Spiritual Witnesses w/ LDS Discussions Ep. 43

Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin 0:00 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host, John Dehlin. It is April 27, 2023, and we are now on episode 43 of our series titled LDS Discussions, where we bring on Mike from the website ldsdiscussions.com and do our best to analyze Mormon Church truth claims as objectively and as thoughtfully and as dispassionately as we can. Today are going to be covering a really important topic, and the topic is spiritual witnesses or Mormon Testimonies. It's kind of an epistemology discussion about how do we know things. And joining us as always on the panel to share with us his wisdom as an adult convert to the Mormon Church who learned more about the church after he left is Mike, the founder of the ldsdiscussions.com website. Hey, Mike.

Mike 1:03 Hey, everybody. How's it going?

John Dehlin 1:05 Thanks for joining us. How you feeling today, Mike?

Nemo 1:07 Good.

Mike 1:08 This is a goofy topic, so we're going to do our best to kind of go through it and just kind of go through, at least from my perspective, the elements of spiritual witnesses. And so I know if you're watching this as a believer, I'll just get out of the way. This one's a tricky one. It's a difficult one. But hopefully, as you watch it, you'll understand that we're not necessarily trying to tell you that what you experienced didn't really happen. Um, because this one, this is an episode that, when I did the overview on the website, I remember just being like, this is just kind of a goofy one to do it. It made me feel kind of weird because I have to relive some of my own experiences. But at the same time, we'll get through it together. And hopefully at the end of it, we'll all come out at least. Even if you don't agree with what we're saying, at least understanding where we're coming from.

John Dehlin 1:51 Absolutely. We're going to try and answer the question, are emotions reliable? Know things to base beliefs upon and or evidence? Are our emotions evidence upon which you can base a worldview? And I think that's important really quickly for those who are just dropping into this episode without having watched the previous 42 episodes, we have created a podcast feed entitled LDS Discussions that on Spotify, is both audio and video. Also, on Apple Podcasts, you can. You can just consume the LDS Discussions podcast series independent of the Mormon Stories podcast feed, and you can share it with others independent of the Mormon Stories podcast feed. In those ways, there's also a playlist on the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel. There's a LDS discussions playlist where you can watch all these in succession and have them all grouped. We do recommend that if you haven't watched the previous 42 episodes that you consider stopping, going back and watching them because they really do build on each other. And. And again, we hope you share it with. With everyone around. So that's kind of the LDS discussions intro. We are also very grateful to have with us as a part of this series, the Nemo the Mormon. Hey, Nemo.

Nemo 3:11 Hi, everyone.

John Dehlin 3:12 How's it going, Nemo?

Nemo 3:13 It's not too bad. Not too bad. I can't complain.

John Dehlin 3:16 Good. Nemo has an amazing YouTube channel called Nemo the Mormon on. On again, YouTube. Please subscribe there. And also while you're at it, please subscribe to the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel. And we always appreciate your super chat donations and just donating through MormonStories.org or you can donate to Nemo. He has a donor box link where you. Where do you find that? Nemo.

Nemo 3:40 Donorbox.com forward slash. Nemo the Mormon.

John Dehlin 3:42 Nemo the Mormon. Okay. All right. So, Mike, how do you want to set up this episode?

Mike 3:48 We'll just dive in. This one's a goofy one. So like I said, we'll dive in. I mean, goofy, not, you know, this is gonna be silly, but just in. It's. It's a tricky one. So we'll just kind of dive in and give it our best shot.

Defining Spiritual Witnesses in Mormonism

John Dehlin 3:58 All right, so let's go to the first slide.

Mike 4:00 And so just to basically kick it off, this is something. If you are a member of the church, if you've been a member of the church, you've heard the phrase spiritual witness a lot, and it's really hard to necessarily just define it down to a sentence. But a spiritual witness in Mormonism effectively is that the Holy Ghost can let you know if something is true through receiving a feeling that will confirm it as true. And this is most commonly illustrated by Moroni's promise in the Book of Mormon where the reader is asked to pray with a sincere heart, and God will manifest the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon through the Holy Ghost to you. And we've had an episode on personal Revelation where we spoke about how the idea of personal revelation is that you can get, like, more concrete answers to questions, whereas a spiritual witness typically is a confirmation of the truthfulness of the church or through its leaders or through its doctrines, through a warm feeling. So in a lot of ways, a spiritual witness is a feeling you get that you interpret as God confirming to you that something is true or something is false. And within the church, it's almost always going to be whether or not the church is true, whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. And so in a lot of ways, spiritual witnesses has always been taught to me as a warm feeling, a warm feeling in your bosom, that warm feeling that makes you just feel connected to the divine. That's confirming to you the truthfulness of something. And so that is kind of the framing for this episode of as to what we're looking at, as opposed to personal revelation, which might be something like, you know, sitting down and praying and saying, what job should I take? And you feel like you're getting an answer from God, like a still small voice that says you should take the, you know, the first job that you were offered and not the second. This is more about confirming the truthfulness of the church itself.

John Dehlin 5:44 Yeah, and I'll just say from. And this, we may touch on this in some other slides, but I'll just. From a Mormon perspective, there are two things that come to mind in terms of how I was taught spiritual experiences work and then how I was taught to teach investigators on my mission how the Holy Ghost and the Spirit works. The first one is Moroni. It's a, it's a scripture in, in the Book of Morm, in the Book of Moroni, chapter 10, verse 4, which basically says that if you want to know if, if anything's true, but specifically the Book of Mormon, you can pray about it. And if it's true, Heavenly Father, through the gift of the Holy Ghost will cause really intense, strong, warm feelings to come into your heart, a tingle down your spine. But, but you, you will know that something is true when you pray about it and feel this overwhelming sense of emotion. And it's something that literally I took so seriously that when I, when I read the Book of Mormon As a 16 year old, I knelt down by my bed and prayed to get what would be called a spiritual witness. And in my case, it actually never came. I did feel very strong emotions and during testimony meetings at church, when I would hear choirs sing, when I would go to youth conference, and once very profoundly, when I went to a specific general conference, that really resonated with me and that became the foundation of my testimony are these strong emotions that I ended up feeling during other experience, cultural, social and musical experiences within my Mormon experience. But for me, Moroni's promise failed. But I was taught that that's how spiritual experiences work within Mormonism. The, the only Other thing I'll mention is a scripture that I was taught from the New Testament. Galatians 5, 22 and 23 was part of the scripture mastery set of scriptures that I learned when we studied the New Testament one year in early morning seminary. And it basically talks about the fruits of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. And basically what I was taught was that when you're feeling love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness in your heart, that's the Holy Ghost. So and then, and then of course when I went and served a mission, we would try and get other people to feel those feelings. And immediately, if we could get them to feel those feelings, show them a film strip of Families are Forever, have them read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Teach them hopefully a very charismatic emotional, you know, discussion within the, the Mormon missionary discussions. And if we did our job, if the song was powerful, if the prayer was powerful, if the teachings were powerful, as soon as an investigator would feel that emotion, we would say, did you feel it? That's the Holy Ghost telling you that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the one true church. That is how I was taught. Spiritual witnesses and the Holy Ghost work within a Mormon context. Now Nemo, I would love to hear if your experience was similar or if it was different.

Nemo 9:08 It was similar from a missionary perspective. We were taught, you know what, helping someone understand when they're feeling the Holy Ghost is the way it was kind of phrased to us. And it's essentially teaching them that that positive feeling is, that's the Holy Ghost. But I think what you're alluding to here, John, and what's going to become the crux of this episode pretty much is just how amorphous this. So it's Moroni's promise and things like that are often put forward as an equation. If you do XYZ and you receive this outcome, then it is true. If you receive this feeling and that feeling is left so open ended because necessarily it must be. It's not like it's, it's not like it's a very specific feeling. You know, you will feel like someone has tapped you on the shoulder when you know it's true and that just is universally applicable to everyone. It's not as cut and dry as that which I think is what lends itself to this whole discussion we're about to have.

How Investigators Are Taught About the Holy Ghost

John Dehlin 10:09 Mike, I'm curious how you were taught as an investigator the Holy Ghost works and spiritual experiences.

Mike 10:17 I took the discussions in high school, and I was constantly told, when you read the Book of Mormon at night, pray after you read it and ask if it's true. Obviously, there was a desire from the missionaries to get me to agree to be baptized, and that was not going to happen. Not because I didn't believe, but because I was living with my parents. And at the time, I didn't really feel like it would be a good idea to get baptized into the church until I went to college, because I was living with my parents. They were not believers. They weren't, like, against the Mormon Church or anything. It just was one of those things. So for me, it was more about cultivating that witness of the Book of Mormon. And during the discussions, they would always ask, have you been praying every time you read? And I'd say, yeah. And it took weeks before I even felt anything. And it was one of those things where I think I look at it now differently because I look at it through the lens of everything we're going to talk about and everything we have talked about in these earlier episodes.

Nemo 11:10 And.

Mike 11:10 But, you know, there was that moment where all of a sudden, it was. It was weeks of reading a little bit every night. I'd read, you know, a couple chapters a night, like 15, 20 minutes. And then all of a sudden, you know, you sit down, you pray, and you're really thinking about it. And I think at that point, I was really starting to wonder, like, I wanted it. You know, it's like, why am I not getting it? And then you feel it. It's just like that feeling of inner strength, inner peace, whatever you want to call it. And then once you get that, when you tell the missionaries you felt something, then all of a sudden, they know. They know they got you. And so then they go, yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it. Now we got to do this. Now we got to do that. And I think to Nemo's point, it is something that's different for everyone. Some people might say that it's, you know, you hear that voice in your head, like, this is true. Some people, it might be that warm feeling. Some people, it might be that you're walking through the grocery store and you just have that tingling and you tell that to the mission, like, yep, that's it. That's the spirit. And. And I'm not trying to downplay. I'm just saying that it is really not in any way something that you. You're going to follow this exact path and get to it. And so the missionaries really are. When I took the discussions. It was always about, like, what are your goals? You know, your goal is to be baptized.

Nemo 12:13 Right.

Mike 12:13 And so then they'd say, okay, how do we get to there? And what are you doing? Are you reading? And when you read, are you praying? And when you pray, do you feel anything? And then as soon as you say you feel something, like, yep, that's it. And so, you know, for me, it did. It took a few weeks, and I, you know, looking back on him, like, I don't know quite what it was, but it was a nice feeling inside, like, yep, this feels good, this feels right. And. And then from there, it just kind of, you know, moved on to continuing to read and continuing to take the discussions and then eventually getting baptized.

John Dehlin 12:44 Yeah, perfect. All right, so it sounds like we. We shared similar understandings of how the church taught spiritual experiences work. What I'll. What I'll introduce now before we show the next slide in the video is what I realized very early on in high school, because once I. Once I started feeling very passionately about Mormonism and wanting to share it with kids in high school. I grew up in Katy, Texas, which was a Baptist, largely a Baptist town. And so, you know, I'm in a high school with 1600 kids, and most of them are evangelical Christians. And so I wanted to bear my testimony to them. And I was sure that if I beared a solid testimony to them about the church, about the Book of Mormon, they would feel the Holy Ghost and. And then they would convert. But what I very quickly found is I would try and talk to them, try and get them to read the Book of Mormon, and they would say, john, I've already received a spiritual witness that my church is true. Like, I went to an altar call and felt the spirit there. I was reading the Bible, and God told me that my Second Baptist Church of Katy was the true church. And all of a sudden I went back to my seminary teacher, and I'm like, wait a minute. Why is God sending them a different Holy Ghost message than I got? And then it would quickly descend into, well, you know, Satan is really good at counterfeiting what the Holy Ghost feels, what you, John, felt is the real Holy Ghost. But then what they felt is a counterfeit Holy Ghost. And because Satan is. Is very deceptive. And all of a sudden I thought, well, that's really hard to know. How do I know that they're not right? And I actually received the counterfeit satanic inspired Holy Ghost. And that's where the epistemology sort of conflict started emerging for me is because I was. I was reflective enough to realize that everybody in the end feels like their Holy Ghost or their spiritual confirmation is legitimate. And if I step out of my bias, which is my parents and my grandparents and my community and my friends, everyone pressuring me to be Mormon, if I step out of that and try to objectively look at how do we really know what's true, that's where the question question comes. And that leads us to our next slide. Mike, do you want to introduce this slide really quick?

Mike 15:16 Yeah. This is just. If you are deep into this stuff, you've probably seen this video before. But to me, this was one of those videos when I first started doing the deep dive, that was just so powerful because as John said, one of the things about being a member of the church is that you are kind of told that these spiritual witnesses are really kind of unique to Mormonism. And so this video is going to highlight how really all different religions and some cults utilize the idea of a spiritual witness to discern the truth of their beliefs. And so if you've seen it before, hopefully you don't mind watching it again. If you haven't seen this, this really is just such a very powerful look at how common these experiences are between not just religions. But, you know, what we would all agree are pretty bad cults. And so when I came across this video, I'm watching it, and you're just like, oh, oh, oh, crap. You know, like, this is not unique. And then you start to see some of the same elements in how we bear our testimony versus how others do. And. And I really think, you know, this is something we need to watch now at the start of this episode. So as we talk about all these different elements afterwards, hopefully it helps the. Helps to make more sense of the fact that it's not unique to Mormonism. And it's something that we all are going to deal with in our lives in different ways. Not just with. With. Even with just religion in general.

John Dehlin 16:32 Yeah. And there's two things I want to say about this video. First, for those who are watching it, you're going to get it immediately, because what you're going to see and hear are a bunch of people lined up. Muslims, Jews, evangelical Christians, Mormons, fundamentalist Mormons, members of the FLDS church. They're Scientologists. They're just going to be lined up one after the other bearing their testimonies. And you may notice some subtle differences between them, but it's only visual cues that tell you what church they Belong to. I think what I'm going to do, Mike and Nemo, if you guys don't think this is a bad idea, I may audibly mention what church or religious tradition they're affiliated with just so that those listening will have that cue, you know? You know, relative to those who are watching it visually. But, but in some ways that's part of the profound. That's part of the profundity of this video, is because what I think you might find is that 60 to 70% of these testimonies are almost virtually indistinguishable from each other. Because what it turns out is that everyone who is very committed to a religious tradition and who bears testimony about it uses almost identical language to describe what they feel and how they came to feel it and why they feel it. So that's, that's the first thing, the first disclaimer. You'll get more. We'll put a link to this video in the show notes, but you'll get more from it if you watch it. But we'll do our best to help that. The only other thing I'll say is that the audio leveling on this video is not great. Nemo is really annoyed by the audio leveling on this video clip. So some clips may be louder than others and we just apologize in advance about that. Any Nemo, anything else you want to say before. Before we. We show this. Show this clip?

Nemo 18:36 Just that. Yeah, I think what, what John said, the fact that if you, John, weren't to mention who is in this or who is saying it or what sect they're from, you might not be able to tell, I think is actually telling in itself.

John Dehlin 18:49 Yeah. All right, so should we start, Mike?

Video: Spiritual Testimonies Across Many Religions

Mike 18:52 Yeah, let's give it a shot. And like I said, this is, this is really what we're going to base the whole rest of the episode on. So I think this is really important. And if you've never seen it before, I really do think this is one that will be a little bit kind of shocking to see.

John Dehlin 19:03 Yeah. And it's like a. It's like a 12 minute video, right, Mike?

Mike 19:06 So it's a little bit longer.

John Dehlin 19:08 Okay. But it's super important.

Mike 19:09 It really is. And if you, if you have seen it before, you could go get a glass of water, whatever, and come back in 10 minutes. But otherwise I, I really do think this is a must watch for anyone who's trying to kind of figure all this stuff out.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 19:19 Yeah. Or just fast forward and we'll include a link to the actual. To the actual Standalone video. We'll include a link to it in the show notes. All right, here we go. Let's roll the video. While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contest of these

Video Clip 1 19:40 parties of religionists, I was one day

Video Clip 1 19:42 reading the epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and it breatheth not, and it shall be given him. The best way of finding truth is simply go to the origin of all truth. This is a Mormon testimony, please. Now this is who do I have to follow?

Video Clip 1 20:11 Scientology?

Video Clip 1 20:12 The Catholic Church?

Video Clip 1 20:15 To the prophet Joseph Smith?

Video Clip 1 20:17 The Seventh Day Adventist?

Video Clip 1 20:18 Bang.

Video Clip 1 20:20 I started to have a very strong feeling this is Judaism missing something and seeking something, and at the same time, time noticing that he sees the world in a different way. It really had such a profound impact on me that I started to do

Video Clip 1 20:36 a lot of reading.

Video Clip 1 20:37 And very quickly reading about Judaism, the

Video Clip 1 20:40 pieces started to fall together where I

Video Clip 1 20:42 just felt like I had found my way home. I have a very short answer to people who ask me, why on earth

Video Clip 1 20:49 would you want to convert to Orthodox Judaism?

Video Clip 1 20:53 And I say, because God told me to. Having converted not once, but twice, first to reform and then to orthodox Judaism, Rabbi Shmula Yanklovitz is something of an expert on conversions. Both of my conversions were incredibly intense and transformative, and in my experience as

Video Clip 1 21:14 a rabbi, this is the norm.

Video Clip 1 21:16 And a friend of mine who was praying for me at that moment said he, mary came to me, took pity on me, and asked her son to save me. And I knew after that that the cancer was gone, that I should sin no more. And shortly after that, I knew I was called to join the Catholic Church, a church I'd never stepped foot in. So we were doing a meditation myself, and this is Jim Jones, the people's temple. I felt this explosion of energy go up my spine from behind, there's a slice. Bang. And I turned around and I saw this picture. And I said, who is that? She goes, oh, that's Papa Jim.

Video Clip 1 22:05 He's the most loving man I've ever

Video Clip 1 22:06 met in my life. And so I knew that I had to find Jim Jones and People's Temple 5. Finally, at one point, I Seventh Day Adventist, God, I want you. I want truth more than I want this book. And once I made that choice, I made that surrender. All the turmoil, all the struggle, everything lifted.

Video Clip 1 22:33 I had no idea the cross.

Video Clip 1 22:36 I really had no idea what Jesus Christ had done for me, no idea

Video Clip 1 22:40 of the plan of salvation All I knew was I came face to face with God and he told me this

Video Clip 1 22:46 is what I had to do.

Video Clip 1 22:47 And once I made the choice, I didn't have a qualm. I didn't have a doubt. I surprised myself. I realized at such a young age, it was wicked. There was something more out there that this website or this book or this topic, there's more to it. And I remember there was like a voice in my head, you know, and

Video Clip 1 23:06 I realized it was part of the God and the goddess or the universe

Video Clip 1 23:08 trying to tell me, keep going, you're almost there.

Video Clip 1 23:11 You got it.

Video Clip 1 23:13 You've hit the mark. You need to just keep digging, you know?

Video Clip 1 23:16 And it's just been such a spiritual journey for me. I love it. I love every single bit of information

Video Clip 1 23:23 I read about it. There's not one thing that I've read

Video Clip 1 23:24 that I'm like, oh, I wouldn't do that, or that's not how I feel about it. I love everything about Wicca and about witchcraft. And I really, really feel like this is my path, my calling in life. When I went to a kingdom, Jehovah's wit, feel the love and sincerity and warmth of everyone in there right away. And it put me at ease. Jehovah's done so much for me personally.

Video Clip 1 23:54 I want to help as many people benefit from that same relationship with our God.

Video Clip 1 23:59 Every day I studied, it was like dream Scientology from the cup of Knowledge. And I just became more powerful as a spiritual being.

Video Clip 1 24:06 I just have amazing knowledge and a

Video Clip 1 24:08 viewpoint that is 360 degrees and it just stretches from here to eternity.

Video Clip 1 24:12 We should appreciate the music here.

Video Clip 1 24:14 I don't waver from because I know exactly what I know. And if you just sit there with that and go, I am one of the most lucky, fortunate beings in the entire universe.

Video Clip 1 24:25 I feel good.

Video Clip 1 24:26 There's nothing like dynamics. It works, period. It really will change your life and it will make the lives of those around you that much better.

Video Clip 1 24:34 It's extraordinary.

Video Clip 1 24:35 After I got all the physical stuff handled, then I still had all this, like, worry and concern with it. And so I went and I got Dianetics to address it. It's not a problem anymore. There's no pain.

Video Clip 1 24:49 There's no.

Video Clip 1 24:50 I'm not concerned about it.

Video Clip 1 24:51 I play basketball all the time.

Video Clip 1 24:52 I run.

Video Clip 1 24:53 I mean, it's almost as if nothing ever happened. It is because of Dianetics and that's. I know that both my parents, Buddhism before their trek, Ashley made a prayer to Buddha just to keep their family safe and to make sure that

Video Clip 1 25:13 they

Video Clip 1 25:13 were successful in their escape, which I think gave them strength and courage to

Video Clip 1 25:21 move forward and to really just find a better life for their family.

Video Clip 1 25:26 He's a. A bringer of truth, divine truth.

Video Clip 1 25:30 I feel that he is the Messiah. He's the messenger of God's truth to

Video Clip 1 25:36 help us wake up.

Video Clip 1 25:37 Yes, he is. He is Jesus.

Video Clip 1 25:43 And you've just discovered that.

Video Clip 1 25:45 I've only discovered that, yes, since I've

Video Clip 1 25:49 been on this path through AJ's teachings. That's how we come to God.

Video Clip 1 25:57 He's writing, I'm Jesus.

Video Clip 1 25:58 Deal with my memories of being at

Video Clip 1 26:00 the crucifixion, Remember being there, and just the intense feeling of my soulmate, someone I feel very connected to, suffering immensely, although

Video Clip 1 26:14 I feel I suffered more than

Video Clip 1 26:16 he did,

Video Clip 1 26:18 but just because of the

Video Clip 1 26:20 development in love that he had at that time.

Video Clip 1 26:23 But for myself, it was excruciating to

Video Clip 1 26:25 watch basically the annihilation of the person that I love the most. Whenever I think about him now, I just cry. I'm starting to have a soul, like an emotional realization of who he is.

