Mormonism on Christianity

I don’t want to overstate the conclusions of this piece. I do not have a horse in this race--I don’t think that the claims of either Mormonism or Christianity are true. What I want to point out is that Mormonism has traditionally argued for an incompatibility between itself and all other religions. Mormonism has carved out it’s own little categorical niche that excludes all other faiths.

The Book of Mormon: Things that make you go hmmmm.

Book of Mormon: Things that make you go hmmm…

In this essay, I don’t intend to provide any hard hitting scientific, historical, philosophical, or logical argument against the Book of Mormon. Instead, I want to take a look at some of the overlooked and perhaps simpler red flags things found in its pages—things that are often missed when read with a less critical eye, but upon a closer read, might give the critical reader pause.

If, for the sake of argument, the Book of Mormon was not the ancient record it purports to be, but is a construction of Joseph Smith and his collaborators, one might expect to find items in its pages that offer clues as to how it was put together. The Church is quite fond of claiming that the BoM was translated in a matter of 60-90 days.[i]

Things that, when considered, might lead the reader to wonder if the Book of Mormon was constructed hurriedly, without much time for editorial revision; constructed in such a manner that some silliness, absurdities, and implausibilities might have crept in. We might discover that there are things found in the Book of Mormon that we ought not find if the Book was the historical compilation it claims itself to be.

When I first thought of putting this list together, I intended to make a top 10 list. But the more I thought about the items that needed to be on the list, the more I realized that there was no way on God’s green Earth that I could limit the list to only 10 items.

As I start to construct this list, there are 25 items on it, but the number may change as I add or delete—most probably add (!) more as I go.

Interesting observation: if you try to google any of these questions related to any of these points, most of the results that you get are sponsored by the Church. Official Church sites, apologetic sites, church friendly blogs…The Church is putting a lot of effort (though I’m sure not spending sacred tithing money) into search engine optimization, ensuring that people cannot obtain non-LDS approved information about the Book of Mormon specifically or the Church in general.

In no particular order…

1.     “I, Abinadi…”

Book of Mormon caricature King Noah is ruling during a period of prosperity. As there is nothing to keep him or his people humble, they have descended into abominations, wickedness, and whoredoms (Mosiah 11: 20). So, the Lord sends Abinadi to call them all to repentance, lest they be visited by His anger, and conquered by their enemies.

As one might imagine, King Noah does not take kindly to Abinadi’s words of warning:

…Who is Abinadi, that I and my people should be judged of him, or who is the Lord, that shall bring upon my people such great affliction? I command you to bring Abinadi hither, that I may slay him, for he has said these things that he might stir up my people to anger one with another, and to raise contentions among my people; therefore I will slay him.” (Mosiah 11: 27, 28. Unnecessary repetition in the original, would likely not be found in a Book being compiled and edited into a “Reader’s Digest” version by Mormon.)

Fearing for his life, Abinadi goes into hiding for two years, after which he is ready to cry repentance to the people once more. But there’s a problem. King Noah still wants him dead, so if he were to start preaching, he would be instantly arrested. That is, unless he has a cunning plan.

If he were to put on a disguise, he’d be able to speak to the people without anybody realizing that he is in fact Abinadi. Let’s see how that worked out for him…

And it came to pass that after the space of two years that Abinadi came among them in disguise, that they knew him not, and began to prophesy among them, saying: Thus has the Lord commanded me, saying—Abinadi… (Mosiah 12: 1)

Did you catch the silliness? To avoid arrest, he hides for two years. Then when he’s ready to preach again, to avoid arrest, he puts on a disguise. Then, while in disguise, the first words out of his mouth announce his name.

In my head, when I read that, someone shouts out “Hey everybody! It’s Abinadi! Get him!” and Abinadi mumbles “D’oh!”

A Book of Mormon Thought Experiment

 Considering that

:...the Prophet Joseph Smith said: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” " (bold face added)

and that according to President Benson,

"“The Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion... A keystone is the central stone in an arch. It holds all the other stones in place, and if removed, the arch crumbles... It is the keystone of our doctrine." (underline, bold face and italics added)

and that

D& C 20: 8-9: the "Book of Mormon...contains...the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and to the Jews also..." (underline and bold face added)

Here is my thought experiment

What would happen if you were to give 10 people, each unfamiliar with Mormonism, a copy of the Book of Mormon, and offer them this challenge:

Reconstruct the religion derived from the Book of Mormon.

Include, at minimum, the following:

What is the moral theory it espouses? What moral principles do it's adherents live by?

What rituals does it practice? Which (if any) are necessary for salvation?

What is the organizational structure or the Church?

What is salvation?

Earth life--where does it fit in the grand scheme? Was there a pre-existence, and what is the ultimate fate of our souls?

What differentiates this reconstruction from other versions of (Protestant?) Christianity?

Implications:

It seems to me that if the BoM is the most correct book, if it is the best guide for getting closer to God, if it contains the fullness of the gospel, and if the Church would crumble without it, then being able to infer what the Church is like--something that resembles the Church in significant broad strokes--solely from reading the BoM is necessary condition for accepting the claims of the Church about the Book.

If each person who accepts the challenge reconstructs the Church in similar ways, that satisfies at least a necessary condition (though not a sufficient condition) for belief in the claims made by the Church about the BoM.

If each person is unable to reconstruct a church that at least resembles the LDS church, would that not imply that the Church is constructed largely independently of the most correct book, independently of the keystone of the religion, and, indeed, independent of the fullness of the gospel.

Through Tinted Spectacles

 

In the 1939 classic film “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy visits The Emerald City, so named because virtually the entirety of the city is, in fact, emerald in color. As you may know, the film is not always completely faithful to the book upon which it is based. In L. Frank Baum’s original “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (1900), while the walls of The Emerald City are green, the city itself is not. In the book, upon entry into the city, everyone is required to wear green-tinted spectacles (explained as an effort to protect the eyes of the residents from the "brightness and glory" of the city). These spectacles have the effect of making everything appear green even though the city is objectively no greener than any other.

