Relatively new book by Craig Foster and Newell Bringhurst. An article published in the Farm's Review by Greg Smith that really opened my eyes and actually settled some questions that I had had on the subject. And there's more coming as I understand it. But still I thought to myself, alright, think of a friend, think of someone out there, think of a person a that you don't know at all. And the first thing you hear is a really negative thing about some things he's done that seem to paint him in a really bad light. You have no reason to think positively of him. And so those things really set your image of him. He's a scoundrel. It's very different. If this is a friend of yours that you've known for 40 years, he's always been an honorable guy. You have always had the highest respect for now you hear some stories about some things and you say, well, it doesn't sound good but I'm going to suspend my judgment right now because I'll bet when I talk to him he'll have an explanation and it will all make sense because I've had that experience we all have where you hear, could
Dan Weatherspoon [00:30:27] his explanation be, I'm a weak man,
Daniel C. Peterson [00:30:31] this is how I screw up? Yeah, I don't think so. That would be where I would draw the line and say, no, that would be a little too far for me because God still seems in my view to treat him as a prophet after this crap this stuff began. But I have no doubt that is a really difficult issue for a lot of people and especially if you take it in isolation, it makes Joseph look pretty bad. And what's the most obvious explanation that those of us living especially in our sex drenched culture would come up with? Well, gosh, how many politicians and others have we seen religious leaders who it turns out can't keep their pants on? This happens all the time. So Joseph Smith's just one more example of that. And yet if you know somebody really well, maybe you're inclined to say, you know, maybe that's not the explanation. Maybe his explanation that he felt divinely inspired to do this really is true. I think for example, the could you
Dan Weatherspoon [00:31:29] allow him to be confused about whether it was divinely?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:31:32] Well, I'll tell you this, I will allow him to be confused. Confused about how to do it. People say, well, he was sneaky and that sort of thing. I'm thinking, well, how would you have handled it? How would I have handled it if I'd been told in an environment that is much more puritanical than my current one is to do this? And I'm thinking to myself, this could get me killed. This is going to get everybody that trusts me to hate me. I don't want to do this. So if I do it, I'm going to be sneaking around, it's going to look terrible. It might even make it worse. In some ways, I'm willing to allow that. It was maybe not handled properly, but I always think, how would I have done it? I don't know, but it sounds like
Dan Weatherspoon [00:32:10] you give some credence to perhaps even an angel with the sword saying, get yourself going on this sucker.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:32:17] I don't rule it out. No. I think it's possible. I'm a believer. I grant it. I'm inclined to give him very much the benefit of the doubt because of
Dan Weatherspoon [00:32:24] this years of experience with him and the authenticity.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:32:28] I read things like. Another book that impresses me is Monk McConkie's book Remembering Joseph. He's got these hundreds of testimonials of people who knew the prophet firsthand and a CD with even more that goes with the book. And they tell a story of a guy who would walk out of his way to pay off a debt of 37 cents and that sort of thing. And I just think. I'm not saying he's perfect. I'm not doing that at all. Nobody is. But he seems like a good man to me.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:32:57] That's how I read him. I mean, when people say, oh, my integrity, you know, he doesn't match up and stuff. Well, integrity for me demands that I remember those kinds of stories just as much as I remember the ones that don't look bad. And again, it leaves me in a place where it sounds like you are. Of wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt as much as I can and comfort with ambiguity. Though I think I have a little more ambiguity than you. We'll see.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:33:23] But you know, I read, for example, the. The statements that are coming out of his journals and out of his letters that we're seeing in the personal writings of Joseph Smith, even the ones that Dean Jesse did. There are these little asides in his journal that he wasn't writing for publication. They're written in this really homely bad spelling of the early Joseph Smith. And he's praying, oh, Lord, help me to. Help me to remember thy will. Help me to do the right thing. Be with me Please, I pray and so on and so forth, just all the time thrown in. And I think if he's pretending to be pious man, he's good. But this seems to me unrehearsed, unstudied, unpretentious. Now, that doesn't mean he couldn't have gotten things wrong down the line. Of course he could have. Everybody can and does. But the idea of him as just being a brazen deceiver who's just cynically manipulating people, I don't believe it. I don't see it in it.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:34:13] I don't believe that either. Okay, okay, polygamy. See how we brought it up? I still want to go back a little bit to the Book of Mormon, but the polygamy piece from an outsider perspective who don't have this familiar with Joseph Smith. I think your idea of if this is the first thing or one of the first things you hear, it's going to be arm's distance from this guy. What about for the lifelong member who made it to age 38 without even hearing that Joseph Smith was a polygamist?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:34:44] Well, you know what? I'm sometimes accused, I'm routinely accused of wanting to suppress uncomfortable facts and everything. My view is exactly the opposite. I would rather get all the stuff out on the table. I would rather have to borrow a medical image inoculation. I've talked with Richard Bushman about this a lot, and we see eye to eye on it. I believe that we ought to tell these things to our people as soon as we can. But when it's told to you by somebody who believes, it just doesn't affect you the same way as when it's told by someone who comes up to you and says, hey, you want to see what I've discovered? And your church lied to you about it. Quite often what happens with people, it's not so much the particular fact or story or whatever it is, it's the sense they've been lied to or that they haven't been told the full story. And therefore, what else has the church deceived them about? I was 50 years old before I heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and so on and so forth. I don't doubt that that happens now. I've sometimes come back to people and said, well, you know, gee, I wish you'd been reading more, because honestly, I'm not making this up. My mother had Juan Anita Brooks book about Mountain meadows, two of them in her library. I read them both when I was a teenager. I've known about this stuff since I was A kid I knew about polygamy early on. I heard about a lot of these things, so it lost any capacity it had to bother me. It doesn't shock me or surprise me, but somehow people get that old in the Church. Many of us, frankly, don't read. We're at the video store, on the movie channel or something, and then all of a sudden they're preparing a lesson. They look something up on the Internet. Boom, there it is. The church has been lying to me all my life. And I feel terrible about cases like that. I think to an extent. To an extent it's their fault because they haven't been reading, they haven't been paying attention. I've had people who tell me, man, the Church suppressed the idea of multiple versions of the First Vision. They published them in the Ensign, for heaven's sake. They've been published by Deseret Book and Bookcraft, BYU studies everywhere. What do we have to do? Come by, knock on your door, make you read it, and then sign an affidavit that you did? I don't know what to do with people like that. On the other hand, it is true that we don't always tell the full story, and I would rather that we do. I'm not. I think the best response to this is to tell our story honestly in an unvarnished way.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:37:08] Is there a trend towards that? I think there is starting. I sense it, too. Do you have any stories you can share without name names or not? But what evidence do you have?
Church Transparency and Historical Projects
Daniel C. Peterson [00:37:21] I think the Joseph Smith Papers Project is a really good one. I think the Mountain Meadows Massacre book. Books, yeah, are a great, important step. You know, I've been having a dialogue with some people just today about Mountain Meadows Massacre and, you know, and was that book a lie? Was it trying to whitewash the church? I think, good grief, no. I mean, it points the fingers at stake presidents and local leaders and so on. The members did it. It basically exculpates the Indians. That's exactly what needed to be done. Should have been done a long time ago, but I think I understand reasons why it wasn't. But now it can be. I think Richard Bushman's book Rough Stone Rolling was a step forward in this. I'd like to see more of that kind of thing. I think we're getting better at it, and I think it's a sign of maturity. And I am so far from advocating a whitewashed history. It couldn't be further from the truth.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:38:14] Okay, so I guess my question is. From the people I listen to or at least who I'm in dialogue with on my end. It's like, okay, Juanita Brooks, tough life once she started bringing this out. Grant Palmer, not a whole lot of respect coming from the people who are reviewing his book to even acknowledge in the early part of the putting this information out or whatever that they were onto something. Is it just human weakness somewhere along the line, I guess. I would love to hear you share. She might, I can see a little more easily. She was a heroic figure of saints
Daniel C. Peterson [00:39:03] and she remained the faithful Latter Day
Dan Weatherspoon [00:39:05] Saint more than perhaps Grant or whatever. But when Mike Quinn gets pretty much. I mean, again, I'm one of these guys that have known Mike Quinn for 20 years. And so when I hear these certain portraitures of him, I'm like Joe Smith of polygamy. I want to give Mike the benefit of the doubt. And I don't hear that coming always from the apologetics.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:39:26] Well, let me say something, and this
Dan Weatherspoon [00:39:27] is divorce you from the discourse, because I know I'm going to say sometimes you do get your unfair a little bit. Maybe
Daniel C. Peterson [00:39:39] I'm always just, I'm the personification of justice.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:39:44] That'll be the clip that somebody is going to end it out here and lift that up. But yeah, I'd love to hear more of a. Okay, I know I'm doing a job. When I'm overseeing a journal of apologetics versus is everything I'm publishing really fair or is it just fair because it's within the game of apologetics?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:40:04] Well, I'll tell you how I edit. I'm a very laissez faire editor. I am, for that matter, economically laissez faire. I'm a libertarian.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:40:12] Hang yourself. Is that what you mean?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:40:15] Yeah, sort of. So what I tell people is, look, I go to someone and I say, would you write a review? They ask how long? Long as you think you need it to be. What approach should I take? Whatever approach you feel like taking. I do not dictate what people write in the review. I don't.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:40:33] But you publish it.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:40:35] Yeah, I do, but I ask interesting people, I think interesting people to write. Now, Juanita Brooks obviously was gone long before we came along. I think she was not treated particularly well by local church leaders. But she died, as I understand it, a faithful Latter Day Saint. And, you know, I respect her. I think very highly of Juanita Brooks. Grant Palmer, I'm more critical of because I disagree with him more fundamentally. I mean, that's simply the fact. But when I went out to get people to review him, I'll tell you, at first I had a hard time getting anyone to review it, to review the book. No one wanted to. They were all busy. Historians are just busy, busy, busy. At least they tell me they're busy. But there was some sort of looming big deadline for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. It was really hard to get any of them to give me the time of day. I actually at one point got Jill Durr to convene a meeting of the Smith Institute. And I made the pitch to them and said, please, somebody, some historian, I don't care who, just somebody with a historical background. Would you write a review for me? And finally, Steve Harper said, yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. Well, then, to my astonishment, after his was promised, several more came in. I mean, Davis Bitten wrote a little essay he just sent to me, not for publication. I said, davis, can I run it? Yeah. Mark Ashurst McGee wrote one for me. Lou Midgley wrote something for me. Eventually, Jim Allen wrote something for me. Too late.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:42:06] Did you feel obligated to publish them all?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:42:08] I thought they were all interesting.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:42:09] Interesting.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:42:10] Even though I didn't recruit, people will say, wow, what overkill. You went out and got six reviews because there were five reviews and a statement from the Smith Institute. I actually only recruited one. The others came in and I thought, ah, you know, it's James Allen. Yeah, I'm gonna run James Allen. Mark Ashurst McGee. I've always wanted to have something by him.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:42:29] But if you look at the review and you say, well, this isn't scholarship. This is. This is.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:42:35] But I think they are rhetoric. I don't think they're rhetoric. So you would probably disagree on this.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:42:40] Well, I would at least say they're.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:42:42] They're rhetorical.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:42:43] Okay.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:42:44] But, hey, Herodotus is rhetorical. Thucydides is rhetorical. It's still history. Good history. Edward Gibbon. Edward Gibbon is definitely rhetorical. I don't mind a historian who's arguing for a thesis. In fact, I would argue, and we've gone the rounds on this one for years with I and various critics about objectivity in history. I say it's impossible and undesirable. Petanovic.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:43:08] I don't have any problem with that.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:43:09] So and so they'll say, you're in favor of just relativism. Anything is true. No, that's not what I'm saying. But I don't mind that a historian comes along and writes a kind of partisan history. I like to read Marxist histories. I like to read feminist historiography. It's challenging to me. It wakes me up, it gets me thinking down new paths. And I've learned really important things from some of these people, but I don't mind knowing, okay, this guy's a Marxist, so I'll keep that in mind. Tell me I'm a believing Mormon and I'm coming at this as a believing Mormon. I'm happy with that. You want to do Catholic history, I'm happy with that too.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:43:45] So if you weren't editing the FARMS review and you were editing an American history review, I don't know where Grant's would be. His would be some sort of mixture of theology and psychology and who knows whatever else. But if you're editing one of those, would it be a different editorial approach?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:44:04] Yeah, it probably would be. Look, some people say, well, the Maxwell Institute is partisan. Well, yeah, yeah, of course we are, self avowedly so. But that doesn't mean we're dishonest. You can judge us by what we produce and if you find a flaw, fine. That we're putting them out in the public marketplace of ideas, go after them. That's what it's about. And we'll go after you. And out of all of this, the truth we hope will come out. I'm for a vigorous exchange of ideas,
Dan Weatherspoon [00:44:35] but not within the pages of the magazine.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:44:37] Well, now that's funny because several people have said, well, he refuses to take letters to the editor. I've only had two requests and in both cases the people who asked to do letters withdrew the request before I even got an answer back to them. So it's never really come up.
Online Apologetics and Message Board Culture
Dan Weatherspoon [00:44:53] So people, would you publish reviews of reviews if they were submitted?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:44:57] You know, I've toyed with the idea. We never have. And at some point I begin to get worried about an infinite regress. And I think, well, but there are other venues. Hey, believe me, there are lots of critics out there and they don't seem to lack megaphones for going after the farm's review. So I thought, this is my little corner of space. This is our little bully pulpit. You've got yours.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:45:18] Okay, and that is a question I want to do. It's like, it's like an insider discussion,
Daniel C. Peterson [00:45:24] but there are disagreements even inside it. And we've published things. Like we published an attack on Mormonism by Carl Mosher and Paul Owen. For instance, I've published Michael attacking my own piece on Psalm 82, the ere gods passage.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:45:40] Would you publish that without supporting one ever?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:45:44] Probably not. Okay, so no, probably not.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:45:47] So if it is negative, as far as. As Mormon truth claims, you would probably
Daniel C. Peterson [00:45:50] always publish a response because we are not impartial.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:45:53] Right.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:45:54] I don't pretend to be.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:45:55] Okay, so that's fine and all that stuff. I guess it's just. I worry this is maybe my larger question. The apologetic enterprise, in many ways, I think, pushes away. I'll say people who were raised within the church come to these questions at some point in their life, and then they don't see the messenger who helped them, at least into this new questioning space or whatever. They don't see those people honored at all as having something behind it. Isn't there something about the DNA in the Book of Mormon that really should be acknowledged in even an insider discourse as being. I can see why somebody would be upset about this.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:46:43] I think I've actually said that. I think I've actually written stuff.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:46:49] I guess I fight against the general impression that I'm giving you here with either specific things or not, but I guess that whole idea of here I am reading an apologist thing, I'm supposed to go to these websites and join these discussions and basically it's like, oh, you're crazy for even worrying about that because of these five reasons. And there's no acknowledgement of the gut punch.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:47:14] Yeah, I don't think that we've typically said you're crazy for worrying about these issues. Some people may perceive it that way. It's not the way I feel, but I'll tell you, I hear people write to me all the time and say, man, you're the reason I lost my testimony of the church, so on and so forth. First of all, I'm not sure they're telling the truth because I'm trying to think, okay, you know, it was your silly arguments for Mormonism that convinced me it was false.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:47:38] You didn't have enough depth for Mormonism.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:47:40] Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking this might be a nice rhetorical point to score. You think you're scoring on me, but I'm not sure I credit it. But even if it's true, I get lots of notes from people saying, wow, that was really helpful. I've had an exchange with a person just within the past couple of days. Very concerned member of the church. I suggested several things for him to read, and I frankly didn't expect the sort of gushing response. It was, oh, man, thank you, thank you, thank you. That settled all my concerns on that issue. It really took care of everything. I'm feeling great now. Well, I get that kind of thing. Maybe not quite that enthusiastic, but I get that kind of response regularly. And so there are people out there who say, yeah, you've driven me away from the church. There are a lot of people who say, you really help keep me in the church. Now, do I have quantificational information on that? No, I don't. I have no idea. But I think by and large, the effects have been positive. Now, can we improve our tone and so on? Yeah, probably so. And we've tried to be careful. Believe it or not, I edit out a lot of stuff.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:48:50] You're the little devil on your left
Daniel C. Peterson [00:48:51] shoulder who wants to put in.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:48:54] Oh, you're talking about in the journal. Yeah, okay.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:48:57] And here's the other thing people have said, man, you are so nasty. Believe me, I have held back on nasty things I could have said. I personally, I've known things. Nasty personal details about people that I think my critics would expect me to use. I have never used them. Never. I wouldn't do that. Never. There's a fellow out there right now that claims that I'm the one who outed Mike Quinn and I'm the guy who kept him from being hired at any one of the two to 4,000American colleges. Apparently, I'm this practically omnipotent but boundlessly evil being who's just devoted his life to that sort of thing. I haven't done any of that. None of that. I didn't spread any rumors that I was, in fact, on that issue of Mike's orientation, his sexuality. Todd Compton and I heard it about the same time from the same person. I think we were about the last people to know, partly because I'd been out of the country. So this idea that I sort of masterminded some conspiracy to personally discredit him, it's just flat out false. I didn't do anything of the kind, nor would I have. I don't do that kind of thing. And like I say, I've sat on things that I've known, stories that I've known and so on that I could have used to great rhetorical effect, but it would be unethical for me, and I won't do it. But I've also. Because, frankly, I enjoy the give and take, and I have a little fun with it. I have more than a little fun with it. People need to understand. I'm laughing most of the time, and I'm not laughing in some nasty, sneering laugh. I'm just having a good time.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:50:35] So this is your two hours a day on message boards and stuff you're talking about here?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:50:41] But then I see things come in sometimes that are written by people who. I think this sounds arrogant, but I think they're trying to sort of imitate what I do. Well, instead of using a rapier, they're using a meat axe. And I don't appreciate that. It's one thing, it seems to me, to write a piece such that someone will read it and conclude, man, the target of this is an idiot. It's another thing to come out and say, this guy is an idiot. I won't do that. Now, if I think he's really. And there's some I think are real idiots or just plain dishonest, like Ed Decker, I won't say that he is. But I'll give you example after example where I think at the end, if you're thinking rationally, you will conclude that this man is not honest. He's not careful.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:51:26] So is that what gets you going more than anything else when you feel like it's not coming from an honest inquiry?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:51:31] Right, it does, yeah. That gets me going.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:51:34] So is that where, like, a Simon Southerton doesn't gain your respect to where a Juanita Brooks would kind of thing?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:51:40] To an extent, I think Juanita was really struggling with a serious issue. You know, these are people she'd known growing up and so on. And then to find out, to me, just by the way, as an aside, to me, the really interesting aspect of the Mountain Meadows massacre is that it was done by good people. And I mean, by that, there's a moral tragedy here. And actually, reading Massacre at Mountain Meadows, I kept thinking, you know, if I were a playwright, I would love to compose almost a Greek tragedy out of this. How there's a certain inevitability to what's happening. It has its own awful logic, and it moves toward this conclusion. You can see it coming. And standing outside, I want to scream, no, no, no. Stop. But I can see why they're doing what they're doing. And it just keeps going from step to step. But what interests me about it is they're not bad people. If they'd been thugs before and they were thugs after, well, there's nothing interesting about that. It's horrible, but it's not interesting. What makes it fascinating in a terrible way is they were good citizens before, good citizens after. And just for those few days, they did this unspeakably awful thing. And that's the challenge to me and the moral challenge. Could I, if I'd been in a situation like that, have done something like that otherwise? It reminds me of Hannah Arendt's comment about Adolf Eichmann, the Banality of Evil, that when she met him and interviewed him, she thought she'd been told that he was some sort of superhuman monster. And he just turned out to be this unpleasant little German accountant. And that was unnerving in a way. And she said, you know, we're sort of flattering ourselves by saying, well, he's a different species. I could never have done something like that. But when you meet him, you realize, no, he's actually sort of like me. He might have been an unpleasant neighbor or something, but that's the worst. But under those circumstances, he did what he did. And so I really respect Juanita Brooks for doing what she did. You know, Simon Southerton, I can see why a person would come to the conclusions that he does. I don't think he's right. And I think that. Well, I think that we have the better genetic argument.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:53:48] Do you?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:53:48] Yeah, I do.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:53:50] And I don't know the genetic arguments, but almost nobody that I hear thinks that you guys are even close.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:53:58] We were really advantaged by the fact that we happen to have some very, very prominent geneticists who are Latter Day Saints active. And one of them, in fact, told me he's won all sorts of awards. He's still relatively young, not at byu. He's won all sorts of prizes nationally and internationally. And he said to me, you know, I think one of the reasons I won all these prizes was maybe to put me in the position where when this topic came up, I could respond with some authority. And I think we have, and he has.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:54:31] So what is the takeaway of that response?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:54:34] The takeaway is that it would be
Dan Weatherspoon [00:54:36] natural that this DNA would be lost.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:54:38] Would just be lost. I mean, you wouldn't be able to identify it.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:54:43] Yeah.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:54:43] One of the studies that that came out relatively recently was a study of Iceland, where it turns out there's no genetic evidence for the existence of the ancestors of most of today's Icelanders. Or to put it another way, that most of the people living in 1800 in Iceland have no genetic representation that we can discern in the population of Iceland today. Now, we know they existed. We know they were the great, great, great grandparents of today's population. And undoubtedly there were some cases of adultery and so on, but not on that massive a scale. What that means is genetic traces can disappear more easily than we thought. And so you compare the relatively stable, isolated condition of Iceland with Mesoamerica with a small group coming 2600 years ago, not 1800 AD but 600 BC, the genetic bottlenecks, the wars, the diseases, the conquest, all these sorts of things. Talking about a genetic signature psorias, we don't even know what it looked like. What are the odds you're going to find it?
Dan Weatherspoon [00:55:48] Now that actually leads me to a whole line of questions here that I think maybe it's time to address. I want to reserve the right to come back a little bit towards the tone of apologetics and whatnot, but right there you've basically assumed a farm's argument, which was this was not an empty land when the hiatus people came here. And I'm fine with that. I think internal evidence within the Book of Mormon at least suggests that.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:56:16] I think and archaeologically it's inescapable, right?
Dan Weatherspoon [00:56:19] Absolutely. And yet it doesn't seem like the rhetoric of that makes its way to General Conference. It certainly isn't represented too heavily in ces. We're still telling instead of Mesoamerica which farms advance, it's like you guys are advancing doctors doctrine that the church doesn't teach. And I wonder, is that frustrating to you? How would you want that whole piece to change?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:56:46] Well, we're not trying to set doctrine for the church. We don't arrogate to ourselves that right. But we do try to read the scriptures and come to our own understanding of them with the best science and historical data that we can muster. Presuming that the Scriptures are true, but
Dan Weatherspoon [00:57:03] not necessarily presuming that earlier modern Mormon prophets got it right when they were saying the narrow neck of the land
Daniel C. Peterson [00:57:11] is Central America and this is dicey territory because a lot of people out there accuse us of rejecting the early prophets.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:57:17] There is that why should we bother with today's prophets when you're rejecting them there?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:57:21] But I see it this way. One of the quotes that's used against me and others very commonly is Marion G. Romney recalling experience where he's standing on the hill Cumorah of the Drumlin in upstate New York and seeing in his mind's eye the battles that happened there. And they'll say, look, this man was a prophet, seer and revelator. And he says the hill Cumorah was the place of the final battle. I don't read it that way. I read it as here's Elder Romney standing on. And it doesn't matter whether he's President Romney or Elder Romney. I'm not trying to play that game. But he's remembering standing on the hill and imagining the battle. Well, I can imagine the battle at Gettysburg or something, but it doesn't mean I've got it exactly right. I may have misconceived where Pickett's Charge was or something like that. He thinks that Hill Cumorah in New York is the place of the final Battle, because that's what everybody assumed for years and years and years. So he goes up, and in his mind's eye, he imagines the battle. That's not a claim of revealed doctrine that this is the hill of the final battle. This is a person reflecting on the text of the Book of Mormon, assuming that he's standing in the place where that happened. I don't see it as an authoritative statement that that was the Hill Cumorah of the final battle. Does that mean I'm denigrating Elder Romney? No, I'm not. But I don't even think his point in that talk was to identify the precise GPS coordinates of the final battle. His point was something else entirely. And I say take his point. Don't get sidetracked with that sort of thing. You know, it's like going to Isaiah and having him talk about the four corners of the earth, praising God and then thinking the main point of that is something about geography.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:58:59] Yeah, that's great. It's not.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:59:00] Yeah.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:59:00] I remember the one that I always think of is President Kimball saying exactly 150 years ago today on April 6th, and somehow April 6th all of a sudden became this Jesus birthday and this and that and the other thing out of just him noting it was 150 years ago.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:59:17] Yeah, that's the same kind of thing. Exactly. And I think let's be really careful in reading the remarks of prophets to distinguish claimed revelation from things that are just asides reflections on generally accepted ideas and so on. I mean, Paul uses Septuagint passages that actually misrepresent the original Hebrew sometimes. Doesn't mean we have to prefer Paul's Septuagint reading to the Hebrew or something like that. Just what's the point he's trying to make? That's what it's about. Not that he's doing text criticism on the Hebrew Bible. So I understand the charge that we're denigrating or turning our back on the former prophets. And it's a difficult one for me to address because I guess my conception of the role of the former prophets is just different in some ways. To my mind. I'm upholding them. I believe them. Absolutely. I am a really, really, really solid believer. I accept Elder Romney as a prophet, seer and revelator. I accept President Kimball as a prophet, seer and revelator. But I don't give him inerrancy and I don't think he would have claimed it. And I think if I'd asked Elder Romney, so did you receive a revelation there saying this is the precise GPS location of the final battle? He would have said what? I wasn't even thinking about that.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:00:41] So in what ways are these guys. So what makes them that you can support them as a prophet?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:00:48] Well, because I think sometimes when they are speaking, they do really speak by revelation. I take in a speech like that. President Romney is affirming the historicity of the Book of Mormon and the moral lesson to be learned from the decline of the Nephites and Lamanites. That's an entirely legitimate point. I absolutely agree with that. And I think that was the point that he was trying to make. Not anything about geography.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:01:10] So why does that make him a prophet? You could make that point. I could make that point. We're not prophets.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:01:15] I could. I take a fairly minimalist view. I don't think that the brethren are led at every moment by God.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:01:24] Obviously, you know
Daniel C. Peterson [01:01:28] that line is going to be misused.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:01:30] Oh, sorry.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:01:30] Okay, let me explain what I mean by that, which is they do receive revelation, but it's not every minute of the day. And a lot of the time they're left to struggle with problems. They struggle with them. They work their way out. They pray to the Lord to see if the Lord is okay with the way. They go ahead on this problem and they get confirmation or not. Sometimes the revelation is spectacular. 1978 apparently was quite spectacular. Unmistakable for everybody who is there. I've heard of other cases like that. In other cases, I think they're just operating with the best will in the world and the best inspiration they can get. But they wouldn't claim necessarily this is revealed. They'll say, this is a pilot program to see how this works. Or this is my reflection on this passage. It reminds me of a comment a friend of mine, a member of the 70, told me about. Of course, he's not sustained as a prophet seer in Revelator. But. But he said he was reading the Book of Mormon with his son. He was in an area presidency in Europe. His son asked him, well, what does this passage mean? I don't get it. His father, who's a former academic colleague of mine, said, well, this is what I think it means. And he explained it. And his son said, I don't think so. I don't think that's what it means. And his father said, well, you must agree with what I said because I'm a general authority. And his son said, oh, get real. And the father told me this story and just doubled up laughing, you know, because course he was messing with him. But the point is, a lot of the time they're reading the scriptures and they read them just like we do. But sometimes, and in uniquely authoritative ways, the revelation comes before the church.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:03:03] That's what I say. And you don't claim that other people can't have staggering spiritual experiences who aren't LDs similar to this 1978, but you're saying legitimately, within Mormonism too, God can really fundamentally break through with something real and genuine.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:03:18] I believe God is playing a three dimensional chess game and that he's moving a lot of pieces on this chess game that are outside the church. And there are people out there getting revelation and inspiration. They're getting it inside the church and outside of the church. Uniquely about the brethren is they have the right to dictate to the church. But I don't think that the Savior appears to them every morning to give them their, you know, to do list for the day or something like that. They don't claim that sort of thing. But I also reject the claim that he never communicates his will to them, because I think he does in a
Dan Weatherspoon [01:03:53] special way that really gets through the autobiography and expectations, all the postmodern stuff.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:04:00] Well, I know, and I won't go into detail because I don't think I'm at liberty to do it, but I know of a church policy that was put in place in one area of the church by a member of the 12 who described it as one of the clothes clearest revelations he's ever received. And he launched a program which apparently is doing really, really well. And he said it was just unmistakable when it came to him that that was what he needed to do. But I've had that experience. I mean, it's not restricted to leaders of the church. One that I will tell back to autobiography a little bit is I had an experience with a son in Jerusalem who was fairly young and he had a slight deformation of his throat. It constricted at a certain point and so occasionally he'd get things stuck in his throat. He got a piece of meat stuck in his throat in the Jerusalem center and it just wouldn't go. It just wouldn't go. And you can imagine it's terrifying. He feels like he's choking. Not quite. He was getting air and we let him sleep overnight. He woke up the next day, still had this in his throat. And we thought, okay, we've got to do something. So we got together, the elders quorum president there, a student in the Jerusalem branch, and. And he. And I gave him a blessing, and I was prepared. We were going to take him to Hadassah Medical center and get somebody to look at this and get it out of his throat. And I sort of thought, to my mind, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give him a blessing of comfort, reassurance, be calm. Medical care is there. We'll get you there in just a few minutes. I heard myself saying that this condition will end immediately. And I thought, what? I'm a really cautious person. I don't say things like that. And my wife told me afterwards, she said, oh, great, now he's destroyed his faith in priesthood blessings. Well, immediately after I take my hands off his head, he begins to choke and to gag. And I thought, oh, great, great, it's getting worse. Well, immediately he coughs up the meat. It's a small thing, but it was stunning to me because I swear it was not me. I heard myself say it, but I was not intending to say that. It was like someone else took possession of me and had me do it. And I just was reeling the whole day from that, that it was as distinct an experience as I've ever had of being used by something, someone outside myself. And if I can receive revelation, and I've had prophetic dreams and things like that, not that many, but a few where I just knew something was going to happen that was so unlikely, and yet it did. I saw it happen. I knew exactly how it would happen, I knew what it would look like, all that sort of thing. And it's happened. And I wonder, what is the point of this? Why, I had one on my mission that was really distinct, trivial as could be, but very specific and fulfilled within about eight hours, exactly the way I saw it. I thought, what is the point of this? They weren't weighty issues. Well, the one thing they've told me is when I hear people say, you cannot see the future, I say, oh, yes, you can. Maybe that's the only point of those things for me. On a small level, I've done it. I know it's possible. It doesn't happen to me all the time or every year, not even every decade, I don't think. But it has happened very distinctly. And so to me, those are little testimony reaffirmers. But in other words, I can look at biblical prophecy and people say it's just not possible to do that. No, I'm sure it is. If I can do it, surely Isaiah could do it.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:07:24] So the claims about prophecy is always really, really general up until the point then he's reading it back and he's getting more specific.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:07:37] How do you look at that?
Dan Weatherspoon [01:07:38] Is it just factually not?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:07:40] That's an interesting issue. And I think you could say, well, the Book of Mormon is much more specific after the fact. Although I was just reading something the other day about certain Isaiah prophecies written by evangelicals. And I won't even try to recapitulate it because I'm trying to remember which one it was. But their analysis to me was more interesting than I'd expected it to be. And I thought I need to go back at this and look at it because maybe I've just discovered a really good example of a very precise predictive prophecy in Isaiah.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:08:09] Normally someone would say third Isaiah because
Daniel C. Peterson [01:08:11] it, yeah, this is for something well past. It's relating to the life of Christ. And I thought, wow, okay, that's a Book of Mormon level of specificity. If this is right now, I have to go back through and check it out because I'm not absolutely sure and I don't trust this particular evangelical scholar quite. But if he's right, he's got something good.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:08:34] Okay, that reminds me a little bit about some more on the Book of Mormon. We talked about the 19th century pieces that are in there and stuff. Something as specific as Joseph being a character within the Book of Mormon itself. Is that one of these cases where you would treat it the way that you can get very specific that the ancient Joseph really could have done that? Or are you comfortable at all with something like Joseph's mind wandering as he's translating? I'm trying to buoy up.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:09:06] I'm not very kind comfortable with it. But let me tell you how I would view a situation like that. I tend toward Blake Ostler's view of God's foreknowledge. Not on the textbook. Yeah. I don't believe in a fixed future. I believe that in a lot of cases God's foreknowledge, his prophecies are not so much prophecies of things that will happen, but declarations of what he's going to make happen. I'm powerful enough, when the time comes, this is how it's going to go down. And I thought with the Joseph and Joseph thing, maybe that's part of a sign that God is telling about something. He's going to do. Here's my personal autobiographical take on that. Because I'm a descendant, I discovered fairly late my family was not into genealogy, but I'm a descendant of Joseph Knight, Joseph Knight Jr. And Joseph Knight. Now, when the prophecy says there's going to be a Joseph and his father's name will be Joseph, I think to myself, how interesting that there was a Joseph Knight Sr. And Jr. In the nearby area, each just a few years younger than the Smith counterpart. Was there a backup team?
Dan Weatherspoon [01:10:14] Yeah, I've heard that argument, yeah.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:10:17] If the Smiths hadn't come through, would
Dan Weatherspoon [01:10:19] the Knights have come?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:10:19] Were the Knights going to come through? They've been called the second family of the Restoration. Maybe that's how God does it. He says, well, I'm going to do this because this will be assigned to people. It will be a Joseph and a Joseph. But in case this one doesn't do it, I've got another one and there might have been a third. For all I know, there may have been one before Joseph Smith. How do I know who didn't do it? So in some cases, it's not so much a matter of peering into the future and discerning it as getting a divine communication about what God intends to do. This will be a sign. When you see this, you'll know this is one of the marks of authenticity that I'm going to do it in this way.
John Dehlin [01:10:58] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out@sabre rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.
John Dehlin [01:11:13] Come, come ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive Our useless ca from us to drive to the San Jo hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well well why should we mourn? I think our love is hard till my soul all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight Gird up your lo fresh courage Take our God will ever us for sake soon we'll have tale to tell oh oh, all is well all is well oh, all is well all is well. Sam. And should we die before our journey is through happy days all is well we then are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the sa the rest obtain I will make this chorus well. Oh all is well all is well all is well I is away well all is well oh, all is well. All is well all is well Sa.
Understanding Why People Leave the Church
Part 3 of 4 · Ep. 273
Dan Weatherspoon [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.
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John Dehlin [00:00:26] today@mormonstories.org back a little bit to the apologetic enterprise. Do you see it as more of a calling that every religion needs its defenders or whatnot? Versus I guess, How does it differ from scholarship? To me, there's the rhetorical piece, even the farm statement of who they are. We're studying this stuff, but it's based upon the conclusion that this stuff's real and true.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:01:07] That's the paradigm within which we work. And partly it's, I think, a fruitful paradigm within which to work. Assume that it's true and see how it functions, test it. If it seems to function well, then that adds to the plausibility of the prior assumption. But I'd say, first of all, I don't think you can divide apologetics from scholarship very neatly, because all scholarship, if it means anything, unless it's just unutterably trivial, all scholarship is going to be advocating a position, arguing for a position,
John Dehlin [00:01:37] picking this piece of evidence over that one.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:01:39] I take this thesis and I argue for it, and if you criticize it, unless I abandon it altogether, I'm going to defend it. And so you'll have apologetics going on. I think that apologetics is simply an advocacy or a defense of a position. Once you've staked one out, you got to defend it or abandon it. And so in that sense, it's not such a clear division to me. And as I say, I don't think that you can say that what we do here is start with a conclusion, then reason back, because we don't start with the conclusion necessarily, that there's chiasmus in the Book of Mormon. That's not a faith proposition. You discover it. At least you think you do, and then you argue, you show examples of it, then you draw a conclusion from that. But, you know, my faith wouldn't be impacted if, in fact, there were no chiasms in the Book of Mormon. Nothing in Mormonism hinges on that. So how do I think about it? In a sense, I would say, yeah, for me, it is a kind of calling. Now, let me be perfectly clear here. There are people out there who think the Brethren have assigned me to do this. They have not. In fact, to be perfectly honest, the university hasn't either. When I first came to byu, I was told, don't write on Mormon subjects. Well, one of the reasons I wanted to come to BYU was to write on Mormon subjects. And I disregarded that counsel. I'm happy to say that I've gotten away with it. By and large, some people haven't. There are some places on campus that are less congenial than my college happens
John Dehlin [00:03:12] to be for doing this outside college edit work.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:03:15] There are some people who simply aren't being allowed to do it under a particular administrator or something. You hope that things will change when that administrator departs, retires, whatever. So it's not like the university orders me to do it. They don't, they never have. And no part of my salary goes toward writing apologetics. If I didn't write a line, I'd get paid the same. Presumably I would write more Islamic stuff. I might get paid more. It's conceivable. If anything, I may have taken a hit. I don't know that I have, but I might have. You never know what goes into setting the salary, the thinking of the administrators in any given year. But do I think of it as a calling? In a way, yes. When I received my patriarchal blessing, I got it when I was 15, I think. I didn't know the patriarch. I'd never met him before. I don't think I ever met him again, didn't know him at all. Remember, I'm marginally in the church. I didn't know anyone in the stake. One of the things he said to me was that I would be looked up to and respected for my willingness to defend the truth, and I'd travel internationally and so on. To me, that blessing has been astonishing. It has been so accurate in some peculiar ways. Growing up as a kid in a kind of middle class family, not academic. My mother hadn't gone to college. My dad went to college for two years. Then the depression hit and then he was in the military.
John Dehlin [00:04:37] No expectation that.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:04:38] No expectation that I would be an academic. Nothing like that. Not particularly active in the church. My father a non member. The fact that this was said stuns me. And I look back at it and I think, how could he have known? How could he possibly have known this? Now, I don't think that that's a motivation for my getting into apologetics, but it's a kind of ratification. My wife will say sometimes, well, you spend a lot of time on this. But when I think about your patriarchal blessing, okay, it's obviously something you're supposed to do. So I Do see it as a sort of calling in that way, in that sense only also that I feel spiritually moved to do it. I can't step back when I see people who are having testimony problems. If I can help them. And I do a lot of this privately, private emails and face to face and so on. I just feel it's my moral duty if I have something I think can help them. I can't stand back and not do it. It'd be like standing on the banks of a river with a life preserver in my hand and not throwing it to the guy who's thrashing about in the water. I have to do something now maybe sometimes I don't do it very well, but I feel I have to do it well.
John Dehlin [00:05:44] That actually reminds me because when you used the example before of this fellow who gushed in his response to you about you really cleared up all my issues. I can see that when it's an academic, it's sort of on that level of I understood it one way and not the other versus the people who are in complete existential crisis and then they're, they're maybe hearing a drier academic. Well, if you read this article, that article and that article, how much of your private counseling is people who are in free fall? Like, I don't even know that there's God anymore. How would you respond to that?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:06:19] Oh, I have lots of those.
John Dehlin [00:06:21] But you can't do it with farms type of answers.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:06:25] Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. And I try to deal with people on the level they're on. Look, I've just been released a year ago. As a bishop, spend unbelievable amounts of time counseling with all sorts of people in all sorts of conditions, mental illness, everything else. It runs the gamut. And a lot of it I'm thinking, oh man, I have no idea what to do here. I kept thinking I should have gotten a degree in psychiatric social work. I just, I don't know what to do. Fortunately, my stake president is a professional mental health worker, so I would go to him occasionally. I'd say, I think this is beyond my pay grade. Can you see this person and recommend what we do? But the fact is in personal counseling like that, you have to deal with the person where that person is. And it's not always a list of periodicals or journal articles or something like that. Sometimes it is, a lot of times it's not. And so in some cases I think about counseling situations I had as a bishop. People would come in with this or that question and I'd say, are you praying? No. Are you reading the scriptures? No. Are you doing any one of these other basic things? No.
John Dehlin [00:07:35] That would feed that half of the argument.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:07:38] Can we maybe get that going a little bit here? Because I think you'd have a better chance of getting your life together again if you were doing some of the basics right. As it is, you're spiraling down a bad path. So it's not always about intellectual arguments. In fact, I would say, to be honest, mostly it's not. And the fact is, quite often there will be an argument that convinces me and somebody else says that is such nonsense. So it's not purely intellectual because I think I understand the argument as well as they do, at least as well as they do. But they don't find it convincing and I do. So we're coming at it from different angles. There's no one set fix for everybody. One article will touch somebody, it won't touch another person. Some people can't be touched. I remember we'll get phone calls occasionally. Got a phone call a number of years ago from a lady out in the American Southeast. Her husband was wanting to have his name removed from the records of the church. Would we talk with him? And we got three of us together. I was there and a couple of other guys because we didn't know where he was going to come from. Well, it was a conference call for all of us. We were in front of the speakerphone and his basic argument was the brethren are liars. And we said, all right, give us some examples. Well, it was like slow pitch softball. They were. He could have come up with better examples or more difficult problems. These were silly ones. They weren't very good and we just batted them out of the park. I mean, I have to say they were easy to deal with. And at the end of it, he said, well, they're still liars. And I said, look, I don't know what the real issue is for you. Obviously we're not going to be able to help you. I wish you the best. But there's something else going on here because these issues you've raised for us are non issues. They're just really easy to deal with. And he's still clinging to them. So I don't get it. Good luck. Wish you all the best. If I'd been with him face to face, if I'd had more time with him, maybe we could have done more. Maybe I would have eventually understood what the real issue was. I won't say that every departure from faith has to do with sin. A lot of them do, though. I remember years ago, one of the things that got me involved in this was a certain couple that I'd known somewhat, and all of a sudden they were circulating an open letter announcing why they were leaving the church. It had to do with the Salamander letter and things like that. And Todd Compton and I, of all people, got together. I did most of it, but he helped me write a kind of open letter response because they were circulating this to new converts and trying to take people out of the church with them. And they said they were very angry that we would respond that way. I thought it was kind of funny because I thought, why is it legitimate for you to write an open letter and not legitimate for me to write one? I don't get it. But they said, look, the Mormons are going to claim that we've sinned and that's why we've left the church. And it's a lie. It's not true. Well, in this particular case, I found out about a year later that in fact he had been having an affair. And then his wife found out and she had a revenge affair. And then they suddenly both discovered the church was untrue. Now, I won't say that happens every time. I'm not going to make that accusation. But the fact is we're not computers, we're not thinking machines. And everything we are and everything we're doing goes into playing a role in terms of our overall worldview orientation. It's not purely intellectual. And so I can help on some levels. I can't help on all levels. Nobody can, ultimately. And I sometimes ask people, look, do you want to believe? Because if you do, I can help you. If you don't, I can't. Now that's been misconstrued as, well, it's wishful thinking. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if you're going to resist me at every point, if you really don't want to be convinced, you really want out, then by all means, leave
John Dehlin [00:11:28] and nothing will dissuade you.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:11:30] But if you're looking for reasons to believe, I might be able to help you with those.
John Dehlin [00:11:34] Yeah, yeah. The question that you ask these students, and when are you praying? Are you reading? Are you doing these things? There would be the cynical people who say, well, you're just basically trying to get them back into the bubble. What would you say that I'm actually not? You're trying to do something beyond that. How would you articulate what you're Trying
Daniel C. Peterson [00:11:52] to get them to do well. It seems to me, fundamentally these are spiritual matters, and they have to be dealt with spiritually. I can be intellectually convinced of the church. I know some people who are and still not do a thing about it. I just don't care. So I'm trying to build what I see as the spiritual foundation for that. Now, it may or may not help them intellectually. There may still be more things we have to do, but with a lot of people, it's just a general sense of being in a spiritual funk. It's just that they're not feeling very spiritual. Their life just isn't going right, and everything is just kind of sour and dull and stale. And if I can get them over that, a lot of the other issues may take care of themselves.
John Dehlin [00:12:33] I think so, too. And especially what you said about these are spiritual questions. You're not going to ever get it purely this way. James Fowler spoke with my friend Tom Kimball. I've told this story a time or two, but Tom just says, my family is all getting these metaphysical experiences. They're all receiving what they feel like are real answers. And he. He goes, I'm not. And Fowler goes, well, are you praying? Are you doing just different things? And his whole point was, you got to be on the train track if you're going to get hit by the train. And I've seen people. I don't want to be hit by that train. And so they're running as far away from it as they can. I'm not trying to say that was the case with Tom, but it's that idea of, if we are spiritual beings, things that at least move you into a spiritual mode are important because.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:13:23] And I found with some people, they'll say, you know, those issues just sort of dissolved. I don't know that I have an answer for them, but I don't care so much anymore. They don't loom so large. The other answer I would give to people in some cases is, in some cases, it is appropriate to bracket a question. I've got a number of things on the shelf bracketed. Now, I know people will say, you can't do that all the time, but you have to do that. I do that with all sorts of things in and out of Mormonism. There are all sorts of questions I don't have an answer for. People ask me, for example, do you believe that Mohammed was a real prophet? I honestly don't know. I think there was something genuine going on there. Can I call him a prophet? I'm not sure. I don't think there's the data to answer the question. Right now. I'm content to wait, find out. I believe in the next life I will find out. There will be a whole lot of things that will surprise me tremendously. That's how that worked. Or, oh, man, did I get that wrong. So I'm expecting that. I think there's a certain humility that we have to have here. But I'll tell an experience I had. I remember running into an argument about Oliver Cowdery where someone said, I think it was the Tanners, maybe an old Tanner publication. They said, you know, Oliver Cowdery published a pamphlet in which he explained that he had left the church because he'd been told that Joseph was a fallen prophet. And if you believe my testimony of the Book of Mormon, you must believe this, that Jesus appeared to me and told me, get out, and so on and so forth. And I remember reading that and thinking, whoa, what do I do with that? Well, let's see. I can say, well, Oliver was a nutcase, but that doesn't exactly help his testimony as a witness very much. I couldn't think of a way of dealing with it. And for several days, here I am in Southern California. There's no one in my home ward who knows anything about this. No one I could talk to. Oddly, I felt, and this was odd, like I was the first person who had ever encountered this argument. I'm all I know. A lot of people who go through doubts think they are. I felt it. And then all of a sudden, it occurred to me. Richard Anderson's book on the witnesses was already out, and I'd read it, but I thought, well, I wonder if he said anything about this. And I went through it. Sure enough, he did. I just hadn't been paying attention the first time. Turns out the pamphlet in which that claim was made was published, I think, in Tiffin, Ohio. There's no record the place had a printing press in that year. You know, Oliver Cowdery came back to the church. I should have thought of this by
John Dehlin [00:15:51] that time, that it came out well,
Daniel C. Peterson [00:15:52] and he came back later. So if he'd really been told Joseph is a false prophet, he wouldn't have done that. He was questioned intensively about his time out of the church. This pamphlet never came up. The pamphlet first surfaced in about 1906, found by the secretary of the National Anti Mormon League. I mean, even the Tanners eventually admitted it's almost certainly a forgery. But for a little while, it gave me a run and so I've told people it is not wrong necessarily to bracket a question like that. You just don't have the facts. But keep trying to find out. Keep talking to people. Somebody out there may know the answer, an answer that will satisfy you, but don't just go to pieces. We had people in my home stake when they. You had these handwriting analysts who discovered many years ago, under the tutelage of Walter Martin, that Sidney Solomon Spalding's handwriting was in the manuscript of the Book of Mormon. Turned out to be false. But there was a family in my stake who left the church over that. I don't think they came back when about two weeks later, the handwriting analysts withdrew their claim. So I always thought, okay, so what was the real reason for leaving? You jump ship over that and you don't come back. So, again, probably not purely intellectual, but don't jump ship too soon.
