In this post, I could talk about the complete extremity of the spectrum of belief, composed of people who unquestioningly and immediately believe 100% of what they are told. But I don't think it's practical to go that far, partially because I really hope there's not a soul on this planet that's like that. So this is how I will describe the extremely gullible:
1. Their first instinct, upon hearing new ideas/material, is to believe it.
2. They do nothing to suppress that instinct.
3. They require little to no proof to maintain their beliefs.
Even this is irrational to expect of someone, but I bet there's a few people floating around that fit this description. So why is it dangerous to have a knee-jerk belief response to new information? Besides making you an easy target for scammers, this habit disables you from determining what information is important and what is not. Truth is a stubborn thing, and absolute truth is going to stand up to any and all attempts to debunk it, even if it takes time. But grabbing on to whatever ideas are currently popular is a shaky strategy at best.
Truth is the best foundation upon which to live your life, because by definition, it doesn't change: "Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come" (Doctrine & Covenants 93:24). That's a good definition of truth whether you're religious or not. Fad fades. Trend dies. But truth is the thing that will not move; and if you know where you want to be and build on truth, you won't move either.
But I'm drifting off topic. The other form of gullibility I want to discuss is excessive trust in people. This I find much more tolerable, for this reason: in a perfect world, everybody should be trustworthy and dependable. Even if we fail, we should give our best to keep our promises to others. I believe this is part of what will make heaven heavenly: we will be part of a society in which we can put complete trust in everyone we interact with. But excessive trust in new information is risky regardless of morality, because often people are just wrong, despite their best intentions. Usually it's harmlessly wrong, but sometimes it's dangerously wrong.
In many ways, I look up to people who tend to trust those around them. They're looking for the good in people, and they live by the philosophy that everyone is motivated by the just and true. If they put themselves around the right people, their innocent trust probably won't get them into trouble. If they get unlucky, they might get hurt, and they might learn to doubt others' intentions. But I'd rather be somebody who trusts too much than trusts too little. People who trust no one miss out on too much. For lack of a better ending, here's one by Ernest Hemingway:
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
Metamorphose
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Why I believe in God: Evidence
Why I believe God is a reality, not just a plausibility
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believe in the Holy Ghost as a God along with Jesus Christ and God the Father. To me, the Holy Ghost is a being who lacks physical form, and is able to communicate to each of us what God would have us know. In addition, the Holy Ghost (commonly referred to as the spirit) can help us feel when something is true and motivate us to do good. Mormon doctrine teaches that the influence of the spirit is subtle and usually can only be detected if one is looking for it.
Thus, I try to make my life and myself an environment in which the influence of the spirit can be most easily felt and received. In the past, I have had a variety of what I call spiritual experiences, in which I believe the Holy Ghost was present to some degree or another. The vast majority of these have been simple and at a low level of intensity, often small enough that I am unable to distinguish between the effects of the spirit and my own feelings or thoughts. However, several experiences have occurred in my life which I consider to be much more conspicuous manifestations of the spirit, to the point that I can no longer accept that they were produced by my own mental or emotional processes. I will describe three such experiences.
The first occurred when I was around 12. Like many Mormons raised in the church (especially in Utah), I had grown up learning church doctrine, history, and principles. For the preceding couple of years, I had been giving a lot of thought to what I believed and realized that I didn't really know if it was the truth. I worried about the possibility of entering the afterlife only to realize that I should have been a member of a different religion. I had been taught at least a few times before this period that each person should strive to find the truth for themselves, and not have a certain belief system just because their friends, parents, or leaders professed the same. This is often referred to as "getting your own testimony" in Mormon culture, and this was what I was trying to do for a couple years. I remember feeling like my case was a minority, that there were not many Mormons who spent a significant amount of time wondering if their doctrine was true. Because of this, I almost completely kept my doubts to myself.
I put plenty of time into prayer and study of the scriptures, seeking to have some sort of spiritual impression or manifestation that would confirm my faith. There were times when it seemed as if my doubt was alleviated, but it would later return. I felt much like Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the Mormon church who also spent much of his youth wondering and searching for the truth (further information about Joseph Smith is available here). I had a friend at that time who seemed spiritually in tune and someone I could share my thoughts with, so I decided that I would talk with him about it.
