I’m still trying to write my little position statement on Atheism+. As a teaser, here is an editorial-style cartoon by M.J. Shepard, via Friendly Atheist, that I thought was really spot-on.
Hopefully I’ll get my act together on this soon and it’ll go up early next week.
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/09/prelude-to-an-atheism-post/
I saw this posted to Lamebook, a website that collects at least marginally-amusing social media “fails.” I clipped the image because there’s a comment in the original that I found pretty offensive and over-the-top, and it’s really beside the point as far as we’re concerned here. My point in the re-post is mostly to say: these people exist. And the 26 people who liked it? They exist too.
Briefly, because it just barely still needs to be said: atheists can be plenty moral. In fact, most of moral philosophy is entirely secular. And frankly, it’s pretty scary if the only think keeping you from being a violent criminal is the fact that you believe God said not to — or that God is bribing you with the promise of reward or the threat of punishment.
As far as this “walk on campus without being afraid for your life” part — Tiffany & Co., I’m sorry to have to break it to you, but atheists have been around on your campus this whole time. You have atheist classmates, atheist professors, atheist TAs. I’d bet LSU also employs atheist cashiers in your dining halls, atheist janitors who clean up your messes, and atheist bus drivers chauffeuring you around in campus shuttles. They weren’t threatening you before, and they’re not threatening you now. In fact, they’ve learned to put up with you and your religious bigotry. Learn to live with them.
Finally, if it really is true that 20% of LSU students are atheist (I couldn’t find this “poll” myself), a note to all y’all: I’m sorry you have to deal with people like Tiffany and her friends. Stay strong. You are not alone.
Edited to add: AHA at LSU is the club for atheists, humanists, and agnostics at Louisiana State. Check them out, and follow them on Twitter!
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/09/and-8-out-of-10-lsu-students/
The Apologetics 315 blog quoted William Dembski of the Discovery Institute not too long ago, making what I’m sure he and they thought was a clever argument:
“Scientists rightly resist invoking the supernatural in scientific explanations for fear of committing a god-of-the-gaps fallacy (the fallacy of using God as a stop-gap for ignorance). Yet without some restriction on the use of chance, scientists are in danger of committing a logically equivalent fallacy-one we may call the ‘chance-of-the-gaps fallacy.’ Chance, like God, can become a stop-gap for ignorance.”
—William Dembski
You hear this weird turnabout argument a lot. “Oh yeah, well atheism‘s just another religion too!” “Do you ever apply your skepticism to skepticism itself?” It’s an elementary school playground retort — “I know you are but what am I?” — and it usually betrays a very deep misunderstanding of the point being responded to.
Let’s break this one down, shall we?
Theists are arguing that their deity’s existence is the best explanation for every natural phenomenon. But they’ve defined their deity to essentially be “the entity that does everything and is in control of everything that ever happens,” so it’s not surprising that they are able to offer it as an explanation for just about anything they like. What they haven’t done is offer compelling reasons to believe that such an entity exists in the first place. This is why we call it “god-of-the-gaps”: whatever gap in your knowledge there is, this concept of an omnipotent god rushes in to fill it, blocking out any potential for real scientific inquiry as well as any informative, useful explanation. If we think “God did it” is the explanation of that event, does that tell us anything about what might happen next? Does it allow us any sort of deeper understanding of how the universe functions? No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even include any sort of predictions about how this “God” creature might tend to behave and what sorts of decisions it’s likely to make in the future. Basically, positing a “god-of-the-gaps” is just a fancy way of saying “I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, we know that probabilistic events really do happen in our world. See: genetic mutations, variation in inherited traits, radioactive decay … which dispersed seed pod happens to make it to fertile soil and which one dries up on hot pavement. We could make a ridiculously long list like this. Now, noteverything happens entirely due to chance, but no one actually claims that, and I don’t think that is Dembski’s objection; otherwise, he should equally object to gravity ever being used to explain an object’s motion because sometimes it’s actually electromagnetic forces. So, what limits should we place on “the use of chance” as a scientific explanation? How about: only say that chance plays a role in a phenomenon when we have a preponderance of evidence suggesting that it is in fact probabilistic. Never just say “chance did it” without doing any sort of investigations first. What’s that, you say? That’s the heart of the scientific method? Why yes … so it is.