John Dehlin [00:17:06] This isn't really a gear shift as much as I just want to go deeper on a couple of things. You do spend a lot of time on the boards. So we've been at the level of apologetics as an enterprise and whatnot. Now, I want you're famous out there, guy, and you are caricatured and you are lambasted and you've become a target and things like this. And yet there's certainly something in your style of engagement that might invite that sort of thing. Why do you enjoy the. Why bother with the message boards at all? What do you get out of it? Is there real work that gets taken, that happens there and things like that?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:17:52] To be honest, I don't think there's a whole lot of real work that goes on there. I don't think many opinions are changed. I can point to a couple over time. There was one woman who came on one of the boards I was on. I sensed that she was sincere and she was asking questions, and I spent a lot of time with her. So did a couple of others. She eventually joined the church. So it wasn't only because of us. She also had a perfectly spectacular spiritual experience right around that time. Really, really one of the most remarkable I've heard. But she did say that her interactions with us on the board helped. We answered questions. She came out of an agnostic background but had had a traumatic experience that made her question. And so I feel good about that sort of thing. And yet on the whole, I'll be honest, I think that my time on the boards has largely been wasted, and I'm trying to wean myself of it. I confess that I do enjoy repartee. But I also go onto the board sometimes because I'm routinely under attack there. And even when I'm not there, I'm under attack. I can go on a trip for eight weeks. I'm not making this up, this is not hypothetical. And I come back and there are threads devoted to me on message boards. I haven't done anything during that time. I haven't even been on the continent, I haven't been on the Internet. And there'll be fresh threads devoted to me. And it doesn't bother me that they dislike me and so on and so forth. It bothers me though, when they make factually untrue claims about me or about things that I'm involved in. There have been claims made about the Maxwell Institute, for example, where I simply felt I needed to come in and say that is simply not true. And the trouble is once you do that, it's sort of like the old Uncle Ramos story of the Tara baby, you know, you can't get out. And so I keep thinking I've just got to get out of this. It is a waste of time. It isn't probably good for me spiritually either because on the whole I don't get mad, I'm very hard to anger. I'm a type B personality. But sometimes it gets close because sometimes it just seems to me so unfair, so vicious and so willfully wrong headed that I'll say things that are meant fairly innocently and they're interpreted in the worst possible way. I say, look, give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm not a monster. Well, some aren't willing to do even that. And at that point I say to myself routinely, what is the use of this? What is the point? I don't need this. It's taking away from work I ought to be doing. I could be writing other things instead of spending hours on this. I tell myself that and then it's like a drunk passing by the swinging doors of the tavern thinking, well, I'm going to take a look. And sure enough, there's another thread about something I've said or done but that's not true. And in I go and I'm hooked again.
John Dehlin [00:20:43] Yeah, and there's not enough. How many people engage in these, in other words? Because in some ways a lot of people would know that's not true. Besides you, you don't have to go defend yourself. You'd have other people rush in. Is it just simply the fact that most of these message boards are not full of folks who Want to think well, or at least even think fairly.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:21:04] In many cases. They're not very big. That's why I keep telling myself, why are you doing this? You might have an active audience of, I don't know, 25 people or something. I write a column for the Deseret News. I don't remember what the circulation is, something like 70,000. I have no illusions they all read my column. But it's a pretty big potential audience and online, much, much bigger than that. So time spent writing the column, time spent dueling it out with five people on the Internet. I mean, come on.
John Dehlin [00:21:32] But is there that fear that if I don't respond, they're going to think that it's factual?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:21:36] Well, there is sort of that. And part of it is that whatever is said about you on the Internet is there forever. It's kind of enshrined permanently and accessible from any point in the world. I was actually several years ago, I was over on a lecture tour in Australia and I was barred from speaking on the campus of the Australian Catholic University because someone had made a charge that I was an anti Muslim. And they found that, and without inquiring or asking about me really, they simply did not allow me to speak there. Now, it's totally false. I mean, anyone who knows what I do knows it's quite the opposite. So I thought, you know, this can do you real damage if somebody is out there making false accusations against you. Well, I've been accused of being an anti Semite and a racist and a homophobe and a slanderer. And I've been accused of harboring murderous, homicidal thoughts about people. And they'll take a joke that I make, you know, and they take it as solemnly as can be. And off we go. And another installment in the demonology of Dan Peterson.
Personal Style, Public Role, and Online Criticism
John Dehlin [00:22:44] Well, okay, so here's the question. How much of this does your style bring on?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:22:50] Probably a fair amount of it.
John Dehlin [00:22:51] In other words, you're not a purely innocent bystander here in the sense that you enjoy repartee and people don't always get sarcasm or the wink.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:23:00] That's ironic sense of humor. I do. I have an ironic view of the world, but I also don't like to use smiley faces. And so it's amazing to me how seriously people will take some of the things I've said. Well, I don't even want to give an example. There's some in print that I could refer to, but I don't want to do that where someone managed to isolate all sorts of jokes I'd made, and then we'd just sort of quote them and then just the horror of it. And I'd think, can you really not see that was a joke? But apparently not. Anyway, so, yeah, there's no doubt that the style brings on some of that because I'm having a good time and I don't take this too seriously. And I would be able to go out with him for lunch afterwards and laugh.
John Dehlin [00:23:53] If they were willing.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:23:53] Yeah, if they were willing. Now, I remember one case where I responded to someone at the Mormon History Association a number of years ago, and I didn't like his presentation, and I didn't like the book that his presentation was taken from. I disagreed with it completely, and my response was pretty tough. It was just a litany of areas where I disagreed. Afterwards, he and I went out to lunch. I mean, literally, we had a good time. He realized I didn't like his book. But there was a suggestion dropped into the MHA suggestion box saying that I ought to be banned from for life for giving such a rough effort speaking. Because I was so nasty and brutal. But I thought it was funny that the guy to whom I was nasty and brutal allegedly got along just fine with me. We enjoyed a good lunch afterwards and talked further.
John Dehlin [00:24:39] We're not good with conflict at all, at any level within Mormonism.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:24:44] Well, there was a line from. Was it Nathan Smith's the Mormon Murders, where they talked about the great grinning mashed potato goodness of Mormon, Utah? That phrase has always stuck in my mind. Here I am trying to do something different than the great grinning mashed potato goodness of Mormon, Utah, and I get slammed for it. Not gratitude, slammed for it. It just seems to me that there's room for disagreement and room for a little humor and room for a little satire in Mormon culture. I think there is, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe there isn't. Maybe we have to be solemn all the time.
John Dehlin [00:25:26] But it's such an anonymous, you know, online is so much more dangerous than
Daniel C. Peterson [00:25:32] people aren't seeing the face, they're not getting the intonation of the voice and that sort of thing. And so it's dangerous. I remember the advice that Senator Thomas Corwin gave to William McKinley. He said, if you would be great, you must be solemn. Solemn as an ass. He said, all monuments are built over solemn asses. And I thought, okay, so you have to be just solemn and serious all the time. But it's not me.
John Dehlin [00:25:58] You can't do it. Yeah, I'm with you on that. All right, now, one other Piece of this. You are in a role. You're the editor of this review of books. You're. You're affiliated with farms and stuff like that. How much does that weigh upon you when you're crafting your message? In other words, would you be far more open about particular doctrines or whatnot that don't sit quite as solemnly on your heart or as important to you as others? How much are you shaped by the role that you play and the expectations people have of you?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:26:35] Yeah, I am to an extent. There are certain things I can't say. I think because of my more or less public position, I have become, in a minor league sort of way, in a small pond, a sort of public figure. And so there's certain things that I can't say or do. For example, on the Islamic front, I've become kind of the church's or one of the church's diplomats to the Islamic world. I really am. And I'm all the time involved in relations with Muslim groups and so on. That means that I don't feel I'm as free to say things that I would like to say about the current state of the Islamic world as I would otherwise be. Simply the fact, because people would construe it as me speaking on behalf of the church. So I can't do it. I remember years ago, a friend of mine was invited. He was a professor of history here, a Middle Eastern specialist. He was invited a long time ago to sail on a boat from. From near Athens, from the Piraeus, the port of Athens, to Haifa. It was a group of Palestinian activists who were there to fan out and sort of occupy peacefully their ancestral lands that they said had been taken from them by the Israelis. And they invited him to come and said, look, all your life you've studied the history of the Middle East. Now be part of it. He was sorely tempted to go, and then he finally decided he couldn't go. Because for him to go representing BYU would be a different thing than for somebody to go from UCLA or Princeton or something like that, because no one would think that person was representing Princeton or UCLA or the state of California. But he would be thought to be representing the LDS Church, and he just couldn't do it. It turned out it was all moot because someone mysteriously scuttled the boat in the harbor of the Piraeus before it could sail. What a big surprise. I'm sure it had nothing whatsoever to do with Mossad, so the boat never sailed at all. But I'm sympathetic to his thinking on that and so likewise on Mormonism, there are things that I feel a little constrained to talk about. I really am a believer, it has to be said. There are not big areas where I just think I reject this doctrine or I don't believe that. But where it's constrained me in some ways more is, is, for example, on message boards where some believers have acted badly, in my opinion, and I felt really reluctant. It's put me in an awkward position. I've been really reluctant to really discipline them or say something, not discipline them, but to rebuke them. Because I thought if it were just me, Dan Peterson, private guy, that would be one thing, but it's me, Dan Peterson, icon of apologetics or something, coming down on some poor little guy living in who knows where suburban dog patch, and I've just humiliated him publicly online. I sometimes written to people privately and said, look, could you tone it down? This really isn't appropriate. But it's been awkward. But then if I don't condemn them, well, Peterson approves of them. And so I just hate that sort of thing. I really don't like being put in that position. I've tried to indicate I am not the policeman of the Internet. The way I want to behave on the Internet is pretty much the way I do behave. That is, I won't come out and call you a liar unless I've really got evidence. You're just flat out lying. But I don't throw those things around lightly. I try not to be really insulting in the meat axe sort of way, the sledgehammer sort of way, but there are people who do. And then I want to say, well, have you noticed that I don't behave like that, that I don't use obscenities against people online? I never have. You think I approve that? Doesn't my own behavior show where I am? But it does put some constraints on me. And there are just certain things where I feel like my position is too public and it would be seen that I speak for the Maxwell Institute, even though I don't. We don't have an official designated spokesman. Well, I suppose I'm as close as it gets. But still, if I just come up with my own opinion and imply that it's the Institutes, that's not accurate.
John Dehlin [00:30:42] Right. So how much does that bother you that you can't fully be Dan Peterson,
Daniel C. Peterson [00:30:49] anonymous guy bothers me a little bit. I have actually tried to go anonymous, but my style gives me away. People pretty soon figure out who I am and then they accuse me of deception, even Though I'm the only guy on the thing who typically goes under my own name. But for me not to do that would be deception. Right.
John Dehlin [00:31:11] So you said that there aren't any doctrines that you really have any problems with. What about ones that maybe you would love to speculate more on and take in new and adventurous directions? Are you feeling constrained on those as well?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:31:24] Yeah, I do. I have. And I'm not going to do it here either.
John Dehlin [00:31:29] Dang, that was next. What are they?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:31:32] Well, I have some ideas about the nature of Godhood and the relationship of Mormon theism to classical theism and so on. If you know anything about the Orson Pratt Brigham Young debates about things like that, I find them very interesting, and I think both of them were sort of missing the point. But I think there's something to be explored there. And yet I haven't done it. I've pointedly refused to do it online. People have asked me, and I said, no, I won't do it. Another one is Adam God. I have some theories I kind of half worked out about how that works, but I'm not going to go public with them. Someday I might when I feel I've really got it nailed down, but in the meantime, I'm not going to, because it would sound to establishment coming from me like one of the church's leading apologists has said, this is his view of Adam God, or this is his view of. Of the nature of deity. And I just don't want to do that.
John Dehlin [00:32:33] Yeah. I had Boyd Peterson on the Mormon Matters podcast that I also host, and he's Hugh Nibley's biographer. And he actually said Hugh Nibley had a lot of these things that Boyd was aware of and a few people were aware of. But Hugh just kind of says either Hugh or Boyd called them private pleasures, that maybe there's. There's a role for not having to say everything.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:32:56] You think that's true. And I tried to talk with Hugh about some of those things, and he would not do it now. Later on, maybe he would have spoken to me about it. This was when I was fairly junior. And I remember I had him once in the car driving him from a fireside. I'd driven him up and back from a fireside up past Point of the Mountain. And I wanted to talk to him about Adam God. I knew he had some opinions on it. He just said, well, I made a covenant with the Lord that I wouldn't discuss that with anybody, and I'm not going to. His wife was saying, oh, come on, Hugh, tell him Something about what you think? No. Then all of a sudden he says, sure is foggy. Look, we're going under a bridge. He just wasn't going to talk about it, and he didn't. I always regretted that because I had him for fully two hours and by himself, trapped, and I couldn't get anything out of it. But on the other hand, I admire him for that. He was serious about it. There were some things he thought he knew and understood that he was not going to talk about.
John Dehlin [00:33:58] So you mentioned there's no disbelieving piece of it that's really bothering you.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:34:03] Not really. There are areas.
John Dehlin [00:34:04] You're not super funky out there either on your other stuff.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:34:09] No, there are areas where I know exactly what to make of a doctrine. There are doctrines, undoubtedly, that I emphasize more than others because they speak to me more than others do, and so on. For example, I'm just really not big on Blood of Israel kinds of things that may play a role. It doesn't play a whole lot of role in my thinking. There are certain other things I just find I just don't bring up very often. I don't disbelieve them. I just. They don't function in my particular version of Mormon doctrine very well.
John Dehlin [00:34:42] Okay, so that's. I think that I'm appreciative of you talking about that. Now, what about church functioning? I mean, there's a sense that there has to be some level of frustration at times with. For instance, you know, Farm's been doing all this work, you know, for 25 years. We've had the limited geography thing. That message is not getting out to ces, and so we still have kids that are coming through seminary, and then they're going to hit this wall. So inoculation isn't happening. Talk more about that.
Wishes for Better Church Education
Daniel C. Peterson [00:35:18] Well, we've talked already about the fact that I wish church history were taught better than it is. I served for eight or nine years on the Gospel Doctrine Writing Committee for the church. And I remember when I was called by George P. Lee, by the way, I said, you know, I'm not sure that I'm the person you want, because I don't like the church's manuals very much. And they said, oh, you're just the person we want because we want to improve them. Well, when I got onto the committee, in fact, there wasn't much we could do. We were constrained within certain limits.
John Dehlin [00:35:50] Was it correlation committee or was it certain personalities that had.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:35:57] I was never clear. I think it was correlation. I think it was the curriculum committee they would lay out certain things about the way they wanted us to do it. For example, we were doing the Old Testament one year, and we wanted to put in some historical background. People can't make any sense of this if they don't know what's going on. I think a big aid to understanding Isaiah is to understand the politics of his day. That Isaiah, Jeremiah were reacting to great power politics. And if you don't know any of that, you can't make any sense of it. A lot of it's talking about their day. And we tried to put some of that in. We were rebuked by someone, some nameless bureaucrat up in Salt Lake who said, you're just trying to show off. And I thought, how? We're anonymous. Who would know? We're just trying to help people out there by saying, look, one paragraph, the Assyrians were doing this, the Egyptians were doing that. Israel was caught in between Isaiah's warning against X, Y and Z. Half the passages make sense. Once you know that, it doesn't take a lot to make sense of those passages. But we weren't allowed to do it. And we went through a period where we were allowed only to have bullet points. Scriptural reference and life applicational questions. I remember some of mine I'd put in jokes sometimes. We all did. Come and discuss on Sunday morning, critique each other's proposed lessons. Mine was life applicational question. Do you think it would be a good idea to be a wicked Judite king? What steps can you take toward this? My favorite was one that I've actually told on numerous occasions where they really wanted life application. No history. Well, I was doing the passage in Acts where you have Eutychus or Eutychus who's up in the rafters at Troas, and Paul drones on and on so long that he falls asleep, falls out of the rafters, he's taken up dead. It says Paul has to restore him to life. And so I thought, all right, have a class member read Acts. Da da da da da. Whatever the passage is now. Have you ever killed anyone with a sacrament meeting speech? How did it make you feel? What steps can you take in the future to avoid this? Now, the funny thing is it passed correlation.
John Dehlin [00:38:09] That part did.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:38:10] It did. And I can only assume that people chuckled at every point and it made it so. When I saw the final galleys, it was still there.
John Dehlin [00:38:18] No way.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:38:19] And I went through a real crisis of conscience there. I thought, I would love to see this go into the manual. But I finally called him and said, I'm not sure that you want that particular little bundle of questions there. And I said, oh, good grief, no, we'll take it out. We'll take it out. But I thought it would have been so fun to have that in Tagalog and Chinese, German, Spanish, all around the world. But, you know, some of our manuals, I think, are not very good. They're not very deep. I understand the danger. I think if you allow people to simply go wild, you'll get some really weird gospel doctrine classes out there with people grinding their own axes and having little hobbies and teaching false doctrine and so on. So I understand the need to sort of rein people in. But on the other hand, the lessons can be really, really pablum boring and
John Dehlin [00:39:11] completely without any context, no link to context.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:39:14] And I love to give historical background. I don't care if it's doctrine Covenants, you know, Old Testament, whatever. So right now I'm back into teaching gospel doctrine, which is my favorite position in the church. I mean, I love it and I just have a lot of fun with it. But I remember once I had a letter when I was serving on that committee that exempted me from all local callings, which was something I treasured. I remember once being called in by the Stake presidency, and they're all sitting there. They had me and my wife come in, and it was obvious they were up to something. And they said, the stake president said, well, I understand. I just was told you've got some sort of letter from the Brethren. I said, yes, I do. Here it is.
John Dehlin [00:39:52] In other words, we're using up enough of his time that don't feel him unfazing.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:39:56] We met. We did lessons every two weeks. We met every two weeks for two or three hours every Sunday morning to critique each other's lessons and so on. There was a lot of time involved in that. So that was my church calling for a long time. Except I did teach gospel doctrine in my home ward. That I was willing to do because I love it. Now, if it had been Scoutmaster, I would have said, I'm sorry, I'd love to do it. I can't. Well, then at one point, the Stake Sunday School president came into my gospel doctrine class and he sat through the whole thing. And my lessons still is the way I teach them. I look at the lesson to see what the passages are I'm supposed to teach. Then I put it away. I mean. I mean to read it, but I don't. I never do. And then I read the passages and I comment on them. And come up with what I think is the theme of the passage and try to give a historical background and so on. Well, this guy sat through my lesson and then came up afterwards and rebuked me that I wasn't using the Gospel doctrine manual. Did I not realize these were given by revelation, so on and so forth. And I said, well, you know, you should know that I'm on the committee that writes them and I don't like them at all. So that would be one of my complaints about church practice. I would love to see better teaching. I don't know if we're capable of it. In a typical world. Maybe this is the best we can do and those manuals are necessary. But there are some places where you have really superb teachers and I hope they're not constrained by the manual.
John Dehlin [00:41:22] Yeah, I hate that fact that it'll mention no outside sources. And some people take that so seriously that people do feel constrained.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:41:29] I understand, as I say, the danger. I've been in some pretty weird lessons where people were using it to teach some bizarre form of politics or just plain false doctrine, bizarre racial theories and things like that. So maybe without those manuals we'd sink to a lower level. But still, I'd like to see us do better. I'd like to see us teach our history better. That is a concern we've already mentioned. I think it does us damage when our people grow up and hear about things that could have been conveyed to them in a faith promoting way. I mean even mountain meadows I think can be conveyed in a faith promoting way. I think it's a lesson to us about the fallen nature of human beings. Now even good people can get sucked into doing bad things. I would love to teach a gospel doctrine lesson on the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
John Dehlin [00:42:23] Fair and Farms. Not official, but semi official. It seems like you guys are getting used a lot. By the way, church as you know, we don't really want to deal with this issue from the pulpit, General conference, something like that. These guys can handle it. And so you're somewhat like this. We're glad that you're there, but we're going to keep you at arm's length from us in the general authorities. Is that a comfortable role? Is that. It is.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:42:58] I think it is.
John Dehlin [00:42:59] You see the wisdom of it.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:43:00] What is the wisdom of it? I think there's wisdom, you know. FARMS was started off as an independent foundation. It was wholly independent. Started in Southern California, moved up to BYU when Jack Welch joined the law faculty at BYU and we were given some low priority space in one of the buildings, non academic buildings, but we weren't given any money or anything like that by the university. So for a long time, we were essentially independent. And we liked that. I thought it was good because if we made a stupid mistake, it wasn't the university, it wasn't the church. It was those idiots at farms.
John Dehlin [00:43:34] They have to have some space.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:43:35] Yeah, we're dispensable. We're just idiots acting on our own.
John Dehlin [00:43:40] So now that you're Neal A. Maxwell
Daniel C. Peterson [00:43:41] Institute, when we were invited to join with BYU and it came out of. Well, we got a large donation of money. We got some property the university had always wanted, people wouldn't sell to the university, but they sold. Sold it to us. So it gained the attention of the university and they decided they wanted us. And I think I can tell this story. I remember when it was first proposed that we join with byu. I mean, heck, the whole board of farms was BYU professors, right? But we're running our own little independent operation over here. Well, President Bateman came to us. We knew what he was coming for. He was going to propose that we merge with byu, come in under byu. And we'd already discussed it and decided we didn't want to do it. And so when he made his pitch to us, I asked him, I was chairman of the board, and I said, president Bateman, it would be helpful to us to know, are you inviting us to join the university in your capacity as a general authority or in your capacity as president of byu? And he said, well, of course, as president of byu. And I said, well, then, great, the answer is no. But then he came back later on with an invitation from President Hinckley, which was harder to turn down. And we felt, you know, we were never inclined to turn it down, although we were still. We liked our independence, but we thought, if we turn it down, we will forfeit forever the goodwill of Salt Lake. We'll be seen as renegades and so on, and we don't want to do that. So we really didn't see ourselves as free to reject it. We were promised that we wouldn't be micromanaged and so on. And they've kept that promise. They have not micromanaged it. I think in some ways it's been a very good thing. But I did object a little bit to the idea of merging with BYU simply because we were losing that deniability, if you will, to where we could say, look, it's just us now, even though it still is just us, it reflects more on the university and therefore on the church. So people think I'm paid directly by the church to do apologetics, and I am not. It's not true. I have never had an order from Salt Lake to do apologetics. I know some of the brethren have enjoyed some things we've done. Most of them probably don't pay any attention to what we do, but in some ways it gives a misleading picture of what we're about.
John Dehlin [00:45:57] So you don't feel used by them as they're our designated attack dogs.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:46:05] We have very rarely. In fact, I can't think of a really good example, you know, gotten an order or even a request from Salt Lake to do anything now.
John Dehlin [00:46:14] Well, like the DNA issue. That one, you know, on the church's website.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:46:18] Yeah, they used it.
John Dehlin [00:46:21] Yeah, here's.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:46:22] But they didn't ask us to do it.
John Dehlin [00:46:24] But they used Trent Stephens article and a few others that had already been produced as things.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:46:30] There have been a couple of cases where someone in public officials, whom I just know as a friend, will call me up or send me an email and say, here's an issue. Have you ever thought of addressing this one? Well, he doesn't tell us to do it, doesn't have any authority to tell us to do it. But we'll sometimes say, yeah, that's a good idea. We'll try to do something on that. But that hasn't happened very often, and most of that now is going toward fair because the Maxwell Institute has sort of become more consciously academic and less in the trenches. And FAIR is taking up that in the trenches, sort of duking it out sort of role.
John Dehlin [00:47:09] And do you have an official role with FAIR at all?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:47:11] Yes, I do.
John Dehlin [00:47:12] Okay, what is that?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:47:13] People always want to know, what is the link between FAIR and the Maxwell Institute? Officially, there isn't any. We're friendly. The one common link is I'm an official with the Maxwell Institute and I'm on the board of fair.
John Dehlin [00:47:26] And you're the only link?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:47:26] Yeah, I'm the only link. I mean, we'll have speakers at the annual fair symposium who are Maxwell Institute people, but we have. Who are not. That's just them doing it on their own.
John Dehlin [00:47:37] So FAIR is enjoying the status of pure independence that you don't. But yet they're the ones who are really duking it out more than you guys.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:47:44] And I think that's fine. And I've actually wanted to work out a sort of symbiosis. This is one reason why I thought it was good for me to maybe be on the board to see if I could move it in this direction that the Maxwell Institute would do the theoretical work, the FAIR would do the popularizing the application to the extent that they want to, but we don't have an official relationship. But to the extent that I could help something like that, I'm happy to do it.
John Dehlin [00:48:10] Okay, good, good. Well, that helps. Anything else of this sort of limbo, you're sort of this limbo in between kind of church, quasi church and stuff like that. Is there anything else that you would like to see forward movement on besides inoculation and teaching? Better history, maybe better manuals and stuff. What else is out there for you that would be the dream scenario for how they would use you or turn you loose to.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:48:40] There has been talk on a couple of occasions of having people from either FAIR or the Maxwell Institute, they might be the same people, do a presentation at the mtc, for example, to kind
John Dehlin [00:48:53] of help inoculate them.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:48:55] Yeah. What are the most common issues that you'll encounter? It wouldn't have to be multiple day seminars, a couple of hours or something and let them know there are resources and so on. Now I want to be really careful with that. I have never thought that missionaries ought to go out there and just argue with people. Sure. Like I said earlier, you know, at a certain point you realize this person is not interested. I'm arguing only because I'm a testosterone ridden male. But there's no earthly purpose being served here. At that point. The missionaries ought to just move on. There are millions of people out there that you haven't even talked to. Leave this guy move on. Maybe he'll be ready some future day, but not now. And so I'm careful about that. I don't want to encourage missionaries to fight, but sometimes, sometimes there's a serious issue that an investigator might raise. And the missionaries have been known to give really stupid answers on occasion because they're not equipped. They're just young kids. But maybe we could help there. Maybe we could be a resource to mission presidents. There's one currently serving mission president who's a good friend of mine who's been on the phone with me a few times. We've corresponded a few times over issues he's faced. And he's going to have me do a conference call at some point with all of his missionaries at a mission conference just to talk about the most common issues and how to deal with them, because he's in kind of a Bible belt area and they meet these sorts of issues and in many cases they're pretty good answers that we could maybe help them with.
John Dehlin [00:50:31] Well, that's a good segue to where I want to go next, which is some of these specific questions. When you say MTC and mission presidents, ces, is that on anybody's agenda? Is there a sense that there's going to be an improvement there as far as let's at least get rid of the purely factually wrong stuff that we've inherited from the past?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:50:55] Yeah. You know, I remember a story from one of Hugh Nibley's daughters where she had signed up for seminary and he was furious. I thought you promised me you wouldn't. I have to admit with some of my kids, they've come home with things from seminary where I'd think, where on earth do they get this stuff? It's simply not true. Some of it was profoundly anti intellectual. Real hostility toward academics, lawyers, learned people, scientists, sciences of the devil and that sort of thing. And I'd like to see that cleaned up and gotten rid of. We don't need to send our kids out into the world equipped with false doctrines that will get them in trouble.
John Dehlin [00:51:41] Yeah. And they're going to be embarrassed and then who knows what that emotion will lead to.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:51:45] Yeah. I think I've mentioned to you that I've learned on the Internet that I am, for example, a young Earth creationist. Now this is something I had never realized before, but I'm reliably informed by people who know my views better than I do that I am just by
John Dehlin [00:52:00] the fact that you're a Mormon and Mormonism hasn't rejected.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:52:03] And so I'm opposed to science. And I tell them, look, I arrived at the university wanting to be a cosmologist in mathematics. I am not opposed to science, believe me. And I still have a pretty strong hobby, interest in both astronomy and cosmology and geology. For some reason I really like both of those and I read on them and I, I love to go to places and try to read the geology and so on and so forth.
John Dehlin [00:52:24] So they're not just records to see if we can believe in the scriptures or not?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:52:28] No, no.
John Dehlin [00:52:29] Joseph Fielding Smith.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:52:30] No, I had great fun. I was in Hawaii a few years ago and I bought a geological guide to Maui. And we just had a fun time trying to figure out what all the strata were and how the islands had been formed. It has nothing to do with Mormonism. But to the extent that there is an anti scientific, anti intellectual strain in ces, that's something that needs to be rooted out. This does not help us. And I know that there's a movement on in the church right now with some people pushing certain geographical theories of the Book of Mormon. And a component of that is young earth creationism, anti evolutionism. This worries me enormously because it can't be sustained. And somebody is raised with that when he encounters the evidence behind those positions, is going to possibly lose his faith altogether. And it need not be. There's no reason for that. Reminds me of a concluding passage in one of my favorite Islamic philosophers, Al Ghazali, who talks about silly Muslims in his period, the 1100s, late 10 hundreds, who taught that eclipses were caused by God doing such and such unpredictable actions of God. Anybody who learns anything about astronomy knows this is not true. When they learn the truth, their faith isn't going to be damaged in science, it's going to be damaged in religion. So don't do things like this. Well, we're still doing things like this. We draw lines in the sand that we don't need to draw. And there's a lot of that going on in ces.
John Dehlin [00:54:05] So yeah, by we. Are you sensing that church leaders are getting better at not driving the stake that's going to do that. But we still are behind as a lag culture.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:54:18] I think we are. And I think you'll hear a lot of doctrines taught in seminary and institute that just don't belong there. And I stick to the scriptures, to the clear points of the scriptures. The scriptures are not meant to be manuals of geology or anything like that. Why don't you stick to what they're really about, which is about salvation, about living the good life and so on and so forth. I wasn't there, but there was a conference, I think, last summer on campus. And had I known that President Eyring was going to show up unannounced and just drop in. It was a conference on the gospel and academics or something like small little conference here on campus. And to their astonishment, President Eyring had a day off or something and he's interested in the topic. So he bopped in and apparently he was in rare form. He made a comment at one point to the effect that, well, there are a lot of doctrines where you'll find that the average high priest group is much more confident of it than the first presidency are. And I think that's true. There's a lot of nonsense taught in the church. The fundamentals are not nonsense. I don't mean to be misinterpreted on that, but I've heard things in the church where I'm sitting out there in the audience thinking, all right, what is my duty here? What is my obligation? I mean, I don't want to cause discord or embarrass anybody, but that was just nonsense and it's false. So it's partly a cultural issue, and I think we're getting better, but there's still a lot of it out there. And I say, look, we don't need to multiply the areas we have to defend. We don't need to defend things that aren't true, so stop doing this, people. Raise the issue, for instance, of coins in the Book of Mormon. How come we haven't found any coins in the New World? Well, I'm pretty sure there weren't any, nor do I think there are any in the Book of Mormon either. They're in the chapter notes. But when you read the chapter, it's just weights of metal, not minted coins. We've created this because that's what we expect to see. Likewise, those cyclopean walls that you see Samuel the Lamanite up on, you don't find those in Central America. They weren't there. They're not in the Book of Mormon either. When a wall is described, it's a simple thing where Moroni digs a trench, piles up the mud, puts a palisade of logs along the top. That's it. And so you find those all over Central America, but you don't find those others. So we invented a requirement. It's not in the text, and then we have to defend it. And the critics rejoice when we can't very effectively. But it's all myth. It doesn't exist.
Challenging Doctrinal Questions and Speculation
John Dehlin [00:57:01] And I recognize that FARMS is the one that goes back to the text, like you said earlier, and does it. That sort of brings up the issue. And I guess I want to do this issue, and then I really want to kind of give you a lightning round. I want to give people a feel for your thinking on some of the tougher questions. But the idea of over belief, in other words, it's our expectation of what the definition of a prophet is that Joseph Smith somehow fails to meet. You're saying Muhammad, whether he's a prophet or not, you've got some kind of definition of a prophet that's a bare minimum. But I'm guessing yours is a little more flexible or it's grown more flexible over the years. How do you sort of get people to say, you have defined it so rigidly that of course it's going to fail, and yet now your tendency is to throw the baby out with the bad water. But it's just your over belief to begin with.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:57:52] Yeah, I have found that many of the people I know who've left the church were fundamentalists in one kind or another. I don't mean by that polygamous, but I mean, they had a really rigid view of the scriptures of prophethood. And when it doesn't match reality, which it inevitably will not. I mean, Joseph Smith all the time was trying to tell people a prophet is a prophet only when acting as such. When I'm out pulling sticks with the boys or wrestling, I'm not a prophet, I'm just a guy. So cut me some slack. He didn't use that idiom, but that's what he was saying. And I found time and time again that people who leave the church become either atheists because religion doesn't live up to what I think were their unrealistic expectations, or they become Protestant fundamentalists. Why? Because. Because Isaiah, so far in the past, all we've got is his book. Right? But if you knew about Isaiah the man, hey, maybe he had bad breath. Maybe he treated his wife disrespectfully, maybe he wasn't a good neighbor, maybe he was bad at math, I don't know. But there'd be grounds to say this guy isn't trustworthy. But after all, everything else has dropped away, then you're left with this kind of stained glass figure of Isaiah. Well, that's much better than Joseph Smith. Well, I'm betting if you knew the reality, if he were awash in a sea of documents like Joseph is, you'd have the same issues.
John Dehlin [00:59:16] Three years of being called to be naked and all that stuff.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:59:19] That's pretty weird.
John Dehlin [00:59:20] Somehow we miss that when he's a prophet and Joseph Smith's not.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:59:24] Yeah, there's some pretty weird things going on with some of these prophets and they're certainly cultural bound in a lot of ways. So, you know, some people have said, well, you've defined prophet so loosely that.
John Dehlin [00:59:35] Well, right, that's where I was going to go next.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:59:37] That Joseph Smith hardly is. Well, I don't believe that. I believe he went out on a grove of trees and he saw the Father and the Son. That's pretty spectacular. I believe the angel Moroni appeared to him, brought him real physical plates or directed him to them. You know, I believe those sorts of things. That's real unambiguous prophecy, prophet hood. But he would go probably for weeks, months between those events where he's just Joseph Smith, the guy who's Been given a special assignment and he's got to carry it out the best he can. To me, one of the great aspects of Richard Bushman's book, Rough Stone Rolling is his description of the Missouri period. I had never really thought of it this way. This was, you know, a lot of what was in that book I already knew, more or less, so the picture didn't surprise me much. But in Missouri, Richard pointed out something I thought was really important. He says, we often see Joseph Smith traveling in a group, taking care of this or going to visit so and so. And we assume because he is Joseph Smith the prophet, that he is the leader of the group. But in fact, it's pretty clear in many cases he was not. He was sort of baffled by Missouri. It didn't go the way he expected it to. Richard says he never doubted his revelations, but he couldn't figure out how they applied to Missouri. So he goes through a period of almost, I think. I don't know how to describe it, but it's not aimlessness, but it's a kind of being at a loss as to what to do. And other people take the lead. And Joseph comes along. It's the Joseph of Nauvoo who becomes lieutenant general mayor of the city. Oliver Cowdery's gone. Sidney Rigdon is effectively gone. Everybody's gone. He steps forward, I think, for the first time in his life and realizes, A, I have to do this. B, I can. I can speak publicly, I'm reasonably good. I can be a leader. But he never had before. And to me, that humanized Joseph a lot. And it means that, yeah, a prophet can go through a period where he doesn't know what's going on. I think if you think he's just play acting in Liberty Jail, when he says, O God, where art thou? Yeah. Was it stotted that did the play here? I can't remember. I don't think it was a play about Joseph. In Liberty Jail here at BYU a number of years ago. I think it portrayed really well the sense of just despair there in the prison. What am I doing here? I may die here. My people are being driven from place to place. My wife, my children, everything. It has been a disaster. It's falling apart. He doesn't know what's going on. And you have to understand that even a prophet sees through a glass darkly. And so my idea of a prophet is a spectrum from people who have spectacular experiences to people who get powerful promptings, but they're never divine automatons or puppets. And there's a lot of their personality in their ministries. Yeah. Fair flavor. And so I don't think I denigrate prophets, but maybe this goes back a long way. I remember teaching Gospel doctrine in my ward in California when I was in grad school in West Los Angeles. And we got to the passage where we were talking about Captain Moroni and how he loses his temper. He wants a prisoner exchange with Amalickiah, and he loses his temper and blows the whole thing.
John Dehlin [01:03:06] You're screwing us.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:03:08] Yeah. And eventually the thing falls apart. Now, he wanted the prisoner exchange, but he loses his temper so much he blows it himself. And he does the same thing with the governor back home, who's not sending him supplies. Well, I don't know what the cause of this neglect is, but by the end of his letter, I'm going to come after you. And I think, okay, now this, to me, is an interesting portrait of a guy who has all these great qualities. Mormon admires him boundlessly. He's a great warrior, but a great warrior. One of the things that makes him great is this sort of passionate character which makes him a not very good diplomat. And I think this, to me, speaks for his reality as a person. It also says he wasn't perfect. And so I think we can learn something from him. He's not some different species. He's a human like me. And there was a delegation of older women in my ward, I'm told, who went to the bishop after that lesson and complained that I was teaching secular humanism in the Gospel Doctrine class. I don't even know what to say because I was humanizing the Prophet Moroni. Yeah. And I think I mentioned that I thought Nephi was. Yeah. A kind of an arrogant little twin.
John Dehlin [01:04:13] Yeah. I'd beat him up, too.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:04:14] And then it's only later in his life when he kind of confesses. I really. I'm not as good as I've let on. And, you know, I really mess up all the time, so I like that. But I can understand. Laman and Len will say, enough of him. I, Nephi didn't murmur or like Joseph, Joseph in the Bible, guys, I had a dream you're all going to worship me. To me, this humanizes them. Well, anyway, the bishop called me in and he said, you should know that there was a delegation here to complain about you. I said, oh, okay. You should also know that I couldn't care less. Go and do what you're doing. I just wanted you to know. And so maybe that's been a tendency of mine all along, but I tend to see the prophets as human in all ages. Human, but prophets,
John Dehlin [01:05:08] good. So why should somebody think that they're right on Prop 8 if there's been room for error in the past? Why they were, you know, they were behind the. I don't know. You say they're behind the curve on civil rights and whatnot. I mean, there's arguments made that it came at exactly the right time. But how do you play with that?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:05:33] That's a difficult one. And, you know, to my mind, there is an element in me of just saying, well, look, if the Brethren ask me to do this, if they seriously ask me to do this, I will do it. Or at least I'm not going to oppose it. I may do it with greater or less enthusiasm, but I won't oppose them. I'll admit there's some issues in the past. Heber J. Grant's advocacy of prohibition. I'm a libertarian. I have a hard time with that one. I don't think Prohibition was a successful experiment. And yet, I don't know, maybe if we could have lived prohibition, who knows how many lives would have been saved and so on, but we didn't. It's a difficult one for me because even though I wrote a column just recently on paying attention to what the brethren have to say, keeping an eye on the brethren, my principal focus there was not to advocate prophetic infallibility or anything like that. It was to criticize my fellow libertarian conservatives for a double standard.
John Dehlin [01:06:39] Because now in immigration, they're feeling, yeah,
Daniel C. Peterson [01:06:43] they're more than willing to toe the line on Prop 8 and a few things like that and point the finger at the liberals who aren't real Mormons. Can a Democrat be a Mormon? And that sort of thing. And then when finally a statement comes out that sort of gores their ox suddenly, well, the church doesn't have any business speaking out on that. And I think, can you hear yourselves? You know, that's my real point. Take them seriously, no matter what position they are. Now, you can struggle, you may have to pray, that sort of thing, but don't just flat out reject them just because they don't agree with you. That may be the point where a prophet is most useful when he's telling you something you don't want to hear. Maybe you are wrong. Think about it.
John Dehlin [01:07:23] You at least need nuancing. So put the polar opposite position for you to find your way in the middle there.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:07:30] People ask me, for example, on Elder McConkie, Ellen McConachey said a lot of things where I You know, I just. I don't agree with him. Some people say, well, you just reject him as a prophet. No, I don't. I think his closing testimony was really moving. I think a lot of things he had to say were really important, and he was right more often than he was wrong. I think that doesn't mean he's infallible. But what I will also say is I will always take what someone like that says very seriously. I will listen to it. I'll try to figure out a way to get it that. And I'll take as much of it as I can. And if I need to modify my point of view, I will. Elder Packard came down to BYU many years ago when I was a student, I think, and spoke on the arts. And he offended a lot of people. He offended people in the visual arts and music and drama, I think. And he had some very strong opinions
John Dehlin [01:08:24] about those, about what art must be representational.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:08:26] And no, I don't remember exactly what he said. It was not quite like that, but, you know, it was something like that. But I remember thinking, okay, I may or may not agree with his specific illustrations, but I think I get his point. Or talking about history, this is maybe a better example. I can talk more about it. He was talking about biographies that seek to emphasize the warts of historical figures. Now, it may be that he was pushing for a kind of sanitized history. Of all the brethren, he may be the one that would lean that way. And I don't. But on the other hand, I thought, okay, what can I take from this talk that really where I think he's really right and his fundamental point is right. And that is that there are historians, there are biographers out there who take delight in trying to show that, yeah, he wasn't really a great man. You know, he was a slime ball, or he was this, he was that. And, you know, and I think there's a kind of sickness in that. Biographers want to cut a person, not just a man, but a person who really was impressive but flawed. Want to cut him down to size? Well, of course you can do that. You can do that with everybody. But why is it that Jefferson is worth writing a biography of? Not because he may or may not have had an affair with Sally Hemings, which I think. I don't think the case is as clear as people think.
John Dehlin [01:09:44] Oh, isn't it?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:09:44] I think he maybe didn't, but even if he did, so what? That's not what's important about Jefferson. And so to write a biography that dwells at inordinate length on that is just silly. And so what I try to do when I listen to someone, to a prophet like that is, I may say I don't think he interpreted that scripture correctly. But I think the point he's trying to make with it is right, and that's what I'll take from it. So I always take them seriously, but I think it's relatively rare that. That they proclaim this is Revelation.
John Dehlin [01:10:20] Right. So they haven't, you know, they haven't canonized proclamation on the family.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:10:24] Right, right.
John Dehlin [01:10:26] And so that.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:10:27] And I found a grammatical error in the proclamation on the family once. I thought, man, am I an arc steadier or what? Should I write a letter to Salt Lake? I didn't. I think they may have corrected it in subsequent versions very quietly, but they haven't canonized that. And it may happen at some point. I don't know.
John Dehlin [01:10:46] Give me a sympathetic Dan Peterson answer to say, yeah, I'll take them seriously. I'll try to look at their point. But right now, people are being hurt. They're being harmed by this action or this emphasis or the lack of. Let us contextualize what our job here as leaders of the church are. Let us tell you that we're. We're preaching to the center. We know there are exceptions. The fact that that doesn't even get conveyed is actually harming a lot of people.
Marriage Policy, Sexuality, and Hoped-For Changes
Daniel C. Peterson [01:11:18] Well, I'll tell you one issue where I would like to see some change. Now, there may be reasons for not changing that I don't know. But that has to do with marriages, for example, where members of the family are not members of the church. We just had a marriage like that in my family. My youngest son just married a girl from. From Florida whose parents are Cuban. Her mother is a member, her father is not. Her extended family, to whom she's very close. She was in some ways raised as much by them as she was by her parents, owing to the political, you know, situation, the instability. She was actually born in Havana and, you know, made it to Miami. But it was really painful, really painful for her to tell her aunt, who had essentially raised her, you can't come in. And to a father, you can't come in. To me, this is bad. Now, I know that outside the United States, we don't have that situation because
John Dehlin [01:12:13] you have to get married by the state.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:12:15] Now, I think I understand one of the reasons. I think that the brethren are worried that the temple would be seen as simply kind of a trivial afterthought. The real wedding is this big thing we do. I understand that. And yet I'm hoping for a believing Latter Day Saint, they would say no. The real wedding still is. We're sealed by priesthood authority for all eternity. That's our real wedding. But I'm not prepared to agitate or to sign a petition or anything. But frankly, I could see a change, and I've thought this way for years, long before our own personal experience with it, that it's just, I can imagine if you were a mother kept outside the temple while your daughter is in being married, that would really hurt. And it would send a message that I think the church doesn't want to send, shouldn't be sending. Yeah, we value family, but not you. That's not what we're trying to say. It's an accidental byproduct of a policy that was designed for other reasons. But I wouldn't be unhappy if that were to change a bit.
John Dehlin [01:13:22] Okay, thank you. That's a good example. But my identity is. This is sexual. That's a different level of harm being done for something that I do believe will change. The rhetoric will continue to evolve. I think the church's position today is much more forward thinking and aligned with science than it used to be. But I expect even more normalization and I don't think that's the downfall of civilization and all that stuff. And so I guess it's maybe unfair to ask you, can you get some outrage going about an organization is going to. It's always going to hurt somebody. And I'd love to hear, you know, a sympathetic word to those.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:14:17] I can't get any outrage up over Prop 8. Okay, sorry. I know it would help me with a large swath of the audience if I could, but I have to be honest here. But what I will say is, look, I'm a conservative libertarian. I even apart from my religious views, I'm not at all uncomfortable with the idea of recognizing civil partnerships, civil unions, that sort of thing, giving them every privilege that belongs to marriage.
John Dehlin [01:14:47] But what's the big deal about not
Daniel C. Peterson [01:14:49] calling it marriage simply because I think marriage has a historically established meaning. I say that in effect, as a philologist. It reminds me of a little joke, and I don't mean to show levity here, but Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have asked one of his cabinet members the some context or another. I don't remember, how many legs would a dog have if we redefined his tail as a leg? And the cabinet members said five and Lincoln said no, four. Redefining a tail As a leg doesn't make it a leg. And that's sort of the way I feel about the question of marriage. I think the term marriage has had a long standing meaning.
John Dehlin [01:15:30] So polygamous marriages were not marriages?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:15:32] No, I think they were. But they men and women, it was opposite sex.
John Dehlin [01:15:36] So it's not the one man, one, one thing that both gets you?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:15:40] No. So to me that's marriage. Now, I have absolutely no hostility toward people who feel homosexual attraction. And of course as a Latter Day Saint, I would wish that they wouldn't act on it within the bounds of the church, for example. But I know that's really hard. I know it is. To me, homosexuality is one of the biggest problems, challenges that I can think of. And I didn't mean for a person
John Dehlin [01:16:11] to have or for the church to address.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:16:13] And for the church, I mean, I think I want to show compassion. I want to be as supportive as I can be that this person has
John Dehlin [01:16:23] this sickness or this sin or this is their identity.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:16:29] Well, I don't think simply feeling homosexual attraction is a sin. I mean, I feel all sorts of urges to do things that I don't do.
