Welcome and Guest Introductions

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is April 26, 2022, and we are here at Mormon Stories Podcast Studios at Bright Spanking early in the morning. Super excited to have back with us on Mormon Stories podcast, Dr. Randall Bell, or Randy, as I like to call him. Hey, Randy. Welcome back, John.

Randy Bell [00:00:23] It's great to be here. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:00:25] Yeah. And we were honored to have Radio Free Mormon in the studios yesterday. And he's back two days in a row.

RFM [00:00:34] I'm like a bad penny. I keep turning up.

John Dehlin [00:00:37] There's no such thing as too much rfm. It's like more cowbell.

Randy Bell [00:00:41] Yeah. More cowboy, more sandwich. And more.

John Dehlin [00:00:44] More rfm. Do you like being compared to a cowbell rfm?

RFM [00:00:47] I like being compared to Sandra Tanner.

John Dehlin [00:00:49] Okay, well, we're glad to have you both here. And of course, we. We have the Jen camp with us. Hey, Jen.

Guest [00:00:55] Hi, everybody.

John Dehlin [00:00:55] Thanks for getting here early.

Guest [00:00:57] No problem.

John Dehlin [00:00:58] Yeah, we could do none of this without Jen. So Randy Bell is. We'll put in the show notes our previous set of interviews with Randy Bell. He's a dear friend. He's also one of the world's experts in disaster real estate evaluation. That's. I probably just slaughtered and butchered what you do.

Randy Bell [00:01:17] Well, we call it real estate damage economics.

John Dehlin [00:01:20] Yeah, yeah. But Randy is the author of too many books to mention. And he is the host of a brand spanking new podcast called Post Traumatic Thriving, which also has a book by the same title. Is that all correct?

Randy Bell [00:01:33] Does the book kind of screwed up with the launch with COVID but it's. It's out. It's on, you know, Amazon and everything. But the podcast is the same name. My co host is Tanya Brown. She's the sister. No, Carl Brown Simpson. We've had some crazy cool guests. So I'm. I'm officially a cool podcaster.

John Dehlin [00:01:50] All right, I like you guys. Welcome to the podcasting family on behalf of me and rfm. Right, rfm?

RFM [00:01:57] Absolutely. Welcome to the Green Bean team. And don't ad lib.

Randy Bell [00:02:02] It's fun.

John Dehlin [00:02:03] All right. Yeah. Well, Randy, just to give people a sense through your profession of the types of catastrophes or disasters or murders, you know, mass murders that you've been involved with. Just to kind of catch people's attention up front, we're going to be talking about critical thinking today. Is it a book you're coming out with, or.

Randy's Upcoming Book on Critical Thinking

Randy Bell [00:02:26] Yeah, I got a book coming out. I haven't announced it yet, but it's centered on critical thinking. Because I think we need more of that in politics, religion, and our everyday conversations.

John Dehlin [00:02:36] So today we're going to be talking about critical thinking as it applies to Mormonism, and we're going to use the Heaven's Gate cult as a way to illustrate. And we're not just picking Heaven's Gate out of a, I don't know, hat, so to speak. But it's one of the many disasters or cases that Randy has been involved with. So spend a minute talking about the different types of cases you've been involved with, and then we'll jump into critical thinking.

Randy Bell [00:03:02] Sure. Well, I jumped into this field of this specialty in the 1980s. So it was before you guys were. Well, before Jen was born. And, and. And it's real estate damage economics. So, like right now I'm working on Hurricane Harvey down in Houston, where SA lives. I'm working on a case for the federal government near where RFM lives. But I worked on the World Trade Center. I worked on the Flight 93 crash site, heaven's Gate, which we're going to talk about a little bit today. JonBenet Ramsey, OJ Simpson. That's how I got to know Tanya and her family. Sandy Hook, the Pulse nightclub. It's a long list. I've worked on hundreds of cases. But that's what I do every day, is I go to disaster sites and we work out plans to, you know, make things better. We just settled a case in LA for 1.6 billion. So there tend to be big cases. And critical thinking is a really essential component in the courtroom, like rfm. I'm in the courtroom a lot, and you just don't wander in and start chatting. You have to have a game plan, and that's why it's such an important topic.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] Yeah. So we did several episodes with Randy on Mormon stories that we'll include in the show notes. But let's dive in. So I. I guess you feel like we Mormons and even post Mormons could benefit from spending a little bit more time understanding the foundations of critical thinking.