Video Clip 1 26:49 It's just.

Video Clip 1 26:50 It's overwhelming because I know that only God can save me.

Video Clip 1 26:54 But at the moment, I feel that

Video Clip 1 26:56 he's saved me through his teachings and his truth and love that I haven't

Video Clip 1 27:01 experienced through anyone else.

Video Clip 1 27:04 Of course, there are times when the spirit has been very strong. This is Mormon or LDS. When I was 14 and prayed about the Book of Mormon, before I could even get the words out, I just felt the spirit in my heart just really strong. And I just felt so filled with light. Not everything is like that, but as. As I read the scriptures or as

Video Clip 1 27:23 I hear truths at church, then I,

Video Clip 1 27:25 you know, it's confirmed to me in my heart that these things are true. And so your testimony just grows little by little.

Video Clip 1 27:31 And so, like, I'm. I'm reading through the Book of Mormon and like, boom. You get like a, aha. The thought that these things are true comes to your mind. Peace, joy, overwhelming happiness, you know, and it's just kind of like, impressed on your soul. And then the cool thing is, it's not something that happens once. It's something that happens over, over and over again.

Video Clip 1 27:51 Asking God.

Video Clip 1 27:51 When I went home that night, I

Video Clip 1 27:53 opened up the Book of Mormon and

Video Clip 1 27:55 I started reading it. And I just had this warm feeling come over me that I knew was

Video Clip 1 27:59 from God, confirming that the Book of Mormon really is true and that it's really his work. And because of that, I know that the LDS Church or the Mormon Church

Video Clip 1 28:09 is the true church.

Video Clip 1 28:10 Of God.

Video Clip 1 28:10 It's his work on this earth. I found an archive called the Mantina

Video Clip 1 28:14 Archives and contains the Book of Haggath with the LDS church and building in it testified of Jesus Christ.

Video Clip 1 28:21 It says in the in the preface that I should ask God if it's

Video Clip 1 28:24 from him, pray about it and he would tell me if it's true.

Video Clip 1 28:28 I prayed about it and I received

Video Clip 1 28:31 a confirmatory feeling just like I had felt with the Book of Mormon that

Video Clip 1 28:35 the Book of Haggach is good and true and valuable just like the Book of Mormon.

Video Clip 1 28:39 I couldn't distinguish that feeling from anything else that I had felt previously.

Video Clip 1 28:42 It was a spiritual confirmation and I

Video Clip 1 28:44 remember kneeling down in my living room and just crying.

Video Clip 1 28:50 I've been searching for another break off LDS group of this work and of this church. And just tonight I got my witness and it's burning within my soul of how important this work is and how. How true it is. I know it is and it's hard to believe that just a year ago I was in high school and now I'm in a plural marriage and struggling. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that this is the Lord's work, that I have finally found it. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Video Clip 1 29:42 Amen.

Video Clip 1 29:44 Making supplication Allah help me Islam guide

Video Clip 1 29:47 me to the truth.

Video Clip 1 29:48 If you guide me to the truth, I'll never leave it. And I knew in my heart Allah

Video Clip 1 29:52 was telling me in my heart that Islam this is, this, this is true, you know. And I knew right there it's a correct religion.

Video Clip 1 29:59 And at that point I had this

Video Clip 1 30:02 feeling of can just peace.

Video Clip 1 30:06 Just that's how I describe it.

Video Clip 1 30:08 Like peace with everywhere within me, the outside.

Video Clip 1 30:14 It gets me a bit now but I had this. It was completely different feeling for me

Video Clip 1 30:19 and it's changed my life since that day.

Video Clip 1 30:21 And I've never looked back since I

Video Clip 1 30:23 started praying to really to find the truth.

Video Clip 1 30:26 It didn't take a long time to

Video Clip 1 30:28 find out that Islam is the truth and that there can't be any other

Video Clip 1 30:31 religion in the world.

Video Clip 1 30:33 I said please God, you are the one who listens, who always listens. Please, who do I have to follow to come to you direct Christianity or the Muslims? I was 100% sure that God has answered my question what is the right way, the other, the only right way to come to God, Islam. And I knew myself heaven's gate that it is what I been searching for a long time. And I knew it even before I read it. When I got those statements I just couldn't stop reading because I knew. And ever since I've been in the class, there's never been a doubt.

Video Clip 1 31:21 Like when I was. When I first met them, I knew

Video Clip 1 31:23 that what they had to say was true.

Video Clip 1 31:25 It wasn't something they said.

Video Clip 1 31:26 It was something that I knew inside me. I felt. It was like a recognition.

Video Clip 1 31:31 It was instant recognition for me.

Video Clip 1 31:32 And there was never a doubt in my mind. I just wish that people out there could understand how much we feel and know this is real, this is not a fantasy. I know I didn't have to believe. I knew. And then there's a quote. You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into. Is that what it said?

Video Clip 1 31:55 Yeah.

John Dehlin 31:57 All right. Yeah. So that's a powerful video that has really influenced a lot of people. Nemo, do you have any. Any reactions to that video?

Reactions to the Multi-Faith Testimony Video

Nemo 32:07 I mean, the bit that really breaks my heart is. Is seeing the Heaven's Gate group at the end. Because you look at the story of the Heaven's Gate group and you realize most of the people in this video are dead. Like, they're not. They're not around anymore because that very firm belief that they just shared with you ultimately led them to committing mass suicide as a group. So these are not. I guess what I'm saying with that is these are not trivial feelings. No one's trying to trivialize the depth of feeling that these people have. We're simply pointing to the fact that lots of different groups have the same feelings and have that same depth of feeling. Certainly that's where I come from with this.

John Dehlin 32:43 Absolutely. Yeah. Mike, anything you want to add?

Mike 32:48 No, I mean, it's just. It was like when I was saying before the video, it was an eye opening video in the sense of you watch it and you're like, oh, my goodness. It was really something where you see it. Not just, you know, obviously with Heaven's Gate, we. I think we can all safely call that a cult. And they're all repeating the same phrases. You know, instant recognition was one where I think two. At least two of them said it back to back. And you think about how in Mormonism we all do use the same kind of wording and we all use the same mannerisms of speech and stuff. And that. That was something that kind of struck me. And then of course, the LDS breakoff group and how even today it's the Brighamite branch, the main branch of Mormonism won't do polygamy now. It's still doctrine for eternity, but you have these breakoff groups where these women are getting spiritual witnesses that they are to be polygamous wives. And then all of a sudden I'm looking at that and I go, well, how can I say she's wrong, but then also say, you know, that. That someone else is right or someone else is wrong? And it just. It really does show that spiritual witnesses, I think, are real. We all have them. But to just use them as a way to discern truth. I think this video alone tells you it doesn't work unless you believe that God doesn't really have a church, that he's. He or she is trying to push people to, you know, this idea that there's a God that's leading everyone to Mormonism really falls apart when you see all of these people coming out so forcefully and saying, I was told by God, this is where I need to be. And I think that is where we run into these problems of using spiritual and emotional reasoning to. To discern truth about what God wants for us.

John Dehlin 34:17 Two other quick things that stuck out to me. One was the music. I'm sure you mentioned it, Nemo, if any of you noticed, all of those videos pretty much had kind of soft, tender, emotionally manipulative music playing. Because that's a component and designed to elicit elevation emotion. Yeah, elevation emotion. I think we're going to talk about that in a later slide. But why. Why is music needed? If. If the holy. Does the Holy Ghost need music? Or. Or is there something else going on? Is music just a way to manip. Get people to feel things and so it's incorporated as part of the ingredients? Why would God and the Holy Ghost need music at all? Just so happens that all those different videos use music. The second thing I just want to say is there's kind of a fairness problem here, a justice problem. If God is all powerful and all loving, why would he make his primary method of knowing which is the spirit or the Holy Ghost? Why would he make it so easily counterfeitable, so easily manipulated, so. So, so difficult to discern between traditions? Because you would just think that Mormonism, if it were true, and if the Holy Ghost were only bearing witness about Mormonism, the Mormonism would sweep the globe and dominate. But it's not. It's not. So why is God's truth combined with the. The sweet, powerful gift of the Holy Ghost? Why isn't that dominating the world? And you could say, well, people are wicked or Satan is really powerful. But then that calls into question God's power, God's ability, God's plan. Because you Know, I did the math as like a freshman or a sophomore in high school. Less than 1/2 of 1% of the world's population ends up being Mormon. And again, what does that say about God and, and the, the power and the efficaciousness of his plan if so few of his children end up being able to discern truth through this primary mechanism that God created for?

Nemo 36:32 Can I throw a question out there real quick? So, so to answer to that, I was always taught that I had won the genetic lottery or I had won the lottery in the sense that, you know, I was born into the LDS Church and how rare an occurrence that could be. And so that meant we had work to do to make sure that families converted to people could be born into the lds. Ch. And that was a sentiment shared by at least one person in that video who wasn't lds, who talked about, he felt like the most lucky being in the universe. I think it was a Scientologist. There's this idea that you're lucky. Rather than viewing it as always, isn't it convenient that you were born into the correct religion? That also happens to be the religion that your parents had. It's this idea of, well, that makes you incredibly lucky. And the other thing was that God spoke to Joseph Smith in a vision. That's how it goes. That's how the story goes. So he has the ability to make it very clear which church is correct to one individual. But why do we then have to rely on a spiritual witness of that one individual's experience? Why could God not just give that experience to everyone? It's within his abilities.

John Dehlin 37:37 Yeah.

Mike 37:38 Yeah.

John Dehlin 37:38 All right, Mike, should we go to the next slide?

Mike 37:41 Yeah, we can go the next slide and kind of dive in and kind of break all this stuff down.

John Dehlin 37:45 Okay.

Mike 37:45 And so what this episode is really going to be looking at is a lot of different elements of what can formulate a spiritual witness, along with kind of the concepts, the ideas, fallacies, however you want to phrase it, that also help to both sustain and strengthen and fortify your witness and your testimony. And so I said this at the start of the episode, and I know this one. If you're a believer, it's going to be kind of difficult because it feels like you're kind of lived, personal experiences are being kind of broken down into a bunch of these kind of, like, elements. Or, you know, some people will say, oh, how can you kind of reduce my lived experience down to, say, chemicals in the brain? And that's not really what the purpose of this is. It's to try to look at all of the different aspects of the subject that can help to understand why we believe what we believe and also why we are going to kind of retrench and double down on beliefs when we're presented with. With evidence and information that kind of contradicts it. So, again, I know this one's gonna be a little tricky for people, but we're gonna go through a lot of these. We're gonna go through them in a little bit. You know, we won't go through them in too. Too detailed. So hopefully they're helpful. And. And really, that's all this episode is about, is to try to. When I wrote this on the LDS discussions website, it was about how do I make sense of my experience? And so my experience doesn't equal yours. But I think that these are elements that we can see through the video we just showed and through, like, religion and even, like, politics as well. We could see all of these elements in anything that is really emotionally driven. And it helps us not just to understand our own stuff, but to understand others as well.

John Dehlin 39:20 Yeah. So in other words, if. If it's not the Holy Ghost that is actually converting people today, we're going to explain what it might. An alternative explanation for what might be going on. If it's not the Holy Ghost.

Mike 39:34 Yeah. And so we're just gonna jump right in and just go right into one that carries a lot of baggage with it and just. Just rip the band aid off. And it's the content concept of indoctrination in. That makes up in a spiritual witness. And so a lot of people, when you say indoctrination, they say, oh, so you're saying I'm brainwashed. And that's not what I'm saying. And so what we want to do here is use the Oxford Dictionary's definition of what indoctrination is, just so we can kind of set that down as the foundation here. And the Oxford Dictionary says that indoctrination is the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. Yeah, Oxford. So, yeah, that's totally for Nemo right there. And, you know, this is one of those things that the church teaches members from birth, which is to accept their narrative and to only stay within correlated sources. And so we have countless, countless instances where leaders will go on in a general conference talk or in front of the youth and demonize the people who read unapproved sources and. Or what they like to call unreliable sources. And it's because we are expected to accept the church's truth claims without any critical thinking, pushback, or research. And so this is a fairly infamous statement that was in the improvement era, which was kind of like the old ensign or Liahona from 1945. And it was in the ward teachers message. And it said, when our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan, it is God's plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy. God works in no other way. To think otherwise without immediate repentance may cost one his faith may destroy his testimony and leave him a stranger to the king of God. And so I was taught this as a member, that you stick with the approved correlated sources. And when you do that, and when you are, you know, I would use the word conditioned to accept one outlet's message as truth without any questioning. That is the definition of indoctrination. And I believe that that has a lot to do with leading us to a spiritual witness. Because when you're on a path where you can only accept one, you know, in this case, the church's truth claims, and you can't go outside of it, that's where you're going to end up as your beliefs. And I think that is why if you were to go to people and this is just, I would bet, I would bet at pretty much every, every dime I have, if you went into a room of 100 people, you know, say, in their teens or above that are not familiar with Mormonism, and he presented the true history of Mormonism along with the churches like, say, gospel topics essays, I would say almost none of them would join because you would realize that absolutely this is not true. But if you're raised as a kid and all you know is the gospel, not even the gospel essays, but just the church's manuals and their lessons, you're going to say, absolutely, this is true, because this is all I know. And so indoctrination is a big one. I know it's loaded. It's not the, the same as brainwashing, but that's where I think we need to start.

Addressing Active Members and Indoctrination

Nemo 42:23 Okay, can I, can I speak to any active members that may be watching right now? What I would ask if you're not happy with that definition or with what indoctrination may mean? If you think that, well, hang on. We're not taught to follow these beliefs uncritically. We can question, we can, we can do all these things. The key word is critically. I would like you in the comments, to share with us an example of a time when a general authority, a leader of the church, or a lesson manual or any sort of official church document has said that you should be critical of the beliefs of the LDS Church. So please share that if you can find it.

John Dehlin 43:01 Yeah, yeah, it's a. It's a harsh thing. And. And I just think that I just want to show that definition one more time. The process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. Yeah. You cannot criticize. Not only can you not ever publicly criticize the scriptures, the doctrine, the leaders of the church, Mormons are sworn, in my case, with a death oath, basically a threat of threat, you know, throat being slit or being disemboweled. You make oaths not to ever criticize the Lord's anointed. That's how serious it is. And if you ever publicly criticize the church and specifically its leaders, you are faced with excommunication. And if you think I'm joking, I was excommunicated in 2015, primarily because Mormon stories, the podcast, and I dared to question and even criticize the leadership. And it's not just me. It's Bill Real, it's Kate Kelly, it's Sam Young, it's Jeremy runnels. It's the September 6th. So, so many. So, so many public figures have been excommunicated by the church for criticizing it. And then if you say, well, you can't expect a religious tradition to allow critical thinking and to allow its doctrine or its theology or its leaders to be criticized. You only have to look at a Jewish tradition. And if you talk to a modern Jew, maybe not an ultra Orthodox or Hasidic Jew, but certainly a Reformed Jew, a Reconstructionist Jewish, even. Even a conservative Jew, you'll find that they'll say criticism is inextricably linked with Jewish culture and even with Jewish faith. Rabbis encourage you to question, encourage you to doubt, encourage you to critique, because they believe that any faith worth pursuing can withstand criticism and doubt. And, you know, so I think. I think that it's a tough pill to swallow, but I think it's undeniable that the Mormon Church forbids any meaningful criticism publicly. All right, should we go to the next slide?

Dallin Oaks on Expertise and Spiritual Knowledge

Mike 45:17 Yeah. And so this one is, basically, we're going to watch these two videos. I.1 of them is at the beginning of his talk, one's at the end. And this is from Dallin Oaks. He did a talk in 2019, and I'm sorry, I think this actually from 2018. And this is about doubts and trying to, you know, find answers to tough questions. So, John, if you want, you can play the first video on the left and then play the one on the right. Right after all.

John Dehlin 45:43 Right. We live in a time of greatly expanded and disseminated information, but not all of this information is true. We need to be cautious as we seek truth and choose sources for that search. We should not consider secular prominence or authority as qualified sources of truth. We should be cautious about relying on information or advice offered by entertainment stars, prominent athletes, or anonymous Internet sources. Expertise in one field should not be taken as expertise on truth in other subjects. Okay,

Mike 46:33 why don't you play the second one? We can do them both.

Nemo 46:35 Hang on, hang on.

Mike 46:36 Oh, go ahead.

Nemo 46:37 Just before we do that, he. Did he really just say expertise in one field should not be confused with knowledge of truth in another field?

Mike 46:45 Oh, absolutely.

Nemo 46:46 So where are the theology degrees and the spiritual sort of credentials of any of these men? They have, sure, lots of expertise in, in their secular lives, but where are they? Where's their theological training?

Mike 46:59 It's rules for thee, not for me. I mean, basically, and you know, I would imagine from a believer standpoint you'd say, well, Dallin Oaks is a lawyer, I believe. Right. And so they'd say, well, D. Oaks is a lawyer, but he's given the theological knowledge he needs by God because he's one of God's chosen ones. But yeah, to your point, it, it really is kind of absurd. And it really becomes absurd when you have this idea that you're going to have your bishop who could be an accountant, he could be a carpenter, he could be a stay at home dad for all we know. And he's going to give you advice on your sex life or on your marriage or on how to find God. And you're like, well, your expertise is on, you know, maybe it's doing taxes. How are you talking to me about how to handle my sex life with my wife or my kids going through a hard time? And so it really does show kind of how, as I've said so many times, these episodes, when you apply one thing, one area of comment from the church or apologetics, it just, it blows it up because it's just all of a sudden you're like, wait, apply that own statement to your own church and you're going to find it doesn't work so well. And I think that's why, as we talk about when you're in the process of indoctrination, you accept it. Alan Ho is saying without thinking through the next few steps of what the implications are.

Nemo 48:08 Yeah, yeah, sorry, I didn't want to cut the flow there. I just wanted to pick that point up.

Mike 48:11 No, you're fine. The other one is because basically it's like a 10 minute talk. So that, that was from the beginning and this is just kind of the end and it kind of bookends it well.

John Dehlin 48:19 And basically what Oaks is, you know, trying to do, if you look at the modern era with science specifically Mormonism has come under attack. Geneticists have shown that the Book of Mormon narrative isn't true regarding the Lamanites. Geologists have shown that the age of the earth is billions, not 6,000 years old as we've talked about in previous episodes. The global flood couldn't have happened as we've covered on LDS discussions. Noah's Ark couldn't have happened as we've covered on LDS discussions. You know, there are so many anthropological and literary anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, all of it resounding to the Book of Mormon, not, not being a credible historical document. And then you've got all the historians that are raining down on Joseph Smith as being a peepstone, you know, treasure digger and, you know, the polygamy stuff. And basically what, what Dallin H. Oaks is trying to do here is to kind of put Teflon on the testimonies of all the members saying, I don't care what expertise you have, I don't care how knowledgeable you are. You know, we as spiritual leaders trump all knowledge of all kinds. Am I getting that wrong, Mike?

Mike 49:33 No, it's fair. And it's funny too, because his whole thing is expertise in one field should not be considered expertise in another. And to your point, I agree. So if you want to know if Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham correctly, go to an Egyptologist not employed by the church and ask them what the papyri fragments we have say what Joseph Smith said they had because we have the source material for at least part of the Book of Abraham. Go to a geneticist who's not employed by the church and say, does it make sense that the Native Americans that lived in Missouri in the 1830s came from Jerusalem? And they would say, no, that's ridiculous. And then we, like you say, on and on and on. So yes, go to the experts in those fields and say, do these truth claims hold up? You don't have to go to an Egyptologist and say, what do you think about DNA? Go to the experts in each subject and Dallin Oaks here I think is saying that, but he's saying it to the church because in the, in the church, the only expertise that matters is people who speak for the church that you can trust. And so I think in a lot of ways he's unintentionally kind of self owning himself because he's really kind of saying you should go to the experts. But then in the same breath he's like, but you shouldn't go to experts outside the church. And I feel like that is why I feel this is like the process of indoctrination because you're teaching people to accept only one set of, of knowledge uncritically, which is those coming from the leaders of the church while telling the people who really are experts in their field that you can't trust them because they're secular. And I feel like that is, that really to me fits so well with this idea of indoctrinating members to just reject anything else.

John Dehlin 51:01 Yeah. Let's go to the next, next clip from Elder Oaks.

Mike 51:05 Yeah, it's a short one.

John Dehlin 51:08 As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland urged, hold fast to what you already know and stand strong until additional knowledge comes. In this church, what we know will always trump what we do not know. Exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the first principle of the gospel. Finally, seek help. Our church leaders love you and seek spiritual guidance to help you. We provide many resources such as you will find through LDS.org and other supports for gospel study in the home. We also have ministering brothers and sisters called to give loving assistance. So is the money quote there? What we know will always trump what we don't know. I think I heard an audible laugh from Nemo when that, when that, well,

Nemo 52:01 he, he flip flops between an open and a closed belief system so quickly it'll make your head spin. He goes, oh, wait for new knowledge to come, but ignore it if it, if it disagrees with what you already know. So it's, it's very much a closed belief system trying to pretend that it's an open one.

Mike 52:18 Yeah, it's just, I mean, imagine telling somebody that is going through a hard time that's trying to figure out answers to something that's not church related. You do not allow new information to trump what you already know. I mean, my goodness, we would advance nothing in the world. I mean, if we held fast to the ideas that were wrong because we thought we knew them. I mean, it's just, it's such a horrible, horrible, manipulative piece of advice to give to Members who are currently struggling to try to figure out why nothing adds up, that the church claims is true. And it. It's why people. You know, there's this thing where people within the church feel like you're being persecuted or being picked on because people are, you know, talking about this historical issue. It's history. It's not anti Mormon. It's not pro Mormon. It's history. And Dallin Oaks here is trying to tell members, no, it's not history because you know what we told you, and that's all you need to know. And I just. It's just. It's so manipulative, and it's trying to keep you in this box where you only accept them uncritically while everyone else that's experts in the field, you're like, no, we can't trust you, even though you've spent your whole life doing this. It's just such a horrible. If the church was true, you would not need to give this talk. That's the easiest way to say it.