I decided to do so at a boy scout campout some time later. After everyone else had gone to bed, I explained my plight to him and asked if he had had any similar experiences. I don't remember him giving a direct answer to my question, but I remember the experience he related to me. He told me about a dream he had in which he was alive during the second coming of Christ (Mormons, and many other Christians, believe that Jesus Christ will return to the earth as a resurrected, immortal being). In the dream, angels were singing a common Christian hymn, "God be with you 'til we meet again". He continued relating the story, but at that point my mind focused on the lyrics of the hymn. At that moment, I felt an incredibly strong wave of emotion come over me. I cannot describe it as any particular emotion, just strong. I felt reassurance about my doubts and the wordless communication that my beliefs were true.
The second occurred during my time as an LDS missionary in Alabama. Since my previous experience years ago, I had never doubted the truth of the church. I did my best as a missionary to do what I knew I was "supposed" to do, but there came a time when being a missionary out of a sense of obligation wasn't enough, even though I knew it was what God wanted me to do. I wanted to be motivated by desire, not just duty. I felt that the missionary I was serving with (Mormon missionaries always live and work in pairs) was an excellent example of who I wanted to be. He gave me a copy of a talk (Mormon jargon for "speech") he had read earlier on his mission that was given to missionaries by a leader in the Mormon church (the talk is here). The focus of this talk was the difference between desire and obligation as motivating factors for missionaries, and the speaker described how to gain the intrinsic motivation to serve.
Over a period of several weeks, I studied this talk, as well as scriptures from the Book of Mormon that I felt were related to the issue. I prayed many times for the true desire to do what was right, and to be happy and content in doing missionary work. Unlike the other two experiences I describe here, no part of this experience for me was instantaneous. I cannot pinpoint a time when any monumental change occurred. But I do know that before this period, I was motivated primarily by obligation. After this period and ever since then, I have been motivated primarily by a desire to please God. Something changed in me that I had tried and failed to change in myself before. It has never permanently left. I do not believe it came from myself, or from any other person. It came from the purifying influence of the Holy Ghost.
The third experience was also as a missionary. I was in a different area with a different missionary at this time, and we were teaching someone we had met quite recently. I enjoyed teaching this person because he was close to our age and someone we could relate to. He seemed open-minded and willing to explore and find out if what we were teaching was true. He had been raised as a Christian, and on this particular visit he asked us what was different about our faith. We had a good discussion about a few of our unique beliefs, and he was once again accepting and willing to ask questions and learn. At the close of our visit we asked him if he would pray, and he complied. We closed our eyes and waited for him to speak, but for a good while he said nothing. Finally he looked up and said, "Wow. That has never happened to me before."
My first assumption was that he had prayed silently and felt the Holy Ghost telling him that what we had taught was true. But he then explained that he was trying to speak and no words were coming out of his mouth. He wasn't distressed, but wondered why such a thing would happen. The other missionary and I were surprised to hear him say this, because Joseph Smith's account of his praying to know which church was true includes a description of a similar experience. My companion urged him to try again to pray. I don't remember the words he said during the prayer. I may not have even been paying attention at the time, because at the moment he began to pray, I had the most amazing and powerful feeling of joy that I had ever experienced before. When he finished the prayer, I looked up at him and the other missionary, and their expression suggested that the same thing had happened for them. Nobody said anything for a while. We didn't really know what to say. We all knew what we had felt, and we all knew it was from God. We stayed for a couple more minutes. Nobody wanted to leave and disrupt the moment. But we eventually departed, and thanked God for what we had experienced that day.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believe in the Holy Ghost as a God along with Jesus Christ and God the Father. To me, the Holy Ghost is a being who lacks physical form, and is able to communicate to each of us what God would have us know. In addition, the Holy Ghost (commonly referred to as the spirit) can help us feel when something is true and motivate us to do good. Mormon doctrine teaches that the influence of the spirit is subtle and usually can only be detected if one is looking for it.
