A random tidbit of what I am told (by the missionaries) is insider info on the LDS missionary lifestyle:
Mormon missonaries love postmen. They are very disconnected from their families during the two years of missionary service, and so they are always looking forward to that contact with loved ones that may come with the mail. I guess they normally get to know the postmen pretty well, since they're always waiting excitedly when the mail arrives.
They also get to know all the border guards, if they're posted near the US/Canada border like ours are. Since they often have temporary postings, and the locations of these vary a fair bit (within a cross-border region), they tend to travel to and fro over the borders a lot.
Sounds pretty exciting to me.
For something a bit more relevant: My wife and I have been invited to attend a baptism, and some of the upcoming general conference sessions (where everybody gets together at the local Mormon church to hear the current Prophet, Apostles and some others speak). I'm looking forward to this, and hoping we can at least make it to one of the sessions. It's on Easter weekend, and I'm secretly hoping that we can go to a session and follow it up with attending a passion play at a church just across the street. Because I like mixing my inputs.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
JWs and Space-time
I've been noticing lately in my discussions with the JWs that their conceptions of the Godhead depend largely on how they incorporate space and time into their theology. For example, take an argument like this:
1. Jesus is God's son. (e.g. Mark 1:1)
2. This mean Jesus was born of God. (as stated in e.g., Col. 1:15, which JWs also understand to mean that Jesus was the first thing created)
3. Sons don't exist until they are born.
4. Therefore God existed before Jesus.
5. Therefore God and Jesus cannot be the same person.
What is interesting about this argument is how it changes depending on how we imagine that God and Jesus exist with respect to time.
Since shortly before I became a Christian, I have understood that God and Jesus exist outside of time. That is, they transcend it. They are present within the space-time complex that is our universe, and they are also present beyond it, and are not contained by it.
If I conceive God and Jesus as transcending time in that manner, then I will understand the phrase "son of God" to be referring to a relationship between two beings. Of course it won't occur to me (at least, it hasn't occurred to me) that the phrase implies that Jesus' existence started after His Father's existence started. I considered the term figurative, and never would have thought that they precedence aspect of birth was meant by it. In fact, thinking of "son of God" in that manner didn't occur to me until talking with the JWs about this last Tuesday.
On the other hand, if I take the far more concrete view that the JWs have, where Jesus (and perhaps God – I've yet to check on that) exist only in space-time like we do, then a phrase like "son of God" will imply the material creation of a child after their parent as we are familiar with, and will thus imply that point 3 is valid in the sense we usually understand "born" and likewise that the rest of the argument follows from it.
My point: depending on our preconceptions about God/Jesus and how they exist in time, from the same scriptures we will come to different understandings of God. And, on the basis of the Bible, I don't know how to distinguish which perception of God is correct. (This may well just be a limitation of my knowledge of the Bible – I welcome correction, if that is the case.)
Another interesting example is the JW's beliefs about the afterlife. Since they do not believe that any part of a human is exists outside of time, their conceptions of death and resurrection are a little different from the orthodox Christian views. The idea is that humans did not exist before they were born, exist for their lives on Earth (in the material world), entirely cease to exist when they die, and then are recreated eventually on an Earth with all of is problems fixed. The nifty thing is that they are recreated based on God's memory of them. Since He's God, He can remember and recreate them exactly as they were when they died.
If the material world of space-time is the only place for humans to exist, then this seems to me like a pretty reasonable way to understand life, death and resurrection. Where would people be between death and resurrection? They must simply not exist. And what could resurrection then mean? It must me recreating them in the material world. But again, if we are willing to allow that humans can exist (partly or wholly) outside of space-time, things change and we can arrive at an alternative understanding.
My understanding, given that I believe there is a material and non-material part to humans (the non-material part not existing in space-time – and maybe but not necessarily in some kind of time?), gives me no reason to think that the non-material part dies when the material part does. So it is quite possible for that part of a human to exist between their bodily death and resurrection.
Again, it has to do with weather we begin trying to work through things assuming it is all bound by space-time, or whether we do not assume that. In other words, whether we assume there is a supernatural, or whether we do not. I think JW doctrine, though it may place God in the supernatural, could be otherwise compatible with materialism.
So what are we left with? To me, it is obvious that there are non-material things. To the JWs – and I'm sure I'll discuss this with them at more length – it may not be evident. I doubt I will convince them otherwise, or that they will convince me otherwise. I've never been able to convince anyone that non-material things exist in the past, and don't expect that I'll start now. But there may be some benefit to showing them how things seem to me, and seeing how things look to them, in these matters. Perhaps we can recognize some truth in each others' worldviews.