Dorothy was shocked to learn the truth from the Wizard of Oz: “But isn’t everything here green?” asked Dorothy. “No more than in any other city,” replied Oz; “but when you wear green spectacles, why of course everything you see looks green to you…[M]y people have worn green glasses on their eyes so long that most of them think it really is an Emerald City…[i]

Given that the reason that the residents of the city believe it to be emerald is the filtering effect of their colored glasses, it follows that if instead of green tinted spectacles, they wore scarlet tinted spectacles, the residents would think they lived in The Scarlet City. If they wore turquoise tinted spectacles, they would believe that they lived in The Turquoise City. If the residents wore magenta tinted spectacles, they would think that they were residents of The Magenta City. And so on…

The LDS mission as a form of Hazing

I have another article in Sunstone Magazine. 

The LDS Proselytizing Mission as Hazing.

It is an edited version of a previous blog post by the same name.

Once again, thank you to Stephen Carter for tackling my post and making it so much more coherent, and at least sorta close to the Sunstone word limit.

The Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon and the Pure Adamic Language

1.      The Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon and the Pure Adamic Language

LDS scripture maintains that Adam and Eve had a language that was pure and undefiled, a language both spoken and written (Moses 6:5, 6). This was the one and only language until the time of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9; Mosiah 28:17, Journal of Discourses 3: 100 (Orson Pratt)).

You’ll recall that the Jaredites (Book of Mormon people whose history comprises the Book of Ether) descended from people who were present at the tower of Babel Mosiah 28:17, Ether 1:33). You’ll further recall that the central event of the story of the Tower of Babel is that God made everybody forget their (Adamic) language, “counfounded” their languages, and scattered the people (Genesis 11: 7-9; Ether 1:33).

Jared somehow had foreknowledge of what God was about to do, so asked his brother to ask God to spare them and their friends (Ether 1: 33-37). God listened and agreed. Consequently, the language that the Jaredites carried to the new world was the Adamic language—unreadable to the Nephites who discovered the 24 gold Jaredite plates (the as yet unnamed Book of Ether) and Urim and Thummim amongst the ruins of the final Jaredite battle (Mosiah 8: 8-11).[i]

The Ridiculous Car Purchase Analogy.

 

There is an analogy, often employed by defenders of the Latter-day Saint faith, when trying to divert attention away from critics of the faith.

(…and to be clear, I have used the names Ford and Chevrolet randomly, for the purposes of the analogy—not as any reflection on the cars or companies in any real sense)

It is some variation of the following: 

If you were considering buying a Ford, would you go to the Chevrolet dealership for information?

It is an analogy so flawed it beggars belief that anybody with a capacity to reason would ever propose it.

The more appropriate analogy would be:

If you were considering buying a Ford, and discovered

(i)                 that 75%[i] of Ford buyers returned their vehicle within the first year, never to buy another Ford, and

(ii)              that the Ford corporation was trying to disparage those who returned their cars, saying that there was something wrong with the car owner rather than something wrong with the car, and

(iii)            that the Ford corporation did not want potential buyers to know why almost all previous buyers returned their cars…

…would it not be incumbent on you to find out why almost everybody returned their cars, why the car company was disparaging the returners, and what it was that the company did not want you to find out prior to your purchase?

---

[i] LDS Statistician David Stewart suggest a 20-30% retention rate for new converts (http://cumorah.com/lawoftheharvest.pdf pp. 257-280), and GA Historian Marlin K. Jensen  puts it at about 25% (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mormonchurch-idUSTRE80T1CM20120131)

You don't need salvation. Part 1: Spiritual Ransomware

What follows stands alone as an essay

At some point there will be a part 2. But for now. enjoy part 1.

[Inuit[i]]: 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?'

Priest: 'No, not if you did not know.'

[Inuit]: 'Then why did you tell me?'

Annie Dillard[ii]

 

You don’t need salvation

Part 1. Ransomware

It seems that in Mormonism (and to a lesser degree in the broader category of Christianity), there is a proviso for those who die without hearing the gospel.

Proviso?

Accepting Jesus (and whatever that may entail) is necessary for us to avoid an eternal punishment in the form of being separated from the presence of God. That hardly seems fair to those who don’t accept Jesus because of an accident of birth. A majority of persons who have ever lived did not accept Jesus due to living their lives in a time and/or place in which they never had a chance to hear the gospel.

The proviso I mention is for these people.

For example, 2 Nephi 9:25 tells us that “…where there is no law given there is no punishment; and where there is no punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of him.” (italics added)

Similarly, Mormon 8: 22 tells us that “…all little children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law. For the power of redemption cometh on all them that have no law; wherefore, he that is not condemned, or he that is under no condemnation, cannot repent; and unto such baptism availeth nothing.” (italics added)

St. Paul seems to be in agreement with the Book of Mormon on this matter, asking rhetorically “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher…” (Romans 10:14), and suggests something akin to the provision spoken of above: “…but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” (Romans 5:13). And although “through the law we become conscious of sin…” (Romans 3:20), those that die without the law, per se, will still be judged on essentially being a good person (if I’m reading St. Paul right): “it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires…They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.” (Romans 2:13-15). (italics added)

Mormonism has an explanation for why those who die without hearing the gospel are not condemned. In 1^st Peter, Chapter 3, we learn that Jesus, “being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; (v. 18, 19, italics added).

That time my five-year-old brother was told Satan is out to get him…

 That time my five-year-old brother was told Satan is out to get him…

When my little brother was in his earliest years (less than five) he faced an apparently life threatening illness, then a series of serious and life-threatening injuries.

My young mother, bless her little cotton socks, was a sincere recent convert to the LDS church, and sought out a priesthood blessing for my brother. The brother who came to our home was a member of the branch presidency, and was considered in the stake to be a spiritual giant. He had been the go to guy in our family for almost all priesthood related matters, as my father was, and is, a skeptic.

LDS sexual impropriety and the externalization of the locus of moral control

 

Revised July 5th 2021

It started simply enough…

My daughter had recently returned from a vacation, visiting her boyfriend who was studying at one of the LDS post-secondary institutions. “Dad,” she told me, “they are all smoking pot and having sex with each other. All of them.”

But then…

That same day there was a headline in our local news about how an LDS bishop had sexually abused children, when in his late teens, and had confessed to it while on a mission—from which he was not sent home after the revelation. The judge in the trial concluded that the LDS Church had covered up this abuse. I reflected that this was not the first such headline that I had seen in recent years in my largely LDS neck of the woods.

Still that same day I checked into Facebook and was struck the number similar stories coming from my LDS and XLDS friends.