John Dehlin 53:26 Yeah. And it's. I don't want to go on too much of a rant here, but it is kind of ridiculous for Mormon church leaders in 2023 to say that what they. You can trust them about, you know, not all knowledge and. And even earthly knowledge above, you know, anyone else, because they have, you know, they have gotten it wrong so many times, whether it's fighting, you know, fighting the Civil rights movement, whether it's fighting the Equal Rights Amendment, whether it's claiming the age of the earth is 6,000 years old, the global flood, saying that organic evolution is evil, saying that the name Lamanites were descendants, you know, of. Of Jews, and the Native Americans are descendants of Jews. The Book of Abraham, the Book of Mormon. They're just infinite ways where the Mormon Church has gotten it wrong over and over and over and over again. So it's just. It's almost beyond hubris for them to stand in front of their membership in 2023 and say, Trust us as authorities above all else, because if there's anything that's reliable, it's that they've gotten it wrong over and over and over again. Anyway, should we go ahead and show the next slide, Mike?

Mike 54:38 Yeah, we can go to the next one.

Repetition and the Illusory Truth Effect

John Dehlin 54:39 All right, let's show the next slide.

Mike 54:41 And so, you know, this one is one that I always actually notice as a member, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because I came from a different background. But. And I also might, you know, I have a lot of Teachers in the family. But, you know, one of the best ways to teach people concepts and ideas is to repetition. It's through repetition. And this is something that you'll see everywhere. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. The more you hear an idea, the more willing we are to accept it as truth. And that is true. Just beyond religion. We just did an episode on the transfiguration of Brigham Young. We kind of talked a little bit about this where as that story kept being retold, people just started to accept it as a truth, even though we. We know from the historical evidence it never happened. And so within Mormonism, you hear that, there's all these catchphrases. You know, right now, the covenant path is one of the phrases you hear over and over again. But the one that really stands out to me is the primary song, Follow the Prophet. If you sing the full. The full song, you know, these young kids are singing the phrase follow the Prophet 54 times in one song. And that's. You know, it's not a typo. It's not a miscount. They're singing follow the prophet those three words 54 times.

John Dehlin 55:45 For those who don't know, the song is follow the prophet. Follow the prophet. Follow the prophet. Don't go astray. Follow the prophet. Follow the prophet. Follow the prophet. He knows the away. And then you'll have that.

Nemo 56:00 And then the beat drops. Oh, no, it doesn't. Okay.

John Dehlin 56:04 No, but I mean, I think that song has 12 verses, so if you like.

Mike 56:08 I think it's. I think it's nine verses.

John Dehlin 56:10 Nine verses.

Mike 56:11 Yeah. I can't remember how it goes, but yeah, it's. It's a lot.

John Dehlin 56:13 So if you sing that song all nine verses, 54 times, you're saying follow the Prophet.

Mike 56:18 Yeah, because I think it's like. I think it's like 36 times from the. From the chorus. And then, like, I forgot it was a while ago, but you're counting it, and you're like, this is crazy. Like these little kids and, you know, I don't like usually to tell stories about my own personal stuff, but I will say, you know, one of the things that was really crazy to me was my temple experience was horrible. As I talked about in a previous episode that I went before 2005, and that's when you were naked under the shield, and I was touched on my naked inner thigh by one of the old temple workers, which was standard at the time during the initials. But anyway, so that was a horrible experience for me. And I remember My kid, he was pretty young at the time, I want to say four. And he comes back from church one day and he's like, I can't wait to go to the temple someday. And in my head I'm thinking to myself, you have no idea what the temple is, you have no idea what goes inside of it. But you're already at 4 years old being told this is where you need to be. And that really is what happens with repetition, what happens with indoctrination, where this is all you know. And so then you start noticing the things like primary songs. You start noticing how when you repeat these things that kids just latch onto it as like, yeah, this is, this is what it is. And so those are things that really did open my eyes up to this is, this is going to be kind of a tricky thing because, you know, how do you, you know, if you're, if you're in the church from the time you're born until you're a teen, of course you're gonna think you have to go to the temple because you've been told that for 15 years. So repetition is very effective. And so anyways, to continue on, you know, on the flip side, if we repeat something enough, we will believe it more strongly. And so that's why, you know, the church continues to always ask members to bear their testimony because it helps you strengthen it. And so Dallin Oaks, who I will continue to pick on, apparently said in a 2008 general conference talk, another way to seek a testimony seems astonishing when compared with the methods of obtaining other knowledge. We gain or strengthen a testimony by bearing it. And so what he's telling you here is if you can't find your own testimony of the church, but you keep bearing it over and over, over and over again, eventually you almost convince yourself that you have it. And this is something we see in a lot of people in bad situations where when you keep telling yourself something, eventually you just go with it because, you know, you're basically pushing, you know, pumping yourself up to do it. And it's not, it's not a good way to discern truth, fake it till

Nemo 58:31 you make it sounds a bit harsh, but it's kind of that sort of concept. And then I think the, the other, the other ways, you know, I was, I was talking before we came on air about how I get told off for being self denigrating because people are concerned that I will start to believe the mean things I say about myself to others that are actually true. And that can be a genuine route towards A depressive state or some, you know, low mood because you tell yourself things about yourself and you say them often enough, you start to believe them and then you start to, it starts to change your sort of feelings of self worth. So outside of a spiritual context, you can very clearly see how this happens to people. So there's no reason to think it wouldn't operate the same in a, in a religious context.

John Dehlin 59:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can absolutely confirm that. When I was struggling with my testimony, I was told just start bearing it. And you know, it even got to the point where, like I said before, I did Moroni's promise as a 16 year old teenager who was living worthily. The witness didn't come. I went to byu. The witness didn't come, went, you know, went into the mtc, got called on a mission in Guatemala, spent two months in the mtc. The witness didn't come, went to Guatemala. And I'm like about to go give my first, you know, discussion lesson as a missionary. And I literally had the thought going into the house for my first missionary discussion in Guatemala. I still don't know if the church is true and yet I'm going to be now called for the first time to bear testimony. And I'm not going to just say I feel the church is true. I hope the church is true. I have to say, as a Mormon missionary, I know the church is true. And immediately the thought came into my mind. Well, I was always taught that a testimony is gained by bearing it. So I made the decision as a missionary. At that point I'm going to say I know it's true as an act of faith. And then I've been taught that if I take that act of faith, then the witness will come later. And what I really, you know, what really happened was I was taught to lie and say that I knew something that I didn't actually know. But that's how my quote, testimony progressed up, up through that point. All right, Mike, should we go to the next slide?

Mike 1:00:51 Okay, so pretty similar to the to repetition is this idea of the elusive illusory truth effect. Wait, am I saying that right? Elus.

John Dehlin 1:00:59 Illusory.

Mike 1:01:00 Illusory, right. Yeah. Let's start over again since we have to edit anyways.

John Dehlin 1:01:04 Okay.

Mike 1:01:05 Yeah. So kind of similar to the idea of the repetition as the illusory truth effect, which is kind of defined in the following way. And this is from Wikipedia. I know that's not maybe the greatest definition, but they kind of explain it this way. They say the illusory truth Effect is a tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure. This phenomenon was first identified in a 1977 study at Villanova University and Temple University. When truth is assessed, people rely on whether the information is in line with their understanding of it or if it feels familiar. The first condition is logical, as people compare new information with what they already know to be true. Repetition makes statements easier to process relative to new unrepeated statements, leading people to believe that the repeated conclusion is more truthful. And so this is similar to what we've been showing you with how the church kind of says, you know, you focus on what you know, you lean on what you know. And so they'd have the study, and they took participants and they gave them a list of 60 questions on three separate occasions. And on the second and third time, they were given 40 unique questions, but 20 of them were the same as the previous. And the participants answered that they were more confident of the truth of the statements that they had previously answered, with the scores rising from 4.2 to 4.6 to 4.7. It didn't matter if the statements were actually factually true, because a lot of them weren't. Some of them weren't, but the participants were more confident in them because they were repeating the same answer. And it really shows that, again, if you bear your testimony, you're going to all of a sudden really feel more confident in it. And if you're constantly exposed to, say, the church's own kind of narrative history, when you see information that contradicts that, your first response is going to be to fall back onto what you've been taught your whole life, because that's what's comfortable. And so it really does show sometimes that when you're repeatedly exposed to an idea, you're going to believe it, even if it's not like your own body, like knowing that you're kind of intentionally deceiving yourself. It's just a natural human reaction.

John Dehlin 1:03:02 And you've got, you've got a couple quotes that, that utilize the illusory, illusory truth effect here.

Mike 1:03:08 Yeah. I don't know if you and Nemo want to each read one or.

John Dehlin 1:03:11 Yeah. Nemo, you want to go first?

Nemo 1:03:13 Sure, I do. Boy. K. Packer.

John Dehlin 1:03:15 Okay.

Nemo 1:03:15 It is not unusual to have a missionary say, how can I bear testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the gospel is true if I do not have such a testimony? Would that not be dishonest? Oh, if I could teach you this One principle, a testimony is to be found in the bearing of it.

John Dehlin 1:03:37 All right? And that's Boyd K. Packer implementing literally the illusory truth effect. Now I'll read Neil L. Anderson, who's also an apostle for the church. He writes, to the youth listening today or reading these words in the days ahead, I give a specific challenge. Gain a personal witness of the prophet Joseph Smith. Let your voice help fulfill Moroni's prophetic words. To speak good of the prophet, here are two ideas. First, find scriptures in the Book of Mormon that you feel and know are absolutely true. Then share them with family and friends in family home, evening seminary and your young men and young women's classes, acknowledging that Joseph was an instrument in God's hands. Next, read the testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith in the Pearl of Great Price or in this pamphlet now in 158 languages. You can find it online@ LDS.org or with the missionaries. This is Joseph's own testimony of what actually occurred. Read it often. Consider reading the testimony of Joseph Smith in your own voice, listening to it regularly and sharing it with friends. Listening to the prophet's testimony in your own voice will help bring the witness you seek. So basically, he's saying, repeat Joseph Smith's testimony over and over again in your own voice and you'll quote, gain your own testimony. And Mike, what are you theorizing is actually going to happen?

Mike 1:05:00 Well, I mean, it's just going to reinforce in your head that that's the only way I, I, I've always found that really, like, kind of creepy to say, like, read Joseph's words in your own voice in front of like a mirror, watching yourself, like, repeating as if you're Joseph Smith. But either way, the end game is that if you can get people to read this enough and read it enough to the point where they're blocking other, other information out. If that's all you know, then that's what you're gonna go with. And that really is why, you know, I hate to use the word information or the phrase information control, but if you can control the narrative, if you can control the information, it's a lot easier to keep people, as the church says, in the boat because they're not going to know what else there is, and they're certainly going to be more afraid of what else is out there.

John Dehlin 1:05:40 Absolutely. Nemo, anything you want to add?

Nemo 1:05:44 I just, I think if you looked at Joseph Smith's testimony, you might actually start to see some of the phrases that people then use in their own testimonies you know, they're going to use it as a sort of template of this is the way that it should be done because this is the way that it was done by the prophet Joseph Smith.

Mike 1:05:58 Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the same way that, you know, you go up there on fast and testimony Sunday and you have that little 4 year old, 5 year old kid that walks up there and like, I love my mom and dad. I'm so grateful that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I know this church is true. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet. I know the Book of Mormon is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. And everyone's like, oh, how cute. But it's like, it's because they're repeating what they know. And that really is the benefit of repetition and the benefit of, of hearing the fast and testimony meeting every Sunday. Because when you hear that over and over again and you hear people talk about how they, they know it's true, well, that's all you're hearing. So you're going to think even more deeply that, yeah, it's true because these people also are feeling what I'm feeling. So it's, it's effective.

John Dehlin 1:06:39 And I'm sure you're going to talk about this later, but I've often said that a Mormon testimony feels a lot like social approval because when that kid bears their testimony, they're going to, their parents are going to love them, their parents are going to hug them, their teachers are going to call them out in Sunday school while that testimony you gave or in primary, that testimony you gave was so powerful, you know, and everyone's gonna applaud and congratulate and honor you. That's gonna feel super good. And then you're going to be associating super positive feelings and approval with the behavior of bearing, you know, saying the words frankly that you've been conditioned to say.

Nemo 1:07:18 Positive reinforcement, positive reinforcement.

John Dehlin 1:07:21 And that takes us to a very, very important concept that is called elevation emotion. Tell us what this is.

Mike 1:07:30 Yeah. So the idea of elevation emotion is kind of best illustrated by a fast and testimony meeting. And so you're in this big group and a member gets up and walks to the microphone. As they're telling a story, they begin to get very emotional and they explain how miraculous the event was that happened to them that they experienced. And while they're telling a story, they're crying and people in the audience begin to feel those same emotions. And they interpret those emotions as the spirit, confirming to them the truthfulness of the church. And of course the person speaking. And so, in a shorter way of looking at it, emotion is elevation. Emotion is described as an emotion elicited by witnessing virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness. And so it doesn't have to be religion, but it is definitely applicable because this is a natural emotion that we feel when we hear about miraculous or morally good stories. Which is exactly the point of having a fast and testimony meeting every first Sunday, right?

John Dehlin 1:08:23 Absolutely. Okay, next slide.

Elevation Emotions and Religious Experience

Mike 1:08:27 Yeah, we can go to the next slide because this is also on elevation Emotions. So I want you, everyone at home, or if you're watching this, watch this video. It's a short one. If you're listening to it, you could kind of pick up the gist of it. But effectively, it's a child whose dog had been lost for two months, and he's coming home from school, and he's surprised by this dog that he's been missing so much. And when you watch this video, it's really hard. I mean, like, even when I watch it, it's like watching the reunions of, like, military people seeing their kids again. It's hard not to feel some emotions. And this is exactly how the church tells stories, how they create videos. And those feelings are then used to tell us. It's the spirit confirming truth. But in reality, it's our bodies reacting to what we, you know, what we're seeing, what we're hearing, what we're reading. And so when you watch this video, if you. Well, if you don't feel anything, you have a heart of stone. I'll just tell you that right now. Because if you don't get. Don't get a little bit emotional watching a dog reunited with a little kid, you've got no hope.

Nemo 1:09:22 Challenge accepted.

Mike 1:09:24 Yeah, well, Nemo, you're dead inside anyways. But when you watch this, in this video, I have a video on the website of the same thing, but it doesn't have. This one has a little bit of music, too. And as John mentioned earlier, music is always used in church videos. It's very manipulative. And it's also used in political ads. I'm not saying it's just the church. It's just music can really manipulate. That's why movies and TV shows are so effective with music. But watch this and just think about how you feel watching it. And then think about how you feel at a fast and testimony meeting. And then you got to say, when you watch this, is this confirming the church is true or that you feel very emotional watching a dog reunited with a little boy?

John Dehlin 1:10:01 All Right. Should we play it?

Mike 1:10:03 Yeah, let's play it.

John Dehlin 1:10:04 Let's play it.

Nemo 1:10:26 Your martin.

John Dehlin 1:11:05 How's that Stone cold heart, Nemo? That stone cold British heart.

Nemo 1:11:10 I tried to have a deadpan face when I knew you would cut to me, but I couldn't help but smile.

John Dehlin 1:11:16 All right, Turns out, Mike, it turns out Nemo has a soul after all.

Nemo 1:11:19 I'm a real boy.

Mike 1:11:21 Yeah, it's hot. Like, I mean, I'm a huge dog person, so those always get me. But, yeah, it's just. You know, it when I watch that. I even just now I've seen this video probably like six or seven times now, and, you know, over the last few years, and it's still it. I always feel like, you know, really warm inside because you're watching this little kid reunited with a dog that he'd been missing. And I think about, you know, my experiences with dogs and all that. And the point is, you know, that's not God confirming to me anything. That's just me feeling really good about seeing something that. That's really good for this family. And so I just feel like that's something we have to be aware of, because that's the idea of elevation. Emotion is you're seeing something that's good and you're feeling it, too. But does that mean that the church is true, or does it mean that you're just reacting to what you're seeing? And I think that's something we all have to be aware of because not only is it applicable in religion, but you can watch a movie or a TV show and feel it. You can watch a political ad and get really angry because the music's all scary, or you could feel good because it's all triumphant. And you have to be aware of how easy it is for us not just to be manipulated intentionally, but, you know, just that our feelings come from a place within us sometimes that is not related to church whatsoever.

John Dehlin 1:12:29 Yeah. Yeah. And of course, a Mormon or a member of another faith tradition that believes in the Holy Ghost is going to say, well, the Holy Ghost can bear witness about anything if that boy loves his dog and the boy missed his dog. And, you know, they'll go one of two ways. They'll either say, well, the Holy Ghost can bear witness about a dog and a boy's love for a dog. The Holy Ghost can bear witness about the truths that are within Islam or the truths within Catholicism, or even the truths within Scientology that can still all be the Holy Ghost, you know, and that's where the Mormons like to Talk about the, the light, the.

Mike 1:13:09 What is it?

John Dehlin 1:13:10 The gift of the Holy Ghost versus the light of Christ, that somehow there's kind of like Holy Ghost junior Which is like the Holy Ghost that everyone in the world can feel. But that's different than the gift of the Holy Ghost which can be with you at all times and dwell with you at all times. That's an extra special turbo privilege VIP version of the Holy Ghost that only Mormons get when they're ordained. You know, with the gift of the Holy Ghost after baptism, you know, that's one way that they can go. Do you guys have a response about that?

Nemo 1:13:45 Particularly other than. I think that's when you have to then say, well, we can't make the Holy Ghost the arbiter of truth. Then we can't make him the one that reveals truth to you if he is going around revealing those same feelings to other people. Because it's just far too confusing a system. As I said earlier, there are more concrete ways God could tell people these truths. Sorry, John, what are you going to say?

John Dehlin 1:14:05 Yeah, and one of the things that a Mormon will say also in rebuttal is, well, there's a difference, there's a clear difference between emotion and the Holy Ghost. And if you don't know, it's almost like the, the no, no, True Scotsman fallacy. Yeah, it's just sort of like, no, no, no. There's a difference between sappy emotion and like the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is more powerful, it's more real, it's more, you know what I'm saying? And then I'm just like, yeah, man, like tell me again, because I don't get it.

Nemo 1:14:37 I mean, you need to be able to then quantify that in order to have that argument. You've got to be able to say emotion past this point. But then how do you measure emotion? I'm not a particular emotional person, so I'm then worried that I'm not feeling the spirit or that, you know, it has to take something pretty strong to make me particularly emotional. So then you're like, well, okay, I only have strong emotions in that field, so I've got no continuum to work off. So it's just all the Holy Ghost. Obviously it's tricky for individuals and in

John Dehlin 1:15:04 my, in telling, continuing my story, you know, again I mentioned to you all that I, I read the Book of Mormon cover to cover As a 16 year old, I knelt down and prayed. I knelt down and prayed twice in the same night because I knelt down, prayed, didn't get an answer. This is going back to the repetition thing. Got in bed, was bummed out, felt ripped off. Because it wasn't easy to read the Book of Mormon, frankly, especially all those Isaiah chapters and all the chapters about war. It was brutal. So I did it. I was busy in honors classes in high school. I was on the basketball team. Like, I was. I was a busy guy, but I read the book anyway. And then I pray about it. I don't get the answer, and then I kneel down and pray again and still don't get the answer. Like, I almost was thinking, like Joseph Smith, mystical thinking that maybe if I tried two or three times, it would magically come. But what was really confusing was later the Muppet Movie came out. And I don't know which Muppet movie it was, but I was a big Muppet fan, a big Jim Henson fan, and I remember watching one of the Muppet movies and feeling overwhelmed with emotion to the point of wanting to cry. And I thought, crap, why is it that I'm feeling emotionally overwhelmed with positivity when I watched the Muppet Movie? But I couldn't get that when I was righteous and worthy and was praying about the Book of Mormon. And that's when I first. It really drove home to me that I don't think any of us really understand the Holy Ghost. Yeah.

Nemo 1:16:31 Because it's intentionally unintelligible. It's kind of. It's. Mormonism did a great thing of making deity tangible where other religions. And we. We often cite that as our big thing, you know, well, Jesus Christ and God have a body of flesh and bone. We've just taken all the intangibility of trinitarian views of God and just put it into the Holy Ghost. So that key part of the. The Mormon Godhead is just as intangible and ununderstandable and unapproachable and all those things as the Trinity is in. In my view.

John Dehlin 1:17:05 Yeah, absolutely. All right, Mike, should we. Should we go to the next slide?

Prioritizing Emotion Over Reason in Faith

Mike 1:17:11 Yeah, that works.

John Dehlin 1:17:12 Okay.

Nemo 1:17:13 Yeah.

