This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
In the 1940’s, a young lawyer from Idaho named Thomas Ferguson eagerly traveled around Central America and searched for archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. By the 1970’s, however, Thomas Ferguson became disillusioned with Book of Mormon’s claims of an ancient American civilization. In 1975, he determined “you can’t set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere — because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archeology.”
Many have unfortunately lost their faith after fruitless searches for physical evidence. Some had spent a lot of time and effort defending the church. Sometimes they turn against the church and tear it down just as eagerly as they had been defending it. Sometimes they settle away quietly and go their own way. Others stick to the cause of “apologetics” but try to shift the pro-church narrative to fit their newfound beliefs. As a community, we can come together and discuss strategies to avoid this trap. We can structure our approach to build self-awareness and self-understanding so that when the winds blow and the floods rise our faith will be secure on a foundation of stone.
Thomas Ferguson Syndrome
FairMormon provides insight on what went wrong. According to John Sorenson, Thomas Ferguson held “unjustified expectations, flawed logic, limited information, perhaps offended pride, and lack of faith in the tedius research that real scholarship requires.” Archaeology is always going to be a complicated and unrealiable science. This is why church members in Joseph Smith’s time studied Midwestern American mound sites and concluded that they were the ruins of Nephite civilizations. But since those days, we have received a much fuller picture that likely disqualifies them as Nephite sites. It sounds like the first problem with Thomas Ferguson is that he didn’t take the time to rigorously test his ideas and search for solutions. The fruit of any effort is in the tedius hard work and taking joy in discovery that may not be flashy but tells you what you need to know. The main problem is that he was searching for a holy grail, some smoking-gun clue to verify his faith. He sounds like a crusader of old, seeking some physical object, some relic, that he could display to the masses as visual confirmation for our beliefs.
People want holy grails, but real archaeology is less exciting. Living faith cannot be confirmed from dead bones in the ground, because we are a church of the living, not of the dead. We do not display holy relics in our chapels or make documentaries on the Discovery Channel about ancient wonders. Real faith is not proven or discredited through archeology, and a real archaeologist wouldn’t go around expecting to find Nephi’s diary around every corner. It is really sad to see good zealous church members become disillusioned after expecting so much effort to help the church, but it shouldn’t be surprising because it is a sign of vanity. Our role is not to discover some great breakthrough that will be made into a Discovery Channel show and convert thousands, but to lift where we stand and to deliver small, often difficult service in opportunities as they present ourselves. We must resist the temptation to take the road to El Dorado, to go around searching for holy grails that nobody has ever found before, and to just be humble servants doing the best we can.
The interesting thing with Thomas Ferguson is I don’t really disagree with his scientific conclusions about the Book of Mormon (from what I have seen). I agree that Book of Mormon geography “will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archaeology.” Not because it is fiction, but because the Book of Mormon provides few unique physical clues that are likely to be found among ancient remains. Roman writings provide plentiful descriptions of buildings, roads, weapons, etc., but Book of Mormon descriptions are so vague that we can match few with anything found. That’s because it is a book about theology, not geography. Nobody has found Nephi’s diary as of yet, though plenty of reasonable archaeological evidence has been found. Thomas Ferguson discovered truth when he realized the Book of Mormon will never be verified through dirt-archaeology. He’s right. The problem is he jumped to the unscientific conclusion that this proves it is fiction. His emotional reaction prevented him from going on to the next logical step which would have preserved his faith. Perhaps he couldn’t admit the internal conflict and emotional nature of his realization–he insisted that he was being scientific–and this further embittered his emotional conclusion.
From great PHD professors at BYU to lowly Conflict of Justice bloggers, we all experience human emotions and grapple with the same issues of faith, human experience, and physical discovery. Scientific education can help if it teaches us to avoid logical fallacies and to approach physical evidence dispassionately. But otherwise we are all on the same road.
Unscientific Approach Switches Over – When exploring a scientific hypothesis for the gospel, let the evidence lead you wherever it leads. Don’t try to force it. Confidence does not mean traveling to Central America for decades in search of horse figurines. Real confidence is gathering the evidence that is found and dispassionately reaching the most reasonable conclusions. Confidence is not making your worldview reliant on whatever is discovered. Archaeology can only give us a tiny view of history. Real confidence is holding on to religious and moral beliefs even though physical evidence is not available for all of it.