Randy Bell [00:04:22] Well, I can only speak for myself, and I know I did. I started my doctoral program as a tbm, and I finished my doctoral program as a tbm. But the very first day of class, my professor, and he was wicked smart. My. He ended up being my doctoral advisor. He went to MIT undergrad, Stanford for grad, Yale for theology, and then Columbia for sociology, which is one of my specialties, sociology. But he really drummed it in our heads to get this critical thinking down. And I thought that I was A critical thinker, because I thought I was always right, and that was the extent of my critical thinking abilities. And critical thinking is really learning more about how. Absolutely. It's a very humbling experience. You really. For five years, and you've been through the whole doctoral thing, and RFM with the jurisdictor, you've got to get these concepts down before they let you graduate.

John Dehlin [00:05:19] All right, well, let's dive in. Where do you want to begin?

The Four Pillars of Critical Thinking

Randy Bell [00:05:21] Well, I think the easiest starting point before we get into the 15 principles is this simple framework. It's like four legs on a chair, and it's basically Aristotle. It's egos, logos, pathos, and duos.

John Dehlin [00:05:35] So this is for those of us. For those of you who have access to YouTube or Facebook, we've got a visual that we'll be showing. We'll also include the visual in the show notes. But I'm going to cue to the visual and then you can speak to it.

Randy Bell [00:05:48] Yeah, cool. Yeah. So ethos is ethics, and that's. Is what is being said ethical. Does this align with our North Star? However we want to define that pathos is emotion. And the thing about emotion, it still has a role to play in critical thinking. It's not all logic, but. But the pathos is emotion. Does it feel right? Does it vibrate? Is the best way to maybe put it. And then logos, is it logical? Does this make logical sense? That's all Aristotle. I added duos because it needs, in my mind to be explicitly stated. You got to look at both sides of the story. So if you're looking at Catholicism, you go to a Catholic or a Catholic priest, an expert in that field, and get the story from them. You don't ask the Baptist, who, hey, what do Catholics think? Again, you go right to the source. So in kind of introducing critical thinking, having those four pillars are really kind of essential. Egos, logos, pathos and duos. This is something you can teach to a sixth grader, and they can go from maybe not zero to 60, but they can go to zero to maybe 40. In terms of thinking about critical thinking, I don't know. What do you think? Rfm. Does that make sense?

RFM [00:07:05] It makes absolute sense to me. Of course, I've heard it before, but you explain it so well that I understood it the first time you told me.

Randy Bell [00:07:11] Good. Yeah. So that's just a basic framework to end. So as we go through the 15 points, keep in mind egos, logos, pathos and duos. And. And that embodies a lot of what we're going to talk about just with that takeaway.

Applying the Four Quadrants to Mormon Claims

John Dehlin [00:07:24] Well, let's slow down for a second and, and look at these four quadrants through an example.

Randy Bell [00:07:30] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:07:31] So, so let's just. You said that this is for Mormons, right?

Randy Bell [00:07:36] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:07:36] So let's pick. And we don't want to that we want this podcast, in this even discussion to feel safer, friendly to questioning Mormons, even progressive Mormons, believing Mormons all the way through to post Mormons. But what's a Mormon proposition or teaching that we can just very quickly put through the filter in a way that won't be too off putting and that will feel inclusive to everybody?

Randy Bell [00:08:05] Well, I love Mormons. A lot of my family is, are still in the church, so I would, I would never deliberately do anything to make anybody in the church feel uncomfortable.

John Dehlin [00:08:15] I have an, I have an example. Yeah, let's pick polygamy.