Creationists tend to object to chance as an explanation for biological diversity because they can’t comprehend the large numbers and long timescales involved. (They’re not unique in having this handicap; just look at how many people play the lottery. Human brains aren’t well-equipped to deal intuitively with the very large or the very small.) They also tend to ignore the fact that the scientific explanation includes more than pure chance. We are not shaking up a bunch of springs and cogs in a box, then removing a fully-built airplane. We’re talking about random genetic mutations happening to different organisms all over the planet, plus natural selection pressures that caused organisms with the most beneficial mutations to go on to live longer and reproduce more. We have gobs of evidence that these processes of mutation and selection really do occur. Those processes have had something like 3.8 billion years in which to work… and chance can do a whole lot in that amount of time.
On the other hand, do we have any evidence pointing to divine intervention in our world? Do we have any indication of the mechanism by which that would take place? Do we even have a clear definition of which god is doing the intervening, or even what it means for something to be a god? No, we don’t. So don’t tell me that scientists are committing a “logically equivalent fallacy” to that of the creationists. That’s just wishful thinking on the creationists’ part. No, they have to shoulder the burden of their shame all alone. And scientists are going to continue admitting that they don’t know everything, keep collecting more evidence, and go on making claims only when they actually have evidence to back them up.
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/09/whats-in-the-gaps/
I promised on Twitter a while ago that I would be back to blogging once the school year started. I know that means something different depending on where you are and what flavor of school you are in, but for me, Labor Day Weekend marks the end of the summer and the day after that will always feel like the “first day of school.” As a graduate student who’s been at this education thing for longer than I’d like to admit, I don’t actually experience much of a distinction between summer vacation and the school year anyway (I have to come to lab and do research all the time) so today is as good as any, really.
The one thing that is really different for me over the summer is that the undergraduates aren’t around. They make up a huge fraction of the population in the immediate area around campus, so my world gets less crowded, and I’m a bit more able to do whatever I want whenever I want. Without the undergrads around, there are also fewer people trying to get the undergrads’ attention — so, fewer Christian fellowship groups loitering outside the student union to advertise their meetings, fewer people handing me Chick tracts outside of Chipotle, fewer posters offering “FREE FOOD (and worship services)” plastered all over campus. During the summer, it’s easier for me to forget about the pervasiveness of religion in most people’s lives.
And I’ll admit, it helps me understand why religious people are so fond of their ignorance … this respite from evangelism is a beautiful and relaxing time for me. Temporarily, I get to live in a world where it seems like most people are atheists, and nobody has any problem with my lack of belief at all. Unlike the religious folks who ignore facts about science and history, though, I know my vacation from reality is a temporary one, and I try to use it to “recharge my batteries.” Several times over the last few weeks I’ve had good ideas for blog posts, but I felt the anger start to bubble up where there had been none before — so I said to myself, “Self, you’re on vacation from being pissed about religious indoctrination. Stay happy while you can. You can write this later, when you’re already feeling angry.” And then I watched a few more episodes of Star Trek, ate some frozen yogurt, and worked on my experiments.
Well, now I’m back in the thick of it, with the undergrads and the evangelists in full force, so I can tell I’m going to need my release valve of this blog again. And I have this great list of ideas I built up over the summer. So let’s get to it! And in the meantime … why don’t you let me know in the comments how you savored your summer vacation (if you were able to get one at all)?
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/09/and-were-back/
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I caught this cute little posting on my Facebook news feed a Sunday or two ago:
This is only one of a few that my friend posted while recovering from a cold, but in all of them she talked about how sick she was feeling and proclaimed that she had been healed through her faith. Not “I’m praying for healing,” not “I hope I will be healed,” but “I am healed.” Present tense, not future tense.
I’m posting this because I think it’s a vivid illustration of a common difference between theist and nontheist approaches to reality. My Christian friend here is using a sort of Law of Attraction-style understanding of what makes something real: if she states her claim often enough, and with enough confidence, it’s as good as true in her mind. On the other hand, I find it totally bizarre to wrap oneself in a blanket, dig into a bowl of chicken noodle soup, and shout to the world, “I’be beed heawed!” through a stuffy nose. The evidence is totally inconsistent with the claim, so (in my view at least) the claim must be wrong.
Oh, and to any faith-healing types out there — next time I ask for a bit more evidence to back up your story about your friend’s cousin’s neighbor who was “really healed” through prayer, well … this is part of the reason why.