Mike 1:17:13 And this is kind of, you know, summing up a little bit of what we've been talking about. But it. One of the things that the Church does, and it really does build our ability to have this witness and this testimony is to emphasize emotion over reason. And so, as we've been talking about in a lot of these episodes, if we apply the same critical thinking to the Church's truth claims that we would to any other religion, organization, politician, it would be really easy for everybody to understand why the Book of Mormon is a 19th century document and why the evidence is very clear that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God. Because of all of the episodes we've done, whether it's failed revelations, biblical scholarship issues, anachronisms, whatever you want to say. But in the church, we're constantly raised to privilege emotional experiences over critical thinking. It's what we talked about a few slides ago when we had the video where they say, focus on what you lean on what you know as opposed to what you don't know. And in the church, I remember being taught this, and I know it's, it's, you know, still taught by a lot of people, which is when you have a feeling that is good, it's God confirming the church is true. When you have a feeling that's bad, it's, you know, the adversary trying to pull you away. And as I've said on a number of episodes, this really does amount to a little bit of a tails I went and had you lose approach to, like, evidence. Because when you condition members to retreat from evidence that makes them feel uncomfortable and makes them feel like their beliefs are being attacked, you can then present them with the comfort of apologetics and the comfort of church leaders talking in ways that reject critical thinking to try to make those questions go away. And that's literally what Dallin Oaks was doing by saying, you can't trust the experts unless those experts are us. And this is a problem because as we've been talking about throughout these episodes, we could show throughout history that feelings are just not a reliable indicator of truth. And in the Spiritual witnesses video that we showed at the beginning, you can sense that a warm feeling is never going to be able to discern truth because every single religion and cults have the same experience. And when you look at, like Jim Jones and the People's Temple and you look at Heaven's Gate, you got to go, well, was God telling them that they're in the right place? Because if so, that's really problematic, given, as Nemo said earlier, how a lot of people in, in those groups end up dead. And it just shows that they had such a strong conviction that this is from God that they were willing to go through and die for it. And that really does make you have to take a step back and go, how powerful is God really? If God can't tell everyone this is not the right church or this is the right church? It just feels like everybody's on their own path and they're going to confirm what they want. And this really does happen when you privilege Emotion over evidence and reason.

John Dehlin 1:19:43 Am I. Oh, go ahead, Dimon.

Nemo 1:19:45 I was gonna say, am I banned from mentioning Jonathan Haidt on the podcast yet?

John Dehlin 1:19:48 Oh, please.

Nemo 1:19:49 You know, I mean, it's not just him. Human beings are very good at emotionally reasoning. We're actually, we're very good at it. And it's a lot of what we do. We feel certain ways about things and then we try and justify those feelings through logic. So the Church is just tapping into what is already a very human disposition, which is to reason emotionally.

Mike 1:20:11 That's just my thoughts. Oh, yeah, 100%.

John Dehlin 1:20:14 And unless you've been raised in, in Mormonism, you have no idea just how, how thickly emotional reasoning has been woven into our culture. Because, you know, all you have to do is just have the experience of learning something about the Church that you had never learned before. Like the Book of Abraham Papyrus, not, you know, not bearing, bearing weight, or the anachronisms in the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith's polygamy, his polyandry. You know, pick any topic, you take that to any orthodox believing Mormon and you say, hey, I learned the super disturbing thing that the Church acknowledges is true. And at first they'll deny it and say it's anti Mormon, you know, drivel, or it's not valid, or it's not from the Church. And then as soon as you're able to show them, you know, that the Church has actually acknowledged the problem, first they'll doubt that. Next they'll doubt that and say, well, it must be that pirates hacked into the church and overwrote their website. But if you can get them to acknowledge that the Church has validated the, the problem that, that really challenges Mormon Church truth claims, the very next thing they're going to say is, well, I've had the spiritual witness. I know in my heart that it's true. So no amount of evidence that you could provide me is ever going to change what I felt. And that's, that's literally what, what, what you'll experience within the Mormon experience.

Mike 1:21:44 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:21:45 All right, Mike, should we go to the next slide?

Mike 1:21:46 Yeah. It's just to point out, you know, as we've said, you know, the Church has always used emotional reasoning. We've already shown some clips kind of highlighting that. And it's one of the things I've talked about. If the Church was true, they would tell every member to research their claims using outside sources because they would have the confidence that they would hold up under scrutiny. And the reality is that the Church uses those talks to demonize outside sources. They demonize those who left the church and those who are willing to speak up about them. And this is a talk From Russell Ballard's 2007 talk, I believe General Conference, and it says, you will not get to know if the Book of Mormon is true by trying to prove it archaeologically or by DNA or by anything else. Religious truth is always confirmed by what you feel. And that's the way Heavenly Father answers prayers. And, you know, the thing is, the statement that he's making is actually true, because that's one of the things. If you talk to a historian and you say, can you prove the Mormon Church is true or false? They'll say, no, because that's a theological question. You could prove if the truth claims are true or false by evidence. And so what Ballard is saying here is technically true, which is you can't prove if the Church is true, but you can prove if the church's claims about the Book of Mormon are true or false by looking at archaeology, DNA, art, anachronisms, linguistics, whatever you want to say. And so they're playing this little game here, but at the same time, if you're trying to tell people that it can only be confirmed by what you feel, you then have to answer that question of why do people go to heaven's gate? Because they believe God told them that. And that gets into the whole thing we've already talked about, which is. Then they'll say, it's like special pleading, and say, well, they're confused. They got led away by the adversary, but you've got the real truth. And that leads to some really bad decisions and some really bad outcomes.

John Dehlin 1:23:28 Yeah, and I don't know if the no, no, true Scotsman fallacy applies here, but it feels like it does. And I don't know the feeling is relevant, ironically, but it's just. It's just it. My spiritual experience was real. Yours was. Was not legitimate anyway. Nemo, did you have any reaction?

Nemo 1:23:45 I agree there. And I think it's interesting, the game that they've played with the word truth. You know, prophets always teach the truth. You can call them out and say, well, actually, if you say things that are untrue, then that's a problem. But if they say they always teach truth, well, truth has this weird spiritual sense in Mormonism that isn't to do with things being factually correct or incorrect, and it's to do with whether they are spiritually relevant to the people that receive them. That is spiritual truth. That is God's truth and light.

Mike 1:24:13 Yeah.

Nemo 1:24:15 So they have to play this game where they're like, well, the Book of Mormon is true. What does it mean to be true? Well, it means it's good for you. It means it will teach you good things. It means all those things. Yeah, but like you said, you've got to separate that out. While. Are the claims about its historical accuracy true in a factual sense? Well, no. Okay, then we have to deal with that.

Mike 1:24:33 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:24:33 Another problem, another way the Church resolves or tries to resolve this problem is by claiming that the entire purpose of our mortal existence is to be tested, and specifically to be tested to see if we will believe even without the evidence. So what they've done is they've designed the whole Mormon plan of salvation to be around belief without evidence. And so they basically say, that's the whole point. If it were easy, if it were easy to believe, if Heavenly Father just provided all the evidence that Jesus lived, provided all the evidence that he died for us, provided all the evidence that we get resurrected, provided all the evidence that the Book of Mormon is true, then it wouldn't be a big deal. It wouldn't be a test. It wouldn't be any achievement to decide to believe. The only way it's miraculous and powerful and, you know, heroic to. To follow the. The one true Church is if you believe without evidence. They basically turn it into a virtue. Blind, you know, blind faith, blind obedience. They turn that into a virtue. And it's part of the point.

Nemo 1:25:50 Why does it need to be heroic and great and excellent and all these laudable things to believe what is just simply true? Why is that actually a laudable thing if it is just the way things are, which is many Mormons, if you talk to them like Exmo. Lex talks about this, she says it's not a belief system, it's the way the world is. For many Mormons, it's just. That is the way the world is. We lived with God, we came here, we go to three degrees of glory after we die. That is fact. And if that is just fact, why is it. Why does it need to be laudable or impressive or difficult to believe that if it's just the way things are, in the same way that photosynthesis is just the way plants get energy, doesn't need to be laudable or difficult.

Mike 1:26:33 Yeah, yeah. I, you know, this is an area where I could rant for a long time, and I'll try to keep it short, but I hear this all the time. And so you literally talk to people. And to your point earlier, John, you'll go, did you know that Joseph Smith got the Book of Abraham translation wrong? They'll go, well, I've heard that, but if Joseph Smith had gotten it right, there'd be no need for faith. And I'm like, that's absolutely crazy because it really, to me, shows that the God of Mormonism is incompetent and weak. And we've talked about this in previous episodes. But the fact is, if God truly wants that his church to be the one church that's going to engulf the world and make it a better place, then why is God setting up prophets constantly, not just Joseph Smith, but all the way up until Russell Nelson to look like idiots? And that really is what happens, because Joseph Smith translates it wrong. Joseph Smith makes revelations that are wrong. Joseph Smith has issues in the Book of Mormon that are clearly written by somebody in the 19th century. And so you can then, you know, from the church's perspective, they never started out with the idea of, oh, it's, you know, if Joseph Smith got it wrong, it just really makes us need to have faith. No, back then they were like, joseph Smith got this right, and if you think he got it wrong, you are the one. You were the problem. And now that all of this stuff has forced the church to go, oh, yeah, this, these are all completely wrong, then they turn the equation upside down on its head. And so what I'll say for the probably the 10th time in the series is, you know, faith is the belief in things that we cannot see, that we cannot have evidence for. So you can have faith that Jesus was resurrected because we have no, we weren't there. We can kind of understand how the stories kind of developed, but we don't know. But faith is not and will never be the belief in spite of the evidence. And that is really where the church tries to drive that wedge. But I'm saying right now, belief in spite of evidence against it, that's not faith. That is. That's something completely different. And so if you want to believe Joseph Smith got the Egyptian papyrus translation correct, because as some apologists will say today that the Egyptians actually used to translate it the same way as Joseph, but then later generations of Egyptians actually changed the language, you are in a reality that's just indistinguishable from fraud. And so I like, again, I don't want to rant all day on this, but I hate that line of reasoning because it is something that is only done out of complete desperation because, you know, the history is not on your side. And the church used to speak as if the history was on their side. So I will just finish this little rant by saying this is how the church used to talk about their self before Google. If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed. And now today that would be changed to, if we have not. Just if we have not the truth. You just don't have enough faith. You know, it's just like, no, you can't have it both ways.

John Dehlin 1:29:08 Yeah. If we have not the truth, or if the truth doesn't bear out, then just rely on the emotions that you felt when you were a vulnerable teen or child and your whole social surroundings were pressuring you to learn and to believe these things. The only other thing I would add is, you know, you have to kind of analyze what they're doing because they're saying that God set up a plan where you have to believe without evidence. And that's the point. But then you just follow up with the question, well, how do we know that God set up the plan that way? And then they would say, well, because prophets have told us so.

Nemo 1:29:48 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:29:49 And then we'd say, well, how do we know that they're right? And then they'll say, well, by the gift of the Holy Ghost, where you felt some powerful emotions, and it's just like, well, then how do we know that those powerful emotions are true? When Jim Jones was able to get his followers to feel powerful emotions as well. Anyone. That's why I say, anyone who claims to know the mind of will of God, it's kind of inappropriate because all they're doing is speaking, trying to claim authority by getting you to feel things and then trust them. But I would just say, God, if you want to bear something to me, come tell me. Don't come tell some other dude. Because if it's just emotions that I'm relying on, that's not enough. Emotions are not enough now to convince me that something's true.

Mike 1:30:37 Yeah. And if you, you know, again, I. If you've commanded another teenage girl to be the wife of a prophet of your church, you could have the duty or the decency to go down and tell that girl, hey, I know you're only 16. I know your mom just died. I know your dad just got sent off on a mission. I know you're living with the prophet as his adopted daughter, but I have commanded you to have sex and marry him. But instead, Joseph Smith's like, hey, this is kind of awkward, but God told me that he's chosen you to be one of my wives and we can do this or what? And I know that sounds snarky because it's meant to be. This is the problem when you have a God that is both all powerful and completely unable to get to people in a way that is concrete and doesn't lead everybody to different decisions all over the place. And again, I know I'm being kind of ranty here. It's just because I. It really drives me nuts when people make this argument of like, it's almost like somebody's walking on the street and they fall over, they trip on a rock and then they stand up like, I meant to do that. You're like, no, you didn't. And that's what the church kind of does today. We find out that the truth claims are false and they jump up like, dude, totally part of the plan. Totally by design. That Joseph Smith got it all wrong. Totally. It's just. It's ridiculous.

John Dehlin 1:31:46 Nemo, do you have a quick response before we go to the next slide?

Nemo 1:31:49 No, I think we need to get to the next slide.

John Dehlin 1:31:50 Okay, let's do it.

Nemo 1:31:51 It's a good one. All right.

Mike 1:31:53 Yeah. Okay, so now we're going to kind of switch from kind of the elements that can kind of build a witness to the elements I think that kind of help strengthen and keep one. And so this is an area we all suffer from. I suffer from it. Everyone does. And it's not unique to religion or Mormonism. Confirmation bias is the tendency people have to embrace information that supports their beliefs and reject information that contradicts them. So you're going to see this in religion, politics, sports. You'll see it in your family. You'll see it in everything. And it's almost like, you know, we're. Our brains are wired to immediately question or dismiss anything that doesn't conform to our pre existing beliefs. Whereas if it conforms with it, our brain's just like, yeah, let that one in. That, that's fine. It's like you're a bouncer at the bar and if it conforms your belief, you're like, yep, that gets in. And if it doesn't, it's like, no, you can't come in tonight. And a good example of this would be within the church. They will label anything that disproves the church's truth claims as anti Mormon lies. Or you're an, you know, anti Mormon in general. And I was told during my first trip to the temple, specifically before we got there, they said, there's going to Be people that are going to be trying to hand out pamphlets to you about the church, but do not engage them because they're all spreading lies that have been answered long ago, but they keep doing it anyways. And so when I got to the temple, I was, in my mind, I'm like, I am not going to look at anyone, I'm not going to listen to anyone that tells me a bad thing because I was told before I go that these people are the bad guys, you know? And when Mitt Romney ran for President in 2012, I would often hear, you'd hear jokes on late night tv, you'd hear people on the news that would bring up something weird about Mormonism. And I would immediately think it was designed just to smear Romney and the church as a whole. And I just completely shut it up because I'm like, nope, that doesn't work. And I'm not going to deal with it because that can't be right. And so that's how our brains work, where it's almost like, you know, like I said, you have a bouncer at the bar and it's going to let in the stuff that it likes. It's going to bounce away the stuff that doesn't. And we all suffer from that in all aspects of life.

Confirmation Bias in Religious Belief

John Dehlin 1:33:42 Yeah. And to be fair, ex Mormons do, and people who leave other religious traditions do. You don't escape confirmation bias.

Mike 1:33:50 No.

John Dehlin 1:33:51 Just by losing an orthodox faith in a religious tradition. So nobody really has the upper hand when it comes to confirmation bias. But, but I think that's just one of the reasons why we have a logical, rational brain to counterbalance our emotional brain. You just have to, you have to figure out a way to have them work in harmony because we just need to be ever vigilant that we're prone to ignore any evidence that doesn't confirm what we want. And we're prone to notice or favor evidence that confirms what we want. And, and so we just got to be vigilant about it and understand that that's what's going on here, but know that we're never going to escape it.

Mike 1:34:35 Yeah.

Nemo 1:34:35 You know, just real vulnerable to it.

Mike 1:34:38 Yeah. Being aware of it is, is really important. And I, like I said, I mean, just take away religion. Just think about like politics. And we don't want to even get into specifics of politics. But, you know, or look at something like you have a friend and, or you have a co worker.

John Dehlin 1:34:53 Right.

Mike 1:34:53 And the coworker is annoying to you. And so someone comes up to you and like, guess what the co worker did? And it's a horrible story. You're like, I totally believe they did that. Whereas if they came up to you and they're like that co worker, I just saw them do the most amazingly generous thing, I'd be like, yeah, that's not the right person. You know, it's, it's as basic as that. And so it's one of those things where going through all of this has made me more aware of it. Now, I'm not perfect by any stretch, I'm still suffering from it, as you always will, but trying to be more aware of it and saying, I don't like that source for this information, but I'm going to read it and try to look at what they're saying because I'm trying to not to immediately dismiss it because I don't like their conclusion. And so it's just, I think it's a good tool for life if you can be a little more aware of it. Both, as John said, even when you leave the church, it's the same thing where someone will come to you and they'll say, did you see the church did this nice thing? And your first reaction is, oh, sure they did. But no, you know, you should try to get that out of your head and say, oh, let's read it first and see if they did make good progress towards maybe their policies towards someone or whatever the case might be, it's a good tool for life to try to be aware of our own biases.

Nemo 1:35:54 Yeah. Can I throw something out there to the ex Mormon community broadly? I saw a post the other day of a quote that was supposedly David A. Bednar. Now that gets shared around. He never said whatever. I can't remember what the quote was now, but he didn't actually say what was in this. But because we're inclined to believe, because David a Bed now has said negative things in the past that he's then said something problematic because we're inclined to believe that all of a sudden we then, you know, we'll just share that around without thinking about it. Please don't do that. Just, just don't check these things, you know, fact check stuff before you share it. This. Yeah, you know, just because. Yeah, I'm rambling now, but yeah, no,

John Dehlin 1:36:32 to me, the most inspiring example of this that I'm aware of is the story of Gerald Tanner and the Mark Hoffman Salamander Letter. Because Gerald and Sandra Tanner by the mid-1980s were known as the world's foremost quote, anti Mormons and By anti Mormons, we mean most knowledgeable about factual truth, history, church history, LDS church history, and willing to acknowledge it. That's what we mean now by anti Mormon. But back in the day they reviewed as the world's foremost anti Mormons. Then Mark Hoffman comes out with the forgery of a letter, you know, that, that was supposedly written by I think one of the three witnesses that claimed that the Holy Ghost, I don't know, emerged or the Moroni emerged from a white salamander that ran out of the ground. And it was, it was a forgery created to discredit the three witnesses, Joseph Smith and Mormonism. And Gerald Tanner would have had every motivation via confirmation bias to just say, well this, this document must be true, it must be accurate because it hates on Joseph Smith and the three witnesses in the Book of Mormon and I hate on all of them. But he had the presence of mind to trust evidence and data over his own biases. And he was the first person to declare before any of the prophet seers and revelators in the church, Mark Hoffman, quote, anti Mormon. Mark Hoffman was the first to declare Mark Hoffman Salamander letter a forgery. And that, that's just an inspiring thing for all of us to remember is it is. You never escape the back, you never, you never escape confirmation bias. So what, what can you rely on? Rely on evidence and rely on rational thought and to the best that you can, rely on experts. Experts can also fail you. Scientific method can fail you. But you're probably going to get farther towards the truth by relying on evidence, reason and experts than you are by relying on your emotions and you know, spiritual leaders that, that aren't experts in whatever domain you're trying to study.

Mike 1:38:51 Yep. And I'm glad Nemo brought it up because it, it's one of those things where it's like you got to rely on double checking something before you share something. Even if it does seem too good to be true, or even if it doesn't seem, it just seems like something that makes sense, just do, especially on a quote, just do a Google quote with it and in quotes it's gonna pop up. If it's there and if it's from someone like David Bednar, it's going to be on the church's website through a story or a transcript. I mean, it's one of those things where, to Nemo's point, if you are upset that the church, that you believe the church gives false information, you've got to make sure that you don't do it yourself. And so that is something we all, again, suffer from because we want to be like, oh, my goodness, I can't believe you said that. Let's share it. But, yeah, do that. Take that two minutes and make sure it's real before you. Before you spread it on.

Nemo 1:39:31 If I can scrap an entire episode because the. Because when I was researching it, I discovered that the thing that I had seen that had sparked the idea for the episode turned out not to be true, then you cannot share a meme, and you can fact check it.

Mike 1:39:46 All right, I agree. I agree.

The Backfire Effect and Faith Preservation

John Dehlin 1:39:48 All right, let's go to the backfire effect.

Mike 1:39:51 Yeah. So this one, I think, is one of the biggest ones that we all suffer from as well. And it kind of is an offshoot of the confirmation box bias that we talked about. But a common response we have when we are presented with information that contradicts deeply held beliefs is to either run from the information and double down on it or to kind of fight back. But either way, you're kind of retrenching, and that doesn't matter if what your beliefs are are correct or not. It's just our reaction to being kind of feeling attacked by this new information. And a great illustration of how the backfire effect works is from a study where participants were provided a false story and then given the correction to that story, and then to see how they reacted to the correction. And I don't know if either of you want to read this, or. I can read it too, but.

John Dehlin 1:40:32 Go ahead, Nemo.

Nemo 1:40:33 I can read it. That's fine. In 2006, Brendan Nyhan and Jason Rifler at the University of Michigan and Georgia State University created fake newspaper articles about polarizing political issues. The articles were written in a way which would confirm a widespread misconception about certain ideas in American politics. As soon as a person read a fake article, researchers then handed over a true article which corrected the first. For instance, one article suggested the United States found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The next said the US Never found them, which was the truth. Those opposed to the war who had strong liberal leanings tended to disagree with the original article and accept the second. Those who supported the war and leaned more towards the conservative camp tended to agree with the first article and strongly disagree with the second. These reactions shouldn't surprise you. What should give you pause, though, is how conservatives felt about the correction. After reading that there were no WMDs, they reported being even more certain than before there actually were WMDs, and their original beliefs were correct.

John Dehlin 1:41:43 All right, Mike.

Mike 1:41:44 Yeah. I mean, it just shows that we are hardwired to believe certain things. And so if you are a member of the church and you've spent your whole life believing that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that the church is true, and all of a sudden someone comes and say, gives you the CES letter, your first reaction is going to say the CES letter is crap. And then you're going to go to church sources and kind of double down. That's a natural reaction. And so it's one of those things that we have to be aware of for ourselves because this is a real studied aspect. They've done tons of studies to try to understand the backfire effect. It's also something. If you are a person who has left the church and you want your family to understand what you've learned, this is a good reason why you can't just go and throw it in their face. You have to be calm. And we'll talk about that in a future episode. But it does show that if you are presented with information that's almost overwhelming, your first reaction isn't to go, oh my goodness, I can't believe that. I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. When all this evidence is out there, your first reaction is going to say, screw you. I'm going back into my safe space and I'm going to double down, especially safely.

Nemo 1:42:45 Especially if there is a prevailing narrative within your belief system of us versus them or insider, outsider in group out, group behavior. Because then what you've been taught is there is a group of people outside your group that are trying to undermine your faith. And so then that increases the intensity of the backfire effect because you have in your mind a motivation for why someone would be trying to lie to you or why someone would be trying to undermine your. Your thoughts or your beliefs.

Mike 1:43:13 Exactly.

John Dehlin 1:43:14 And Mike, you've got a slide that actually talks about, you know, the, the adaptive nature of the backfire effect. Basically.

