All Episodes
Previous Next
April 22, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:03:05
1045 The Atheists, the Mormons, and the Baby... (a couple convo)

What do you do when one side of a family is atheist, and the other mormon?

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey, Steph. Hey, how's it going?
I'm doing good. How are you doing? Good, good.
Thank you. So I'm here with my girlfriend, Camille.
Hi, Camille. How's it going? Hi, good.
How are you? Good, good.
So I have a list here that Andy sent to me, which says, don't talk about crazy cult stuff over the internet.
Don't demand your firstborn.
Don't talk about my lack of credentials.
And don't bark like a dog.
Was that it, Andy?
Did I get that right? Or was there other stuff as well that you wanted me to avoid?
I think that's pretty much it.
Okay, good, good. Look, I mean, I appreciate, first of all, I appreciate you taking the time to talk.
I hope that I can be of help. And I recognize that it's a fairly freaky thing to do to talk to somebody on the internet about your relationship stuff.
And, you know, it'll either help or it won't.
But I appreciate the trust to the degree that it is.
Yeah, I was just going to say, I trust Andrew and his judgments, though.
Well, hopefully that will be the case at the end of the call.
Okay, so the first thing we're going to do is mostly communicate using hand puppets.
Do you have a webcam? That's how we do it at Free Domain Radio.
Just to get a bit of background, at least, I don't know if you, has he rambled on at anything about this philosophy stuff that we talk about on the show?
So you're somewhat aware of that.
Yeah, I've watched a few podcasts and he's talked a little bit about it.
I've looked over some of the books and stuff like that.
So I have a little background information about it, but...
Right, and you were the one, I think, who put the GPS bracelet on his ankle when he came to Miami, is that right?
Yes, that was me.
Right, just in case FDR is an offshore oil rig with black helicopters that takes people for recycling into some sort of food.
Yes, that's what I thought it was.
Sure, I can understand that.
So this guy on the internet, without credentials, Sue, okay, right.
Yeah. Okay, good.
I just wanted to address that up front, just to be aware that I'm aware of it.
And so you know a little bit of stuff about the RTR stuff and so on?
Yes. Okay, good.
So it's your time.
Whatever you want to talk about, I'm happy to throw my two cents in for what it's worth.
Okay. Alright, so there was something that we want to talk to you about that over the past few weeks we've been having this discussion conflict that continually kind of comes back after a few days or a few weeks and we haven't really been able to feel resolved after talking about it.
It also gets increasingly more uncomfortable and increasingly more upsetting every time that we talk about it and we can't get it resolved.
A feeling of resolution rather than, I don't know, without one person ceding to the other person's position.
Which is unsatisfying, right?
It gives you some relief in the moment, but you kind of know that you're laying the foundations of future problems through that route, right?
Yeah. Right, right.
Exactly. Like, fine, you're right!
Yeah, neither of us do that, so it pretty much stays unresolved.
I need time to withdraw and sharpen my weapons, so I'm going to see you now.
Alright, okay, I understand. And so, I don't know, I mean, the discussion that we...
Well, we're both atheists, and so the discussion that we've been having has to do with religion and whether or not we can have productive relationships with religious people and...
Whether or not it's bad or moral for people to teach their children religion and for people to practice religion.
So we're both atheists, so neither one of us believe in God, but we both part ways on whether or not it's still okay for other people to teach their children and practice religion.
Right, right.
Camille, can you tell me a little bit about your history with regards to this?
Yeah, well, my whole entire extended family on my mom's side and my dad's side are all Mormon.
So is it fair to say this is not exactly a theoretical discussion?
Yeah, this isn't exactly theoretical.
Much though I appreciate your dedication to abstract principles, this one sounds like it cuts a little closer to the bone, right?
Yeah, and that's why it's more, every time we talk about it, it gets increasingly more kind of heated and uncomfortable because it's actually kind of relevant in my life.
I don't know. Well, I was Mormon actually until I was like 11 or 12.
And then my parents left the church and I left the church too and I kind of explored what I thought.
I've been an atheist since I was like probably like 13 or 14 probably.
Right. But my oldest brother is still Mormon.
Right. He's 27 and married and has a kid.
Right. And I absolutely love him.
I think he's an awesome person. So it's kind of, I think that's one of my main issues with the whole conflict.
Well, yeah, I mean, this is hugely core to everything that you're about with regards to your family and your relationships.
And the last thing I think that anybody wants to do is to ditch loving and productive relationships for the sake of a rather dry and abstract ideological consistency, if that makes sense.
Yes. And Andrew...
Andrew has explained, and I think Andrew's obviously extremely logical, and I think that everything that he says has truth to it and is rational.
You know, just between you and I, I find him a little, you know...
Well, we'll talk about this separately.
Sorry, go on. So it's hard for me to make...
A rational and logical argument for it, besides the fact that I actually do have a productive and a good, what I think is a good relationship with my brother who is also religious and who teaches his children religion.
Right. And even if you were to agree with the intellectual arguments, you would, in a sense, be trying to talk yourself out of something that was emotionally valuable to you, which would seem to be not the right approach, if I understand that correctly?
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
I mean, it's to say that the head and the heart...
May go in opposite directions where the head says that this is illogical and irrational and maybe even not perfectly moral, but the heart says otherwise and it's a real split, right?