John Dehlin [01:16:41] Come over here and make me stop this line of questioning.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:16:46] So that's not a sin. Acting on it is. Just as my having an affair with my friend's wife would be a sin. Even if the thought crosses my mind and she's really cute, it's still a sin. So I'm very traditional in that sense and I don't see how we can really change it. On the other hand, I should confess right now that I incline toward a kind of universalism. And I tend to think that everything is going to be okay in the end and that a lot more people are going to make it than we think. I am not inclined to be harshly judgmental to people. I just feel, and I have to say when I was called as a bishop, I expected to have quite a number of cases of same sex attraction. I had a few, but not very many. I was a little surprised, but I tried to be as supportive as I could be. And I think the people I counseled with would say that I was that. I just thought this is a tough, tough, tough road to walk. If you're a believing Latter Day Saint, there is no way around it. You've been given, dealt a really tough hand to play and tougher than most I know. And I don't have any easy, cheap counsel to give to.
John Dehlin [01:18:01] But you do see it as your cross to bear in this life.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:18:05] Anything I can do to help, I will.
John Dehlin [01:18:09] Could you advocate that it might be healthier if you tried to not be so Mormon or try to be so active in the church?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:18:16] No, I wouldn't do that.
John Dehlin [01:18:17] You would never do that.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:18:18] No, I wouldn't do that.
John Dehlin [01:18:19] But what would be the basis of that argument? Like, why go and have hurtful messages about you? It's probably not going to be every week.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:18:28] I don't think there was ever a hurtful message in my tenure as bishop in my ward about homosexuality. I wouldn't have allowed it if somebody were getting up to do that.
John Dehlin [01:18:39] But what if there was rhetoric of Support for Prop 8? That would have hurt?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:18:46] I don't know. Since I do support civil unions, I don't see a real problem there. The only thing it seems to me that people want that I'm not willing to grant is the name marriage in terms of the society outside the church. And to me that's rhetoric. But rhetoric means something to me and presumably it means something to them, too, and that's why we're tussling over it. But in terms of visitation rights in hospitals and inheritance rights and all that sort of thing, I have no problem with it.
John Dehlin [01:19:19] Okay, good. Well, anyway, that was just. I guess that came out of what we were talking about, the prophets and agreeing or disagreeing. So all that stuff we don't. They haven't claimed revelation on that. And so it's a.
Daniel C. Peterson [01:19:31] It's a tough issue. It is a really tough issue. The reason why I can't see. Well, you know, there was a revelation on priesthood, giving blacks the priesthood. But that was different to me because a denial of priesthood to blacks was never structured into Mormon theology in the same way that I see heterosexual marriage and gender structured into Mormon theology. I just don't see. Without a wholesale revision of LDS theology, I don't see any way to fix that in a way that would be acceptable to homosexuals.
John Dehlin [01:20:05] Would you welcome it if it came?
Daniel C. Peterson [01:20:08] If something comes by revelation, I'm not going to stand against it. I had an experience. I was in a certain place in Europe when the revelation on Priesthood came in 19. It was after my mission. I was coming home from the Middle east, stopping through Switzerland, as I mentioned. I do whenever I possibly can. And I was actually at the Swiss temple, and a certain prominent American religious leader, Mormon leader, serving there, not a general authority was there when he heard the news. And I don't want to get too specific because I'm sure he was a really good man and this was not a good day for him. But he reacted to somewhat angrily. He said, well, I can tell you, if they come demanding privileges right away, they're not going to get them before they get into that building. He pointed to the temple. They're going to have to wait a year and think, who said they wouldn't? But he was obviously disturbed by the change. There were people who didn't react well to that, whereas I was overjoyed. I would be overjoyed at any revelation that we receive. If the Lord wants it, fine. But until I've got some indication that he does
John Dehlin [01:21:17] thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out@sabre-rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.
Dan Weatherspoon [01:21:32] Come, come ye saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jo Hearts will swell oh, all is well, all is well well why should we mourn? I think our lot is hard t not so all is right and why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight Gird up your lo fresh courage take Our God will never us forsake soon we'll have let's tell it tales oh oh, all is well all is well oh, all is well all is well. Sam. And should we die before our journey is through happy death all is well we then are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the sa the rest obtain Or I will make this chorus swell. Oh, all is well, all is well all is well all is well well all is well oh, all is well. All is well all is well
John Dehlin [01:25:52] Sam.
Polyandry, Book of Abraham, and Temple Masonry
Part 4 of 4 · Ep. 274
Guest [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.
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Dan Weatherspoon [00:00:30] alright, here's what I want to do. This will be our final segment. Kind of a lightning round of tough issues that apologists have to handle. I don't want to necessarily do it to get I want your answers, obviously, or at least a suggestion answer. But the whole idea here is to unpack the thinking process, the weighing process, how I value the idea that something really can break in that's divine into the world versus the cynicism of science and things like that. Are you okay for if I just throw out a tough Joseph Smith and the interface with magic, folk magic was at an essential part of his training. How open would you be for that history to come in a little closer? You know, needing to bring Emma to get the plates and the whole I
Daniel C. Peterson [00:01:31] actually wrote some things about that early on when the Salamander Letter was a big deal and so on. And first of all, I argued that the term magic was problematic, that you really can't distinguish clearly between folk religion and magic. They blend and blur. And any attempt to define magic that doesn't include somebody's religion so seems always to fail. And I actually spent some time on that. I haven't done it in years, but I wrote a little bit about it. I even spent time for a couple of months at Princeton in an NEH seminar on the concept of magic in the Ancient world. And the conclusion, the upshot of that seminar, which had anthropologists and classicists and everything in it, these were all academic PhDs, was that we could not come up with a definition of magic that made any sense that applied to everything that's been called magic, but didn't include religion of some kind or another.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:02:20] So I guess my bigger question is this isn't fitting behavior for a prophet of God? We've already talked about the definition of prophet being too high of a standard. Is there any smoking gun or is there any real something that you know is a fact that just sort of is still stuck in your craw about that? Or is this one completely gone? And what was the process of saying I accept?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:02:46] Yeah, I. I think the issue for me is completely gone. I think of biblical precedents, e.g. joseph and his divining cup, prophets of the Old Testament seem to be involved in things that we would now call magic. Abraham and walking between the severed parts of the birds and all that. This is an old divinatory ritual. So if you want to have a nice neat demarcation, boy, out goes the Bible too. So I don't see any reason to do that. I don't think there's anything in Joseph's career that turns me off and says he couldn't have been a prophet. And I do think that an openness to some kind of otherworldly gift or influence is maybe one of the things that opened him up to receiving divine revelation. One of the things that people don't deal with is the question. A lot of the people who are around him actually believed he could find things. Oh, sure, you know, and apparently he did. So what do you make of that? I'll tell you one experience I had. This is a really weird one, and I've been ridiculed when I went public with it, which I haven't done in years, but I'm going to do it again. This is a chance. Years ago, my brother, I went into the family construction business and I walked into the office and my brother said, come here for just a minute. And he handed me a rod, just like a metal hanger rod, but long and straight and then turned down at a 90 degree angle at the end. He said, hold this in your hand. I think there were two of them.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:04:15] Two of them, right. And then where they cross is water.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:04:17] Yeah. And he says, hold these in your hand and then walk across the floor here. And I walked across and they very distinctly crossed. At a certain point I thought, okay, that's weird, I'm going to do it again. And they crossed every time at the same point. I said, okay, what is it? And he said, well, there's a water pipe under there. I said, okay, I get it. It's a metal water pipe. There's some sort of magnetic thing going on. He said, no, it's a clay water pipe. Oh, clay, yeah. I said, all right, all right. This is not fitting my scientific worldview. All day long I was working in the office that day, and all day long, whenever anybody would come in, I'd hand them the rods and make them walk around and they crossed at the same time. With one exception, the mechanic. But he had huge hands. I think he was holding them too tightly. But for everybody else, all day long they crossed at the same point. I don't know what to make of that. And then I began asking friends of mine and I'VE asked others up here. I know engineers who use divining rods. They don't admit it publicly, but they'll tell me they use it to avoid cutting a water line when they're doing work. And others. I was sitting by a Field in St. Louis and saw a guy from the Department of Water and Power get out of his truck, look around, get out divining rods, walk across the field and do it. I know people who wish for water wells down by Yuma. I don't know what to make of it, but I don't laugh at it because I swear it happened to me.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:05:35] Well, I was on the crew that built the Spanish Oaks golf course, and we did it.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:05:39] Did you?
Dan Weatherspoon [00:05:39] Yeah. So that one doesn't bother me either. But, yeah.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:05:44] One of my neighbors is a landscape architect, and he says, you know, they laugh at me for using divining rods. He says, well, I'll tell you this. I have never cut a water line. All the guys who laugh at me have.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:05:55] Have. That's interesting. All right, okay. So I'll just go right to polyandry. Joseph Smith's marrying more than one woman. So, again, the answer is important, but I want more of the thinking process to come out on.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:06:14] That's a difficult issue. And that's one of the things that is most problematic in Joseph's life, I think, is the idea of polyandry. Now, I think that there's an article in this new book that I mentioned by Newell Bringhurst and Craig Foster that to my mind, sheds some really interesting light on that. In every case, there was reason to believe that these women were separated from their husbands for one reason or another, or that the marriages were not consummated. You know, you can debate this all day long, but what I'm wanting to say is I think there may be factors in this that we don't quite know about where it might help us to understand the practice a little more. If we knew more, it may be that we can't know more. The records are gone. The testimonies are silenced. That's it. It's going to look bad. And so you have to decide, do I trust this guy or not? But I am relieved to think there are some things coming forth in the last little while that may actually help with this issue, I think quite nicely in some ways.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:07:15] Okay, so the fallacy of anachronism, we all know that as like taking today's standards, applying them to the 19th century or even earlier, and saying there's no possibility definition of a prophet, even the 1 inch thick definition of prophet can't handle certain things. And so polyandry, a lot of people look at it. I interviewed a couple of guys who've become Mormons, who became atheists. And one guy says, that was it, that was my one thing. And so with you saying new things are coming out, is this just, if you're in that mode shelf? Is that what you say?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:07:55] Yeah, I would say so. I think that I know some people can't. I mean, I know.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:08:01] Is it a personality type? Is it a sin?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:08:04] No, I don't say it's sin in every case it might be. In some cases it might be just personality type. I mean, there's no single, there's no calculus for determining who will or won't be able to stand an issue like that being on the shelf. Because every one of us is absolutely unique in terms of personal history, psychology, quirks, evidentiary knowledge, evidentiary gaps, strength of the conviction here, weakness of the conviction. So you just can't predict. But for me, I'm willing to say from everything I can tell, Joseph was a good guy. Again, not flawless, never make that claim. But on the other hand, I hear some Mormons say, well, of course he was seriously flawed, but still a prophet. And I think, no, I don't even go with the seriously flawed. Think a good guy basically, but flawed as we all are. But with that in mind, I'm willing to cut him a little slack. I'm willing to believe there's an explanation and I'm happy that now there are some explanations that I think are starting to come out that make some sense. Now, whether they'll stand up to review, I don't know. But so far they look pretty good.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:09:15] So if he just plain out and out became a predator of sort on
Daniel C. Peterson [00:09:20] other people's wives, I would find that very, very, very troubling.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:09:26] So you don't know that that isn't the case, but you doubt it because of the rest?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:09:30] I don't think it's true. Yeah, I don't think it's true because of the rest and also because of some of what I know about and I read about some of these marriages that he did where supposedly he's driven by lust, right? According to the critics, it's libido that's got him going. But you read about some of his marriages and they go like this. So and so brings his sister by, performs a wedding in Joseph's office. Joseph afterward thanks them, shakes her hand and says thank you very much, and she leaves and he Goes back to work. I mean, great passion there. It's just, you know, fairly sears the screen to me. It's like he's forming kinship ties. And I'm struck recently by the failure of finding attempts to find descendants of Joseph. Now people say, are you hoping that he never had sex with any of these women? No, I don't think that's what I'm hoping. It wouldn't bother me particularly if he did. But the image that I've often had presented by critics is just virtually one non stop orgy. Well, how come there are no kids yet? I mean, good grief, we know he could have kids. That suggests to me that sex was a more minor part, the element of this story than the critics want to let on. And that in some cases we know he was sealed to fairly elderly women by the standards of the day. I don't believe that was about sex at all.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:10:51] Yeah, it sounds like you're a combination of Richard Bushman's claim that he was more. It was more about kinship as well as Todd Compton's introduction to his sacred loneliness, that it was about exaltation. And some women would choose Joseph because of the theology. Whether we're defending that theology or not, it at least made sense within that.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:11:13] I think it's related to the old idea of adoption too, which was phased out when we had our new vision under Wilford Woodruff of the Genealogical society and sealing back to Adam and all that sort of thing. But in the old days, you know, you'd be sealed to church leaders. They couldn't go back very far. And so you wanted to be sealed to a church leader. That was your chance at exaltation. Now we understand that was wrong and so we don't do that kind of thing anymore. But as they were stumbling forward in the concept of sealing.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:11:41] So you're okay the fact that they were acting out of a bad worldview,
Daniel C. Peterson [00:11:46] or at least I think they may have. They may have understood the idea of sealing and not have understood fully how it was supposed to work.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:11:53] Okay, cool. All right, let me give you a couple more just again to sort of think. All right, Dan, let's do another one. This is a tough one. The book of Abraham, what we know about it, as far as the actual papyrus and whatnot, versus this quite elaborate vision or whatever it is that Joseph Smith got. How do you handle that? And this is one of those where I think a lot of the church and the scholars know a lot more than ever gets communicated from the pulpit or in CES or anything. What's your approach?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:12:26] I wrote a piece for the Ensign years ago which I intended to be a kind of consensus statement, sort of a rat, a tat tat. Rapid fire enunciation or elaboration of enumeration is the word. I'm looking for points where I thought the Book of Abraham gets things right about the ancient world. That it does in quite remarkable ways. And so one of my first responses to the Book of Abraham issue would be, let's bracket for a second the question of its relationship to the papyri. Let's look at the text itself. Does it look ancient? Does it contain authentically ancient materials or things that could be argued to be? And my answer would be yes, resoundingly, yes. I think it's really, really interesting. I love the Book of Abraham for precisely that. It feels really old to me. And there's specific points that I could point to, have pointed to.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:13:19] So as somebody who's immersed themselves in that world, it feels. It tastes old.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:13:25] It does.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:13:27] It tastes like a fit. You can't convey that to critics.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:13:30] No, you can't. It's subjective. It's like my response when I say I read Joseph Smith's journal entries. To me, they read like the entries of an honest, sincere man. I've had other people read them and say, nah, he's a fraud, he's lying for posterity. Well, okay, I can't convince you, but boy, if I have any sense of what an honest man looks like, this is one.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:13:54] So no relationship with papyri, you know,
Daniel C. Peterson [00:13:57] bracha, but just treat it on yourself
Dan Weatherspoon [00:13:59] some good flavors there.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:14:00] There are a lot of things. The plurality of gods, the council of gods, these are all we now authentically ancient things. Even things like Olishem turns out to be a real name from approximately the right area. The. I've looked at Arabic texts, for example, about Abraham's vision of the heavens, which isn't in the Bible, but it's in the Book of Abraham. And oddly enough, they even use the same word, kawkab or kocabim. In Arabic. It's kawkab, koaked, different plural, but it's the same root, which is unusual a little bit in Arabic, but it's the same root as used in the Book of Abraham account. I mean, that's not a big weighty argument, but it struck me as odd that they use this unusual, more Hebraic term when they're talking about Abraham's vision of the throne of God and seeing the heavens and all that sort of thing, that point after point after Point I can allude to things in ancient texts that tell a similar story, make a similar point, view the world the same way. I published an article a few years ago with Bill Hamlin and John Gee where we argued that this astronomical scheme in the book of Abraham is most plausibly interpreted as a. As a geocentric astronomy, not a heliocentric one, which doesn't come out of Joseph Smith's environment. But it's not done in such an overt way that it looks like somebody's faking it for us. You have to read it really carefully. And then you realize, good grief, of course we're not interpreting it correctly because it's written from the standpoint of a geocentric universe, which is what I'd expect from the Egyptians, not from Joseph. There are a number of things like that. So I say the text itself is impressive. So let's not get totally mired in the question of how the text was derived from the papyri and his interpretations of the facsimiles. Yeah, they make sense on their own. In fact, the four canopic jars under the lion couch did sometimes symbolize the four quarters of the earth. In fact, the alligator underneath, or the crocodile. I remember a certain critic years ago published something, and he made fun of Joseph because Joseph said, it's the idolatrous God of Pharaoh. Well, what does he think it is? It's Sobek, the crocodile God, who. Particularly in the Fayum, the oasis to the west of the Nile Valley, which was where the capital was during the time of Abraham. The capital city in Greek times was called Crocodilopolis because it was infested with crocodiles. The symbol of the pharaoh during that time was a crocodile. His patron God was Sobek, the crocodile God. And I even at one point took a picture. I had to bribe a guard to do this in the museum in Luxor to show. I think it was Amenophis iv. And he is standing next to Sobek, and Sobek has his arm around him like we're the team, you know, larger than life statues. It cost me a little bit to get that picture. I sent it to accompany my article for the ensign, and they lost the slide. So I'm gonna have to go back and bribe another guard to get that picture.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:16:52] Wow. So completely disappeared day before digital.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:16:55] It was a perfect illustration of that point, that it was not ridiculous for. For Joseph to identify that as the idolatrous God of Pharaoh. In fact, I thought, what yokel farm boy would have even thought of that? But he's Precisely. Right. It's not laughable. It's correct.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:17:13] Okay, so he has hits. There's hits of ancient. There's some possibilities here. So why the. So give me the connection between the papyrus itself and the revelatory process. Is that.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:17:29] Now, I'll be honest, I don't know exactly what the relationship is. It is possible. It's always struck me as possible. Joseph's looking at the papyri and getting. He's not translating in the sense I would translate. He hasn't got a lexicon laboriously, but
Dan Weatherspoon [00:17:43] he apparently was working on one.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:17:45] Well, yeah.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:17:46] Or is that.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:17:47] There's another story there.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:17:49] Okay.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:17:49] Yeah. I think that's an entirely different thing, unrelated in some ways to the Egyptian language. I think it's a sort of Masonic cipher. Will Scriver did some work on that recently, and I'm hoping it'll be published eventually, because I think some of it's really, really, really interesting. I think he may have solved the question of the Kirtland Egyptian papers, and they go in a direction that I hadn't thought of. But it's pretty clear to me Joseph's getting this by revelation as he did.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:18:17] So it's like the hat.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:18:19] Yeah, so. So I'm thinking to myself, how does he know what the relationship is between what he's getting and what's on the text? Actually, he doesn't know. He can't know because he doesn't read any Egyptian. It's just gibberish on a papyrus to him. So he could think he's getting it from the papyrus and he's actually just being inspired to seek knowledge and getting it by revelation. I don't necessarily conclude that. I think he maybe was getting it by revelation, but it was on the papyrus. But not on the papyrus. Papyrus that we have.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:18:47] So the one found in the fire.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:18:49] Yeah. I'm convinced that we don't have most of the papyrus. I know some people have criticized that, but I think the evidence runs the other way, and I'm hoping we'll be publishing something on that in the foreseeable future, where we argue for the original length of the papyrus scrolls and that what Joseph had was only a small percentage of. Or what we have, rather, I should say is only a small percentage of what Joseph had. So it is possible he did get it off a lost portion of the scroll. But the fact is, right now, it does not. If you translate the scrolls that we have, they don't yield the book of Abraham. That's absolutely clear. No way around that.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:19:25] So if somebody were to come to you. I'm really troubled about the Book of Abraham. You'd say, well, are you open to the idea of revelation and that there may have been a physical tool that sent him into the dissociated realm or something where he got ideas? Something like.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:19:43] I'm not saying it didn't come from the papyri, but you're saying it wouldn't bother me, particularly if it didn't. And Joseph thought it did,
Dan Weatherspoon [00:19:52] but you wouldn't want to. So you'd be more likely to think that in the Book of Abraham than the association between the Book of Mormon plates and what came out of his head. You'd want to claim historical, factual lineup there, a little bit more.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:20:05] But even there, I don't rule out the possibility. Again, Joseph's getting it by revelation. Now some people say, well, that means. Peterson says, I've had this response before. Peterson now is giving up on translation. No, I've always believed he was getting it by revelation. He couldn't read reformed Egyptian or Egyptian. He never claimed he could. It's always.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:20:25] It's not translation that way. Yeah. The Joseph Smith translation of the Bible is not translation.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:20:31] That's exactly right. Yeah. And he used the word translation in a different sense. Not, by the way, a totally idiosyncratic one, because it can be used in broad senses, like the translation of relics from Alexandria to Venice. The skull, the relics of St. Mark were translated from there to there. It means conveying something. However it's conveyed, it doesn't always have to be with a grammar book and a lexicon.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:20:58] All right, so thankful that's helpful because the temple's so big, that one supposedly I'm saying endowment. This is a necessary sacrament ordinance for exaltation. Clearly, it wasn't a pure gift from God. It came through Masonic tools and whatnot. What's your basic approach to that? And especially some of the extra theology that has how strong these are, signs and tokens you have to flash to angels and all that stuff when they were clearly Masonic in origins to begin with. So how do you wrestle? Or let's just pretend this time that you know my heart's right as a person who's coming to you saying the Temple is just like this separate entity to me, that I really need a good answer.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:21:56] Well, I would offer up several possibilities, none of which I'm perfectly settled on. I would say first of all that I'm really impressed with the Temple. Again, there are elements of the Temple that I feel are. They have the feel of antiquity to me. Bill Hamlin and I twice have taught a seminar here on campus on Celestial Ascent. To me, the temple is a model of celestial ascent. You start off at the base of the cosmic mountain where the waters of life flow. You climb up to the presence of the gods, so on and so forth. There are certain passwords and so on you need to know to get up past the sentinels, up to that place. You see it even in Dante's Purgatorio and Paradiso, but you find it everywhere. It's in China, it's in Egypt, it's in Islamic lore. It's everywhere. It's astonishing how widespread it is. So to me, the temple as an ascension ritual makes sense in antiquity. Specific elements of the temple make sense. Baptism for the dead, I have no problem with. There's lots of ancient evidence for that in Christianity, from my point of view. Other things, even the use of. Of handclasps, for example. Gosh, you find them all over every funeral stele. In ancient Greece, there's dexiosis, the taking of someone by the hand. There are in Ravenna, you can see the mosaics there, where God reaches through a cloud to pull the saint into heaven, that sort of thing. I see a lot of ancient material.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:23:26] So you're taking it away from masonry only. I'm just saying it feels archetypally true. Culture after culture, would you then go, therefore originated in the same spot. And this is sort of a.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:23:42] You know, I think masonry as we know it seems to have been created relatively late, but out of elements in some cases that are older. I mean, I can find you compass and square imagery on medieval tombs in the Middle East. Todd Compton wrote a piece ages ago in grad school on the use of that sort of thing in classical Greek material. It's very old. It's older than I thought it was.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:24:07] So would you go old because it archetypally works or old because it's of a diffusion from.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:24:12] I'm sort of a diffusionist.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:24:13] So you're more of a.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:24:14] But do I deny a relationship between the LDS Temple and Masonry? No. I think Joseph may have used masonry the way he used the Bible for the. The jst, the Joseph Smith translation, that it sort of provides him a framework, but he changes it. The myth, if you will, that's used in the endowment is fundamentally different from the standard Masonic myth. The symbols in some cases are the same or close, but they're revalued, they're transvalued, they bear totally different meaning than it may seem.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:24:43] No, I agree that. That's true. So how do you handle that this is so important? How do you handle the separation between the ritual that obviously evolves and picked up pieces versus what the endowment is?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:25:02] Well, I see a difference between the endowment and the presentation of the endowment.
Guest [00:25:06] Okay, good.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:25:06] The presentation has changed over the years. The endowment. And I would have to be somewhere else before I'd start describing what I think exactly. That is. But the endowment, I think, remains fundamentally the same. The presentation changes. We know it's changed. It's gone through film. It's gone in different configurations of rooms and so on and so forth. It's been longer. Things have been dropped, things have been changed, reworded. So that's obviously not just handed down from Sinai, engraved in stone. There are even some things that have been taken out of the temple endowment that I sort of regret the loss of because, dang, I had really good ancient parallels to them. And now not only I never could really use them, but now there's a dwindling audience who would even understand them if I did. So that's sort of, in an odd way, exacerbating.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:25:59] I was a pre1990 endowee.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:26:03] Symbolically. I thought they were interesting. They said something. But the fact is, as people change, as culture changes, symbols change meaning. And sometimes they begin to symbolize something they weren't intended to. And at that point, they have to be changed. They become dead or misleading or dangerous symbols. So I think I understand why the changes were made, but still. But my argument would be there is something distinctly true in the temple, and I think distinctly ancient.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:26:33] And it would be this ascension that
Daniel C. Peterson [00:26:36] and other parts teaching, or I think the initiatory ordinances. I mean, there are parallels to those in ancient temples as well.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:26:44] Absolutely.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:26:47] And I see parallels even when I walk into a Catholic church and see people taking holy water and anointing themselves and so on. I see parallels in the great houses of ancient Greece. If you read the Homeric poems, when a visitor comes to one of the great houses, he's been tramping through the dust. He arrives, the servants are sent to wash him, clothe him, anoint him, all that sort of thing. I think a lot of this is just the hospitality ritual of coming into a lord's great house.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:27:16] Wow. Very cool. Good. Well, I think that gives a hint. Okay, so, Dan, here was my goal today, a human face on this often misunderstood guy. I think you've come across as the person who's enjoyable, who's brilliant, all the things that I know. So I Think we've done a good job there. So I'm just pleased for this. I hope that there's been some. A meta message here of. Don't rush to conclusion because you've really articulated. Hold on just a minute here. And don't define yourself out of the Church because of expectations or whatnot. All right? What I would love to give you the chance to do, and if you don't want to do it, we can cut this. What are the pillars of your testimony? If somebody were to say to you, were to give you five minutes only, why are you a Mormon? I would love to close with that.
Pillars of Testimony and Gratitude for Mormonism
Daniel C. Peterson [00:28:24] Okay, I haven't really thought this through, but I'll try to come up with something. I mean, I suppose I'm a Mormon. There are a lot of reasons. One, I've already mentioned, the vision of the grand sweep of the Plan of Salvation just spoke to me. It just resonated with me, to use a perfectly trite word. But it did. I mean, it hit me immediately. And I thought, how have I never heard this before? I never picked this up in primary classes or Sunday school classes. I must have heard all of the elements, but I hadn't seen the sweep of it. And when I did, it moved me and it rang true to me on a much lower level. I would say one of the things that keeps me in the Church intellectually is this. I haven't really articulated this yet. I have tried, I think, seriously and honestly to formulate a comprehensive counter explanation for all the elements I see as arguing for the truthfulness of Joseph Smith's claims. I can't do it. I can see a plausible counter explanation for this part or that part. Sometimes the counter explanations are mutually contradictory. They don't account for everything. And so to me, the most coherent way to put it all together is to say God really didn't intervene here. Something happened here that cannot be explained in any naturalistic way that I can think of. I'm just not persuaded by the critics. I've tried to read them sympathetically. They'll deny that I had an open mind. But I've tried. I think I really have. And I just. I'm not persuaded. And I'm thinking that's remarkable, because if this really was the product of a fairly shallow, uneducated yokel, it ought to be transparently false. And I don't see it as transparently false. I see it as pretty strong. And I don't say all issues are resolved, but a lot of issues are. And there's a lot of evidence that to me points to the authenticity of the claims. I haven't really mentioned life in the community, but that's an important part of it to me. And I say this as someone who in some ways doesn't like Mormon culture very much. I really. Every once in a while I'm flipping the radio around and I hear some Mormon pop music station. It's excruciating. It's like fingers on a chalkboard to me. Eternity always rhymes with destiny and things like that. It's so horrible, I can't stand it now. I like some things. I like the history of the church. I am moved by the pioneer stories and the Hancock companies.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:30:55] It doesn't make it the one and only true church.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:30:57] No, but it's moving and satisfying as a historical art. And I see the presence of God in the lives of people in the church. And a couple of years ago I saw a YouTube video or something of saints coming from Cameroon to the temple in Nigeria. I don't know if you've seen that. It's remarkable. It takes them four or five days to get there through mud, up to the top of the Toyota there and all that sort of thing. You have to get out and pull it through the mud. And the people who put this together were missionaries there and they played Come Come Ye Saints to the background. And I thought, that's right. It's the same thing. We think those days are over. They're not in Cameroon. They're not in a lot of places in the world. And I'm moved by that. I am moved by these stories. I'm comfortable with being a part of this people. And another thing, I'm comfortable with being part of a ward. I like my ward. There are people in it. I would never choose to be my friends. It's good for me to be in that ward. It was good for me to be a bishop. And I'll tell you, I don't want to insult anybody, but I was. I was assigned to a ward here. I teach at BYU and my life is academics. You know, I'm really into this stuff. I was assigned to a pretty poor ward on the outskirts of uvu. Some of them were students. A lot of them were not. A lot of them were working pretty low level jobs. They're not going to be captains of industry or nuclear physicists. I found that a lot of the tools that I would normally use in interacting with people were just useless. I remember talking with my executive secretary at one point saying, I'm going back to Washington D.C. he says, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I think I'm going to be sitting at the table with Condoleezza Rice. Which turned out not to be true. She didn't come. I was really upset because I was going to be sitting right next to her. Well, he said, I think I've heard that name. Who is she? And I thought we live in different universes. But the point was, I kept thinking to myself, this is good for me. This is really good for me. Because it's stretching me in ways I would not have chosen to be stretched. I would not have chosen to be a bishop. I would not have chosen to spend hours and hours every night dealing with the mentally ill with incredible hypochondriacs, chronic liars, and a lot of good people, too. I don't want to say they were all crackpots and difficult, intractable issues and dysfunctional families and all that sort of thing, but it was really good for me. It was a great experience, especially in retrospect. And I think things like that are good. It's good for me. Years ago, I was sent down to the welfare cannery. There were a bunch of us trying to work one of the canning machines, and we couldn't figure out how to do it. We were so incompetent. We gradually realized we didn't know each other. But one of them had a PhD in mathematics. I'm a Middle Eastern PhD. The other one, I think, was a philosopher or something totally useless. And I thought, this is really good for all of us to be here. I had a friend once in Southern California who objected to going to welfare farms and so on. He said, I'm a lawyer. I could pay people to do that. This is not a good use of my time. And I thought, no, you need to go to the welfare farm. You should be down on your knees repairing chicken coops and things like that because it's good for your soul. I like that element of the church, too. I really, really do. And, you know, I just find Mormonism an intellectually satisfying, stimulating way to view the world, it's rich to me. I know some people feel stifled by it. I've always found that incomprehensible. When I first began to understand what the church was about, going back to that experience with Truman Madsen, it was like the universe opened up for me. I was as excited as I could be, and I still am.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:34:40] Yeah. And I felt that in my own life, too. And it's. You know, I wrote a dissertation on the stuff that I love that does Stretch beyond just it. And this is always uncomfortable because you've shared a testimony here. I'm priming you, Rich. Is one thing the one and only true, or is there a way that you assert that or that you distance yourself from that? Because I know that's a hang up for a lot of people, the exclusionary sort of feel of it.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:35:07] Well, I have to face that issue a lot because professionally I deal with another religion, Islam. And I do socially, too. I mean, hardly a week goes by where I'm not entertaining Muslims on campus or lecturing to Muslims somewhere. And I've done the same thing to a much lesser degree with Jews and Catholics and so on and so forth. And, you know, there's no question that there are good people in these other faiths, that they're in many cases better than we are and they do things that we don't do as well. I've always loved, and everyone knows this now, Christian Stendahl's three rules of dealing with other religions. I've loved the principle of holy envy. I do envy what some people do. I envy Orthodox Jews, their way of handling the Sabbath. I grew up thinking, how ridiculous. 300 steps on the Sabbath, how silly. That's not it at all. We weren't understanding them. They love the Sabbath and I envy them the way they do it. I envy Muslims their devotion to Scripture in some ways, their devotion to prayer. I envy the seriousness that Catholics give to the idea of priesthood. I had the experience in Cairo years ago of coming out of the Dominican monastery where I was. I studied for six months, one on one, with a famous Dominican monk there who was an expert on Islamic philosophy, of all things. And he got a huge kick out of the fact, by the way, that I was a Mormon. He used to teach at UCLA sometimes. He knew the temple. And he was constantly pestering me about Mormonism. We had a great relationship. But once I came out of the monastery, there were all these peasant women gathered around wanting a blessing from me. Father, Father, please give us a blessing. I said, no, no, no, you're wrong. The fathers are in there. I'll go get one for you. But then I thought as I was walking away, I'm the guy with the priesthood here. They don't. From my point of view, I ought to take this more seriously. They do take it seriously. I'm so casual, I almost forgot I had it. I wasn't going to fake it and pretend to be a Catholic priest and give them a blessing or anything, but there are a lot of things that I Envy about other people. And yet I do stick to the notion that this is the one true church. Now what I mean by that, though, well, it's hard to explain this. I've said I'm almost a universalist. I believe that nobody who seriously tried to get at the truth is going to be deprived of all the full blessings. God will decide how to do that. I almost lean toward Carl Rahner's idea that Anonymous Catholics, Catholic or Christian by intent, that sort of thing. So that, yeah, I'd like my friends to become Latter Day Saints, but if they don't, I'm not too worried, provided I think they're really trying to. To find the truth and to live according to the best they know. I think they'll be fine. I have a missionary urge, but I also am not afraid that God is going to thrust them into hell just because they failed to perceive that, hey, Joseph Smith was telling the truth. They'll get it someday. In the meantime, we've got to learn a lot from them. So on the one hand, I'm an exclusivist, but on the other hand, I'm very much an inclusivist. I believe in reading. I'm serious about wanting to read the books of other religious traditions because I can learn things from them. I love Thomas A. Kempis. I love Al Ghazali. I love some of these works because they teach me a lot. I've used arguments from Al Ghazali and Mormon apologetic materials. I've actually, just as an experiment, quoted Al Ghazali in Sacrament Meeting without identifying things like that. And it sounded like scripture, truth is truth, you know. And so I believe that God spoke through Joseph Smith. I believe there's something very unique about that speaking and that unique throughout all of history. Yeah, I do. But one of my favorite people of the 20th century is John Paul II, one of the greatest men of the century. I admire him inordinately. I have a picture of him on my office wall. I admire the current Pope. I have a picture of Albert Schweitzer on my wall because I admire him enormously. And I see God working through all these people and I can learn something from all of them and they'll be fine.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:39:39] So would you choose to not testify about the one and only true church as a way of not offending or whatever?
Daniel C. Peterson [00:39:48] In other words, I won't do it to Muslims because I don't even feel we should be converting Muslims at this stage. I mean, some Muslims do convert, that's fine, but we don't Go after them. We don't target Muslims. I will bear testimony to that. But I will also bear testimony that if you don't become a Latter Day Saint, then be really good at what your tradition is. Live up to the best you've got.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:40:14] Teach us some things.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:40:15] Yeah, and I like the line from the Quran where the Quran says that God created us in many faiths so that we would vie with one another in good works. I love the play Nathan the Wise where basically there's a test to see which is the true religion. And in the end it turns out the true religion is the one that makes. They're all competing to show they're better than the other guy. Doing better works well, that's the test. They think it's something else extrinsic to
Dan Weatherspoon [00:40:44] be truly a compassionate person. Yeah, that's the test.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:40:50] So I'm an unreconstructed Mormon exclusivist in that way, but I'm a universalist Mormon exclusivist who thinks that God is a loving father. And I think there are some people who will exclude themselves from his love. Some of them will choose to do so. Some of them will just. They prefer evil. I don't know what you can do with those except maybe educate them over the course of the eternities. I hope even they'll come around. But I really can't believe that the Lord's going to say at the end of this all, ha. Gotcha. You failed to read the right book. That would have persuaded you.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:41:26] Well, and everything you've said is within Mormonism. You're deep within. You're in the safe ground. But I know that sometimes when you get to testimony and there's a sense of one and only truth, it can hurt people in their heart. I probably shouldn't even have taken us down that road. Anything else that you're excited about that you'd want to proclaim from the housetops that comes out of Mormonism.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:41:50] I think one of the things I'd like to get across is that I view Mormonism as a religious humanism, a thing theistic humanism. I really value humanism. I have a high opinion of human beings and so I'm sympathetic even to non religious humanists. I think that they have something important to say. Classical humanism of the Greeks and so on. I don't view humans as worms so depraved that they can't do anything good. I think one of the great things about Mormonism is that we are children of God and that we're Gods in embryo. This gives a really high status to humans. We have infinite worth. We're worth more than most of the things around us, most of the things we devote ourselves to. It's unworthy of us, but we do it. We devote ourselves to things that are worth less than we are. I think that's a great message to get out. And I suppose one of the things that's on my mind right now, with the current flurry of attention to Mormonism, the play on Broadway and the two presidential candidates and so on, we're being depicted in many circles as adherents of this really weird religion, these quirky little doctrines and so on. I say, well, you know, forget the quirky little doctrines. Some of them are kind of misstated anyway, or they're not essential or they've been taken out of context or just if you understood the whole bit of Mormonism, they would make more sense to you. Anybody can make a belief look weird if you take it out of its proper setting. I mean, even a flower can look silly in certain locations. Take it out of the flower bed. But what I want to say to them is, and what I think Mormons sometimes forget is this is a really expansive view. It is very open and sympathetic. We can believe and we do. We have official statements to the effect that the divine Spirit is working out there beyond our church. We're not the narrow minded sectarians that you may think we are. We're not fundamentalist Protestants who happen to have an extra book and maybe an extra wife. You know, it's a bigger vision than that. It's really quite interesting if you get into it. You don't maybe have to buy it. But if you can see it, at least from my vantage point, it's a big, big worldview. And when I'm mocked as this narrow minded little provincial, and I think you got me so wrong, first of all, I've traveled probably more than you have. There's a fellow online now who's ridiculing me as if my world is Provo. I don't even live in Provo. You know, I didn't even grow up in Utah. I've lived around the world. I've traveled on every continent and so on. I'm multilingual and who's the provincial here? But that's a personal, subsidiary point. The point is Mormonism itself is bigger than that. And I object to it when critics try to paint us as a narrow minded little fundamentalist sect. And I really object to it when Mormons try to do it. I don't like it from either side. That's why I object to some of this young earth creationist stuff that I'm hearing recently. No, no, that's not us. This is an expansive big vision, not a narrow minded little anti intellectual thing that's hostile to culture and hunkered down on itself. So that's what I love about the church in some ways is that to my mind it's so big and it's so liberating.
Dan Weatherspoon [00:45:08] Yeah. And it is a wonderful, empowering view. Dan, thank you for being on Mormon Stories. I really appreciate the time that you've given us and the generosity of your spirit. Again, I've known you as a friend here for at least eight or 10 years and now I'm even knowing you as person who I resonate with. Somehow or other we have the same Mormonism in many ways. You certainly read a lot more and you certainly dealt with the specific issues more than me. But I really appreciate all that you've brought today. So thank you. I know our listeners will really enjoy.
Daniel C. Peterson [00:45:45] Well, thank you. I've enjoyed it. It's been fun.
Guest [00:45:50] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattler Rattlers. Check them out@savor-rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.
Guest [00:46:05] Come come ye saints. No toil nor labor fear but with joy when you're away the hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jose, your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well. Why should we mourn? I think our love is high. Tis not so, all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight? Gird up your lo fresh courage take Our God will never us forsake soon we'll have tale to tell. Oh, all is well, all is well. Oh, all is well, all is well. Ra. Sam. And should we die before our journey's through Happy day. All is well we that are free from toil and sorrow too with the just we shall dwell but if our lives are spared again to see the Saints there rest obtain, I will make this chorus swell. Oh I'll all is well, all is well, all is well, all is well all is well. Oh, is well, All is away, all is away.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
409 Responses
I’m very happy to see that these interviews have happened. Just partly into the first one now.
Mormon Stories is really on a roll right now. Haven’t listened to the interview, but the interviewees have been great.
The one common theme with Mormon Stories is empathy. You end up with empathy for Gay Mormons, Atheist Former Mormons, Ed Decker, and now Daniel Peterson. I don’t agree with Dr. Peterson most of the time, but I respect him and dare I say, have charity towards him. If I judged him solely on his internet board battles, I would have been poorer for it. PS — I think the Mission President he recently helped (from the Bible Belt) is Richard Holzapfel of the Birmingham, Alabama mission. Did I guess right?
Best comment in this thread!
not on iTunes yet?
It’s working for me on iTunes.
I am really enjoying this podcast. For the record, I don’t think that (1) being inspired by God and (2) acting immorally are mutually exclusive (thinking about early Mormon polygamy, especially the secretive practices in Nauvoo). I also don’t think that Joseph Smith was a brazen, cynical deceiver. He thought he was doing good (at least some of the time), and on some level did the best he could. But is his good the good I want for myself? (What about continuing revelation, personal revelation, inevitable conflicts between the individual and the community?) More to the point, how do I find a place where I can be comfortable at church as someone who doubts? How can I be honest about my own approach to “spirituality” (which increasingly shies away from magical experiences that I have not personally had)? How do I deal with people (especially leaders) who believe that they speak for God directly, leaving me no recourse (and demanding that my faith be absolute, uncritical, and simplistic)? I am not asking these questions here because I expect them to be answered, really.
At one point in my life, I could have been Dan. I was born outside of Utah. I like rhetorical arguments, civil disagreement, and being part of a community that can thrive with these things (not merely endure in spite of them). My Achilles’ heel was believing what people said in Sunday School, sacrament meetings, priesthood classes, seminary, and even institute. The faith history I had from these venues was not merely partisan (which like Dan I don’t have a problem with, prima facie): it omitted crucial facts (not because the church never said anything about them, but because nobody in any of the classes I attended knew or cared enough to say anything). By the time I met the uncomfortable facts (at BYU of all places), I was already committed to an impossible stance: I really liked objective history (with all of the facts), and I was emotionally attached to the correlated (and too often fictional) history I was given over a lifetime of church meetings. In the end, I had to choose between real history (all the facts) and fake history (only nice facts), and I went with the former (while recognizing that both are just highly wrought fiction, imperfect approximations of something larger than narrative can capture).
I really like what Dan said about the Mountain Meadows massacre. Those murderers were good people (just like me). How do I avoid letting myself become as they were when that atrocity was committed? How do I tame the human beast within? I believed my church leaders had a formula for this, something tried, tested, and true. Unfortunately, in my particular case, the medicine they provided was more like psychological poison (requiring me to subject myself to them in a way that made neither of us better people: healing for me required putting a lot of distance between myself and church leadership).
I still consider myself a Mormon, since I understand Mormonism as embracing all truth (abstract and concrete, general and particular) and demanding personal revelation. I can even support the church leaders as administrators of church property. But I confess my faith in their knowledge of the human condition (especially as it relates to me) has been shattered. I don’t doubt they wish me well, but I very much doubt their ability to treat me well. I don’t doubt that they believe in the historicity of certain things (such as the Restoration), but I don’t think they have good reasons. Or, to say it better, the reasons they give (feelings, uncritical readings of scripture) do not warrant the (high) level of respect (and obedience) that they expect from me. Anyone could produce bona fides as good as theirs; in fact, people do every day (as I discovered when I started listening to authorities in other religions). I see all people as prophets: what separates me from the president of the LDS church is not priesthood or authority or knowledge, but historical accident; he is president of a large corporation, and I am a younger, poorer (in more ways than one) graduate student. But we are both human beings, with emotions, intuitions, and reason to sort these out to the best of our individual abilities. For a long time, I did not productively deal with my own emotions, intuitions, and reason because I was wrongly deferential toward the president’s. I treated him (and his local spokespeople) like God, when I should have treated him more like my grandpa (a nice old guy with lots of experience, but nothing any other old man might not possess, and certainly not an exclusive mouthpiece for ultimate reality). I admit my worship of church authorities was a personal mistake, but in doing so I have to say that it was largely a result of teachings that I took in over years of Sunday School, sacrament meetings, priesthood meetings, seminary, and institute. It was never discouraged by my leaders. Quite the contrary.
Maybe if I had learned a few things earlier on in my faith journey, I might have avoided building my trust in the LDS church on an insecure foundation. Maybe. I am really, honestly glad that things have worked out for Dan. I really enjoyed listening to his personal life story (which was very interesting) and his apologetic approach to Mormonism (which I find more convincing when he isn’t arguing sympathetically for the historicity of scriptures modern or ancient). I agree that all history is in some sense fiction, and that Herodotus and Thucydides are rhetorical (and, certainly in the case of Herodotus, quite fictitious: has anyone proven that there was not in Herodotus’ time or thereabouts some tribe of one-eyed men living in the far north, stealing gold from griffins [3.116]? assuming that this story is true, should we follow the oracle its teller delivered 240 years after his death and worship Apollo [4.15]? what reason do we have to deny Aristeas or Apollo?).
I am really grateful to Dan for reaching out here with his story and ideas.
Amen, and amen.
“”how do I find a place where I can be comfortable at church as someone who doubts? How can I be honest about my own approach to “spirituality” (which increasingly shies away from magical experiences that I have not personally had)? How do I deal with people (especially leaders) who believe that they speak for God directly, leaving me no recourse (and demanding that my faith be absolute, uncritical, and simplistic)?””
Thanks for your comments. My response to almost anyone with the above questions is that you were unlucky–you were a rational walking through an irrational, opinion-filled culture. However, culture can change in an instant, or it can take centuries to change. Once human culture changes form, it has already began its next phase, during which it might become stronger and stronger; and then suddenly it changes again, or not.
A truly spiritual process, on the other hand, must be solid. Upon such a principle the universe itself depends. If you have an experience which gives you rational and experiential evidence of god, jesus, the purpose of life, etc…, trust that experience and nothing else. Let your soul be strong and then you will be amused at the culture you find yourself in. Having overcome the counter-culture, you’ll be that much stronger, and you might look back and find out that you weren’t the unlucky one afterall.
” If you have an experience which gives you rational and experiential evidence of god, jesus, the purpose of life, etc…, trust that experience and nothing else.” This is madness and stupid advice and could easily be said for a Jim Jones cult. My response use reason, get the hell out of there, and trust in reality, not religious delusions.
thanks John, got it now. while I’m here, wanted to thank you for all you’ve done. these podcasts have been a Godsend. However, part of the main appeal for me has been, in part, that with you conducting the interview and posing the questions, you were an ‘insider’ asking the questions so many others like myself like to have asked. It felt good knowing that a participating member of the Church was willing to have this discussion out in the open. I always enjoy that discussion more that those outside of the Church, whether or not they were once part of it, conduction the discussion. I have missed hearing your voice doing the interviews. Is this because you’re too busy with school, or do you not feel comfortable doing it anymore in that vein? It is my understanding that you have taken steps away from, as it were, being ‘in’ the Church. Am I right about that? Either way, God bless you John. Can’t wait to listen to this one.
