Disclaimer: This post is not directed at the newly disillusioned Mormon, who read something on the internet about LDS history and is going through a faith crisis. This is directed at the long time ExMormon who has gone through the stages of loss and grief, and after several years are stuck in the angry phase and seem to take on the role of the crusading debunker of all things LDS; yet remain deep down a kind of idealist and believer despite their Worldview Atheism.
As I see it, the antagonistic type of ExMormon Atheist has sought to feel certainty amidst the chaos of the cosmos, by forming a kind of secular religion around the Laboratory and Chalkboard that replaces their former LDS Ward and Scriptures. They replaced their ethical performance in the LDS Theater of Belief, if you will, by performing the role of Reductionist in the Realm of Cosmic Nothingness.
Here is what I see among many ExMormon Atheists:
- Reductionism is just the opposite coin of Faith-building.
- Nihilism is the eventual reverse trajectory of Supernaturalism.
- The Sermon or Talk at Church is replaced with equations and theories on the "Chalkboard."
- The formerly Religious replace supernatural Stories with Equations. They replace the Divine Filter with a Negative Filter.
There are four main reasons, as I see it, to uphold the LDS Religion from a humanistic perspective:
- Existential reasons
- Communal reasons
- Pragmatic reasons
- Durkheiman reasons
- Utilitarian reasons
Religion is not about pure objectivity, hyper-critical analysis, and laboratory results. It is about existential benefits, communal results, personal and social pragmatic benefits from acting out belief in one’s religion, and the utilitarian benefits; in that religions like Mormonism produce more good for the greater amount of people. It does this by changing individuals to be more civil and charitable (serving their community and being more ethical and law abiding), and this improves communities in which LDS members live. Thus the LDS subculture improves the overall ethic of the community in which they live. LDS temples act as a beacon symbolizing higher ideals. Here is in brief, why I find value in the Mormon Tribe (whether I am an active Chapel attender or not):
Existential Meaning in Life (The Will to Meaning according Victor Frankl)
Binding the Community around a Shared Story and Shared Standard:
The LDS Standard Works are akin to Governmental Laws and Patriotic Stories; the LDS Articles of Faith akin the Bill of Rights. Law courts function based on belief in supernatural free will and inalienable Rights endowed by our Creator: “Americanism” is a supernatural in its premises as Mormonism.
Spiritual Hiving: See Jonathon Haidt’s work, summarized below:
Pragmatic Benefits: This is covered by Joseph Campbell and Jordan Peterson and Bruce Sheiman (author of An Atheist Defends Religion).
Utilitarian: See What Positive Psychologists and Mormons Can Learn From Each Other by Elisa V. Hunter. Last I checked, polls shows LDS members and Jews tend to be happier due to the factors described in Elisa Hunter’s dissertation.
So as I see it, even on atheism, the LDS Church is still a useful cultural adaptation, or memetic structure that is useful, in producing an overall social good. This is because of the following factors that it provides:
Cosmic Identity & Existential Meaning in Life
Social Identity (Tribal Belonging)
Motivation for Ethically Performing a Civil Ideal
Even if one were to adopt Scientism, and argue we are mere gene-machines and are not a person as Rust Cohle argues in True Detective Season 1. From the scientific view, every human, every human ape, is performing an identity, whether it is as a stockbroker, librarian, mom, dad, American, English speaker, bowler, fan of said sport’s team, etc. The Anti-Mormonism type of ExMormon Atheist has not shed his human drive to seek an identity and belong to a tribe (for social belonging) and thus still seeks to perform an ethic and seeks an ideal. He remains as much a tribal ape as the active and believing Mormon. The Antagonistic type of ExMormon Atheist usually just seeks an Identity on an online Anti-Mormonism Forum, or joins another Religion or Secular Tribe, etc. They often continue to perform a shadow of their Christian Identity by declaring themselves on the side of the Good fighting Evil, calling out Cosmic Wrongs as they perceive it. But what they are missing in their reductionist habits is a cosmic Identity, belief in themselves as a soul, a "Child of God" (or infused with Divine acceptance and worth). Missing this ingredient, they are basically cosmic orphans so to speak. But they claim to embrace this cold hard reality as a sign of their existential strength. Yet the macho posturing is an illusion, for they still deep down are merely pretending they are true atheists; when they really are not non-supernaturalist atheists, as they still believe in the soul and objective Right and Wrong; as they act as if they and others have a soul and Right and Wrong are objective concepts. They act as if there is cosmic Right and Wrong. Hence their ongoing anti-Mormonism, as they perceive themselves fighting against perceived Darkness (LDS errors), as they are part of the forces of Light (the holy debunkers). They maintain the same cosmic drama they lived out as LDS. They maintain the same Christian Idealism of their being objective Right and Wrong, Truth and Falsehood.