And that's not a particularly comfortable place to be.
Yeah. I don't know how we should go about trying to resolve that problem.
I guess my first question, Andy, is how open are you to Mormonism?
I probably am not very open to Mormonism.
Because that would be one way.
If you just all went back into the church, you could deal with this fairly quickly.
Yeah, but I don't want Andrew to get another wife, so I don't know if I'm...
So she's pretty calculating here.
Okay, let me just make a note of that.
Pretty calculating. Okay.
All right. So obviously Mormonism and certain forms of Islam are out.
So I'm just looking for the avenues we can go down here.
So why did your parents leave the church?
Well, my mom has more of a problem with the social injustices of the church, more like women don't have equal rights, and the black people didn't get priesthood until like 1979 or something, and obviously they're against gay marriage.
And your parents are for gay marriage.
Yeah, my mom actually told us yesterday that if they Pass a law that says that homosexuals can't get married, then my parents want to get a divorce.
And my dad is a chemical engineer, so he has been into science his whole life, and he kind of got really interested in reading about biology and evolution, and he read a lot of Darwin and stuff like that, and kind of re-evaluated The rationality of religion.
Right, so compared to, you know, say Dawkins and Darwin, you know, Joseph, the amazingly uneducated lunatic, didn't seem to quite have the answers cornered, is that right?
Yes, yes.
Exactly. Well, that seems reasonable enough, right?
So your parents are open to reason and evidence and they think independently of biblical teachings and so on, right?
Yep. Okay.
And did they join another church or did they go more to the agnostic slash Unitarian slash I like to sleep in thing?
Yeah, we...
Well, right when we left, we started going to the Unitarian church.
And I started a class that I kind of learned about all different religions, and my parents kind of explored different spirituality and stuff like that.
And my mom especially still likes to go because it's kind of a community, and she works for Habitat for Humanity, and they do a lot of projects within the Unitarian Church, stuff like that, but they don't really have a strong affiliation with anything.
So, they're somewhat agnostic with a social and charitable component thrown in, right?
Yeah. Again, I don't want to put words in your mouth.
I'm just trying to get a, and I don't want to summarize your parents' obvious complexities of belief in anything too simple.
I just want to make sure that I'm starting from roughly a correct position.
Yeah. Well, they are atheists.
They are atheists. They just like the community life?
Yeah. Well, my mom more than my dad.
My dad only goes to the Unitarian Church because my mom goes.
Right. But my mom likes to go, and she's in book groups with some of the women, and she likes the...
Humanitarian part of it.
But I would classify them as atheists.
And I think they would classify themselves as atheists.
No, yeah, they would. Why are they atheists?
I mean, sorry, this is an open-ended question that's not too helpful, sorry.
What I mean by that is, are they atheists because they've kind of seen a bunch of inconsistencies and certain prejudices within the church and they have found themselves socially or intellectually or emotionally uncomfortable in that environment?
Or have they, you know, worked through from first principles and realized that God is a falsifiable and false proposition and so on?
I think that they're atheists because It would be geared more towards the first.
Yeah, I don't think that they thought through it completely in a logical, scientific method way.
But, I mean, I think they just kind of read and examined how it didn't morally match up and it was hypocritical and I don't know.
Sorry, they probably, if I understand this right, and I don't know whether this happened explicitly or implicitly, but a lot of people have problems with religion when they start to ask questions and they bring those questions into the community, they're met with pretty extraordinary, well, it's actually not extraordinary when you understand it, but very high levels of hostility and upset, right?
Yeah, and that was a big problem with my parents too.
My mom was actually telling me that she took one of my older brothers to a Mormon conference type of thing where it's a bunch of teenage boys and girls and the leader, a member of the priesthood, stood up and said, first things first, we need to take why out of your vocabulary.
I actually said that.
And my mom was like...
Sorry, he didn't mean the letter Y, did he?
Because he used the word vocabulary.
And that has a... And obviously, for obvious reasons, my mom was not very pleased or satisfied with that.
And probably for reasons along those lines, she started to question it.
And... Well, sorry, sorry.
There was this part at the beginning where you seemed to like me, and this may be the part where you don't like me as much.
But if I understand this rightly, it seems something like she began to dislike it, not that she began to question it.
And again, I don't want to put words in here, but I want to just make sure.
She began to be offended by it.
She began to dislike it.
But it wasn't specifically like...
Okay, well, they don't want questions to be asked.
Let's figure out why. Let's look at philosophy.
Let's pick up arguments against the existence of God.
She's like, hey, I'm allowed to ask why.
Who are you people to tell me? And I'm not saying it's that silly, but it sounds like she began to dislike the environment rather than the principles, if that makes sense.
Yeah, and I think that that's true, too.
I think that she went through, especially right in the beginning, she was angry at the church, and she was angry at her parents and her family, and kind of explored, and then she kind of explored why she was angry.
Right.
And I mean, this is not necessary.
I'm not saying there's anything particularly wrong with this from I mean, whatever gets you out gets you out.
And I think that's a good thing.
But I'm trying to figure out how your brother ended up in this place.
And one of the things that would that would explain that would be that if your parents began to dislike religion, rather than reasoning from first principles.
That sounded... Vaguely non-committal, which is fine.