There was the recent high profile case of Joseph Bishop, the former President of the Provo Utah Missionary Training Center (MTC) who admitted to police that he engaged in sexual improprieties (allegedly including a sexual assault) with Sister Missionaries under his stewardship, and who claimed to be a predator and sex addict.[i] An official statement from the LDS Church indicates that the Church never knew of the misconduct until 2010, some 26 years after the offending events, but his statement to the police indicates that Bishop confessed his actions to his ecclesiastical leaders immediately, yet served out his complete tenure as MTC President.[ii] One of Bishop’s alleged victims sued him and the Church. The case against Bishop was dropped due to the statute of limitations having long past, however, at that time, the judge ruled that the case against the Church for fraudulent non-disclosure and fraudulent concealment could move forward.[iii]

There is the recent high profile case of former BYU instructor and director of three LDS Temple Endowment ceremony films (and cofounder of the Sundance Film festival), Sterling Van Wagenen, who admitted to molesting a 13 year old boy[iv] After pleading guilty to and twice being convicted of molesting under age girls, Van Wagenen is serving 6 years to life.[v] For his horrific crimes, Van Wagenen was disfellowshipped for two years from the LDS Church.[vi]

A BYU professor charged with sexually abusing students.[vii] A Utah police officer/bishop involved in human trafficking[viii], Sunday School teachers involved in child sexual abuse[ix], Bishops and others in positions of trust involved in sexual abuse and child pornography[x].

In recent years it has a been reported that, per capita, Utah has the US’s highest rates of subscription to pornography websites[xi], and that “…Utah fosters unique cultural factors that may leave those with susceptibility at an even greater predisposition to using and abusing pornography.”[xii] As of 2015, the popularity of “incest porn”[xiii] was growing faster in Utah than in any other state[xiv]. And Utah has what could be described as a child pornography epidemic[xv] that, when discovered/confessed, the LDS Church doesn’t necessarily report to the police,[xvi] and there seems to be cases where this child pornography is being treated lightly by the courts in Utah.[xvii]

It has been reported that rape occurs at a higher rate in Utah than in the rest of the USA[xviii], and that although Utah is #8[xix] in the US for overall rates of abuse, it is #1 in sexual abuse[xx], with one in five children in Utah experiencing sexual abuse^[xxi]. And there is some concern that the LDS Church is perhaps more concerned with protecting its image than it is with actually combating the problem[xxii]. The Church recently released a letter, signed by the First Presidency, instructing local leaders to not participate in any court cases without first consulting the Church’s lawyers.[xxiii]

And although the Church has a hotline for local leaders to report sexual abuse, it seems to be manned by lawyers from the Church’s legal alter-ego, the law firm of Kirton McConkie.[xxiv] 

Kirton McConkie? 

One of Kirton McConkie’s founding partners was one Bryan Lloyd Poelman, at one point the chairman of an anti-pornography group called Citizens for Positive Community Values. While a Stake President, Poelman was caught in the act with a prostitute. Although Poelman was excommunicated, Apostle Boyd K. Packer assured Poelman’s stake that “Whatever else will take place, there will be no eternal consequences.” (italics added). He went on to serve a seniors mission and to serve as a worker in the Salt Lake City Temple.

Kirton McConkie also employs one Thomas L. Monson (son of former LDS President Thomas S. Monson), who was fired from his job as vice-president of American Investment Bank, then quietly settled the related sexual harassment suit against him.[xxv]

I reflected on my daughter’s observation about her friends at her boyfriends’ LDS School[xxvi], the local story about the bishop, and the stories referenced above, and wondered if there could be something in LDS theology and culture that somehow facilitates what appears to be an inability to control one’s sexual proclivities.

Although this post is focused primarily on LDS culture and theology, the reader may notice that many of the observations made here can be applied to broader categories of religious morality.

Nephi’s Alleged “Courage”

Nephi’s Alleged “Courage” 

I would like to start by suggesting that if a voice in your head tells you to kill somebody, you ought to ignore that voice. If that voice tells that you ought to chop the head off of a person that is so drunk as to be unconscious, even if the unconscious drunk has property that you would like to steal, you still ought to ignore that voice.


But what if that voice in your head asserts that it is the voice of the Spirit of God? If The Almighty deigns to speak to such as you or I, surely we ought not ignore His voice…

I cannot speak for everyone, but if I had a voice in my head telling me to kill someone, even if (especially if?) that voice claimed to be the Spirit of God Himself, my most likely course of action would be to seek immediate treatment for mental illness.


However, in the LDS church, children are taught to sing a song that celebrates the very event described above. And even though it is in reference a story about following a voice in your head telling you to behead an unconscious drunk in order to facilitate stealing his property, it is sung for the purposes of teaching those children to always listen to God, to trust Him, and to be obedient to His will.

The Curious Date of the Nephite Apostasy

In what might be quite the coincidence, the apostasy amongst the people of the Book of Mormon (BoM), specifically the Nephite people, happened in the same year as the formulation of the Nicene Creed.

Before we discuss reasons as to why this is a curious coincidence, let’s first address how one would arrive at the date of the Nephite apostasy.

LDS Epistemology in Bullet Points

1. The definition of "Knowledge" is believing without doubt.
- Ether 3:19

2.  You have to WANT to believe in the proposition/principle.
-  Alma 32:27
(BTW, Alma 32's contribution to LDS epistemology is discussed further here)

3. You have to ACT as though you believe in the proposition/principle
- Alma 32: 28-34

Dear Elder Oaks

Dear Elder Oaks,

You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that you think that you believe that “The…meaning of ‘gender…’ as used in church statements and publications…is biological sex at birth.” 


Let me help you with that, brother. LDS theology does not require anything like the notion gender is determined by biological sex at birth.

On the Non-Infinity of the LDS Conception of God

The “relatively infinite” God of Latter Day Saint (LDS) theology is incommensurate[i] with the infinite God of classical theism (CT).

To illustrate the notion of incommensurability, imagine that you have a topographical map of, say, Dubuque Iowa. It would be possible to take a map of the streets of Dubuque and lay it over the topographical map, and expect things to line up. You could further add a population density map of the city, a map of the locations of the city parks, a map of the rivers and lakes, and a map of all the Taco Bell restaurants. As you overlay each map on top of the other, you would continue to expect each to line up. They line up because, although they might be representing different aspects of Dubuque, each of them still describes the same town.

If you were then to take a topographical map of Paris France, and then overlay maps of streets, parks, Taco Bells, etc., of Paris Texas, would you expect them to similarly line up? You would not—you might find a restaurant in the middle of a lake, or a park on the runway of an airport. The reason is that, in this second case, the topographical map and the street map are not describing different aspects of the same city.

