In the "TOTAS: Religion as an Evolutionary Living FAITH w/ Troy Leavitt" on YouTube, Jonathan Streeter and Troy Leavitt, basically discuss gene-culture coevolution at 25 minutes. They also discuss how studies show that religion does make most people healthier and happier in general.
At 35-38 minutes, host Jonathan Streeter comes to the same conclusions that I have, which is that from the perspective of gene-culture coevolution, it doesn't even matter if the ideas of a religion are objectively true or not; from a lifeward perspective, it is about ideas having evolutionarily and cultural usefulness in generating greater social cohesion and the unifying of the family and the tribe; so that the ideas are replicated into future generations and make the individual organism and the tribe more fit and reproductively successful and powerful.
So after starting this blog series it was validating to see somebody else who spent over 10 years out of the LDS Church in the exmormon world, to then upon further scientific investigation and rational inquiry, came to realize that there is another way of assessing and valuing Mormonism: through the perspective of it being a cultural phenomenon as an evolutionary successful form of ideas aiding in the health and flourishing of the Mormon People. Once one opens their eyes to this evolutionary fitness view, it moves one further away from anti-Mormonism and more towards a respect of their Mormon heritage.
They then discuss the importance of religious ideas and how they have the ability to reproduce the species successfully. They point out that, in my own words, from the perspective of Life what is actually true is that which lives and grows. So that from an evolutionary perspective the only "truth" is that which evolves the newest forms successfully. Otherwise there is nothing, no form, to call truth to begin with. So from this perspective, Mormonism is true as an adaptable form of ideas because it is a proven theological system for reproducing the species.
At 45 minutes, Jonathan Streeter then has an epiphany, realizing that when he became an exmormon and felt that he was "escaping the prison of Mormonism" at 39 years old, he had not fully realized that he was looking at Mormonism only through an individualist and empirical perspective and not a bio-cultural perspective and how religion empowers cohesion in a family and tribal culture. Very similar to Jonathan, my leaving of the LDS Church around age 25, I had the same perspective as him and it took me also a decade or more to fully realize what I do now.
Venerating your Ancestors
At 47 minutes, Jonathan Streeter talks as if he had been reading my mind the last few years. As he also talks about the importance of respecting your Mormon Heritage and basically if you have a veneration for your ancestors you're less likely to leave one set of belief propositions for another set, because you are more deeply rooted in the religion due to your ancestral respect. Furthermore, he argues that that the Cultural Heritage is a substrate of a moral foundation which provides the means toward growing an ethical culture.
His guest agrees and says at 50 minutes that a good example of a group of an "ex-" group opposing tradition is the Chinese revolution trying to overturn their cultural heritage and ethical foundations and it ending in disaster. As he was saying this I thought about how most of exmormon culture has degenerated into self-worship, mean-spirited insult fests, and offering no better worldview alternative except nihilism and wokeism.
They then give the analogy of Chesterton's fence. Streeter then, at about 53 minutes, argues that the demand for moral perfection from the founders of a religion is ultimately misguided, and what is more important is the ethical norms and cultural guidelines of the overall religion; as it produces nicer and happier people. Because if you base your criteria of judgment of Mormonism on the perfection or imperfection of the founders of that religion, and you find all these "skeletons in their closet," and then you leave Mormonism (or Catholicism or whatever), you will then likely try to find another worldview or cultural system of ideas to live by; but then you are likely going to find similar "skeletons in the closet" of the people who formed those new ideas and philosophical systems. Therefore it is better to evaluate Mormonism on its cultural value and ethical guidelines and norms for producing better and nicer civilized people and functional families. In other words, the founders of the LDS Religion and its current leaders don't need to be morally perfect to find great value Mormonism; just like we can criticize the American Founding Fathers but still realize that America is great and we respect our American Heritage and don't intend to renounce our American citizenship just because this or that Founding Father was morally imperfect or the current political leadership is less than ideal.