I'm gonna hang up now and pull you back upset later.
And this is not a criticism, I'm just trying to sort of understand the lay of the land, get a map of the sense of the family.
Yeah, I mean...
You don't feel comfortable talking about this aspect of things if I understand it rightly.
About why my brother is still religious?
Well, I guess looking at where your parents left the church because of their dislike, but didn't go to the process of trying to figure out the, I guess, the rational or philosophical explanations or explorations about the existence of God.
Yeah, I mean, I understand what you're saying.
So... Like, it's not for us.
We are more enlightened than that.
We don't like that particular approach.
That seems unfair. Again, this is not a criticism.
It's trying to understand where they...
Yeah, and I mean, I think that's true.
For my mom, especially, it started with kind of the social injustice of the religion.
But, I mean, both my parents are atheists, and they both...
I feel like they look at it in a rational way.
I think if they could choose, they would love for God to actually exist, and it would be easier if they could stay with their family.
It wasn't an easy thing for them.
Oh, sure. And so they kind of had to use logic and rationality to kind of explain why they were angry and to I feel like they could leave it without, with some logical backing.
Okay, so is it fair to say that they understand that there is no God?
Or is it that they just don't like, and again, just doesn't mean anything other than I'm trying to understand.
I think that they understand that there is no God, I would say.
Yeah, I mean, they say that there is no God...
However, I've heard them also say that you can't prove that there is no God, but they don't believe in God.
Is that what they say?
Yeah. Yeah, I think I've heard them say that.
I mean, and this is not a pejorative term, but that's a weak atheist position.
I don't believe it. It's not proven, but it's also not disproven, so there's room for doubt.
Yeah, I don't know if it...
I mean... It's hard for me to explain.
I don't think that there's...
I mean, I guess they do leave room for doubt.
Well, they have to. They have to.
And again, I'm just trying to work empirically because I always try and start with the facts and then lay around my own crazy ass theories on top of them.
But at least start with the facts is sort of what I'm talking about.
But their relationship to your brother's Mormonism is something that would seem to me like a big invisible elephant in the room that people kind of step around.
Is that right? That my brother's Mormonism?
Yeah. Like we don't talk about it?
Yeah, or like if you talk about it, it's talked around, but if your parents truly believe that there is no God, and they're offended by the moral teachings, I'm going to put a volatile metaphor here, and this is just designed to illustrate the difference,
not to describe your family, but if your parents grew up in the Ku Klux Klan, and they then found the teachings to be offensive, and they said that racism is an invalid position, and this and that, and it's a wrong position to take, Mm-hmm.
I feel like my brother is an extremely moral person and he actually is on the same page with my parents on a lot of social issues like he's a democrat and he's a libertarian and he I don't...
Well, I think my experiences of him have been...
Sorry to interrupt. Can we just...
Camille had like one sentence there about her brother, but this is...
No, it's okay. No, it's okay.
Keep going. No, no.
I just wanted to get more of...
Because you just said he's a libertarian, he's a democrat, he's on the same page, and that's tantalizing, but just tell me a little more if you can.
Yeah, and so...
I don't know.
It's hard to... Because him and my mom and him and my family have so much in common that we can talk about like almost anything in the world and although we don't agree on kind of his I kind of see it as motivation.
I feel like he has the same goals a lot of times as me and my parents.
Sure. My parents and I. But his motivation comes from God and comes from heaven.
But more in common with my family and I. And so it kind of, I don't know, it makes it hard for us to see him as like a Mormon and we disagree with a lot of the teachings of the Book of Mormon and everything and see him as still a moral person and vice versa.
He sees us atheists and we're going against a lot of the teachings that he is involved in hours a week on Sundays and But he sees us how happy we are, how happy my parents are, and how successful our lives are.
So, I don't know.
Right. It's like, well, we both ended up in Albuquerque, and that's where we wanted to be, so who can say that there was a wrong path?
Is that right? Yeah.
Yeah, I would say.
And my experiences of him have been really positive, and his wife, and they just have a newborn baby.
And to me, it was kind of surprising that they were Mormons.
Sure. Because of the way that they acted.
However, I never discussed religion with them.
Right, right. Okay.
Okay. Well, this is, I mean, this is, obviously you're both very, very intelligent people and you're caring and you're committed and there's no, I mean, there's no easy solution.
So it's not to me particularly surprising that this would be a source of contention that remains hard to resolve, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah, most definitely.
Now, there's a number of different ways that we can approach this if we want to look at finding some way to achieve, if not necessarily agreement, at least a more positive way of interacting about it.
it in terms of philosophy, which has its value, and I don't mean to be overly abstract, but if I understand this rightly, Andrew, your objections is not that this is a bad guy who, you know, poisons the environment and threatens to burn witches, but rather that there is a philosophical truth that but rather that there is a philosophical truth that is being avoided by the family, and that is disconcerting, both intellectually and emotionally.
Whereas for your girlfriend, right, for Camille, it's something like, but he's a good guy, and it's not like, however you become a good guy, even if we disagree with some of the principles and premises, that's more the important thing, and I don't want to live in this ideological box where people who disagree with us are banished in and I don't want to live in this ideological box and so I'm like, that seems too close to the church, almost in a bad kind of way.