They feel as if their is a cosmic Wrong (Mormonism) in need of a moral correction (in a Universe they will simultaneously claim is devoid of objective morals as worldview-atheists). They act out the role of heroes in this Anti Drama, as the the opposing saviors and saints, the righteous debunkers, the mockers of the con (as they put it). Yet they ignore the cosmic "con" of evolution's trick of making them feel like a person (as Russ Cohle explains in the link above). They fail to see that they are acting out "God's shadow," and playing the role of a "person" while not allowing the Mormon to play their role without being mocked. They are what Nietzsche called pale atheists when he wrote:
Now, let's consider, on the other hand, those rare cases I mentioned, the last idealists remaining today among the philosophers and scholars. Perhaps in them we have the opponents of the ascetic ideal we're looking for, the opposing idealists? In fact, that's what they think they are, these "unbelievers" (for that's what they are collectively). ... these people who say no today, these outsiders, these people who are determined on one point, their demand for intellectual probity, these hard, strong, abstemious, heroic spirits, who constitute the honour of our age, all these pale atheists, anti-Christians, immoralists, nihilists, these sceptics, ephectics, spiritually hectic (collectively they are all hectic in some sense or other), the last idealists of knowledge, the only ones in whom intellectual conscience lives and takes on human form nowadays—they really do believe that they are as free as possible from the ascetic ideal, these "free, very free spirits." And yet I am revealing to them what they cannot see for themselves, for they are standing too close to themselves. This ascetic ideal is also their very own ideal. ... . . . They are not free spirits—not by any stretch—for they still believe in the truth. . . . what compels a person to this unconditional will for truth is the faith in the ascetic ideal itself, even though it may be for him an unconscious imperative. We should not deceive ourselves on this point—it is a belief in a metaphysical value, the value of truth in itself, something guaranteed and affirmed only in that ideal (it stands or falls with that ideal). ... Strictly speaking, there is no scientific knowledge at all which stands "without pre-suppositions." The idea of such a science is unimaginable, paralogical. A philosophy, a "belief," must always be there first, ... and here I'm letting my book The Gay Science have a word (see its fifth book, p. 263)—"
The truthful person, in that daring and ultimate sense which the belief in scientific knowledge presupposes in him, affirms a world different from the world of life, of nature, and of history, and to the extent that he affirms this "other world" must he not in the process deny its opposite, this world, our world? . . . Our faith in scientific knowledge always rests on something which is still a metaphysical belief—even we knowledgeable people of today, we godless and anti-metaphysical people—we still take our fire from that blaze kindled by a thousand years of old belief, that faith in Christianity, which was also Plato's belief, that God is the truth, that the truth is divine. . . But how can we do that, if this very claim is constantly getting more and more difficult to believe, if nothing reveals itself as divine any more, unless it's error, blindness, and lies, if God himself manifests himself as our oldest lie?
In other words, the "pale atheists" act as if their is an objective floating Truth as a metaphysical reality, and their is an objective Good (despite their atheism). Thus they retain their Christian roots. Yet as worldview atheists the only truths that exists on worldview atheism are that of evolving Nature: where all is impermanent and evolving (its All just endless Change), and Nature is amoral, red in tooth and claw; the lying flower that tricks the bee, the deceptive insect tricking its prey, apes slaughtering other apes; life feeding on life, etc. All there is in science is approximations amidst evolving fluctuations which we can only perceive through a brain that itself evolved to perceive the world through limited filters making everything ultimately only a perspective. There remains no static Truth even in our best science; quarks pop in and out of existence and Dark Matter eludes us. Yet we wait for science to figure it all out, which we have faith will happen based on our belief in Scientism. But there is no 100% Truth, only ongoing Change.