Nemo 1:43:22 Yeah.

Mike 1:43:22 And so it's just to point out that, you know, it seems crazy to think that our brains are like actively trying to protect us from information that can harm our beliefs.

Nemo 1:43:30 But.

Mike 1:43:30 But it does. And this is something that has been studied by a lot of different kind of areas of science. And when we are presented with evidence that kind of contradicts our beliefs or says they're wrong, our bodies react in the exact same way as if we are being physically attacked. It's triggering a fight or flight response. And so this is why you'll see this a lot in religion and in politics, even within Family issues, people will often double down on a false belief even after being presented with overwhelming evidence. Or as Kyle McKay would say from the church historian, compelling evidence, whether it's something like the earth being flat, the whole issues with QAnon, or if you look at these overviews about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith or Mormonism as a whole. And so the backfire effect is not just a temporary reaction. And that's why it is so powerful, not just to shaping our thoughts, but to keeping us within those belief systems that we were already in. And so I don't know if Nemo or John wants to read this. This is another kind of illustration of that.

Nemo 1:44:28 I can read that.

John Dehlin 1:44:28 That's cool.

Nemo 1:44:31 So. But what makes this especially worrisome is that in the process of exerting effort on dealing with the cognitive dissonance produced by conflicting evidence, we actually end up building new memories and new neural connections that further strengthen our original convictions. This helps explain such gobsmacking statistics as the fact that despite towering evidence proving otherwise, 40% of Americans don't believe the world is more than 6,000 years old. The backfire effect, McRaney points out, is also the lifeblood of conspiracy theories. He cites the famous neurologist and conspiracy debunker Stephen Novella, who argues believers see contradictory evidence as part of the conspiracy and dismiss lack of confirming evidence as part of the COVID up, thus only digging their heels deeper into their position the more counter evidence they're presented with. Now, did you make me read that just so I would be the one to say that 40% of Americans don't believe the world is more than 6,000 years old?

Mike 1:45:29 Yes, 100%. Yeah, it's a trap. It is. It was totally a trap. But no, I mean, this is something that you'll see again, not just with religion, but you'll see with politics. And we don't need to get into politics because nobody is tuning in here to hear about politics. But you'll hear if you go on Twitter especially, or if you watch like a cable news show on either side sometimes you'll hear people say something like, well, if they're coming after this person for this reason, then they must be on to something. And you're like, no, no, they're not. And with, with this particular instance in Mormonism, I'll experience this when I'm talking to people where they'll say, I believe the church is true. Even more now because you are talking about Joseph Smith's polygamy. And I'm like, well, how does one get you to the other. But that's the backfire effect, which is you're presented with this evidence that's telling you that all of these beliefs you've built up throughout your life are not what they were claimed to have been. And so your body's like, okay, screw it, I'm doubling down. I'm going to believe even harder now, even though everything around me is telling me that this isn't true, and this is a real well studied thing that impacts all of us in a lot of ways, in ways that we don't even think about. This is something that's kind of hitting us subconsciously and it's really hard to be remotely aware of it when it's happening. But once you take that step back, like, obviously if you step away from Mormonism, then all of a sudden you're like, oh, yeah, I totally get it now, because we've all experienced this to some degree.

John Dehlin 1:46:49 You know, just this week, just yesterday or today, I received an email from a super faithful church member in Oregon who's losing his faith. And he's a physician, and he was talking about how once he discovered problems with the church, he just felt like he had to go to all his believing family and tell them what he learned. And then he was really upset at their reactions. And we did an entire series on this topic on the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis podcast, which you can find@mormonfaithcrisis.com it's 100% free. Natasha Helfer and I and Margi just wanted to give the learning away because people need it. But you know, it's such a common, it's such a Mormon thing to do, and it's such a common thing for questioning Mormons to do, to want to share what they're learning with their believing family and friends, especially when it's troubling historical stuff. But you know what? What many questioning Mormons naively expect is as soon as they educate their believing family and friends about Joseph's polygamy, or, you know, the, the stone in the hat or the Book of Abraham or whatever it is, that it's going to cause their believing family members to agree and then to start doubting as well, and we just have to remind them time and time again that whether it's abortion rights or gun control or global warming or political parties, regardless of where you come down on the issue, when you present somebody with evidence that contradicts their point of view, especially when that point of view is intricately woven into their identity, conflicting factual evidence is actually going to strengthen their belief in their position, not weaken it. And that's just kind of human nature. And it's why we advise questioning and doubting and non believing Mormons to just sort of like not feel like it's their job to deprogram or to instill doubt or to try to start their family members down the path of questioning. What you're most likely going to do is actually end up strengthening their beliefs and their resolve. And certainly that's not the outcome that you desire. What do you think, Nemo?

Nemo 1:49:13 To me, it points to almost a slightly deeper lack of understanding of ourselves because it's almost as though, and I, when I went through this myself, you discover all these things about the church and then you really, you think, well, it's had this effect on me, so surely it's going to have that effect on someone else. So if I just share it with them, they'll have the same reaction. But what we fail to understand or take into account because of almost a lack of self reflection or a blind spot in that space is that, well, there's a series of events that have meant that this information had this effect on me at this time. And those other people haven't gone through that series of events, whatever that may be. So they're in a different place. So far from being as convincing as it was to you, it actually elicits a backfire effect. And I understand why that'd be confusing, but that would be part of the reason I would think.

John Dehlin 1:50:05 Yeah.

Mike 1:50:06 And the one thing that was like John said, this is for me, when I started to go down the rabbit hole or whatever you want to call it, I experienced this and it is shocking because you see all this stuff, the book Abraham, for example, you can look at and say, here's what Joseph Smith translated, here's what it actually says. Here's the source material which was recovered from what was thought to be lost in the fire. You show that to someone and you expect them to be like, holy crap, how did Joseph Smith get it wrong? But the reality is we are as members of the Mormon Church. I don't want to. I know this term is controversially safe, but we're vaccinated against this. The Church throughout your life is giving you these vaccinations when they tell you even the elect will fall. There must needs be opposition in all things. Joseph Smith was spoken of for good and evil. They're constantly reinforcing this idea that you are going to be presented with people that are going to try to tear down your faith. And therefore, when that happens, not only is your brain, you know, trying to make you fight or run, you've got all of this reinforcement from the church, which is saying, we told you this was going to happen and now you're seeing it, and now you need to double down and be even stronger. And so when you're on the outside, you're like, this is, this is absurd. Like, this is concrete, tangible evidence. But at the same time, from a believer's perspective, they are going into both human responses that are very natural and all of the conditioning the church has done since we were born. And so, as John said, this idea that you could just go to someone and kind of machine gun all this information at them, it's going to backfire. It's happened to me, it's happened to so many other people. And it takes a long time before you realize that that is just an approach that's going to work 1 out of 100 times and 99 out of the 100 times, you're going to make things worse.

John Dehlin 1:51:43 It's also why I get a little bit annoyed when people accuse me on Mormon stories, or even us on LDS discussions of like, trying to take people's faith away. You literally can't take people's faith away. Most of the time, you know, people just have to have their own journeys. So whether it's Mormon stories or LDS discussions or Nemo the Mormon or whatever, we're not doing any of this to take people out of the church because you can't do that. People will find their way, faith or non faith, on their own. The best we can do is what we're trying to do, which is to provide support for those who need it. But other than that, the best you can really ever do is just put information out there and when people are ready, they'll take an interest in it. But, but this idea of like proactively seeking to destroy people's faith, it really is not a thing. It doesn't work. It certainly isn't what motivates me.

Mike 1:52:47 No, I mean, I, you get, I get that accusation all the time. And my first response is always, if my goal was to try to tear people away from the church, I'd be doing a much different thing. I don't actively go out and bother people on social media. I don't actively go out and see somebody who's posting some bearing their testimony and be like, you know, it's all false, right? Or I don't go out and correct people constantly. Like, there's a Lot of people on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or whatever that are posting faithful material that is just factually incorrect. I could spend my days doing that, trying to make sure people are seeing that that are in the church. And so when people accuse me of that, my response is always, one, I, I would do things differently. And two, a lot of people that come after me angrily, I'll eventually just say, look, if you're ever ready to have this conversation, I'm here. If you're not, that's fine. But there's, there's no point. So to, to what John's saying is you, you learn early on that if somebody's not ready to hear this, there is nothing you can say that will change their mind. And people will have said to me a lot, actually, there's not a single thing you could ever say would change my mind. And at that point, why even bother? So these episodes were put together. Well, these overview on the website was put together because someone asked me to do it. And then these episodes came apart or came together because I figured that since I had done that work, this would be a good way to get it out there for people who are ready. But yeah, until you're ready, there's no point in watching this because it's just going to make you upset. And that's not gonna make me. It doesn't make me happy. It doesn't make me happy when someone says, I listened to your episode and you're a complete piece of whatever. I mean, that's not the point. The point is when you're ready for it and you want to know this, it's here. Until then, don't worry about it.

John Dehlin 1:54:23 Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just say a final illustration of this is that both of my parents. So I'm John Dehlin. I've lost my faith. 20 years ago. I think the church, some would say the church views me as their number one enemy. I don't think of myself that way. But my two parents still still believe in the church, still attend the church. I have two siblings living. The sibling that passed away died a believer. Knowing all about Mormon stories and everything. I do. My sister is still a devout orthodox believing member. You know, the, the author, Letter for my wife. You guys have heard of Letter to my wife or Letter for my Wife, Right? Like it was an alternative to the CES letter. His wife never even was willing to read the letter that he wrote for her, as I understand she still believes to this day. And Mike, I think you're a good Example, your, your wife still believes. Right.

Mike 1:55:20 Like, I mean, like you just.

John Dehlin 1:55:22 If anyone could take people out of a religion, it would be maybe those here on the podcast. And, and again, people just have their own journey.

Mike 1:55:32 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:55:33 I don't know if you've had the same experience.

Nemo 1:55:35 I don't know what you guys are doing wrong. All my family left when I left. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Yeah, I've still got active believing family members and you know, they know what I do and they, they know what. Yeah. About all this stuff.

Mike 1:55:45 So yeah, everyone's on. And the thing that sucks is, and you guys probably all know this is tough to degree, but when I first went down the rabbit hole, I had no one really to talk to. And so that sucks because you don't realize that there's kind of a fairly nice, robust community online when you first find this out. And so you want to talk to the people in your family because you have no one else to talk to. And the reality is that is the worst thing you could do, especially early on. And we're going to do an episode at some point near the end of the series that kind of talks about at least my experience and what I've learned from other people. But yeah, I would say, in short, the best things you can do would be to try to find an online community or a local community that you could talk to to get that frustration out. Because you need to find an outlet somewhere. Right. Because you can't hold it in. And then on the flip side, when you're talking about family, you don't go to your family and you say, hey, did you know Joseph Smith married two 14 year old girls? He sent one girl's dad away after her mom died, lived in the house, and then, you know, used tactics that are similar to grooming to get her to marry him. That's not going to work. But you could try to ask gentle questions like, hey, I'm really struggling with this. I didn't realize that Joseph Smith married two 14 year old girls and it really doesn't make sense within the rules of DNC132. Do you have any understanding of that? Because that at least is going to have your family member, at least at first not feel like they're being punched in the face. Now they may eventually go, I don't want to deal with this. But it really is something that unfortunately most of us are going to learn the hard way, which is you can't, you can't make people believe that their core beliefs are wrong. With evidence, it just doesn't work. And I know there's a lot of famous sayings like you can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into, but it's true. It's a cliche because it's true. And so for anyone who is watching this or listening to this, that is a, who has left the church and you have believing family. The only thing I could tell you is to take it slow, be gentle, ask questions, and don't expect them to respond to it with the kind of desire that you, maybe you dove into the evidence with because you're just not going to get it and you're only going to be disappointed at the end. And I know that might be a disappointing thing, and it certainly is for, for, for me, because I, I really think that obviously evidence is, is more important than blind belief, but that's how it is. And so you have to work with what you have. You have to work with our brains being so defensive. And so I know we're probably going on this a little bit long, but it is important because I know a lot of you are listening and you're probably in situations like that, whether it's a spouse or a kid or parents or even your, your, your neighbors. And it's just, you have to remember the mindset you had as a believer. And that is really hard. And I failed at that when I first went through it because I was so upset about what I learned. But the reality is you have to be able to calm down and process this a bit before you even try to approach it with people, because the minute you get emotional, then the other person's going to get pissed off and they're going to run away. So, I mean, you have to be careful, you have to be gentle, and you have to remember you were, you are now in a different place than they were, but you used to be there and try to picture that you're communicating with your, you know, your younger self because you would not have responded well to it either. So it, it's a, it's just such a tricky thing and you just have to be gentle.

John Dehlin 1:59:03 Yeah, and I'll even, I'll even take it one step further. I'm not sure it's ethical to try and take people's faith away. I, in fact, I'm pretty confident it's not ethical where none of us are smart enough to know whether someone needs their belief, whether it's helping them, whether, whether their life wouldn't do as well without their beliefs. I just I just think it's. We want respect. If we're questioning or doubting or have lost our faith, we want respect. We want to be supported in our choices. And it's hypocritical for us to not extend the same courtesies that we want, let alone, you could do harm. Because I don't think it's just a automatic guarantee that if somebody loses their faith, their life's going to improve. That's not always what happens. And so it's just best, overall, ethically, to just let people think and believe as they see fit and kind of let them have their own journey. Now, going on to the next slide. The next slide is a really, really crucial concept that helps to explain why beliefs are so entrenched. And it's called the sunk cost fallacy. So take that away, Mike.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy in Church Membership

Mike 2:00:21 Yeah, and so this one's a really important one. It's another one that we don't always think about because you're not aware it's happening. And so the sunk cost fallacy is basically something that's going to impact just about every decision we make. And it could be on a lot of things. It could be on your finances. It could be on time spent. It could be on just dedication or loyalty. And so, in an everyday example, a family may purchase tickets to a baseball game. Sorry, Nemo, I know baseball's not big over there, and it does exist here. Yeah, well, it should. Well, maybe after several innings, they're finding out the game's not enjoyable. Maybe their team's down by a lot. Maybe they're just not having fun. Maybe the sun's in their face, whatever the case might be. So at that point, they have some options. They could accept the waste of money on the ticket price and watching the remainder of the game without enjoyment, or they could accept the waste of money on the ticket and leave and then go do something else that's more fun. And the economist will suggest that since the second option involves suffering only in one way, which is that you wasted money, while the first option involves suffering in both ways, you're wasting money and you're not having fun, that option two would be the preferable choice. In either case, the ticket buyer has already paid for the price of the ticket, so that part of the decision should no longer affect the future choices you make. But if the ticket buyer regrets buying the ticket, the current decision should be based on whether or not they want to see the game at all, regardless of the price, just as if they were going to see a free baseball game. Because they've already spent the money. However, many people would feel obligated to stay for the rest of the game despite not really wanting to, perhaps because they feel like doing otherwise would be wasting the money they spent on the ticket. They may feel that the point of no return has passed. And economists regard this behavior as irrational because it is right. It's inefficient because it misallocates resources by taking irrelevant information into account, which is the fact that you've already spent the money, you cannot get that back. So now it's how do you make the best of a bad situation? And this is a long winded example to say that we oftentimes are going to use our past experiences or what, like I said, either spent money, time, finances, loyalty, whatever, it's going to impact our future decisions, even though that money's already gone.

Nemo 2:02:30 And people will often think on the life decisions that they could have taken had they not, for example, pursued education that they didn't because they served, did missionary service or, you know, employment, they would have gained, but they didn't because they remained at home raising children instead, all these sorts of things. And they think, well, you know, I gave all that up, so why not just see it through? And it's, it's an idea baked into Mormonism, this idea of enduring to the end, right? It's, it's scriptural. Endure, you endure it well is what you're encouraged to do. And so it's the idea of even if it's bad, you should still carry on, you should still keep going because there is some sort of prestige in seeing it through to the end, when in reality what might be more beneficial is to take the time you have remaining to do the best things for you.

John Dehlin 2:03:22 Yeah, but this is, this is a particularly sad and dark reality of, of a faith crisis as I've experienced it, because you meet these 50s, 60s, 70 year olds and it applies to 30 and 40 year olds as well, where they're like, you know, their grandparents by this point. They not only raised their kids in the church, but they raised their grandkids. They paid sometimes hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in tithing. They've given their entire lives to the church. And so the, the possibility, sort of the reality in your 60s or 70s of like admitting to yourself that maybe you not only gave your entire life to something that turned out to not be true and, or to be fraudulent from some people's perspective, but that you raised your kids and your grandkids in it and passed it along, that's a huge difficult pill for many to swallow. And then, then if you accept that reality, then you're faced that, that however many remaining years you have left, you have to figure out how to pick up the pieces and rebuild. For many, many, many people, that's a psychological bridge too far, and it's just way easier to say, nope, I'm doubling down, you know, kind of shake their head and just recommit to the church because it's. It for many, it's just too painful to, to acknowledge that maybe they, that they were fooled and gave their life to something that wasn't true. So that's a painful one. It's a painful one.

Mike 2:05:08 Yeah.

Nemo 2:05:09 Yeah, it's really difficult. I mean, I, I can't necessarily speak to that because I worked a lot of this out when I was maybe 23. I think I was a real whipper snapper. But, you know, I've had people in their 60s reach out to me and say, you know, I, I don't know what to do because I know that it's not true or I know the truth about the church now, and. But I just don't know what I'd do without it. It's my entire social circle, it's everything I've known. So at the moment I'm just going to carry on, and then I can't judge them for that. I wouldn't judge them for that. You know, even, even if they admit to themselves that it's not what they thought it was, you know, it's gonna make their life more comfortable. I think it speaks back to what you were saying earlier, John, about how we don't know if people losing their faith, it's not guaranteed that it's going to make their life better. And in particular, in the cases of people that are older, it very well may not.

John Dehlin 2:06:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let's go to the next slide, which is how the sunk cost fallacy applies to Mormonism.

Nemo 2:06:08 Yeah.

Mike 2:06:09 And so we touched on this a little bit, but, you know, most of us were raised in the church. Some of people like me were converts. And so you're around the church for years, sometimes decades, many decades sometimes, and then you realize that the truth claims are demonstrably false. And the problem is that many of us will look back at all the time we spent with the church, the tithing money we gave, the spiritual experiences that we felt under those earlier teachings. We're factoring all of that into our decision even after we know that there are severe problems with the truth claims. Of the church. And so, as in our last example, while it's completely irrational to incorporate our past contributions and experiences in light of new information about the church, it's very common and very human to use the past to influence our ability to walk away once we know the church is not true. And so, in other words, even though the time tithing, money and spiritual experiences are in the past, and we can now kind of look at that as basically something that's kind of a sunk cost because it's gone, it makes it incredibly hard to walk away and to admit to ourselves that the church is not true because of the fact that we're like, we put so much in. And so as you guys both already said, to walk away, you have to be able to kind of cut that cord from that past. And that's really hard to do. Not to mention the fact that you have sunk cost in emotional ties, Whether it's with your family, whether it's with your friends, whether you've built a community, whether you've, especially if you're in Utah and you've moved into an area and you've built a practice or whatever, and you've got a real strong need for community, There are a lot of things beyond just money that apply to the sunk cost fallacy. And so it's, it's, it makes it really hard for us to have a rational ability to make a conclusion because of the fact that we're so focused on things that have already happened.

John Dehlin 2:07:47 And this, this ends up being one of the most sensitive and probably angering aspects of leaving Mormonism for reasons of, you know, truth claims or investigation or social justice, because it, it's the tendency of the orthodox believing Mormon to stereotype people who leave as being weak, as, as being not able to cut it, as having never believed in the first place. There are all sorts of false stereotypes that orthodox believing Mormons levy on those who leave as if it's a character flaw to leave Mormonism like you, like you can't cut it. But the truth is, what I've seen is it can be such a courageous act to be in your 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s and to swallow this pill and to face the rejection of parents and siblings and children or grandparents or potential financial costs. Potentially you lose your marriage, potentially your children cut off your access to your own grandchildren. Like the costs and the risks can be so severe of leaving a high demand religion that I think it's, it's usually an act of great courage, not an act of weakness. And facing looking this sunk cost fallacy idea in the eyes and deciding you're gonna leave anyway is. Is really under any circumstances. I think even if you still believe in the Church, I think you should be able, if you're an empathetic person, you should be able to get to the point where you can see it as a respectable act of courage, even if you disagree with the conclusions that the person might raise. That's what I think.

Nemo 2:09:50 Yeah, that's fair.

John Dehlin 2:09:53 All right, should we go to the next slide?

Mike 2:09:55 Yeah, we can go to the next one.

Motivated Reasoning and Circular Logic

John Dehlin 2:09:56 All right, so the next slide is the reality of or the dynamic of motivated reasoning.

Mike 2:10:02 Yeah. And so this is similar to confirmation bias, but motivation. Motivated reasoning is kind of the process by which our minds actively, consciously or unconsciously allow motivational or emotional biases to affect how new information is perceived. And so individuals tend to favor evidence that coincides with their current beliefs and reject any new information that contradicts them, despite contrary evidence. And so a great example would be as if you gave, if you were presented with a CS letter, but instead of reading the CES letter, you immediately begin seeking out apologetic works instead. Because immediately your thought is, well, the CES letter must be garbage because it's opposition to the church. So I'm going to go and only read through the lens of people who reviewed it. So maybe they read the fair Mormon one, maybe they read the Jim Bennett one. And so they'll take the Jim Bennett reply at face value to attempt to debunk the CS letter, because the Jim Bennett reply agrees with you, whereas the CS letter would create cognitive dissonance. And so the outcome of motivated reasoning really is to strengthen your own belief, regardless of there being substantial evidence that there's contradicting that there's evidence contradicting those beliefs, because you're only seeking out the information that bolsters your belief while actively looking to reduce and marginalizing the evidence that contradicts your belief. And thereby you're trying to reduce that cognitive dissonance that arrives when you come across that new information. So motivated reasoning really is just that you are really acting in a way to have that motivation to prove it true as opposed to just get to the truth.