Right, yeah, I understand that, I can understand it.
Right, so there's, and this is really the difference in a lot of ways between reasoning from first principles and reasoning from evidence or experience, right?
So from first principles, there is no God, which means that this brother...
Sorry? Well, we cut out just for a second.
I'm sorry. I don't know if you have – do you have anything else running internet-wise?
I'm getting a little bit of cut out.
I don't. Okay, no problem.
We'll struggle through. So, I mean, if – and this is not to say that this resolves it, but to sort of more clearly delineate the difference for – The equation in general, in philosophy, and in particular the one we talk about here, is reason equals virtue equals happiness.
And here we seem to have evidence where happiness is based on irrationality, right?
Because your brother is a happy person and he's a good person, but he believes things that your parents would consider morally questionable, and you would as well.
And also that do not stand up to reason and evidence, right?
Mm-hmm. And I don't think it's a good idea to just dismiss that out of hand and say, well, he's irrational, therefore all the happiness must be fake.
Because you don't feel that to be the case, right?
Right. And so we have a particular challenge, right?
Which is a challenge, really, to reason and evidence.
Because if you can get to happiness and virtue through something like belief in a deity and conformity to that which reason and evidence calls error, then virtue equals reason equals happiness doesn't sustain, right?
Right. And that's pretty fundamental, at least to what Andrew believes, right?
Yeah. Sorry, was that you speaking in high voice, Andrew?
No, yeah, that is my take on it, and I think that's exactly where the conflicts would come from.
Yeah, because then philosophy just becomes another choice, right?
Like Rocky Road versus Vanilla, right?
It's like if you can achieve virtue, happiness, good parenting, an ethical life and so on through religion or through philosophy, then philosophy in a sense or in essence becomes another religion, which is not how you view it, right?
Right, correct. Right, whereas for Camille, it's like, if philosophy is the only way to achieve virtue, then I have to deny the evidence of my own experience with my brother and call him a non-virtuous and non-happy person, despite the fact that that is not my experience of him, right?
Right. So, on the one hand, Andrew would have to deny the truth value and virtue value of philosophy, and on the other hand, you would have to deny your direct experience with your brother, and this is why you all feel that this is a no-win situation, because you neither want to deny your direct experience nor rational truth, right? Right.
Right, right. I mean, I'm trying to sort of, just let me know if this is a fair or useful way of characterizing the difference.
No, I think that's pretty accurate.
No, very accurate, yeah. And is there any part that I've missed?
I don't think so. I think that's exactly, I mean, that kind of defines it a little bit better for me, and what about you?
Yeah, I agree. And that's why you can't, because Andrew, you're not going to give up your belief in philosophy, and Camille, you're not going to give up your direct experience of your brother, right?
Correct. And thus, we hit a particular kind of stalemate.
So, have I introduced you to a little psychological trick called avoidance?
No, I'm kidding. You get a room full of really shiny objects.
See, toys. Also known as the rip-your-clothes-off approach, which only works for a certain amount of time, but it's fun while it lasts.
Okay, so let's...
Now, was this a particular...
Do you think that this would be a particular issue if your brother, Camille, was not having kids or did not have a kid recently?
Would it be a different issue?
Would it be as strong an issue?
Because if I understand this right, the question of the child changes the equation to some degree, right?
Yeah, I definitely do think that it changes...
Quite a bit. I... Because I watched...
I forget what it was called, but it was the podcast about teaching religion to...
Happy Easter Jesus, maybe?
Was it? Yeah, I think that's...
Happy Easter Jesus? Yeah.
About teaching religion to children.
And... That...
That kind of upset me a little bit, because it logically made sense, and...
And it was hard for me to form counterarguments to it, besides the fact that my brother has a child and I don't view his parenting as child abuse.
Well, and sorry to interrupt, but my argument in that video and in other things is not to say that if you teach a child religion, all of your parenting is child abuse.
Yeah. I mean, just so we can clarify that.
Yeah. I mean, he's giving his kid hugs and eye contact, and I assume he's feeding the baby.
Yeah. Yeah. She's actually feeding it at this point.
Right, okay, okay.
I understand that, and I know that it's just the religious aspect of it, telling kind of falsehoods to your children, and I completely understand that, but it's just, I don't know, I just have like an emotional block to it.
No, and I understand that, and it may not be an emotional block, right?
I want to respect your genuine experience of your brother, right?
Because, you know, philosophy needs to be empirical as well as rational, and I don't believe that we use reason to blow away all the evidence that doesn't accord with the theory, right?
So, I don't want to necessarily characterize your difficulties with this as a block, because you could be entirely right, and it's Antionized block in terms of something, right?
No, I mean, seriously, that is definitely my approach.
I really dislike this idea that, well, it doesn't conform to the theory, so blow away the evidence.
So, I don't think that it's...
I don't want to approach that from the standpoint or from the starting place that you have a block which needs to be fixed, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes sense.
Okay. So...
I think it might be helpful, and this is where it can be really hard sometimes for couples, and Christina and I do this sometimes when I make the calamitous mistake of disagreeing with her.
It doesn't work.
Andy, why don't you make Camille's case about the brother as convincingly as possible?
You mean right now?
Right now. Just give me the speech about how she's completely and totally right in her experience of her brother and the case against reasoning from first principles and defining relationships based on that.