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/07/yeah-about-that-healing/
I know, I know, the whole internet has mocked this “YOLO” thing to death by now. I’m sick of it too. But one of the recent snarky criticisms I saw got me thinking of another kind of snarky criticism I haven’t actually seen anyone make yet … which, of course, is where I come in! (cue superhero music)
Paul thinks he’s being clever by offering this helpful suggestion to Buddhists and Hindus who might be using the catchphrase, “You only live once.” He’s certainly correct in his observation — if you believe reincarnation happens to everyone, you have to be pretty silly and oblivious not to notice the blatant contradiction. However, I’m going to hazard a guess that a pretty small fraction of the people who have ever said “YOLO” (or used it to justify promiscuity, or used it to get detention, or gotten it tattooed on the inside of their lip) are Buddhists or Hindus. In fact, assuming we’re talking primarily about the English-speaking world here, my guess is that a majority of them are Christians.
The thing is, it isn’t any less hypocritical for a Christian to be YOLO-ing all over town. Christians don’t believe you only live once; they believe they each have an infinitely long life after this one (which is why it’s called the afterlife) in either heaven or hell, depending on how good you are what you believe how good you are and what you believe whether you were baptized oh, who even knows. The point is, living more than once is a big part of what Christianity means, by any sensible definition of the word.
For those of you who actually do believe that this one life is all we have — and I’m with you on this, of course — I’d like to caution you against doing those irresponsible things that most of the YOLO crowd appears to be into. If you only have 100 years, tops, to experience life, don’t waste it harming yourself or others, or harming your/our future prospects for happiness. I recommend you be more like this person. That’s how you YOLO.
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/06/yolo-you-really-think-so/
I’ve been doing Serious Research lately and haven’t had much energy for blogging. I’m actually starting to remember that blogging gives me more energy (like exercising) if I can get myself to kick off the virtuous cycle when I don’t feel like it — so perhaps I’ll be posting more actively in the near future. Anyway, I tore myself away from my textbooks and equations this morning in order to share this brilliant quotation with you:
“An approximate answer to the right question is worth a great deal more than a precise answer to the wrong question.”
Tukey was a statistician, probably best known for the fast Fourier transform algorithm he co-developed. (Wikiquote indicates that this particular line is actually in Super Freakonomics where it is attributed to Tukey, while they have a direct source which reads: “Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.”)
The beauty of this quotation? I got it from a Christian apologetics blog. Yes, folks, religious apologists: those people who insist that their specific deity is somehow the answer to all possible questions because their ancient books say so, regardless of what the preponderance of scientific evidence or logical analysis might say. They just wanted to remind us that it’s better to say “I don’t know yet” and keep examining reality than to be devoutly certain but misguided. … Oh wait, no — that’s what we keep telling them.
Perhaps they would have done better to ponder this third sourced statement on Tukey’s Wikiquote page:
The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/06/precise-answers-to-the-wrong-questions/
I read Rob Bell’s Love Wins back in October, but I just uncovered my notes about it — so it’s time for a much-overdue book review! If you’re the sort of person who reads blogs about religion and atheism, you probably remember the controversy surrounding Bell’s book in March 2011. A quick refresher for those who need it: he argues that God must get what he wants in the end, and since God is love, it simply can’t be that some people are tortured in hell eternally. He doesn’t deny that there might be punishment for bad people and/or for nonbelievers, he just thinks it couldn’t be final. This is pretty well outside the mainstream of evangelical Christianity in the US, and Rob Bell’s role as founding pastor of a Michigan megachurch made his stance on the afterlife into big news.
I find it strangely compelling, or at least intriguing, when religious people drastically critique and criticize their own doctrines or traditions but somehow stop short of rejecting the whole thing outright. So, naturally, I wanted to read this book for myself and see what Pastor Rob’s case for (eventual) universalism looked like.
The first thing I have to comment on about this book is exactly that: what the writing looked like. The entire book is written in the form of, well, a sermon — with tons of linebreaks, repetition of phrases, and all-caps emphasis. It’s more of a prose poem, really. (It gave me a greater perspective on why so many Christian bloggers write with single-sentence or even single-fragment paragraphs, bolding whole sentences all over the place.) As I read it I could hear it being spoken aloud in my head, and it would make a moving sermon. The thing is, sermons aren’t really a good format for conveying logical arguments. You can’t go deeply into any one idea when your paragraphs can’t be more than four lines long. I got the sense that Bell was depending more on emotional manipulation via dramatic use of literary techniques than he was on actual argumentation, and that doesn’t really work on me. I actually found it rather annoying (although at least all the one-line paragraphs made the book a quick read). I see why Christians would get really riled up about it, though; they’re used to being convinced by what they hear from the pulpit.