Randy Bell [00:08:18] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:08:18] So we just did a big series of Sandra Tanner on polygamy and Doctrine and Covenants Section 132. So let's say that we're. It's 1842 and, and this, this is, this is a realistic, historically based example. Let's just say the prophet of the day comes to you as a parent, says he, it's. He's received a revelation that your 16 year old daughter should be his plural wife. Yeah, let's look at that through the, through the four foundations of critical thinking.

Randy Bell [00:08:57] Great idea.

John Dehlin [00:08:58] Is that okay?

Randy Bell [00:08:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:59] Is that an okay example?

Randy Bell [00:09:00] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:09:01] Okay, well, Jen, is that all right if you use that? Jen, you like that example?

Guest [00:09:04] Yeah, I do.

John Dehlin [00:09:05] Okay. How would you, how would you, Randy, process that through, through the, the critical.

Randy Bell [00:09:11] Well, through critical thinking. I would ask myself four questions. First, is this ethical? Does this align with what I consider my true north? And that is on one hand, you know, there's the Old Testament teachings where old prophets did polygamy and so, but the New Testament was not so big on polygamy, so you have to. And neither was the Book of Mormons. But you know, however people want to choose that, you have to ask yourself the question, is this ethical for me and my value system? Now quite honestly, that is not ethical for me and my value system, but to someone else. I'm not here to tell anyone else. And if they feel that it is, they've got to make that moral choice.

John Dehlin [00:09:53] So like in modern sensibilities, at least a minority just, just face value. A minor, a 16 year old can't consent to, to that sort of proposition. And especially if the person offering the proposition claims to have the power of God and speak for God, there's a real power differential there, in addition to the inability to consent that might. Yeah. At least by modern sensibilities and some would argue even by sensibilities, 100 or 200 years ago, that is probably unethical. Just on face value to me.

Randy Bell [00:10:28] It is. I mean, RFM's the attorney, but I understand that a 16 year old cannot give consent. It's not even possible. But I guess parents can make exceptions for the child or something. Do you know?

RFM [00:10:39] Well, yes, but I think that gets into the legalistic part of it. And this, this ethic, ethos, this ethical part, I think is separate and independent from a legal analysis. And it is definitely would be unethical for me in that situation. And I think that one of the things that you had mentioned to me, Randy, was that a lot of times what happens in religious organizations or other organizations is that they don't want you to apply all four of these different bases for deciding.

Randy Bell [00:11:12] Yeah.

RFM [00:11:13] They will steer you maybe to one and have you exclude the others or subliminate the others to one.

Randy Bell [00:11:20] Yeah, well said. I mean, a lot of religions in Heaven's Gate we can talk about this is all about pathos, it's all about emotion. And you forget the ethics, you forget the logic, you forget the duos, you don't talk to other people, you just stick with what the leader tells you. And it's all pathos, emotion. Yeah.

RFM [00:11:40] Yes. And this is what happened to me, like the first time I heard about polygamy, which was even before I went on my mission and I heard that Joseph Smith practiced it, believe it or not, but it wasn't at church. So I learned about this. I brought it up with somebody else who was a member of the church who knew more than I, which was basically any member of the church at that time. And the response which I got, which is a common response, is not to answer the question directly, but simply to ask this question, well, do you believe Joseph Smith was a prophet? And of course my answer is yes. But the conclusion, even if it's unstated, is, well, if he's a prophet, then, then whatever he did was commanded by God. Right. And I think that's. Well, let me ask you, what is that doing with that answer in terms of these four categories?

Randy Bell [00:12:25] Well, that's a manipulation trick. I mean, the question is what it is, and it's a straightforward question. Did he practice polygamy? And that's the discussion. It's a straw man. It's going off to some other topic and going off topic. And the idea with critical thinking is stay on the topic, answer the questions, tell the truth. As you know, in the courtroom, one thing that would end my career and yours as well is you don't lie in the courtroom. The judge catches you lying, you're out. And so the question going back to polygamy, John, is that the polygamy is one thing, and personally, it makes me want to barf. But on the ethical side, it's the line, if it's ethical, why is it being covered up? If. If, I don't know, I don't think of a God that tells us to lie and cover up and conceal things. That just doesn't resonate with me. If it does for someone else, that's, that's, you know, they have to own that. But I. It doesn't work for me.