Without reference to the emotional experience and evidence and so on.
Okay, well, since my direct experience of him has been really positive, and I think that he's a really nice guy.
I always enjoy spending time with him.
He's my brother. He's married to a really nice woman, and the interaction that I've had with them while they're raising their child is really positive.
They always interact with her.
They always keep her...
They never kind of...
Not even close to any kind of abuse that I've ever seen, and...
And so if these theories that you have say that teaching your child religion is wrong or is child abuse, I can't understand that because that's just not been my direct experience of it.
I'm somewhat convinced.
How about you, Camille? If I'm convinced or not?
Yeah. Do you think that he's got your perspective correctly?
I was like, you know, he was like reading cue cards, but I think he got some of it.
Yeah, I mean, I think he's got the gist of it.
I mean, I have like, I have 18 years of experience with him, and so it's hard to put it into like 30 seconds, but I think he's got the gist, I guess.
I was convinced a little bit by Andy, not at all by you.
And this is important because conflict is generally reduced when we believe that the other person truly understands where we're coming from.
And that doesn't mean agree with it, right?
I mean, we all have a multiplicity of perspectives in our head and there's no doubt that Andy could easily argue this very convincingly if he wanted.
And I'm not saying you didn't, but it's hard for you to do that, right?
Andy? Yeah, most definitely.
Right, but I think that you need to.
I think that it's really, really important to put yourself...
I mean, I don't know if you've heard...
I think it's podcast 200 or 300, Christina and the Priest, where I argue from a religious perspective, and I think fairly effectively.
Right, so I can argue the status position, I can argue the religious position, I can argue the Buddhist position, and not perfectly because I don't school myself in this stuff, but I can definitely get into that and see where they're coming from and see the value, and I could probably do a good job of arguing Camille's position as well as your position, and I think that is important because...
The first thing that we need, and this is in intimate relationships where we love and care for the person, the first thing that we need is to feel heard.
And I think that what's happening is you're not absorbing what Camille is saying, and instead you're arguing against her position.
Right, right. I agree with that.
I mean, I think that Something that's been frustrating me the past few days since I realized that this has been recurring to us is that I definitely have been...
Even when I am curious...
There's even almost like a leading or something to that effect.
I'm curious just how long it's going to take you to agree with me.
See, and I genuinely don't want to do that.
And so the past few days, it's really been kind of bothering me.
Sorry to interrupt, but to be perfectly honest, you're afraid that you're wrong.
I mean, just to be blunt, right?
Right. Because if Camille is right, then y'all got some thinking to do, right?
Because, I mean, that's pretty important stuff, right?
Yeah. So one of the reasons that we resist other people's perspectives or opinions is because...
If it's true that you can be a happy, good, loving, caring, virtuous person and believe in Mormonism, then we have a problem on our heads, right?
Right. Right, right.
Because for me, you know, I mean, I've given up quite a bit.
Yeah. Oops. Because of my beliefs.
And I certainly don't want to refund your donations, and that's really why I wanted to take time out to have this conversation.
Sorry, go on. I understand, now that we're talking about it, just how good of a point that she has.
And it's not like, I don't know, I think before I almost saw it as my point was good and then she was just denying it just because she wanted to, but I really understand a lot better.
It wouldn't make any sense to her at all, what I'm saying.
Well, and if she's right, that's fairly disastrous for, I mean, not anything to do with FDR, but in terms of how you understand and process the world and the value of philosophy.
And in a sense, what it does is it cuts loose your anchor and puts you back out at sea in the storm, right?
Right, right. And I would hate for my motive to be that I'm defending that instead of Her experiences and the truth, that I'm just trying to hold on to something that I like.
Right, right, because that fundamentally would be a religious approach, right?
I like God, and so I'm going to ignore the evidence that contradicts it, right?
Right, and I like philosophy, so I'm going to ignore Camille's direct experience of her brother.
Right. And because I know that you're a man of great integrity, courage and virtue, it's hard to sort of say, well, this stuff totally threatens me, right?
And I feel this. Some people sort of take these runs at what it is that I say in terms of UPB and so on.
And if they have a good point, I'm like, oh, shit.
Yeah. Oh man, right?
But that's important.
Because what I'm interested in is the truth, not in my particular formulation of it.
I don't want to hang on to any of my conclusions.
I only and forever want to hang on to reason and evidence, if that makes sense.
Right, right. And I think that that is my position also.
It is. And here we have evidence that is directly opposed to the theory that we work with here, which is very, very...
I mean, it's threatening to you, as it would be to anyone, right?
Right. And, of course...
If it turns out that Camille's experience of her brother is valid and correct, then you have a problem, which obviously you're going to need to approach and deal with, which is a challenge.
On the other hand, Camille, if it is not true that your emotional experience is valid, and this doesn't mean that you don't genuinely experience it, but whether it's valid or not, we can...
Like, sorry, and this is not to put this in this category, but a religious person genuinely and emotionally feels that there is a God, but it's just not true, right?
Oh, there she's gone again.
Making a note here?
There was evil here.
Right, but I mean, I'm not saying it is the case, but if it does turn out to be the case that your emotional experience of your brother is invalid, then that's going to cause you great anxiety, right?