Let’s get into the argument, then, such as it is. I’m not going to bother with a lot of the usual Christian-apologetic silliness in this book except to put it on the record that it is in fact here. One of my favorites was this line, early on, after reviewing a long list of things the Bible mentions as ways to get saved: “But maybe all of these questions are missing the point. Let’s set aside all of the saying and doing and being and cutting holes in roofs and assume its more simple than that. As some would say, ‘Just believe.’” [p.17] Ah yes. Let’s set aside the questions, and just assume the easy answer! If you’re an atheist planning to read this book, you have to grit your teeth and get through these parts.
To Bell’s credit, he admits a lot of things that I often wish Christians would. He definitely agrees we ought to call CPS on an “earthly father” who punished his children as violently as some say God does [p.174]. He also grapples with the idea that an omnipotent God who wants everyone to be saved might somehow have created a world in which not everyone is saved [p.98]:
Will all people be saved,
or will God not get what God wants?
Of course, in order to give the first answer (which at least doesn’t violate Christians’ basic premises about God’s nature) Bell has to rejigger our usual understanding of what an eternity in hell might actually mean. Because the Bible is pretty clear, you know, on that whole business of being condemned forever. But conveniently, people aren’t always super precise with their language, so Christians can probably twist “forever” to mean something more like it does when we say, “Hurry up, you’re talking forever to get ready!” [p.92-3]
The word olam “can be translated as ‘to the vanishing point,’ ‘in the far distance,’ ‘a long time,’ ‘long lasting,’ or ‘that which is at or beyond the horizon.’ … Jonah prays to God, who let him go down into the belly of a fish ‘forever’ (olam) and then, three days later, brought him out of the belly of the fish. …
So when we read “eternal punishment,” it’s important that we don’t read categories and concepts into a phrase that aren’t there. Jesus isn’t talking about forever as we think of forever. Jesus may be talking about something else, which has all sorts of implications for our understandings of what happens after we die, which we’ll spend the next chapter sorting through.
This is fair. But it raises another issue I’ve discussed before — if the Bible’s language is so vague that a word always translated as “forever” might actually have originally meant “three days,” why is anyone reading English translations of the Bible at all? It reminds me of how atheists point out that the Bible repeatedly promises “anything” to a believer who prays for it, and Christians reply that “anything” shouldn’t be understood to encompass things that are at all unusual. If “forever” should be read as “a rather short time,” and “anything” often means “hardly anything at all,” why should we trust the other bold claims the Bible makes? Perhaps when the Bible says that God is perfect, it actually meant that God is a decent enough dude who tries hard. Perhaps when the Bible says that God is omnipotent, it really meant that God is pretty handy with a multitool.
Somehow, though, Bell manages to trust those parts of the Bible, which is what got us into this apparent bind in the first place. (If God isn’t omnipotent, it wouldn’t be surprising that some people wouldn’t be saved, even though that’s against his will.) He seems very confident in God’s ability to make a perfect world [p.37]:
Their description of life in the age to come is both thrilling and unnerving at the same time. For the earth to be free of anything destructive or damaging, certain things have to be banished. Decisions have to be made. Judgments have to be rendered. And so they spoke of a cleansing, purging, decisive day when God would make those judgments. They called this day the “day of the LORD.”
The day when God says “ENOUGH!” to anything that threatens the peace (shalom is the Hebrew word), harmony, and health that God intends for the world.
God says no to injustice.
God says “Never again” to the oppressors who prey on the weak and vulnerable.
God declares a ban on weapons.
This is referred to as “the age to come.” Now you might wonder, as I did: if God can say no to injustice, what is he waiting for? If God can protect peace, harmony, and health on earth, why isn’t he? This doesn’t really trouble Rob Bell. He just explains that in the meantime, God is only taking care of heaven [p.43]:
Jesus consistently affirmed heaven as a real place, space, and dimension of God’s creation, where God’s will and only God’s will is done. Heaven is that realm where things are as God intends them to be.
Never mind that later [p.145] in a discussion of how the sun shines and how grass grows, Bell declares, “God speaks . . . and it happens. / God says it . . . and it comes into being.” Heaven’s where things are really the way God intended. He’ll settle everything that’s messed up on earth some time in the future — maybe in three days, maybe in a trillion years. It’s hard to tell, what with language being what it is and all, you know?