Paris France and Paris Texas are not the same thing. Because they are not the same thing, if one were to try to overlay a map of one over top of the other, there would be no correspondence. They are incommensurate[ii]. They are “unlike and incompatible, sharing no common ground.”

In this essay, I intend to argue that the maps of the LDS God and the maps of CT God do not line up, as it were, indicating that the classical conception of God and the God of LDS theology are likewise incommensurate.

Sin Does Not Exist (in Sunstone)

I have an article, Sin Does Not Exist in Sunstone Magazine (188).
It is a version of Zeus’s Thunderbolt, Euthyphro’s Dilemma, and the Eliminative Reduction of Sin, which was quite lengthy.
Credit to Stephen Carter for an excellent job editing it down to a length that would fit, and for suggesting and making revisions to make it more Sunstone friendly.
Edited to add--Stephen Carter described the essay as "a game changer." One reader on Reddit commented "Whoa. That sunstone article was intense. Pretty much moved me from nondenominational Christian to agnostic in the space of half an hour or so."

Leave it Alone? No. Just No.

The perennial refrain of the faithful LDS when confronted with criticism from those disenfranchised from the Church:

You can leave the Church, but you can’t leave it alone.

We see it at least a few times a week on social media. It is typically shared in a tone of dismissal, intended to demonstrate to the apostate that their arguments are simply “more of the same” and “typical anti-mormon lies.” It is also intended to convey an understanding that the Church is the victim of persecution, and the criticism is just another instance of the sort of persecution that the Lord’s one and only has always had to endure.

I don’t know for certain how long this phrase has been employed by the faithful as a means to elude the criticisms of former believers, but after an admittedly cursory search, the earliest reference that I found to the phrase is an April 1989 General Conference address by a member of the Presiding Bishopric, Glenn A. Pace.[i][ii]

I have a few things to say about the concern that the faithful have over whether those disenfranchised from the LDS fold should, in fact, leave it alone.

Put Paid to the Lie: Equal Treatment of LDS LGB's

(Rather than accept the terminology widely accepted by gay persons themselves, the LDS Church typically uses its own term to describe LGB persons, “Same Sex Attracted,” or (SSA). In this post I will generally eschew the label placed upon our LGB brothers and sisters by the Church, and simply use the more common “LGB,” or “gay.”)

Recently, in the midst of a conversation about gay relatives, a co-worker casually mentioned that the Church treats its “same sex attracted” members in exactly the same way it treats its heterosexual members. It is a sentiment that we have heard from LDS leaders and publications, from friends and family, and on social media. The Church, it is said, only holds its SSA members to the same standards as it does its hetero members[i]—all are expected to be equally obedient to the law of chastity. This, according to many a sincere believer, is equal treatment for LGB and hetero members.

Let’s put paid to that lie right now.

"Speaking as a man" is not a good defense

When a General Authority of the LDS Church is discovered to have taught something that in retrospect turns out to be nonsense, one possible apologetic tactic is to suggest that he was “speaking as a man” and not as a prophet (apostle, etc.). In this post I suggest that this tactic ought to be deeply unsatisfactory to the LDS faithful, in that the “speaking as a man” defense means precisely the same thing as claiming the he was teaching “the philosophies of men mingled with scripture,” which is, in Mormonism, a central characteristic of apostate religions.

The Unexamined Faith. Chapter One.

I am gradually trying to put together a book that is (i) a critique of the foundational claims of Mormonism, and (ii) an attempt to make a case for "Apatheism"--the position that one should not actually care whether God exists or not.

I am far from done. With time constraints, I am likely a year or two away from completion. Some of my blog entries are drafts of chapters, or parts of  chapters.

What follows is a relatively complete draft of the first chapter. I hope it catches your interest enough to look out for the book should it ever come to fruition.

The Church of Milquetoast

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Mormonism knows that the LDS Church claims to be led by direct revelation by the good Lord Himself. Considering the ostensible fact that the LDS Church is led by a prophet, one might be forgiven for finding it odd that it is rather difficult to point to the last “positive” (quantitatively, not qualitatively—I’ll explain in a moment) revelation, or theological or doctrinal change?

Alma's Theory of Knowledge

Once the decision was made to serve the mission, I took my preparation terribly seriously. I completed 4 years of seminary, read the Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and inspired by President Benson’s counsel regarding its centrality to the LDS faith, I focused in particularly on the Book of Mormon[i]. To ensure I had the most adequate understanding of the Book of Mormon that I possibly could, I read it multiple times, sometimes focusing on the theology, sometimes the history, sometimes on the message/prophecy for our present times, etc.

A fascinating Institute class that I took in the months prior to checking into the MTC suggested an entirely different approach to studying the Book of Mormon. The Book, we were told, was not just a book, it was a tool of personal revelation, and if we read closely and carefully, in its pages we would discover the keys to unlock mysteries and truths available only through direct revelation.

One of the central keys to this approach to studying the Book of Mormon was found in Alma 32—Alma’s sermon on faith to the outcasts of the Zoramites.

Zeus’s Thunderbolt, Euthyphro’s Dilemma, and the Eliminative Reduction of Sin

Sin is to morality as Zeus’s thunderbolt is to weather.[i]

That is, Zeus’s thunderbolts do not exist and therefore contribute nothing to our understanding of weather phenomenon. The thesis I’m defending here is that an analogous statement can be made with regards to sin: that is, sin does not exist and contributes nothing to our understanding of morality.

To state it as plainly as possible, even if God exists, there is no such thing as sin.

Snowblind

Some years ago, the kids and I were returning from a Def Leppard concert in a nearby city. It was late at night and the kids were fast asleep. I still had two hours of driving ahead of me when we were surprised by quite the snowstorm.

As the visibility on the road deteriorated, I was reminded of a story I had read years earlier. The story had appeared in an LDS publication, probably The Ensign. It might have been a transcription of a General Conference address, but these decades later, the name of the speaker or writer has long since escaped me.

The author of the piece related a story that likewise involved driving in a snowstorm, and was, if I recall correctly, intended to be taken as an actual event. As he drove, the intensity of the storm increased and visibility suffered, and the narrator started to be concerned for his safety. As luck would have it, he came upon a large truck travelling in the same direction, and decided to follow closely in its wake. The truck driver, the author reasoned, had a higher vantage point and consequently had a clearer view of the road ahead. The author further reasoned that as long as he could see the lights of the truck he would be safe. He didn’t need a clear view of the road, he needed only a clear view of the lights, because the superior vantage of the truck driver was sufficient to ensure the authors safety.