John Dehlin [00:13:24] All right. And Jen, just to check in with you, does. Does that scenario pass the ethical test for you? Jen?

Guest [00:13:32] I. I'm not sure exactly what, what you're asking, but.

John Dehlin [00:13:39] A profit propositioning your 16 year old daughter?

Guest [00:13:42] No.

John Dehlin [00:13:43] No. Okay. I was just checking it. Want to make sure I got your view?

Guest [00:13:47] Yeah, yeah, no, that would not work for me.

John Dehlin [00:13:50] Okay.

Guest [00:13:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:51] All right, so. So we've vetted one of the four.

Randy Bell [00:13:54] Yeah, let's go to this.

RFM [00:13:55] Oh, can I just mention one other thing? Because one of the things that came to me was you were talking, Randy, was that. It seems to me that with that question, well, do you believe Joseph Smith was a prophet? What you're trying to do is you're trying to eradicate the ethical argument because now you're responding from an ethos or ethics. Right? Yeah, this feels wrong to me. Well, then we're not going to talk about ethics. We're going to talk about your beliefs or your pathos. Right. Over your feelings.

John Dehlin [00:14:21] To override.

RFM [00:14:22] To override. So your feelings now become more important than your ethics.

John Dehlin [00:14:26] Right.

RFM [00:14:26] And this, I think, happens over and over again.

John Dehlin [00:14:29] And I think your model's trying to harmonize and say, don't ever ignore any of the four quadrants.

Randy Bell [00:14:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:35] And I would just add, when I started developing a more progressive theology about God, I. And Jen, I want to get you in. But what I evolved to was to say God can't do anything unethical. Like if God, you know, if it's unethical, God won't do it. And I will no longer allow myself to believe anything theologically. Doctrinally, if it puts God in a position of committing genocide or demanding polygamy. It's just God can't do that. So that's when I developed the theology where I arrived at. Jen, were you gonna add something?

Guest [00:15:10] I was just saying, I think like in, I don't know, I'd probably say 90% of the questions I would ask that I just wanted a straightforward answer to. I got the manipulation response when I was.

John Dehlin [00:15:30] Yeah.

Guest [00:15:31] A believing member.

John Dehlin [00:15:32] Just believe.

Guest [00:15:33] Yeah, like just, just believe or like they would turn it back on me and like twist it into something else and I'm like no, I just. Yes or no? Like I just want the, want the

John Dehlin [00:15:44] answer and like shut off your brain or stop asking questions, just go with your feelings, stop your thoughts, Accept my authority. Those types of things.

Guest [00:15:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:53] Okay, what's the second? Let's, let's, what's the second part of the quadrant?

Randy Bell [00:15:57] Yeah, well ethos is the first. The second one would be logos. Is this logical? Does this make logical sense?

John Dehlin [00:16:03] Does it make logical sense that God would need the prophet to take a 16 year old in addition to 40 other women? Does it make. Yeah, does that pass the logic test?

Randy Bell [00:16:13] Well, to me it doesn't because I thought about this really carefully when I was really thinking about this deeply and having some new kind of revelations. And if I were to jump on a unicorn and grab cotton candy in one hand and a lollipop in another and gallop up into the sky and pretend that God the creator of the universe really told Joseph Smith to, as a 37 year old man to marry 14 year old girls and let's just pretend that that happened. Was it really necessary to marry other guys wives? Was it married necessary to marry girls? I think it would be more a matter of, you know, if polygamy was legit. You would, you know, as a 37 year old guy, I guess you would be open about it, you would taunt your, you know, Emma about it and you would also marry age appropriate women. But I, so, so logically to me, if you just hypothetically assume that God really did tell Joseph Smith, hey, it's really important to me that you marry a whole bunch of women, that they be age appropriate women and not other guys wives, that's where it really falls apart for me completely.