Right, right. So, if either of you is right, the other person is going to feel great anxiety, right?
Right. And this is why you can't leave it alone and you can't resolve it, right?
Right, exactly. That's why it's been such a recurring and Continuous conflict.
Right. Okay, now let me ask this.
Because when we run into a stalemate in terms of our worldviews or our emotional perspectives or experience, there's a very simple way out of the room that is about as horrible a thing as you can imagine, which is probably why you haven't done it.
Okay. Do you still like me?
No? Okay, well, hang on.
We can change that, right?
But where two rational arguments, and these are both rational arguments.
We've got an argument from first principles, and we have an argument from experience, right?
Right. And since we value both reason and evidence, these are both rational perspectives to bring to bear on the problem, right?
Right, right. So...
If we have two scientific theories that are both rational that claim to explain a certain phenomenon, how do we resolve the difference between them?
Experiment?
Yes, indeed.
A nice chill wind through the...
Ha ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha! And so where does that take us?
Um... I don't know.
Well, we'll call the brother Bob, of course.
Unless his name is Bob. No, don't tell me.
But Bob obviously claims that his beliefs are founded upon truth, right?
He doesn't say, this is just my opinion.
Right. He believes that God does exist, right?
Right. And he doesn't believe that God exists just because he feels it, right?
But he believes that God exists outside of his consciousness for some form, based on some sort of evidence or some sort of reason, right?
Right. Because if there is no evidence or reason, then it's just prejudicial.
It's kind of bigotry, right?
And I'm not saying he's a bigot, right?
I'm just saying that if I were in Bob's shoes, I would say that I have a rational fidelity to the objective truth that God exists, right?
Right. So, you've gone for more than half a decade as an atheist not talking to him about this, right?
Right. Well...
Oh! Oh!
And then there was the whiplash.
Yes! No, wait! Sorry, go on.
You have talked to him before.
I mean, yeah, I have talked to him before.
My parents have talked to him about it, and...
Yeah, but not to a point where we are having a knock-down, drag-out fight, or this argument about whether or not it's logical and rational for him to be a Mormon.
We've just kind of accepted that that is what he believes, and we don't necessarily think it's true, but...
We love him anyway.
Well, but if somebody believes something that is false, and we care about that person, shouldn't we want to help them to see the truth?
Yes. I totally agree with that, but...
It gets to a...
And I think that this is where...
Where we part ways again.
Where we part ways again is...
I mean, I definitely think it's important to talk about it and to understand each other's points of view.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
I know that you've got some really gentle and wonderful UN phrases here.
Live and let live, enjoy each other, appreciate each other's point of view.
But just based on your brother's own belief system, this is not a point of view for him.
This is a fact, right?
Yeah. So you're characterizing it as, well, he likes jazz and I like country, right?
And this is a live and let live and okay, maybe country is not quite as sophisticated as jazz, but jazz is basically just tuning with a drum beat.
So you're characterizing it as if it's all a matter of opinion, but for your brother, for sure, it's not, right?
Right. So he's avoiding enlightening you guys as to what he genuinely knows or believes to be the truth, and you guys are avoiding that with regards to him.
Because what he's doing is he's bringing the it's a fact to the table, right?
He's not into Mormonism because, you know, cool outfits and a place to go that's warm on Sunday, right?
He's into it because he believes that there is a God That Joseph, what's his blobby, was his anointed son of something, right?
He believes that his magic underpants will keep him safe.
Like, he believes all of this stuff as the truth, right?
Right. So, it's not, I mean, just from an accuracy standpoint, Or an honesty standpoint.
I'm not saying you're being dishonest.
I think that it's a tough thing for you to deal with emotionally.
But this is not a matter of opinion.
The existence of God is not a matter of opinion.
Because if it were a matter of opinion, there'd be no such thing as religion, right?
Right. So he believes that it's true?
Yes. Okay. And you don't like that, right?
No. You don't like that he believes that it's true?
No, I don't like it.
And why? Because I don't believe that it's true and I would love it if he was an atheist as well and that we could kind of understand each other and I don't know and I think this is where Andrew and I kind of separate on it is because I feel like I mean,
I understand that like live and let live is kind of viewing his religion as an opinion and everything, but on the other hand, if I do talk to him and if I do kind of really try to reason with him about this,
There's a chance that, I don't know, I guess that it wouldn't go well and that he would...
I don't know, that it would get to the point where we couldn't have a relationship.
Well, but you fear that, right?
Yeah. And in fact, you fear that to the point where it has overwritten your desire to speak about him with these things, right?
Right. And you're not alone in that fear.
What do you mean? Well, your parents feel the same thing and Andy also feels the same thing.
Yeah. I mean, if you guys were to, not to use an overly dramatic phrase, but if you were to stage what a philosopher would reasonably term as a cult intervention and not take no for an answer, You very much fear that things would get irretrievably ugly, right? Yeah.
I mean, just between you, I and your boyfriend and everybody else who may end up listening to this if it's okay with you, but you genuinely fear that he is going to get very upset, right?
Right. And what's going to happen is he's then going to be in a position where he has to choose between The truth, or let's just say his family, if we want to put it in more personal terms, and his religion, right?
Which would make him incredibly anxious and angry and upset, right?
Right. So he obviously doesn't want this conversation to occur, right?