Thus, I try to make my life and myself an environment in which the influence of the spirit can be most easily felt and received. In the past, I have had a variety of what I call spiritual experiences, in which I believe the Holy Ghost was present to some degree or another. The vast majority of these have been simple and at a low level of intensity, often small enough that I am unable to distinguish between the effects of the spirit and my own feelings or thoughts. However, several experiences have occurred in my life which I consider to be much more conspicuous manifestations of the spirit, to the point that I can no longer accept that they were produced by my own mental or emotional processes. I will describe three such experiences.
The first occurred when I was around 12. Like many Mormons raised in the church (especially in Utah), I had grown up learning church doctrine, history, and principles. For the preceding couple of years, I had been giving a lot of thought to what I believed and realized that I didn't really know if it was the truth. I worried about the possibility of entering the afterlife only to realize that I should have been a member of a different religion. I had been taught at least a few times before this period that each person should strive to find the truth for themselves, and not have a certain belief system just because their friends, parents, or leaders professed the same. This is often referred to as "getting your own testimony" in Mormon culture, and this was what I was trying to do for a couple years. I remember feeling like my case was a minority, that there were not many Mormons who spent a significant amount of time wondering if their doctrine was true. Because of this, I almost completely kept my doubts to myself.
I put plenty of time into prayer and study of the scriptures, seeking to have some sort of spiritual impression or manifestation that would confirm my faith. There were times when it seemed as if my doubt was alleviated, but it would later return. I felt much like Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the Mormon church who also spent much of his youth wondering and searching for the truth (further information about Joseph Smith is available here). I had a friend at that time who seemed spiritually in tune and someone I could share my thoughts with, so I decided that I would talk with him about it.
I decided to do so at a boy scout campout some time later. After everyone else had gone to bed, I explained my plight to him and asked if he had had any similar experiences. I don't remember him giving a direct answer to my question, but I remember the experience he related to me. He told me about a dream he had in which he was alive during the second coming of Christ (Mormons, and many other Christians, believe that Jesus Christ will return to the earth as a resurrected, immortal being). In the dream, angels were singing a common Christian hymn, "God be with you 'til we meet again". He continued relating the story, but at that point my mind focused on the lyrics of the hymn. At that moment, I felt an incredibly strong wave of emotion come over me. I cannot describe it as any particular emotion, just strong. I felt reassurance about my doubts and the wordless communication that my beliefs were true.
The second occurred during my time as an LDS missionary in Alabama. Since my previous experience years ago, I had never doubted the truth of the church. I did my best as a missionary to do what I knew I was "supposed" to do, but there came a time when being a missionary out of a sense of obligation wasn't enough, even though I knew it was what God wanted me to do. I wanted to be motivated by desire, not just duty. I felt that the missionary I was serving with (Mormon missionaries always live and work in pairs) was an excellent example of who I wanted to be. He gave me a copy of a talk (Mormon jargon for "speech") he had read earlier on his mission that was given to missionaries by a leader in the Mormon church (the talk is here). The focus of this talk was the difference between desire and obligation as motivating factors for missionaries, and the speaker described how to gain the intrinsic motivation to serve.
Over a period of several weeks, I studied this talk, as well as scriptures from the Book of Mormon that I felt were related to the issue. I prayed many times for the true desire to do what was right, and to be happy and content in doing missionary work. Unlike the other two experiences I describe here, no part of this experience for me was instantaneous. I cannot pinpoint a time when any monumental change occurred. But I do know that before this period, I was motivated primarily by obligation. After this period and ever since then, I have been motivated primarily by a desire to please God. Something changed in me that I had tried and failed to change in myself before. It has never permanently left. I do not believe it came from myself, or from any other person. It came from the purifying influence of the Holy Ghost.
The third experience was also as a missionary. I was in a different area with a different missionary at this time, and we were teaching someone we had met quite recently. I enjoyed teaching this person because he was close to our age and someone we could relate to. He seemed open-minded and willing to explore and find out if what we were teaching was true. He had been raised as a Christian, and on this particular visit he asked us what was different about our faith. We had a good discussion about a few of our unique beliefs, and he was once again accepting and willing to ask questions and learn. At the close of our visit we asked him if he would pray, and he complied. We closed our eyes and waited for him to speak, but for a good while he said nothing. Finally he looked up and said, "Wow. That has never happened to me before."