It is very difficult to maintain this confidence. Even Hugh Nibley, the greatest scholarly defender of all time, is guilty, in my opinion, of jumping to conclusions. He was wrong about the chronology and dating of Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Characters notebooks, and when more reliable data became available, this made it difficult for defenders to figure out what they are about. It’s okay to admit that limited evidence does not totally support a pro-church narrative, because reasonable people understand that there isn’t sufficient physical evidence to make a purely scientific judgement.
Scientific zeal can be a two-edged sword for those who go into it with the purpose of validating their faith with physical evidence. Those who cherry-pick pieces of evidence and present it out of context to appear pro-church tend to take this same approach when they finally experience Thomas Ferguson’s realization and lose their faith. Those people go on to cherry-pick evidence and present it out of context to attack the church. They commit the same fallacies in their Antimormon rhetoric. They don’t just drop their superstitious mindset once they fall away from the church, but they cling to their unscientific approach. This is why Antimormon rhetoric tends to be maddeningly illogical and unscientific but wrapped in a frame of “muh science.”
Kerry Shirts
Many years ago, I enjoyed reading evidence from pro-church academic Kerry Shirts. A couple months ago, I was surprised to receive a response to some of my ideas about the Book of Abraham from someone claiming to be Kerry Shirts (I have not verified if this is actually Kerry Shirts). He even tried leaving comments to the article. He said, “I am blocked as a suspected bot it always says… gee, my name must be blacklisted.” I certainly have not blacklisted Kerry Shirts! I want to hear from him! It could be if he posted external links that his comment got removed as our commenting policy discourages links in the comments. It is unfortunate if his comments got blocked because I would love to talk to him. I have been unsuccessful in my attempt to reply to him on the forum where he posted.
But I was surprised to find that the person claiming to be Kerry Shirts was arguing an anti-church narrative. According to the an Exmormon forum, Kerry Shirts “lost his Mo-faith” and now writes under the name “Philo Sofee.” On a forum, he says there is “precious little” to support my hypothesis of Abraham in the Egyptian Sed-festival, and that John Gee admits it is not a “valid or useful metric with which to measure Joseph Smith.” (Recently, I provided even more evidence for my hypothesis from the variety of sources.) “Philo Sofee” then goes on about Egyptologist Robert Ritner’s disagreement with some of what I’ve said. Which is fair enough– I’m not a great and powerful Egyptologist like Robert Ritner! I’m not with the mighty University of Chicago. I’m just a guy behind a curtain. But then again, one of the most prominent Antimormon Egyptologists of all time–a guy who said “It may be safely said that there is not one single word that is true in these explanations [by Joseph Smith],” a guy who is cited by Antimormons all the time–is one of the sources that I cited in my recent update as evidence for the hypothesis. There’s quite a few words in Flinders Petrie’s own quote to support what Joseph Smith said about Facsimile 1. So to me it’s not a matter of which Egyptologist is an authority on what. Robert Ritner apparently had a big impression on “Philo Sofee,” but I find nothing in his papers to be profound or new.
Philo Sofee’s Discovery – Philo Sofee said his loss of faith happened when “I actually started doing the honest thing and reading the OTHER side, i.e., the atheists… strong arguments I never even knew existed rose geometrically in my soul. I began to learn how to ask questions of my own beliefs and WHY I had them… I actually sat down and read WITH THE IDEA OF UNDERSTANDING, NOT REFUTING… How about just learning WHY critics say what they say, and actually read to LEARN their view, and THEN compare the evidence.”
I do not disagree with a word of this. Looking back, a lot of his ideas weren’t really fleshed out and supported into a comprehensive narrative. He did a great job gathering lots of clues but the puzzle pieces were not pieced together. Perhaps pieces were hastily forced into places where they didn’t fit. I think this is something everyone does, except for people who don’t really care what the overall picture looks like, who just go along with popular narratives without thinking about it critically, which actually describes most people. I admit I do myself. It’s not an easy task, after all! I sometimes find clues that ring true and present them before I have fully found supporting evidence and figured out how it fits into my overall narrative, because it is exciting to discover a new clue. It takes incredible discipline and rigor, and we have to admit that nobody is smart enough to piece together such a complex puzzle completely.
But I have always sought to get both sides of the argument. From an early age, I read the Antimormon arguments and reflected on the purpose of my beliefs. Recently, I have sought to understand the thought process and motivating factors of Antimormons and skeptics. I try to have respectful conversations in order to understand them, even if I don’t convert them. It is not enough for me to throw things against the wall and see what sticks, or to plug my ears and ignore the ideas of people who disagree with me. It seems like Philo Sofee grew as a person when he made this discovery about himself, and I commend him for being so honest and straightforward about it.