John Dehlin 2:11:33 Yeah. Nemo, any comments on motivated reasoning?

Nemo 2:11:37 I'm trying to think of an example, but I maybe won't use one. Maybe just give a warning instead that it's not something that is exclusive to members of the church. It is a trap that those that leave the church could just as easily fall into were there to be evidence that puts the church in a better light than they had thought that it stood in on a particular issue or topic. So just I become really aware recently and I've always tried to be very aware of making sure that we don't allow logical fallacies to push us. Even though we are claiming to seek after the truth and are looking at the truth claims of the Church more objectively now and looking at things from a logical standpoint, that means we have to apply that same logic to our own thought processes too and keep ourselves accountable there.

Mike 2:12:23 Yeah, 100% is it. You know, my example is a CS letter and going to say the Jim Bennett reply. Well, if someone gives you the Jim Bennett reply and your first thought is, well, I'm not going to read that garbage. I'm going to immediately look at more critical stuff, well, then you're doing the same thing. And so it's really a trap that we all fall into. And I know I have at times, and there have been times where someone will send me a link, I'm just like, oh my goodness, I've read this before. This is such trash. And then I'm like, no, no, read it. Make sure it's actually what you've read before and not something new. Because you don't want to just dismiss things and then seek out information that's going to kind of contradict what they're sending you. You should at least take that at face value. But even having gone through this, like you said, Nemo, for years of reading this stuff, I do fall into that trap. And so it is something to be aware of to say, am I now guilty of the thing that I'm saying? Others are. And it's really difficult because a lot, even where you're doing it. But yeah, we do need to. When we're talking about Mormonism, if you've left the church, you, everyone needs to do a better job of being more careful on, I would argue, what sources that they trust, what information they pass along to make sure it's actually credible and on a solid ground as opposed to some of the things you see sent around that are shaky at best. And so I do think we all could do better on that for sure.

John Dehlin 2:13:37 Yeah. To give people another illustration of motivated reasoning, the best example that comes to my mind is when, you know, once, once Mormons, you know, once Mormons become aware of Joseph Smith's polygamy and especially his, his polygamy with 14, 15, 16 year olds, the apologetic response is to quickly want to say that Joseph Smith didn't have sex with the 14, 15 and 16 year olds or to say that they were marriages, spiritual marriages, but not marriages in any carnal or fleshly sense. And for me that's an example, a clear example of motivated reasoning. Why in the world would every prophet from Brigham Young on have sex with all his plural wives? Why would you know, the Book of Mormon say that the purpose of polygamy would be to raise up a righteous seed or to have posterity? Everything about polygamy points towards sex with the wives that you marry. So what in the world would make an apologist want to say that the 14, 15 and 16 year old wives would be an exception to that? The answer is motivated reasoning. Motivated reasoning being this sounds too bad, we gotta come up with apologetic reasons because it just feels cringy when there's no reason to even go down those paths. And again, Nemo, I like your point. We as post Mormons are way too quick as well to fall prey to motivated reasoning. And you know, we don't learn the lessons of what we've come from if we fall prey to it in our situation. So the perfect example would be the Salamander Letter. How many ex Mormons were so excited to hear about the Mark Hoffman forgery of the Salamander Letter because it appeared to discredit the Church when in reality the Wise One was Gerald Tanner, who had every reason to want to embrace the Salamander Letter but knew of his own and our own proclivity towards motivated reasoning and instead applied his critical thinking skills to actually debunk the forgery that was the Salamander Letter. When everybody else, especially out of the church, was eager to glom onto it and when the church leaders themselves were eager to buy it, to hide it so that it wouldn't embarrass the church anyway. Yeah, it's a motivated reasoning. Super, a super important one. And I'm glad we're talking about it.

Mike 2:16:23 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:16:24 All right, well, let's go ahead and go to the next slide, which is circular reasoning.

Mike 2:16:29 Yeah, and this is one. You know, I know this. Sometimes we, we kind of joke about this, but you know, we see often see apologists make the argument that a problem in the Book of Mormon is not a problem because Joseph Smith was a prophet and because of that the Book of Mormon is true. And we've all heard this. I think we've all, I mean if you've left the church, you've probably heard people joke about this. But I, as you know, as a member, I heard very similar statements. So they'll say, I know Joseph Smith was a prophet, so the Book of Mormon is true. I know the Book of Mormon is true, so Joseph Smith was a prophet. And so this is horrible logic. It's just. It's completely irrational. It really is in no way making sense as far as discerning truth. But it does work to keep us from questioning because church leaders always want to tap into that area that you do have faith that you need to bolster when you find problems. And so if we keep working in this circle, that always leads to that predetermined conclusion. It keeps us from looking at the underlying problem in an objective manner. And so a lot of times we're going to get to this in our next episode on doubts. But you'll hear church leaders go, yeah, yeah, they are. There are some problems with the Book of Mormon, but we already know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and therefore we don't have to worry about those little problems. And I think that we see that a lot in this circular reasoning, which is a good way to kind of effectively short circuit our critical thinking by just trying to skip you onto the reverse of it to make you basically to diminish any of those doubts you have when you start coming across this information.

John Dehlin 2:17:56 Absolutely. Nemo.

Mike 2:17:58 Any.

John Dehlin 2:17:58 Any thoughts you want to share on circular reasoning?

Nemo 2:18:00 There's a great image that goes around online. It's a picture of an extension cord plugged into itself.

John Dehlin 2:18:05 Yeah.

Nemo 2:18:06 And it perfectly illustrates the idea of circular reasoning. There's. There's not much else to say really, other than it is used a lot to bolster up the truth claims of the church. And once you can spot it, it's really useful to be able to do. So look up examples online is what I'd encourage people to do.

Mike 2:18:23 Yeah.

Nemo 2:18:24 And get used to spotting it. Yep.

John Dehlin 2:18:27 Yeah. Yeah. And it's just so common. Just this whole, like, the. The church is true. Because I, you know, I got a witness of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Mormon's true. And then it's like, yeah, but there's problems with the Book of Mormon. And then it's like, yeah, well, I have it, you know, but I got a testimony of the Book of Mormon, so it must be true. It doesn't bear intellectual or rational scrutiny. But that's the thing. We have to again realize. Belief is not a rational enterprise. In fact, by definition, belief is irrational. And even the leaders of faith traditions will say, this isn't about knowledge, this isn't about evidence. I mean, on the one hand, they'll Say truth is the most important thing and that the truth has been restored. But. But when they talk about epistemologies, they'll just say there's. There's. There's worldly knowledge and then there's spiritual knowledge. And we've already discussed that by spiritual knowledge, they mean emotional, you know, emotional elevation. And so while. While we, as people who try and employ critical thinking in a religious or spiritual context are going to feel inclined to be frustrated with things like, you know, circular reasoning and motivated reasoning, we just have to remember that that belief is an emotional thing. And so any attempt to, you know, any attempt to rely on logic or reasoning is not only most often doomed to fail, but it's something we just can't expect believers to really take seriously or invest in because it was never about. It was never really about truth and evidence to begin with. And I think, Mike, your story of conversion might. Might illustrate that as well as you've talked about before.

Mike 2:20:31 Yeah, that's true. I mean, and it's something that, as I've said on some of the other ones, you don't see it until you're away from it. You know, it's. It's. To Nemo's point, the extension cord example is one you can find online. And it's true because you don't see that the extension cord is plugged into itself until you've stepped away and you go, oh, okay, now I kind of understand it. And so these are things we need to be aware of. But at the same time, it's not going to be effective to run to somebody who's a believer and say, hey, do you know that you're using circular reasoning? Because they're not going to care.

John Dehlin 2:20:56 Yeah.

Nemo 2:20:56 So I've just found a really good example online, and I can read it through. So it's Back to The Future from 1985 is a good movie. Why? Because it's an 80s movie. Why are 80s movies good? Because Back to the Future is from the 80s and it's a good movie.

John Dehlin 2:21:10 Right.

Nemo 2:21:10 So you see how you end up at the beginning again. So that's. That's a solid example of a circular argument to take away with you there. Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:21:19 Yeah, that's good. Thanks, Nemo. All right, let's jump to the next factor that influences people's testimonies and worldview, the bandwagon effect. Tell us about that, Mike.

Special Pleading and Appeals to Authority

Mike 2:21:31 This is one that's kind of goofy because it's invoked a lot by apologetics, but an area that leaders will often go to when a member is struggling with their testimony is to invoke what is known as the bandwagon effect. And so this is another cognitive bias where we adapt to the church's teaching because of our families, communities, and our leaders all accepting of these teachings. And so on the flip side, this is also used by leaders as evidence of the church's truthfulness. Because if you were to say the Book of Mormon is demonstrably a 19th century document that is not historical, a response you'll often hear is, if that's the case, why have millions of people found comfort and spiritual witness from the Book of Mormon? And so when you say that, the appeal can be quite strong to this bandwagon effect, which is, you know, to say, if your entire community believes this, how in the world can they all be wrong? And the problem is that while it taps into both our need to be included and our desire to be on the right path, you could use this for any other religion that's larger than the Mormon Church. And so I. You hear this a lot to say millions of people believe it and they can't all be, you know, gullible people. And it's like, that's not the argument anyone's making in the first place. But if you want to make that argument, why wouldn't you go, well, then billions of people believe these other things. And so while it does put you on the right path, it does, it puts you on the path to having a testimony. And that's why when you have these fast and testimony meetings and you have this room full of, you know, one to 200 people all bearing their testimonies, you get that feeling of like, I've got to be on the right track because look at all these people who believe the same way I do.

John Dehlin 2:23:00 Yeah.

Nemo 2:23:01 It's known as an appeal to popularity also is another way of talking about it.

Mike 2:23:07 Yep.

Nemo 2:23:07 And I think it, it can be when it comes to your base needs as a human being, it can be quite a sensible thing in that, you know, everyone else in the tribe doesn't drink from that dirty water, so I won't drink from that dirty water. And that seems logical, but when it comes to things far more complex than that, people aren't always right just because there's more of them that all do something. You know, it's that typical thing that you say to your parents, say to kids, if your friends all jumped off a cliff, would you go too? You know, we try and teach it to our children. Just because everyone else is doing something doesn't mean that you should be doing it too. So there's, there's, there's the collective wisdom that makes humans great, and that can be very useful. But collective behavior maybe is not something that's to be as lauded, perhaps. Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:23:56 And I think they're, they're psychological. They're probably evolutionary reasons for why, you know, we pay attention. Because, you know, if a bunch of people are doing something, especially those around us, especially people we love and people we care about, there's probably some sort of evolutionary benefit to, to checking it out, to being open to it, and to following suit. You know, one of the best books I've ever read in, in the Understanding of Faith Crisis Con Context is the book. Oh, guys, help me out. It's, it's the book about species

Nemo 2:24:37 sapiens.

John Dehlin 2:24:38 Sapiens, yeah, Sapiens and sapiens talks about how the ability to cooperate at the level of tens, tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions is what separates Homo sapiens from all the other animal species. There's no other species that can have a million people collaborating on a single project, like, you know, like the atom bomb. But it's our mutual ability to share myths and heroes and stories and beliefs that allows us to unify. And so, you know, if you can get a million people to believe something, or 5 million people or 17 million people to all believe something, you've got a lot of power there. Or in the case of a country, 200 million or a billion people. If you can get a billion people on the same page, you've got a lot of power. And so if tribes thrive by gaining and keeping their power, then there's a strong motivation for people to all kind of get on the same page to see what everybody else thinks and believes and to jump on board. And the opposite is also true. There's a lot of disincentive to go against the grain, to go against the tribe, to defect, or to, you know, betray the tribe or to step away and to take opposing or antagonistic beliefs. And that's why heretics or apostates are viewed as more dangerous to a tribe than our outsiders who are, who are enemies. Nemo's showing the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It's a classic Nemo. Do you have anything to say about it?

Nemo 2:26:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's a great book. I've read it near the time I started discover things about the church. It puts a lot of things into perspective and it's kind of what I was alluding at when I was talking about the water earlier is that, you know, one of the great things human beings were able to do is that we didn't have to learn everything from scratch every time. We were able to pass on information and pass on habits and procedures through storytelling and then later through writing. That made us very powerful because you didn't have to start from scratch every time. But the problem with that now is that we live in such big communities and there's such big groups of people that, you know, it's not those intimate groups that it started off as where you could kind of trust everyone to be doing what was in everyone's best interests.

John Dehlin 2:27:15 Yeah. All right, let's go. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide, which is special pleading.

Mike 2:27:24 And this one we've. We've covered in a few episodes because this one's really important, especially within Mormonism.

John Dehlin 2:27:29 And this is a favorite of yours, Mike?

Mike 2:27:31 Well, it is, because this is something you see all the time, especially with apologetics. But the idea of special pleading is basically, it's a cognitive fallacy where we allow for exceptions to problems in order to avoid dealing with the fact that they are, in fact, problems. And so a very technical definition would be for special pleading as to applying standards, principles, and or rules to other people or circumstances while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria without providing adequate justification. Special pleading is often a result of strong emotional beliefs that interfere with reason. And as we've mentioned throughout the series, a perfect example of special pleading is with polygamy in the church. We often excuse the way Joseph Smith implemented polygamy by trying to find excuses for the way he pressured young women to marry him while holding other leaders who have pressured their young followers into sexual relationships, such as David Koresh, David Berg, or Warren Jeffs, accountable. And the reality is, all of these leaders follow the same pattern when manipulating young women to submit to their proposals in the name of God. But we recoil at the other leaders because ours was really from God. And so this is something you see all the time where you'll say, well, yeah, I can't believe that these people were using tactics that are the textbook definition of grooming. But when Joseph Smith did it with Lucy Walker, that was okay because God wanted him to do it. And so special pleading effectively is excusing horrible behavior, or in Joseph Smith's case, even incorrect translations, bad, failed revelations because you need to privilege your beliefs. While on the flip side, you're more than willing to go out and criticize anyone else who does it because you could see it without those Biases. And when you see without those biases, you could see immediately that they're getting it wrong.

John Dehlin 2:29:18 Yeah, absolutely.

Nemo 2:29:19 It kind of comes in with the leaders of the church as well, with this whole rules for thee but not for me type thing where they expect the members of the church to, to be honest. They lay out honesty as a big high standard for members, but then aren't honest themselves. And you know, Dan H. Oaks expects, well, the church expects members to repent and members to own up to their mistakes. And then Dan H. Oaks says the church does not seek apologies, nor does it give them. So again, that's. Well, because we are the church, because we are God's chosen servants. We don't have to do this, but you as members of this church do. So it's rules for you, but not for us. They get to special plead their way out of it. Yep.

Mike 2:29:55 And it's not just with religion either. This is one that you see throughout religion. You even see with sports. I mean, you could sometimes you turn on talk radio and you've got people are defending a player on your local sports team who did something horrible because you're rooting for that tribe, for that team, and then someone else on the, your rival team does it and they're like, give them the chair, get them out of here. You know, so it's, it's, it's something we're all going to suffer from in all ways. But you see it so much with apologetics, and that is why I mention a lot, because you can't accept bad behavior or incorrect revelations from your church just because you want your church to be true while at the same time being able to see it with others. It just doesn't, it's not logical in any way. And it certainly wouldn't pass, you know, any kind of intellectual honesty or consistency.

John Dehlin 2:30:40 I think it's helpful, I think it's helpful to give examples too, like we're trying to do. And one that comes to my mind and I apologize that this is self referential and it's also me being candid and vulnerable and transparent. There have been some attacks over the years about how, you know the Open Stories foundation, the nonprofit that runs Mormon Stories, you know, how much money it brings in or how much I'm compensated in terms of my salary that, you know, to use a nonprofit in this way and to have the leader of a nonprofit get compensated at whatever level, I get compensated, that somehow that's super unethical and bad. And then you look at the Mormon Church and It's worth like $250 billion. And we know that its leaders are making six figures across the board. And it's just weird to see apologists completely criticize a podcast or a nonprofit that literally gives its content away for free, that when people pay, it's purely because they're finding value. There's no coercion, there's no pressure. And somehow it's evil and diabolical what we're doing, making money, doing social media to try and help people where they don't even stop to think about the fact that the church is literally a quarter of a trillion dollar organization where all its top leaders are making massive amounts of money. But, but they don't, they don't bat an eye. Is that an example of special pleading?

Mike 2:32:17 Well, certainly. I mean, yeah, I, I've mentioned the example and I won't go through the whole thing. I know I've done at least one other episode, but I was with believing members, and it was during the 2020 primaries, and it was a candidate who had lied about their past. And so their whole backstory was that I'll just say it doesn't matter. It was Elizabeth Warren. She had said that she was fired from being a teacher because she became pregnant. And that was really what she wrote in her book that kind of launched her kind of mission to be a politician. And then it turned out she had an interview that was done before that book came out where she said flat out she quit being a teacher because she wanted to spend time with her kid. And so I was around believing members and they were like, you cannot lie about this stuff when you have Google around. I remember one of them actually turned around and kind of laughed. He said, can't do that with Google anymore. And now if I had said the same thing would apply to Joseph Smith's first vision or the priesthood restoration, they would have thrown me out. And so that is special pleading words. They could see it with Elizabeth Warren. They're like, yeah, she changed her story, therefore she's not trustworthy. Now, if you say that about Joseph Smith, they'd say, no, no, because Joseph Smith was a prophet. And so it really just comes down to the fact that we will excuse bad behavior, incorrect information, false promises, all that thing when we have that desire to root for the church or for a politician or for a sports team. And when it's the other way around, your critical thinking is full on because you don't care about the person or you may want to see them fail. And so it really just shows, like, you Said John, people are going to come after you or me or anyone else because they don't like what we're doing. Whereas when the church doesn't like the same thing, like, say, file false sec forms to hide their wealth, they'll be like, well, they were just practicing biblical tithing even though it isn't actually biblical tithing. But, you know, that's okay because I believe the church. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's a mess.

Nemo 2:34:10 It's. It's like, sorry, I've just drawn a blank there. I had a point to make and I've just completely forgotten.

John Dehlin 2:34:17 It'll come to you, Nemo. Let us know what it does. Yeah. Okay, so special pleading is the next logical.

Nemo 2:34:22 Got it, got it, got it.

John Dehlin 2:34:23 I knew it. All right, Nemo, go for it.

Nemo 2:34:25 So it's the reason the church has to push in group out group narratives so much. Because by making, we focus a lot on the effects that has on the out group. You know, it makes, it alienates people. It makes us distrustful of others. But the other effect of in group out group thinking and behavior is that it makes you bend things through logical fallacies like this in support of your in group because you want your in group to be correct. It taps into that tribalistic part of human behavior. You want your group to be right. You want your group to be safe. And so anything that's perceived as an attack on your group, you'll use all your available mental faculties to dismiss or get rid of. And that's why the church puts such a heavy emphasis on this in group, out group behavior. To my mind.

Mike 2:35:07 Yep.

John Dehlin 2:35:08 Yeah.

Nemo 2:35:09 Hope that was worth it.

John Dehlin 2:35:10 Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's go to the next one, which is appeals to authority.

Nemo 2:35:16 Yeah.

Mike 2:35:16 And this is one that is going to help bolster your testimony because you're constantly being conditioned to basically appeal your identity and your beliefs to those who you hold in authority. And so, as we had mentioned before, in the primary song, Follow the Prophet, the young children sing the phrase follow the Prophet 54 times in one song. Almost every General Conference talk will mention how inspired the current leaders and especially the current prophet of the church are. And if you listen to General Conference, there have been times where Russell M. Nelson has been quoted more than Jesus has. And we have confirmed. Yeah. And they will say that you have to obey their teachings and revelations because they speak for God. And the church's own manual makes it clear. It says obedience is the first law of heaven. When they say obedience, they'll say obedience to God. But what they really mean is obedience to the leaders who claim to speak for God. And this is a terrible lesson because this is ripe for those in authority to abuse their power. The church will then state that. They also say that obedience is only required if it's a choice. The obedience has to be voluntary. But as we've mentioned in previous episodes, how much of a choice do you have when you're being told by those you revere as prophets that God is commanding these actions? And a great example, of course, would be when you're told that you are to marry and have sex with the prophet because an angel came to the prophet and said that they were commanded to marry them, or you will be responsible for the prophet's death. Do you really have the choice to be obedient or not? And I would argue you don't. And so we could go to 2023 now, and you listen to general conference talks, and you'll constantly hear all of the leaders basically pat themselves on. Pat each other on the back by quoting them and talking about how inspired they are. And that is a signal to you that you need to obey their teachings and respect. I don't want to. I don't do Eric Cartman here, but respect their authority. And so it really does condition and strengthen our testimony. When you're told from the. From the age of being a primary kid, follow the prophet, follow the prophet, whatever you do, follow the prophet,

John Dehlin 2:37:20 respect my authority. Is that what you're thinking?

Nemo 2:37:23 That's what I was hoping to hear from John de Lynn today. I think this. Is this the problem, though, with the type of authority that's being appealed to? I could appeal to Richard Dawkins in an argument and say, Richard Dawkins says this, and that's technically an appeal to authority. Because I'm saying my argument's right, because Richard Dawkins says so. What can be done, though, is you can look at his research, you can look at his authority and question his authority. The problem is, when that authority you're appealing to is deity, is God, how are you meant to undermine that authority? How are you meant to even just look into that authority, to question it? How are you meant to question the authority of a deity? That's the problem with a lot of this, which I know leads perfectly into a point John loves to make about the. The ability to say you speak for God and how problematic that is.