Dude,
I’m always in flux, but since you asked — I would classify myself today as semi-active. I attend sacrament meeting at least once a month, and sometimes more. In terms of my belief — I would say that I’m super liberal belief-wise, in that I am not very invested in the church’s exclusive truth claims, and have major concerns/doubt/reservations about many of them (maybe most of them). I do still believe in God, however (though in a very broad sense), and I do believe that “God” works through Mormonism….in the same way that she/he works through other faiths, atheists, scientists, etc.
Regarding me doing more interviews — I’ve been away mostly because of busy-ness at school, but I’ve made arrangements that I hope will allow me to do more interviews going forward (and am excited for that). And I feel pretty confident that I can still do a good job w/ the interviews…especially because I have done many interviews in the past feeling both better and worse about the church than I feel today…which makes me think that I can still approach the interviews semi-objectively.
Thanks for writing.
John have you turned into a postmodernist? Because the ‘God’ wishywashyness approach seems like it.
Daniel is an affable guy for sure. I enjoyed his arabic courses. I highly doubt he would be employable outside BYU. As a supposed scholar, would he write a critical analysis of his work? Would he criticize the work of Michael Coe? He could not survive as an independent scholar at another university…. he could claim his faith and hide behind the notion that you can’t prove truth, but he lacks credibility outside the realm of Mormonism….and can get quite mean spirited (by his own admission).
I think all of what you said goes without saying. :)
He did say some mean things, and sounded pretty angry at times (he called some people liars, and then tried to justify it by saying “they’re not all crackpots”) even though he said he doesn’t get angry. Maybe he’s just a very passive aggressive person. He didn’t come across as a compasionate person, but he sure tried to make himself look like one
“Pretense” is my actual middle name. (The “C” is just deceptive cover.)
I’m curious about the “mean things” that I said, and the places where I “sounded pretty angry.” I don’t recall feeling any anger at any point during the interview. Could you supply some references, so that I can listen to these mean and angry things?
Incidentally, I may well have called some people liars. I believe that there are liars. They really exist. I don’t think one has to be angry to recognize that fact.
If this doesn’t help, feel free to ignore it. I think that we are all liars to one degree or another, but that some of us (among whom I would count Dan Peterson) at least try to tell the truth as we see it. This can make us obnoxious, particularly when someone comes at life from a position that our truth cannot see. But what can we do?
Don’t expect Dan (or anyone) to give you understanding he does not possess. He cannot tell you that the LDS church is false, the myths an impossible tissue of lies, the prophets sadistic manipulators, etc. He cannot say that because he does not know that. That is not his experience. That is not his truth. Maybe it is yours. If you want someone to validate it, there are many of us out there who are happy to oblige you. If you are more like Dan, then the same rule applies. We “apostates” (a nebulous category which some of us would deny) cannot tell you that the LDS church is true, the myths factual histories, the prophets mouthpieces of God, etc. We cannot say that because we do not know that (any more). That is not our experience.
The most any of us can do is share our perspective honestly and completely, and then let the dice fall where they may. Dan Peterson has done that here, and I respect him for it (even if there are several important things about which we do not agree). If we are not careful, it is all too easy to pass through life thinking that everything is simple, that every one around us is basically on the same page, that we all know the same truth (especially if we grew up in the same neighborhood, attended the same school, or went to the same church). Then, lo and behold, one of us has a really strange experience and the rest are incredulous. That’s life. We have to get over it, and move forward from things that we really do have in common. We have to see that someone else can have an experience very different from ours, a truth unlike our truth, and that this does not make that person automatically a deliberate liar out to destroy us. The world is big enough to accommodate all kinds of crazy: it has to be.
Reposting a comment from FB, with some minor additions to make sense here (hopefully) without the context:
I just have to add my voice that I really enjoyed the section from Part 2 starting at about 34:15, where they talk about the history of the church and how it is presented. While I agree that the church could be better about presenting the issues, I’ve also known about the “hard” issues since I was a teenager. If, as someone said in the Facebook thread on this podcast, it’s possible to be an EQP and not know that Joseph Smith had multiple wives, I am NOT going to blame the church for that man’s clear ignorance. Or that bishop a few months ago who posted his “farewell” letter to his SP on his personal blog. The man didn’t even know that polygamy was illegal, if memory serves. What the . . . seriously? At some point we have to acknowledge that there have been faults on both side. The church could be more transparent, but I’m sympathetic to writing a world-wide curriculum and think we sometimes give the correlation committee a black eye for doing a difficult job, but members could also be more informed. I have never felt that the correlated material was the end all be all of gospel study. And I grew up in Orem. Took religion classes at BYU from good professors and learned about all this stuff. It’s not as hidden as some think, but it’s also definitely more hidden than it should be.
Have you ever reflected that your awareness of church history came with living in Orem, where the historical faces of Mormonism are readily accessible? If I remember correctly, the former bishop whose ignorance you abhor was a convert from the UK, meaning that his lifelong exposure to Mormonism might easily be much less than yours (i.e. it might have come mostly from correlated materials, which provide little intellectual depth as a rule, and missionaries, who with rare exceptions offer even less). He didn’t have knowledgeable descendants of pioneers on hand, university archives, or bookstores with all the latest scholarly titles in Mormon studies.
Born to a family of first-generation converts, I myself grew up far from Utah and did not even know that Joseph Smith was a polygamist (as far as I knew, the doctrine was revealed to him in D&C 132 but never really practiced) until I made it to BYU and got my hands on some real historical writing (e.g. Todd Compton’s book In Sacred Loneliness). Before I did this, I served a mission to Europe during which I spread correlated stories (no significant Nauvoo polygamy) as the one and only gospel truth, because no one told me any better. I could easily see some of the few converts I knew over there having moments of crisis similar to those of your “ignorant” bishop. Their ignorance reflects the degree of trust they put in the church (as an institution which produces historical materials for members to use) and in missionaries (like me). They had too much faith. They were too gullible. They should have just slammed the door in my face like everyone else. But the idiots let us in and believed what we had to say. (I hope you can tell I am not being too serious here.)
Hermes, forgive me, my words were mostly aimed at the stereotypical “I am a 5th generation Mormon, raised in the church, served a mission, grew up in the Mormon Corridor, went to all 4 years of seminary, then did institute, and I never heard of this stuff.” I got totally blasted on FB for it, and apologize. My words have caused some offense, and for that I apologize.
I still feel that the “stick to the manual” version of Mormon gospel study is one that I’ve never heard and never held to. And I was definitely in a position to hear it.
Also, logging in via google seems to not email me the replies that are posted, so I’m trying a different login. Sorry for the mess.
No worries. I should have read all the way to the end of your comment, which was less mocking than I thought at first (since you acknowledge the church making information “more hidden than it should be”). Also, I feel bad for all the problems I may have caused by giving bad (or at least incomplete) information to people who trusted me as a missionary. That, coupled with my own longstanding ignorance of much church history, makes me a little excessively defensive. Sorry!
Carl are you incapable of accusing the Church? You appear to me to be worst than a member that knew nothing and went along to get along.
Just a recent example. There are 2 young women in our ward who did not know JS was a polygamist. When my daughter told them, one of them refused to believe. So yes, disinformation is alive and well today.
Just a quick word regarding the ignorance of us Brits… I’ve lived in England my whole life and can never remember a time that I didn’t know plural marriage was practised in the church. I may not have knowledgeable descendants of pioneers on hand, but i can assure you we have access to the same books in Mormon studies that you have over there.
The Bishop you refer to was from the UK, but I don’t think he or anyone else here could use that as an excuse for not knowing about these things. I agree that the church doesn’t go shouting about controversial issues from the roof tops, but it’s not hard to stumble across plural marriage in an institute manual or on Wikipedia.I think there has to be an element of responsibility on the individual to study and learn for themselves. When studying at University you are given the basic material to read… but there is always a further reading list.
On a side note I thought Dan Woothspoon done a great job grilling Dr. Peterson and gave his best interview I have heard him give yet… in my humble opinion. Top marks Dan.
Hermes, you’ve passed your comment quota. chill.
LL,
Hardly. Hermes rules.
I would not dare to say that anyone *should* have known all the Church’s dirty laundry stuff. However, sometimes I feel like I grew up in some alternate universe because I remember IN SEMINARY learning about most of the items that are continuously brought up here as taboo subjects. And yet a lot of peers who attended the same seminary classes that I did became somehow shocked when they heard about these things later.
Why hadn’t they remembered these things? I got two theories:
1) In high school, they “knew the Church was true” and so dismissed the stuff quickly from their minds. By contrast, I did NOT have a testimony, so had reason to remember those things.
2) Parents were the greatest influence: I was treated like the black sheep semi-apostate by one of my friend’s parents for simply saying that “I don’t have a full testimony of the Church, yet.” Five of the six kids in that family left the Church when they discovered that non-Mormons were good too! Contrast that with my parents. The taboo subjects in my family were racial jokes and ANY disrespect for people of other faiths. And when I had an anti-Mormon question, my dad’s reply was usually something like, “You know. I’m not sure. But I’m proud of you for trying to find out.”
But which attitude was taught at Church? Gaining testimony or having a testimony? My parents’ attitude or my friend’s?
Unfortunately, it depends on whether you ask me or my friend.
Carl if the Church hides anything it is the responsibility of the Church to tell the whole truth. If the Church creates dependence (that is follow only what we say and learn history only from us) you cannot blame the victims the members you MUST blame the Church. What the hell is wrong with you?
I’ve not yet listened to the entire podcast, but I take
issue with the sentiment that, “if people don’t know about the
history, it is their fault.”As
someone who grew up extremely active in the church (my Father was a
Bishop and Stake Pres and my mother was ward then Stake RS Pres),
graduated early-morning seminary, served a full-time mission, took
institute classes, and served in ward and stake leadership callings, I
never heard the slightest peep of the historical issues that have come
to my attention in the past two years. A discrete mention in an article
of a single edition of a church magazine (or even two or three mentions
over a span of decades) hardly qualifies as being forthcoming. Our church is not forthcoming about problematic historical
“anomalies”. These things are not discussed in Sunday School lessons,
addressed over the pulpit, or even acknowledged in a meaningful way by
church leaders. I have talked to several Bishops who don’t have the
slightest clue that there are multiple first vision accounts, and have
never heard mention of JS peering into a hat as part of the translation
process. They only knew the official versions of these stories. The ones
promulgated by church leaders and taught in SS classes. These issues
are hidden in shadow and addressed only in nuance in the church. And
instead of seeking revelatory clarification, church leaders seem content
to leave attempts at synthesis to others (like FAIR and FARMS).
Apologists postulate theories which insulate the church from further
attention to these areas, yet which the church can later disavow should
they be proven inaccurate or the theories fall out of favor. As
someone who devotes much of his life to this area of thought and study, I
can appreciate that it all seems so “out there” to Brother Peterson, but that is
just not reality for the average church member. Most members in the area
I’m from have no real idea who FARMS and FAIR are or what they do. A friend
recently went to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Rough Stone Rolling
and was discouraged by the store clerks who told him that the book
caused too many people to question their testimonies and that they
didn’t know why the church allowed the book to be sold. They stated
their belief that RSR is a rather anti-mormon publication. This type of
thinking is the norm where I’m from. The unspoken church policy of never
questioning or doubting, and the culture of “knowing” that exist in the
church today are, in my opinion, obstacles to faithful members learning
about the uncorrelated history of this church. If they don’t know about
the history, I suggest it is probably because they are trying to be
good members and do what they have been told by their priesthood
leaders. That is why I see this as not only a personal issue, but an
institutional one as well.
Ilike, would you be comfortable with the statement “if people don’t know about the history, it is PARTIALLY their fault?” Because I think that’s what Dr. Peterson (and I, among others) would be more comfortable saying.
How about air the dirty laundry section in the Ensign. Should it be a monthly article? Or would you recommend every two months or severy six?I know I sound a little sarcastic, but I’m actually serious.
Monthly
I don’t understand why anyone would expect a self-interested corporation like the church to publicize uncomfortable historical facts.
Two reasons:
1. Because it’s the right thing to do. (I know you weren’t getting at that, so how about the next reason below:)
2. Becasue it’s in its best interest to do so. For example, in opening statements defense attorneys (trying to win votes) often start by telling the jury that they will hear evidence that their client has done activity X, which is true. Then they will proceed to provide a information which may help jurors assimilate such facts in a realistic context. Plus the jurors often think the Lawyer is attempting to conceal relevant information (which of course he ALWAYS is if it is permissible and if it helps his case). But coming forward is perceived to be a gesture of good faith and even honesty, with payoff in the end, because it may increase credibility of the rest of the story.
Haven’t listened yet, but one question I’d love for him to answer with his knowledge of Islam is why Mormonism is true vs the true faith of a Muslim in Allah and His final and greatest prophet Mohammed revealed in the perfect Holy Qur’an that denies the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Professor Petersons talk at the most recent FAIR Conferences a couple weeks ago dealt directly with that. Not sure if it’s up yet.In the meantime, here are a few thoughts:
“The one true religion cannot overlook the existence of other beliefs and practices that have been followed by the vast majority of the human race over many centuries. It cannot be a localized provincial religion such as Roman Catholicism and the extremely limited Protestant sect. That does not meant that it must have a large membership, but that its doctrine should acknowledge and seek to understand the full scope of human experience. Thus Abraham treats the knowledge of the Egyptians and the morality of Pharaoh with reverence and respect; he doesn’t share their beliefs but understands their position. Today the existence in prehistoric times of an “archaic religion” or “ancient wisdom” is ever more strongly suspected as comparative studies to accumulate. Mormonism is not only a world religion, it is the World Religion.” Hugh Nibley
First Presidency declared in 1978, “The great religious leaders of the world such as Mo-hammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as phi-losophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God’s light. He gave them moral truths to enlighten whole nations and bring a higher level of un-derstanding to individuals.”
Back in 1855, Apostle George A. Smith declared that Mu-hammad “was no doubt raised up by God on purpose” to preach against idolatry. This is one thing that seems totally obvious when you study the history of Arabia.
For more I refer you to an Ensign article, “A Latter-day Saint Perspective on Muhammadhttps://lds.org/ensign/2000/08/a-latter-day-saint-perspective-on-muhammad
It is up: https://www.fairlds.org//FAIR_Conferences/2011_Mormonism_Islam_and_the_Question_of_Other_Religions.html
Thank you Brother Peterson for giving this interview, and great job Dan!
Great interview, Dan and Dan. I love episodes like this that are inspirational without having to “turn it off.” I especially like that this one and Michael Coe were done back to back. Nice job.
I’m going through it now. Bro Peterson just mentioned how it was revealed to him that David O. McKay was the prophetic successor to Joseph Smith. So he had a vivid dream about the death of Joseph Smith which left a big impression on him when he awoke. And he turns on the radio and hears that Pres. McKay has passed away. And he interprets that as evidence of Pres McKay’s calling. If he is comfortable with evidence coming in that way then that’s awesome for him. But for me, I find it really strange that God would intend to communicate knowledge that way and yet leave counter evidence like lack of archaeological evidence for the BoM (that one is fresh in my mind still :) ).
I don’t see it as strange at all, Michael. Its just a different paradigm concerning evidence. Both are valid, within their sphere.
Dr. Peterson, thank you very much for taking the time to participate in these interviews, and to engage discussion and questions. Thank you, also, for the work you have done to promote an understanding of Islam within the LDS community, and to build bridges with our friends in the Muslim world.
Reposting a question from Facebook–with respect to the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, do you concede that the source text now known as the Book of Breathings originated from
the same mummy that Joseph Smith claimed to be carrying the writings of
Abraham?
Awesome interview. Great job to both Dan’s. Segment four was outstanding
A small point, just for the record: I have never admitted to being “quite mean spirited.”
I’m not. Not even occasionally.
Satirical? Yes. Ironic? Yes. Combative? Yes. Sometimes fairly fierce? Yes. But mean-spirited? No.
Some definitely view me that way. I don’t.
And I have privileged access to my own inner states.
There’s no point in arguing about this, of course, any more than there is a point to arguing about whether a joke is funny or a piece of music is beautiful or marzipan is icky (which, objectively speaking, it is, though some benighted people plainly don’t seem to realize it).
So happy to see you here, Dr. Peterson. Thanks so much for doing this interview, and for taking the time to respond to questions.
Dr. Peterson,
There is a ton of hard scientific evidence that should convince you that you do not have privileged access to your own inner states.
I recommend to popular books written by excellent writers who happen to be leaders in the field. I found them fascinating, humbling, liberating, and humanizing.
Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious, by Professor Timothy Wilson (Social Psychologist, U.Va)
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, by Professor David Eagleman (Neuroscientist, Baylor College of Medicine)
JT
Okay. You win. Consciousness is an illusion.
I don’t have privileged access to my own thoughts. Other people know them just as well as I do, and probably better.
Next time, just ask yourself what I think. (Don’t bother me. I’ll be imagining that I’m imagining I’m busy.) Your guess is every bit as good as mine.
But wait a minute. If consciousness is an illusion, what about . . . No. You know best. I’m just going to go with that.
This is how BYU Professors get tenured, act arrogant and pretend to be funny; lie a little either to oneself or the masses and take the pay checks. ;)
Dr. Peterson,
You misconstrued what I am referring to – it has nothing to do with consciousness being an illusion or others having better access to your thoughts than you do. I do not claim I know best – I was referring to the cumulative works of hundreds of scientists over the last 30 years that is “looking under the hood” of our minds and learning some fascinating things about the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes, with the latter being, by definition (and demonstration), inaccessible to introspection and more important than anyone ever imagined.
If I were to rewrite the line I would have said: “We do not have as privileged access to our inner states as we intuitively sense.”
I hope others will not dismiss all that what modern science can offer in terms of deepening our self-understanding – in particular how unconscious cognition affects the thoughts and emotions that do percolate up into our conscious awareness (from which position we can rationally choose corrective and productive courses of action). As I said, this understanding is humbling and humanizing and supports greater patience and understanding of others. These two books are excellent introductions to the subject – they are grounded in objective evidence – not speculation and intuitive beliefs.
With regard to being seen as mean-spirited – On those occasions when I discover that people take my behavior to be insensitive or offensive, I now assume that they have a good reason. I feel bad about it and try to understand what they see that I don’t. There is usually something worth correcting in me.
After all, most of us are prone to seeing ourselves in an overly favorable light and inclined to rationalize and self-justify to perserve a positive self-image. Claims of good intentions are an easy means of accomplishing this with are also totally beside the point as far as human relationships matter.
Best wishes,
JT
JT, what do you think or Robert Burton’s “On Being Certain: Believing You’re Right When You’re Not?”
I enjoyed the book. I think there might be something to his basic idea of a “feeling of knowing” that can exist independent of the actual veracity of object of knowing to a degree that we might not believe without crushing evidence to the contrary (and even then … the “where were you on 9/11 journal study.”)
His idea obviously relates to the scientific claim we do not have complete access to those unconscious processes that give received knowledge their salience – their “ring of truth” – and our sense of conviction. I find this humbling and wonderful.Burton would admit (as a former clinical neurologist) that his ideas need further work – that they need to be framed in a way that can be tested and that this is best left to cognitive science and neuroscience (I think I remember making such qualifying remarks). So my evaluation of the “ring of truth” I heard in his propositions can certainly go no further than his own. But research along these lines is on-going. None that I’ve seen refer to Burton as their point of departure.
You couldn’t have misunderstood JT any more than you revealed here. But what made it even more entertaining was the snarkiness you displayed in your misunderstanding which then allowed you to ignore the evidence and dismiss the arguments without dealing with them. But the fact that 14 people liked your post is the funniest part of all to me.
You couldn’t have misunderstood JT any more than you revealed here. But what made it even more entertaining was the snarkiness you displayed in your misunderstanding which then allowed you to ignore the evidence and dismiss the arguments without dealing with them. But the fact that 14 people liked your post is the funniest part of all to me.
Hey DP: Question do you ever seriously doubt? Also if you did could you admit it without risk of being fired by BYU? What’s BYU’s policy on that issue?
As a scholar do you have any sway in opening the church archives? I really want the “so on and so forth” [deHoffmanized of course], and not the, “and this is the way I think it came to pass”.
Just finishing up the last two segments.
I agree that the Book of Abraham “tastes old” — like the ancient pseudepigrapha upon which it was probably based and the folk magic that Joseph practiced (which explains the geocentric universe). Peter Kingsley has done a lot of good work demonstrating the continuity of ancient Mediterranean magic tradition from antiquity to the middle ages. From what I have seen, I am pretty sure there are solid connections to be made between the sources Quinn has gathered for early American folk magic and these older magical traditions (connected with Pythagoras and other ancient philosophers mediated through various interpreters, including medieval Arabs). That being admitted, I am really skeptical of the Book of Abraham being vindicated as more of a translation of ancient history than Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (which also contains some genuinely old material that scholars of early British literature get excited about).
I like the universalist reading of the temple. Cool stuff. I think that the truth in the Mormon temple rituals exists also (and in no lesser degree) in mystical religious traditions the world over: it is the truth of myth, a truth that attempts to unite the rational and the irrational (with varied success: some myths fare better than others as vehicles for meaning that transcends the gap between the abstract and the concrete, the general and the particular, broad scientific theory and one’s personal life with all of its practical limitations).
I think we are moving past the day when Joseph Smith can be dismissed as a dumb yokel who couldn’t tell a good story or use the pieces of his own rich culture as effectively as other medicine men (who are no less brilliant when we see through their magic).
I agree that Mormonism is rich. As with any ideology, the stifled people are those who enter the faith with too much trust in the absolute knowledge of leaders. The less seriously you take people’s claims to speak for God–especially when they say, “thus saith the Lord”–the more open you are to reality as you really experience it. Mormonism provides a perfectly wonderful mythical language for expressing real truths. It is unfortunate, from my perspective, that many of our leaders are afraid to let us speak. I am glad that Dan can speak. I am sorry that I cannot. I am sorry that General Conference gives us David Bednar instead of Dan Peterson (whom I am really starting to like).
I am very curious, O Diaktoros: what feels so “old” about the book of Abraham? It felt old to me as a stout believer but ten years of reading genuinely old things in old languages has dulled that impression. It seems to me that this is a kind of reader response question. If one wants the luster (or grime, depending on one’s view) of antiquity, one will find it. If one wants a nineteenth century patina there, well, voila!…it will be there. It is a mirror of its readers’ hopes.
“I am sorry that General Conference gives us David Bednar instead of Dan Peterson…” Well, one must admit that Bednar has good taste in neck-wear, but otherwise I share the sentiment. I wish I had some exposure to people like Prof. Peterson a decade or more ago when I started going through my…that….well I don’t properly know what to call it. Instead I got a thick and constant dose of meanness and arrogant put downs from two Judges in Israel (neither of whom had a law degree; one was an Institute director, the other ran a sweat shop in Guatemala, helping the Lamanites, no doubt).
Sean, old is a relative term. Having read a bit about the history of Hermeticism (ancient, medieval, and even pre-modern), I think there are legitimate (“old”) elements of it that turn up in Joseph Smith’s Mormonism (especially the folk magic). (I could be wrong: I am just a fool who likes reading books.) This does not change the fact that the original text of the Joseph Smith Papyri has nothing to do with an historical Abraham (assuming for the moment that he existed as more than a convenient totem). Furthermore, a lot of the Hermetic stuff is most certainly a lot younger than anything you (with your love of the really, really ancient) would consider old.
A confounding element here is the similarity of certain bits of human culture the world over. How much of what “feels old” in Mormonism is just our human heritage (which “feels old” similarly in every other culture of record, even though the latest form of it might have been decanted yesterday: in the right frame of mind, Disney World “seems old” to someone who reads ancient literature all of the time and looks assiduously for parallels to modern life)? A lot of the magic (i.e. religion) that we practice is pretty similar, even when we dress it up a little differently (putting the sun in a new place on our star charts, giving our astrologers new robes, changing the creeds that define the one and only truth, etc.). As far as I can tell, ever since the Neolithic, one medicine man looks a lot like another (though some are definitely more reliable than others when it comes to telling truths that other people can verify and/or put to good use).
I was essentially trying to show that I see the rabbit hole down which Dan wants to go in making the Book of Abraham ancient, and that I think there might be something to that, even though I don’t believe for a moment that Joseph Smith translated any ancient record. From my perspective, Smith used folk traditions (which might have some legitimate pedigree to genuinely “old” stuff, e.g. Hermetic magic) to produce modern fairy-tales which he pretended to find (and/or convinced himself that he found) in physical artefacts (plates, seer-stones, papyri). His work looks old the same way Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings does.
I would not dare to say that anyone *should* have known all the Church’s dirty laundry stuff. However, sometimes I feel like I grew up in some alternate universe because I remember IN SEMINARY learning about most of the items that are continuously brought up here as taboo subjects. And yet a lot of peers who attended the same seminary classes that I did became somehow shocked when they heard about these things later.
Why hadn’t they remembered these things? I got two theories:
1) In high school, they “knew the Church was true” and so dismissed the stuff quickly from their minds. By contrast, I did NOT have a testimony, so had reason to remember those things.
2) Parents were the greatest influence: I was treated like the black sheep semi-apostate by one of my friend’s parents for simply saying that “I don’t have a full testimony of the Church, yet.” Five of the six kids in that family left the Church when they discovered that non-Mormons were good too! Contrast that with my parents. The taboo subjects in my family were racial jokes and ANY disrespect for people of other faiths. And when I had an anti-Mormon question, my dad’s reply was usually something like, “You know. I’m not sure. But I’m proud of you for trying to find out.”
But which attitude was taught at Church? Gaining testimony or having a testimony? My parents’ attitude or my friend’s?
Unfortunately, it depends on whether you ask me or my friend.
Incidentally, my seminary teacher was a bishop and then, just after I graduated, was called to be in the stake presidency. And he was very straight-laced. Not someone you would consider liberal, closeted or uncorrelated. He was just honest.I knew that not all seminary teachers were like him when I attended a seminary graduation for another school and the seminary teacher there bore his testimony of JS with these words:”Joseph Smith translate the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. He did NOT put his face into a hat.”I remember that statement because I was a bit confused by this false dichotomy. I knew about the hat thing from seminary. Incidentally, my wife wasn’t aware of the hat issue, but when I related that story to her, she had the same reaction as I did: What did his method of translation have to do with it being translated by God or not?
Enjoying the interview. Regarding the experiences of the witnesses as evidence for the validity of the BoM, one possibility that is generally ignored is materialization. If what the witnesses handled were real physical objects, then, to me at least, it is hard to explain how those objects could suddenly appear and disappear. But if what they experienced was a temporary materialization of physical objects then their experience becomes more reasonable. Assuming a spirit world and spirit beings, who is to say what they are capable of. There are those who speculate that we live in and are a part of a virtual reality that is run by a huge, advanced computer. If so, materializing Gold Plates as part of that virtual reality would be an elementary feat.
I’m listening to the interview now. I’ll tip my hand. I don’t believe in Mormonism. I don’t believe that Joseph Smith is a reliable witness. However, I am one who cut my spiritual teeth, so to speak, on the Book of Mormon. I loved that book, in as much as it pointed me to Christ. Towards the end of my mission, I began to have serious doubts about the authenticity and historicity of the Book of Mormon as a historical text. When I returned to Utah, I immediately subscribed to the Journal of Book of Mormon studies, because I was convinced that the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith would be vindicated and proven to be everything that is claimed for them.
One of my major issues, then and now, with the Book of Mormon is the anachronism of pre-Christian peoples knowing of and referring to the Savior as “Jesus Christ”. Most arguments about anachronisms in the Book of Mormon focus on horses, steel, etc., but those are side issues for me. But the idea that God revealed his plan to save the world in perfect clarity to Nephi, et al. while leaving the O.T. patriarchs, prophets and kings with only vague, less-specific prophecies seems to me to be extremely problematic historically.God can do what God will, and I understand that many apologists would (and have) put this concern back on me by claiming that the real issue at hand is my lack of faith that God can do whatever God wants to do. To be clear, I do not lack that faith. But the argument typically goes like this: If God chooses to send an angel/guide to Nephi to reveal to him the name of Jesus Christ 600 years before His birth, and chooses not to give Isaiah the same level of specificity, who am I to claim that God cannot do that? That’s nice, but it’s not a very convincing argument for the Book of Mormon.I am enjoying the interview with Dr. Peterson, and I understand that he is an Islamist, but he is very well versed, and by his own admission, very interested in ancient texts. I would appreciate it, if Dr. Peterson has the time, if he would address this concern. Does the idea of a pre-Christian era people having such a post-Chistian era worldview bother him at all? If not, why not? Would it bother him, if he found in another ancient text, such specific details about an event that had not yet taken place? Would such specificity in a supposed ancient text not cause him to question the source of the text? Especially when the supposed ancient text itself cannot be checked and all that exists is the “translator’s” manuscript?
On the issue of the Book of Mormon demonstrating too much Christianity in people rooted in 600 BCE Jerusalem, have you read Temple Theology: An Introduction, by Margaret Barker? You can get an idea of her approach at http://www.margaretbarker.com.
Although it looks like we’ve dropped the arrogance thread here (see the MS Facebook page), here’s a quote that reminds me of Prof. Peterson:
“If you meet a really humble man…. probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
-C.S. Lewis
Incidentally, somebody somewhere wanted to know whether I really bear the title of “Chief Apologist” for the Church.
No. I don’t.
There is, mercifully, no such title. And, even if there were, I don’t think that I would necessarily be the person who would get it.
I have no official calling in the Church right now except as a gospel doctrine teacher — my very favorite calling.
Incidentally: I love The Sabre Rattlers’ album “Now Let Us Rejoice.” Great stuff.
Blah.
Ugh. Two “incidentallys” in the same post. My apologies. I hang my head in shame.
Double blah.
This was an amazing interview! Daniel P. I had been checking the site every day since this interview was announced, and it lived up up my high expectations. I have been a fan for a while, and now am even more. Thanks for coming on!
I
find it really funny (only because laughing hides the pain) when people
say that the church has not hidden anything and that the members
should have done more. In addition to funny I find this offensive and
nothing makes we want to turn my back on mormonism more than this
argument. Though, it is still funny. :)Important to note that
while some (usually apologists) are making this argument, the church
excommunicates people like Grant Palmer and D. Michael Quinn for
highlighting questions or troubling parts of church history. The church
does this without ever challenging directly the truth claims of these
individuals. Where was Quinn historically wrong? But then
again we do get these gems as a consolation: “Some things that are true
are not very useful.” It is certainly explains why no single church
sponsored movie has ever been made of Joseph’s life showing a wife other
than emma. Apparently, the other 32 weren’t all that useful :). You
can’t have it both ways. I find apologetic efforts that begin with the
members should have done more to be among the weakest apologetic
techniques–and the most offensive. If the church wants to have an
open dialogue and cast a wider net, many will be excited, but I think we
all know that BKP is right. BKP is right! The whole truth isn’t all
that helpful to putting butts in seats and dollars in the envelope. But
if the church decides to be more open and allow for more diverse
dialogue, don’t be surprised when we’re a little mistrusting–because
the quinns and palmers, and sept 6s of the world are questioners and
explorers that will not be soon forgotten. As they proved, in this church sincerity and real intent are not valid excuses for unorthodoxy.
“The other 32 weren’t that useful.” haha. Good one!
My only comment right now is I think the title of the podcast should be changed. I think “LDS Church Chief Apologist” is disrespectful and demeans both Peterson’s work and Mormon Stories intent. I’m starting with Part 4 and enjoying it.
Alyson – Fixed! Thanks for the feedback. No disrespect intended.
John, first, I was in a hurry and hope my comment didn’t come across as overly critical. My point is that people who are familiar with Dr. Peterson’s work, probably know of him because of his work with Islamic Studies and the whole “apologist” thing disregards his primary life work in my opinion. When I’ve attended his lectures, I’ve gone to learn about Islam and about the different ways Muslims interpret the Koran and practice their religion. I’ve never sought him out as a defender of the Mormon faith, although he may see that as one of his roles in life. I think the title of the podcast, especially when you search for it on iTunes, could better represent his life’s work and give people some clue from the title that this is indeed the Daniel Peterson involved in Islamic Studies. Thanks!
jg — you may want to check your facts on Palmer & Quinn — you’re wrong on both points.
And as for BKP —
“Many things can be true and yet harmful to man. Not all truth is useful.”
(p.43 Lectures on Logic, (translated by J. Michael Young))
— Immanuel Kant
:-) – he was paraphrasing Kant. :-)
jg – my comment was too ambiguous, sorry – Palmer wasn’t ex’d last I heard, and Quinn was not ex’d for what you say he was.
And they’re clearly warming up the oil and banging down the doors of Richard Turley, Ron Walker, Glen Leonard (Massacre at Mountain Meadows), Richard Bushman (Rough Stone Rolling), Grant Hardy (Understanding the Book of Mormon), and Todd Compton (In Sacred Lonliness), to name a few off the top of my head from the last decade. I find the church’s treatment of its scholars to be more even handed than only concentrating on a few exceptions (though not denying those exceptions) would indicate.
Also, when Hugh B. Brown said “We must preserve freedom of the mind in the church and resist all efforts to suppress it. The church is not so much concerned with whether the thoughts of its members are orthodox or heterodox as it is that they shall have thoughts” I find that completely inspiring. Why is it that we can only quote BKP’s “what is true is not always useful”? Can we agree that 1) being an apostle does not guarantee you are always right, and 2) therefore, sometimes they will disagree or even (gasp!) contradict each other. I find no light and knowledge in BKPs statement, and if Pres. Packer meant “milk before meat” (which I think is a fair reading given the context) then I agree in principle, though finding the proper balance is fiendishly tricky at best, soul destroying and damaging at worst.
Cliff,
I’ve spoken w/ Michael about his excommunication. Are you privy to information that he isn’t?
According to Michael, homosexuality had nothing to do with his excommunication (if that was your inference).
John
I am not.
I was not aware of Michael’s position. I apologize and will not comment further on that point.
Cliff, I stand corrected on Palmers current church status–though it hardly matters.
You’re correction has little impact on my point. Does the church ONLY
disfellowshipping GP denote open dialogue? The church will not allow
grant palmer to partake of the sacrament. He cannot go to the temple.
He cannot renew his covenants. He cannot partake of the cleanzing
power of the atonement that supposedly the sacrament offers. In
addition, he’s been made a public example. He lost his employment. He
spent his life serving this church and the church made an example out of
him. Why? Because the truth and asking questions is not helpful? How
does BKP quoting Kant matter? Are you suggesting that Kant is more
authoritative than BKP?
I’m not sure where I’m wrong on Quinn. Perhaps you can be more specific?
You might want to double check on the losing employment thing. I think the way Grant chose to ask questions, as you say, was not helpful. I do think you might want to consider what BKP quoting Kant might mean. I think perhaps you don’t give President Packer credit where it is due.
And I have apologized already for my statement concerning Michael Quinn’s church action; and I am being silent on Michael’s statements concerning it.
Thank you for this podcast. Dan Wotherspoon, you did a great job with the interview. My hat off to you.
Dr. Peterson surprised me at the end when he discussed how his beliefs are somewhat universalist. I felt more of a kinship with Dr. Peterson than at any other point in the interview.
I was relieved to hear an apologist discuss his disappointment with certain persons in the church who are young earth creationists. I have often been embarrassed by members of the LDS church, my brethren, who discount solid science as unreliable because it is not from God.
One more thing: In the introduction to the 1998 edition of “Early Mormonism and the Magic World View,” Dr. Quinn distinguishes between ‘apologist’ and ‘polemicist,’ categorizing Dr. Peterson and some of his colleagues at FARMS as the latter. I would like to have heard Dr. Peterson’s response to this; not in the spirit of contention, but as a, hopefully, honest response to Quinn’s self defense.
Both of the Dan’s say the Proclamation to the Family isn’t canonized. Anyone have a link to that claim? or a article/blog where its discussed further.
I’ve never heard the claim that it is canonized. We don’t print it in the standard works, and that’s probably the definition that both Dans are using.
Then there was the interesting moment in general conference when Pres. Packer called it a “revelation” in his spoken talk, but the printed version called it a “guide.” I’m much more inclined to believe the second version. I do not want to move to revelation by committee. The correlated manuals (written by committee) are bad enough.
Agree!
The proclamation is printed in the standard works today, is it not?
That’s interesting. I thought the Church’s 2007 statement on doctrine clearly stated that the proclamations and declarations of the First Presidency was 1 of the 3 sources of doctrine. I’d like to hear more about this.
Just because it is a source of doctrine does not mean it is in the cannon. As I understand the LDS use of the term “cannon” that includes the standard works, which we have all voted on in the general conference of the church. To my knowledge, there has been no such public vote on the Family Proclamation.
If it says “Doctrine and Covenants Section 139” or “Official Declaration 3” in front of it it’s canonized. It’ll be presented in General Conference and asked for a sustaining/ratifying vote, just like the other sections and ODs were.
Dr. Peterson, thank you for the podcast. I really appreciate your stance on wishing wedding ceremonies among the LDS could be performed in a manner that is less exclusive, as is done internationally. I also appreciate your pro-transparency stance on getting the problematic issues out to the lay members so that they can be dealt with. I am also encouraged to hear that you are not a proponent of young-earth creationism and anti-evolutionism. Also, that you believe that prophets sometimes see through a glass darkly like the rest of us. Also, your universalist leanings resonate with me, as does the temple as a symbol of ascent into the heavens.
Whereas before I listened to this podcast a large gulf existed between us, I now think we are a bit closer in our ideologies than I had previously thought. Thanks for taking part in this program. I’m still not buying the historicity of the BofM, but I certainly buy its spiritual message. But maybe the spiritual aspects are what matter the most anyway. If you are not a fundamentalist that means that you are willing to see the metaphor where others are not. Seems like the only difference between us is the length in which I am willing to stretch the metaphor.
Now I understand the significance of deeming it the SALAMANDER Letter
Here is a definition from the “The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols”
The religious meaning of the salamander is of a person who can keep their composure, their moral certitude and their peace of mind, while enduring constant attacks.
The “while enduring constant attacks,” is perfectly akin to the Mormon Persecution Complex.
Listen to a few of these, including the last one. Really enjoyed them a great deal. I forgot how much of the world Dr. Peterson has actually seen. The part I really loved was at the end where he viewed Mormonism as something expansive and that he also trusted God enough that others outside of Mormonism who try their best to stay true to God, as they understand God, will in some way be part of something great that God has planned for us all. Very good interview and I am glad that Mormon Stories got probably one of the most famous, if not one of the most infamous, apologists is Mormonism to do an interview.
Dr. Peterson talks about many of the positive characteristics of Joseph Smith–though he admits that Joseph Smith was still human and still made mistakes. I actually think the case of Joseph Smith may be more grim than this. In psychology there is the concept of psychopathy. Clinicians use Robert Hare’s psychopathy checklist (PCL-R) to diagnose inmates (and others) for psychopathy. Assuming that the Book of Mormon was a fabrication (and maybe even without this assumption), I think one could make the case that Joseph Smith satisfies many of the items on the checklist. Here is a list of some the items…
– Promiscuous sexual behavior
– Many short-term marital relationships- Juvenile delinquency- Pathological lying- Grandiose sense of self-worth- Superficial charm/glibness- Parasitic lifestyle- Failure to accept responsibility for own actions- Cunning/manipulativeCan you think of any incidences in Joseph Smith’s life that would satisfy these items?
Sorry for the formatting. I had newlines after each bullet item that was somehow lost after the post.
I second Dr. Peterson’s recommendation to read “Remembering Joseph” by Mark McConkie.
Thanks to Erico and Michael Nelson and others for their kind comments.
Let me respond to the question regarding the terms “apologist” and “polemicist.”
I’m perfectly willing to accept the designation of “apologist,” even though it by no means exhausts what I do. (My work in Islamic studies is not apologetic, of course, but not all of my work on Mormon issues is apologetic, either.)
As to being a “polemicist,” I’ve never invested that term with the strikingly negative connotation that Mike Quinn plainly does. To me, a polemicist is simply somebody who battles for or against a position. (The Greek word “polemos” is essentially equivalent to English “war.”) One might be a polemicist for or against abortion, women’s suffrage, American entry into the League of Nations, increased benefits for teachers, or for or against a host of other causes. The term is neutral in my lexicon. The cause of a polemicist might be good or bad. The polemicist may be effective or ineffective, rational or irrational, honest or dishonest. To be called a “polemicist” is, in my sense of the word, no more a condemnation than to be called a “fighter,” “soldier,” “crusader,” “advocate,” “arguer,” “campaigner,” or any of a host of other related words
Would you say you are a irrationalist polemicist or a lying polemicist or simply a delusional polemicist? Or a bit of all three? Get back to me on this I really need to know for my psychology research.
Dr. Peterson is so smart about stuff and speaks real good about all that stuff he’s figured out from going to Egypt and books. I was waitin for him to explain about Jesus, but he never come up. Did I miss it somewhere?
I talked about what Dan Wotherspoon asked about.
Does that mean that Jesus is secondary in my worldview? Absolutely not.
I’m tinkering with a short manuscript on the Beatitudes. I’m also puttering away at a lengthy book manuscript arguing for the historical authenticity of his resurrection — a book that I intend to come out as the third in a series of four related volumes, all of which are still some time off — and I’m absolutely committed to him as my Lord and Savior.
During my service as a bishop, to say nothing of other parts of my life, the atonement was always front and center in my counseling.
I’ve spent a full year living in Jerusalem, and have led five tours to Israel on top of other visits there. I always devote as much time as I can to visiting sites associated with the life of Jesus.
Sorry. I don’t emote on command. I hope the lines above are enough, however, to provide some inkling of my attitude toward Jesus.
That’s a lot of tinkering, puttering, visiting and good attituding. For me, I can’t afford going to Jerusalem. I got two books about Jesus already and that’s enough. And I also got prayer – did you mention prayer? Just kidding you. I’m sure you do that as much as all the other stuff.
Stan
You give him too much credit.
Have you read Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason” care to address his concerns about the historically facts or lies rather of the resurrection story-fraud? By the way if you do believe in Jesus why are you spending all that money on Jerusalem tours and not helping the poor like Jesus of the New Testament said?
***historical facts
I appreciated this podcast, as I do all the others. I feel, Dr. Peterson, that it is important for me to ask something.
I was born gay. This is not a challenge for me. It is a challenge for the organization of the Church. I couldn’t help but notice your studder when asked whose challenge this is.
This is only a hard issue, because most of the Church membership doesn’t know what to do about it. They sit and wait for a revelation, that has no real impact on their lives, and is therefore, low on the list of their priorities.
I cannot help but look back on the accounts of history I have read, that show the men and women of the Civil Rights Movement who fought so hard for our African American brothers and sisters in this nation. Also for men like George Romney, who stood opposed to at least one apostle in the Church for his pro civil rights stance of the 1960’s. You as a historian would be familiar with the vastly racist attitudes by many in the membership during this era of American History.
I reflect on those documents I have read, and I see the distinct parallel between them and the Civil Rights Movement taking place today. There are but a few in this Church who are courageous enough to stand for those who have been kicked to the curb; this time by the collective force of the Faith community, including the Latter-day Saints.
Life does not have to be difficult for Latter-day Saint LGBTQ youth and adults in the Church. And the wonderful thing is that many members of the Church have found this revelation for themselves. They know in their heart Proposition 8 was a mistake, and that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are sorely mistreated by the rhetoric of not always infallable Prophets from the Church.
You’re an intelligent man. Dare I suggest you take the opportunity and challenge to really find out for yourself, through personal revelation, like so many of us already have within and without the Church, whether the LGBTQ community is worthy enough to have the dignity of marriage and all other rights? Separate never was equal, in the eyes of the Constitution, and in the eyes of the Lord.
I challenge you.
Mark Wade
Thank you Mark for your powerful and moving comment.
It seems to me that contingencies of birth and life circumstances have always presented problems for religions that depend on hierarchies of human authority to channel the mind God to the masses. The history of direct and collateral injustices and suffering despite (or because of) the self-perception of pious righteousness is along and sad one – and here it remains. The oft repeated LDS excuse that God’s chosen prophets were just human always comes across as more an apologetic that serves the status quo than a call to repent and become more humble and forward seeking, both spiritually and intellectually. So, I second your challenge, and invite others to third it, and fourth it, … and extend it throughout the LDS Church until the expediency of retaining it finest members (if nothing else, but hopefully more) will force the leadership to get a revelatory update on this matter.Best wishes,JT
I wish you all the very best, and I hope the best for you.
Mark, I’m not gay, but up until the question on Prop 8, I thought, “What an arrogant and intelligent person!” But the Prop 8 answer was definitely the moment when Oz’s curtain was pulled away to reveal there was nothing there. It put all of the “I’ve been called racist, homophobic, etc… How ridiculous!” comments in context. One thing I most want from religion is a methodology that leads to moral outcomes. If Daniel Peterson’s religion doesn’t lead him to a moral outcome on issues relating to identity, then I’m not interested in his religion. And since I’m no more interested in ancient Islamic texts (or indeed history) than I am in the many other topics I’m pursuing (and even if I were, I certainly wouldn’t limit my scope to the guy for whom there would be no competition for an endowed chair at BYU!), I don’t think he has anything else to offer me.
Thanks for the podcast and thank you Dan (s) for your work. I truly enjoy Dr. Peterson’s perspective and enjoy listening to him speak. I love FAIR conference talks but almost never listen to them because they are so dang expensive to download! (Execepting Blair Hodges’ freebies that he tosses out occasionally….) If Sunstone is able to offer 3-year-old symposium talks for free, why can’t FAIR!? Surely FAIR has more large donors than Sunstone….
Let me add my thanks to Drs. Wotherspoon and Peterson for this marathon interview and, as always, to John Dehlin for providing the forum that makes such unique offerings possible.
I would like to offer for consideration and response by Dr. Peterson the following comments drawn from a 2004 FAIR Conference address by the LDS historian Davis Bitton entitled “I Don’t Have a Testimony of Church History.” These comments seem to provide an “under the hood” peek of the LDS apologetic mindset and strategy. I found them problematical on a few levels and it is for this reason I invite responses, apologetic or otherwise.
“There is nothing that requires the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a fraud. How can I say this with such confidence? For the simple reason that the historians who know most about our Church history have been and are faithful, committed members of the Church.”
“[For] many Latter-day Saints it is sufficient to know that faithful historians … do not accept the interpretations and conclusions of would-be destroyers of the faith.”
“I suppose this is a message to those Church members who have such tender eyes and ears that the real history of real people comes as shock and awe. ‘Oh, no’ they whine. ‘This can’t be true.’ … My message in many cases is, ‘Please! Don’t speak until you know what you are talking about. Or, if that sentence is too long, try this: Grow up.”
“There is nothing in Church history that leads inevitably to the conclusion that the Church is false.”
Best wishes,
JT
Davis Bitton was a close friend of mine, and I miss him greatly.