The LDS Proselytizing Mission as Hazing

Presumably, we have all heard the notion that one of the primary purposes (if not the primary purpose) of the LDS proselytizing mission, is to “convert the missionary,” so to speak. It is widely held that those who put in the 18 or 24 months of missionary service are more likely to remain active in the faith and to be committed to continued service to the Church.

In this piece I suggest that to the extent that this entrenchment of commitment, activity, and service actually happens, it should not necessarily be interpreted as a positive reflection on the LDS Church, but as a result of normal and natural psychological processes occurring in reaction to the experiences typically had on the mission.

Abinadi: The Homer Simpson of the Book of Mormon

Let me set the scene for you.

Poor Homer, looking for a way to boost his self-esteem, wanders into an adult education facility and gets roped into teaching a class on marriage:

MANAGER: Mr. Simpson…we may have a job for you after all. We need someone to teach a course on how to build a successful marriage.

HOMER: I'll do it! Anything to get me out of that house, away from all that nagging, and noise... uh, of a family of love. Tra-la-la-la!

The Dunning-Kruger Effect and Missionary Age

“the trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt" --Bertrand Russell

While watching Wimbeldon a couple of years ago I thought to myself "that doesn't look so hard; I bet I could do that."

But I caught myself in a moment of reflection and asked myself whether, in reality, I could. To put it bluntly, I have as much chance at success as the proverbial snowball on the ferry across the Styx. I can count the number of times that I have picked up a tennis racket on one hand.

With that in mind, why would I watch the world’s elite tennis players and think that I could somehow just pick up a racket and play like them?

My daughter is taking guitar lessons. When she started she thought that it looked really easy. But each time she learns something new, she realizes how much more there is that she doesn't yet know.

It turns out that this is a widespread psychological phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect (Kruger & Dunning, 1999). When we lack knowledge of a subject or skill, we lack the wherewithal to know how much more there is to know. Dunning-Kruger tells us that the less we know about something, the less we realize just how ignorant we are. When we don't know, we don't know what it is that we don't know. The more we know, the more we realize how much more there is to know.

What does the statement "The (LDS) Church is true" even mean...?

“The Church is true” is a statement I learned to make as a child; I learned to repeat the phrase mechanically before I had the cognitive wherewithal to evaluate the meaning of it. It is not a sentence about which I can say I honestly know what it means; it seems to me now to be essentially meaningless because it is, I think, a categorical error.

An LDS “Epistemology” of Apostasy

 Our faithful LDS friends and family have tremendous difficulty accepting that there can be any legitimate reason for leaving the Church. If LDS Scriptures and lesson manuals are to be believed, every time a member loses faith or ceases practice, it is because of a failing of the individual, not of the Church.

Satan: MVP of the Plan of Salvation

The gathered righteous erupt into a reverent silence as the good Lord Himself, even Jesus Christ, takes the podium, shuffles his notes, taps the microphone twice, then grasps the edges of the lectern as He surveys the audience.

“My Brothers and Sisters, I am humbled to stand before you today. If I’d known that I was going to be asked to be the final speaker at this conference, I would have been more careful in checking my call display…” He turns and playfully casts a scornful glance towards the seats behind him. “No, but seriously…

CTR Rings: The Embodiment of a Misguided Categorical Imperative

CTR Rings: The Embodiment of a Misguided Categorical Imperative

In this piece I intend to critique the LDS concept of CTR (Choose the Right) by suggesting that it poorly mimics the Categorical Imperative. This is not to suggest that the authors of the LDS Sunday School curriculum had Kantian moral theory in mind while producing their lessons. I suspect the convergence of ideas is accidental. I will briefly elaborate what the Categorical Imperative is, and argue that although CTR might attempt, at a surface level, to function in the same way as the Categorical Imperative, it fails to meet the basic requirements of the concept, largely because CTR reduces to a form of Divine Command theory, which can be described as analogous to a harmful authoritarian parenting style.

If, as I did, you grew up LDS, you may well understand when I say that I was thrilled to receive my CTR ring (and CTR Box—is that even a thing anymore?). In my family and congregation it was a minor rite of passage, the final mile marker before that all important rite of passage coming at the age of eight—Baptism.

If you did not grow up LDS, a brief note of explanation. CTR was the name of the LDS Sunday School class for children aged (if I recall correctly) 6 or 7 years old, and CTR Sunday School class was partially intended as a baptism preparation class.

40-ish years later, I’m not nearly as enamoured with the whole CTR concept as I was in those formative years. Significantly, I find myself not as enamoured as so many of my adult CTR ring wearing friends and neighbors seem to be.

The acronym “CTR” stands for Choose the Right, and my non-enamourement is rooted in the sort of conceptual statement that “choose the right” is intended to be. The short version is that the phrase “Choose the right” is intended to be overarching words to live by; an all-encompassing moral guideline to apply at all times.

“Choose the Right” is, in my estimation, a weak attempt at something like a Kantian Categorical Imperative. I say “something like…” because I suspect that it is somewhat less than probable that the people who applied the phrase “choose the right” to the Sunday School curriculum were grounded in Kantian moral theory. Although CTR and the Categorical Imperative might share a superficial resemblance, the thought processes that lead to them are entirely different.

The idea of the Categorical Imperative is the centerpiece of Immanuel Kant’s (1785) theory of ethics. Kant held that morality shouldn’t be subject to changing circumstances or calculations. His focus was on duties and obligations. And he thought, rightly or wrongly, that it ought to be possible to distill all moral duties and obligations into a single principle.

If it is possible, as Kant hoped, to sum all of morality into one single statement, then that statement would necessarily be a moral principle that can be applied by everybody in every circumstance. If it did not apply to every person and every circumstance, then the attempted distillation could not be said to capture all of morality. A statement that succeeds in capturing all of morality would be an imperative (instruction, directive, order, rule) and it would be categorical (without exception, universal, “always…”)—A Categorical Imperative.

This, in a nutshell, is what “Choose the Right” tries to be—an all-embracing moral guideline that we ought to apply throughout our lives in all circumstances.

To illustrate the notion of the Categorical Imperative, do a little thought experiment.