John Dehlin 2:38:15 Yeah, yeah. The other thing I just want to mention, there's a couple. Well, there's at least one reference that I want to kind of make everybody aware of. And. And. And basically, it's one of the most important studies ever. Oh, my gosh, my brain. I needed a second. It's the. It's the electroshock study done out of Yale by Milgram, the Milgram study. It's. It's. If you. If you've never studied the Stanley Milgram study, it's called Obedience to Authority. I'm pulling it up right now. It was basically a study. Hell, I think it was designed in the 50s, designed to try and explain how the Holocaust happened. Because it's one thing that a maniac like Adolf Hitler can arise and gain power, but that only explains one crazy person. How do you explain an entire nation and falling under Hitler's rule and, you know, executing all the commands that Hitler demanded, including the gas chambers and mass executions? And so this study by Stanley Milgram, which is known as the Obedience to Authority experiment, is one that everyone should study. They basically, you know, faked a. Faked an experiment that was supposed to be about learning where your job is to observe somebody who you think is actually learning, but every time that they get a question wrong, you, as the participant in the study, was supposed to administer an electric shock to the learner as a way to study supposedly the impact of electric shock as an aversive stimuli or as a punishment to getting an answer wrong. But it was all contrived to see to what extent somebody is willing to do something truly evil under the pressure of external authority. And so they've got this. This participant in the study who's wearing a white lab coat with a clipboard, and he's standing over the participant who is supposed to be administering shock to the person getting the answers wrong. And each time the person supposedly gets a question wrong, he's supposed to turn up the electric shock and then administer the shock. And he hears what he believes to be a person on the other side of the wall, like screaming and writhing in pain and to jump to the end of the study. Over 60% of the participants were willing to administer what they believed was a lethal. A lethal dosage or charge of electricity on what they believed was a participant. If there was a person in authority telling them, you must continue the experiment. You must continue the experiment. And what the. So what the Obedience to Authority sort of book and study shows is just how influenceable we are, how amenable we are to authority. It's scary how much we're willing to do if we believe that legitimate authority is making us or pressuring us to do what they want. Us to do. So this is a real one, because

Nemo 2:42:03 it's almost the ability to kind of offload your responsibility onto the authority figure, whoever that may be. You know, you just go, oh, well, they're making me do it. And so you kind of. Yeah, you. You offload that responsibility onto them.

Mike 2:42:15 Yeah. And. And what we talked about, I think, at the beginning of this episode was those quotes, I believe, from Dallin Oaks, where he's basically selling you that an authority in a field, say Egyptology is only an authority if they speak with the church. So that not only do you need to obey authority, but you also have to obey the people that are determined to be authority. So say, for example, we did all of those. Well, you did all those episodes with Dr. Robert Rittner. Well, he's one of the foremost. He was, when he was alive, one of the most foremost experts in Egyptology in the world. But from the church's perspective, he's not in authority because they have Carrie Milstein and John Gee. And so it really is not just an appeal to authority, but it's an appeal to predetermined authority. And that also leads to bad things because you now have people within the church trusting, say, Kerry Muhlstein as an authority on Egyptian studies, when in reality, he's using his credentials to push theology. And so that is where you also get to really bad beliefs. And if you go further back, you know, also bad outcomes for people, especially when you talk about polygamy, you know, Mountain meadows. All those things come from this belief that the authorities of the church want you to do certain things.

John Dehlin 2:43:29 Brilliant. All right, let's go to the next slide, which is the use of fear and uncertainty.

Equivocation and Misleading Claims by Leaders

Mike 2:43:36 Yeah. And so we're going to. Our next episode is going to be on how the Mormon Church handles doubts. But one way to keep a testimony from breaking is to make the subject the. The member of the church too afraid of what will happen if they leave. And so this is why you hear talks all the time about staying in the boat, not rehearsing your doubts with others. The empty chair in the celestial kingdom where you should have been, or Russell Ballard's famous where will you go? Talk. And so these talks are not given by accident. They are tapping into our very natural fear of leaving all we've known behind by making us afraid of what lurks beyond that. And so we'll play this little clip. But, yeah, this is something that will bolster your testimony because you're afraid of what happens if you don't have it.

John Dehlin 2:44:15 All right, so this is M. Russell Ballard.

Mike 2:44:18 Yes.

John Dehlin 2:44:18 And the talk is to whom shall we go? Right.

Mike 2:44:21 Yeah.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 2:44:22 All right, here we go. If any one of you is faltering in your faith, I ask you the same question that Peter asked. To whom shall you go? If you choose to become inactive or to leave the Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, where will you go? What will you do? The decision to walk no more with the church members and the Lord's chosen leaders will have a long term impact that cannot always be seen. Right now, there may be some doctrine, some policy, some bit of history that puts you at odds with your faith, and you may feel that the only way to resolve that inner turmoil right

Video Clip 2 2:45:14 now is to walk no more with the Saints.

Video Clip 2 2:45:18 If you live as long as I have, you will come to know that things have a way of resolving themselves. All right, Mike.

Mike 2:45:29 It's just these talks are designed to make you afraid of leaving, and it really does. The next episode will have a whole lot more on this because we're going to focus really on how the church handles doubts and how they. They talk, especially to the youth. But this is this idea that if you walk away from the Mormon Church, you're walking away from God, which is not true. You know, the Mormon Church needs God. God never needed the Mormon Church. That's why Mormonism had no basis in this world until, you know, the 1830s. And it just really shows that you can leverage this fear of what will happen if you leave. And you see this all the time in movies where, you know, someone finally walks away and they're like, you won't be anything without me. You walk away, you're done here. And it's like, that's what the church does in the movies. We're like, oh, that's a bad guy. But in the church, like, oh, my goodness, look how Christ. Like, that is. And I'm being facetious here, but this really is a horrible tactic. Instead of saying, where will you go? You should say, hey, you got questions, let's give you some answers. But instead they're like, don't ask questions. Research is not the answer. And if you do leave, you got nothing left. And I just. I hate it. I really hate this approach.

Nemo 2:46:37 It's also what narcissists say to people. It's what abusive people say in relationships. You leave me, you won't have anything. Where will you go? And. And my kind of facetious response that I put at the beginning of my Mormon meme review episodes for a long time was the clip from Napoleon Dynamite. Actually, he says, where will you go? What will you do? Napoleon goes wherever I feel like, gosh, right, yeah. And that's. That's almost the response is like, well, I'll go wherever I want. I'll go wherever I. Wherever I want to go. There's. There's more to this world than what he's offering.

Mike 2:47:11 There is. Or so. And that's the thing. Like, it's like the Truman Show. You know, you're walking up to the door and they're like, if you go through that door and then Truman opens the door, of course, it's this big, wide world out there. And that really is similar to how leaving the worldview of Mormonism is. The world of worldview of Mormonism is you're in this box and you can't leave the box. And they constantly tell you not to leave the box. And then when you leave the box, you're like, oh, wow, there's actually a really cool world out there. And to Nemo's point, and I'm not being facetious here at all, this is something that you do see in abusive relationships where they're like, you're nothing without me. Where are you going to go? If you leave here, you have nothing. And it's just to hear this from a church of God that cannot actually give us answers, but constantly gives this kind of a reinforcement. I really hate this because it does work on people. It does keep people afraid to leave, and it does bolster your testimony, not because you are getting answers to your questions, but because you're afraid of what happens if you go further into them.

John Dehlin 2:48:04 Yeah, and I'm repeating, but, but the, the telltale sign of an abusive partner is when they say, you're nothing without me. You'll never survive without me. What you want is a partner who will build you up so that you will be. You will thrive with or without their presence in your life. That's somebody who truly cares about you. That's somebody who truly wants the best for you. Somebody who is. Is invested in your self efficacy. Some research that I recommend people look into is, is the. The research of Marty Seligman. He's most known for his work in what's called positive psychology. But, but he came up studying this idea of learned helplessness where they. Where they keep dogs within a certain sort of, you know, prescribed area and shock them to the point where even when they remove the barriers to exit the shocks themselves, and even when they remove the shocks, they remain in a circumscribed, you know, spatial area because they've learned to be. To be helpless. And, you know, that's just. That's just a dangerous sign. Whether it's a spouse, whether it's a church, whether it's a business, you do not anything that tries to engender within you a sense of dependence on them or a sense of lower self efficacy, such that you don't believe in your self efficacy, but instead you believe in your weakness and in your helplessness. I say run away. Run away from that organization.

Mike 2:49:49 Yep, I agree.

John Dehlin 2:49:50 Or person.

Mike 2:49:51 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:49:53 All right. The next slide that we are looking at is the use of equivocation.

Nemo 2:50:00 Yeah.

Mike 2:50:01 And this is one last bias and fallacy I want to cover. And it basically is. It's the fallacy of deliberately failing to define one's terms or knowingly and deliberately using words in a different sense than the one the audience will understand. And this is one that is very common with the church today, as we've covered in so many of these previous episodes, where they change the meaning of words, they change the meaning of their own scriptures in attempt to neutralize the problems with church history and doctrines when members come to realize that the conclusion of these problems is that the church is not true. And so some of the easiest examples of this are when the church now says that translation doesn't mean translation hat tip to Brother Jake, skin doesn't mean human skin. The new and everlasting covenant doesn't mean the new and everlasting covenant of polygamy. Or that when Joseph Smith used what they, how they quote, carefully worded denials when saying he could see but only one wife when he was accused of practicing polygamy while he was married, where he was already married to, I believe at least 20 at that point. And so it really is. The church constantly will basically, basically change the rules of the game in order to try to make these problems go away. And that's why I've said so many times in these episodes that you have to take these issues at face value. You have to take them. You know, the church often argues that critics use presentism, right? So we're, we're about. We're looking at Joseph Smith's time through 20, 23 lenses. And what they don't realize is oftentimes they're doing the exact same thing in reverse, which is they're trying to change what they did to make it work, work today. And I just, I have to say that when you try to do that, it's just a really dishonest approach. And it does keep People from digging deeper into these problems. When you say, well, why did the. Why did the Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses talk about God cursing people, skin dark, to make sure that the white people knew not to be around them. And they're like, well, skin doesn't mean skin. It's more of like an aura. Or maybe it's their clothes. We don't know. Don't worry about it. That is crap. Because it's all there. It's still canonized. It's still there. Joseph Smith taught it very clearly. And it just. It drives me nuts when you try to use this. This word game that often is accused, leveled on critics.

Nemo 2:52:09 It's like for the, for the maths people out there, I guess it's like an algebraic formula where, you know, it's. It's understood what the values of everything involved are, and you get an outcome. And then the church turns around and says, no, actually, we've just decided now that the value of X is different, so your answer's wrong. So, well, hang on. I. I solved it based on what was presented to me, what was most clear and apparent, and what everyone else would understand by it. So just because you're coming in and saying, actually, no, it means something different so that your conclusion can't be right. That's not, that's not how that works. It's not. It's like everyone else understands what the word horse means. But if you want to stay a believing Mormon in the, in the historical accuracy of the Book of Mormon, then you have to believe that a horse is one of these things. A little tapir, which just doesn't work.

Mike 2:52:58 No, you can't just sub out words. And the one that drives me nuts was the Book of Abraham. You'll say, Joseph Smith translated the book Abraham. No, he didn't. Yeah, he did. He never said it. I'm like, here are journal entries showing that he's saying he translated. Oh, well, that was in the early part. He did all of it before the Egyptian Alphabet. Okay, well, here's journal entries from the 1840s where he's finishing it and saying, we're finished translating. And they're like, well, translation. What is. What does translation really mean? And you're just like, this is absurd. It really is. It's a word game, and it's used all the time, especially when you start to have doubts. And so people have these. These testimonies, and they're like, I'm having trouble with the fact that God himself called this a new and everlasting Covenant. And John Taylor got a revelation from God saying it's everlasting. And now the church is saying that's not what he meant. And it's just you. So then you have all these little, these little sleight of hands here to try to create this, this, this, you know, this, this false equivocation of, of all this. It just, it doesn't work.

Nemo 2:53:49 And it's. It's used often in conjunction with the sort of no true Scotsman fallacy and with shifting goalposts. Another logical fallacy, the idea that. Well, okay, so, yeah, he did translate it, but it was earlier. Oh, okay. Well, then someone else wrote it down. It wasn't actually him. Oh, okay. If there's always a reason why the logical conclusion that you came to based on the facts you'd agreed to at the time then has to change. They're changing the goalposts. It's not that you're now all of a sudden wrong. They have to find a way in which your logical conclusion somehow isn't logical anymore. And so, And I say they. And I guess the reason I say that is because it's useful, I think, for people listening now to be able to hear this. I've done presentations on this before about logical fallacies. It's really important to hear. To be able to hear and recognize logical fallacies as they're going on in a discussion with family, friends. But also it's really important to hear them coming out of your own mouth. So I guess I would encourage you also to think up your own logical fallacies based on these ones as a little bit of homework and try saying them out loud to yourself and hearing what it sounds like when you come up with these things. Because it's good to be able to recognize when other people are using logical fallacies, but it's also good to recognize when you're doing it yourself so that you can think better and reason better and have better discussions.

John Dehlin 2:55:08 Yep, I agree we've referenced this subtly or indirectly. But for me, the boldest reframe maybe I'm aware of in recent times is how people like Spencer Flumen and others have started to refer to the Book of Mormon no longer as a translation, but as Revelation. And that's a. You know, an orthodox member might not really get what's going on there. But as soon as you move away from calling the Book of Mormon a translation, which is what Joseph claimed it was, and you move to calling it a revelation, you're basically claiming you're trying to escape the fact that There are so many anachronisms in it that the mechanics of producing it, which we've talked about here on LDS discussions in depth with the stone in the hat and the plates not being in the room, is so problematic, that translation. And then you add to that that the book of Abraham's a failed translation, the book of Moses is a failed translation, the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible is a failed translation. It's obvious why the church is running away from the term translation. But then you don't really understand when they start moving towards describing it as a revelation, what they're really doing. But what they're really doing is trying to put lipstick on a pig. They're trying to cover up all the way problems and escape by saying, we don't know the mysteries of how Joseph came up with the Book of Mormon. It's a revelation, you know that. But, but, but once you understand the use of equivocation, you can see what's going on there. And by the way, when people like Spencer Fluman or Taro Givens or whatever, when they do this, I don't think they think they're equivocating. I think they're using the other, one of the other concepts that we discussed in a previous slide. They're simply using motivated reasoning to try and come up with a plausible explanation. You don't even need conscious intentions to deceive. Once you start combining these logical fallacies together, you can have well intended people unconsciously using motivated reasoning to equivocate. And everybody's intentions are good. And that's what makes religion so resilient and so persistent. And in some ways, you know, if it's harmful religion, it makes it so pernicious, is you don't even need intentional bad actors. You just need people who are sincere believers who want what's best for everybody unconsciously employing these tools or these logical fallacies. Is that fair to say, Mike?

Mike 2:57:55 Yeah, I mean, it's like we've, we've talked about this a few times in these episodes, but Nemo kind of referenced it a minute ago. You have like these equations, right? And so X plus Y equals whatever. And with apologetics it's X plus Y equals the church is true. And so when you talk about, say like, you know, the book Abraham translation, and from an apologetic standpoint, you're like, well, the, the, the conclusion is fixed, the church is true. And Kerry Milstein admits this. So he's saying, okay, what do I need to put in X, but what do I need to put in Y? To equal the church is true. I mean Kerry Milstein, we'll play this when we get to our episode on apologetics. And we've played it before in the Book of Abraham literally says that's how he views church history. He says, I start with the conclusion and I fit the data and the evidence in there. And so you could say on one hand, well Kerry Mosttein is being intentionally dishonest because he's admitting what he's doing. On the other hand, to your point, he believes that he's doing God's work and so he's not. I don't think he's sitting there in the corner at home going hahaha, I tricked another one today. I think he's thinking how do I make this work? Because I need it to work. And again, it's a horrible way to discern truth and to get to truth. But if your equation is fixed. Yeah. You're going to change the variables however you need to do it in order to keep that conclusion fixed. And that's like I said, it's not a good way to do it. But honest people do it to make it work.

John Dehlin 2:59:14 Yeah. Well let's go ahead and take to the next slide then. Speaking of people who do it to make it work, let's talk about former Mormon General authority Paul Dunn.

Mike 2:59:25 Yeah. And so if you've never heard of Paul H. Dunn, he was a general authority in the 1980s. He was a very popular speaker in the Mormon Church. Dunn told some of the most amazing and faith promoting stories about baseball and war. And I guarantee you that many members felt the Spirit as he gave talks about how he was preserved by the Lord as bullets tore through his clothing and flew all around him. The problem however was that Paul H. Dunn was caught lying about his stories. After he initially tried to downplay his embellishments by comparing them to Jesus telling parables, he finally released a statement to the church through church owned media. He said, I have been accused of various activities unbecoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I confess that I have not always been accurate in my public talks and writings. Furthermore, I have indulged in other activities inconsistent with the high and sacred office which I have held for all of these. I feel a deep sense of remorse and ask forgiveness of any whom I may have offended. My brethren of the general authorities over a long period of time have conducted in depth investigations of the charges made against me. They have weighed the evidence, they have censured me and placed a heavy penalty upon Me, and this is. Donne was the first apostle to be given the emeritus status, and he was removed from being a public figure in the church. But this is, to me, one of the best examples of showing how spiritual witnesses can be manipulated. Because I guarantee people listening to his talks felt God and felt that elevation, emotion, that spiritual witness over a story that wasn't true. And once you realize that can happen to you, it's really easy to understand how we have these experiences through our lives and we frame them as being directly from God, when in reality, a lot of the times it's just ourselves reacting to either stuff that's going on in our own lives or to what we're hearing from other people.

John Dehlin 3:01:13 Yeah.

Nemo 3:01:14 Was he definitely an apostle? Was he a ga.

John Dehlin 3:01:16 He was not an apostle.

Mike 3:01:17 No.

John Dehlin 3:01:17 He was a general authority.

Nemo 3:01:19 It says on the slide he was an apostle. She wanted to clear that.

John Dehlin 3:01:22 I'm sorry.

Mike 3:01:22 I don't know why I put that in there.

John Dehlin 3:01:23 Yeah, no, and I'll just say, not only was he a general authority, he was probably the most beloved of all the general authorities because he was so charismatic and funny and witty. If you went to Deseret Book back in the day, there would literally be an entire wall of talks on tape. You know, the Nemo. Once upon a time, MP3s didn't exist.

Nemo 3:01:52 Okay.

John Dehlin 3:01:53 There wasn't YouTube. There wasn't the Internet. There were these. And this is before there were CDs. Have you ever heard of CDs, Nemo?

Nemo 3:02:00 I. I may have done. Is that like. Yeah. Is that like Blu ray?

John Dehlin 3:02:05 Okay. Before CDs, there were cassette tapes. And you would put the cassette tapes in and hit play, and you would listen to different music.

Nemo 3:02:14 Then when you have to wind them back, you'd use a pencil through the middle and turn it right. See, I know this stuff.

John Dehlin 3:02:20 Anyway, Paul Dunn made a fortune, I think, off of these cassette tapes that you would buy at Deseret Book of, like, a really charismatic, compelling, spiritually uplifting spiritual experiences that he had had playing professional baseball, you know, fighting in war. And so he was super beloved. And the only problem with all of that is that he was making it up. And I'll just say that there's a Mormon Stories episode where we tell the entire story of Paul H. Dunn. And frankly, because you're younger and because you're a convert, Mike, I'm surprised you've heard of Paul Dunn.

Mike 3:02:58 Well, I only heard about it after. After I started doing the research. Yeah, I. I didn't know anything about Paul Dunn because I think Paul, I don't know when this all happened, so it's 1991. I joined in.

John Dehlin 3:03:07 Yeah, it was in the late 90s.

Mike 3:03:09 Yeah, I was late 90s when I joined, so I. Yeah, I never heard about this at all.

Nemo 3:03:13 But what is important about Paul H. Dunn and sorry, just to shoehorn my own agenda in here, but what is important about Paul H. Dunn is that it is a precedent for when a church leader gets caught lying, they can be given emeritus status and released. Just bear that in mind.

Mike 3:03:28 Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin 3:03:31 I mean, on the one hand, it was cool that the, the church did put him on emeritus status. What's not cool is, is that they were forced to do it by Sunstone magazine and by the media, you know, and, and I'm sure there have been other general authorities that didn't get caught who were also, you know, telling untruths.

Nemo 3:03:54 But there's some that are still members of the Church's general authority system now that are telling lies.

Mike 3:04:00 There are some that may even be a prophet.

Nemo 3:04:02 Would that take us to the next slide, Michael?

Mike 3:04:04 Yes, it would.

Nemo 3:04:05 Then let's go.

John Dehlin 3:04:06 Next slide.

Nemo 3:04:07 Yeah.

Mike 3:04:07 And so, you know, our last episode, we talked about the transfiguration of Brigham Young, which was a story that explains why Brigham Young was God's chosen successor. And as we talked about, it was not even a story that was invented until seven years later. And the same could be said of those who have had spiritual confirmations listening to Russell Nelson's miracle stories that have now been proven, excuse me, to either be exaggerations or outright fabrications, such as the story of the lady in the hat, which we're not going to get to today, but we are going to do an episode soon on Russell Nelson's miracle stories or the plane that was spiraling down to a very quick death. And so we're going to play a little clip here and listen to the music and listen to how this elicits elevation, emotion. Just imagine how many people had spiritual witnesses hearing this story from, from Russell Nelson.

John Dehlin 3:04:54 All right, let's. This is the peace and hope of Easter Mormon Church President Russell M. Nelson. I've had, I've had some unforgettable moments while traveling. One occurred years ago while flying to the inauguration of a university president where I was to offer the invocation. It was a short flight in a small two engine plane. We were halfway to our destination when the right engine suddenly exploded, spewing flaming fuel all over the right side of the plane. The plane was on fire, careening to the earth in a Spiral dive. I expected to die. Miraculously, the dive extinguished the fire. The pilot was able to restore power to the other engine and make a safe landing. And I actually made it to the inauguration on time. Throughout that dramatic, unexpected experience, I was surprisingly calm. My entire life flashed before me while approaching what seemed to be certain death. I was at peace. I knew that my wife and I were sealed to each other eternally and our children were sealed to us. Thanks to the Lord, I knew we would all be together again. I was at peace, ready to meet my maker. What's wrong with that? That sounds like a really inspiring story, Mike.