Someone claiming to be Kerry Shirts shared some more of his discoveries:
“Apologetics does it all backwards. I made some seriously impressive looking papers through the years, but when it dawned on me that all I was doing was picking and choosing and selective use of quotes to arrive at my answer I realized it was futile. You can find, pick and choose quotes from Albert Einstein to make it seem like he really believed in the God of the Bible, but it’s futile, because in context he actually didn’t believe that. So many of the sources we apologists have used are selections only, and the rest is left to the side because it doesn’t jive with the answer (and testimony) we want it to arrive at so we do a huge snow job and use more and more until in the end it looks MIGHTY IMPRESSIVE! But it’s all eyewash. I didn’t use or read or see any other side. I worked with blinders on and found just exactly what I wanted to come to the conclusion that I wanted it to… I go through a trillion sources, take a sentence here, a thought there, interweave them all together into something that none of the sources were thinking of, but hey! It supported Mormonism, so I put it together. It’s all fluff and phony man. I can go back through those exact same sources I used, and select parts and pieces I left out originally and come up with an entirely different paper showing how vastly wrong it all is!”
Mormon Dialogue
Ironically, this is my main complaint about CES Letter and Antimormon rhetoric in general. So many quotes are taken wildly out of context. So many strawman portrayals. So many pre-conceived conclusions.
Again, I do not disagree with a word of this. All true! That’s why I don’t describe myself as an apologist. Antimormon rhetoric, actually, fits the definition of apologia much more appropriately. The sources which I cite do not agree completely with all of my overarching ideas, it’s true, but I try to provide references and quotes honestly to the particular point I am making. They may not think Abraham participated in a Sed-festival, but I present their descriptions of the Sed-festival correctly. Each of these sources are like puzzle pieces, and it’s okay to use a puzzle piece to become part of a new and original picture, just as long as you don’t try to twist and conform that puzzle piece to be something it isn’t. The problem with Antimormons is they snip off pieces of quotes and quote them in a totally different context to mean something different than what they are saying. Again, those who have grasped at every shred of evidence they could to support to the narrative which they already concluded must be true, when they lose their faith they tend to do the same thing as they bash the church.
So again, it sounds like he came to some important realizations that will improve his life and increase his virtue. Now what? Just conclude that it’s all wrong like Thomas Ferguson did, because some puzzle pieces didn’t actually fit? Throw the puzzle in the air and sulk away? Pretend like emotion doesn’t play a role here and hold onto “science!” as the key to all knowledge? If the scientific dialectic process is truly what is being sought after, my suggestion is to read beyond Robert Ritner’s recycled arguments and consider modern pro-church sources, then sit down, and do some original research like we do here at Conflict of Justice. I’m sure Kerry Shirts reads all kinds of books, more than I do, but don’t get caught up in academia authority. Academics are all just coming to the conclusions that their benefactors want them to–that’s 99% of science today.
But most importantly, stop superstitiously looking to physical evidence to answer all the questions. Admit that there is little physical evidence either way, and that’s okay. Look beyond the physical and admit the personal emotions and moral framework which often dictates that which we call “intellectual independence.” How much better are we than the flat-earthers of the Dark Ages if we rely on popularly-accepted ideas within the limits of our exploratory technology? Science does not thrive when scientists are standing on the edge of the swimming pool dipping their toe in the cold water and coming up with justifications for why they aren’t jumping in. That’s apologetics. There is always going to have to be a leap of faith.
So stop calling me an apologetic and look at yourself.
Why Believe? – The key question is, “Why do I believe this?” Christian or atheist, believer or non-believer, people tend to believe whatever narrative appeals to them the most. When a belief changes, that tends to indicate that some circumstance or life choice makes that belief more appropriate. Even C.S. Lewis doubted God during his grieving process after the death of his wife, because it helps a person grieve when they doubt religious foundation. Interestingly, he described this as a repentance process. Repentance is a process of shedding the inferior old self and taking on an improved new identity. So when Thomas Ferguson or anyone else realizes a new virtue that makes them a better person, that is repentance. But unfortunately they shed too much of themselves. They throw the baby out with the bathwater and disbelieve God entirely.