I agree with his sentiments. We even reprinted that FAIR presentation in the FARMS Review.
Dr. Peterson,
I empathize with your loss and respect your revealing admission, but I cannot respect the mindset reflected in these statements.
While such a mindset running LDS software may be relatively benign, the same cannot be said for many religious and secular ideologies that provide their most avid users with the feelings of privileged authority and exclusive truth with ready justification for acting in any way deemed necessary to replicate and defend it. Examples are too numerous to mention, some quite close to home.
The issue of creationism and evolution came up in this discussion.
Over the years I have listened to many Mormons and other Christians assert that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can accomodate scientific evolution. By this, I assume they include the mechanism of natural selection in all of its chance-driven contingency (which is what makes the theory scientific).
I read one serious attempt at harmonization. It is found in the book Finding Darwin’s God by the renown biologist Kenneth Miller. To his credit, Miller explores the full implications of natural selection. I doubt many faithful Christians would follow the path his intellectual integrity leads him down.
So two quick questions.
If you feel you have rationally harmonized evolution with the Gospel, have you really thought it through?
If you have, can you point me to a good reference? I would be particularly interested in work by LDS scholars.
My gut tells me that many people are shamed out of the creationism “pan” without realizing the intellectual “fire” that actually puts them in. Part of the reason why scientists are far less religious than the general population is that they fully appreciate the evidence and its implications*.
The LDS Church takes no official position on evolution and I have no sense whether the GAs are seeking harmonizing doctrinal revelation on the matter. The Catholic Church has arrived at a form of “theistic evolution” that introduces superfluous (scientifically speaking) theistic interventions. I don’t imagine the LDS faithful would be satisfied depending on this (it’s not revelation).
I bring this up because the issue seems much more fundamental than intellectual arguments over the ancient origins of LDS scripture …
Which brings to mind the role of Higher Criticism of the Bible, which is relevant to LDS scripture claims, but was not acknowledged in this interview.
Does Dr. Peterson’s work merit a seat at that table? Until it shows it does I will have a hard time taking seriously his claims of “resounding” echos of antiquity in LDS scripture. Not being an expert on the ancient world, and not being disposed to simply go along with LDS experts, I must depend on the scholarship of peer reviewed non-apologetic professional journals (or popular distillations thereof) for the most accurate approximations of reality.
* 72% of elite scientists self-report as atheist and 21% agnostic; see https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v394/n6691/fig_tab/394313a0_T1.html
I can’t say that I’ve worked out a final reconciliation between evolution and my faith, nor that I even expect to do so in mortality. I’m not even sure that I’ve come to a final conclusion about what evolution entails by itself. That said, I read considerably on the topic, and have some tentative ideas that I may well publish at some point. I’m content to bracket certain issues for future resolution, based on the confidence that I have about other, related, matters. I do this in life generally, not just with regard to my religious beliefs.
Elite scientists do indeed tend to self-report as atheists. There are probably various reasons for that, not all of them purely intellectual or substantive. Scientists as a whole, however, have pretty much the same level of belief in a personal, intervening deity today that they did a century or so ago, and that level is considerably higher among scientists generally than among the elite.
As for your disinclination to take my position seriously, I can only say that I put my arguments out there. Those inclined to consider them will probably do so, and those disinclined to consider them probably won’t. The arguments themselves will, I hope and (to some extent) trust, stand or fall on their merits.
Dr. Peterson,
Fair enough. Thanks for your thoughtful response – it underscores the similar (or same) points you made in your interview.
Best wishes,
JT
Daniel there is no reconciliation between evolution and Mormonism. The sooner you realize that the sooner you can stop living in a delusion.
I find the continuing argument that the Church has not tried tried to hide its unfavorable history to prevent doubt among the membership to be odd considering that Elder Oaks admitted as much in his interview for the PBS documentary, “The Mormons.” The following exchange took place between Elder Oaks and Ms. Whitney (all caps are mine if you want to just jump to the parts that seem to eliminate the apologist’s argument that there was not a concerted effort to prevent doubt):
HW: Just one more question on that. In every church, in every person, there’s a shallow territory usually explained away through context. Many find information through the Internet — some would rather find things out about the Church history, doctrine through teachings, rather than the Internet, or other resources.
DHO: It’s an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. That’s an old problem in Mormonism — a feeling of members that they shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they should’ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.
There are several different elements of that. ONE ELEMENT IS THAT WE’RE EMERGING FROM A PERIOD OF HISTORY WRITING WITHIN THE CHURCH [OF] ADORING HISTORY THAT DOESN’T DEAL WITH ANYTHING THAT’S UNFAVORABLE, and we’re coming into a period of “warts and all” kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things — there may have been a time when CHURCH MEMBERS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN AS WELL RPEPARED FOR THAT KIND OF HISTORICAL WRITING as they may be now.
On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. YOU DON’T WANT TO BE GETTING INTO AND CREATING DOUBTS THAT DIDN’T EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE. AND WHAT IS PLENTY OF HISTORY FOR ONE PERSON IS INADEQUATE FOR ANOTHER, and we have a large church, and that’s a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members haven’t read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives “Brother Jones” his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. It’s in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that we’re moving with the times, WE’RE GETTING MORE AND MORE FORTHRIGHT, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn’t.
Link to interview:
https://newsroom.lds.org/article/elder-oaks-interview-transcript-from-pbs-documentary
I’m trying to dig down to the bare bones of LDS apologetic argumentation. I see three basic “moves.”
A. Draw on the available documentary evidence to argue that miraculous explanations for foundational beliefs are more plausible than naturalistic ones.
B. Use this as the basis for accepting the truth of Biblical historicity on which LDS beliefs depend without evaluating its veracity on its own evidentiary merits.
C. When faced with incomplete or contradictory evidence discount it (“bracket it”) and claim the primacy of a spirit-based epistemology.
To the degree this is an accurate representation of apologetics (I invite criticism), it has no rational justification in terms of getting one closer to the truth. (I am trying to be precise in my use of the word rational.) This is because:
1. Move A is merely an “argument from incredulity.” It is born of incomplete information (perhaps God wants it that way) and is compromised by demonstrated frailties of human cognition (biases, limited imagination for alternative hypotheses, susceptibility to social attachments and commitments, intolerance for ambiguity, existential psychological fears, etc.) Beliefs sustained by such arguments have a long track record of collapsing (or radically adjusting) over time and have NEVER been a safe haven for religious belief.
2. Move B cannot be rationally justified on the basis of A because any uncertainty left from A will be compounded by any uncertainty associated with B, since prior facts stand on independent evidence (again, rationally speaking). Doing B puts the proverbial cart before the horse. Mormon apologists need to first address the evidence generated by Biblical higher criticism – for example, the 2nd Isaiah anachronism in the Book of Mormon.
3. Move C is simply a methodology that has o rational constraints. There is also no rational basis for a person privileging the Mormon priesthood endowed Holy Ghost over any other religion’s analogue. This follows from the simple facts that (i) the best predictor of a person’s religion is that of his parents (or culture), and (ii) there exist a staggering number of religion with conflicting beliefs.
Given this it seems reasonable (and I dare say moral) to suggest that people who feel mover to embrace spirituality within a particular religion should bypass moves A and B and jump right to C AND practice circumspection and skepticism toward A and B movers.
There is nothing inherently misguided with the C move as long as it leads to a moral life – let’s say by broadly adhering to the golden rule. After all, isn’t this what Jesus Christ taught? To approach Him as little children.
Again, I invite criticism – this is just a first stab at this topic.
Great interview. I’m so glad that Daniel Peterson came on. The interview compelled me to think about the motivation for apologetics and its effectiveness in Mormon culture.
Apologetics is by definition “speaking in defense.” What are LDS apologists defending when they speak? Whether they are defending the image of the institutional church or their personal reputation I think neither addresses what is most at stake. Faithful members are struggling with tough things they find out about from sources other than the church.
Some of the most influential apologists are very dismissive of people who have a faith crisis. (Hugh Nibley, Blake Ostler, and Daniel Peterson come to mind.) They boast about how they knew these issues when they were young. They complain about how members don’t read or don’t study these things themselves. I think that once you adopt this attitude, you have already allowed the potential fruits of apologetics to rot. You can’t expect to help people that you dismiss like that.
Mormon Stories is an example of an approach I believe would be much better at addressing the needs of struggling members. I hope it is not too late before the institutional church realizes that they need to do something, and the operation Daniel Peterson is running is at least not enough. I wouldn’t be surprised if it does more harm than good, even though I enjoy some of the work they do at FARMS.
“They boast about how they knew these issues when they were young. They
complain about how members don’t read or don’t study these things
themselves. I think that once you adopt this attitude, you have already
allowed the potential fruits of apologetics to rot.”
I think you’re right. I’ve heard Daniel Peterson do this on a few occasions, including in this interview.
Agreed. There is also the problem of those members who did know many of the problems that finally have their “shelf” collapse. I grew up during the period when we had the “Know your religion” series. My parents knew many of the problems and were very good at “inoculation”. Despite this, there were many things that made little sense that ended up on my shelf. Finally, my shelf collapsed, leaving me with a huge mess to put back together again. Each thing on that shelf had to be examined again, and many of them I found to be lacking even though I read the books and knew the apologetic arguments. I appreciate what Dan has attempted to do, but it just doesn’t work for everyone.
I would describe my experience as one similar to you.
I don’t believe inoculation is possible at scale, and most mormon apologists have no idea how ineffective they are. They don’t realize how much their “style” and tactics detract from their supposed mission.
Entirely possible. But, since we’re operating in the realm of anecdotage here, it’s also possible that most critics of the Mormon apologists have no idea how EFFECTIVE those Mormon apologists are.
I constantly receive e-mails and letters and phone calls from people who are thankful for this or that apologetic item, and — this is going to sound prideful, which is not how I intend it — my Mormon-related firesides are extremely well attended and, judging at least from the very many comments that I receive after each one, gratefully received. I doubt that my experience is unusual.
The thing that makes your personality and style such a perfect fit for
mormonism is that you get to operate in the world of plausibility.
I find it funny and at the same time sad that the “church’s chief
apologist” responds to a criticism of his style (which is often called
arrogant) with willful boasting.
Well, it seems that there’s probably nothing that I can do to defend myself against your perception of me as arrogant, so I’m not going to try.
Best wishes to you.
Dan,
While I dislike your style, many of your views, and even your arrogance (as I perceive it) ; I want to acknowledge that I think you are honestly doing what you think is right. Further, I sincerely and genuinely appreciate you doing this interview on Mormon Stories.
On a closing note…
I would love to see Mormonism flourish as it continues into the digital age. I have my doubts that it can, but if it has any chance to do so I think it will be because it finds a way to make people feel welcome. If Mormonism is to ever have 18-30 years-olds become active above a 20% rate, or if Mormonism wants the next generation to be full tithe payers at a rate anywhere close to today, it will be because our world view focuses on inclusion, not exclusion. The church will have to be honest about its history, and not blame its members for at times being surprised by its history. The church cannot hide behind pablum lessons and sanitized, correlated history.
I think Mormonism needs to have a better dialogue. It needs to be OK to ask questions and to even challenge the answers. We need to find a way to welcome people to church regardless of which box they checked on prop 8. We need to become more inviting. Not the kind of inviting where we say “change everything and fall in line.” The kind of inviting that says, “come as you are to the table and feast upon the good word of God.”
I think Mormonism has become too rigid as the world has become more
tolerant. Both approaches have their pros and cons, but one down side
to rigidness is that it breeds a culture of exclusion. Most mormons define them selves by what they don’t do. We don’t drink coffee, don’t have premarital sex, etc. I think mormonism needs to create a new world view in order to grow and really represent God. We need to define ourselves by what we love, by what we embrace, and not by what we don’t do.
As we approach the world differently, it is my hope we meet at this place. Perhaps both of us will have a bit more humility when we get there.
God speed.
Thanks Jacob,
I agree with you. “Rot” is an apt term. Smugness and arrogant dismissiveness, whether projected intentionally or unintentionally, discounts the real difficulties of honest people struggling with disillusionment and feelings of betrayal. It dishonors them. It comes across as self-serving and un-Christlike.
You’ve got to wonder where this is coming from. Perhaps some of these guys are struggling with their own frustrations. Years of getting little respect from the community of scholars they hope to be counted among – not having the emotional IQ to make it up an ecclesiastical hierarchy which devalues intellectuals even as it uses them.
I’ve noticed that the brightest lights in Mormonism don’t play this kind of game. I can think of the examples of a Grant and Heather Hardy and William Bradshaw. They are intellectually honest, humble, generous, and deal with those struggling with warranted difficulties with sensitivity. They are not defensive. Their egos don’t get in the way of their caring.
A friend of mine who knows next to nothing about the Mormonism came into my office today. I asked him to watch 1 minute of Dr. Peterson’s interview. I gave him no context. He shook his head and remarked what a self-satisfied arrogant jerk Dr. Peterson seemed to be.
I do not say this as an attack on Dr. Peterson. If he reads this I hope he would consider it worthy of some reflection and whether he is really helping the Church. On the other hand, you don’t get that way over night. Perhaps he’ll just turn on the self-justification nob and see it as the misperception of a deluded anti-Mormon (and his friend) who just can’t see how brilliant and righteous he is.
JT
I’m not dismissive at ALL of people in faith crises. I’ve spent many hours trying (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to help such people.
Umm.
Why is the term “faith crisis” a pejorative in matters of religion? Were I to take the definition of each term, is it not the “instability or upheaval” of “beliefs that are not based on proof”? Shouldn’t it be designated such that it is, an embrace or acceptance of evidence and reason – or what “others” have termed “Enlightenment”.
Brother Peterson,
You would remember me if I revealed my identity, but I cannot do so for many reasons, ecclesiastical and social. But I have to disagree with your claim, based on personal experience. Whether you intended it or not, in my conversations with you, you came across absolutely and undeniably dismissive of my struggles in my “faith crisis”. I know you like to think of yourself as not “mean-spirited”, but there is no question in my mind (a rare thing for me) that your fallibility includes an element of impatience, judgmentalism, and condemnation of some of us who haven’t “tried hard enough” or “studied enough,” or “repented enough” to arrive at the testimony you have “achieved”. At least you acknowledged your trying to “help” is not always successful. With me it was not successful at all.
What the heck. While I’m at it, I might as well mention one of my little projects, to which I’ve dedicated quite a bit of time and effort over the past twenty months or so:
https://mormonscholarstestify.org/
https://mormonscholarstestify.org/category/testimonies
Not sure what this proves. So if we made a website catholicscholarstestify would that impress you D. P.? How about muslimsscholarstestify? What exactly is so impressive about our fellow apes testifying? This proves only that human beings are capable of mass delusion on such a scale as to make space aliens if they were looking down at us think we were a rather stupid animal. That being said what all the glorifying of scholars? How is there ‘faith’ in delusions any better than the man on the street’s delusion? Oh I know they know they are evolved animals.
These projects are just special pleading and appeal to authority positions. Everyone has them, including some “other” really smart people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s47ArcQL-XQ&feature=player_embedded
To the contrary, I’ve been fascinated by many of the testimonies on the basis that they offer a variety of thoughtful articulations of how Mormonism has played out in their personal lives. These, too, are “Mormon stories,” and ones I’ve been happy to read. If the only purpose of the website was to say “smart people people believe it” it would be a giant waste of time. I don’t personally think the site is intended solely or perhaps even primarily to make that claim. I’ve just really enjoyed a lot of the stories.
I see your point, and raise you the challenge to find a “mormon accountants testify”……
Thanks for making this happen Dan. Thank you Daniel Peterson for doing this. I really respect that you did this interview. I have been a big fan of yours for a while. I have a great appreciation for your brilliance and all the work you do. I just went to education week and got to hear you there. I always enjoy your lectures. :)
Thank YOU.
Glad you enjoyed the lectures, too.
Dr. Peterson,
Many thanks for the interview – personally I found it funny, intelligent and refreshed and you replenished to some extent my hope in the expansive, universal and boundlessly hopefully worldview of Mormonism that was the fertile field in which I grew up and which I thought was how Mormonism really was.
My hope in that view has deteriorated disastrously in the last several years as I like so many others come up against the brick wall of reality where the monolith that has become the corporate church seems to crush under its correlated granite wheels all the life and brightness in our beloved belief system. Now that you know my position, my question to you specifically is: You mentioned at the end that we are NOT just ‘fundamental protestants, with another book and another wife’ – ironically I have felt this exact same way for years now. My feeling has been that your description of us as protestants I think in many ways is exactly how many church leaders (of the highest levels) actually are pushing the church. We’ve become watered down and diluted, desperate, seemingly to fit in with evangelicals in their political camp – so that we keep dumbing down our ‘peculiar people’ status through various means. Do you see this ‘protestant-creep’ happening (even if you don’t want to admit that it does doctrinally, perhaps then culturally – at least)?
I guess I can’t hope that you can actually address this issue directly as it would be too dangerous. Maybe you could answer it by addressing how you can stomach the uninspired and endless bureaucracy in the church. You hinted at this briefly in the interview via comments about boredom in meetings in the church – but as a bishop you couldn’t have escaped the hours of endless, pointless, useless bureaucratic drivel inherent in the corporate church. You don’t strike me as the kind of guy that tolerates this kind of silliness – so how did you do it?
Personally I’m at a point in my life where I nearly feel physically ill trying to sit through any basic meetings at all, and have been repeatedly turning down any callings at all because I can no longer stand the spiritless, energy sapping, colossal waste of time. Sorry for the hyperbole but it’s nearly accurate of how I think things really are.
My advice resign your membership. :)
I sympathize with your plight, and have no magic solution to it. I myself struggle with many of the meetings we attend — and, as I think I mentioned in the interview, always have at least one book with me.
Here’s a column that I wrote, trying to put a positive spin on the problem of boring meetings:
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/705369275/Defending-the-Faith-Getting-the-most-out-of-church-meetings.html?pg=1
And I’m concerned about assimilation, assimilation of Mormonism to some form of slightly deviant Protestantism, at least culturally.
Years ago, I was in a joint worship service in the late Provo Tabernacle for the regional meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, which was being hosted by BYU that year (something, incidentally, that the Society will no longer permit us to do). It had been going pretty well, with BYU’s then-Provost Bruce Hafen delivering a “sermon” that managed to be both substantive and non-denominational, which is no small feat. But then the meeting began to go down what I felt was a really slick and cheesy ecumenical path that I found quite off-putting, and I found myself wanting to jump up and yell “Adam is God!” I am not, and don’t aspire to be, an Evangelical.
I’m all for interfaith dialogue, and have done quite a bit of it myself. But I don’t aim for mergers. I want my dialogue partners to be real Muslims, real Catholics, real Protestants, not so squishy that it’s hard to know what they believe. And I want us to be real Mormons.
Part of my ideal solution would be for Latter-day Saints to be more deeply immersed in the scriptures and in their own history. I don’t want us to be insular, but I do want us to sink deep roots into our own tradition. The now rather trite slogan “Be the change you want to see” does have some real merit. Make yourself the kind of Latter-day Saint that you want to see replicated throughout the Church.
It’s late, and the wisdom isn’t exactly flowing right now. But those are some thoughts. I would be happy to correspond with you further on this matter, which concerns me a great deal, if you ever feel like it. Just drop me a line.
Dan,
At what point will you consider “erwad” an apostate? Assigning a pejorative connotation (like “sin”) to his un-belief or disobedience, when, if he follows your counsel, and is the change he wants to see, and ends up challenging or, Thor willing, leaving the fold? It seems there’s a doctrinal corner true believers paint themselves into with having to uphold the standard of “real mormons” when you have to turn on your friends as they are persuaded by the preponderance of evidence.
This podcast was awful and Peterson was allowed to get away with far too much. I thought Wotherspoon was better than this, his crawling pandering of Peterson was difficult to watch. Is Mormon Stories getting insipidly compliant in it’s old age?
What kind of scientist is Peterson anyway? Does he, as a scientist, really believe that ‘water dowsing’ is a legitimate method? What kind of scientist is he?? I have seen dowsing tested under controlled conditioned and it is demonstrably a load of bollocks. If there are valid prophetic powers within divination, why doesn’t Monson use a crystal ball or use voodoo dolls? Peterson has done nothing to strengthen the Mormon position, rather he has weakened it and his own reputation as a scientist. This man cannot be taken seriously but I guess one can get away with such crap at BYU.
I think this podcast was an excellent example of what can happen when you take time to simply listen to others. While the evidence relative to most of the issues discussed in this podcast leads me to conclude differently than Dr. Peterson (especially the BoA and polyandry), I found myself really liking him as a person. Thanks all for putting this together.
I would listen to Dan W interview a rotten potato. (No reflection on you Dan P.)
Whenever I hear an LDS apologist talk about the translation of the BofA, I think of Richard Gere as the tap dancing attorney in the movie Chicago. We are supposed to believe in the depth and wisdom of his words, yet somehow Joseph didn’t know what the word “translate” meant. I believe that Joseph Smith believed he could say anything he wanted and his followers would believe. Zelph is the perfect example. I am also reminded of Bill Clinton’s infamous “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” I am a firm believer in Occam’s razor.
I’m a firm believer in Ockham’s Razor, too. We are, thus, co-believers.
I didn’t realize, though, that we’re supposed to believe that Joseph didn’t know what the word “translate” meant. Of course, I don’t have access to the new edition of the Church Handbook.
Daniel,
I really really liked your interview. I’ve been following FARMS for many years and this was probably one of the most uplifting and honest encounters I’ve had with it thus far. Well done! I still don’t this Ockham’s Razor has really been addressed. You kind of mention in the interview how your faith is cumulative and how it’s appropriate to bracket some questions or problems (I’m totally with you on your explanation of that), but I’m curious how you really address Ockham’s razor. It seems that after being presented with two hypothesis about the nature of the restoration there is a lot more mental gymnastics done on the side of trying to reinterpret Joseph Smith’s role, the nature of the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Abraham. I’m not suggesting that there isn’t gymnastics involved in explaining away the witnesses and the plates, but it does seem like you have to do a lot more surgery to Joseph Smith and the roles of translation, revelation, and prophets to get him to fit in the box. I’m a believer and have always chalked this up to the fact that faith demands complexity, but I think this Ockham’s Razor issue is at the heart of many people’s problems. It just doesn’t sound likely after so much balks in the face of at least the popularly received evidence, and so many levels of explanation have to be employed. Also it seems like a lot of the evidence presented by you in the interview is just homology (in the structuralist sense). Just because something looks and feels ancient doesn’t make it so. I’m in an anthropology graduate program with Levantine and Mesoamerican archaeologists and not only do they balk at the idea of the Book of Mormon (which many Mesoamerican archaeologists have read and are surprising familiar with), they aren’t sure Abraham, much less David, were historical figures (and certainly nothing like how they are portrayed in the Bible, their civilizations don’t match up at all to the archaeological record). Also just because there’s three authorial voices in the Book of Mormon doesn’t means there’s three authors, I can think of plenty of great works of fiction with multiple narrators or voices were I’ve thought, “wow, this is a real person distinct from the author” (doesn’t make it so). That said, I think critics have a heck of job on their hands explaining why Joseph Smith was able to write the Book of Mormon. I know that you are a very serious person about your faith and that homology is probably a serious method for you but it takes some explaining and justification that I just didn’t hear in the interview. It just sounded like skirting around the issues. That said, I really appreciated the honesty in which you grappled with the issues and in particular the gay marriage one. You didn’t compromise your views and expressed the need to have differing views, but you definitely tried to convey empathy. Congratulations on one of the most interesting podcasts I’ve listened to in ages.
Daniel,
I really really liked your interview. I’ve been following FARMS for many years and this was probably one of the most uplifting and honest encounters I’ve had with it thus far. Well done! I still don’t this Ockham’s Razor has really been addressed. You kind of mention in the interview how your faith is cumulative and how it’s appropriate to bracket some questions or problems (I’m totally with you on your explanation of that), but I’m curious how you really address Ockham’s razor. It seems that after being presented with two hypothesis about the nature of the restoration there is a lot more mental gymnastics done on the side of trying to reinterpret Joseph Smith’s role, the nature of the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Abraham. I’m not suggesting that there isn’t gymnastics involved in explaining away the witnesses and the plates, but it does seem like you have to do a lot more surgery to Joseph Smith and the roles of translation, revelation, and prophets to get him to fit in the box. I’m a believer and have always chalked this up to the fact that faith demands complexity, but I think this Ockham’s Razor issue is at the heart of many people’s problems. It just doesn’t sound likely after so much balks in the face of at least the popularly received evidence, and so many levels of explanation have to be employed. Also it seems like a lot of the evidence presented by you in the interview is just homology (in the structuralist sense). Just because something looks and feels ancient doesn’t make it so. I’m in an anthropology graduate program with Levantine and Mesoamerican archaeologists and not only do they balk at the idea of the Book of Mormon (which many Mesoamerican archaeologists have read and are surprising familiar with), they aren’t sure Abraham, much less David, were historical figures (and certainly nothing like how they are portrayed in the Bible, their civilizations don’t match up at all to the archaeological record). Also just because there’s three authorial voices in the Book of Mormon doesn’t means there’s three authors, I can think of plenty of great works of fiction with multiple narrators or voices were I’ve thought, “wow, this is a real person distinct from the author” (doesn’t make it so). That said, I think critics have a heck of job on their hands explaining why Joseph Smith was able to write the Book of Mormon. I know that you are a very serious person about your faith and that homology is probably a serious method for you but it takes some explaining and justification that I just didn’t hear in the interview. It just sounded like skirting around the issues. That said, I really appreciated the honesty in which you grappled with the issues and in particular the gay marriage one. You didn’t compromise your views and expressed the need to have differing views, but you definitely tried to convey empathy. Congratulations on one of the most interesting podcasts I’ve listened to in ages.
I have never had any interactions with Daniel Peterson, and didn’t know the name until now, but found him more arrogant than Nephi.
Probably true.
John – Please speak respectfully to my guests.
I must disagree with Daniel on the point that sin is the reason people question and leave the church. In my experience that is not so. Please clarify. Do you mean they sin by not doing everything the church tells them to do? For example, if a person doesn’t attend the temple regularly is that a sin? What about not believing everything the prophet says? What about questioning policies or programs the church supports? You mentioned the one time a couple left and wrote an open letter against the church. You found out they had been cheating on each other. I believe this probably happened, but I think it is disingenuous to lump all people who leave into one group, with the one example of sexual impropriety, and call them all sinners. Perhaps there are some for whom this is true but I don’t think for a moment that it is true of all, or even most that leave. It is this idea among active members that leads to us versus them mentality and distrust on both sides.
You say your answer to those who question is to read the scriptures and pray. What about those who still do that but have come to the conclusion that God isn’t listening and the scriptures are not true with a capital T? Where do those people fit within the church? You say if a person wants it to be true you can help them. It sounds to me that you advocate just keep doing what the church tells you to until you feel better. I wish that were true. I wanted it for a very long time.
Did I actually say that sin is THE reason that people question and leave the Church? If I did, I’m quite astonished, because, while it’s certainly A reason in some cases — can anybody seriously deny that? — I’ve never believed it to be the sole or universal reason in ALL cases.
If I said it this time, this will have been a first for me.
Did I really lump all people who leave together into one group and call them all “sinners”? I don’t recall doing so, and don’t believe that to be the case.
If I did this during the podcast, it will be a new roll-out for me.
Did I actually say that the all-sufficient answer for all who question is simply to read the scriptures and pray? If I did, I really won’t know how to account for that, because I’ve never believed any such thing.
If I said it during this interview, I must have been on drugs.
You did not say that is the “all sufficient” answer, but that is the answer you recommend first. I understand that. That was not my question. My questions were:
1- What do you consider sin?
2- Where do those who still pray and still read scriptures but no longer believe the scriptures are 100% true and question whether or not God is listening fit into the church?
1. What do I consider sin? That’s a huge and difficult question. A short-hand answer would probably be a more-or-less deliberate violation of the commandments of God.
2. Where do doubting members fit into the Church? They will have to decide that for themselves. There is no simple rule. I certainly don’t have one. I would hope for them to stick with it, and that a stronger conviction would come.
This all depends upon your perspective. If I am to understand what you mean, you will have to define what you consider to be the commandments of God. How do you determine which commandments are those that make you sinful? If you read the Bible, you will note there are many commandments we do not recognize. Frankly, we are all sinners, there is no doubt about that. No one can possibly live up to all the commandments we are given, but we are expected to do so lest we fall away. If we do fall away, there is always the pat answer that the reason was sin, whatever sin that may be.
I have lived as an active doubting member of the church. It is uncomfortable, to say the least. But there is really nowhere to go when you are doing everything one can do to get answers that never come. When they finally do come, and they are not what you are expected to receive, all of the sudden your world is rocked. Please do not discount opposing spiritual experiences. Well meaning bishops, like you, don’t have the answers to the conundrum. People like me, who may still be willing to attend church if there was a real place for us, lose their community and their family all at once.
When does the words (or commandments) of the prophets expire? Never? Until a succeeding prophets changes it. Brigham Young breathed out horrific punishments on those who committed adultery. Nobody has ever corrected him so is that still part of God’s commandments?
What exactly are the commandments of God?
Incidentally, the FARMS Review, which Dan edits, contained a review which addressed the very question regarding “apostasy” and sinning. Here’s what it says:
‘Reacting to doubt with hostility, indifference, or accusations of unworthiness can be destructive to both faith and relationships. In light of how McCraney discusses his own drug and alcohol abuse, he seems to believe that some Saints inevitably attribute apostasy to sin. He is quick to explain at the outset of the book that in presenting such an “unadulterated expose” [sic] he risks “jeopardizing the small amount of credibility more anonymous authors generally enjoy” (p. ix). While there is scriptural warrant that various sins can lead to apostasy,31 there is also abundant scriptural precedence indicating that, if such were invariably the case, there would be no faith in God—for example, “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6) and “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).’
https://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?reviewed_author&vol=21&num=2&id=774
I happen to know the author of that review, he’s an odd fellow, but nonetheless, there it is, in Dan Peterson’s own publication.
Apparently thinking others are idiots, and convincing third-parties of their idiocy is acceptable, not only for the discussion board, but the thousands of podcast listeners; whereas calling someone arrogant gets scrubbed, even when that person agrees. As you’ll notice, this is my 70th comment, so I’m a mere infant, and I’m clearly weilding a club ax since I made my accusation directly. I’m sure Daniel could quickly dispatch me with his rapier if he wanted to. No worries, though. I said my piece.
Ella:
It’s a big world out there. Find your place in it. There is a reason that only .2% of the world is LDS. There are many reasons that approximately 70% of the worldwide LDS membership is not active in the church. I am the same moral, honest man as an inactive member that I was for 40 plus years as an active member of the church. I just choose to not believe the LDS stories any more. Listen to what is within you, not what others say. In the end, loving those around it what will bring you happiness. The desire for truth is what led me away from the church. The same desire that led me there as a naive 18 year old.
Brian,
I agree with you, although I can point you to plenty of families and friends who have willingly shunned their own when disbelief crept into their loved ones. It is painful to me and I know it is painful for plenty of others out there that can no longer believe the way the members of the church expect. How is it helpful for people to believe, without any other evidence, that their disbelieving relations are sinners? My entire family, as well as my husband’s, are members. Is it okay for them to assume there is some huge sin hanging over our heads because we no longer believe? Unfortunately, this idea is unwittingly promoted both in this interview and in church classrooms.
Could you please direct me to the precise location in the interview where I “promoted” this idea?
Segment #3 beginning at 7:30, specifically at 9:33. I said it is unwittingly promoted, not that you mean to do so. When people in authority say “the main reason” or “most” people leave because of sin, members take notice. No, not all people leave because of sin. Some do, that is not the issue. The problem is I know many people, myself included, that did not leave because of sin, but it is assumed because of statements like these.
You promote this idea starting at the 9 min 40 sec mark of section 3 (on the you tube above). Essentially, you say that not all people leaving the church do so because of sin “but a lot of them do though.” Then you go on to tell a story that essentially underscores what appears to be your point. A point I would summarize as: “a lot of people say that sin isn’t the reason people leave the church but here is an example when people said that and they were lying.”
This is a horrible example to provide if the message you are trying to make is that sin isn’t often the reason people leave. Your words are accurate–“not always, sometimes, etc.” and i suspect your story/example is true. but of all the stories to tell, you choose this one. your example perpetuates the myth that when people say they leave for reasons other than sin that they are often lying. Your tone, your emphasis, and your example unfortunately promote a myth that could have been addressed at that moment. You had a opportunity to show empathy and counter that myth. Instead, you reinforced it.
it is hard to conceive of a better story to reinforce the myth than the one you choose.
Well, okay. If that’s the extent of my offense, I’m going to stick with it.
The majority of people who go inactive, in my experience, don’t leave the Church over historical or theological issues at all. They do so because they would rather golf or stay in bed on Sunday, or drink, or do drugs, or sleep with their girlfriends, or whatever.
The vast majority of people, Mormon and non-Mormon, simply don’t live their lives worrying about historical issues or engaging in intellectual debates.
Perhaps I actually have a bit of an advantage because I grew up in a nuclear and extended family with very few intellectual pretensions or academic achievements, and because I worked construction through grad school. I have no illusions that everybody is an intellectual or is motivated by intellectual issues. Half of my relatives are non-Mormons, but virtually all of the rest of them are, at the very most, marginal members. In fact, the majority are completely inactive.
None of my relatives, so far as I’m aware, have left the Church over any crisis of faith. They’re gone because they don’t live, and don’t care to live, a Mormon lifestyle. In fact, I’m inclined to think that part of the problem is that they (and many others like them) were mediocre-to-bad students who hated school and got out of it as soon as they possibly could, and that the Church, with its three-hour block of (essentially) lectures and its seminaries and institutes and its other meetings and its difficult-to-read scriptures (which should be studied every day), is, in many ways, uncomfortably (for them) like a program of perpetual adult education. I like them all, but they’re not exactly wrestling with the problem of divine foreknowledge, or agonizing over whether Spalding’s wordprint shows up in 3 Nephi, or struggling to come to grips with how to meet the challenge of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis.
When I was a bishop of a UVU-related singles ward, I ran into only one person who had rejected the Church because of theological disagreements. The OVERWHELMING majority of the inactives with whom I came in contact have gone missing for much earthier reasons.
I suspect that many who have left the Church over historical or doctrinal concerns have re-created those others who have dropped out of participation in their image. If they do, though, they’re mistaken.
Do people leave the Church because of purely intellectual, historical, and/or spiritual concerns? Yes. I have never denied this, but have actually said it on numerous occasions (including this podcast), But I think they’re in a distinct minority.
What a surprise! he’s sticking to it.
What a disappointment!
Here you are speaking on mormon stories–a place for the disaffected and uncorrelated. Here you have an opportunity to clarify your poor example from the podacst. You have a chance to say, “you’re right. I missed a chance to dispel a dangerous myth–a myth that keeps the church from making a bigger tent, and I want to do it here. I acknowledge that this myth causes people to demonize the disaffected and is not helpful to Christ’s church” Instead, you stick to your horrific story and again recite your resume and resort to the same personal references that Ella found so unpalatable at the beginning of this thread.
Let me try to address this one thing: “They’re gone because they don’t live, and don’t care to live, a Mormon lifestyle.”
I make this attempt because if ever you find the humility to consider that you’re wrong on this issue, I think you could be so much more helpful. I make this attempt because of what is at stake, not because I think it is probable that you’ll change… unfortunately.
I’d like you to consider that maybe this is “plausible”: people often FIRST come to the conclusion that the church is not true–that is to say that they don’t believe that Joseph saw God and Jesus. That there were no gold plates. John The Baptist and Peter James and John never appeared to Joseph. Polygamy was not instituted by an angel with a flaming sword. The witnesses really were spiritual Gypsy. There was no Zelph. Missouri doesn’t look much like garden of eden. The book of Mormon geography that your organizations defend and hypothesis about all of the time is non-existant. There are no steel swords. No Hebrew DNA in Guatemala. Etc.
To be clear, these conclusions need not be reached after reading 100’s or 1000’s of books. It is very possible that these conclusions are reached by just considering the likelihood of all of this happening to a single person. This conclusion can be reached by just growing up and having independent thoughts. Then, AFTER this change in belief–after settling into the fact that this is not true–a person says “I don’t want to live the Mormon lifestyle.”
Often, they are not gone because they don’t care to live the Mormon lifestyle. They are gone because the Mormon lifestyle is not appealing to the 99+% of people that don’t believe Joseph’s story.
Joseph said several times in his life that “I don’t blame any man that doesn’t believe my story. If I hadn’t lived it, I wouldn’t believe it myself.” Yet, YOU (in a position of power that you reference endlessly) perpetuate a myth that people leave because of lifestyle or sin. You seem to rarely (if ever acknowledge) that a well meaning, sincere, God believing prayer-giver can/will often ever reach a conclusion other than “this church is true.”
It happens all the time.
I am disappointed as well.
I agree with most of what you said jg, but a faith crisis happens for all people differently. The experience is not uncommon, although it is entirely possible that many that go through it do not discuss it in depth with ward members. The stigma is already attached once a person admits they are questioning. People already wonder which sin it is causing them to doubt. In fact, there are those who question who revert into scrupulosity because they think they sinned without even realizing. I can understand why, as a bishop, Daniel did not have many people discussing their crises of faith with him. No one wants their experiences degraded into an argument of which sin they are committing. That is not anything against Daniel as a person or a bishop, but I do not think bishops are really trained to deal with intellectual faith issues.
In my experience, there are those who just go inactive for the reasons Daniel mentions. That’s fine, but I don’t hear many of them saying they have “left the church”. Those who use that term are often those who have voluntarily distanced themselves because of a crisis of faith. I don’t say I am inactive, although that would be what members would say I am. I say I left the church. I have had a profound crisis of faith, and I expect that those who listen to Mormon Stories will understand what that is. I don’t know what the numbers are, but I am sure the listenership of this program is more that just a few, and more than just a few of those understand the crisis. Those who do not understand are those who hear all about how “most” or “the main reason” people leave is sin in the church setting and it is people in authority that perpetuate that myth.
My point for Daniel, and all other priesthood leaders, is to stop allowing people to believe this. There is a wonderful opportunity for teaching and understanding when someone goes through a faith crisis. I understand there are those who sin and leave, but they do not need the stigma attached. There is no reason for the inadvertent airing of dirty laundry. That is not what Christ taught, and it should not be what is taught in church or by those in authority.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I hope I didn’t imply that people only leave for one reason. Or that everyone follows the same progression. I just think a substantial amount–perhaps even the majority of the MS audience–follow this sort of pattern.
I just think Dan’s emphasis on this issue is meaningfully off–especially given the audience.
I don’t agree because I’ve seen different. Real people who do have sins unrepented and choose to leave rather than solve the problem, which by the way is the reason why Satan tempts them in the first place, for them to sin and drop out of church.
How do you know the reason Satan does anything?
He told me so!!!!
Ella,
I posted this previously, but have a few more thoughts after reading your post…
Here’s my original post “Why is the term “faith crisis” a pejorative in matters of religion? Were I to take the definition of each term, is it not the “instability or upheaval” of “beliefs that are not based on proof”? Shouldn’t it be designated such that it is, an embrace or acceptance of evidence and reason – or what “others” have termed “Enlightenment”.
Here’s my follow up. We need to move away from the term “faith crisis” or “sin” and challenge the derogative application applied from apologists. In reality, the crisis is “faith” itself, and moving away from it, although painful, like removing a tumor, leads to real knowledge and understanding. “Sin” from the LDS doctrinal perspective is theocratically subjective. Wielding the term “Sin” against it’s membership, from a philosophical and objective perspective, is immoral. Apologists have been granted the high ground only through concession, not through diligence in thought and practice. When challenged on things that matter….Morality, intellectual honesty, explaining the reason and meaning of our existence….theology scatters into the shadows from the light of reason and evidence. Your point is well reasoned, and genuine ethics are now in your corner. I just think you give too much credence to an imaginary authority, when they have none.
“I can understand why, as a bishop, Daniel did not have many people
discussing their crises of faith with him. No one wants their
experiences degraded into an argument of which sin they are committing.”
I don’t think you’ve really listened to what I’ve said.
“That is not anything against Daniel as a person or a bishop, but I do
not think bishops are really trained to deal with intellectual faith
issues.”
LOL. If there was any bishop in the CHURCH who would have been willing and (in a very poor and inadequate and probably dishonest way, of course!) able to engage intellectual faith issues, it would have been this one. In fact, to be candid, compared with the usual problems that I had to face, I would have actually ENJOYED it.
Only one such person ever approached me.
My bishop(s) didn’t know what to do with me. All any of them did was throw articles or books at me and tell me to pray and read the scriptures more. I did what they asked but still found myself with opposing spiritual experience. It’s not their fault. They were good men trying really hard to do their best, as I am sure you did.
If only one person in a faith crisis ever approached you, do you think there may have been more that did not? Is it possible that people in a faith crisis did not come to you because they may have been intimidated? Or they may have thought you would not understand. Being bishop of a poorer ward with blue collar workers would be difficult because you were from “different worlds”. A well educated, well paid bishop may not have been as approachable as one that was more like them. I am not saying you are not affable or kind but there is a certain perception that comes with relative wealth and position in the church.
I don’t think that my ward members were intimidated by me. In a typical week, I interviewed and counseled almost all day on Sunday, into the evening and through Sunday school and priesthood/Relief Society, and on Wednesdays from 6:30 PM to roughly 1 AM. People were lined up in the hallway at all times, along with miscellaneous counseling by phone and in person on other days. And old members of the ward still drop by to visit me at home. I got along quite well with members of that ward. I grew up in a largely working class family; I worked construction through graduate school. I’m not even slightly uncomfortable talking with poorer people and blue-collar workers.
Dr. Peterson,
I’m a bit torn between wanting to delete these personal/ad hominem criticisms of you, and letting you respond to them to defend yourself and dispel the rumors/attacks.
Regardless, I hope that you won’t feel obliged to respond to the less substantive comments/attacks…and if you would like me to start moderating them more closely, let me know.
Thanks again for doing this interview.
John
Thanks.
I notice that you did delete the personal attacks from one very prolific poster the other day, and, to be honest, that was perfectly fine with me. There seemed to be little in his comments — most of them, anyway — beyond sneering.
For the moment, beyond that, I’m okay.
I’m more puzzled and bemused by some of the comments here than I am hurt. Despite the enormous turnover in a singles ward such as the one over which I presided, I’ve been invited back at least three times by the ward members to speak at ward parties and get-togethers since I was released. I still get phone calls and wedding invitations from people who came to me for counseling, etc. The thought that the members of my ward might have been terrified of me because I was rigid and unpleasant and unsympathetic toward them is really quite weird. Oh well. Apparently there is, with some people, simply no way I can convince them that I’m not some sort of monster.
Thanks for the opportunity to do the podcast. I enjoyed it.
Daniel – My goal with all these interviews (yours, Shawn McCraney’s, and Grant Palmer’s included) is to help show that (within reason) pretty much everyone means well, has at least some substance to their position, and is generally good-hearted.
I think that anyone who is open-minded to your interview will see this…and I know that many, many have.
Thanks again for entrusting us with your story. You deserve respect for doing so….and I believe that your intelligence, wit, sincerity, and good-natured-ness comes through in spades….for those with eyes to see, and ears to listen.
Well said jg. The majority of disaffected Mormons I know leave the church because of the doctrinal, historical and archeological aspects you mention, rather than for motives of shallow self satisfaction.
I have left the Mormon Church (I’m a 2nd generation member), I have never cheated on my wife nor do I intend to, I don’t take drugs (other than aspirin when required) I do not drink alcohol (though I have tried it and rejected it). And I have never played golf. Most ex Mormons I know are like me.
There are people I know who have done those things after leaving the church but they originally left the church for the same reasons that I left the church.
There is no sin worse than playing golf. The condemnation from the Norse god Odin be upon you!
“…I have never played golf.”
When I type LOL I am not lying. I laughed out loud with golf being listed with sins like having sex with a woman who is not my wife (without her permission). Remember that the scriptures say, “…the course of the Lord is one eternal round…” The sin is NOT golfing my friend and may Shiva curse you for your ignorance… :-)
Will I need to sacrifice a goat, or will a turtledove do?
I’m thinking a goat in the similitude of the demise of Tiger Woods’ career. Tiger’s private life is in similitude of Joseph Smith’s private life, sans the “an angel with a sword made me do it.” Don’t think that would have flown at the press conference…
In my boundless arrogance, I’m quite confident that I’m right: The vast majority of members who don’t come out to Church any more are absent because they don’t want to live their lives (for the present, at least) as Latter-day Saints.
Many of them, in fact, if you were to ask them, would probably even still say that the Church is true.
That’s certainly the case with most of the inactives in my extended family, and with most of the inactives with whom I spoke in my UVU-adjacent singles ward. And it’s been my experience over a now absurdly long lifetime of hometeaching inactive members in California and Utah and various other countries.
In saying this, I don’t for a moment deny that there are people who leave the Church primarily or solely out of disbelief, because of theological disagreements, because of historical issues, and the like. But, in my experience, despite the heavy focus in my life precisely on issues of belief and theology and history, such people are a clear minority. Most people generally, not just inactive Mormons, aren’t NEARLY as focused on matters of religious history and doctrine as the residents of a place like this are.
And no, I won’t admit that I’m wrong. My general practice is not to say that I’m wrong when I think I’m right. I’m weird that way. I think it would be dishonest.
Can I prove the points I’ve made above? No, I can’t. They’re just based on my experience as a member of the Church who has spent much of his life in both California and Utah and who has substantial experience living as a member of the Church in three foreign countries — and who is probably as heavily involved with those who HAVE left the Church over intellectual issues as ANYBODY is.
All I have is anecdote, as I acknowledged already. But, since I’m aware of no serious social-scientific studies of the question, that seems to me all that ANYBODY has.
Best wishes to all.
It seems to me that if theological and historical reasons for leaving are so rare that your efforts in apologetics should be spent elsewhere.
On a personal note, I for one can say that your humble approach has brought me closer to the church and to Christ.
God speed.
“Most people generally, not just inactive Mormons, aren’t NEARLY as
focused on matters of religious history and doctrine as the residents of
a place like this are.”
That may be true. I’m glad that you realize that. Mormon Stories has been a lifeline to me, and to many others like me. Perhaps we are an anomaly, although my experience, anecdotal as it is, tells me we are not.
I don’t expect you to admit any wrongdoing. I hold nothing against you. What you have shared is your perspective. I am glad you came on Mormon Stories and I appreciate the interaction on the board. I also follow the practice of not admitting wrong when what I believe is right, so I hope you will understand that I will continue to live by my integrity.
So there’s no intellectual power involved in reasons to leave other than theological, (or historical, academic, etc…)?
When I get invited to attend a “party” at a friends house who wants to introduce a new “business opportunity” to me, I need not just attend, but spend a significant portion of my future time and money, then evangelize and do my own public presentations (I wish this was all hyperbole) before I’ve got a reasonable explanation for discarding the “business opportunity”?