Testing Polygamy Against Logic and Ethics

John Dehlin [00:17:22] RFM of polygamy and the logic test for you today, I think a lot

RFM [00:17:27] of things about polygamy is that when it comes to explaining or defending it post hoc that what we typically hear are attempts to make it sound logical. And what those attempts are is that there were too many women.

John Dehlin [00:17:45] Yeah.

RFM [00:17:46] For the men.

John Dehlin [00:17:46] That's the logic.

RFM [00:17:47] Right. It's logic. But it's based on false data.

John Dehlin [00:17:50] Yeah. It's actually incorrect.

Guest [00:17:52] Yeah.

RFM [00:17:52] Right. And the second part is that it's used to raise up seed unto the Lord as if one man having more than one wife will have more children than a bunch of men with one wife. And that actually is based on false

John Dehlin [00:18:04] data as well, that monogamous couples on average produce more offspring per woman.

Guest [00:18:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:12] Than a polygamous relationship.

Guest [00:18:14] And they said, they say that was age appropriate in that time to get married at 14 or things like that. And I looked it up on the census and it's 20 and a half was women.

RFM [00:18:24] That's another great example. So in post hoc, and I don't know how much of this was going on at the time, I don't know that there was that much. But post hoc, and trying to explain it in retrospect, there's an attempt to give logical explanations for things that are. Well, they're violating our. Our ethics.

John Dehlin [00:18:41] Yeah.

RFM [00:18:42] We don't have to provide logical explanations for things that don't violate our ethics. Okay. At least not to this degree. And there's attempt, attempt, attempt. And they're all actually kind of logical. But unfortunately they're based on false data.

John Dehlin [00:18:57] Yeah.

RFM [00:18:58] And even if they were logical, it doesn't make it okay. And this is once again what Randy's talking about. If you go to logos. Right. Logos cannot override the others, the other sections of the quadrant.

Randy Bell [00:19:10] Right. You got to have all four to make a good. Critically, you know, to think critically and come to good decisions or at least have the best shot at a good decision. All four have to be. It's like a chair. One of the legs falls off and you're. You're tumbling to the floor.

RFM [00:19:26] Where in your diagram that you've come up with, Randy, would that idea be that it's logical, but if you dig deeper, you find out that the logic is based upon false data.

Randy Bell [00:19:37] Well, you know, you in the courtroom, you go with the best available data.

RFM [00:19:41] Is that the duos part?

Randy Bell [00:19:42] Well, duos is. Yeah, we'll get to duos event. Let's do if.

John Dehlin [00:19:46] Well, yeah, I was just going to say one other thing about polygamy. For me, face value that fails a logic test is that a woman is worth the 30th of a man. That, that somehow a man gets 30, you know, 30 and, you know, but it. It should be one on one. I mean, to me, that just makes the most logical sense. Not that that one. One man gets 30 women. There's a math problem there that's just face value logic.

Randy Bell [00:20:15] Yeah. The math doesn't add up.

John Dehlin [00:20:17] Anything you want to add, Jen?

Guest [00:20:19] No, I think it's just all wrong.

John Dehlin [00:20:21] Logical for you?

Guest [00:20:23] No. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't.

John Dehlin [00:20:27] Okay. Polygamy is over to.

Randy Bell [00:20:30] So far. One other thought on logos before we leave logos is you get into epistemologies and hermeneutics, which is interpretation of text. And I guess that's where people would go to the Old Testament to try and justify this practice. I think that falls apart. When you look at the New Testament and you look at the Book of Mormon itself, you don't see, without real stretches and somersaults, anything in there that supports polygamy and the hermeneutics go back to the Old Testament where eating shellfish is an abomination. So you get a lot of weird stuff out of the Old Testament. I think sticking with the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, logically, it doesn't resonate at all.

John Dehlin [00:21:10] Yeah. And even. Even the Old Testament wise, you don't have God commanding prophets to enter into polygamy and have concubines, as I understand it.

Randy Bell [00:21:19] Correct. That's how I understand it too. But you're the theologian.