Even if there were that holy grail, The Theory of Everything, that would only apply to this (our) Universe, which will soon end by either expanding into nothingness or collapsing in on itself; and the laws of physics in our Universe don't necessarily exist outside our Universe. Yet despite this ultimately Changing Unknowability, the ExMormon Atheist acts out the the Christian ideal of the True and the Good within cosmic Change in an amoral Universe. They act out a moral drama based on a belief in permanent Truth and cosmic Right and Wrong in a world of Impermanence/Change and evolving and amoral Organic Life with its cycle of deceptions, dominations, cruelty and pain; as Life eats itself to reform itself.
They fail to see that they have simply left the LDS theatrical stage so to speak, to still sit the theater; only now they sit in the dark, in the back of the auditorium, as spectators yelling at the stage and ruining the experience of those who are acting out a moral drama; as they still act out the drama while not participating in it by still believing in the theistic script of Right and Wrong, as they yell from the back of the theater complaining about the actor's moral performances and typos in the script, while they continue to play a part in the selfsame moral script.
They now seek solace in being a walking-Nothing (person-less gene-machine) in a dark sea of evolving organic forms fading into Ultimate Nothingness. Their identity is not permanent, but a pretend role, just as Rust Cohle explains. These quotes come to mind:
Speech: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Source)
That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
~ Bertrand Russell, Free Man's Worship
Despite the secularist "truth" of these quotes, on atheism, I don't see the ExMormon Atheist acting like this is really true, that their lives ultimately signify nothing amidst unyielding despair. I instead see them morally outraged, basically worshiping Truth (albeit no longer metaphysical Truth but theoretical Truth sought in equations and the lab or logical argumentation). I see them seeking an identity, one exmormon online called himself Deconstructor. They play the role of Dismantlers, Weed Pullers, Cynics. Their new role consumes them as much as their former role as Believer.
They mask their atheist foundation built on unyielding despair by distracting themselves with chronic debunking of Mormonism, fueled by anger and hurt. Their former selves as believers defending the Faith and fueled by love and tribal loyalty, is now replaced with anger and revenge-seeking or righteous indignation; and sometimes (not always) forming new identities as extreme far-Left political activists (especially ever since 2020).
For myself, I have played both roles and performed both identities, the True Believer and the Angry Debunker. I have now chosen a moderate path, a middle way, as a religious humanist and a Mormon Pragmatist. This way I avoid the existential black hole of unyielding despair, masked by righteous indignation and a Negative Filter, and also avoid the credulity and the poor boundaries of the zealous True Believer; while embracing my all too human tribal nature and working with our universal human nature by Hiving in the LDS Tribe on my own terms, in my own way; while not rocking the boat so to speak and finding Identity in my Mormon Heritage; and performing the role of endorsing and promoting the 90% of Mormonism that is good and true and useful for myself, others, and the greater good.
In Conclusion
The point I making in the above is that many (not all) exmormon atheists are still Christians in their ethic. I consider that a good thing. What is unhealthy for them and those around them is their new role as chronic debunkers and their extremely cynical and presentist interpretations of LDS history. What I would hope is for them to yes point our errors and push for improvements, sure, but to also acknowledge the overall good of Mormonism; and be more respectful toward their LDS heritage and the social structure they grew up in which instilled in them the very Christian Ethic for Truth, Goodness, and Justice which they are acting out and using unconsciously as the basis for their crusades and criticisms. Rather than debunkers and dismantlers (seeking to destroy Mormonism), I would encourage them to focus on further reforms in LDS culture, and giving more weight to LDS scholars and appreciate the positive changes that has occurred in the LDS Church in the last ten to twenty years.
