The Problem with Mormon Apologists and Their Critics.

One of the first things a relationship therapist learns is that couples argue to burn up energy that could be used for something else. In fact, arguments often serve the purpose of using up energy, so that the couple do not have to take the courageous, creative leap into an unknown they fear. Arguing serves the function of being a zone of familiarity into which you can retreat when you are afraid of making a creative breakthrough. - Gay Hendricks.

Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole — the church, party, nation — and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society. – Eric Hoffer.

Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when men league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently intolerant toward those not of a like mind. – Eric Hoffer

The lead quote above is aimed at both Mormon apologists and their critics. The second quote is aimed at Mormon apologists, and the third is aimed at their critics. While the third quote could apply to both, the reason I’ve aimed it at critics of Mormonism is because it is perhaps far less recognisable among critics, who often fail to realise their own dogmatic tendencies, even less so than Mormons. In stating this, I should be clear that since I’ve been on both sides of the fence, this essay is aimed at me as much as anyone else, a sort of introspection and self-examination of blind spots. The phenomenon I’m referring to is partly encapsulated by Robert Anton Wilson’s concept of The New Inquisition and based on his book The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science

The Problem with Apologists

Everyone will naturally defend their personal beliefs, but Mormons have made it an art form. They appear to have invented, or perhaps reinvented, the term “asked and answered”. In other words, there’s an answer to virtually every problem confronting Mormonism, and it’s not that the answers are always illegitimate, it is just tedious, never flinching, and always “right”, often to the point of straining credulity. The Catholic Church has made a number of apologies for past behaviour, particularly towards those formerly condemned by the Inquisition but later exonerated, then some even eventually beatified. I will happily admit my error if a reader can point me to an occasion where the Mormon Church, or, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it is officially known, has made a genuine apology for past wrongs. I would genuinely be surprised.

This stance, in turn, reflects the very nature of Mormon apologetics itself. One can find an excuse for anything and everything, and Mormon apologists have perfected the art of finding excuses. It is almost disheartening to me, when I read Mormon apologia, particularly the Internet brands, and realise that hope for any real dialogue, and concessions where concessions should be made, is virtually absent from Mormon apologetics. I feel the same way about many apologetic Muslim websites (like “Defending Islam”), by the way, and paraphrasing Dante, “abandon hope of fruitful dialogue all ye who enter here”. I was told by one Muslim website that my first five posts would be screened, and I didn’t even bother. They want me to say what they want to hear, not what I really think, and I don’t call that free speech. Mormon apologetic websites, and message boards, are no different. I’ve previously described it as "walking on eggshells".

So when I read a typical Mormon apologetic website, I know I’m in for a bore of a time with predictable answers, and the intractable “rightness” of it all is sickening, and it’s not that I’m unsympathetic to Mormons, I’m just not sympathetic to the self-righteous droning and holier-than-thou attitudes of many Mormon apologists who feel it perhaps a God-sent "mission" to excuse, for example, Brigham Young saying that Blacks were inferior fence-sitters whose "curse" was to be born Black. Why not just call him what he was - a typical 19th century racist. Does that mean he didn't do anything good? Far from it. The Old Testament is riddled with prejudiced and imperfect prophets.

I was fond of using an illustration of how I perceived Mormon apologetics, which I still do, in the form of the following story:

Three men go duck hunting one day. Two of them are inundated
with stories from the third about his "great" duck hunting
abilities.

After a few hours the first two men have bagged a couple of
ducks each, but the braggart hasn't taken a shot. They
question him on this, so he agrees to show his shooting
abilities at the next opportunity.

A few moments later, one lone duck comes flying by. As
promised, the braggart stands up and squeezes off one
shot. The duck keeps flying!

"Gentlemen, you have just witnessed a miracle," says the
braggart pointing at the receding duck, "for there flies a
dead duck."

I have seen far too many “dead ducks” in Mormon apologetics, and all it takes is a little more honesty; a little more openness to the idea that you might actually be wrong on some points, to open up real dialogue and engender genuine respect for your cause.

The Problem with Critics of Mormonism

As Phillip Adams (also known as "Australia's most famous atheist") once said:

Incidentally, if there's one thing more infuriating than a silly theologian it's an arid, doctrinaire atheist. I've had dealings with plenty of them over the years, including a famous monster from the US. To profess atheism is not to prove anything, let alone intellectual merit. Some of the narrowest, most dogmatic and silly people I've known have been atheists - or have loudly professed themselves Humanists or Rationalists.

( Source: Correspondence with Phillip Adams )

I’ve always liked the message board signature line of one Mormon who posts on Mormon related forums: “a zealot is one illuminated and blinded by the same light”. This isn’t a case of a Saul turning into a Paul, but a Paul turning into a Saul with as much or even more missionary zeal than when they were believing Mormons. As they grow in disbelief in Mormonism, and sometimes even the Divine, their certainties become more certain than ever, and we are treated to endless “Flying Spaghetti Monster” parables, and the wisdom of the faithless in anything but what they can see, smell, hear and touch. They totally fail to see that all they have done is exchange one form of dogma, for another. The great physicist (he was also a theologian) Sir Isaac Newton once reminisced:

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Today’s sceptics, cynics and critics have, of course, discovered it all. With the same certainty that they as former Mormons asserted “I know…”, they now assert with equal certainty things in the order of Nietzsche’s “God is Dead” philosophy. Someone is sure to point out that it is the extremes of Mormonism that led these poor souls to the other extreme of scepticism, going from “God lives” to “God is dead”, and I think there is much truth in that, but I find the certainties, the arrogance, and the self-righteousness of the “true believer” to be as equally repelling as that of “the true unbeliever”.