A quick side note: To me, the JW beliefs are almost like a sci-fi story, with God as the great benevolent alien who creates a creature Jesus to help the people of Earth, and who through his great power and memory can recreate us frail and unenlightened humans after our deaths and allow us to live forever. It's a neat concept, although I'm not really sure what I think of such a God (he seems a short step away from the evil God in the His Dark Materials trilogy).
1. Jesus is God's son. (e.g. Mark 1:1)
2. This mean Jesus was born of God. (as stated in e.g., Col. 1:15, which JWs also understand to mean that Jesus was the first thing created)
3. Sons don't exist until they are born.
4. Therefore God existed before Jesus.
5. Therefore God and Jesus cannot be the same person.
What is interesting about this argument is how it changes depending on how we imagine that God and Jesus exist with respect to time.
Since shortly before I became a Christian, I have understood that God and Jesus exist outside of time. That is, they transcend it. They are present within the space-time complex that is our universe, and they are also present beyond it, and are not contained by it.
If I conceive God and Jesus as transcending time in that manner, then I will understand the phrase "son of God" to be referring to a relationship between two beings. Of course it won't occur to me (at least, it hasn't occurred to me) that the phrase implies that Jesus' existence started after His Father's existence started. I considered the term figurative, and never would have thought that they precedence aspect of birth was meant by it. In fact, thinking of "son of God" in that manner didn't occur to me until talking with the JWs about this last Tuesday.
On the other hand, if I take the far more concrete view that the JWs have, where Jesus (and perhaps God – I've yet to check on that) exist only in space-time like we do, then a phrase like "son of God" will imply the material creation of a child after their parent as we are familiar with, and will thus imply that point 3 is valid in the sense we usually understand "born" and likewise that the rest of the argument follows from it.
My point: depending on our preconceptions about God/Jesus and how they exist in time, from the same scriptures we will come to different understandings of God. And, on the basis of the Bible, I don't know how to distinguish which perception of God is correct. (This may well just be a limitation of my knowledge of the Bible – I welcome correction, if that is the case.)
Another interesting example is the JW's beliefs about the afterlife. Since they do not believe that any part of a human is exists outside of time, their conceptions of death and resurrection are a little different from the orthodox Christian views. The idea is that humans did not exist before they were born, exist for their lives on Earth (in the material world), entirely cease to exist when they die, and then are recreated eventually on an Earth with all of is problems fixed. The nifty thing is that they are recreated based on God's memory of them. Since He's God, He can remember and recreate them exactly as they were when they died.
If the material world of space-time is the only place for humans to exist, then this seems to me like a pretty reasonable way to understand life, death and resurrection. Where would people be between death and resurrection? They must simply not exist. And what could resurrection then mean? It must me recreating them in the material world. But again, if we are willing to allow that humans can exist (partly or wholly) outside of space-time, things change and we can arrive at an alternative understanding.
My understanding, given that I believe there is a material and non-material part to humans (the non-material part not existing in space-time – and maybe but not necessarily in some kind of time?), gives me no reason to think that the non-material part dies when the material part does. So it is quite possible for that part of a human to exist between their bodily death and resurrection.
Again, it has to do with weather we begin trying to work through things assuming it is all bound by space-time, or whether we do not assume that. In other words, whether we assume there is a supernatural, or whether we do not. I think JW doctrine, though it may place God in the supernatural, could be otherwise compatible with materialism.
So what are we left with? To me, it is obvious that there are non-material things. To the JWs – and I'm sure I'll discuss this with them at more length – it may not be evident. I doubt I will convince them otherwise, or that they will convince me otherwise. I've never been able to convince anyone that non-material things exist in the past, and don't expect that I'll start now. But there may be some benefit to showing them how things seem to me, and seeing how things look to them, in these matters. Perhaps we can recognize some truth in each others' worldviews.
A quick side note: To me, the JW beliefs are almost like a sci-fi story, with God as the great benevolent alien who creates a creature Jesus to help the people of Earth, and who through his great power and memory can recreate us frail and unenlightened humans after our deaths and allow us to live forever. It's a neat concept, although I'm not really sure what I think of such a God (he seems a short step away from the evil God in the His Dark Materials trilogy).