John Dehlin [00:21:22] Just because they did it. Just because they did it.

Randy Bell [00:21:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:25] Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Solomon, David. Just because they did it doesn't mean God required it or commanded it.

Randy Bell [00:21:30] Well said.

John Dehlin [00:21:31] Yeah, yeah.

RFM [00:21:33] The closest you get to that, actually, and it doesn't get brought up a lot. It's not the best argument, but the closest you get to it and I think, is it. Is it Nathan who's upbraiding David? Nathan the prophet, upbraiding the king for Bathsheba. And in the context of that, he says you have all these other wives that God hath given you. Okay. So that is the closest you get to it. And if you want to read into that, you could say, okay, God gave them to him and that God commanded it, or simply that this is a blessing that you receive from the Lord and you shouldn't be going after other things when God has blessed you so richly.

John Dehlin [00:22:07] I could see the Old Testament saying, God hath given you cattle. You know what I mean? Like, just because. Just because the Old Testament says God hath given you something, doesn't mean God has actually sanctioned it or wanted it

RFM [00:22:18] or from that worldview. God gives us everything that we have.

John Dehlin [00:22:21] Yeah, exactly.

RFM [00:22:22] And he only requires 10% back, so.

John Dehlin [00:22:26] And unquestioning devotion. Okay, so polygamy fails. 0 for 2. 0.

Randy Bell [00:22:31] 2.

John Dehlin [00:22:32] 2 for 4.

Randy Bell [00:22:32] Yeah. What's the third, well, let's go to maybe duos and looking at both sides of the story. And in the Nauvoo setting, that was really impossible because you couldn't go and get second opinions. Because it was. In systems theory, there's open systems and closed systems. Open systems are healthy. That's where you have a free exchange of ideas and communication and so forth. That's what we have right here. But in closed systems, you're in on the secret. And so going and getting and cross verifying this and going and writing your mother back home in England and getting their point of views, that was forboden. And that shuts down the duo. So you got to have duos to have an ethical, smart, intelligent decision. And that's again, the essence of critical thinking.

John Dehlin [00:23:20] So there's the point of view of the, you know, the women who are propositioned, especially as teenage women, were. Were their points of view truly considered or was there a wielding of power that basically made it so that their points of view weren't even really considered? You like the girl and the dance and the boy.

Guest [00:23:40] Helen. Helen Kimball. Yeah. Yeah. She is 14 and she's, she's in her journal saying, no, I don't want to. I just want to go to the dance. And now I can't because I'm propositioned by the prophet. And it just. All these like heartbreaking things. Her journal is heartbreaking to read. And she did not. She did not. And she was made to.

John Dehlin [00:24:01] So were the women able to give their point of view without undue duress or pressure? There's the law. We all know it was illegal. So the legal point of view was that it was unethical. There were other Christian traditions that were all saying this was unethical.

Randy Bell [00:24:17] Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [00:24:18] Like there were lots of different. There's the parents who. Sometimes they weren't even clued in. Sometimes the, the, the spouses of the women, the male spouses of the women might not have been consulted, but instead sent on missions and then their wives were propositioned. So, like, are we getting all the necessary points of view to make an ethical, moral, critical thinking based decision?

Randy Bell [00:24:43] Yeah. I would echo everything you just said. I would add, also there were these time constraints. I need an answer in 24 hours. I mean, that shuts down the duos, the ability to vet, to vet the

John Dehlin [00:24:55] decision and the secrecy, the pressure and the secrecy.

Randy Bell [00:24:58] Exactly. And that is the antithesis of critical thinking and good decisions. Before I go into the courtroom, before RFM goes in the courtroom, we talk to our colleagues, you know, There's a network of people that are ethical in my profession and those that have a reputation of being unethical. I'll call up my buddies around the country and vet the decisions and the logic and the decisions before we go into the courtroom with a 24 hour thing that these young women were given. They don't have the chance to write home to England or even talk to anybody. It's artificially shut down.