| See also: | Help For Someone Who Read CES Letter |
Is repentance an adaptive process? When you shed your old self, does mean you are becoming whatever is appropriate to your new circumstances? Or does an increase of virtue lead to the same destination no matter who it is and no matter what the circumstance? In other words, will someone in 3rd century India undergoing personal growth end up with the same moral structure as me undergoing personal growth today? I believe he will. I don’t believe repentance is adaptive, because I believe divine justice is a law of nature superior to capricious social justice. One of the main complaints of skeptics is when the church changes policies to adapt to new circumstances. If President Russell M. Nelson announces Sunday School will for now on start without a prayer, I see people flipping out on the Antimo forums, swinging their arms in the air, getting drunk, and screaming at the top of their lungs. It’s the weirdest thing. But I think the reason for this is they are caught between a system of personal improvement built on eternal unchanging justice and evolving social justice. They know the adaptive system doesn’t work because they are still stuck in the Antimo forum yammering on about a church they thought they had left behind them. Yet they can’t get on board with the divine unchanging system because the last exfoliation was such a painful and jarring experience, they are afraid to hold onto something that seems so unreliable. If I spent my entire life traveling around Central America looking for horse figurines and I finally realized they don’t exist, I would be pretty upset about it too. But we can take the step toward the next repentance cycle slowly, one thing at a time, line upon line.
- Self-reflect on new circumstances, political ideas, cultural expectations, and anything else that makes a nonbelief more convenient. It could be as simple as a teacher or friend that says you are evil if you believe in “gender-roles.” Take stock of these influences.
- Remember harmful personal experiences that afflict your intellect, emotion, or spirit. It could be bullying at church as a kid, depression as a missionary, priesthood blessing promises that didn’t come true, etc. Recognize the need to be at peace both emotionally and intellectually, and reconcile this issues in an isolated way. Skeptics call these issues “items on my shelf” and they act like the items build up until they collapse a person’s faith, when in reality these items are manifestations or symbols for the underlying issues that we are afraid to confront.
- Become aware of pro-church views. Don’t just say “I’ve heard it all before.” Maybe you haven’t. Truly get both sides of the argument, and dispassionately and objectively. Maybe the side you are missing is your own.
- Research original and raw historical information.
- So often, it is not so much about where the evidence leads as the overall impression that persuades people to tilt this way or that on their life journey. Antimormon rhetoric is built on a handful of narratives, just a few short ideas like branches of a tree, and the rest is just dressed up to support it. Like the seed of faith, doubt is a seed that grows in the leaves and slips into a fertile soul and grows into a mimetic copy of the resource that planted it. You aren’t even aware that the branches are there. Confront the branches.
Inviting Criticism
One thing I learned as a missionary is that when I get a negative reaction from someone I don’t know, chances are the problem is with me. They are just acting the way a typical person would. So unless a comment to my article sounds totally outlandish, I assume that this is how a lot of people feel. Now, you’ve got to take that with a grain of salt because I believe one Satan’s tricks is to use a vocal minority to shift the impression of what is “normal” and “common sense.” Normal today is what was weird just 10 years ago and unthinkable 100 years ago. But in general, people’s reactions are reasonable choices based on that person’s experience and there is something to be learned from it.
This is why I welcome criticism. I have no problem admitting when I made an error, and going back and fixing it, even if it weakens the case I was making. There is enough senseless antagonism as it is; if I disregarded all criticism including criticism that is well-meaning and helpful, I think it would drive me crazy. But I don’t lose sight of criticism that isn’t sensible and isn’t helpful either: the more hysterical outrage I see on the Exmo forum and the lack of actually substance in their retorts, the more I feel I may be on the right track.
It is a lot to ask of a person to explore everything in the universe to defend a belief in God. How can one person do this? We are coming up with all kinds of new ideas as we sift through data, and we are trying to figure out a model that makes sense, so we are going to get things wrong all the time, and we have to be able to admit it. Maybe that rock with Hebrew writing on it found in some cave in New Mexico isn’t legitimate after all? That’s okay. Take the evidence as it comes, construct your model as what makes the most sense, and recognize how little physical evidence in general is going to tell you. The important foundation is a spiritual peace and personal communication with God that perpetuates the repentance process and allows you to humbly operate as an instrument for good in the world. If my role is not to make some discovery but to reinforce well-known primary-level truths I will be successful and blessed as the Lord’s missionary.
See Also: 18 Tips For Defenders Of The Faith