If you, gentle reader, were to gather all of your moral rules and principles and intuitions and guidelines, and you tried to encapsulate them into a single statement, what would that statement be? You’d probably end up with something akin to the Golden Rule (i.e. do unto others as you’d have done unto you). That is the sort of thing that Kant was looking for. Regardless of the ethical predicament, one can apply the Golden Rule. Steal the candy bar? Report a tax dodger? Give a fiver to the homeless guy who approached you outside McDonald’s? In virtually any situation you can answer your ethical question by consulting the Golden Rule. That, in a nutshell, is what the idea of the Categorical Imperative is trying to do. Is there a moral principal (the imperative) that can be applied without exception (categorical)?

For reasons beyond the scope of this piece, Kant didn’t think that the Golden Rule quite worked as the Categorical Imperative. I use it simply for the purpose of illustrating the sort of thing he was trying to arrive at.

In trying to formulate the Categorical Imperative, there were some basic errors that Kant wanted to avoid. It is necessary, on one hand, to avoid making the rule too specific. If the imperative was too specific, it could not be categorical. Principles like “always say please and thank you,” or “don’t beat your children,” or “honesty is the best policy” might be great rules to live by, but because they have specific content, they only apply in certain situations and to specific persons. They are not universally applicable, i.e. they are not categorical.

On the other hand, it would be easy to broaden the scope of your imperative in such a way as to be content-less. If your rule is “always do the right thing” it really doesn’t help you decide what the right thing actually is. If your guideline is (as in the immortal words of St. Bill and St. Ted) “be excellent to each other” you still need to specify what such interpersonal excellence would amount to before the guideline has any force as an imperative.

Compare and contrast “always do the right thing” and “be excellent to each other” with the Golden Rule and you’ll spot the difference. The Golden Rule is instructive because it suggests what your choice or action ought to be, whereas the former statements are not suggestive because they require you to add in extra content defining the right thing and interpersonal excellence. Because statements like “always do the right thing” and “be excellent to each other” are not in and of themselves suggestive of correct morality, we could consider them to be without content, or vacuous.

Therein lies my issue with “Choose the Right.” It has the form of a Categorical Imperative, but it suffers from the latter of the two errors described above. Because it is not suggestive of what “the right” is, “Choose the Right” is, at best, a vacuous Categorical Imperative.

If one adopts “choose the right” as a rule to live by, then one is left with a content-less moral guideline, and in order to “choose the right” one will consequently necessarily be dependent upon an outside source to supply that content. Those of us who grew up LDS and accepted the maxim “choose the right” became dependent upon the LDS church to supply us with the knowledge of what our correct and moral choices and actions ought to be. We externalized our moral locus of control.

Normal psychological development follows a fairly standard pattern. Jean Piaget (1932) and Lawrence Kohlberg (1958), for example, describe moral psychological development as a set of stages. In the earliest stages, our source of morality is the rules that are imposed upon us by an authority. To the developing mind of a child, such rules are objective, fixed and unchanging, and the moral worth of an action can be determined by the resultant reward or punishment. Initially right and wrong is determined by punishment and reward, and a “what’s in it for me” way of looking at the consequences of behaviors. In the very egocentric mind of a child, the wrongness of hitting your sister amounts to nothing more than the fact that the child gets a time-out.

In normal healthy moral development, constraint by external sources of control is our primary source of morality only during the earliest stages—typically while we are still in the single digits. As we are steeped in a moral environment, those lessons from childhood become an internalized 2^nd nature, and we no longer ask ourselves “will I be punished if I get caught; what is the rule on this?” as we have internalized our ideas of right and wrong (our conscience), and act accordingly. One’s motivation is no longer avoidance of punishment or shaming, but an internalized understanding of right and wrong. As our childhood egocentrism is replaced by an understanding that others have their own perspectives, we begin to derive morality from social emotions such as empathy. As horizons broaden from self to family to society, we learn to derive morality from duties and obligations, from social emotions, and from calculations of what will maximize the good and minimize harm and suffering.

Good “authoritative” parenting involves moving a child away from such obedience based morality through induction—sort of “inducting” a developing child into the club of adulthood. Authoritative parents explain why an act is good or bad, encouraging a child to reason through processes (considering consequences, duties, empathy, calculations of happiness v. suffering) that lead them to arrive at good moral conclusions. Those raised in an inductive family environment learn the skills to reason through future ethical challenges.

“Authoritarian” parenting, on the other hand, does not move a child away from an obedience type morality. The authoritarian parent simply dictates the rules, and the child is expected to comply because the rules are the rules. Good and correct behavior does not flow from an internalized developing moral capacity, but from a desire to avoid the punitive consequences from the authoritarian parent. Without the ability to reason through moral issues, someone from the authoritarian home is less equipped to face future unique ethical dilemmas.

On literally every measure, those who grow up in authoritative (inductive) homes outperform those who grow up in authoritarian (obedience and punishment), whether it’s psychological health (Lamborn, et al, 1991; Shucksmith, Hendrey & Glemdinning, 1995), grades and school success (Steinberg, et al, 1991), or healthy relationship with parents (Mackay, Arnold & Pratt, 2001). Those who grow up in authoritarian (obedience, punishment) suffered in academic performance (Melby & Conger, 1996); an authoritarian punitive style of discipline is linked with stress and depression (Wagner, Cohen & Brook, 1996; Turner & Finkelhor, 1996), substance abuse (Dobkin, Trembley, & Sacchitelle, 1997), delinquency (Peiser & Heaven. 1996), and future marital violence (Straus & Yodanis, 1996). There may not be many (any?) absolutes in the social sciences, but the superiority of authoritative to authoritarian parenting by every standard is as close to a universal as you will find.

A salient difference deriving from inductive vs. obedience parenting has to do with the behavior that occurs when there is no longer a threat of punishment or shame.

To offer a simple hypothetical example, let’s say that you desire that your children have a healthy attitude toward alcohol. The authoritative parent can start out simply forbidding a child from drinking, as the child starts to question, the parent can explain that drinking is a grown-up decision, advancing to explaining the biological, psychological, and social consequences of consumption. The authoritarian parent might simply forbid consumption, then when the child starts to ask why, explain that it’s because “you will be grounded if you drink.”

Now, the hypothetical adolescents from the above scenarios leave home for the first time to go to university. Which one of them is most likely to engage in risky drinking behaviors? It ought to be virtually self-evident that when friends try to get the young persons to engage in risky behaviors, the one raised in the authoritative inductive home is equipped with the internal skillset to make a wise decision, while the one raised in the authoritarian obedience home is no longer constrained by fear of consequences from their parents.

