This is for encouragement, ideas, and support for people going through a faith transition no matter where you hope to end up. This is also the place to laugh, cry, and love together.
If you want to actually change someone’s mind, follow the script first laid out 2,400 years ago by Socrates, the founder of Western philosophy.
Never one to sermonize his students, Socrates led them through a structured argumentative dialogue instead. He asked them questions. He helped them consider their underlying beliefs and knowledge. The process forced students to think critically about their own belief system. It led them to better hypotheses by helping to identify and eliminate those that were weak or problematic.
The benefit of this cooperative dialogue is that when individuals reach a conclusion on their own, it more easily modifies their model of the world. Therein lay the difference. The Socratic method avoids both the Backfire Effect and Cognitive Dissonance. Finding the answers by yourself, even with that assist from Socrates, allows their new conclusions to be incorporated into their models. The only drawback is that it requires thought, preparation and patience.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain
Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."
If you want to actually change someone’s mind, follow the script first laid out 2,400 years ago by Socrates, the founder of Western philosophy.
Never one to sermonize his students, Socrates led them through a structured argumentative dialogue instead. He asked them questions. He helped them consider their underlying beliefs and knowledge. The process forced students to think critically about their own belief system. It led them to better hypotheses by helping to identify and eliminate those that were weak or problematic.
The benefit of this cooperative dialogue is that when individuals reach a conclusion on their own, it more easily modifies their model of the world. Therein lay the difference. The Socratic method avoids both the Backfire Effect and Cognitive Dissonance. Finding the answers by yourself, even with that assist from Socrates, allows their new conclusions to be incorporated into their models. The only drawback is that it requires thought, preparation and patience.
The other drawback is that it requires a good faith effort on the part of the person being questioned, which even in secular conversations you will rarely get these days. Just the act of questioning is a non-starter within much of religious thought. You certainly will not get it in a Mormon themed conversation even with dear loved ones. Once the direction of logic is clear, the conversation will inevitably shut down with some sort of thought terminating cliche.
Socrates relied on reason and logic, both of which do not seem to have a place in religious discussion.
If you want to actually change someone’s mind, follow the script first laid out 2,400 years ago by Socrates, the founder of Western philosophy.
Never one to sermonize his students, Socrates led them through a structured argumentative dialogue instead. He asked them questions. He helped them consider their underlying beliefs and knowledge. The process forced students to think critically about their own belief system. It led them to better hypotheses by helping to identify and eliminate those that were weak or problematic.
The benefit of this cooperative dialogue is that when individuals reach a conclusion on their own, it more easily modifies their model of the world. Therein lay the difference. The Socratic method avoids both the Backfire Effect and Cognitive Dissonance. Finding the answers by yourself, even with that assist from Socrates, allows their new conclusions to be incorporated into their models. The only drawback is that it requires thought, preparation and patience.
The other drawback is that it requires a good faith effort on the part of the person being questioned, which even in secular conversations you will rarely get these days. Just the act of questioning is a non-starter within much of religious thought. You certainly will not get it in a Mormon themed conversation even with dear loved ones. Once the direction of logic is clear, the conversation will inevitably shut down with some sort of thought terminating cliche.
Socrates relied on reason and logic, both of which do not seem to have a place in religious discussion.
I think it depends on who is being questioned. It probably would have worked with me.
Learn to doubt the stories you tell about yourselves and your adversaries.
I have been in conversation with believers and led them down the Socratic path. They do not enjoy that process. At a certain point they will realize what you are carefully walking into and their tone will take a hostile or dismissive turn. The conversation is often over the moment they realize that this path leads to questioning a testimony.
I have had better luck when a believer initiates the conversation. On a couple of occasions the believer had some questions about what I believe and that tends to make the conversations better. But there can still come a point where they will retreat to the rhetorical safety of their testimony when history and reality start to chip away at the brittle edifice of their beliefs.
Below is an anecdote from my life where someone very effectively persuaded me to believe differently. YMMV.
I was attending BYU and took my Biology 101 class to fill the general requirement. I was 25 at the time and identified as a right-wing Republican. I listened to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. As part of the class my professor touched very briefly on global warming. He did not identify himself as a supporter or opposer of the more dire predictions of global warming. He told us that good, complete temperature data was hard to get historically, and the change was very minor, so the exact global temperatures reported may or may not be suspect. But the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is easier to measure the history of, and had changed so significantly that it was undeniable that the CO2 levels were increasing significantly, and there was little question that it was human caused. Going in I knew little of the science, but was indoctrinated to believe climate change was not real or not as bad as it was made out to be. Coming out I was ready to believe that climate change was verifiably real.
It was very important that he didn't push too hard or I would have rejected him as a source of objective information. The problem with church persuasion is that the trigger for rejection of a source is a hair trigger, and is well maintained by regular study, "service", meetings, etc. Like Corsair pointed out, the socratic method doesn't work when someone is protecting a core belief. Your efforts and your reputation will be rejected the moment it appears that your line of questions might attack their protected belief. Though you may succeed in loading a shelf.
"I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order" - Kurt Vonnegut
Socrates was charged with corrupting the youth, implying that he was mostly using this technique on those more open-minded as youth are. I am trying to use this more with my kids - asking more than lecturing.
I think I may have been holding on to false hope that many of my TBM family & friends will “see the light” about the church. Realistically, most will probably go their entire lives without questioning even the more obvious problems. Because if they haven’t yet in 30-70 years, how realistic is it to expect them to do such a drastic change in course? In that sense, it’s like living in different countries - different ways of seeing everything - making relating challenging. But I have tried - I’ve done my due diligence as a NOM missionary. But as mentioned, it tends to go better when someone is searching and asking than being confronted on long-held beliefs.
On a positive note, over the holidays, I opened up a bit with someone who opened up with me and we hugged after realizing how rare it is to find someone in UT who isn’t pushing Mormonism.
But as mentioned, it tends to go better when someone is searching and asking than being confronted on long-held beliefs.