My first assumption was that he had prayed silently and felt the Holy Ghost telling him that what we had taught was true. But he then explained that he was trying to speak and no words were coming out of his mouth. He wasn't distressed, but wondered why such a thing would happen. The other missionary and I were surprised to hear him say this, because Joseph Smith's account of his praying to know which church was true includes a description of a similar experience. My companion urged him to try again to pray. I don't remember the words he said during the prayer. I may not have even been paying attention at the time, because at the moment he began to pray, I had the most amazing and powerful feeling of joy that I had ever experienced before. When he finished the prayer, I looked up at him and the other missionary, and their expression suggested that the same thing had happened for them. Nobody said anything for a while. We didn't really know what to say. We all knew what we had felt, and we all knew it was from God. We stayed for a couple more minutes. Nobody wanted to leave and disrupt the moment. But we eventually departed, and thanked God for what we had experienced that day.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Prison break
Since mid-summer of 2013, I have been watching a show that aired from 2005-2008 known as "Prison Break". Many of you may be familiar with it, and although I am not a TV watcher (even watching shows I enjoy only sporadically), Prison Break has been very entertaining for me. The main appeal of the show for me is the protagonist, Michael Scofield, who is an extremely intelligent structural engineer who uses his talents to break his wrongfully convicted brother out of prison. It soon evolves into much more than that, of course, but I enjoy the show because the characters use creative and intelligent ways to get out of difficult situations. From this and other creative works I have read/watched, I have come to the conclusion that many of the works I enjoy the most share this same quality: the characters prosper because of their intelligence.
But I'm getting besides the point. The reason I wanted to write about this is to gather and possibly share my thoughts about some of the themes and ideas that Prison Break presents. Prison Break does contain more mature themes and ideas, which is why I'm glad I watched it after my mission rather than before, because I am able to deal with and respond to them in a mature way. Many of the minor events along the course of the story have been disturbing for me, but what troubles me more is the general themes of what the show seems to teach, although it's almost never explicitly shown. I don't know if the producers/creators were attempting to send these messages through the show, but here is some of what I feel Prison Break is attempting to "teach":
1. There is no way to absolutely know the truth about anything.
Later in the show, we become aware of a corrupt governmental entity known as "The Company", who has infiltrated essentially every aspect of society in a very realistic, believable way (the realism, I believe, is what makes the messages more powerful). We find that the protagonist's brother, Lincoln Burrows, was convicted off of doctored evidence that was fabricated so meticulously by the Company that upon escaping prison, the brothers are completely unable to prove that Lincoln is innocent of any crime, even after finding that the man who Lincoln is purported to have killed is still alive.
The point the show seems to make is this: in this day and age, information can be technologically corrupted to the point that nothing is reliable anymore. Everything from the surveillance camera feed to the DNA information of the supposed murder victim was altered irreversibly by the Company and could not be accessed in its original form anymore. Because of the realistic nature of the plotline, I have admittedly been affected by this idea. For instance, in the political sphere (which I have a hard time with anyway), I have a hard time deciding who to vote for in part because I have no way of knowing whether a given party, candidate, or group has gone to a great deal of effort to make themselves appear outstanding and create "evidence" and "statistics" to go along with it, when in fact they do not intend to support the interests they claim. This idea has far less power in the religious context for me, however, because I believe there are alternate methods of finding truth than any form of person-to-person communication.
2. You can't trust anyone but yourself.
Throughout the show, but especially in the last season, the main characters find people they think they can trust, and are betrayed again and again. Those they trust end up either getting killed, turning out to be from the Company, or decide to act for their own interests and not for those of the group. This idea is a social embodiment of the first idea I described. Just as any form of information can be altered, all semblances of personality can also be fabricated with a sufficient amount of skill. Several Company agents construct extremely believable representations of innocent and benign citizens, only to instantaneously shed the facade as soon as they are able.