I’m disinclined to think that theres an absence of serious thought or probability analysis involved,. Couldn’t the invitation to spend multiple hours a week listening about, and in service for, an invisible deity(ies) be construed as vacuous without needing to delve any deeper? And in this scenario, which person was more intelligent, the one who spent 40 years in and finally left, or the one who only needed to 15 minutes?
Yes2; in my experience too the inactive go inactive because of a lifestyle choice while those who opening start fighting against the church and call the church names like fraud, dishonest, all lies etc do have some serious sin in the background. You don’t find out about it usually until a few years later, like in the case of Elder Geoge P Lee, but eventually the true comes out. And that includes sins of homosexual nature. It has always amazed me how someone like Bruce Bastian can call LDS history bluff when he’s bedding some dude! Those who leave over pure historical reasons are a small minority imho.
And the myth lives on.
As long as you keep writing…….sure, myth lives on…
What you and Peterson say is wrong, just wrong and you only serve to remind the rest of us why we walked away from the church. Such mean spiritedness was never the intention of Jesus.
Well, actually Jesus did have a bit of a chip on his shoulder for those not of his Jewish faith…and for fig trees. Can we pick another historical figure who was filled with transcendent ideas? The list is rather long and less controversial.
didn’t Jesus go after Pharisees, hypocrites, temple
commerce, the many local high
priest?…..he did talk down to many people actually and accused Jews of
sins giving them as the reason why they lost their contact with God and didn’t recognise
him as his Son…like you guys who can’t recognize a Prophet when you see him in the deseretnews….(ie that Monson in case you didn’t realise it)
Well, if we define a prophet as one who prophesies, then you are correct, I do not recognize anyone who fulfills that definition within the LDS faith, Mr. Monson included.
Are you saying that just because I happened to be born into this church that there is no honorable way to separate myself from it? If so, wow.
No, not at all, but just what my experience has been with the people who left. .There are those who leave over history somewhere I guess but I haven’t met them.
There are ways to leave honorably. Typical way is to write that letter asking for one’s name removed however some people go through the process and find themselves still in the ward lists years later when some home teacher shows up. But it is worth trying I think. The other is to just leave and don’t come back and whenever someone visits just say pollitely ‘im not a mormon anymore’ and ask them to respect that.
I find your name, “dark matter”, ironic. You sound more like an inbred, homophobic Christian fundamentalist than someone who even would know what dark matter is. Unless…unless your name is meant to be metaphorical for the vacuous space that exists between your ears. Keep hate alive my friend. And keep hiding behind an anonymous moniker.
My name is Randy Snyder, and I approve this message…
Now that certainly isn’t an honorable way to leave the church!!…..
“You sound more like an inbred, homophobic Christian fundamentalist”…….Wow, you called me a ‘Christian’ !!
My name is ‘Darkmatter’ and I approve this message……
How in the world would you even know people’s private “sinful” activities? At least Peterson was in a position that authorized him to delve into such matters. Why would people share such personal things with you?
As for an honorable way to leave the Church, the majority of people I know (my esoteric non-random sample trumps yours!) go “inactive” when they no longer believe, and don’t waste the time to write a letter asking for their name to be removed. Once there is nothing in which to believe, as I wrote above, they do not believe many of the activities and behaviors “required” by the “LDS lifestyle” are “sins” anymore. So they can be accused ex post facto of leaving the Church “because of sin” (as I suggest Peterson has done, and I believe you are doing).
This is an immoral bias and misattribution on both your parts, and you should seriously consider the problematics of it.
Five years as bishop, plus previously counselor to 4 bishops, plus other priesthood leadership roles where one actually visits the person and is told what is wrong -many members don’t necesarily wait for an interview with the bishop by thw way, to say what the problem is like they are now living with their girlfiend or similar. That’s why I said ‘In my experience…’ I’ve never known someone to leave church over these controversies in church. Yes, many don’t want to or don’t bother writing the letter but if you want to make sure no one from church visits later on, say 12 years down the road, then the letter is the way to do things properly. But the only ‘immoral’ problem here is what many who leave the church need to address themselves, if they become sincere one day when judging their life, there is no misattribution here at all.
Dan,
I also served in a bishopric of a UVU student ward and I rarely saw anyone leave the church for “intellectual” or “historical” reasons. It is exactly as you said, because they don’t care about living like a Latter Day Saint…church is too long, the law of chastity is too strict and they certainly don’t want to go home or visiting teaching.
I have read through some of the comments and listened to some of these podcasts and I think the perception of why the youth leave the church is wrong. I don’t think most of the kids are reading history books (or googling history), i don’t think they are reading much of anything except facebook and text messages and watching movies and listening to music. I think the culture of the world is much more of a problem then the history of the church will ever be.
If the brethren address historical problems, then they have only saved a few. I think the brethren are inspired by focusing on faith and repentance, because it is the only thing that addresses the biggest problem.
I just turned 30 so maybe I’m not a “youth” anymore. I can’t tell you how many friends from my past have approached me about doctrinal and philosophical issues and attributed those issues to the beginning of their disaffection with the church. (I’m an RM who is openly liberal so perhaps I’m an easy target for such conversations.) I think the leadership of the church is out of touch with the reasons young people are leaving the church. My friends don’t go to their bishops, because they think their issues will be immediately attributed to sin or a lack of faith. (Most of them have loosened their standards now, but their questions came first; not the other way around.) Many of my friends are well-read, good people who cared deeply about the church. I would say I’m recovering from a crisis of faith that began as a gospel doctrine teacher in a BYU ward. I started checking church history books out at the Provo library to be a better teacher and increase my faith. The cognitive dissonance I feel from reading stuff I never was taught about the church has sent me down a lonely road. I haven’t loosened my standards and I never intend on leaving the church. I’m so Mormon I’m positive I’d do much worse anywhere else. Reading my scriptures, temple attendance, and prayer have not lightened my burdens but websites like Mormon stories have. Go figure.
I think your inferences also ignore the possibility (and probability) that a number of people do not “leave” (lose faith) because of sin; rather, they “sin” because they lose faith. Once you no longer believe in “the LDS Lifestyle” (which suggests much more of a cultural connotation than I would expect from you), what counts as “sin” changes: coffee and tea are no longer “sinful”, not attending meetings or paying tithing are not “breaking the commandments”, and on and on.
Moreover, it fails to take account of the fact that, as you and many LDS admit, “nobody is perfect” (except those of us who do not believe in the myth of “sin”), and yet all these “sinners” in the Church still claim to receive spiritual manifestations and “testimonies” despite those “sins”. How can a god who is no respecter of persons, and a “Holy Spirit” that testifies of truth, abandon only some people BECAUSE OF their “sins”?So your assumptions about the “OVERWHELMING majority of the inactives” very likely begs the question: why did they lose faith in the first place, in virtue of which they ceased complying with the rote rituals and ecclesiastical machinations such that they “sinned”? And your assumptions likely misattributes their inactivity to “earthier reasons”.
The fact is, the LDS Church corporate/ecclesiastical structure, especially as regards youth, tithing, and the role of Bishops as “common judges”, is highly invasive into the personal and private aspects of people’s lives. In the face of such assumed authority, anyone is going to feel “sinful” and pressured to “confess” regardless whether they truly lost faith because of sin, or “sinned” because they lost faith.
Thanks so much for interviewing an LDS apologist. Dr. Peterson seems like a good guy. It’s a little ironic to me that Dr. Peterson was being ridiculed by Mormon Stories people for FARMS not being “objective” enough. Do you guys really think John Dehlin and his Mormon Stories peeps are objective in their interviews and presentations? PLEEAAASSSEEE. The questioning always goes in the same direction. What you ask some people is just as important as what you don’t ask others. Like Dr. Peterson, I don’t believe in objectivity. The church’s position is that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Of course they’re going to defend that. What a surprise. As long as people are open in admitting their bias- they should have a pulpit to say whatever you want. I agree with Dr. Peterson’s position that those who want to ridicule the prophet have enough pulpits as it is. I’m anxiously awaiting more candid church history along the lines of RSR and the Joseph Smith Papers, but the LDS church doesn’t need to invite their critics to tell the story for them. And please don’t fool yourselves into thinking that because you interview all types of people that your interviewing techniques are unbiased.
Thanks to all involved here! I actually enjoyed the podcast much more than I thought I would and find that Dr. Peterson and I are more alike than I expected! Thanks so much for braving the wolves that some of us can be and coming on Mormon Stories! I respect you very much as a person.
I do have one dispute with your definition of “scholarship” as taking a position and defending it infinitely or bailing on it completely. I’ve never understood that to be the way that science or scholarship work at all. I’ve always understood that one begins with a question and then attempts to answer that question by going where the evidence leads. Would you say this is how FARMS, FAIR and The NAM Institute works? Sure, you didn’t set out saying, “There is chiasmus in the Book of Mormon,” and then look until you found it but I sense that rather you set out to find proof of your conclusion that The Book of Mormon is a historical book. Thanks for you time!
Thanks for the note.
I don’t, though, recognize what you term my “definition of ‘scholarship as taking a position and defending it infinitely or bailing on it completely” as reflecting my views.
As to scholarship and research, one begins with a question or with questions, but also, inevitably, with at least an inchoate kind of hypothesis. That’s what yields the questions, defines interests, allows one to distinguish relevant and significant facts from among the essentially infinite background of irrelevant facts, etc. There is a dialectic between data and researcher-model.
We at the Maxwell Institute set out, in the applicable situations, with the working hypothesis that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, in order to flesh that hypothesis out and to determine how fruitful it is. We are, quite admittedly, working within a paradigm. So is everybody else.
Thanks for your reply. I am glad for the clarification. I must have misunderstand your meaning in the podcast. I did want to add that I appreciate your thoughts on the depth and richness of Mormonism as a theology, and how intellectually valid it is as a religion. I totally agree with you and learned more about its depth from your assessment. Thanks again.
And what would be an example of the null hypothesis in the scenarios that the Maxwell Institute investigates? That seems to be the difference between your paradigm and that of “everyone else.” I don’t think you or any believer of any religion out there is able to form a null hypothesis with regards to the evidence.
And that puts you in the exact same position as the doubters you described in the podcast… only willing to hear one answer, the one that confirms what you want to hear.
An extraordinary interview, gentlemen. Nimble, far-ranging,
entertaining. (Please don’t take offense to my characterization of the
interview as entertaining. I simply enjoyed it a lot.)
I’m thrilled to see serious Mormon mind power and heart
power applied to our Moslem friends and their faith traditions. After 9/11
there have been way too many members of the Church who have drifted into an
ethnocentric pit of blanket mistrust and castigation of all things Moslem. Your
Islamic studies work mark you as a man for our time Dr. Peterson. Do persist!
Surely God has a work for you as he does for us all.
It doesn’t trouble me that I think you’re on the wrong side
of history concerning Prop 8 and the Heartland model of Book of Mormon
geography. I embrace your vision of disagreeing with folks then being willing
to go out to lunch with them. Shalom.
I have had no
hesitation in the past, nor do I now, in admitting that probably 50% of the
reason I left was because of sin. I like beer and freedom. I like to be
independent (“self-willed”?). I find Church meetings, for the most part, boring
and repetitious. I actually planned to go inactive in 1979-early 1980, but they
called me as a bishop, so I thought I should at least give it a fair go. I did,
for three years, then asked for a release. Does that mean that the other hypothetical
50%, the “intellectual investigations” are invalid? Not at all. So when I’m
accused of “wanting to sin”, I’ll happily plead guilty. I fully realise that this does not, and cannot
apply to all, but the point is that Dan does have a valid point in this regard.
I think he was quite balanced and fair in this realistic assessment.
This was a good set of interviews. I just finished listening to all of them. I have admired Dan’s work and it has helped me deal with some issues.
I was hoping to hear more about how apologists feel about how members should deal with disaffection. I was glad to hear Dan Peterson admit to not having all the answers, but how should the church handle disaffected members going through faith crises? Do apologists see any validity in a someone experiencing strong cog dissonance of church history or doctrine that can last a long time? I kind of get the sense that apologists believe that the criticisms against the church’s history or truth claims are not strong enough to merit any serious disaffection, which makes me feel like I am the fool or that I must be so easily persuaded by the criticism. John Lynch denounced the idea of staylds.com at a FAIR conference awhile back on the basis that one should not advocate a medium for people to remain in disaffection but instead should continue to find the answers. Are the answers really that easy to get??
It is important to remember that Dan P. is a very skilled apologist. In this case he is using every tool he has to be an apologist for himself. The church issues are secondary to himself in this interview. It has become a game for Dan P. He has become an intellectual troll enjoying the mind games at the bridge. A troll does not spend time integrating the information into a sensible world view. They simply enjoy the experience of being a troll without much, if any, self reflection, There is no time for it. Much to busy for that!
I pity the church if Dan ever leaves it -they should and probably do fear it. That would be something interesting to look into – how much the apologists have the church over a barrel and how much the chief apologists know it.
You make an interesting assertion, and one I don’t totally follow. How do apologists have the church over a barrel? What would make the church so pitiful if Dan left?
Anyone that can defend an untenable position such as this so effectively would be I think as effective on the other side – if not more. Imagine we this powerful mind could do on the rational side of the fence. The church has to realize this.
In my view your assertion assumes that they are effective, which I don’t see. Certainly the internet has not been kind to mormonism. In my view apologists and the church lose ground everyday–since the disaffected and evangelicals are telling the mormon story more and more more everyday.
Not listened to all installment just yet, but forgive me if this question was asked
Why did Daniel do the interview? Was it because of his friendship with the interviewer? Was it an olive branch to the Exmo community? Was it a challenge?
A curious Brit….
I think I’ve gone through all the podcasts now – perhaps missing some minutes here and there due to interruptions of various sorts. But I have enjoyed the experience thoroughly and it has only increased my esteem for Daniel Peterson. I particularly enjoyed (maybe emphasizing this because I just heard it) the end where Bro. Peterson is asked about his testimony and why he is a Mormon. I simply loved the things he had to say.
On another note, I was pleasantly surprised to hear DP say that he recently learned he is a descendant of Joseph Knight Sr. and Jr. I’ve been told all my life that I too am a descendant of these men. I am trying to dig out genealogy records to trace the actual lines (embarrassed to ask my Mom/Dad to do this yet again for me) but am not finding it as easy to figure out as I hoped. But I would like to figure this out a little better. Anyway, if we are very distantly related, I don’t mind that one bit. (I posted the first comment here under the moniker danithew)
Interesting, it changed my name as I had written it out. Just a note to Daniel Peterson that danithew is a moniker for Daniel Bartholomew. I took a class from him many years ago at BYU and was attending the BYU Jerusalem Center when he was there for one of the intensive Arabic sessions held there. I hometaught at least three of his students during that time (Axl Bromley and others) and learned a bit about that program during the process. About a year later I took up taking a bunch of Arabic classes at BYU (almost completing a minor) but never had DP for a professor.
DP is not saying all of you left because of sin. Some of you might have left because you’re a “fundamentalist.”
Nice.
DP, is it possible, in your world view, to accept that people leave the church because they are rational human beings who are troubled by such things as Nauvoo ahem, “polygamy”, or other restorational history that does not stand up to scrutiny? Or, for you, is it a case of – it wasn’t sin, it wasn’t because you were a fundamentalist, so it must have been because you were “offended?”
Are the honest, good, grieveous sin-free, un-offended people who leave like 2% of those who get outa dodge? Besides your antecdotal experience as a Bishop in a UVU ward, do you have any evidence to back up your impressions? Has the church done any research in this regard? It would be an interesting study to be sure…..and I think you’d be surprised.
Re: Temple Marriage problem in video 3.
Most of the rest of the world has the same problem as the US has, because where civil marriages are required by law, people have the custom of civil ceremony down at the registry in the morning dressed in suits and and then go and have a typical religious ceremony before God with the white dress and the holyness in a church. Every girl wishes to be in that church wedding with hair done up and the white dress with a train and the bridesmaids etc. All of that is a part of the church wedding not the civil courthouse or registry wedding where the certificate is handed out.
But then Catholics et al will see their children married in their church but not the mormons. A mormon girl who’s parents aren’t members has to tell them that they can’t see the church wedding because they aren’t mormons, which leads to tensions and resentments through the rest of their lives plus their non-mormon family have a good excuse to call us, that American Religion, a ‘sect’ because we wont let their daughters marry in church and its all secret and so on…..
So it isn’t quite true that those outside the US don’t face those problems with part-member families and Temple wedding issues. In fact, in many south american nations, its probably worse because you have that added “American religion or sect” stigma to deal with, and some rumours too that all missionaries work for the CIA!!!
I attended a civil wedding in Italy that was held in an LDS church. It was all white lace and flowery stuff. After the wedding and a lovely luncheon, the couple was off to the Swiss Temple several hundred miles away. How could that couple have the wedding with their non-member families present and then have the opportunity to be sealed in the temple the next day if what you say is true?
Did the Bishop marry them with the states authority? Some countries have that option of the the civil wedding performed by any qualified minister as in Australia’s case where the church signs off Bishops and Stake Presidents as ‘ministers’ so that they can do a government course and then the government gives them authority to mary people legally as recognized marriage celebrants, (note that the priesthood office of Bishop doesn’t have the keys to marry in the church sense). However in Australia’s case if a couple chooses a marriage performed by a Bishop, with all their relatives there, then they have to wait 1 year before the Temple marriage. Other countries, like Holland, have the option of bringin in a qualified marriage celebrant to a mormon church to perform the legal and lawful marriage and then the couple travels to Frankfurt or London overnight for the Temple wedding. Others like England, require marriage performed in ‘open and public buildings’ so the couple must be married in a ward building -to be legal- and the family can see that wedding and then they travel to the Temple for the sealing.
But in all south american nations that I know off and in the Phillipines, where there are more members, governments don’t recognize our bishops, catholic priests or pastors or rabbis for marriage purposes so couples must to go to a Registry first for their legal civil marriage -no matter what their religion- and that ceremony is typical with the questions of ‘do you take blah blah to be your lawfully wedded etc’ then people have a religious ceremony whereever they want to and all the family typically goes to that ceremony -usually in a catholic church due to the people typically being catholic.
For example I was married on a Friday morning at the states Registry with only some 8 people there but my wife didn’t use the white dress but a suit as all brides do, and we then traveled overnight to the Temple for the church marriage, with the white dress etc, but my wife’s mother and my inactive mother couldn’t see that church wedding. This has caused some stress with my wifes relatives and us because both they and especially her mother couldn’t see the daughter married ‘by church’ as they say (ie por iglesia) and they now argue that our church separates the family and points to this as proof of cult status and so on….
It seems to be different everywhere. There is no reason the church can’t say, go be married how your government requires, then go be married in full view of your family members, then go straight away to the temple.
I completely agree.
We should be allowed to bring in a marriage celebrant to church, to a ward building, for the wedding before everyone, and then later on send the couple to the Temple to be sealed. And the first presidency could delegate the power to marry for time ie mortality only, to all Bishops if they wanted to since they did delegate the sealing power to just some old dudes in each Temple who aren’t general authorities or anything high like stake presidents etc. There’s no reason why they can’t delegate the keys to marry for life to each and every Bishop, ie for church records, and leave the Temple sealings for eternity separate. But they currently want even marriages for life to be done inside the Temples in places where the government recognizes our church marriages.
And this affects many people who don’t complain much, like the wife of Elder Ballard, the Apostle. Her dad was inactive and so couldn’t go to the Temple when they married back in 1950 something, and listening to her tell the story, the tone of her voice, you can sense her disapointment and this some 50+ years later. (They did a podcast some time ago on the mormon radio channel)
Excellent podcast (and Video) Thank you for sharing it.
This interview will probably be one I’ll listen to again and again for some answers to the various critics’ questions. I didn’t know that Dr Peterson was so into all of this (ignorant me) but I’m relieved to hear someone who knows so much offering explanations on these ‘controversial’ issues. I’m sure no apostle could do better.
Thanks again for uploading this.
The most frustrating aspect about an apologist such as Dr. Peterson is that he can never concede any point–even in the face of insurmountable evidence (e.g., the translation of the Book of Abraham). This is understandable in a sense because, if he were to do so, he would be in jeopardy of losing his livelihood and career at BYU and FARMS. That’s what makes apologists in the employ of the Church (e.g., FARMS, the BYU Religion Department, etc.) so frustrating. Added on top of that mess is that, if they were to lose their job at FARMS or BYU, they would be unemployable elsewhere. By involving themselves with FARMS, they realize that they have sullied their academic reputation outside of BYU and, essentially, are stuck.
With this in mind, it’s easier to understand the magic tricks that Dr. Peterson (and apologists like him) employ in interviews like this. They are experts at dancing around questions and not answering questions directly. They are lawyers dressed up as academicians. For example, instead of conceding that the actual papyri that the Book of Abraham was translated from has absolutely no relation to JS’s translation, they dodge the question by talking about crocodile pictures they took in Cairo that were lost in the mail. (And did he actually defend the Book of Abraham by stating that it SEEMS ancient? In that case, I believe The Davinci Code because it SEEMS real.)
That said, I commend Dr. Peterson for doing this interview. He does seem to be a very likeable person. I truly hope that FARMS is getting further and further away from the apologist game (it’s so 1970s). I’m fine with a BYU Dept. that studies ancient texts and ancient languages, but its use as a defense agency for the Church is pretty outrageous (especially at an institution of higher academic learning–even BYU).
For example, instead of conceding that the actual papyri that the Book
of Abraham was translated from has absolutely no relation to JS’s
translation, they dodge the question by talking about crocodile pictures
they took in Cairo that were lost in the mail.
LOL.
Well said.
ya, If you go on the historical facts alone the Book of Abraham is a deal breaker for me! No spin, no hypothetical crap, no redefining what “translation” means. Just as in Book of Mormon anthropology JS is wrong in what he said, and is just as wrong in what he didn’t say! What is completly clear is that “God” is not the author of this confusion, else he would have answered the questions long ago through his prophets, seer and revelators and not the appologists they hide behind.
If I could ever give advice to D. Peterson, it is now – learn to like the smiley face man! :) It would save you a lot of time explaining your intentions. :)
I’m always amazed at how MS leaves me thinking better of the interviewee than I did before – even the ones in whom I already had a high opinion. Thanks to the Dans and JD!
This may have already been covered but I shall again. DP, you suggest in part 4 that Joseph’s poylandrous activities were a means of establishing ‘bonds of kinship’, a suggestion I was uncomfortable with. Isn’t it true to say that there may have been easier ways of doing this? If acquiring multiple wives was the only way of achieving this, wouldn’t it have been better to marry a woman from that family who was already unmarried? Even better, could he not have sealed himself to other families as a brother? If you can have multiple wives, can’t you have multiple families in a brotherly, sisterly kind of fashion. Better still, could Joseph not have established bonds of kinship like the rest of us by just making friends with people? To marry another man;s wife may not be the best method of fostering kinship. More than this, one could argue that Joseph’s polyandrous practices fell well outside the remit of his own revelation. Section 132 says that … (a) additional wives must be virgins. (b) The first wife must give her consent, (c) she must be vowed to no other man. Emma Smith was very much opposed to plural marriage and did not often give Joseph her consent and Marrying a woman who was already married meant that the woman was not a virgin and clearly she was already avowed to another man.
You speak of marriages. Does this imply weddings? Why or why not?
Making friends does not usually include a priesthood sealing ordinance. Unless, I suppose, you want it to be an Eternal friendship that is closer to a family relationship than anything else.
As far as I am aware, there was never any official, canonized “revelation” from god to anyone, including Joseph Smith, that supports the idea that marrying him (or any other LDS apostle, prophet, or important person) would result in any eternal, spiritual benefits (such as Celestial Glory, etc.) for the women, much less for their husbands and “kin”. Yet Joseph Smith promised such things as an incentive for many (all?) of the women he took as plural wives. The simplest explanation for this lack of doctrine supporting Joseph’s promises is simply that he was abusing his ecclesiastical (and charismatic) power and authority in order to get sexual access to women, and to obfuscate such otherwise obvious motives with revelatory pretensions and notions of “the New and Everlasting Covenant of [Plural] Marriage” being required for “exhaltation”.
“I don’t care if you call yourself a Mormon or not. Although, ‘Mormon’ is a pretty stellar person, and you shouldn’t be ashamed to be associated with him. But anyway, when it comes down to it, people say a lot of things and they call themselves a lot of things, and many will say Lord, Lord, drawing near to me with their lips, but their hearts were removed far from me. Therefore, what is binding upon you is that you practice pure religion, and that you don’t….. judge…… anyone!”
–(what I think “Jesus would say”)
The fact is, not very many people ”know” empirically and rationally that the testimony of Jesus according to the Book of Mormon is true. But we’ve given the capacity to find out, because we can all become rational creatures. The only way to know something in the human frame of mind is through obtaining empirical and rational conclusions to logic-based experiments. “Experimenting with God” is how you can know what God knows. This is what Jesus was all about — ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened. Set up improbable, non-coincidental, conclusive experiments in your mind when you pray, and watch and see if your faith turns into knowledge. Then you’ll really know one way or the other.
make a ”faith-attempt” memorize 3 nephi or something as the ‘intervention’
compare your ‘spirituality’ (humility, love, hope, etc…) before intervention and after intervention.
If your spirituality significantly increases or decreases — you’ll know empirically that you’re more or less spiritual, and you’ll know rationally that it was because of the intervention.
Obviously this isn’t 100% conclusive, but it would give evidence one way or the other.
At the 14:25 mark of #273, Dr. Peterson mentions a pamphlet by Oliver Cowdery. I think he is actually referring to the pamphlet “An Address to All Believers in Christ,” published by David Whitmer. Whitmer states “If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to “separate myself from among the Latter Day Saints, for as they sought to do unto me, should it be done unto them.” As we all know, Whitmer never came back to the mainline LDS church. He supposedly wrote this in 1887 to promote his Whitmerite church. Can anyone here verify the authenticity of this pamphlet? Does anyone have evidence that it is a forgery?
Jason, this pamphlet is not a forgery. In fact, it has even been quoted by current leaders of the Church. Elder Russell M. Nelson actually quoted from Whitmer’s account of the BoM translation (from said pamphlet) in a talk:
“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.” (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887, p. 12.)
This talk is found at the following link: https://lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng
Thank you! If Elder Nelson accepts the pamphlet as authentic, I see no reason why I should not, considering what the pamphlet says about Whitmer’s testimony. On the one hand we have Whitmer testifying that he saw the plates, and on the other we have him testifying with the same level of certainty that the mainline LDS church has been in apostasy since 1838. If this pamphlet is actually authentic, it becomes a logical fallacy for believing members to use the three witness’ testimony as evidence that the church is true.
Thanks for clarifying this! When I heard Dr. Peterson attribute the quotation to Cowdery and then argue it was a forgery, I had to say, “huh?” If you are correct, Dr. Peterson made a pretty big mistake here.
I wonder what Dr Peterson thinks about honesty?
Even though I don’t believe in Mormonism anymore, I have to accept that Dr. Peterson was sincere and honest throughout the podcast.
I’m in favor of it.
I appreciate the many kind comments here. Thanks.
As for certain others, I think I’ll just leave them alone.
Best wishes to all.
Like most Mormons, Dr. Peterson is just Mormon because he doesn’t want to perform salah, observe Ramadan and other commandments. Mormonism is easier for him so he would rather be lazy.
You all crack me up. The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all sin and that includes Daniel Peterson. We are all pitiful sinners. Everyone of us is a liar, thief, adulterer and murderer. Mormons act like they are more righteous then those outside the church. You have to be very prideful to say someone left the church because of sin in their lives when everyone of us sins probably hundreds of times a day. Do you think your sin is somehow not as bad as my sin? James 2:10 says, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” Did you understand that. If you tell a little white lie you break the whole law. We are all law breakers. The law was given to convict us of our sins and to bring us to the blood stained foot of the cross. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.” I don’t see the name Joseph Smith in that statement. And that is because he is not needed. Jesus completed all the work needed to get us to heaven. If you try to add to what Jesus did, you don’t believe that Jesus did it all. That is a big mistake!!! Galations 2:21 says, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” If you think you can earn your way into heaven by do good works, paying tithing or going to the temple—-good luck. You take the grace of Jesus Christ out of the equation and you are just like the Pharisees. You have to keep the whole law to save yourself. Jesus cannot help you anymore. I love Mormons but you are not as righteous as you think you are. The Bible says that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Our righteousness comes from Jesus Christ, not from anything we can do.
“I love you Mormons but you are not as righteous as you think you are.” – Really? The irony of this post is hilarious. Jerjam, you have managed to make yourself appear even more arrogant than the Mormons I know.
“We all sin and that includes Daniel Peterson. We are all pitiful
sinners. Everyone of us is a liar, thief, adulterer and murderer”
Hmmm………food for thought………..adulterer and murderer………..is that why Dr Peterson is so pale and white? all the murders he’s done???? maybe he drinks their blood too……….!!! :)
Jesus said that if you even look at a woman with lust you have already committed adultery in your heart and if you get angry with a brother you have already committed murder in your heart. God doesn’t look at our outward appearance. He looks at our heart. We can easily deceive the people around us if we want to appear righteous but God knows the truth. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Only God, and that is why it doesn’t do a bit of good to follow a bunch of rules and regulations that a man has made or that some church has made. If you are doing works because you think that you need to do them to get to heaven or that paying tithing is fire insurance, the Bible teaches otherwise. If you are doing works because a church says you have to do them, you are in bondage. Jesus came to bring us out of bondage. In John 6:28-29, the people asked Jesus, “what must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this, to believe in the one He has sent.” We are told to put our total trust in what Jesus has already done for us. He suffered and died for our sins, and rose again so that by believing in Him we have eternal life. It’s that simple. Love you!
“Jesus answered, “The work of God is this, to believe in the one He has
sent.” We are told to put our total trust in what Jesus has already done
for us.” …
Very true and I completely agree.
However you said before that Peterson was, as we all are, ‘adulterer and murderer’ which isn’t true.
I’m glad you have clarified what you really meant to say, ie the murder in your heart when you are angry with a brother etc. However there isn’t even proof that Peterson looks at a woman with ‘lust’ in his heart. I don’t think it’s fair to randomly accuse a man of these sins.
Dr. Peterson,
You replied to Stan, “I’m also puttering away at a lengthy book manuscript arguing for the historical authenticity of his resurrection.”
Do you intend to use the Book of Mormon as a primary source text? I would guess that you would see this to contain the most accurate information on the matter. Perhaps you intent to use Joseph’s first vision as well?
Or, perhaps you can you share just a couple of other documentary sources you would draw as an historian.
Thanks
JT
I disagree with Daniel Peterson on a host of things and there have been times where I’ve been disapointed with the approach he has taken in defending the Church but with all that said I really enjoyed the interview and really appreciated the candid responses Dr. Peterson gave in the interviews. Thanks Mormon Stories and thanks Dr. Peterson for being willing to do the interview.
I posted inline, but it gets buried with strings this long. I wanted to make this message clear and end at least my portion of the discussion ends on the note I want it to:
Dan,
While I dislike your style, many of your views, and even your arrogance (as I perceive it) ; I want to acknowledge that I think you are honestly doing what you think is right. Further, I sincerely and genuinely appreciate you doing this interview on Mormon Stories.
On a closing note… (at least for me)
I would love to see Mormonism flourish as it continues into the digital age. I have my doubts that it can, but if it has any chance to do so I think it will be because it finds a way to make people feel welcome. If Mormonism is to ever have 18-30 years-olds become active above a 20% rate, or if Mormonism wants the next generation to be full tithe payers at a rate anywhere close to today, it will be because our world view focuses on inclusion, not exclusion. The church will have to be honest about its history, and not blame its members for at times being surprised by its history. The church cannot hide behind pablum lessons and sanitized, correlated history.
I think Mormonism needs to have a better dialogue. It needs to be OK to ask questions and to even challenge the answers. We need to find a way to welcome people to church regardless of which box they checked on prop 8. We need to become more inviting. Not the kind of inviting where we say “change everything and fall in line.” The kind of inviting that says, “come as you are to the table and feast upon the good word of God.”
I think Mormonism has become too rigid as the world has become more tolerant. Both approaches have their pros and cons, but one down side
to rigidness is that it breeds a culture of exclusion. Most mormons define them selves by what they don’t do. We don’t drink coffee, don’t have premarital sex, etc. I think mormonism needs to create a new world view in order to grow and really represent God. We need to define ourselves by what we love, by what we embrace, and not by what we don’t do.
As we approach the world differently, it is my hope we meet at this place. Perhaps both of us will have a bit more humility, a new world view, and (God willing) a friendship when we get there.
God speed.
Dan,
I also served in a bishopric of a UVU student ward and I
rarely saw anyone leave the church for “intellectual” or “historical”
reasons. It is exactly as you said, because they don’t care about
living like a Latter Day Saint…church is too long, the law of chastity
is too strict and they certainly don’t want to go home or visiting
teaching.
I have read through some of the comments and listened
to some of these podcasts and I think the perception of why the youth
leave the church is wrong. I don’t think most of the kids are reading
history books (or googling history), i don’t think they are reading much
of anything except facebook and text messages and watching movies and
listening to music. I think the culture of the world is much more of a
problem then the history of the church will ever be.
If the
brethren address historical problems, then they have only saved a few. I
think the brethren are inspired by focusing on faith and repentance,
because it is the only thing that addresses the biggest problem.
Person,
I agree that for both young adults and for the LDS membership broadly….historical issues/disillusionment only account for a small percentage of LDS disaffection (maybe 5%…I’m just guessing).
I happen to really love that cross-section of LDS members, of course…because (in my experience) these people really love(d) the church, really took it seriously (serious enough to dig deeper), were truly intellectually curious, and often had/have very high levels of integrity in that they were/are willing to face all sorts of negative consequences for following the truth….wherever it leads. In some sense….they are deeply Mormon (since these are some of the founding values of Mormonism, in my opinion.
Also (In my opinion)….it is a real shame for the church to be losing this particular cross-section of people. It seems to me like a highly intelligent, creative, courageous bunch. But Person…I agree with you. I think the brethren have made a strategic decision to “leave the 1 to protect the 99”. It’s a strange interpretation of Jesus’ teachings…but one that definitely makes sense statistically. I honestly can’t blame them.
But it makes me sad on some level nonetheless.
John Dehlin,
I think it’s premature to conclude that disbelief accounts for a small percentage of inactive/resigned Mormons. Remember that Dr. Peterson is an LDS apologist. And apologists of any religion are notorious for distorting the data (perhaps unconsciously) in favor of their religion. By saying that people leave the church for “personal” reasons instead of intellectual reasons, the apologist is implying that the historical/scientific foundations of his religion are perfectly sound.
What we really need is a study. A large random sample of inactive/resigned Mormons should be located–and they should be given a thorough survey. The survey should include questions like…
* What was the primary reason you left the LDS church? What was the secondary reason?
* Do you believe that the Book of Mormon is a historical document?
* Do you believe that Joseph Smith was a real prophet and communicated with God?
* Do you believe that Jesus is a supernatural being?
* Do you believe that God exists?
* Would you ever consider becoming active in the LDS church again? Under what conditions?
Of course, the survey should be anonymous and should include a bunch of biographical questions (age, gender, education, socioeconomic status, born vs. converted into the church, race, religiosity of parents, etc.). I would even like to see a short personality assessment in the survey (perhaps the NEO-Five Factor Inventory).
A study like this is the only objective way to understand why people leave the LDS church. Apologists and LDS leaders should not be relied upon for this information.
I feel like the conversation is a little off track, and I think I’ve contributed so I want to clarify something. No one does ANYTHING for one reason, or even two reasons. Let’s consider the fact that I had pizza for lunch. What was the PRIMARY reason I had pizza for lunch? I don’t know. My brain doesn’t work that way; no ones does. Here are a FEW of the reasons I can think of that I ate pizza:
1. i was hungry
2. i like pizza
3. the pizza didn’t have mushrooms on it.
4. the pizza was from meridians and not dominoes or papa johns
5. my body needed protein and there was pepperoni and cheese on the pizza.
6. i needed to buy pizza for the whole office and this was cheaper.
7. last time my assistant ordered the chicken parm from meridan’s it was burnt.
8. i haven’t had pizza in weeks.
9. i know that pizza is true :) (ok i threw that in for good measure).
10. my assistant hates ordering from menus where everyone in the office selects their own item.
11. going out on my own seemed like it would take too much time
12. i wasn’t in the mood for other restaurants in town.
13. my favorite burrito shop takes too long.
14. my favorite fish taco place takes too long.
15. i don’t like salad for a full meal.
16. i have a conf call at 1PM PST and pizza is fast.
17. meridians pepperoni is really good.
18. i have good memories of meridians.
19. meridan’s pizza has good crust.
20. i had the best pizza when I was in italy and i’ve idealized pizza ever since, even though i won’t admit it.
21. i knew my wife would have vegetables at dinner.
22. our office is mostly men and they all like pizza.
What is the coefficient on any of these variables? Of all of these variables NONE of them are independent variables–making it almost impossible to call any of them primary. They all effect each other. There are probably more items like item 18 and item 20 which are playing subconscious as well as above.
Now let’s ask an infinitely more complex set of questions: why do you go to church? why are you mormon? why do you believe the things you do?
The myth that is being perpetuated is: sin and lifestyle are the only reason or even the primary reason that people leave the church. This myth fabricates a world wherein no rationale, and most importantly no righteous person, would stop attending the church. The myth implies that no one can be well intentioned, faithful, righteous, and simultaneously stop believing. The myth is created by the active latter-day saints in part to feel better about their history, about individuals shelf’s, about being peculiar, about their desire to stay, and about their own identities. I think it plays an important psychological role in making them feel better about all the abstinence (not just sex) that mormonism requires.
It is out of reverence to this myth that Thomas B Marsh gets reduced to a lesson on pride. This lesson makes believers feel better. This lesson also dodges a bullet–because 99% of mormons don’t know anything about danites and salt sermons. In part because of this myth, members of the church demonize dissenters. They simplify their stories. THEY BLAME THE DISAFFECTED (as apologists do when saying your surprise about church history is your fault). According to sanitized LDS history, William Law was a bad guy. He was an apostate. He wrote horrible things about a true prophet. He contributed to Joseph’s death. 99% of Mormons never get around to really examining the claims of the Expositor, which are mostly all true. (I mostly doubt the claim that joseph was once a prophet.) The myth prevents nearly everyone from knowing and understanding the complicated nature of reality.
Here is why I’m so passionate about this: the myth in its extreme contributes to people becoming danites. Or like the people of the 17th century who hung my grandmother as a witch in new England, the myth promotes intolerance for disbelief, and ignores sincerity and the good in people that don’t share our beliefs and opinions.
Now, another point, I’m not saying that church history is the primary reason that people leave the church. I would never say that. Instead, I would say that in my list of reasons I ate pizza for lunch, some of those are about who I am (my experiences, etc). They are foundational. In matters of religion, there are some central questions, central attributes, or variables that impact what we will do and what we will believe, which often relate to our experiences.
When I asked the Bishop why the church wouldn’t give me an accounting of what its has done with the large amount of tithing (at least to me) I’ve paid while the church asks for an accounting of my contributions every year. He had no good answers. I was bothered by that. He then said (a few weeks later), I would like you to speak in sacrament meeting on tithing. I felt uncomfortable doing so (even though I paid a full tithing) because I had may doubts about how the church manages its funds. I did a lot of soul searching and I came up with this, which is to say that my talk could be summarized this way–tithing brings us blessings because of the major pillars of the church. if joseph is a prophet, if GBH is a prophet, if the BOM is true–we should pay tithing.
Now I tell this story to illustrate my major motivations for paying tithing, which i discovered only after soul searching. One of my TBM friends has this on her facebook page: “It’s true isn’t it? Then what else matters?” No doubt, she has done like I have. In moments of trial, in moments that you want to violate the church’s morality code or not pay tithing or whatever, she asks herself, “what do i believe?”
If you think what you believe doesn’t impact (probably) all of your major decisions, I don’t think you realize how enmeshed Mormonism is inside of you. It is who you are, which effects what you do. Perhaps a deep understanding of this only comes when you try to take it out. It may only come when you try to untangle your Mormonism from who you are or who you want to be.
Is belief the primary reason people don’t go to church? Is lack of belief on historical and truth claims the primary reason people resign their membership?
I think the question is simplified and flawed and therefore should be reserved for Mormon Sunday School.
BTW, to see the myth in action. check out the top of my google search. Look at the section on pride:
https://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=bc6f9207f7c20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=32c41b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
I agree with much of what you say. However, I still think we should TRY to disentangle the factors (and the sequence of events) that leads to inactivity/resignation. A study is the only reasonable way to do this–otherwise we are just speculating.
Thanks for articulating this. As I have been peeling back layer after layer trying to understand why I am dissatisfied with mormonism, I am appreciating just how complex our motives and beliefs are.
And this is a great point you made: “I think it plays an important psychological role in making them feel
better about all the abstinence (not just sex) that mormonism requires.” Yes, abstinence truly loves company :-)
Cheers.
Dan
I just finished listening to the podcast and wish to thank you for coming on mormonstories. I found myself laughing and really enjoying the discusion. I almost posted my response last night when you seemsed to put the blame on members that had not read more, like you had, and in that way learned the tough issues of church history earlier in thier lives. Well, in my mormon upbringing those kind of books would have never been found in our house. How was I supposed to be looking for something that I did not know existed? No, I trusted the leaders that God had called to do just that, lead! There is much that we could go back and forth about, but the result would be the same. In the end, you have strenghened my belief that apologists will spin the evidence any way necessary to arrive at their pre-determined conclusion. At this point apologists are providing the strongest evidence for me that the church is in no way what I was taught it was or what it claims to be.
I hate to comment before I’ve listened to the whole thing — I’m ONLY 3 hours in. And, I haven’t read all the 189 comments ahead of me, but I must say 3 things.
1. CAGE MATCH!! CAGE MATCH!!! CAGE MATCH!!!! I want a podcast with Michael Coe and Daniel Peterson together to discuss Book of Mormon historicity.
2. The main reason I can’t wait to comment is that my head is about to explode with Mr. Peterson’s confirmation bias. Someone with his academic background should know better. He speaks of dreams that came true. How many didn’t? Same with the patriarchal blessing. How much of his blessing has not been explicitly fulfilled? How many people are told, “That blessing may not come true in this life”? Same with the example of the person who didn’t believe, but was having an affair. What about the bishop who is having an affair? Or the stake president caught in an underage sex sting? They still believe, but they are sinning.
3. I don’t think I ever got his definition of a prophet. He certainly believes strongly that Joseph Smith was a prophet. But, on Mohammad he isn’t so sure — “he might be a prophet.” What’s the difference? Both had spiritual experiences that cannot be confirmed or proven. So, why give Joseph Smith the nod, but not Mohammad? To me, it is a case of starting with the answer, then working backward to the question.
I believe Dr. Peterson addressed this. Smith makes a claim in the physical world, i.e. the golden plates, that Mohammad does not. Mohammad’s experiences were entirely personal, and therefore potentially fabricated or delusional. Smith, on the other hand, has witnesses and tangible plates that other people felt and accounted for. Dr. Peterson is correct that critics have to perform some mental gymnastics to get around this issue. I must admit that I still can’t totally get around it. Did Smith throw rocks into a chest to deceive the 8 witnesses? Did he make a prop of some kind? I believe critics have some difficulty with this issue.
Listen to Mormon Stories podcast #032. In that episode Grant Palmer explains his theory about the 8 witnesses.
Dr. Peterson,
I haven’t even listened to this yet but I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your story. We need the full breadth of experience/belief within this type of format.
Despite some of the personal attacks here I would hope that you will continue to share your perspective in a venue such as MormonStories. I want to hear about ALL aspects of Mormonism and I appreciate you doing this. I wish others like you would be willing to come on in the future as well.
As for those that want to beat you up – Folks, grow up!
Thanks Dr. Peterson! Please consider coming back for a follow up interview. I can’t wait to listen to all 4+ hours!
I live in Australia, which has a higher inactivity rate
than America,
to the tune of some 70%-75%. Verifying this, I was also the bishop of a ward
which had some 400 members of record, but only (on a good Sunday) a maximum of
100 attending (more like 60-70 most Sundays). Of that 100, I’d estimate about
1/3 to be “true believers” (those who willingly accept callings and do all the
work). Just before I left the Church for the last time, I belonged to a ward of
nearly 800 members, with an average attendance rate of about 100 (120 on a good
Sunday). There are serious (troubling) problems on both the “intellectual” and “spiritual”
planes. What I have discovered is that although the vast majority of Saints in Australia would
never have heard of “heretical” publications like Dialogue and Sunstone, and perhaps
only marginally more have heard of “FARMS” (incidental references in Church
manuals), none of them take these seriously in Sunday School. The root causes
of disaffection, though, seem to stem back to “core issues” which are “intuitively”
perceived and need no justification/explication in “scholarly journals”. In other words, no matter how you express it, “troubling
matters” will always come back to haunt many (“uneducated”) members. While the “Dialoguer”
can articulately express this discontent, average members (the majority) just
leave on “common sense” or the intuitive feeling that some thing is wrong here.
So in that way it’s kind of arbitrary in deciding who leaves for what reasons. The
inertia of inactives/apostates (using the Australia example) doesn’t necessarily
need “intellectual stimulus” to “get going”, though “intellectual stimulus” may
hasten exit. Ultimately the bottom line equation is that the Church has a
serious inactivity/disaffection problem, very serious, and the core of this
problem can’t be relegated to “enlightened people educated in the issues”.
People lose faith for real personal reasons, and most of those reasons don’t
need “scholarly exegesis” as a form of “justification”. They just fade away,
never to be heard of again, and they are *the majority*, the “silent (disaffected)
majority”. Even if this is largely due to “laziness”, it’s clear that the “doctrine”
failed to stimulate them enough to remain “valiant”. So “causes” are both
intellectual and “mundane”, and neither, ultimately, is superior, or “more
worthy of justified exit”. What is patently clear is that the Church has a
serious disaffection problem, and unless it takes steps to rectify this, it
will forever be one step forward, three steps backwards. “Straight and narrow
gate” beliefs pacify this concern, and “Elect” beliefs, in which case we should
expect the Church to be a continual shrinking class with more and more
divisions between “us and them”, until the “honest in heart” (true believers) triumph
over “evil”. Speaking for myself, I have
a far broader and more charitable view of life and the universe, not captured,
or held captive by religious “only truth”. At the serious risk of sounding like
the heretic that I truly am – Mormonism is only one spoke in the universal wheel
of progress, but not an unimportant one as far as it contributes to things like
encouraging “better families” (as one example), and its clarion 13th
Article of Faith:
“We believe in being honest, true, chaste,
benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we
follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we
have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is
anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after
these things.”
Here, I’m willing to press “add” (for a
better world, but not exclusivity). God bless Mormons.
I tend to agree. People don’t leave in droves because someone tells them something they did not know about world history. They leave because something is rotten in the state of Zion, and they can smell it (in the fakeness and shallowness that pervades too much of our modern LDS culture). A truly useful product sells itself; a useless product requires lots of marketing to make it look better than it really is, and even then only certain people will buy and keep it.