If this seems like an idealistic kluge of a belief system, that’s because it is. And this is probably what stunned me most in reading the book. Not that some Christians don’t think that sinners will burn in hell forever, but that Bell was so open about believing what he does because it sounds nicer and he “longs for” nicer things to be true. He literally explains [p.111] that “some stories are better than others,” and that he finds the story of an impermanent hell to be better than a permanent one. Never mind that the Bible is stupendously confusing on this topic, or that (as Bell candidly admits) you can find a group of Christians at some point in history or in the present who have claimed just about any possible theology. Love must “win” because Rob Bell wants love to win. QED, I guess.
I don’t know if I’d really recommend this book except as a case study of the mind of one evangelical Christian leader or as additional context for the very interesting debate that happened within evangelical Christianity last year. I don’t think it really made the case for anything beyond “the god most Christians believe in is a jerk,” which I already agree with. At the very least, thanks to Bell’s overuse of the Enter key, Love Wins is a quick read so I don’t really regret the time I spent on it.
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/05/review-love-wins/
I’m getting tired of hearing crunchy hippy New Age types insist that Buddhism is just about “getting in touch with yourself” through meditation and doesn’t have any of those wacky supernatural beliefs like the “Western” religions do. It’s especially irritating when people insist that Buddhism is atheist. Several key sects of Buddhism recognize the existence of gods, and I think it’s time we hold them accountable for that. Thus, the “Know your Buddhist gods” series. Let’s dig in!
The first Buddhist deity we’re going to look at is Guanyin (or Kwan Yin, or Kannon, or any number of other similar names depending on which language you’re coming from and what your transliteration conventions are).
One site explains:
Kwan Yin is the most important female figure in many Buddhist traditions. She is the goddess of compassion. In Buddhism gods are impermanent higher beings who are still subject to rebirth, they are not absolute power deities or creators, as in the western use of the term God. Kwan Yin is a rebirth of the bodhisattva Avolikiteshvara, a monk from a previous eon who was reborn in a heavenly realm and filled with compassion for all living beings. One legend states that Avolikiteshvara chose to be reborn as a beautiful woman to marry a famous king and convince him to become a Buddhist.
This deity isn’t always female, though:
Guanyin is the Chinese name for Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva. However, folk traditions in China and other East Asian countries have added many distinctive characteristics and legends. Avalokiteśvara was originally depicted as a male bodhisattva, and therefore wears chest-revealing clothing and may even sport a moustache. Although this bare-chested and moustached depiction still exists in the Far East, Guanyin is more often depicted as a woman in modern times. Additionally, some people believe that Guanyin is androgynous (or perhaps neither).
The British Museum in London has a 14th century Japanese statue of Kannon, which they highlight on their website with this description:
Kannon (Sanskrit: Avalokiteshvara) was one of the principal bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism in east Asia. In Jōdo (‘Pure Land’) Buddhism he often appears with the bodhisattva Seishi (Sanskrit: Mahasthamaprapta) flanking the Buddha Amida (Sanskrit: Amitabha) in a triad welcoming the souls of the dead into the Western Paradise. In this statue, Kannon is shown in traditional welcoming posture and originally held a lotus flower which had the power to carry the faithful to paradise.
I realize that the Buddhist term bodhisattva isn’t exactly analogous to the Abrahamic understanding of what it means to be a god. However, the Greco-Roman, Egyptian, or Norse pantheons don’t really jive either — and I think the vast majority of us agree that those should count as “gods” in a reasonable definition. A supernatural “higher being” that is “filled with compassion for all living beings” and “[welcomes] the souls of the dead into … Paradise” certainly sounds like a god to me.
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/05/know-your-buddhist-gods-guanyin/
Here’s the second video I received in my email subscription to “The Facebook Missionary Challenge.” (First video is here.) Following, there’s a transcript for those of you who can’t watch the video, and a few comments from me.
They’re easy to spot in a crowd. White shirt, tie, name tag, traveling in pairs. You’ve seen them on foot, on bikes, and perhaps even knocking on your door. Have you ever wondered who they are, where they come from, or what they do? This is Mormon Missionaries – made simple!
At any given time there are more than 50,000 Mormon missionaries serving around the world. There are three types of missionaries: single men, and single women, in their 20s; and older retired couples. Men serve for 24 months, women for 18 months, and retired couples for an indefinite period of time. Single men are the most common type of missionary, accounting for around 80% of the missionary pool.