I feel that this point is somewhat overexaggerated in Prison Break. Part of this, of course, is the fact that not everyone is trying to dismantle a multi-national group that has power over several world governments, so obviously they would not be endlessly tailed by extremely skilled individuals who were out to get them. But even if the show doesn't convince you to become paranoid schizophrenic, it's hard to look at people the same way after you see something like that. I don't dwell on the issue too long, but I can see this show causing a lot of other people to reconsider the integrity of the people they know well. Maybe in some cases that's a good thing, but I feel that in most cases people are pretty close to who they appear to be, and the differences that do exist aren't going to be harmful for the people they know.
3. Evil and corruption are ultimately inescapable and undefeatable.
The Company is extremely powerful. Michael and his friends must work tirelessly and use all of their resources in their efforts to bring down the Company, and even then it doesn't seem like enough. Every obstacle they overcome is met by another, still greater, one in its place, and throughout the show there is the lingering idea that even if they end up bringing down the Company, who's to say something like it won't just spring up into existence immediately afterwards?
I have to say at this point that I haven't finished the show, so I don't know if Michael and the others end up bringing down the Company or not. They do get out of countless amounts of tight situations, which of course is important to the suspense quality of the show, but each time they seem to get a little closer into falling into the hands of the Company. Even if they end up successful in their attempts by the time the show ends, I still think this message is continuously communicated to Prison Break viewers. Those who invest a lot of time into thinking about this show might begin to wonder if they or anyone can ever overcome evil, chaos, corruption, or anything like it. It's certainly because of my religious beliefs, but I know that this idea is just not true.
4. Given sufficient motivation, every good person can always be corrupted.
This has a lot to do with point #2 I made, although the majority of the people who betray the protagonists are found to have been dishonest all along. But in the last season, when the protagonists are trying to acquire necessary intel to bring down the company. several people working with them begin to want it for its monetary value, and several others get into positions where they must choose between fighting the Company and protecting those they love. I do agree that money is one of the most universally corrupting forces known to mankind, and I feel that few people are free of that risk. But I also believe that nobody is without help, as long as they desire to do good. The success of the show, of course, is largely dependent upon a lack of religious material in order to appeal to a wider range of people. God can help any man to overcome a temptation that would otherwise destroy him, if his desire is truly to avoid what corrupts.
These ideas have changed my perspective to some extent from watching the show, and I recognize that not all of that is good. There have been several times when I seriously considered continuing to watch the show because of how it was affecting me, but I've found it pretty addictive (which is why I am extremely hesitant anytime someone tells me about a long-running TV show, even if it's not like this because I don't want to have to invest a lot of time into it if I get hooked). I'm pretty close to being done with the series, and probably will finish it. But I wanted to write this because I feel like collecting my thoughts will help me deal with these issues better. I think the best thing for me is to remember that it's not real (despite how realistically it's depicted), and these ideas are just coming from people who are trying to express something that may be right or wrong.
But I'm getting besides the point. The reason I wanted to write about this is to gather and possibly share my thoughts about some of the themes and ideas that Prison Break presents. Prison Break does contain more mature themes and ideas, which is why I'm glad I watched it after my mission rather than before, because I am able to deal with and respond to them in a mature way. Many of the minor events along the course of the story have been disturbing for me, but what troubles me more is the general themes of what the show seems to teach, although it's almost never explicitly shown. I don't know if the producers/creators were attempting to send these messages through the show, but here is some of what I feel Prison Break is attempting to "teach":
1. There is no way to absolutely know the truth about anything.
Later in the show, we become aware of a corrupt governmental entity known as "The Company", who has infiltrated essentially every aspect of society in a very realistic, believable way (the realism, I believe, is what makes the messages more powerful). We find that the protagonist's brother, Lincoln Burrows, was convicted off of doctored evidence that was fabricated so meticulously by the Company that upon escaping prison, the brothers are completely unable to prove that Lincoln is innocent of any crime, even after finding that the man who Lincoln is purported to have killed is still alive.