Friday, March 12, 2010
JW: Getting inside the JW view of resurrection
After several weeks of not meeting, due to the Mormon guys being stuck at a meeting in Halifax, and one of the JW missionaries getting the Norwalk virus, I finally met with both again this past Tuesday.
In this entry, I will focus on one particular aspect of the JW mindset that I've been grappling with. And by grappling, I mean something like "trying to understand from the inside". This is my default mode of trying to understand anything, trying to see if from the inside – in anthropological terms, to come to the most emic account possible of a worldview. For me, the etic account it forced, but I inherently seek the emic one. The benefits of my default approach are many: it promotes empathy and allows closer relationships with others. The risks are that I may lose too much of my own identity, and that I lose the benefit I would otherwise have as an objective observer.
The JW's believe that, in the afterlife, everyone will be resurrected to an earthly paradise. All of the things that make Earth bad, such as disease, natural disasters, crime, and so on, will be destroyed, and the New Earth will be a cleansed version of the current one.
I think the JW doctrine I have most often heard (and heard misrepresented) is that the New Earth is to be ruled by 144,000 "anointed" followers of Christ, who will be with Christ in Heaven. I have yet to investigate just how the "anointed" are chosen, how they are known on Earth right now, etc. However, I can say that it is clear to me that they do not believe that only 144,000 humans will be saved. Also, their doctrine makes a bit more sense if you interpret, as the JW's do, Biblical references to the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven as references to a government God wishes to institute over the Earth. It is questionable exegesis, and requires a more figurative interpretation of passages such as Luke 11:14-20. But then "Kingdom of God" is a figurative term to start with.
The Greek is not helpful either. βασιλεια, the Greek word for Kingdom used in the phrase "Kingdom of God" and elsewhere, was most commonly used in the same sense as the English word Kingdom, to mean a dominion. However, sources contemporary to the writing of the New Testament also used the term to mean a reign, or a governmental office.
I personally believe it makes more sense to take the terms "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of Heaven" to mean God's dominion, rather than a governing body He will appoint, but as B— once pointed out the JW's have taken their equation of "kingdom" and "government" and incorporated into a self-consistent system of belief and hermeneutics, which is more than I've accomplished for myself so far.
Returning to the main topic, the argument for a restoration of the current Earth, as presented to me by the JWs, is as follows:
1. God created Earth, animals, plants, etc (Genesis 1:1-25).
2. When God created Earth, it was good (Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31).
3. God created humans and told them to live on the Earth, and said that was good (Genesis 1:26-31).
4. The above, combined with a handful of additional verses, demonstrate that God meant for the humans to live in Paradise on Earth (e.g. Psalm 37:29).
5. God always achieves His purposes (e.g. Isaiah 46:9-11, Isaiah 55:11).
6. Therefore, in this case, God must in the end achieve His purpose of having all the humans live in a Paradise on Earth.
(The above essentially summarizes the first section of Chapter 3 in the JW book What Does the Bible Really Teach?)
This bothers me because I have been hoping for a unity with God in heaven that I cannot even imagine right now, and certainly not one contained within the normal workings of our physical universe.
There could be many counterarguments to the above JW claims (the abuse of scripture, or so it appears to me, is disturbing), and you can find them easily enough at sites like this. But my goal here has been to try to see their worldview from within, and to understand why they find their concept of Heaven not only tolerable, but preferable.
From the way they talk about it (I've got them being far more sincere than when I first talked with them), JWs really do feel their idea of Heaven is better. And I'm starting to understand some of the reasons why they like it.
First, and most substantially, JWs believe that (just about) everyone gets to live forever. We all die (they don't believe in an immortal soul, so all of us dies), God remembers us, and from His memory God re-creates us on the Paradise Earth, with the same mental state as when we died. That means that if your Mother wasn't a believer, and has passed away, you have comfort. She will be resurrected, and into a perfectly governed world where she can learn to be a perfect person.
When I heard this from one of the JW's, I first connected with why they love their afterlife so much. To me, this sounds nice, and I want to believe that something like it is true – that this life isn't the only test, and that there's a more "fair" one later. Not for my sake, because I can tell that I'm free to choose almost everything I do, and for me the test seems as fair as I could ask for. But people I love who have died, I don't want them to be condemned to some kind of torment based on their actions in a fallen world. The JWs think that it's ridiculous to call a God who condemns people to eternal torment loving. I think that it only makes sense if those people knowingly choose not to be with God. But how are we, who haven't died yet, to know about such things?