For a great many people, the Mormon gospel as imagined by the Correlation Committee is simply ineffective. People don’t feel fed by hours of “worship” that leave them jaded and beaten down. They don’t feel morally improved by continuous injunctions to pay tithing, pray for forgiveness, and obey priesthood leaders (whose human frailty did not vanish magically at the end of the nineteenth century). They don’t like having to skip family time so that they can learn how important it is that families be together forever. They don’t like people poking around in their bedrooms and judging them harshly if they find anything sexy there. They don’t like pretending that priesthood authority has made their lives better when it has not. (What happens when someone takes a real moral dilemma to priesthood leaders and they give really, really bad advice? Historically, the church always blames the victim, never itself.) They don’t like having no voice of their own at church, where everything that is said has to be approved (on some level) by the brethren (i.e. the Correlation Committee). They don’t like pretending that superficial appearances are really important: they couldn’t care less what shirt you are wearing, how many earrings you have, what kind of bodyart you may sport. They don’t feel like discussing intimate personal decisions with suits whose job is to manipulate them into looking good with guilt, shame, and fear. (It was a bad idea in the nineteenth century, and it still is today.) They couldn’t care less about impressing right-wing Christian wackos with how similar Mormon craziness is to their craziness.
I used to believe fervently in the power of correlated LDS truth. I beat myself up for years because I was not righteous enough. I maintained a squeaky clean outer facade. And then one day I woke up, exhausted, burned out, and disillusioned. I was not improving. Church made my life worse instead of better, saddling me with all kinds of tough chores and then blaming me for being a wicked sinner (because I could not make wet dreams go away, or convince other people to convert in droves, or maintain a good balance between work, family, and church without shortchanging callings). I was listless. Worse, I had made the mistake of trying to increase my faith by studying early church history, which led me to realize that I had spent years of my life learning fairy tales in Primary, Sunday School, seminary, and institute (not to mention the mission field, where I bore solemn witness that these fairy tales were as factual as anything in American history). Probably most inactives don’t bother to go as far as I did. As Tyson said above, they jump ship because the snake-oil salesman feels slimy and/or his wares didn’t seem right for them, not because they bought into his scheme hook, line, and sinker and then spent years gathering their own private databank to prove that it was true (oops!). Confronted with my own spiritual stagnation at church and the lack of anything solid in the church’s truth claims, I finally stopped coming. I still serve in a calling. I have good friends at church. I like Mormons who are happy in their beliefs, and I even like Mormon history (more since I stopped looking to it as some kind of anchor for my personal sanity). I consider myself a Mormon (since I cannot wish the last 25 years away), and there are times when I am really happy among the Saints. But I cannot in good conscience defer to church leadership when deciding what course my life will take; their record with me is spotty at best, and their historical record (if anyone chooses to examine it) is even worse. This is not because they are evil, in my mind at least, but because they are dedicated to a false view of human culture, a view which sees all of the good that comes from hierarchies (which are necessary, to some extent) and none of the bad (especially if the hierarchy in question is the modern LDS oligarchy). As leaders in Zion, they mean very well, and cause more damage on that account, especially among those who take them most seriously as spokespeople for ultimate reality.
Perhaps if the church actually acted like Christ would act, the name the church gives itself wouldn’t feel like so much false advertising to new converts.
Treat people as you would want to be treated. Don’t lie. Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you. Be fair and consistent. Practice what you preach.
I have not had a chance to read all the comments yet, so I apologize if this has already been discussed. Mr. Peterson made a comment about the different versions of the first vision being published in the Ensign. Does anybody have a reference for this article? I would love to read it.
wilddbri,
https://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=33e605481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____ https://lds.org/ensign/1996/04/joseph-smiths-testimony-of-the-first-vision?lang=eng
https://mormonthink.com/firstvisionweb.htm
thanks John
Why do people leave Mormonsim and/or go inactive?
I feel like the conversation is a little off track, and I think I’ve contributed so I want to clarify something. No one does ANYTHING for one reason, or even two reasons. Let’s consider the fact that I had pizza for lunch. What was the PRIMARY reason I had pizza for lunch? I don’t know. My brain doesn’t work that way; no ones does. Here are a FEW of the reasons I can think of that I ate pizza:
1. i was hungry
2. i like pizza
3. the pizza didn’t have mushrooms on it.
4. the pizza was from meridians and not dominoes or papa johns
5. my body needed protein and there was pepperoni and cheese on the pizza.
6. i needed to buy pizza for the whole office and this was cheaper.
7. last time my assistant ordered the chicken parm from meridan’s it was burnt.
8. i haven’t had pizza in weeks.
9. i know that pizza is true :) (ok i threw that in for good measure).
10. my assistant hates ordering from menus where everyone in the office selects their own item.
11. going out on my own seemed like it would take too much time
12. i wasn’t in the mood for other restaurants in town.
13. my favorite burrito shop takes too long.
14. my favorite fish taco place takes too long.
15. i don’t like salad for a full meal.
16. i have a conf call at 1PM PST and pizza is fast.
17. meridians pepperoni is really good.
18. i have good memories of meridians.
19. meridan’s pizza has good crust.
20. i had the best pizza when I was in italy and i’ve idealized pizza ever since, even though i won’t admit it.
21. i knew my wife would have vegetables at dinner.
22. our office is mostly men and they all like pizza.
What is the coefficient on any of these variables? Of all of these variables NONE of them are independent variables–making it almost impossible to call any of them primary. They all effect each other. There are probably more items like item 18 and item 20 which are playing subconscious as well as above.
Now let’s ask an infinitely more complex set of questions: why do you go to church? why are you mormon? why do you believe the things you do?
The myth that is being perpetuated is: sin and lifestyle are the only reason or even the primary reason that people leave the church. This myth fabricates a world wherein no rationale, and most importantly no righteous person, would stop attending the church. The myth implies that no one can be well intentioned, faithful, righteous, and simultaneously stop believing. The myth is created by the active latter-day saints in part to feel better about their history, about individuals shelf’s, about being peculiar, about their desire to stay, and about their own identities. I think it plays an important psychological role in making them feel better about all the abstinence (not just sex) that mormonism requires.
It is out of reverence to this myth that Thomas B Marsh gets reduced to a lesson on pride. This lesson makes believers feel better. This lesson also dodges a bullet–because 99% of mormons don’t know anything about danites and salt sermons. In part because of this myth, members of the church demonize dissenters. They simplify their stories. THEY BLAME THE DISAFFECTED (as apologists do when saying your surprise about church history is your fault). According to sanitized LDS history, William Law was a bad guy. He was an apostate. He wrote horrible things about a true prophet. He contributed to Joseph’s death. 99% of Mormons never get around to really examining the claims of the Expositor, which are mostly all true. (I mostly doubt the claim that joseph was once a prophet.) The myth prevents nearly everyone from knowing and understanding the complicated nature of reality.
Here is why I’m so passionate about this: the myth in its extreme contributes to people becoming danites. Or like the people of the 17th century who hung my grandmother as a witch in new England, the myth promotes intolerance for disbelief, and ignores sincerity and the good in people that don’t share our beliefs and opinions.
Now, another point, I’m not saying that church history is the primary reason that people leave the church. I would never say that. Instead, I would say that in my list of reasons I ate pizza for lunch, some of those are about who I am (my experiences, etc). They are foundational. In matters of religion, there are some central questions, central attributes, or variables that impact what we will do and what we will believe, which often relate to our experiences.
When I asked the Bishop why the church wouldn’t give me an accounting of what its has done with the large amount of tithing (at least to me) I’ve paid while the church asks for an accounting of my contributions every year. He had no good answers. I was bothered by that. He then said (a few weeks later), I would like you to speak in sacrament meeting on tithing. I felt uncomfortable doing so (even though I paid a full tithing) because I had may doubts about how the church manages its funds. I did a lot of soul searching and I came up with this, which is to say that my talk could be summarized this way–tithing brings us blessings because of the major pillars of the church. if joseph is a prophet, if GBH is a prophet, if the BOM is true–we should pay tithing.
Now I tell this story to illustrate my major motivations for paying tithing, which i discovered only after soul searching. One of my TBM friends has this on her facebook page: “It’s true isn’t it? Then what else matters?” No doubt, she has done like I have. In moments of trial, in moments that you want to violate the church’s morality code or not pay tithing or whatever, she asks herself, “what do i believe?”
If you think what you believe doesn’t impact (probably) all of your major decisions, I don’t think you realize how enmeshed Mormonism is inside of you. It is who you are, which effects what you do. Perhaps a deep understanding of this only comes when you try to take it out. It may only come when you try to untangle your Mormonism from who you are or who you want to be.
Is belief the primary reason people don’t go to church? Is lack of belief on historical and truth claims the primary reason people resign their membership?
I think the question is simplified and flawed and therefore should be reserved for Mormon Sunday School.
BTW, to see the myth in action. check out the top of my google search. Look at the section on pride:
https://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=bc6f9207f7c20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=32c41b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
Nice play with the pizza. Even simple decisions resist reduction to strict determinism.
jg,
Thanks for the post.
I liked the lesson plan. My favorite part was
As appropriate, use the following activity or one of your own to begin the lesson.
——————————–
“Write the following phrases on the chalkboard:
A pint of cream
A misspelled name
No available seating at the Kirtland Temple dedication
Tell class members that these phrases all have something in common. They are all reasons given by early Church members for their apostasy from the Church.”
—————————
I left the Church for a pint…but it warn’t no cream!
Just kidding…that was a joke… (I don’t want to feed the myth)
Cheers
JT
P.S. You comments about the perpetuated myth … good points all in my opinion. You may be interested in the aspected added to this line of thought by “Terror Management Theory” (from social psychology). I recommend the articles written by the three pioneering researchers (they pop upnat the top of a google search). If you want to watch a documentary film on the subject, it’s is called Flight From Death. The researchers wrote a popular book on the subject called In the Wake of 9/11.
These anti-intuitional arguments feel like a brick to the brain. What happened to plain and simple truth? This is the why the T. Paines of any dispensation have such visceral reactions to the smug arrogance of any apologist. I come in good faith to any position, but when I get to feelin’ wool in my eyes I invoke George W Bush, “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…I…I…you can’t be fooled again”. It goes against my god-given grain.
I try really really hard to read FARMS/FAIR positions but they reek of a Bernie Madoff Prospectus. They ooze with the too good to be true, but are mostly really really confusing. I am not edified by the alchemy. Has anyone ever really known what Nibley was saying/doing, except M. Beck? Compare the previous podcast with Dr. Coe. Amazing (great job John). Wonderfully intelligent and intuitive, a real winner. Now contrast the “so-on-and-so- forth” of this podcast. I find DP’s bracket position weak and nauseating in the light of “revealed truth” from modern day prophets: “Hold on all ye faithful I’ll come up with something in my officially unofficial position toute suite that makes this mysteryloaf taste a little more like meat, by the way how’s that 30+ year old correlated milk tasting?” What is the aramaic for scientistic?
I find DP’s view on Jefferson/Sally hemmings laughable yet sadly predictable. Fawn Brodie was lambasted for her view that Jefferson was helping himself to the help…even when modern revelation validates Fawn’s work, DP denies her any comeuppance because I assume he doesn’t like NMKMH. Where’s the love for a fellow scholar? It’s almost disgusting.
Anyhow. Why do I even know who DP is? DP is not the sustained prophet, why listen to him if he doesn’t represent the Church? According to the church, any evidence from an unoffical position is immaterial to the shinola we get on sunday. Where is an official statement from the church on these controversial subjects? Is anyone else tired of reading the disclaimers about unofficalhoodednesslessness? Why was I never taught the controversy in church or early morning institute? Instead all I got in church was to keep a picture of jesus and/or the 1st presidency near the computer to allay temptation. I’m lactose intolerant, I want real meat, sacred cow is the only thing that can nourish and strengthen my body. If the pantry is bare so be it, if it’s full, great, but don’t be queer about it…just give it to me straight. I recognize the parallel of the Danites (any relation to DP) and the official clean-hands-off approach, but when Jesus is riding shotgun with this church why do I need a dose of geocentric abrahamic cosmology to keep my faith (1.)? Is not Our Lord’s aim true? Why hasn’t any apologist been Ex’d for scurrying around doctrine when a critical light gets flipped on? It seems to me, and I’ll hold fast to this position, that all the ancient parallels, texts and phds (pronounced fuds) will never transform a foundation made from fecaliths into any majestic monolith (unless you’re a termite. oh wait that’s a good apologetic position….damn you searchfortruth!). Keep up the good work Mormon Stories…
1.: https://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=40&chapid=161
K.
lactose intolerant. Sacred cow..fecaliths into monoliths.
Your not playing nice,but thanks for the laugh. I didn’t get the fecalith right away (I’m not ashamed to say I tried looking it up before it dawned on me.
Stan
I always bristle a little when apologists say, “Well, you were lazy if you didn’t know that. I ready Fawn Brodie when I was 14. The first vision article was published in the Ensign.”
Well, #1 when I was 14 Fawn Brodie was being demonized in the church. My mother would never have allowed such an anti-Mormon book in the house and my seminary teachers warned against reading it. (Dr. Peterson and I are almost the same age, but Utah County was a different church than California. I know because I moved from CA to UT when I was 9.)
#2, the First Vision article was published in 1996. At that time, I was working 60+ hours a week at my full-time job, was spending 10+ hours a week on my church calling (scoutmaster/YM presidency, then a year later, bishopric), plus trying to keep up with my 3 kids and their school activities, sports, etc. Sure, I’m supposed to read the Ensign, but when? Sunday? Ha! 3-hour block, plus preparing next week’s lesson, plus another 3-4 hours of meetings, firesides, etc., PLUS that’s the day I’m supposed to spend time with my family doing scripture study and family activities. Saturday? Double HA! One Saturday a month I’m out with the scouts camping. The other 3, I’m trying to get all my yard work and household chores done so I don’t need to do them on the Sabbath.
So, don’t imply that I was lazy. While in the bishopric, I closely tracked my time at church and calling-related activities over a two month period of time. I averaged 15 hours a week. I could essentially have a part time job with that amount of time. I’ve tried working on a graduate degree twice and both times I just got buried in the first year because I couldn’t find the time.
My biggest regret in not leaving church years ago? I would have liked to spend more time with my kids, but I always felt like they came in 2nd after the church.
I agree with “jg”; Can we lose the Thomas B. Marsh nonsense? I think we can do better than, “a woman’s quarrel over milk strippings caused the Missouri Mormon War.” The church manuals suck from Primary through HP group. And, when a member of the stake SS presidency tells me I’m not supposed to stray from the manual, I can’t say, “Well, I’m on the committee that writes them.” No, instead I get a followup discussion with the bishop about how I’m supposed to stick to the manual. One time teaching priest quorum, I read part of a quote from the manual, but stopped short of saying we are against mixed-race marriage. (That has no place in church in the 21st century.) But, the bishop (who was following along in his manual) finished it out for me. I looked around the room and of the 7 priests 4 were from mixed race families. What does that tell those kids? That their parents disregarded the teachings of President Spencer W. Kimball, Prophet, Seer and Revelator?
Yeah, maybe it isn’t “Thus Saieth the Lord” but it was said at General Conference and then correlated into the priesthood manual. So, on what grounds do we ignore that?
First of all, I though that this was great – one of my favorite MS podcasts yet. At the intro of John’s interview with Richard Bushman he observed that Dr. Bushman had “nothing to gain and everything to lose” by coming on the MS podcast – same goes for Dr. Peterson. I just didn’t see the arrogance everyone here is ascribing, and I’m hypothesizing that at least some of those comments are carry-overs from previous internet battles.
I hesitate to offer any criticisms because the bulk of the responses have been, on whole, more critical than I would like, but my one critique is what Michael said above. I think that Dr. Peterson actually said he was “aggravated” by members who don’t know the troubling parts of church history. Until the church publishes these difficult elements in all correlated materials, especially in our missionary materials, the fault will still reside mainly with the organizational church that isn’t forthcoming and actively discourages the pursuit of truth outside of correlated materials. I appreciate that Dr. Peterson has given some effort to have more context in correlated materials, but until there is further disclosure in the materials we use daily/weekly in church, I still have nothing but sympathy for the 32 year old, active faithful member who discovers Joseph Smith’s polygamy for the first time on the internet.
notknowingbeforehand
“the fault will still reside mainly with the organizational church that
isn’t forthcoming and actively discourages the pursuit of truth outside
of correlated materials.”
I have been in the church a long time. I have heard and read quite a bit, but i have never heard or felt any discouragement from reading or pursuing truth outside of church materials.
Can you provide us with some evidence where the brethren has discouraged us from this?…anything, something from general conference, from the manuals, the scriptures, ensign…etc.
You aren’t the first that has said this. I’d like to know where this kind of thinking is coming from.
Thanks
Person – I notice that you didn’t disagree that the church isn’t forthcoming about difficult elements of its history. I am 32 years old and the bulk of my church experience comes from 3 hours of talks/lessons each Sunday, 4 years of seminary, 6 years of MIA, 2 years of missionary work, etc. So I can’t quote every speaker, teacher, Bishop, counselor that has, for 32 years, discouraged me from reading or pursuing truth outside of church materials. I left the “Mormon belt” 8 years ago, and as an adult outside the Mormon belt I have felt considerably less discouragement from reading non-approved materials. The best representation of the counsel that I received for my first 24 years is found here: https://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=74a870cb7de63110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1. I had also heard specific prohibitions from reading Sunstone, from seeking information on the Book of Mormon history/geography (see current and previous teacher/student manuals), and from researching the live’s of early church leaders in “non-faithful” ways. The basic idea was that “non-mormon” literature about Mormons equals anti-mormon, and that reading it would subject me to lies and Satan’s influence and the loss of the Holy Ghost.
Here is one piece of evidence, President Packer’s talk to Church Education employees in which he tells them to suppress truth that isn’t “useful” — .
Here is another piece of evidence, an Ensign article that calls church manuals “well-researched, correlated, and approved lessons” to which a teacher adds “prayerful study, the testimony, the setting, the enthusiasm, and, often, an adaptation of explanations and illustrations” (not extra research adding useless details like all of Joseph Smith’s other wives or the real translation of the Book of Abraham) — .
Elder Holland encourages us to “avoid a temptation that faces almost every teacher in the Church; at
least it has certainly been my experience. That is the temptation to
cover too much material” — . Stick with the script (from your well-researched, correlated, and approved lesson manuals), people!
The official Instruction for Curriculum includes no mention of ancillary research: “Leaders should see that all instructors teach the scriptures and the
words of the prophets by using approved curriculum materials.” .
The official Primary teaching manual encourages teachers to “help the children understand that the people you are talking about really lived and that the events actually happened” () because we all know that everything in all the scriptures is to be taken literally (no matter what you may have learned in university, even if that university happened to be BYU).
Another Ensign article confirms that the officially approved sources of factual information for lessons are scriptures (which we read literally, not metaphorically or critically) and manuals, to which teachers and students alike add their personal conviction (not extra research) — .
Last but not least I offer my own personal experience, which has been that we LDS consistently teach from the scriptures (which we consistently read as literal history, even when that makes reason stare) and the manuals, and that we have a tendency to look askance at outside stuff, particularly when it adds details that aren’t “useful” (i.e. promoting complacency in our naive understanding of reality).
Sorry for the HTML mess. I am not adept at entering hyperlinks, apparently.
I would delete it if I knew how. Maybe someone more adept can answer your question.
For me it was very refreshing — even inspiring — to listen to an in-depth interview with someone who is still a believer yet open to — and even embraces — honest conversation and exploration about some of the thorniest question of church history and doctrine. Love to hear more interviews like this!
I am one of those that has left because of intellectual issues. I am a blue collar construction worker (steam fitter). I don’t like it when people assume that I wanted to sin and that’s why I left. Honestly, I want to believe. It has been a painful journey to come to the conclusion that the church is not “True”. I knew the church was “True”. I had a rock solid testimony, unshakable ( I thought).
I don’t know what percentage of people leave the church for the reasons I did. However, it would be nice if the church would at least acknowledge that we exist, that it can and does happen.
I had much more to loose than to gain if the church wasn’t “True”. I wanted it to be “True”, and it turns out it never was.
P.S. Daniel Peterson would you consider doing another interview with John Dehlin in detail with some of the big issues like he did with Richard Bushman? I think Dan Witherspoon was too soft on you.
Reflections on Daniel C. Peterson’s Podcast Interview:
There is nothing that Prof Peterson said about his Mormonism than what an erudite Roman Catholic professor counterpart couldn’t say about his Roman Catholicism to affirm belief and ‘one and only’ validity for his chosen path. Sure the script and props are different, but the convictions and respective, biased ways to rationalize their brand of truth would be very similar.
When Prof Peterson adamantly stated that most people leave the LDS church because they want to live a sinful lifestyle, that’s where he lost credibility for me. That postulation is absurd in the extreme, unless his definition of sin is so broad and all encompassing that this too would be equally absurd.
Form follows function. Since leaving the church after having being an active participant in it (significant leadership roles as well many other assignments) for more than fifty years, I have enjoyed and remarkably benefitted from drinking some types of ‘real’ tea, but to be sure I didn’t leave the church to drink same. As a result, I have come to the ‘adult’ and spiritually ratified conclusion that drinking tea is not and never, under any circumstance, could be considered a sin in the eyes of the Master, Lord and God of all creation. But no doubt, to most any run-of-the-mill active Mormons who know me, if he or she were to see me drinking a cup of tea they would brand me as a sinner and conclude that this is one of the reasons why I left the church. What a bizarre, narrow minded way to think. And what’s even more bizarre is that no doubt I used to think along these lines as well!
Principally, my wife and I left the church because it was so inadequate to enrich us spiritually in a meaningful, Christian way, and afforded us with no opportunities to enrich others in any meaningful, Christian way. In fact, the LDS church became more of a source of inner turmoil rather than inner, Christ imbuing peace. There are other reasons as well and I’m sure Prof Peterson remembers the old black and white TV day’s program that started out with the introduction, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City; this is one of them.” To be sure, there may not be ‘millions’ of reasons why people leave the LDS church, but each has his or her story and most certainly they aren’t all about being offended or wanting to live a sinful lifestyle.
*****
A little girl on the street corner cries out, “Mormon kittens for sale!”
The next day the same girl is crying out, “Former Mormon kittens for sale!”
A gentlemen stops to enquire, “But just yesterday you said these were Mormon kittens.”
“Yes sir, they were,” replied the little girl, “but today they have their eyes open!”
Needless to say, the kittens didn’t become sinners.
I wonder if DP would consider an interview with John Larsen.
Ok, I feel like I should contribute here too, though there are already so many comments. For me, the process can be summed up like this……
I had a difficult time on my mission, trying to overcome myself. This encompassed overzealousness, fanaticism, extreme shame for small things, among other problems which I had. The church tried to tell me all this crazy stuff on how to be successful, which didn’t add up to me but I took it and ran, because I DID want to be successful. They also told me to ONLY read correlated material, which was MADDENING. It truly felt like I was trying to stuff my brain into a very small box. After about eighteen months, the house of cards came down. All of the frustration and lack of sense of reality came together to form a perfect storm. That’s about the time that I received Rough Stone Rolling in the mail from my mom. I read it and felt truly perplexed by Joseph’s practice of polyandry. All of the issues that I had with the church were truly on a personal basis, however. I didn’t really discuss my problems and no one else really wanted to most of the time. I thought I was the only one, but I had serious problems with just about the entire plan of salvation, because it seemed so heartless and found myself walking down the streets, looking up in the sky, and cursing God on multiple occasions. Well, when I had pretty much given up faith, that’s when things started to get better for me. I just said to myself, “To hell with this all,” because I wasn’t happy. At that point, I was only living for myself and trying to find happiness. I determined to define God based on my own conscience, because my conscience CONSISTENTLY told me that polygamy and polyandry were nonsensical and I also felt that many other aspects of the church were simply unsettling or absurd at best. (I could say much more, but won’t). Well, when I got home, I had a very small resurgence of faith, but I quickly lost it after seeing what the church does to people – the amount of brainwashing, the control, the everything that it does to people. I then read even more about church history, lost my testimony and subsequently can now say that I did, in part, leave because of history, but also I left in part because of the negative experiences I had. One caused the other. I never would have read history without all the experiences that I had, but I don’t think very many people can know the ins and outs of the church and stay fully faithful. It’s like, something’s fishy here, I’m going to find out what it is……Oh, that makes sense now.
At some point, I don’t really care why people leave though. I just want them to. I don’t care if they sin their way out or if they read their way out or if they use any other combination of the two or other factors. I want to live around authentic people again. I want my family to treat me better. I want to have left not leaving my mother feeling like she can’t ever be with me in the afterlife. And when she says this, all I can do is shake my head. She’s sweet, but has long bought into the “blind faith is a virtue” nonsense peddled by the church and even told me that I am having my problems because of sin. I hate the church for what it does to people.
On a last note, I would say that the divide that you feel, Dan, on not learning of people’s experiences better is the giant taboo that exists in Salt Lake which prevents it. It’s like, I live on Earth, you live on Kolob, and we’ll never see eye to eye, so I’m not going to try. So-called apostates are very commonly vague and pretty tolerant towards believing Mormons because they know this and they also want to be cordial. I promise if everyone just started speaking their minds, you would see a whole different picture, but our culture doesn’t tolerate that kind of honesty and I’m sure you know that. It does upset me though, I don’t like being nice to Mormons very often, because they are pretty naive and crazy, some of them, but I do because their faith is important to them which makes that important to me. The biggest problem is being nice to my parents. I have heard them say so much crap, I want to just scream, but I’m by far too passive in regards to them, by not wanting to hurt their feelings. If you were to go around telling people you are an apostate, you would see a very different picture of reality. The difference in reality can also be summed up very nicely by following politics. It’s just a very different set of realities. The far right has vastly different concepts of the world than the left and it shows.
I did appreciate your podcasts though. I almost found myself wanting to believe again, but you brought back to memory the parts of my personality that I do not wish to revisit, the parts that come about as a result of actually believing in Mormonism. But I do think that you’re a great person. Thank you so much.
Well said. I especially agree with: “One caused the other. I never would have read history without all the
experiences that I had, but I don’t think very many people can know the
ins and outs of the church and stay fully faithful. It’s like,
something’s fishy here, I’m going to find out what it is……Oh, that
makes sense now. ”
I think I agree with everything except for the sentiment that you want them to leave the church. Perhaps I’m just not there yet–though I don’t dismiss that is very reasonable for you and others to feel that way.
I say leave them be in the garden of eden (aka stage 3). Eventually, in this life or the next, they will eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The red herring about people leaving Mormonism because they prefer sleeping, beer drinking, or not reading got me to thinking about morality.
It seems to me that Mormonism, like other theisms, relies on a brilliant cultural innovation. This is turning belief in propositional supernatural claims into moral imperatives. In other words, they put belief on the same level as fairness and benevolence.
Actually, they do more than this. They bind the two together to make people think that they cannot be fair and benevolent without these beliefs, or vise-versa, which is worse. Boy of boy, what mischief this conflation has wrought!
But even this is not the full story. Humans are innately attuned to this innovation. This belief-based morality rests on on the innate human moral instinct to form hierarchal groups in which high status leaders (including their supernatural extrapolations) enjoy uncritical obedience as the default mode in the rank-and-file. This is part of the group-selection theory of human (primate) evolution.
This is terribly oversimplified. But it does suggest we step back and face our violent past and plan our futures with a more enlightened understanding of ourselves. As kokoaben put it, we don’t need a “geometric abrahamic cosmology to keep [our] faith.”
I would suggest if we really want a global community of people that can live peaceably, productively, and sustainably we should nourish a faith in evidence-based reason. And you don’t need gods to find a desire for this. It’s a completely natural one.
Thanks John for bringing some balance to MormonStories. I really appreciated this pod-cast. I hope that in the future for every church negative pod-cast we bring on someone who is a believing member to try and balance out the arguments whenever you can.
Hairypatches,
The problem isn’t a lack of desire for balance. The problem is the difficulty in finding TBMs that are willing to face tough questions.
Kudos to DanP for coming on, for sure. If you know of others (smart, interesting believers who are willing to take tough questions), please let me know about them.
So glad you enjoyed.
John
*slowly raises hand*
Seriously? If so, Carl….send me an outline of what topics you want to cover.
Very cool.
Carl,
Have you completed your credentials yet? (I haven’t stayed up to date, sorry). Perhaps you would like to be interviewed about “The LDS Argument Against Homosexual Marriage: Not A House of Cards, But Not Built on A Rock Either”?
I just finished this podcast. I found Dan Peterson to be much more likeable than my preconceived notions allowed me to believe going in. In fact, really, honest-to-goodness likeable. And I didn’t even really detect the arrogance, but maybe only because he won me over (in the same way I now really enjoy the arrogance of a Christopher Hitchens, but only *after* he had won me over.) To be clear, he didn’t win me over (or win me back) to Mormonism, but to a better understanding of where he’s coming from. Myself, I just haven’t been able to make Mormonism work for me, the water became too muddy for me to want to drink, to the point where now I find that agnostic-atheist is the best description of my worldview… but I must not be a very good atheist, because people like Peterson will occasionally cause me to doubt the non-existence of God. ;)
I don’t think I could ever believe like Peterson, but I admired his honesty, and his willingness to do the podcast… and especially the last 10 minutes, where I thought he did seem rather compassionate in his view that people who honestly seek the truth, those who “fail to perceive that Joseph was telling the truth” (I assume he also includes former Mormons in that category? I don’t know…), “they’ll be just fine…” I don’t get that kind of compassion from the vast majority of my TBM friends and family. So thanks to Dan Wotherspoon for “taking him down that road”, and for conducting an excellent interview over-all.
I’m torn about even taking the time to post this. I’m a MS contributor and an avid fan, but this podcast was infuriating. I knew apologetic goop would be coming out of Daniel Peterson’s mouth, what I didn’t count on was Dan Wutherspoon eating it all up. Dan W, you need some help with your interviewing style, plain and simple. This was not an interview. Even if you agree with the guest you should push a little. You gave him a free pass and barely even glossed over some of the issues that you wanted to hit. You let the apologist do what apologists do best, evade, smokescreen, filibuster, refer to some obscure book that has something in it without saying, false analogy, etc. I’m not saying you have to bust his balls or be a jerk, but this was just a waste to listen to. I give the host a 1/10 for this interview. Sorry to be so harsh Dan but it is hard to listen when you let the guest run around in circles for 10 minutes and not answer your poorly formed question. Also, comparing your style in this compared to the episodes with Randy and Tyson are night and day. Those were higher quality, partly because you could actually ask a few tough questions while still letting the guest speak. You had the guts to cut them off and re-direct. Not so with this one.
Now to Daniel Peterson – so much I could say. Daniel, the MAD board was one of the first places I turned after having my world rocked a few years ago, and you personally were a huge part of me losing my belief completely. Let me explain, before learning any of the tough issues, I was a fully active member and simply trying to learn more about JS and church history, with the express purpose of being a better teacher. I’d read a few church history books and was thus probably better educated on church history than 90% of most active members. When I discovered polyandry and the BoA controversies, I immediately sought out a safe forum to explain things to me, and landed at MAD. The arguments presented, including your own, and I have read a great deal of your ‘scholarship’ on subjects like the BoA, are so absurd they turned me off faster than anything else possibly could have. If learning about JS having sex with other mens’ wives cracked my testimony, it was the MAD board, FARMS, FAIR, and frankly, you personally Daniel Peterson who smashed it into a thousand small pieces. I do not doubt that you are sincere. But somewhere, perhaps consciously or unconsciously you seek to intentionally keep people from the obvious truth. You are long winded and evade questions. You reference projects or books that are either not published yet or are so obscure or your reference to them is so vague as to destroy any meaning to your answer. I’ve seen these tactics so many times on MADB. It is the apologist playbook and I don’t know how to better tell you, but it DOES NOT WORK. I have mission companions, friends, neighbors, etc who have disaffected and have told me the same thing. I hope you keep up your work because I genuinely believe you are leading more people out of the church than you are keeping in.
I could make many specific comments on infuriating things you said, but I will limit myself to one. You insinuated over and over that it is the member’s fault for not knowing the history and the tough issues. That is so unChristlike I hardly believe you can say it with a straight face. You mentioned how the church has discussed some of these things in books sold at deseret book and still you are shocked people don’t know about it. First of all, you are well-traveled but obviously have not realized there are not deseret book stores in every country or even every state. Many members never have the money or opportunity to buy church history books. The church has intentionally kept this information from being published in its printed material. You admitted you are one of the people responsible for this! When I asked my bishop about polyandry he replied that my sources were incorrect and that JS never married other mens’ wives. My parents said the same thing. These are life-long, dyed in the wool hardcore mormons Daniel. They work in the temple and serve in significant capacities. They are constantly bombarded by the church with asinine lessons and BS stories in the church news. If the church wanted to come clean on any of this stuff or make sure members know about it they could do so in about a week. The church is what keeps members from the truth, plain and simple.
What the tbm hears: bla bla bla … Stuff that makes me uncomfortable … Bla bla bla
What the tbm thinks: Poor man is trapped in sin. Probably cheating on his wife because she cheated of him first.
Great post – I agree about Dan. He so loves to roll around in the fantasy play. He could have drilled down to one hard fact – just once – at any point. Dan is an amazing intellectual flirt – he teases and teases but never actually touches.
Disquaboom – FTW
Other than your harsh review of Dan W, I agree and I’m glad you took the time to post.
I agree with what you say. I was also thinking to myself a couple of times that Dan Wotherspoon let DP away far too easy on many questions, and that JD probably would have done a better job. Dehlin is just a master at asking all the right questions… :). I generally like Wotherspoon’s interviews and panel discussions alot, and even if he missed the mark a bit on this one, it was still a great podcast.
You could tell DW and DP where friends, so DW probably didn’t want to press him too hard, and I’m thinking DP probably wouldn’t have agreed to come on with JD (just speculating here…). Even so I enjoyed this very much, and think it gives a good image of the mindset of DP and the way he handles things. There wouldn’t be any ‘new’ information with deeper questioning, all the answers apologetics are able to give is readily available on FAIR boards and the like, so I’m not too annoyed that the interview didn’t dig deeper.
At least we got a good taste of DP’s personality, and way of reasoning, in a way that is not possible in just written form. I’m more sympathetic towards DP now, even though I don’t agree on most of his opinions and reasoning.
I don’t understand why the brethren are always blamed so much. If I had decided to leave the church and was angry at some things, I would blame the scriptures. I have had personal experiences with higher church authorities and the words from the scriptures seem to be the main motivation for what is done.
Alma, Nephi, Moses, Luke and John are never mentioned on this website as a source of blame. If polygamy is a problem, why isn’t Abraham thought of first.
If the law of chastity is too strict, then why not think of Christ? He held the highest standard by condemning lust. Lust is the first thought, the first speck of unlawful sexuality. He loved everyone, but he told the people to sin no more.
If the church contains organization or correlation, then look to the book of Acts, where the church started making an organization and the saints burned books about “strange arts.”
If someone has a problem with certain races not having the same privileges, then the old and new testament contain accounts of that.
The brethren don’t overlap the scriptures much. And if the brethren had the choice, they would like the members to be reading the scriptures.
What is the view on this? Is this group throwing out the scriptures and the brethren. Or, just the brethren. I’m trying to understand this group.
Person,
I think we’re just trying to make sense of it all. Personally, I’ll accept truth wherever it comes (in or out of the church)…but I’m also not scared to reject things (even from prophets or scripture) if those things violate my sense of right/wrong.
John
Personally, I reject all authority whose only mandate is, “God said so.” Scripture contains some really bad pictures of God. (Read the Old Testament: Abraham is a problem, and he is by no means the only one; those ancient Israelites were often pretty insane. Would you kill a whole tribe of people–men, women, and children–merely because God, in the form of an angry prophet, said so?) Modern prophets also have drawn some bad pictures of God. (Polygamy as practiced by our Mormon forefathers was pretty much a moral and social disaster, and it continues to be such among many of the Mormons who still practice it today.)
When someone tells you to do something merely because “God said so,” they are tacitly admitting that they have no compelling reason to advocate for the behavior they want to encourage. I don’t do things for which I can find no compelling reason. I don’t kill, or have sex, or give away money, time, or resources on a whim (because someone says, “Do this!” and then invokes God). If I am not personally, rationally convinced that an action is morally correct, I will never do it. Never. God himself cannot get me to do things for no good reason.
I’ve been away for several days, and haven’t been keeping up here. I still haven’t read most of the new posts.
I’m really baffled, though, by the way some here are reacting to my claim that most people are inactive in the Church because of non-intellectual issues.
This seems utterly obvious and commonsensical to me. Most people — Mormon and non-Mormon alike — are relatively UNINTERESTED in intellectual issues. They don’t spend much time, if any, on reading about history or on seriously pondering theology and philosophy.
I don’t deny for a minute, and have never denied, that there are people who do indeed withdraw from activity in the Church because of what they see as historical/theological or other (for lack of a better word) intellectual problems. I know a number of such people.
But I think such people are in a distinct minority among all those who are inactive in the Church — both because of my sense of people generally and because of my specific experience (as ordinary member, home teacher, bishop, etc., as an “apologist,” and as part of an extended Mormon family with lots of inactives in it) with people who have withdrawn from participation in Mormonism.
There are a host of factors potentially contributing to a decision to distance oneself from Mormonism. These include such things as violation of commandments, desire to live a different way of life, sheer lack of interest in religious issues, taking offense, dissatisfaction with meetings, peer pressure, desire to show independence from parents and family, desire to spend time differently and focus on different things, inadequate social fit, and etc. Historical, theological, and other “intellectual” issues are certainly among those potential factors. I do not, and have not, denied that.
Dan – I think that you might solve a lot of problems simply by being a bit more careful/nuanced in your argument that many Mormons are uninformed of factual/accurate LDS history due to some fault of their own.
I think that if you can get to an objective and empathetic place, you’ll concede that there are SIGNIFICANT institutional and cultural barriers that keep many people from learning factual church history….including the church’s own lack of consistent candor (especially CES and in the manuals). You touched on this in your interview (to your credit), but I think that you could be a bit more effective in showing empathy in this regard…to little negative personal or institutional cost.
If you could find a way to do this, I think you’d produce a lot more light than heat in these conversations.
John, how would
suggest that Dan be “more careful/nuanced”? He’s honestly
calling it as he sees it. DCP wrote: “Historical, theological, and other ‘intellectual’
issues are certainly among those potential factors. I do not, and have
not, denied that…I don’t deny for a minute, and have never denied, that there
are people who do indeed withdraw from activity in the Church because of what
they see as historical/theological or other (for lack of a better word)
intellectual problems. I know a number of such people.” I don’t see how
he can be any clearer, or “nuanced”, unless he changes his position and says, “yeah,
okay, most leave because of ‘intellectual’ issues”, which he clearly doesn’t
believe. I stated earlier that my
position is something like 50-50, that I frankly didn’t like the “Church
lifestyle” (meaning all the Church “demands” and requirements, many of which I
found “Pharisaic” [i.e., not like Christ], and stated that in my name-removal
request 24 years ago). There are people
who know all of the troubling issues, yet remain stalwarts in Mormonism. Maybe
this goes back to “spiritual experiences” that keep them active, and over-ride
the problems? It’s not a simple and straightforward issue, when you look at it
from both sides.
Dr. Peterson,
For what it is worth, I agree that relatively few leave the church for “intellectual” reasons.
But this “slacker apostate”statistic (for lack of a better shorthand term) is beside the point, especially in light of the utility that some members get out of it.
By this I mean
the tendency to take these common motivations as evidence for the Church being
true, or as a distraction from a lack of substance in their own faith, or as a distraction from the possibility that there may be valid (even moral) reasons
for apostasy, etc.
Maybe I’m reading too much into some conversations I’ve heard (and participated in), but I know it can be personally (not to mention institutionally) convenient to ascribe every loss of faith to a moral failing associated with worldly desires. And if this were not enough, such simplistic explanations are central to LDS doctrine as delivered by its scripture,
Which makes this statistic a red herring. What
matters more is whether a person can, in principle, leave the LDS Church based
on an honest, reasonable, and circumspect assessment of its foundational claims, doctrine, and associated moral issues.
I think there is ample evidence to conclude that a person can -and this constitutes the exception that disproves the facile
rule. I’d be interested in whether you agree or would add any qualifications.
Perhaps the “push back” from these “exceptional” apostates (or their advocates) is a response to their experience of unfair prejudice stemming from this facile rule. Perhaps they feel demeaned by a dominant
culture that would take them them as spiritual terrorists if they openly expressed their hard-won honest convictions. Or perhaps they are simply frustrated by their own commitment to keeping their mouths shut out of concern for upsetting loved ones – while the same consideration is not extended to them.
Dan,
Don’t you think that many people stay in the church for the same reason? Because they are UNINTERESTED in intellectual issues.
Regarding the difficult challenges to our religion, one extremely bright friend admitted that he would simply “become an ostrich” and bury his head in the sand. For a Mormon, the end game may not be certainty, but certainty is definitely the path; it is the way of life. The Mormon Church has rebranded certainty, has named it “a testimony,” and has made it not only a virtue, but also a measurement of one’s spirituality and a badge of devotion. In sermons and lessons, you will hear the rhetorical question, “How strong is your testimony?” or the assertion, “Your testimony in the gospel of Jesus Christ is your most sacred possession.” It’s a measurement of a Mormon’s absolute certainty and personal commitment to the Gospel. Most Mormons believe that profound doubt is evidence of a lost testimony which to them is really a loss of “light and truth” (e.g., D&C 93: “That wicked one cometh to take away light and truth, through disobedience.”). In Mormonism, if a member of the church falls into sin and self-destruction and falls away from the church, it is said of him, “he has lost his testimony.” There is a real fear of expressing doubt or pursuing studies of “anti-Mormon” literature that could possibly lead to doubt. To the community and family and friends, doubt equals a lost testimony which is evidence of sin and disobedience and being deceived by Satan. Consequently, Mormons cling to their certainty, their testimony, over just about anything—including the truth.
In the Introduction to Pascal’s Penseés, T.S. Eliot noted:
“The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith; and when the ordinary man calls himself a skeptic or an unbeliever, that is ordinarily a simple pose, cloaking a disinclination to think anything out to a conclusion.”
A large portion of the world is hopelessly interred in the web of their lives, living honest, productive, but intellectually incurious and unquestioning lives. Intellectually asthmatic, they lack the endurance to defend their faith rigorously against criticism, or alternatively, to thoroughly deconstruct the illusions upon which their faith is built. As Eliot noted, this tepid existence neither doubts nor believes much. Could it be that a Mormon’s rejection of doubt and skepticism is similar to the skeptic’s casual indifference toward faith? Could it be that a Mormon’s close-minded belief evidences an indolent disinclination to believe strongly enough to carefully consider legitimate challenges one’s belief?
When I tried giving the church one last chance, after years of inactivity, I had an interview with the bishop. I stated my reasons for leaving specifically due to the loss of my belief and explicitly mentioned “anti-Mormon literature” (although most of it was really from church sources, but I was mostly trying to relate the concept to him) as the main reasons. His response to this was, “they make that stuff up because they want to sleep with other women.”
I was shocked. It’s like this guy was living in another century.
It was at that point that I knew trying to talk to this bishop about the myriad of issues that remained obstacles to my belief was pointless and would be a waste of time. I then appealed to different arguments that he *would* understand, the main one being “offended.” I shouldn’t have done that, unfortunately, because he eventually got the wrong idea about why I left. And I am 100% positive he relayed this “offended” bit to everybody else in various meetings. It makes me wonder how many other church members list being “offended” as their reason for leaving as well simply because the person they are talking with would not be able to understand anything else. I would bet there are many.
That you take it so for granted is the first sign it is a “hidden bias” in perception on your part. See my comments above for explication. Taken in the context of the ideas I presented, your position is simply a form of demonizing and dismissing MOST who are disaffected with the Church as “sinners”. It is truly surprising to find you unable to wrap your highly educated mind around this problem.
Dan- I think in addition to the distinction John Dehlin asks for in response to your surprise at the amount of reaction to your assertion that most are inactive because of sin, I believe one other distinction gets to the heart of the disconnect. I think when you are asserting people go “inactive”, most of us are hearing “most people leave the church”. These are not the same thing. If we are going to talk about 18 to 24 year olds in your student wards, I’m sure your experience regarding why they went “inactive” was indicative of that demographic(18 to 24 year old singles after all, can’t easily fight raging hormones).
However, if we are talking about “leaving the church”, that is a different demographic. People that have made the decision to so something as big as either officially or unofficially leave the church never to return, do so with conviction. This conviction only comes through a powerful epiphany that the church is not what it claims to be. In my own family, four of the five of my siblings and I have left the church in the last three years. Each one of us arrived at the same conclusion that the church is not true without speaking to one another about these issues until after a year or so of church history study and personal turmoil. My experience with others I have talked to that have left is similar. My siblings and I are in our late 30s and 40s. We have families and therefore stand much more to lose than gain as a result of leaving the church. In addition we were all worthy temple recommend holders when we left and didn’t rush out to “sin” at the first chance we had. My experience is that most people leave the church with this kind of conviction, only when evidence is sufficient to support such conviction.
If you want to say that many of the 18 to 30 year old singles even, go “inactive” because of lifestyle issues, I think I can live with that. However, when most of the people I know share their pain and loss at losing what was such a valued part of their life, I think we have to acknowledge that. Especially when the only reason these people that truly love the church would leave is because the church(and its apologists) couldn’t answer their questions. Dan, do you know what the church does when you send in a letter with concerns over historical issues that are so consequential as to threaten a resignation of membership? They send you a pamphlet inviting you to return. In other words the church’s response was we will not/cannot answer your questions, so please “turn it off” and come back and the whole thing will be forgotten. I would expect more from “the one and only true church”.
I don’t do empathy, apparently.
The fact is that most members don’t know much about their history.
Books on Mormon history sell a few hundred copies. A few thousand if they’re really successful. Journals devoted wholly or in part to Mormon history have subscriber lists in the same numerical range. This in a Church with millions of members.
Thus, it’s very easy for members to be blindsided by things that they could have known.
A case in point: I spent an hour or so on the phone with a very angry and profoundly disaffected member several years ago, who had just learned that there are multiple accounts of the First Vision. The Church, he said, had kept this fact from him. I pointed out that BYU Studies and Dialogue and the Journal of Mormon History and even the Ensign and other journals had published these accounts and had published discussions of them, and that at least two or three books from Deseret Book and Bookcraft had treated the subject and published the texts. He continued, nonetheless, to insist that the Church had kept him in the dark.
This strikes me as quite unjust.
Could the Church do a better job of teaching its history? Yes. Could the general membership be more curious about the history of the Church? Absolutely yes. There are excellent resources that are very easily accessible.
And, for the record, I should not close without saying that, in my judgment, a deep and detailed knowledge of Mormon history is not at all antithetical to a firm conviction of the truth of Mormon claims.
Dan – I agree that both the church and the members could do better.
But I think you and I both know that the church could fix this problem in less than a year if it wanted to. It could simply craft curriculum that told a more accurate, complete historical story, and then ask its CES instructors, BYU religion faculty, sunday school teachers, etc. to “stick with the manuals” — and then dedicate a general conference or two to setting the historical record straight. Easy peasy.