John Dehlin [00:25:32] It's a classic tool of coercion to give an artificial time limit and to demand an almost immediate response.

Guest [00:25:39] Yeah, a time limit and damnation if not accepted. So there's that on top of that.

John Dehlin [00:25:48] And yeah, that's going back to logos. Is God really going to say, if you 16 year old, don't decide immediately, within 24 hours, you're damned to hell in your family too? Is that.

Randy Bell [00:26:01] Well, I think that the way I understand it is if you kept your mouth shut, you could, if you said no, but you kept your mouth shut, you were in the clear, I guess, at some level. But if you dare talk about it and just simply tell the truth, then you were called all kinds of names and ostracized from the community. So, yeah, there's pressure coming from every angle.

John Dehlin [00:26:22] Okay. And that leads us, I think, to pathos or emotion.

Randy Bell [00:26:27] Yeah, pathos is a big one. And when I was working on Heaven's Gate, I worked on that case for a couple years and the police gave us, gave me all the tapes because Dode was videotaping all the stuff going on and I was going through all these videos and I was just kinda, you know, frankly, I was just chuckling to myself at just how, you know. And looking back, I understand more about what got people into Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate targeted high functioning people. They targeted wealthy people, smart people. They were designing on the Internet before I even knew what the Internet really was.

John Dehlin [00:27:03] We're gonna get into this later.

Randy Bell [00:27:04] Yeah, we are, but. But I came across a quote on pathos, and I'm just going to quote Marshall Applewhite. It's a short quote. This is the guy named Doe who ran the cult. And here's his quote. You know, here I had it and I tapped the wrong thing. Okay, here it is. I hope for your sake that you will at least ponder this. Don't ask your neighbors, your friends what they think of this. So right there, he's shutting down duos and instead go into the privacy of your closet and see if you connect with the purest, highest source that you might consider God. And ask, what about this? Is this information for real? Is this for me? If it is, then please give me the strength I need to pursue it. And when I, I was a tbm, when I read this and was going through the police videos and that really kind of hit me like a two by four over the head because that, that was almost a direct quote from the missionary playbook from my missionary work in England. And somehow, you know, I didn't, I saw the obvious connection, but I shut it down. But that's the power of just going with pathos, just only emotion. So I would say my position is that emotion's important. Keep emotion in the game. But, but don't make it the overriding 100% point of your argument. Also keep the egos, logos and pathos and duos. I should say.

John Dehlin [00:28:38] Well, and what I don't want our audience to misunderstand because you just gave an example of how emotion can be used to manipulate and coerce people. But what I was thinking when I saw emotions as we're applying it to polygamy in this exercise is how does it feel? Just the idea of a man who's 38 years old, who claims to be a spokesperson for God, propositioning a 14 year old, coercing the parents, threatening them with damnation, with 40 other wives on the side, some of them married to other men, and, and all the time pressuring them and lying about it publicly. How does that just make you feel? And I think just by any standard, the polygamy narrative within the Mormon Church, within Joseph Smith's history, fails the pathos test because it feels disgusting and gross and violating and offensive. It just feels awful. And so to me it just fails the emotions, the pathos test.

Randy Bell [00:29:44] On face value, I agree with you completely. And that's valid, totally valid. But I think what happened is that was the immediate response, but then it was the hey, go pull, pray about it thing. And that's exactly what they did in Heaven's Gate.

John Dehlin [00:29:58] Yes, and we're going to talk about that in the 14 points. Right. But I just want to make sure that emotions can tell you something's wrong. And I think that's the point you're making is let's not get so scientific, so analytical, so data based, that we ignore a really important part of the human experience, our physiology, which is our emotional instinct, which can tell us things are wrong. Without data. We don't even need the data.

Randy Bell [00:30:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:24] To know just in our guts sometimes something is completely wrong. Am I right, Jen?

Guest [00:30:29] Yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [00:30:31] Yeah.

Guest [00:30:31] Yeah. Everyone has that intuition, what I like to call it.

Randy Bell [00:30:35] Yeah.