The point the show seems to make is this: in this day and age, information can be technologically corrupted to the point that nothing is reliable anymore. Everything from the surveillance camera feed to the DNA information of the supposed murder victim was altered irreversibly by the Company and could not be accessed in its original form anymore. Because of the realistic nature of the plotline, I have admittedly been affected by this idea. For instance, in the political sphere (which I have a hard time with anyway), I have a hard time deciding who to vote for in part because I have no way of knowing whether a given party, candidate, or group has gone to a great deal of effort to make themselves appear outstanding and create "evidence" and "statistics" to go along with it, when in fact they do not intend to support the interests they claim. This idea has far less power in the religious context for me, however, because I believe there are alternate methods of finding truth than any form of person-to-person communication.
2. You can't trust anyone but yourself.
Throughout the show, but especially in the last season, the main characters find people they think they can trust, and are betrayed again and again. Those they trust end up either getting killed, turning out to be from the Company, or decide to act for their own interests and not for those of the group. This idea is a social embodiment of the first idea I described. Just as any form of information can be altered, all semblances of personality can also be fabricated with a sufficient amount of skill. Several Company agents construct extremely believable representations of innocent and benign citizens, only to instantaneously shed the facade as soon as they are able.
I feel that this point is somewhat overexaggerated in Prison Break. Part of this, of course, is the fact that not everyone is trying to dismantle a multi-national group that has power over several world governments, so obviously they would not be endlessly tailed by extremely skilled individuals who were out to get them. But even if the show doesn't convince you to become paranoid schizophrenic, it's hard to look at people the same way after you see something like that. I don't dwell on the issue too long, but I can see this show causing a lot of other people to reconsider the integrity of the people they know well. Maybe in some cases that's a good thing, but I feel that in most cases people are pretty close to who they appear to be, and the differences that do exist aren't going to be harmful for the people they know.
3. Evil and corruption are ultimately inescapable and undefeatable.
The Company is extremely powerful. Michael and his friends must work tirelessly and use all of their resources in their efforts to bring down the Company, and even then it doesn't seem like enough. Every obstacle they overcome is met by another, still greater, one in its place, and throughout the show there is the lingering idea that even if they end up bringing down the Company, who's to say something like it won't just spring up into existence immediately afterwards?
I have to say at this point that I haven't finished the show, so I don't know if Michael and the others end up bringing down the Company or not. They do get out of countless amounts of tight situations, which of course is important to the suspense quality of the show, but each time they seem to get a little closer into falling into the hands of the Company. Even if they end up successful in their attempts by the time the show ends, I still think this message is continuously communicated to Prison Break viewers. Those who invest a lot of time into thinking about this show might begin to wonder if they or anyone can ever overcome evil, chaos, corruption, or anything like it. It's certainly because of my religious beliefs, but I know that this idea is just not true.
4. Given sufficient motivation, every good person can always be corrupted.
This has a lot to do with point #2 I made, although the majority of the people who betray the protagonists are found to have been dishonest all along. But in the last season, when the protagonists are trying to acquire necessary intel to bring down the company. several people working with them begin to want it for its monetary value, and several others get into positions where they must choose between fighting the Company and protecting those they love. I do agree that money is one of the most universally corrupting forces known to mankind, and I feel that few people are free of that risk. But I also believe that nobody is without help, as long as they desire to do good. The success of the show, of course, is largely dependent upon a lack of religious material in order to appeal to a wider range of people. God can help any man to overcome a temptation that would otherwise destroy him, if his desire is truly to avoid what corrupts.
These ideas have changed my perspective to some extent from watching the show, and I recognize that not all of that is good. There have been several times when I seriously considered continuing to watch the show because of how it was affecting me, but I've found it pretty addictive (which is why I am extremely hesitant anytime someone tells me about a long-running TV show, even if it's not like this because I don't want to have to invest a lot of time into it if I get hooked). I'm pretty close to being done with the series, and probably will finish it. But I wanted to write this because I feel like collecting my thoughts will help me deal with these issues better. I think the best thing for me is to remember that it's not real (despite how realistically it's depicted), and these ideas are just coming from people who are trying to express something that may be right or wrong.
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