Mike 3:06:35 Yeah, and it really does. It's got the music, it's got the imagery, it's got the. The pacing by Russell Nelson as he tells it. And the problem is that the story did not happen the way he tells it. And we're going to get to this in a future episode. But they finally threw some really good detective work by the Discuss Mormonism board. They found the. I forgot what they would call it, but the flight record of the plane he was on and they experienced. That plane experienced no outer damage. They. It did make a precautionary landing, but it was not an emergency landing because it had some engine feathering. And so this idea that it had some spiral dive with an exploding engine with oil flying all over the windows, it just didn't happen. And what's really interesting to me about this story is that Russell Nelson has a habit in his stories, as we'll get to in this episode, of making himself the hero and making himself really God's chosen one by being saved and protected specifically by God. And so this story, as you watch this as a member, you're going to get that good warm feeling because you're like, holy crap, this guy really is the prophet of God because he. He was through this experience and he was super calm. And in some instances where he tells the story, he talks about the woman across from being absolutely hysterical. And it's, you know, it's about how he's so calm and resolved, whereas this other woman, who doesn't have the church, is hysterical because she doesn't know what's going to happen. But it didn't happen this way. And so if you got that spiritual feeling listening to this story and you thought it was from God, well, again, this story is not the way it claimed to have been. And it shows how easily manipulated we are by music, by imagery and by stories that didn't happen.

Nemo 3:08:11 Yeah, and I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. But say it didn't happen halfway through. And that's why he was able to remain calm, because it's so frustrating. So frustrating that he's lied about this to people and that I've done a video on it myself about showing how this isn't true. And people will defend it. They'll defend it to the Hill because they have, as we've discussed through all those logical fallacies, a need for it to be true, because at some point and in some way, it bolstered their testimony. And so now once it comes out that it's not true, they can't square that. And that's not fair to them. It's not fair to have people build their faith on things that aren't true.

Mike 3:08:53 Yeah, that's just it. And if you read some of the responses to rfm, and Bill Real did an episode on Mormonism Live about the. The flight of death, as I believe they call it, you'll see the comments, and they'll say, well, engine feathering could be an engine failure, which could cause the plane to spiral. And the fire was put out by the spiraling so there wouldn't be any external damage. And you're like, think of all the steps you have to take to get to that point. If a plane. If an engine explodes. And in one of the accounts he gives, he talks about oil flying everywhere. There's going to be external damage to the plane. The report says no external damage to the plane. See, you're immediately in a very problematic thing. And then you talk about this plane needing to spiral to extinguish the flames. And then Nelson, as Nemo said, then Nelson's like, wow, super calm. And again, I just, you know, maybe there would be someone. If a plane spiraling to. To its death, I would just be sitting there like, yeah, I'm good. I just. I feel like, as we'll see in this episode with Nelson, he is the type of person who wants to make himself the hero and the chosen one of every story. And I know that's gonna be upsetting to believers, but as I said, we'll talk about that in that episode. There's four really good examples of his miracle stories that have either. Well, I'll give you guys a tease if you. If you're not familiar with this. One of the stories he made up so badly, and it was all miraculous elements. They were made up so badly that it was published in a book by Deseret Books. They had to stop the printing of that book to remove the story because the people involved in the story came out and when the excerpt was released and said, yeah, that didn't happen. So Nelson has a problem with the truth. And so when you hear these stories and you get that spiritual feeling, you then have to go, why am I getting a spiritual feeling from God for a story that didn't actually happen?

John Dehlin 3:10:31 Yeah, Yep, it's a problem. And Elder Holland, I think, has been. Has been caught lying several times too. And Nemo, I think. I think this goes back to something you were alluding to, to Nemo. We've referred to this previously, but you've put together a document that you've sent to your local leadership and even to Elder Oaks, I believe, or more chronicling untruths told by several church leaders, is that right?

Nemo 3:10:58 Yeah, we can put a link in the description, but yeah, it's three and a half thousand word document that outlines lies told by several of the current quorum, the 12 and first presidency lies that they told over the pulpit in their position as prophets, seers and revelators. It is a systemic problem within the current leadership of the church of lying for the Lord, this idea that if they lie with the intent of bolstering people's faith, then it's fine. There's this justification of their dishonesty, which is extremely problematic. And we did an episode together, John, where we saw Dallin H. Oak's response. Response after he promised to investigate those lies. And I think it's safe to say it was somewhat wanting.

John Dehlin 3:11:41 Yeah. All right, well, let's go to your. Is this the final slide in the episode?

Personal Spiritual Experiences Reconsidered

Mike 3:11:46 Final slide, yeah. All right. Yeah. This is certainly not me trying to bear my testimony or my witness of leaving. But, you know, I had mentioned before that I had spiritual confirmations of the Book of Mormon as an investigator, and I did. They did come right away. I remember reading a few chapters a night and praying about it. And I think it took about two to three weeks before I started to get that warm feeling before going to bed that the Book of Mormon was true. And now that I've come to believe that the Book of Mormon is not true and not ancient or historical, I have that common conundrum we all have of trying to figure out how to make sense of those feelings. And is this something you hear from members all the time? And you'll hear phrases like, I cannot deny the experiences I've had. How can I turn away from the witness I received from God? I see those pretty much every day on Twitter. And this was something that was particularly noteworthy because as I began putting LDSDiscussions.com together. And so just to give this quick story, I had put this website together at the time, it had the annotated essays. I think I maybe had started doing the Saints chapter by chapter. It wasn't a ton of stuff. And I'm sitting there one night and I was in a knot, great mood, I think. I had had a rough discussion about church stuff that day actually, which was kind of even crazier because I didn't have discussions about church stuff all that often. And so I'm sitting there, it was like 11 o' clock at night, I'm working on the laptop with my day job stuff, and all of a sudden I get this, my phone buzzes, I have an email. So I open up the email and it was from. And again, keep in mind, at this point, the website's brand new. I was getting maybe like two emails a week at most. And I look at my phone, I open the email and the first and last name of the person emailing were the first and last name of my kid. And so I immediately thought it was someone from my in laws playing a joke on me because they knew where I was. And I thought maybe they were trying to screw with me on the website and open up the email. And it had an email from someone who was struggling with some church claims and they had some questions about polygamy from the annotated essay on the website. And so I'm reading the email and I'm very skeptical, thinking, of course this has got to be someone screwing with me. And I get to the signature, they left their signature in from where they emailed from from their job and again had the same first and last name as my kid. And I noticed that they had the same area code as me for their phone number. And I thought there's just no way. I live in an area where Mormonism is completely irrelevant. So there's no way that you'd get an email when I get one to two a week from someone with the first and last name of my kid and the exact same phone number. So I'm sure someone's screwing with me at this point. So I emailed back and kind of gave some of the links and sources for what they were asking. And I just kind of said like, where do you live? You know, because like I said, I was pretty suspicious. And sure enough, this person lives 12, 15 minutes from me and is a real person. And you know, we've become friends since we kept in touch and gone to lunch a bunch of Times. And it just shows that sometimes when you're in a really dark place and you get this, this thing that happens to you like this, where out of nowhere I get this email from someone that lives 12 to 15 minutes away. And again, like in my kids school, there's I think two or three kids that go to Mormon, you know, a Mormon church. So it's, it's irrelevant, you know, 1% maybe. And to get an email from someone who lives 12 to 15 minutes away at that moment when I was feeling like crap. If you heard that story and that story ultimately brought me back to church, I have no doubt that would be a story that I could tell at any church service and get people feeling the utmost spirit. And I would make a bet that you'd hear that story repeated if it was ever kind of heard by stake presidents or whatever, because it's a one in a million shot to have someone email on a day where something bad happened with church stuff that lives 12 to 15 minutes away from me with the same, same first and last name as my kid and obviously the same last name as me. So I just, you know, that was one of those moments where on one hand I'm like, okay, this is God telling me I'm on the right track with this website. And then on the other hand I'm like, no, it's not. It's just a coincidence. But to me, that was one of those moments where I really had goosebumps.

Nemo 3:16:01 Yeah. And all it takes.

Mike 3:16:03 Yeah, go ahead, Nemo.

Nemo 3:16:04 Oh, go ahead. All it takes for coincidence to become confirmation is just the right bias.

Mike 3:16:08 Yeah. And the right situation. Yeah. And that's what it was. And, and I did. I had that moment where I'm like, holy crap. Like, there is something. This is impossible. Like I really, I mean, no joke, I'm kind of feeling it now actually, like goosebumps, because it was a moment. If you ever watch the show Lost one, One of the famous scenes in Lost was the end of the first season and John Locke, who's one of the main characters, is kind of lost. All faith and everything. He's believing in this island. All of a sudden the light shoots up, you know, and it really is like that where you get this moment. And to Nemo's point, you combine that coincidence with the mindset I was in, with the fact that it was really, I mean, you like, it really was like a one in a million thing to have somebody that close by, same first and last name. And so to me, that's also a cautionary Tale to read too much into experiences and to. To attribute experiences to God, because I would attribute that to God as a believer in saying that's leading me on the path I should be on. And it really is something that stuck with me because like I said, and Nemo pointed out, it is full of my own interpretations, my own biases and the situation I was in. But that, to me, was as powerful an experience as I ever had in the church because of the fact that it came at the moment I needed it and from someone local that I could talk to and just let me know that I was helping people at the website. And so that really did feel like, you know, as strong a spiritual witness as you can get. And to me, that feels like a good way to end this episode because it shows that to me that I don't believe that's a witness from God that the website is what I should be doing. But I think that it also helps it to show that you cannot attribute feelings that come from within to God, especially when you find out later that what those feelings were based on is not what you thought they were.

John Dehlin 3:17:50 Yeah. Nemo, do you have similar stories from your experience or background that makes you relate to what Mike's talking about?

Nemo 3:17:58 Yeah, I mean, I have ones, particularly from when I was a very orthodox believer of, you know, coincidences that make you think the Holy Spirit is watching over you or such. But even now, you know, it's not a one in a million someone sharing my name, but it's meeting someone in a place where you wouldn't expect to meet someone who knows what I do and what I'm doing on YouTube. And they talk to me about, you know, how what I'm doing is helping them or xyz. You know, you have these experiences with people all the day. And I often say to people who challenge me about spiritual experiences, you know, they'll say to you, well, you can't deny your spiritual experiences. And often people will say, well, I can't deny my spiritual experiences. And the way I look at it is they are no longer. They are still that they are experiences, but they are no longer evidence. And I think that's. That's the delineation that a lot of people will begin to make, is that their spiritual experiences were still moments of spiritual emotional uplift, but they are not necessarily evidence of the truthfulness of the LDS Church in the way that they were.

John Dehlin 3:19:10 Yeah, yeah. And I'll just add, you know, I remember on the one hand, I've referred to this before, praying about The Book of Mormon, reading the Book of Mormon, taking Moroni's promise as a 16 year old, praying about it, getting no answer, praying a second time, getting no answer, and feeling frustrated about that. But then at some point, my junior senior year of high school, watching a general conference and feeling this overwhelming, you know, set of emotions that I, at the time, I associated with God and the Holy Ghost and the truthfulness of the church. And that was something that probably lifted me, you know, up and bolstered me for many, many, many years. And like others, I'm forced to ask, what was that? If it wasn't Holy Ghost, if it wasn't a witness that the church is, is true, what was it? And it can be. The truth is, it can be a lot of things. First of all, if you're a believing Mormon and you've had spiritual witnesses that testify to you that the Mormon Church is true, my answer is, well, then stay in the church and keep believing in it. If it's working for you, if you're happy in the church and if those experiences are precious to you, I don't think any of us here on the podcast are trying to say from this episode, then stop believing and reinterpret those beliefs. If belief is working for you, if you're happy and healthy, then just keep believing whatever you believe, whatever it's based on. Because we're all just trying to get through the day and we're just trying to get through this life in one piece, you know, but, you know, if the church isn't working for you, if orthodox belief isn't working for you, and you've had these spiritual experiences that you cherish, one option is just to say they're still valid, they were still from God, they were still divine. But maybe you interpreted them in a, maybe you were conditioned in the church to interpret them in a certain way that now you can look back and say, you know what, I interpreted them under the influence in ways that I don't necessarily have to now, now hold to. They can still be from God, they can still be witnesses of concepts of love or divinity or truth or goodness. They could have still been spiritual experiences. But, but that extra baggage of interpreting them to mean that the church is true, well, maybe I over interpreted them. So that's one option you have, is to hold to them, but realize that maybe you over interpreted them. And then of course, there are other things you can do, which is to say it's elevated emotion, it's just my brain, you know, and you could recontextualize them in other ways if you want to. And all I can say is do whatever you feel is best. And we're not here to tell you I don't know. Hopefully Mike and Nemo, you will agree with me. The purpose of this episode was not to get you to discard the sacred experiences that you've had. It's simply to help you understand how the brain works, how emotions work, how social psychology works, so that you can make whatever decisions in your life make most sense to you, make most sense to you, and lead to the highest health and well being for you, whatever that may be.

Nemo 3:22:45 Yeah, and it can also help stop people being possibly judgmental towards those of other faiths or confused about those of other faiths who also have these same stated feelings and experiences, because it gives them room to kind of say, well, I can understand the mechanisms by which they may have also felt these things now because they understand the social psychology a bit more and the sort of anthropological reasons for these things.

Mike 3:23:12 No, I think that's perfect because we started this episode with that 12 minute video of all the other face giving their own testimony. And obviously some are cults in there, like Jim Jones and all that, but it really is to, just as all these episodes are, is to show people what we know from, you know, whether it's science or history or however you want to say it, so that we can make better decisions and to jump point, people get really mad when you talk about witnesses. And that's why I tried to do this episode in a more clinical, technical way as opposed to trying to dissect someone's witness. Because my experiences as a member of the church, my experiences before joining the church, my experiences since leaving the church, those are all still experiences I had. And I don't know how to attribute them sometimes. But the fact is, knowing these things helps me to understand kind of how things work. When you come across information that you don't like, it also helps you to better understand that everyone's having these same experiences. So you don't feel like you're the one and only church that's getting this direct confirmation from God. And at the end of the day you're going to do with it what you want. But I think it's important for people to understand this because one thing I want to make clear is while I don't want to tell everyone, oh, your witness is just chemicals in your brain, I don't believe that. I think we all have reasons for having these experiences. But what I don't like is how the Mormon Church tells you what your emotions are. The Mormon Church tells you they define your experiences for you. And they're defining them in a way that stacks the deck for them. So I'm not telling you you should run away from the church and never look back. I'm saying that what the church is presenting as what a witness is is not quite what we now know it is. And you need to be able to make your own decisions with more information. And then at that point, you're gonna do with it what you want. I've said that in so many episodes. All I can do is put out there what I've learned, how I've processed it, and what I think are solid, concrete evidences for these different topics. And then at the end of the day, if you still want to believe, that's your choice. If you want to walk away, that's your choice. And that's, I mean, for me, this is how it helped me. Hopefully it helps other people. That was really the one and only goal of, of doing these episodes with you, was to try to put out what had helped me and what other people had said. It helped them on the website in a way that people can watch and pick and choose and do with it what they will.

John Dehlin 3:25:30 Well, beautiful. Well, this is going to be one of the longer episodes from this LDS discussion series, but I think it's one of the most important ones. So I hope people have valued it, I hope people have enjoyed it. The show, the show notes list is very long, but I want to just point out a few resources that I think people will really find valuable. I've told you guys about this before, but there's a multi part series on Mormon stories called the Psychology of Religion with Dr. James Nagel and it's got, it's one of the first Mormon Stories series that had PowerPoint slides to illustrate visuals to illustrate an episode. And it's absolutely a Top 50 Mormon Stories episode. I hope everyone will check it out. We'll include a link to that in the show notes. I also want to remind people of Luna Lindsay Corbden's amazing series called Examining Mormon Mind Control or Recovering Agency from Luna Libs. Luna Lindsay Corbin's amazing book by that same name, Recovering Agency. It's just, it's about these 31 flavors of undue influence that impact people. I also want to refer people to a classic book in the field of psychology, Mike Animo. I'm wondering if you guys have ever heard of this book. It's called Influence the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini and this was a book that I was asked to read when I was getting my PhD in social psychology. But if you, if you go to the book and you look at what it's about, it's about things like reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, scarcity. It basically, you know, takes these concepts out of the charged religious context and just teaches you how, how these psychological concepts can be used and manipulated. And it's not even really talking about the religious context. It's talking about sales and business and marketing and how all of these concepts are used to just persuade and manipulate in the human condition. So these, along with several other links in the show notes we want to refer people to if they want to study these sorts of things more. All right, Mike and Nemo. Any. Any final words before we, we. We sign out?

Nemo 3:28:07 I'm always suspicious of any book that tells me how many copies they've sold on the COVID because is that not just an appeal to popularity?

John Dehlin 3:28:14 It is.

Nemo 3:28:16 Right. Anyway, yeah, thanks for having me on again. I really enjoy these discussions and I try my best to be fair, and I think that it's a discussion worth, worth having. And I just hope that there are people coming to this with a, an open belief system, meaning that they're willing to take in new information and see how it fits into their sort of moral paradigm and things. And if you're coming to this more closed, then I understand and I hope you'll revisit when you are a bit more open.

John Dehlin 3:28:46 And please, while you're, while you're subscribing to the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel, please go over and subscribe to the Nemo the Mormon YouTube channel and become a monthly donor to Nemo. Because he's doing important work. He's doing it full time, and he needs your support and his, his incredible work is worthy of your financial support. Would you disagree with me, Nemo?

Nemo 3:29:10 Well, I, I can't really. That would be weird. But I will say that I left the sunk cost of my, you know, my degree and everything that I trained for and the medical job that I had, I left that sunk cost and it was difficult to pursue this full time. So your support is welcome. And there's a final example of sunk cost fallacy for you, because if I'd stayed just because I'd done a degree in it, then I never would have got to do this full time, which I very much enjoy.

Final Reflections and Upcoming Episodes

John Dehlin 3:29:40 All right, Mike, any final words?

Mike 3:29:42 No, I just. I apologize to anyone who made it all the way through this episode. Just because it is a long one. But I think it's a good one. And I think what Nemo said was a really great point, which is if you're coming to this with an open mind, hopefully you're not going to be upset by what you're hearing. And if somehow you came to us with a closed mind, you're still with us now, hopefully. Maybe this is something in the future you can revisit with kind of some more time to kind of maybe, maybe some of these things will click as you're having conversations with other people or you're listening to general conference talks. Because a lot of these things are kind of of over overarching terms and they will apply and you'll see them in other areas of life too. So I just, I hope it was valuable to people out there just because I know it was a long one. But we thought it was important to cover this in a way that wasn't trying to come off as is trying to dissect people's witnesses, but more so to look at and say how can we have our emotions bolstered and strengthened and in some cases manipulated in. And I think it's an important thing for us to know, as Nemo said, not just for church, but we do this when you watch ads or when you watch stories on the news or when you watch political ads. All of those things are designed to get at the right emotional response. And so this is really important not just for Mormonism. And so if you made it this far, like I said, I apologize for being so long, but I hope you found it valuable.

John Dehlin 3:31:02 Yep. And make sure and check out LDSDiscussions.com for Mike's wonderful essays. And of course, if you want to consume all of this series, you can go to Spotify or Apple Podcasts and check out the dedicated LDS Discussions podcast feeds there. You can do video or audio on Spotify, you can do audio on Apple Podcasts. And of course we have a playlist on our YouTube channel on Mormon Stories podcast where you can watch all of these episodes in succession and you can refer others to them as well. And also please consider donating to Mormon Stories. Go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor. We we we compensate Mike and Nemo for their participation in these episodes as well as my own. And we need your compensation. We, we believe it's important to compensate creators and so we need your support to keep this sort of stuff going. So please do become a monthly donor and support us and hopefully we'll keep Mike and Nemo around a long time, creating more great content. All right, fellas. And Mike, I guess. I guess we should talk about what's next on our list. I'm looking at the list right now. Anything you want to say about what's ahead?

Mike 3:32:19 I think the next episode we're going to do is on doubts, and I think it will tie in nicely to this one, just because it's going to look at how the church frames those with doubts and how they kind of use different tactics to keep us from doubting. We're gonna have an episode on apologetics. We're gonna have an episode on if Joseph Smith got it right, who got it wrong. And I think that's a really important way to look at these. These topics as we start to kind of wrap up, at least for now, because it really is important to. To kind of take the equation that we often hear in church is to say Joseph Smith got it right, and say, okay, if that's the case, what do we. What are we getting wrong in the broader sense of the world? And then we're going to do an episode on Russell Nelson's Miracle Stories, which we referenced earlier, and I think that one's gonna be a fun one, too.

John Dehlin 3:33:03 All right. Yeah. And. And Mike, we're going to be doing a few more, and then you're going to be taking a sabbatical for the summer, and then hopefully we'll have you back in the fall to do some other trailing episodes as well. I. I realize we need one on Joseph Smith's martyrdom. I don't think we really covered that. There's several things about his martyrdom that I think deserve their own episode we've talked about. I still want to do one on the. On the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses and the Spiritual Eyes. I know that you've got some strong feelings about that, but there's a. There's another list. There's financial stuff we can do. We hope to not only finish this year off strong, but to have you come back next year and do some final trailing episodes. But. But this has been an amazing series, Mike. So, Mike, we can't thank you enough. And Nemo as well. Thanks, fellas.

Mike 3:33:54 Yeah, thanks for those who have. Who have stood by and listened to this many episodes. I can't even imagine listening to myself that long. So everyone who has. All right.

John Dehlin 3:34:04 All right. Thanks, brethren, and thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories, LDS Discussion Edition. LDS Discussions Edition. Please share these episodes with everybody. Please be kind to each other. Be good to each other. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

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.