Right. Because it's going to put him between a rock and a hard place, to put it as mildly as humanly possible, right?
Right. And it is everybody's certain belief that that is what will occur if this conversation occurs, right?
I'm not saying that it absolutely will occur, but it's everyone's belief that it will occur because it has not happened for, what, five or ten years.
Right. Again, I think I'm dragging you along like you fell off the water skis into your behind the wall, bouncing in the way.
Fine, right? Ow, ow, right.
But you must be avoiding this for a reason, right?
Well... Yeah, I mean...
I mean, I guess I've been avoiding it, but...
Sorry, sorry.
Sorry to be annoying. Sorry to be annoying.
No, no, no. You have been avoiding it.
Not you guys. Yeah, I have been avoiding it, but I've also...
Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, I have been avoiding it, but I have also been...
I've also had...
I've been able to manage a positive and a successful relationship with him for years and haven't really...
I guess I haven't really examined it in this way, kind of, ever.
And so that's why it gives me some anxiety, and I don't know.
I never saw it as necessary before, and I see why it is, but I don't know.
Oh, I'm not saying it's necessary at the moment at all.
Mm-hmm. I'm just saying that if we're going to work with empirical evidence, which I think is, as I said, empirical evidence includes your experience of your brother, which is perfectly valid, but it also includes the fact that your parents find the church morally offensive, right? Right.
Of irrational cultists whose teachings your parents find morally offensive to the point where they were willing to dissociate themselves from this community, right?
Right.
And your family is not addressing this at all.
And this is not...
Sorry, go on. I don't...
I mean... I'm not saying this is bad.
Sorry, just to be clear. I'm not saying that your family has to do it or that it's really bad.
We're just looking at the facts.
I'm not trying to jump to any conclusions about the goodness or badness of it, so to speak.
We're just looking at the facts as they stand, right?
Yeah. And my parents are actually...
I'm really open and honest and curious with my brother as well as all of their siblings.
My mom has had so many discussions with all of her siblings about the religion and why my mom thinks it's false.
And my aunts and uncles have actually kind of agreed that some of it doesn't make any sense, but they're still willing to attend church.
And so that kind of puts my mom in a position where she explained everything as rationally as she could, and it made sense to even them, and they still kind of closed their eyes to it and Didn't want to hear it and are still continuing to go to church.
And they still have managed to have good relationships.
Well, okay, but the word to me, this is proven, right?
We're just shooting ideas around.
But to me, a good relationship does not have big elephants in the room that you can't talk about.
Yeah. Because this is where you and Andy would have gone, right?
If you'd been unable to resolve this, but you'd just be like, okay, well, we really like each other or love each other, but we can't talk about this stuff, so we'll just not talk about it, and we'll not talk about how it makes us feel, and we'll not talk about all of the associated relationships that it brings into question and so on, right?
You guys would have just had a big thing that you couldn't talk about, right?
Right. And if your parents left the church because they find it morally offensive...
And they no longer believe in the existence of God and they don't consider that a subjective opinion, then basic reality and virtue and, most importantly, feelings are just big things that can't be talked about.
They can't talk about the church, they can't talk about God, they can't talk about atheism, they can't talk about philosophy, they can't talk about their moral criticisms, they can't talk about their moral beliefs.
And it's not like all conversations need to be composed of these things, but these are pretty core and important aspects to intimacy, right?
Right. And if they simply can't be talked about or discussed, like if your mother says this is what I find valuable, this is what I find offensive, this is what I know to be true, this is what I know to be false, and all of these things are listened to and then ignored, she can't even bring up how much that hurts her, right?
Right. And I think that that is not what I would call, I don't think that's the definition of a totally terrible relationship, but it's not what I would call the definition of a really great relationship where there's just enormous things about truth, virtue, reality, and your emotional experience that you simply cannot bring up for fear of upsetting people.
Right. And I think that makes sense.
And the other thing too that I would say, and again, this is just shooting the breeze, just, you know, guy with a fruity accent on the internet, take it for what it's worth.
What I would also say, Camille, is that there is a real humiliation in this interaction.
A really terrible and desperate kind of humiliation.
And I'm not saying it's the only thing, and this is just my opinion, so again, all the grain of salt in Utah that you can imagine, but I would say that...
you do not feel that your bond with your brother is very strong and you feel that if you bring your true thoughts and experience to your brother that he will break the relationship that if you ask him to choose between the truth which is what you're bringing to the table I believe if you ask him to choose and you say look If we're going to have a relationship, we have to have common ground in terms of truth.
We have to have common ground in terms of experience, and we can talk about our feelings and so on, but I know that there is no God.
I believe that it is not good for you to believe there is a God when there isn't a God.
I believe it's unhealthy to teach your children falsehoods, particularly falsehoods about a God watching you and maybe going to hell and this and that, that I need to be able to talk about these kinds of things, and not just as an opinion, as a jazz versus country kind of thing, That if you bring the arguments,
and I'm going to put in an aggressive term called relentlessly here, if you bring the arguments against the existence of God relentlessly towards Him, it is your certain belief that He will choose the cult over you and that your bond is not particularly strong, and that's kind of humiliating, right? That He would not choose you and not trust you, but instead would trust these crazy, where the magic underpants people, right?
Right. I guarantee you that does not make you feel good.