The second appeal of the JW's heaven is that it's very concrete. It can be grasped and imagined. We know what Earth is like, and it's not so hard to imagine Earth minus the bad stuff, plus a good government. It's graspable.
I get that to some extent, since I know that people are often comfortable with concepts they can grasp. I've never been much like that myself, so I can't internalize this reason very well, but I do think it makes sense and is powerful. That said, when my heart is pierced upon seeing a beautiful tree, smile or sunbeam, the experience is far more meaningful knowing that it transcends the physical reality, and I find it impossible not to long to know as fully as possible that transcendent beauty. I mean, I think the beauty comes from God, and if experiencing it directly all the time isn't what the afterlife is about, well, the afterlife sounds better than death, but still unbearably disappointing.
I think after all my thoughts on this, my conclusion is that I ought to choose the unimaginably good afterlife over the imaginably good one, lacking substantial evidence to do otherwise, and in this case, I will. (Yes, I did just casually discount Occam's Razor. Deal with it :) ) So unless something convincing comes along, I personally will anticipate a heaven better than I can imagine. If I set myself up for disappointment, so be it.
In this entry, I will focus on one particular aspect of the JW mindset that I've been grappling with. And by grappling, I mean something like "trying to understand from the inside". This is my default mode of trying to understand anything, trying to see if from the inside – in anthropological terms, to come to the most emic account possible of a worldview. For me, the etic account it forced, but I inherently seek the emic one. The benefits of my default approach are many: it promotes empathy and allows closer relationships with others. The risks are that I may lose too much of my own identity, and that I lose the benefit I would otherwise have as an objective observer.
The JW's believe that, in the afterlife, everyone will be resurrected to an earthly paradise. All of the things that make Earth bad, such as disease, natural disasters, crime, and so on, will be destroyed, and the New Earth will be a cleansed version of the current one.
I think the JW doctrine I have most often heard (and heard misrepresented) is that the New Earth is to be ruled by 144,000 "anointed" followers of Christ, who will be with Christ in Heaven. I have yet to investigate just how the "anointed" are chosen, how they are known on Earth right now, etc. However, I can say that it is clear to me that they do not believe that only 144,000 humans will be saved. Also, their doctrine makes a bit more sense if you interpret, as the JW's do, Biblical references to the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven as references to a government God wishes to institute over the Earth. It is questionable exegesis, and requires a more figurative interpretation of passages such as Luke 11:14-20. But then "Kingdom of God" is a figurative term to start with.
The Greek is not helpful either. βασιλεια, the Greek word for Kingdom used in the phrase "Kingdom of God" and elsewhere, was most commonly used in the same sense as the English word Kingdom, to mean a dominion. However, sources contemporary to the writing of the New Testament also used the term to mean a reign, or a governmental office.
I personally believe it makes more sense to take the terms "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of Heaven" to mean God's dominion, rather than a governing body He will appoint, but as B— once pointed out the JW's have taken their equation of "kingdom" and "government" and incorporated into a self-consistent system of belief and hermeneutics, which is more than I've accomplished for myself so far.
Returning to the main topic, the argument for a restoration of the current Earth, as presented to me by the JWs, is as follows:
1. God created Earth, animals, plants, etc (Genesis 1:1-25).
2. When God created Earth, it was good (Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31).
3. God created humans and told them to live on the Earth, and said that was good (Genesis 1:26-31).
4. The above, combined with a handful of additional verses, demonstrate that God meant for the humans to live in Paradise on Earth (e.g. Psalm 37:29).
5. God always achieves His purposes (e.g. Isaiah 46:9-11, Isaiah 55:11).
6. Therefore, in this case, God must in the end achieve His purpose of having all the humans live in a Paradise on Earth.
(The above essentially summarizes the first section of Chapter 3 in the JW book What Does the Bible Really Teach?)
This bothers me because I have been hoping for a unity with God in heaven that I cannot even imagine right now, and certainly not one contained within the normal workings of our physical universe.
There could be many counterarguments to the above JW claims (the abuse of scripture, or so it appears to me, is disturbing), and you can find them easily enough at sites like this. But my goal here has been to try to see their worldview from within, and to understand why they find their concept of Heaven not only tolerable, but preferable.
From the way they talk about it (I've got them being far more sincere than when I first talked with them), JWs really do feel their idea of Heaven is better. And I'm starting to understand some of the reasons why they like it.