To be considered for a mission, a prospective missionary submits an online application to church headquarters. Included with this application is the recommendation of his local church leader, known as a bishop. Within a few weeks a mission assignment, otherwise known as a mission call, arrives in the mail. Missionaries don’t request their area of assignment, so they could be headed to any one of approximately 350 missions worldwide – missions like Tulsa, Oklahoma; Santiago, Chile; or even Jakarta, Indonesia. As you can imagine, opening the envelope is a very anxious and exciting moment.
The first stop for any missionary is the Missionary Training Center, or MTC for short. Of the 17 MTCs located around the world, the largest of these is located in Provo, Utah. Think of the MTC like boot camp, but for missionaries. At the MTC missionaries spend anywhere from three to twelve weeks studying the Gospel, learning teaching skills, and if necessary, learning a foreign language. Fun facts:
- Fifty different languages are taught at the MTC.
- 350 missionaries arrive each week for training.
- 2,200 pounds of Lucky Charms are consumed by MTC missionaries each month.
When training is finished, missionaries report to their assigned mission to serve the remainder of their term.
Okay, let’s go over a few logistics. A mission is subdivided into zones, districts, and areas. Each area is staffed by a pair of missionaries, called a companionship. Generally each companionship has an experienced, senior companion, and a less experienced, junior companion. Each district is supervised by a district leader, and each zone by a zone leader. Finally, each mission is supervised by a Mission President, and his wife, who work from a central mission office.
Missionary life is highly structured. Missionaries are expected to arise at 6:30 am, and return to bed at 10:30 pm. They have set schedule for Gospel and language study. They are also expected to live by a strict code of conduct, which includes: always remaining in close proximity to their companion, not engaging in romantic relationships, limiting certain kinds of entertainment, and keeping clean-cut grooming standards. Missionaries also keep a rigorous work schedule. One day a week, usually Monday, is set aside as a preparation day and is used to shop for groceries, do laundry, and write letters. All other days, including Saturday and Sunday, are spent doing missionary work.
So what exactly do missionaries do? Well, most of their time is spent teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, either on the street, on a bus, or at someone’s home. Missionaries also spend time serving in the community. Missionaries are not paid. In fact, missionaries and their families pay around $10,000 to fund expenses during the two-year period. So why do so many young men and women give up two years of their lives and pay their own expenses to serve a mission? Because they believe they have a very important message to share with the world. Would you like to hear what they have to say? To set up an appointment with the missionaries in your area, please visit mormon.org. For more fun videos on the Mormon faith, please visit mormonsmadesimple.com.
There are two big things that strike me about this video. The first is that, while this is pretty factual, I think it downplays some key facts that non-Mormons would really want to know about Mormon missionaries. For example, it isn’t just that missionaries are “limiting certain kinds of entertainment” during their approximately two years of work. That makes it sound like it’s only that they aren’t allowed to bring an Xbox on their mission. They actually can’t read newspapers or watch TV, and the only website they’re allowed to visit is mormon.org (for no more than 30 minutes a week). Also, it’s difficult to watch this video and not wonder why is it that 80% of Mormon missionaries are young men, why women’s missions are shorter than men’s, and why the Mission President is obviously male and married with his wife mentioned only parenthetically. Do Mormon women just not “believe they have a very important message to share with the world”? In fact, if we were telling the whole truth here, we would have discussed the fact that women are seen as inferior within the Mormon tradition. I’m actually surprised that they let women go on missions in the first place.
The second thing that gets under my skin here is the comparison between MTC and “boot camp.” The life of a missionary is obviously strictly regimented and controlled. The breakdown of missions into a command hierarchy provides another striking military parallel. I mean, it almost looks as if the missionaries are a sort of Mormon army being deployed to take over the world! … This ties back in with the forbidden newspaper and TV, too. What does it mean when an organization keeps its members from learning about the outside world? The whole thing has a very culty, brainwashed feel to it. I’m not comfortable with the LDS church’s repeated assurances that going on a mission is not required. It sounds to me more like missions are the sort of thing that an honorable, worthy, righteous young man is expected to do, but of course if you don’t want to be honorable or worthy that’s your prerogative. You know, the way that Christians will tell you “it’s your choice” whether you get to spend a blissful eternity in heaven or be tortured forever in hell.
What do you think? I’m particularly interested in hearing from any readers who are current or former Mormons. If you went on a mission yourself, what was it like? Do you think this video offers a fair introduction?
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2012/05/mormons-made-simple-missionaries/
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