So although the authoritarian parent might act in good faith, fully believing that they are doing right by their child, instilling morality by enforcing strict rules through punishment for non-compliance, in effect, their actions have the opposite effect to what they hope. They are more likely than the authoritative parent to raise children lacking an internal moral compass, and are consequently more likely to follow paths that the parent would judge to be immoral.

I hope that the reader is at this point drawing an analogy between authoritarian parenting, and “Heavenly Father’s” CTR obedience based morality. Just as the child’s morality is derived entirely from the parental lawgiver, many a true believer explicitly believes that if there is no heavenly lawgiver, there is simply no morality(Alma 42); and just as the child equates the moral worth of an action with the reward or punishment, so the believer believes that without the threat of punishment in the afterlife then “anything goes” in mortality. Instead of moving us through the normal healthy stages of moral development, the LDS church repeatedly tells us that in our “Heavenly Father’s” plan “Obedience is the first law of heaven.” (for example: Chapter 17 of Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual.)

If one willfully cedes his or her morality to an external source to which one must be obedient, then by default, morality is not internalized. One’s normal moral development is stunted, and one’s morality is akin to that of the child who requires an adult to tell them not to take the toy from the other child, and who requires threat of punishment to not take the toy from the other child.

By instilling “Choose the Right,” the Church hijacks and diverts an individual’s moral development, substituting one’s moral compass with obedience to the Church.

Because “Choose the Right” externalizes the source of morality to the Church, and so ostensibly to God, it in fact reduces to a version of the Divine Command theory of morality in which the moral worth of an action is derived from whether the act is done in compliance to the supposed will of God. For the CTR graduate, morality does not flow from an internalized moral standard (or conscience), but from an externalized set of relatively arbitrary rules. Instead of developing a set of moral intuitions, feelings, and guidelines, the CTR graduate acts out of obedience to the extant rules of the Church.

Let’s momentarily concede, for the purposes of argument, that God indeed exists, that the LDS Church is His church, and that the current rules of the Church are indeed the divine command of God.

How many times have you heard (or said) something along the lines of “if there is no such thing as God there is no such thing as right or wrong” or “if there is no threat of punishment in the afterlife, then anything is permissible?” I reject this explicitly and am of the considered opinion that even if God exists, His divine command is utterly irrelevant to morality (Bellrock, 2019).

I don’t beat my kids. Regardless of whether God is real or not, I don’t beat my kids. Does my non-abusiveness have anything to do with fear of punishment in the afterlife? Nope. I suspect that there is no afterlife, yet still I don’t beat the kids. Why not? Because I have an internalized morality that is entirely independent of obedience and fear of punishment. I have empathy. If I caused my children suffering I would feel their suffering with them. I have a sense of duty, to violate that sense to duty to my children feels wrong. It feels wrong independently of whether or not there is a God who has commanded me to not abuse my children.

Why does God tell us not to beat our kids?

The very fact that that question makes sense spells trouble for the Divine Command theory of morality. A believer may say that God says not beat our kids because it would cause them suffering, or because we have a duty to raise healthy happy individuals. The fact that there is an answer to the question means that the believer is saying that the wrongness of child abuse is not derived from the divine command, but the divine command is issued due to the wrongness of child abuse.

Similarly, God says “Thou shalt not kill.”

Why?

Because killing is wrong.

Therefore God says killing is wrong because it’s wrong. Murder is intrinsically wrong. Its wrongness is not because God says it. Murder is wrong independent of and prior to the will of God.

It is possible that the Israelites of the Exodus were so amoral that they needed God to tell them that murder (and stealing, and adultery, etc.) is wrong. And God, observing that they could not figure out the wrongness of murder for themselves, commanded them to not kill. The morality of murder is still not derived from the commandment, per se; rather, the commandment is given because of the wrongness of murder.

If it is true that the rightness or wrongness of murder or child abuse stems entirely from the will of God, then any intrinsic value in empathy or duty is irrelevant to the immorality of those actions.

Furthermore, if the rightness or wrongness of murder or child abuse is derived only from the will of God, then God could say precisely the opposite (Beat your kids, murder is peachy, shag thy neighbor), and the exact opposite would be equally moral (because it would be the divine command). However, this possibility seems somehow self-evidently nonsensical. How could God give the opposite 10 Commandments, and yet they be on equal moral footing with the first set? It offends one’s sense of reason. It is absurd.

Consequently, I suggest we ought not recognize any moral value in anything that God says that is not of value independently of His saying it. If God says thou shalt tie thine right shoe before thine left, or thou shalt not see the inside of heaven, it means that He is multiplying unnecessary arbitrary rules for the sake of exacting obedience, and it makes God capricious.

So it seems that God’s divine commands can fall into two categories:

First: God gives a divine command because of the rightness or wrongness of an action. If so, then the rightness or wrongness of an action is prior to and independent of the divine command, in which case the command is irrelevant to the rightness or wrongness of that action.

Second: God gives a divine command that is not derived from the rightness or wrongness of an action, in which case the command is arbitrary and capricious.

In either case, the divine command is irrelevant to morality.

Therefore God is irrelevant to morality.

The above discussion takes roughly the same tack as Socrates who famously asked, in Plato’s Euthyphro (350 BCE), whether it is good because the Gods command it, or whether the Gods command it because it is good.

When I was a child, I ate vegetables because my mother made me eat them. Now that I am an adult, I have learned that there is a value to eating vegetables that is not dependent on whether I am rewarded for eating them or punished for not eating them. I eat them independent of what my mother says. My mother might continue to say “eat your veggies” but her saying so adds no value to my healthy diet. Likewise, I don’t kill, I don’t beat my kids, I give to the homeless, etc., I do all of these things independently of whether God will punish or reward me for doing them. God’s command adds no value to my moral life.

What happens if you, a person with normal moral development, violates your sense of morality? You have internalized a moral emotion that tells you that what you did was wrong. You feel guilt. Guilt is the healthy moral emotion that is derived from your internalized sense of morality.

On the other hand, what if the person who has not internalized morality violates one of the moral rules that he or she tries to live by? Because they have not internalized their sense of right and wrong, that sense cannot produce the appropriate guilt. Instead, the moral emotion stems from the fear of punishment or of being found out. The person with an external locus of morality would be motivated by the avoidance of shame instead of the avoidance of guilt.