Right. I think you're on one ski.
No, I think that makes sense.
Okay, but how does that make you feel?
I can agree with that. You got me in an arm lock up against the corner, uncle, right?
But emotionally, right?
In terms of the quality for your relationship, if there's all this stuff you can't talk about, if you know he's going to choose the crazy cultists over you and the truth that you bring to bear, isn't that kind of a very destabilizing thought or feeling in you?
Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, obviously he doesn't view them as the crazy underpants cult, but...
Yeah. I mean, it is a little unstable.
But in truth, in truth, they are.
Yeah. Right.
I mean, as a failed cult leader myself, I can only take my hat off in admiration to what these people have been able to do, right?
I mean, it is pretty nutty, right?
Yeah. I mean, we can agree on that much.
I mean, if I was trying to sell magic philosophy underpants over the internet, I mean, you can imagine what you'd have when Andy came in with the FDR, you know, psychic thong or something.
Well, actually, no. Maybe you should try that one out.
No, but seriously, I mean, if he came in with, you know, well, Steph says it's okay for me to have another girlfriend, and I've got these magic pants, and, you know, like, it would be like, holy crap, what are you doing, right?
Yeah. And...
You are willing...
Or you find it...
And I think that you're right, generally.
I don't think that we act without reason.
We don't always act rationally, but we don't act without reason.
I think that you're right...
That if you push this issue...
And your parents, I think, are right...
That if you guys push this issue...
He will very likely hit the eject button, right?
Yeah. And to me...
That is a valid choice for an individual to make, but it is not a valid choice to inflict upon a helpless and dependent child.
He's young, free, and over 21, right?
He can make his own choices with regards to whatever irrationality he wants to follow to make himself feel better, right?
Right. But to tell a child things that are manifestly false and pretty deranged, as if they are both true and sane...
See, your mother was offended when a Mormon priest said, you have to drop the word why from your vocabulary, right?
Right. How is that going to affect a child?
Children, why is their spinal column, right?
Right. That's all their brains do.
Right? Yep.
And if your brother is going to teach his child that Jesus Christ died for his sins, that he is stained with original sin, that he is at his nature evil, and that he must purchase his redemption with time and eventually money from other people wearing these magic knickers.
That's not good.
Right? Right.
If he's going to send his kid to whatever the Mormon equivalent is of Bible Camp, I don't know if you've seen that documentary?
No, I haven't.
Rent it. Seriously.
Okay. Seriously, because you guys are frightened to bring up the truth with your brother.
what chance does his child have?
I mean, if you're scared of him, how's his child going?
You guys aren't dependent on him.
He doesn't control your environment.
He's not your dad.
You're not five years old.
And if your parents are scared of him and bringing the truth because of the ugliness you feel will inevitably result, what chance does his child have?
And that's where I think the family is not focusing.
You guys can make the choice to avoid the topic if you want, but the child does not have that choice, right?
The child does not have the choice that you guys need or feel.
You can avoid the topic with him, but the child cannot.
He's not inflicting the topic on you, and he's not inflicting the cult or the irrationality on you, but he's gonna do it to the kid, right?
Hey, Steph. Yes?
I'm really sorry. I really would like to continue this, and would you like to continue this also?
Yeah, I mean, or you can just keep talking.
Or we could do it another time, but her volleyball coach just sent her a message saying that practice is going to start early.
Okay, no problem. Is he a Mormon?
No. Look, I mean, I think that you certainly have enough to think on, and I just think that you guys want to give the child the same right that you have, or at least fight for the child to have that right, which is to have his own opinions independent of this culty religiosity, right? Right.
And I think you need to fight for the child to have that right, which means to talk to your brother About this.
You need to fight for the interests of that child who has no power in this situation at all.
And you guys have the power, the knowledge, the responsibility, and the capacity to give that child more choice than he's going to be willing to give the child himself.
Right. Because it's going to get...
I'll let you go in a minute, I promise.
But it's going to get worse from here on in, right?
Right. What are you going to do when the kid gets old enough to ask you about God?
It's going to happen sooner or later, right?
Right. What are you going to say?
There's no God. Your dad's lying to you.
He doesn't know that he's lying to you.
Maybe he does it for the best motives, but there's no God, right?
Yeah. And the teachings of the church are morally offensive in these and these ways, right?
Are you going to say that? Right.
Well, I mean, I'm not going to lie.
I'm going to... But you are already by omission with your brother by not bringing these topics up, right?
Right. Wait, how is that?
I'm sorry, I don't know. You have to go?
Okay. Okay, well, no problem.
I mean, all I'm saying is that if you're avoiding very important topics about your thoughts and experience in a relationship that is supposed to be intimate and close, that's lying by omission, right?
Yeah. So...
Yeah, so I mean, he's pushed the issue to the front by having a kid, and that's probably what has brought this issue to the front.
But anyway, I don't want to keep you from volleyball, but...
Sorry, I have to run.
No problem at all. I'll send you guys a copy of this.
You can have a listen to it. I really do appreciate...
I know it's a horrible topic, and I really do appreciate you guys hanging in there.
I know it is really tough, and I think that you're enormously wise to spend some time on this.
Well, thank you so much.
You're very welcome. I'll see you guys soon.
▲
Export Selection