But the church doesn’t do this. And I believe that it doesn’t do this because (on average) “a deep and detailed knowledge of Mormon history…” IS QUITE OFTEN (for many, many people) “antithetical to a firm conviction of the truth of Mormon claims.” Thousands and thousands of people are losing their faith in the church each year over this stuff, and the numbers are only growing by my estimation.
If the history didn’t diminish faith (on average), then I firmly believe that the church would teach it with vigor (what would it have to lose?). For example, when the church thought that Meso-American archeology supported the Book of Mormon, they proclaimed it from the proverbial rooftops (until credible archeologists spoiled the party).
I believe that you and I both know that for the average member….learning about peep stones, polyandry, Mountain Meadows, Elijah Abel, the Masonic
Stuff, Book of Abraham stuff, post-manifesto polygamy, Kinderhook plates,
multiple first vision stories, Danites, ERA amendment backstory, Nauvoo
Expositor, electro-shock therapy for gays at BYU, etc. (in aggregate) is
quite often fatal to traditional LDS testimonies (more often than not). And
that’s (in my view) why the brethren don’t encourage the teaching of the
factual history. And I believe it’s why FAIR/FARMS folks and General
Authorities tend to only speak publicly in places where they can control the
conversation (as much as is humanly possible, anyway).
Members could do more, yes. But I believe that the brethren could largely
fix this problem in about 1 year…but they choose not to do so….for
pretty clear reasons, I believe.
Though I will grant you that there are exceptions to this rule…and I see
you (sincerely) as a glorious exception…and I’m glad you are around. I,
for one, want the church to succeed and thrive (though in a way that does
less damage to people on the margins)…and candor like the type you are
trying to display in this podcast is likely the church’s only long-term hope
for this problem. So again…major kudos to you for coming on the podcast.
Boyd K Packer in April 2011 GC said:
“Around
us we see members of the Church who have become offended. Some take
offense at incidents in the history of the Church or its leaders and
suffer their whole lives, unable to get past the mistakes of others.
They do not leave it alone. They fall into inactivity.
That
attitude is somewhat like a man being hit by a club. Offended, he takes
up a club and beats himself over the head with it all the days of his
life. How foolish! How sad! That kind of revenge is self-inflicting. If
you have been offended, forgive, forget it, and leave it alone.”
Leave it alone. That is the message the church leadership sends. And why are we counseled to “leave it alone”? I think you nailed it above when you said: “And I believe that it doesn’t do this because (on average) “a deep and
detailed knowledge of Mormon history…” IS QUITE OFTEN (for many, many
people) “antithetical to a firm conviction of the truth of Mormon
claims.” Thousands and thousands of people are losing their faith in
the church each year over this stuff, and the numbers are only growing
by my estimation.”
Furthermore, it might be safe to say that many people would not be “offended” by the true historical narrative if it was presented in a way that is truthful and accurate. I think for many people, the trouble comes and people are “offended” when they come across this true narrative after being taught a whitewashed one for years.
I should also add: I believe we are told to leave it alone more for the benefit of the LDS church than for our own.
Kay, when you’re feeling certain feelings that just don’t seem right, treat those pesky feelings like a reading light and turn it off!
…and leave it alone…
Now now Dan, in your interview you shared an experience about a gentleman who had a list of concerns that you felt were meager in comparison to the problems you knew of…and remember, this is for posterity, so be honest….Did you volunteer that more challenging information in light of being open and fair, especially in light of the counsel in our gospel principles manuals of, “We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth.”?
I don’t believe that we agree.
Dan,
I don’t expect you to ever admit publicly that you agree with me on anything. No worries.
John
Dan,
Given your claim that “A deep and detailed knowledge of Mormon history is not at all antithetical to a firm conviction of the truth of Mormon claims.”….I have a question for you.
Has FARMS/FAIR (or have you) ever considered providing a comprehensive, factual, yet faith-inspiring curriculum or treatment of LDS church history/doctrine — to help build awareness of accurate historical information (in a faithful way) amongst the general membership?
It seems like that would be infinitely more valuable to the general membership than is the realm where you are currently dwelling (e.g. arguing about your own personality traits, focusing on the plausible deniability of somewhat esoteric minutia, etc).
Just a thought. With deep respect.
John
Thankyou for this question John.
As a red-pill Mormon who still attends, I would love to see a legitimate history like this, but this could not be faith promoting unless it were dishonestly incomplete as it remains today. How would this endeavor be possible? I just don’t get how a fully aware Mormon continues to believe in the context of the full truth.
I understand how it works for guys like Dan. He’s fully baked. Too old. You can’t change the ingredients after the cake is in the oven; you can only change the ingredients while it’s still in the mixing bowl.
I’m listening to Dan discuss how he’s trying to reconcile the Adam God theory privately in his own mind and I just have to laugh. He’s so baked. If he’s trying to reconcile that, maybe he’s also trying to substantiate quakers on the moon, blood atonement, etc. This helps me understand how he still believes in the BoM’s historical authenticity and still argues for it. Trying Trying Trying…
Dan P wrote: “Most people — Mormon and non-Mormon alike — are relatively UNINTERESTED in intellectual issues. They don’t spend much time, if any, on reading about history or on seriously pondering theology and philosophy.”
Wait — is this really accurate? By the age of 21, a typical returned missionary who was active in church growing up, had some family home evening, graduated from seminary, and spent the required amount of time studying/teaching during the mission will have spent somewhere along the lines of 5,000-10,000 hours engaged in the historical, theological, spiritual, scriptural, and philosophical underpinnings of the Church. Contrary to what you’ve stated, this person is VERY INTERESTED in all of these things but wholly subscribes to the Church’s correlated approach to learning these things, i.e — follow the lessons, manuals, study guides, and conference talks and you’ve got everything you need. I doubt the Church would say that this approach is somehow unintellectual or unserious —- to the contrary, the Church makes all of this really serious business, with constant reminders to focus on the most important things and not delve into “speculation”. This person and his cohorts get up every Fast Sunday and testify about how grateful they are for their KNOWLEDGE and then proceed to list the things they KNOW. They talk about how they wish the rest of the world could learn all of this TRUTH as well and how they have no idea where they’d be in life without this KNOWLEDGE. If we believe what members say, their interest in this stuff is huge, but they stay within proscribed confines delineated by the Church. If the Church suddenly switched gears and stopped deifying correlated materials and demonizing uncorrelated ones, you might see more exploration from the members (the kind of exploration you deem as INTERESTED). But until such a switch by the Church, I believe it’s totally inaccurate to measure members’ INTEREST in these things by their extra-correlative activities.
Maybe you are right, though, and I’m giving this hypothetical 21-year old and his friends too much credit They’re probably just still in Church because of their desire to live a different way of life, sheer lack of interest in religious issues, peer pressure, desire to show allegiance to parents and family, desire to spend time differently and focus on different things, inadequate social fit, and etc.
B.H. Roberts had this 1922 comment to contribute to this discussion.
This passage is found in his “Book of Mormon Difficulties: A Study.”It comes at the end of his discussion of the problem Native American languages deriving from Hebrew (which includes a negative assessment of the limited geography solution based of textual evidence). Here Roberts is outlining possible responses for the Church in the face of this unresolved problem.
“And further we say … we place our revealed truths in the Book of Mormon against the alleged facts resulting from the … the deductions of their science, and calmly await the vindication we feel sure that time will bring to the Book of Mormon. Much could be said for the boldness and perhaps the honesty of such an answer, but is the reasonableness or wisdom of of such an answer equally apparent? It certainly would have no effect upon the educated class throughout the world. It would only excite ridicule and contempt in them… What would be the effect of such an answer upon the minds of our youth? Our youth, already so willing to follow in so many other branches of learning the deductions of the sciences in the high school and college coursesIs silence the answer? … Would not silence be looked upon as a confession of inability to make an effective answer?”B. H. Roberts wrote in a 1927 letter to the Apostle Richard R. Lyons
“… I reminded you …that what I had presented did not constitute all of our B. of M. problems, that there were others. You then asked, “Well, will these help solve our present problems or will it increase our problems.” At which you said (and I thought rather lightly) “Well, I don’t see why we should bother with them then.”
Silence was the apparent official answer, whether in the form of not publishing Robert’s work, or taking “no official position,” or through “correlation.”
And here we are a full decade into the 21st century.
I missed a piece of the portion of the B. H. Roberts to Richard R. Lyons letter. The passage should read:
“… I [Roberts] reminded you [Lyons] …that what I had presented did not constitute all of our B. of M. problems, that there were others. You then asked, “Well, will these help solve our present problems or will it increase our difficulties?” to which I [Roberts] replied, “It would very greatly increase our problems.” At which you said (and I thought rather lightly) “Well, I don’t see why we should bother with them then.”
I do want to say to Dan, kudos for braving this forum. Although I find some of your thoughts repulsive and/or ridiculous (I will only elaborate if Dan insists but I’m late to the message board), I appreciated the opportunity to finally hear a heavy weight LDS apologist give their take on the church and the world in the most candid forum I’ve ever seen an apologist brave.
But I have to say one thing, if both the Dans on this podcast maintain credulity to the efficacy of “divining rods” I say with the utmost urgency that you both are absolutely blowing a golden opportunity to make one million dollars. Do you not need the money? I could certainly use it. Go to James Randi’s website the jref (James Randi education foundation) and look up the million dollar challenge. You both give lip service to science, but a simple, controlled SCIENTIFIC experiment would be set up by Randi to give you the opportunity to demonstrate how useful these magical divining rods just are. Then we wouldn’t have to think how silly Joseph’s magical practices were. I’m just saying…
Randy Snyder: “But I have to say one thing, if both the Dans on this podcast maintain
credulity to the efficacy of ‘divining rods’ I say with the utmost
urgency that you both are absolutely blowing a golden opportunity to
make one million dollars.”
I’ve spend time on Randy’s forum, and I can tell you his money is safe. I think Victor Zammit’s is too: https://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/challenge.html
Oh please Ray. The claims of divining rods are absolutely falsifiable under controlled experimental conditions. The body of anecdotal evidence for an afterlife means nothing scientifically and skeptics aren’t making any positive claims about any afterlife. You seriously don’t have an understanding of where the burden of proof lies. When someone makes a positive claim like divining rods find water and there is an afterlife, they need to bring forward more than stories and not say “neener neener neener, you can’t prove these amazing stories aren’t true”. You could “prove” UFO’s with the exact same crap. If these people had such compelling evidence of the afterlife, why isn’t it being published in peer reviewed journals. What a pathetic and lame attempt to discredit James Randi who offers a simple challenge not some ridiculous nebulous challenge of “discrediting our secret bullshit that we won’t show publically.” LMAO.
Randy Snyder: “If these people had such compelling evidence of the afterlife, why isn’t it being published in peer reviewed journals.”
It is, and has been now for over 30 years. Have you read any of it? But more pertinent to the point of the commentary here on the DCP interview is the eagerness to dismiss out of hand anything one considers “impossible”. Maybe because it gets too close to the heart of Joseph Smith’s own claims? I don’t necessarily agree with all of the following review: https://www.2think.org/religionmagic.shtml but Thomas’ book “Religion and the Decline of Magic” (which I encountered in the ’80s) would, IMO, have to be a starter for anyone wanting to understand the phenomenon. Also D. Michael Quinn’s “Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview”. Quinn, the “hero” of many “ex-Mos”, would not dismiss this out of hand, but DCP is hauled over the coals simply because of who he is. I’ve noticed a lack of objectivity in many of the comments on this thread, and outright ignorance in some cases, of what the Church actually claims. And no, I’m not an “apologist”.
I have looked into the “evidence” of an afterlife. Do you think I don’t want there to be an afterlife??? You think I have some a priori desire to have my consciousness become extinct in no more than 50 years? But there is nothing in the peer reviewed scientific journals that shows compelling evidence of it. Please, give me links to studies and if you want, I’ll show you in detail why each one you send me is not evidence that is relevant or compelling.
I reject your straw man characterization of my position of rejecting claims out of hand simply because I have decided, without weighing evidence, that something is “impossible”. Paint me as a rigid, dogmatic black and white thinker and then tear it down. Classic.And I’m not sure if you are saying that you believe in divining rods too? Am I correct there? AND are you implying that if divining rods turned out to work, I would not like that because it would hit too close to the heart of Joseph’s claims? Seriously? So you think that if divining rods were real, then I’d have to reconsider my position that Joseph was a fraud? How weak do you think the rational argument and evidence Joseph was a fraud is??? So if you are claiming divining rods are real, it couldn’t be more simple to set up a double blind experiment. And no, I don’t accept DCP’s anecdote as real evidence. If I have to explain why then you need to bone up on the scientific method.
Are you Australian? The most brilliant comedian in the world, Tim Minchin, hails from down under. You should check him out.
Randy Snyder: “Please, give me links to studies and if you want, I’ll show you in
detail why each one you send me is not evidence that is relevant or
compelling.”
I don’t think this thread is the place to debate all this, and I’m sure John wouldn’t appreciate it either. Interesting, though, that you’re claiming that you can refute *every* study *before* you’ve read them. I rest my case.
Come on. Don’t back down now. Just do this, give me your BEST study. John won’t care. Hell, I’ll give you my email address if you want. I know I can display why you won’t be able to provide any study providing scientific evidence of an afterlife because nothing has ever been performed. If it had, it would have been proclaimed from the rooftops. And I have spent extensive time exploring this topic. So please, don’t try to duck away with some lame quip.
Randy Snyder: “Come on. Don’t back down now. Just do this, give me your BEST study.”
I don’t consider any one study “the best”, but you’ll find hundreds of them here: https://iands.org/home.html
It’s the same with the UFO phenomenon, dismissed out of hand by many who’ve *never* scrutinised it closely, nor with an open mind. That has been my experience on message boards, and I consider it a waste of time. If you consider that a “backdown”, then bear in mind that a “backdown” doesn’t disprove anything. I’m sure I can write your reply for you. I done this ad nauseam in the past, and the skeptics fail to be convinced, not because there’s no truth “out there”, but because they already have their minds made up. A very large number of NDE and UFO experts today began as total skeptics, including Raymond Moody (NDEs). Why some people become open to more objective investigation is not a phenomenon I completely understand – but I know that *many* do.
I’ll check it out but for you, here’s an article assessing the progress (or actual lack of any progress) of the field of psi. Breaks it down tremendously: https://www.imprint.co.uk/pdf/Alcock-editorial.pdf
But if you believe in UFO’s (and I checked out further the original website you posted and there doesn’t seem to be anything that guy doesn’t believe in) then you have a level of credulity that isn’t healthy IMO. Just don’t spend too much money on pseudoscience or alternative medicine and if you do contract some life threatening condition please, please put your life in the hands of evidence based medicine.
Randy Snyder: “But if you believe in UFO’s (and I checked out further the original
website you posted and there doesn’t seem to be anything that guy
doesn’t believe in) then you have a level of credulity that isn’t
healthy IMO.”
I don’t “believe” in UFOs. I’m 100% certain they are real. But feel free to add another You Tube clip if that makes you happy.
I’m quite certain I’m wasting my time, once again (and I honestly don’t know why, but it won’t go on much longer), but here goes anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vyVe-6YdUk
100% certain UFO’s exist? I rest my case as well then. Good night.
Randy Snyder: “100% certain UFO’s exist? I rest my case as well then. Good night.”
As they say, “seeing is believing”. And yes, it’s not “good night” for me, but it’s not long before I have to start work.
Ray, I didn’t see if you’re a fan of the divining rod or not. Can you clarify for me before I break mine out to see if it detects vapid evidence like what you have offered? If you want to disprove Randy, give him some studies, I’d be interested if there are any. I know there have been studies done on diving rods under controlled conditions, and they fared no better than chance. Here’s just one article with some good references https://skepdic.com/dowsing.html as well as the best explanation for why it occurs, the Ideomotor effect, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_effect And here’s a fun video from Michael Shermer displaying the dangers of believing that divining rods actually work https://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception.html. Now you try…..
Tyson: “Ray, I didn’t see if you’re a fan of the divining rod or not.”
I’m a fan of discovering the truth, wherever it may lie, and I keep an open mind on many things (maybe even most):
https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,741023-1,00.html
If you’re a fan of discovering truth, then your best tool is science. An open mind means being open to all the evidence, especially the evidence that disproves your belief (, and when there is a preponderance of evidence (in dowsing, like all other ideomotor events) it has been tested again and again, but in an intellectually honest scenario, and always with the same result….negative. Anecdotes (like the 1931 time article??) are the worst type of evidence (e.g. crop circles or floating lights over AZ a few years ago). Since you’re fond of quotes, here’s one that starts out from a website where notable scientists discuss what they have changed their minds about….
When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.When God changes your mind, that’s faith.When facts change your mind, that’s science.
Give it a whirl and ratio your beliefs to the strength of the evidence…..
https://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html
Blast…My apologies. I hate bad grammar, and the fact that that hating bad grammar is such a predictable precursor to my ideology. https://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-best-questions-for-first-dates/
Tyson: “If you’re a fan of discovering truth, then your best tool is science.
An open mind means being open to all the evidence, especially the
evidence that disproves your belief…”
On that we agree.
Tyson: “floating lights over AZ a few years ago….”
You’re talking about the “Arizona lights” which began in the late ’90s? You have a definitive explanation for that? Various explanations have been offered, including “flares”, “aircraft”, “illusion”, and the standard “weather balloon” explanation. Have you actually listened to eyewitness reports? Try this for a start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mia70txRLXc&feature=share
Ray, thanks for the link. I watched your video with great pleasure. Please feel free to reciprocate with another TED classic from Mr. Shermerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k as well as consider the attached as a more probable explanation https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-05-21/#feature. All the best to you in your UFO hunting!
Thanks, Tyson. I subscribe to Shermer’s e-newsletter too (and I have seen the video you linked), and regularly keep up to date on his latest articles. I think he does mostly good work, but he’s also very cunning and has mastered the art of making something seem debunked when it hasn’t been. He mainly goes after pond fish, and leaves the more challenging issues in Ufology *untouched*. Anyway, from the article you linked:
“(None of the UFO investigators bothered to ask for tapes from the FAA in
Albuquerque, whose officials at the time told me they only kept tapes for 11
days. So we’ll never know what the radar picture looked like that night.)”
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights#Governor “Symington also noted that he requested information from the commander of Luke Air Force Base, the general of the National Guard, and the head of the Department of Public Safety. But none of the officials he contacted had an answer for what had happened, and were also perplexed.”
Did the author explain that? It’s also noteworthy that Governor Symington not only appeared in the UFO video I linked, but is now an avid supporter of “disclosure”.
I really think it would be best if we take this debate no further on this thread. However, if you’re interested, I’ll leave one last link for you to peruse if you feel so inclined: https://thoughtsfrmwrongside50.blogspot.com/2010/10/governments-opening-secret-ufo-files.html If you would like to discuss it further at any time: rayagostini3@gmail.com
Cheers.
Actually, here’s a song of his that is apropo for our discussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUc_kATGgg
Ransy Snyder: “Actually, here’s a song of his that is apropo for our discussion:”
This is the second time I rest my case in regard to your “open mind”.
“The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively not by the false
appearance of things present and which mislead into error, not directly
by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by
prejudice.” – Schopenhauer
Randy,
You beat me to this – the $1 M Randi reference was more effective than my Nature reference. But here it is anyway (Wiki also gives an overview)
A 1986 article in Nature included dowsing in a list of “effects which until recently were claimed to be paranormal but which can now be explained from within orthodox science.”[10] Specifically, dowsing could be explained in terms of sensory cues, expectancy effects and probability.[10]
Marks, David F. (March 13, 1986). “Investigating the paranormal”. Nature (Nature Publishing Group) 320 (6058): 119–124
Dan Wotherspoon,
You referenced me in this podcast saying that polyandry was the one thing that drove me away. I take most of the blame for this misrepresentation in that I failed to articulate what was really going on. I had a fully packed shelf filled with blacks and the priesthood, face in the hat translation, BoA papyrus being found, and secret Nauvoo polygamy, all of which I found out at a BYU church history course but was inoculated very well by this professor as he bore his testimony after every troublesome doctrine. But learning about polyandry was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and especially since I couldn’t think of any apologetic answer for it. That led to a VERY slow eroding of my faith as the high priest group leader that didn’t fully ripen for over 3 years.Daniel Peterson likes to paint with broad brushes and dismiss those like me who become atheists when we leave as “black and white thinkers” or “fundamentalists” but that is just a tactic to avoid dealing with secular arguments which apologists just don’t do well with. They prefer taking on evangelical arguments.
*sigh*
I love to tell people who ask me about the mormon cult that we are not a cult but we’re trying hard to look like one.
Thank you for giving me hope that maybe there is a chance that in the end we’ll fail.
Dan P, I basically agree with your conclusion that most members who leave are probably youth who don’t want to live the mormon life style. Or New converts who go sour after a little while…
But I think an entirely new group of people are leaving now, that never used to leave before, with the information that is available over the internet now. And it’s rocking the boat a whole lot more. People who live 30, 40, 50 years, faithfully in the church just didn’t suddenly decide to leave in my experience. I live in scandinavia, far away from the mormon center, and here information just have not been available. No lds bookstores etc. Now I see former ‘pillars’ of the wards suddenly struggling, or leaving. RM:s who served as APs and zone leaders and other leadership callings in the wards. I see former stake relief society presidents, former bishops, (and even a former stake president and area authority) struggling! This was unheard of…
Here in scandinavia, there are so few members, and over my whole lifetime up until the past 5-10 years most active members were really strong, dedicated, with firm testimonies. Church bound us together very tightly, since we were small in numbers. Now people have lost their footing in a way that I have never seen before (and it has happened to me too…). And when these people leave and struggle, it sends shock waves through the wards and stakes that the ‘majority’ of people who are leaving, whom you refer to, doesn’t do at all in the same degree.
Last autumn we had an emergency meeting here, where Meryll K Jensen, Richard Turley and the Area authority president flew here on short notice, to have a meeting with all of us doubters. In that meeting there were almost only long time (life time, several generations in most cases) members. The kind of members who used to be the most dedicated type of members, who took everything seriously. For 2 hrs (which is way too little) we were allowed to ask any questions, and they (mostly Turley) would try to provide answers. While I appreciate their effort, there was nothing new in the answers other than what’s on the apologetics boards. And some vague promises to upcoming works (joseph smith papers etc) that would shed more light on our history.
To me, the answers provided by apologetics might be sensible in isolation on certain topics. But looking at the totality of the issues, the cumulative case is just a mountain of evidence against the truthfulness of the church. A mountain which apologetics manages to sweep away a few rocks from. To me, life would be a lot simpler could I accept the truth of the church, but looking at the stuff as objectively as I can, the foundation of my faith is just swept away – no matter how many prayers I say, it doesn’t change what I see with my eyes, and what, with the best of my reasoning, conclusions I can make of it.
Anyhow, back to the meeting I was at, it was good of them to come… But, in my view, and many others, it ended with a disaster. At the end the area authority was given time to give some concluding remarks. He started out by minimizing many of the problems by saying that all answers are in the scriptures. Polygamy was difficult, but so was it in bible times when we read of Abraham, Isaac etc. Then he started talking about Korihor – he denied the truth but knew it. The implication I got from that was that he was comparing us to Korihor, that we were denying what we knew were true in our hearts. In my book, that example is probably one of the worst you could bring up to a group of people who have been serving faithfully their whole lives, but now feel betrayed by what the church has hidden, and are struggling. The room temperature dropped 10 degrees after his speech.
Anyway, I got a good impression of Jensen and Turley, they were sincerely trying to help, but the AA was…. well, put mildly, not agreeable…
I’ve really enjoyed the discussions here, thanx all who are participating, and especially to JD for setting up this forum…
I think the reason why more members are struggling is because as we get closer and closer to the return of Jesus, Satan is becoming more and more active and his attempts at temping us are going into overdrive. And anyone from a member of the Twelve on down is capable of falling.
How does Satan know we’re getting closer to the coming of Jesus? What is motivating him to get more active?
God’s plan for mankind has been known ever since the pre-existence. For Satan to have rejected God’s plan he must have known the details of it and that includes the time frame for the return of Jesus. (Of course, only God knows the exact date.) And part of God’s plan was to allow Satan to become more active as the end becomes closer. After all, the church has “latter day” in it’s name. I think we should all know that the end times are imminent.
sorry, john262…don´t say that satan is tempting us because we start to think with our own minds, a good friend of mine struggeld when she was reading the book of mormon, questions like: – this feels like someone made this up? -can this be true?. her bishop wouldn´t give her a templerecomend because she had some issues, and the she told her parents about her feelings….they said (like you) that she was listening to satan and that she needed to read and pray more!!! …after this experience she never talks to her parents again about faith and how she is really feeling in her heart
I will pray for this sister. Far be it for me to judge her; I dare not do that. But I do believe in the power of prayer, and my advice to her would be to get on her knees and pray to God for enlightenment on this issue.
If she doesn’t believe in the Book of Mormon then why would she want to go to the temple anyway?
Same reason I wanted to still go to church despite my lost belief. Community. You don’t want to reject your community. But my bishop laid it to me plain and clear – if I did not believe in the restoration, I was in no way worthy to attend church-sponsored institutions and/or get married to or at least have the respect of another young woman in my community. Even if I do everything the church teaches (as I was doing). Just the lack of belief alone is enough to exclude me. This led me to abandon the community. How tragic! Since the vast majority of the community I lived in were worthy LDS, I moved elsewhere and lost the daily connection with family, friends, etc.
It all goes back to the scriptures. Why don’t the Brethren teach history in General conference? Because they believe that they have a mandate from the scriptures to teach only faith and repentance.
If the history promotes faith and repentance and if it is a true account then it is useful to them.
If the history causes causes division or faith to falter, they won’t use it.
That doesn’t mean they are hiding the history, though.
Which scriptures? the 1830 Book of commandments? the 1835 D&C? Which version of the Book of Mormon? Why the King James and not Joseph’s new translation? You make a good case for the Chuch of Christ (at the temple lot). They still have the original toy and it’s still in the box…way more valuable to collectors. I got an idea, why don’t the Brethern forgive all the he said he said, cut those poor guys in Independence, MO a check and let’s get to openin’ that toy so all nations kindreds and tongues-in-cheeks can turn the “good news” into the “good times”.
If that is true, why does Joseph Smith get mentioned more than Christ? Why do we hear so much about pioneers crossing the plains and skip the parts when they weren’t moving? Food storage? Genealogy? Temples? So much about temples. We’ve had 5 talks on tithing in the last 24 months in our sacrament meetings?
For me, it is tough to argue that brethren avoid the history because they believe they’ve been directed to focus on faith and repentance. I actually think repentance, forgiveness and tolerance are some of the basics that we’re lightest on. But its not because we’re not willing to go into the weeds.
One shouldn’t have to venture beyond lesson manuals or missionary
discussions to learn the truth of a religion. It should also be made
evident BEFORE extracting a life-long commitment out of someone. Is an 8
year old really responsible for doing due diligence to discover that
what she learns in primary are glossy half-truths?
Furthermore, “Can I believe this?” and “Is this believable?” are two very different questions. Peterson really only addresses the first.
Another thought. According to what I know as the doctrine of the church.
Can a member of the church lead the people astray? Yes.
Can a bishop lead the people astray? Yes.
Can a stake president lead the people astray? Yes.
Can a member of the twelve lead the people astray? Yes
Can the majority of the twelve lead the people astray? No.
Can the president of the church lead the people astray? No.
Can a previous president of the church whose words we only have in writing or recording lead the present generation astray? It’s possible.
How do you know that a prophet can’t lead the church astray? He said so?
If he truly is a prophet who literally talks to God, how can he possibly lead us astray? God wouldn’t let him lead us astray would He?
The operative word is “If”.
Of course you are also hypothesizing there is a god who literally talks to man, that god is the right god with whom to be speaking, and that god only literally speaks to one man. None of this experiment is falsifiable, nor is it provable, at least not with the facts given. We are left to rely on faulty logic for any of this to make any sense at all.
Your argument that the president of the church cannot lead the members astray runs into trouble in light of Adam God. Brigham Young taught that Adam was our God over the pulpit and even incorporated this teaching into the temple ordinances. Later presidents have disavowed BY’s Adam-God doctrine. How is BY not leading the membership astray? Even Peterson admits that he has difficulty resolving this issue.
Mr. Peterson says that the Book of Abraham just feels old to him. Well, I’ll be damned, how can I not believe it now? What I think is that this explanation just feels like bulls**t to me.
There is one thing I forgot to mention that I wish Dan W would have challenged him on (actually just one of many but this is at the core of it all). Daniel Peterson tried to act like he is not really that different than empiricism or real scholarship. He stated something to the effect of “we aren’t starting with a conclusion and working back. For instance, we didn’t start with a conclusion of chiasmas and then go out and find them.”
I’m sorry Daniel, but I don’t think you understand the difference between a conclusion and a data point. Chiasmas would be (what you consider) a data point to point to the conclusion the BoM is an ancient text. So, you absolutely, unequivocally, and without shame start with the unquestioned conclusion the Book of Mormon is an ancient text delivered by an angel and you work back from there ignoring the mountain of convergent evidence from linguistics, archeology, paleontology, geological, textual criticism, DNA, and common sense that points to the conclusion of the Book of Mormon being a (possibly pious) fraud. You cherry pick going forward from your conclusion and there is no window dressing you can do to make it not so. But as an apologist, I guess window dressing is your specialty. But please stop pretending to be doing something you are not. Just own it man! :-)
Randy,
You might be interested in how the Mormon Matters podcast dealt with evolution (https://mormonmatters.org/2011/08/23/48-mormonism-and-evolution/). The first half dealt with history of the LDS leadership’s pronouncements on the subject … but in the second half they discussed theological implications.
The panelists (all BYU professor) are not apologists, but it was interesting to listen to what the enlightened LDS take on evolution looks like. I think they are genuine and well-intentioned, and it would be unfair for me to expect to complete representation of their positions, but I saw some real weakness (and perhaps inadvertent misdirection) – which I attempted to address in three brief comments. I’d appreciate your opinion.
JT
Downloading it now. Will listen to it tonight. Thanks for the tip.
JT,
I didn’t know if you wanted an opinion here or over there but decided on here for reasons I can’t seem to consciously access. ;-) Listening to that podcast was like a 2 hour high priest group meeting. The LDS history was interesting but I learned a lot of that when I took Dr Jeffery’s course in the late 90’s at BYU. He really opened my eyes about creationism back then and planted some good seeds so I will always be grateful to him.
I don’t think anyone is going to respond to you over there. Your arguments are sound and you exude erudition. But, I pretty much agree with you on every post you made, including the new atheist post. The only version of evolution that these men (Dan included since we’ve argued privately about this) is some variation of intelligent design which some scientist (name escapes me) called creationism in a cheap tuxedo. Intelligent design is an intuitive conclusion that is absolutely superfluous in explaining natural selection. It is not reflected AT ALL in the evidence and only serves to create more questions that IDers would need to address (almost an endless amount of them). You posed one of those questions when you mentioned our “cousins”. We all know that intuitive notions are often false but Dan’s argument to me when he argues about the material brain or intelligent design is “but I FEEL free” or “the Universe just SEEMS to be consciously guiding things”. The fact is, natural selection is just fine all on its own. If these BYU professors try to invoke the whole “Well, sure, it’s not like we are saying God (Elohim or Jehovah) is intervening at every step of the way, he just got it all started”, that takes them way over to a Deist version of God that simply is NOT being true to any recognizable Mormon version of an EXPLICIT anthropomorphic God that is concerned with your masturbation “problem.” What generally happens is that in order to stay with the church (for whatever reason(s) that I doubt any of them are even FULLY consciously aware of) they end up making their own private version of Mormonism where they fuse evolution and LDS theology the best they can and where it doesn’t fit, they go to the tried and true appeal to mystery where it will all be revealed in the end so don’t worry about it. That’s my opinion. That doesn’t make me right but I think my metaphysical position of naturalism is certainly where the current evidence is pointing to.
I should say that Dan does NOT believe in the anthropomorphic God of Joseph Smith as far as I understand his position. Didn’t mean to imply that above. From what I understand, he believes in a quantum consciousness type of natural god of the Penrose variety.
Thanks Randy,
I appreciate your thoughts.
A couple of points:
1. Steven Peck writes an interesting article that Dan W. linked in that Mormon Matters episode. It is called,
“Crawling Out of the Primordial Soup: A Step toward the Emergence of an LDS Theology Compatible with Organic Evolution”
Peck outlines several Christian theological attempts to harmonize full-blown natural selection and talks about how they may (or may not) be adapted to Mormon theology.
Early on says, “these are not statements of my belief. Rather I offer “‘toy’ models—ideas that we can play with to test their utility and durability.
I respect and gladly grant him this hedge, and would agree his assessment saying no more than I do not feel his enthusiastic final statements were merited. In particular,
“To me, evolution is an empowering idea. Linking it to our theology provides answers to several perplexing questions.”
Given that, his most interesting suggestion is:
“Perhaps the LDS conception of theosis … suggests a Darwinian selection process in which elements of trial, testing, and proving are inherent parts of progression through the first and second estates of premortal and mortal existence.”Now there is something to chew on in terms of heritability, variability, and selection. Selfish spirit genes? (To his credit Peck points to a Christian biologist, Joan Roughgarden, who offers an alternative “cooperation” based model of selection in support)2. Have you ever heard the argument that Mormonism really boils down to Pantheism? It goes like this:All gods are “small ‘g'” gods because they were once men and there are so god-awful many of them. More importantly, they all are subject to eternal natural laws (some Mormon theologians use this in their problem of evil solutions). This means that natural law (including those governing “spirit matter”) stands, in meaningful sense, above these gods. So we can call nature the “big ‘G'” God … or simply Nature.I once made the sardonic comment “I’m not happy with Heavenly Father, I want to go one step higher and worship Heavenly Grandfather…no wait … not good enough…Heavenly Great Grandfather … no wait …”Now I’m inclined just follow this Mormon inspired logic and worship Nature… or Spinoza’s god , just like Einstein. Now, here are a couple of chaps who had their heads screwed on straight.CheersJT
Can somebody tell me how to get a handle on the formatting?
JT,
I would love to hang out w you in real life. We would have a lot to talk about. Peck needs to read The Blind Watchmaker an if he wants to extend natural selection to the spiritual realm, he’s opening a can of worms that would bury him upon any real scrutiny. That’s hilarious and hedging is appropriate when undertaking such a pathetically dubious task.
As for pantheism, Brian Dalton’s whole Mr Deity series is based on the “small g god” Mormons so obliviously worship. But your snarky line of questioning had me laughing out loud. I’m gonna pose that question to my TBM brother and dad when we hang out for a weekend in October (my brilliant atheist older brother will be there too; quite the weekend but at least we are balanced). The infinite regression and the problem of answering who the hell is the big G God is something I will use. Thank you.
Randy
Jg
If you want to find truth, you never trust a man.
The only one who can tell you that a man is a prophet is God. If you trust a man to tell you he is a prophet then you can’t have faith in him and you are trusting in flesh. We should not trust in flesh.
Faith is evidence of things not seen. So you are going to have to have evidence or a witness. A witness is personal.
Because God is a private or secret. He wants you to pray in secret and will give you answers in secret.
Once you try to find truth from God publicly, it’s over. You have missed the mark. (If you are trying to find God publicly, you aren’t really trying to find him anyway. You are only competing and comparing with men.)
Nobody can tell you a prophet is a prophet, even a prophet. You are on your own, as we all are. It is only between you and God.
I’m sorry but personal, private feelings are NOT accurate either. If you study psychology in any depth, you will soon realize that.
Evan,
Personal private feeling cannot be compared or studied. Nobody can feel what another feels.
To understand what others feels, we fill in gaps by adding how we feel.
Life is a personal journey. We are on our own.
When feelings deal with truth claims, they can absolutely be studied. Suppose a person feels that the world will end in 2012. All we have to do is wait until 2012 and see if the world ends. If the world does not end in 2012, then that person’s personal, private feeling was WRONG. Another way of telling if personal, private feelings are accurate is by looking for contradictions. If one person feels that there is only one God and another person feels that there are 10 gods, then at least one of them is WRONG. Proving again that personal, private feelings can be in error. And there are countless examples of this happening throughout history. The only reasonable conclusion one can make is that, when dealing with truth claims, personal, private feelings are NOT accurate.
Yes, we are on our own, but we do have a brain and we should use it to the best of our ability.
That is a great recipe for religious insanity.
Person,
“If you want to find truth, you never trust a man.”
Do you make this epistemological assertion… as a MAN? Or under some other more trustworthy (and less self-refuting) guise?
I also felt that Dan W was holding back a lot on the questions and almost “afraid” to ask in case he’d offend That made me feel uncomfortable at times. I enjoyed the interview , apart from that . Dan P came across as a laid back kind of guy who doesn’t really give a damn what people think of his opinions etc. And why should he? I don’t agree with everything he said but I’m glad he agreed to do this podcast. I think he’s constrained in what he says too. If I work in McDonald’s I run the risk of losing my job if I say to people ” You know, you’re right. Burger King’s burgers really are tastier ” . I’m not saying he doesn’t truly believe what he’s saying himself but there is a limit to what he can say in public, I would imagine. He seems like an ok kind of guy though .
Oops, I meant restricted, not constrained !!
I’ve just been told I could have used constrained …
What I think we are really talking about is, can someone feel a witness from God or the holy ghost?
If we try to work this out together, we will only come to one conclusion, that we cannot prove anything to each other. There is no evidence for or against it. If I believe in the Holy Ghost, I will try to find evidence for it, but will find none. If you don’t believe you will try to find evidence against it, and will find none. We may try to reach for science, but will find that science doesn’t cover this topic. Either way science requires that the subject can be testable by two or more people.
I think it is almost impossible to prove something to another person. it’s like two dogs barking. They will bark all day if you let them. Even scientists rarely agree with each other.
I think it may not help if the brethren address people who are doubting the truthfulness of the church. What can be done? So very little. The only audience they have is those that believe or want to believe. That is the only audience Christ had, almost everyone else wanted to argue with him or kill him.
I disagree. I think that those kinds of feelings are testable in many cases. Suppose one person says that God (or the holy ghost) told him that the Mormon church is true. Now suppose a second person says that God told him that the Mormon church is NOT true. Again, one of them must be wrong. Or suppose a woman says that the holy ghost told her that she should marry George. Then, a month later, she says that the holy ghost is now telling her that she should NOT marry George. Well, the holy ghost (or her impressions of the holy ghost) must have been wrong either now or a month ago. There is an infinite number examples of this kind of thing happening to people. Ergo, personal feelings from “God” or the “holy ghost” are not reliable.
Let us consider thebtalk Thomas Monson gave in October 2011 genetal conference, relating how he was conducting a temple dedication service in Germany. He had an impression that a particular local church leader shoyld be called to speak at that session, but was told specifically that the man was at another location taking care of church business. The man was not called and asked to come, but Monson persisted in the feeling the man should be announced as a speaker anyway, and he did so. At the precise time, the man walked in and up to the podium. He had been engaged in other church work, planning to attend a later session of dedicatory services, but felt a sudden strong impression to rush to the current session, so he borrowed a car and got there just as his name was announced as the next speaker. There was no ordinary communication, and this is not such a likely scenario that it can be dismissed as mere coincidence. This was an instance of the miraculous impingeing on ordinary reality. If you do not believe in the possibulity of such things, you do not take a leap of faith and announce things that are about to happen, but seem impossible at the time. Having faith in a larger reality leads to experiences that can confirm that larger reality. Lacking faith avoids the real world evidence.
Another example is a recent column by Daniel Peterson in Mormontimes.com, relating the experience of a colleague whose daughter had cystic fibrosis. When his daughter was age nine, they went on a river boat tour in Europe. As they departed one of the friends who saw them off was a good friend ill with cancer. Several days into the tour, the girl told her parents that she had been kneeling in prayer when she suddenly had the feeling that the young woman was there with her, assuring her to not be afraid of death. Days later, upon their return, they learned that the young woman had died a half hour before their daughter’s experience.
Three years later, when their daughter died early one morning at home, they decided to wait a coypke of hours until friendsband family would be awake before theybstarted calling to tell them. They wete surprised when an early call came to them from an adult friend they had not seen for awhile, who was also suffering from cystic fibrosis. He related that an hour earlier their daughter had appeared at the foot of his bed, and he understood she was there to assure him that he should not fear death. His experience was less than a half hour after she had died. The man died about three months later.
If neither the daughter nor the man had related to him their own “subjective” experiences, in a timely way, if they had lacked faith in the reality of those communications, the evidence for their reality as prophecies of things not known but real would have been lost. But in both cases people knew things, things that were teal that they otherwise could not know, and shared that knowledge in a way that showed they could have had the information from no other source. Acting in faith on revelation created evidence in the mundane world of the greater reality. Such evidence only comes to those who act on faith. The evidence you have at hand is dependent upon how much faith you can exercise.
Yes that is possible, but you are talking about testing peoples actions or what they say and do, or the results of what they say is going on inside.
I think in many cases these people are sincere. They really FEEL like God or the holy ghost is speaking to them. And sometimes you can even prove to yourself that your own feelings are not reliable. For example, when I was young I felt that the holy ghost was telling me that the Book of Mormon was true, and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and so on. Now, after looking at archaeology, DNA, history, linguistics, textual analysis, etc. I’m convinced that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century fabrication. From this experience I have learned that I cannot trust my own feelings–even if they’re from “God” or the “holy ghost”.
I think the fundamental problem is that people in the LDS church (and many other churches) are taught to interpret certain feelings, in certain contexts, as coming from God (or the holy ghost). This teaching is so ingrained in many people that it is very difficult for them to consider other interpretations of their feelings. People’s feelings are very important and personal to them. Feelings are the primitives of conscious experience. Feelings are what drives and motivates us. Feelings are elemental and non-decomposable to consciousness. It’s natural that many people should promote their powerful feelings to a sacred level by interpreting them as coming from God or the holy ghost. It requires a certain amount of mental restraint and deliberation to realize that personal feelings are not so omniscient after all.
If you don’t believe in God or the Holy Ghost, you’re going to think your neighbor is crazy if he believes differently. There is nothing any of us can do about that.
As far as DNA goes, in my eyes, if someone says that DNA testing has proven this or that, my immediate reaction is to wonder how that conclusion was made. I don’t know enough about DNA anything, to come to my own conclusions, but I certainly don’t trust someone else to tell me something like that. It seems too far reaching and I wonder what ideas filled in gaps that weren’t known. If I am to ever trust someones documented DNA studies, I would have to learn DNA from the ground up. But, as you say, can I even trust myself?
I brought up the example of myself to illustrate how one can become skeptical of one’s own “spiritual” feelings. I probably should have used a different example to illustrate my point. I really don’t want to get into a debate about the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Suffice it to say that I find the DNA evidence PLUS all of the other evidence very compelling. In my opinion, all of the evidence CONVERGES to paint a picture of the Book of Mormon being a 19th century fabrication. But everyone must make up their own minds.
And one last thing. This whole time I was talking about the dependability of personal, private feelings SANS evidence. Once evidence enters the picture, the situation changes. Obviously evidence, if it is sufficiently compelling, should be taken very seriously.
The third to the last sentence should read: “This whole time I was talking about the *undependability* of personal, private feelings SANS evidence.”
I believe the earth is flat.
and the sun revolves around it.
Dear Mr. Peterson: There is a man who has replicas of the golden plates in Salt Lake City. I’m sure he would love to show them to you to show you how they were made.
My favorite remark came in video 4 and I was disappointed that the interviewer didn’t nail him on this comment about the Book of Abraham:
“Let’s bracket the connection between the actual papyrus and the Book of Abraham.” What? Let’s bracket what the real problem is? The real problem is that absolutely no connection can be made between the Book of Abraham and the ancient papyrus–the conclusion being that Joseph Smith didn’t have a clue about translating Egyptian; that he produced a fraudulent translation that is so errant that even Mormonism’s top apologist is admitting, “Let’s bracket this.” Then Daniel Peterson goes on to say this of the Book of Abraham:
“It feels old to me.”
That’s when I laughed.
He said it in a kind of goofy tone that added to the humor of the statement. Somebody needs to do a riff on this, set it to music and an auto tuner (T Pain Style), and broadcast it on YouTube. Similarly, someone set to music and auto-tuned the prayer of that southern preacher at the nascar event and it was awesome. Boogety Boogety Boogety, Amen. That’s what this whole interview feels like, “Boogety Boogety Boogety Amen.”
100% agree. Does Daniel Peterson really think Joseph Smith would be incapable of writing something that “feels old”? Joseph was obviously obsessed with scripture. If anyone could write something that “felt old”, it would be Joseph Smith.
In the one place where there is a direct connection asserted between an extant papyrus or image from a papyrus and the text of the published Book of Abraham, the meanings assigned, though not obvious to a modern reader, are in fact within the zone of meanings understood by modern translators, such as the four canopic jars representing various Egyptian gods also representing “the earth in its four quarters”. If Joseph Smith was guessing, he is a very lucky guesser. The most important object of testing is the text of the Book of Abraham itself, which makes all sorts of assertions about Abraham which are not found in the Bible but are well attested to in other sources which wete not easily available to Joseph Smith. Indeed, none of the critics over the years have demonstrated that any of his contemporaries were even aware of these corollary sources. The Maxwell Institute has published several volumes which present the relevant portions of obscure source documents from which a person conversant in Arabic, and Hebrew, and Egyptian might have been able to piece together a narrative using these elements for verisimilitude, but there is no evidence that anyone alive in the 1830s had both the skills and the access to documents that would be necessary to create the Book of Abraham out of whole cloth. If the text was not revealed, there is no naturalistic explanation for how its authentic content came together. Additionally, there is evidence that the few surviving pages of papyrus were only a small part of the original texts that were in the original collection.
I’m late to the game on this one. But I wanted to point out that it’s believers who cast Joseph Smith as an uneducated yokel, not unbelievers.
There should be a new english word for the kind of self deception that apologists are guilty of, but unaware of.
Truth claims of the church and I don’t always get along. After listening to this podcast and thinking a lot about what a truth claims means to me in relationship to the church, this is where I think I can comfortably stand.
I think the church can maintain it’s truth claim that is it the one and only true church for 1 reason; I believe the LDS church has the capacity to receive all truth. I do not believe that the statement means that the church is 1)-the author of all truth. 2) That it is responsible to gather all truth. and 3) that it must be the distributor of all truth.
Thank you.
I’m a non-Mormon whose trying to understand Mormonism better so I can teach about it effectively at my university. I was wondering if anyone knows where I can get free or cheap resources by conservative and moderate Mormon theologians or thinkers, like Hugh Nibley (not sure if I’m actually getting Nibley’s position correct here, it’s hard to tell) and Givens. Although I’m not personally interested in converting I find your faith both fascinating and moving, and look forward to learning more about it.
Hi John,
If you are looking for Nibley’s writings and other “true believer” points of view (i.e. apologists), this link will get you there:
https://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/authors/?authorID=2
It has been 10 years now. The genetic comments did not age well in my opinion.