What I see in Mormonism (though this is by no means limited to Mormonism) is a conflation of goodness and obedience. Although the external actions of a good person and an obedient person might be indistinguishable, the moral status of the actions of the obedient person are not the same as the moral status of the good person.

When making decisions regarding moral questions, I might be motivated by a calculation of what might bring the most happiness or minimize suffering for the most people, or I might be motivated by my sense of compassion or empathy, or by any number of noble reasons. If, however, I’m motivated by obedience, or by fear of punishment, I don’t seem quite as honorable. To use the example once again of not beating my kids, what would you think of me if you knew that the reason I didn’t beat my kids was that I believed God would punish me in the afterlife if I did? Clearly the corollary of this is that if I didn’t fear eternal punishment, then there would be nothing to dissuade me of abusing my little ones. Surely you would judge me, at best, amoral.

Let’s tie this back to the authoritarian parents, who, by insisting on obedience and punishment, fail to instill grown-up moral capacities in their children, and so accidentally raise children who are more likely to rebel, as it were, against their parents standards. “Heavenly Father’s” CTR obedience based morality is likely to have the same effect. If, in the foundational (CTR attending) years, one is convinced that morality can only be achieved by acting according to the Church’s dictates, then what happens upon learning that the LDS church is not as it appears to be?

If the only options are A and B, and A is wrong, then it must be B. If one hears their entire life that the only options are (A) morality is derived from the commands of God (LDS dictates), or (B) without the dictates of the LDS church there is no morality, and then that person loses faith in the LDS church, they are likely to left with an insecure sense of morality.

How many have left the Church, and discovered a void where their moral sensibilities ought to reside? How many of us have had to struggle, as adults, through developmental stages that ought to have been navigated during our childhood and adolescence? How many have had an internal ethical struggle regarding what our attitudes should be toward perfectly normal consumption of coffee or alcohol? Or figure out, almost from scratch, what a normal healthy attitude toward sexuality is supposed to be? Or struggled with eliminating an unhealthy and unproductive sense of shame because we grew up believing that shame was a noble and primary moral emotion? As adults, we have had to examine ethical dilemmas—which most emphatically should not be dilemmas for an adult—and adjudicate whether our moral attitude toward it is due simply to being told what our attitude should be, and whether we have to rethink it through considering duties, obligations, consequences, and normal healthy moral emotions.

If a person believes that the only way to be moral is be obedient to the will of God, then there are some interesting corollaries.

If a person believes her only reason for not killing, stealing, etc. is the threat of punishment in the hereafter, she is essentially admitting that she has no intrinsic internal moral compass, and that consequently if God were not telling her not to, she would see no reason to not engage in such activities.

Furthermore, it stands to reason that if the only way to be moral is to be obedient to the will of God, then the true believer would believe those who lack such a belief to be morally inferior. You have learned to empathize, to act according to duties, to calculate suffering and happiness, yet you are morally inferior to one who is only moral out of fear of punishment? I think not.

So when you attend that family event at the local chapel and bump into Sister Judgy McJudgypants, and you tell her that you have left the faith, she just may be literally incapable of understanding that you have not lost the ability to be a good person.

So to bring this all back to the discussion of CTR rings, I despise what they represent:

- A poor attempt at the categorical imperative

- that makes one dependent on external sources of morality,

- convincing individuals that they are incapable of morality in the absence of the Church

- causing dependency upon the Church

- implying that a person is capable of a morality that is limited to the extent that they want to avoid being caught and shamed;

- An external locus of moral control

- indicating stunted moral growth;

- The priority of obedience over intrinsic goodness

- making independent moral reasoning improbable.

So, when I see an adult wearing a CTR ring, I see a person with a stunted moral development, who thinks, like a child, that morality is derived from obedience, that the worth of an action is determined by whether they are punished for it, who does not see the intrinsic wrongness of murder and rape and child abuse and lying and theft, and who thinks that they are morally superior to me because I have developed past the earliest developmental stages while they have not.

 

Bellrock, S. R. 2019. Sin Does Not Exist: And Believing That It Does Is Ruining Us. In Sunstone (188) https://sunstone.org/sin-does-not-exist/

Dobkin, P. L., Trembley, R. E., & Sacchitelle, C. (1997). Predicting boys early on-set substance abuse from father’s alcoholism, son’s disruptiveness, and mother’s parenting behavior. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 65, 86-92.

Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/doctrines-of-the-gospel-student-manual/17-obedience?lang=eng

Kant, I (1993) [1785]. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Ellington, James W. (3rd ed.). Hackett.

Kohlberg, L. (1958). The Development of Modes of Thinking and Choices in Years 10 to 16. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago.

Lamborn, S. D., Mounts, N. S., Steinberg, L., & Dornbusch, S. M. (1991). Patterns of competence and adjustment among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families. Child Development, 62, 1049-1065.

Mackay, K., Arnold, M. L., & Pratt, M. W.(2001). Adolescents’ stories of decision making in more and less authoritative familes: Representing the voices of parents in narrative. Journal of Adolescent Research, 16, 243-268.

Melby, J. N., & Conger, R. D (1996). Parental behaviors and adolescent academic performance: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 6 (1), 9-14.

Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

Pieser, N. C., & Heaven, P. C. L. (1996). Family influences on self-reported delinquency among high school students. Journal of Adolescence, 19, 557-568.

Plato, Euthyphro, Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 1 translated by Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1966. 1925.

Shucksmith, J., Hendrey, L. B., & Glemdinning, A. (1995). Models of parenting: Implications for adolescent well-being within different types of family contexts. Journal of Adolescence, 18, 253-270.

Steinberg, L., Mounts, N. S., Lamborn, S. D., & Dornbusch, S. M. (1991). Authoritative parenting and adolescent adjustment across varied ecological niches. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 1 (1), 19-36.

Straus, M. A., & Yodanis, C. L. (1996). Corporal punishment in adolescence and physical assaults on spouses in later life: What accounts for the link? Journal of Marriage and Family, 58, 825-841.

Turner H. A., & Finkelhor, D. (1996). Corporal punishment as a stressor among youth. Journal of Marriage and Family, 58, 155-166.

Wagner, B. M., Cohen, P., & Brook, J. S. (1996). Parent/adolescent relationships: Moderators of the effects of stressful life events. Journal of Adolescent Research, 11 (3), 347-374.