First, and most substantially, JWs believe that (just about) everyone gets to live forever. We all die (they don't believe in an immortal soul, so all of us dies), God remembers us, and from His memory God re-creates us on the Paradise Earth, with the same mental state as when we died. That means that if your Mother wasn't a believer, and has passed away, you have comfort. She will be resurrected, and into a perfectly governed world where she can learn to be a perfect person.
When I heard this from one of the JW's, I first connected with why they love their afterlife so much. To me, this sounds nice, and I want to believe that something like it is true – that this life isn't the only test, and that there's a more "fair" one later. Not for my sake, because I can tell that I'm free to choose almost everything I do, and for me the test seems as fair as I could ask for. But people I love who have died, I don't want them to be condemned to some kind of torment based on their actions in a fallen world. The JWs think that it's ridiculous to call a God who condemns people to eternal torment loving. I think that it only makes sense if those people knowingly choose not to be with God. But how are we, who haven't died yet, to know about such things?
The second appeal of the JW's heaven is that it's very concrete. It can be grasped and imagined. We know what Earth is like, and it's not so hard to imagine Earth minus the bad stuff, plus a good government. It's graspable.
I get that to some extent, since I know that people are often comfortable with concepts they can grasp. I've never been much like that myself, so I can't internalize this reason very well, but I do think it makes sense and is powerful. That said, when my heart is pierced upon seeing a beautiful tree, smile or sunbeam, the experience is far more meaningful knowing that it transcends the physical reality, and I find it impossible not to long to know as fully as possible that transcendent beauty. I mean, I think the beauty comes from God, and if experiencing it directly all the time isn't what the afterlife is about, well, the afterlife sounds better than death, but still unbearably disappointing.
I think after all my thoughts on this, my conclusion is that I ought to choose the unimaginably good afterlife over the imaginably good one, lacking substantial evidence to do otherwise, and in this case, I will. (Yes, I did just casually discount Occam's Razor. Deal with it :) ) So unless something convincing comes along, I personally will anticipate a heaven better than I can imagine. If I set myself up for disappointment, so be it.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
LDS: Book of Abraham Analysis
An interesting article on the Book of Abraham, part of the Pearl of Great Price accepted as scripture by the LDS church and ostensibly translated from the Egyptian by Joseph Smith Junior. I think this bears much more investigation, as a relatively concrete way of testing Joseph Smith Junior's authenticity.
I've been thinking a bit about Joseph Smith Junior lately. Maybe those thoughts will sometime coalesce into a full entry. Basically, the Mormons claim that even under threat of death he maintained that the Book of Mormon was authentic. This, to me, parallels the claim sometimes used to support Christianity that those who just made something up will not die for it.
However, it seems to me that we often cling to lies most strongly. Furthermore, if someone comes up with a lie and promulgates it because the believe very strongly that it will help people, I can very easily imagine them dying for it. That could have been the case with Joseph Smith Junior, but it also (any other evidence aside) could have been the case with Jesus or the Apostles. So, to me, the "people don't die for things that aren't true" argument doesn't make sense, because people will die for something they consider more important than their own lives, whether true or not.
This is just one way that LDS claims about the reliability of Joseph Smith Junior parallel orthodox Christian claims about Christ or the Apostles. The only difference is that there are many more contemporary sources about Joseph Smith Junior. Maybe if I get to a point where his reliability is a burning question, I will dig into those sources more and see what I find out.
I've been thinking a bit about Joseph Smith Junior lately. Maybe those thoughts will sometime coalesce into a full entry. Basically, the Mormons claim that even under threat of death he maintained that the Book of Mormon was authentic. This, to me, parallels the claim sometimes used to support Christianity that those who just made something up will not die for it.
However, it seems to me that we often cling to lies most strongly. Furthermore, if someone comes up with a lie and promulgates it because the believe very strongly that it will help people, I can very easily imagine them dying for it. That could have been the case with Joseph Smith Junior, but it also (any other evidence aside) could have been the case with Jesus or the Apostles. So, to me, the "people don't die for things that aren't true" argument doesn't make sense, because people will die for something they consider more important than their own lives, whether true or not.
This is just one way that LDS claims about the reliability of Joseph Smith Junior parallel orthodox Christian claims about Christ or the Apostles. The only difference is that there are many more contemporary sources about Joseph Smith Junior. Maybe if I get to a point where his reliability is a burning question, I will dig into those sources more and see what I find out.
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