Guest [00:30:36] That intuition in them that sometimes you just know something's wrong and then you find out that you're right later. Yeah. That you're right about that, whether you act on it or not. Yeah. There was something in you telling you something.

John Dehlin [00:30:50] Emotions can be manipulated.

Randy Bell [00:30:52] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:30:53] But they are often telling you the right direction.

Randy Bell [00:30:56] Yeah. No, I think you're dead on.

John Dehlin [00:30:57] Okay. All right, so I love, I love that. I love that. And that's just, we're just at the beginning.

Randy Bell [00:31:03] Yeah, that's.

John Dehlin [00:31:04] I think that's a great. Like if you just want to print that little chart out and use it as a guide for any decisions. I think that's a really good guide.

Randy Bell [00:31:11] Oh, I wish I had been given this as a, you know, a kid. I think this is, that's, that's what the. Why I went to the point of having my graphic artists put this together because I gave it out like candy. Because this is just essential.

Graduating to the Fifteen Principles

John Dehlin [00:31:27] All right, so you have now graduated from critical thinking high school and it's time for us to go to. To critical thinking college.

Randy Bell [00:31:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:37] With the 14 points. Is that right? $15. Set it up, Randy.

Randy Bell [00:31:42] Well, sure. When I started my doctoral program, the very first day I was given this book. And I'm referring to the Miniature guide to Critical Thinking. It's more like a pamphlet. And my professor, who. By who it's written. It doesn't really have an author on. Oh, excuse me, Richard Paul and Linda Elder. It does have a.

John Dehlin [00:32:03] And you like this?

Randy Bell [00:32:04] Love it.

John Dehlin [00:32:05] Okay. You recommend it?

Randy Bell [00:32:07] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:32:07] Okay, we'll put it in the show notes.

Randy Bell [00:32:08] Yeah, it's. It's. Has nothing to do with Mormonism as in zero. It has nothing to do with whether you're Republican. Republican or Democrat or business you're in. Nothing to do with religion. It's just pure critical thinking. When you read this, at least when I read it, you have no idea what political religious philosophies these people have. It's just the rules of critical thinking. And as I read it, I thought, I thought, man, I'm really not very good at this. And for five years, the professor. This was the handbook. This was, it was the game.

John Dehlin [00:32:46] Got it.

Randy Bell [00:32:46] Game plan.

RFM [00:32:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:47] Okay, so that's what you're basing it on.

Randy Bell [00:32:50] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:32:51] At least an important introduction.

Randy Bell [00:32:53] Well, yeah, and I didn't really set out to do it, but I've, I've written a lot of articles and five of them actually are on critical thinking and they ended up in peer reviewed journals. So I'VE I've studied it and I also published on the scientific method, empirical research, hermeneutics, epistemologies, all this stuff. So, yeah, I really, I really got into it and I love it. It's a fascinating concept.

John Dehlin [00:33:14] Okay, so you put together 15 principles of critical thinking, and. Yeah. So do you want to. And I know we're going to be talking about Heaven's Gate, so I don't know exactly how you want, what order or structure you want to go in.

Randy Bell [00:33:29] Yeah, well, Heaven's Gate, frankly, violated all 15. And we could talk about it as we go through, but the first thing is establishing a foundation. And there's three principles there. The very first. First one is an open construct that's to be open to new evidence. Avoid egocentric and social centric thinking. In other words, thinking I gotta be right or my organization is always right. And to use certitude really cautiously. Certitude, of course, being. I'm certain of this. You know, this is kind of. We're talking about absolutes, and I don't know about how you feel about rfm, but absolutes in the courtroom, you gotta be really careful with those.

RFM [00:34:09] Oh, yeah, absolutely. When you're a lawyer and other people as well do this. But as soon as I hear an absolute, I am trained to immediately start thinking of exceptions. And usually I can come up with one when I talk. And this is not necessarily lawyers, but certainly academics. We're trained to use qualifiers a lot. And so we. I try not to say this is the way it is. I try and say, this appears to be. This seems to be. This is the way I. I think, or it strikes me or to my mind, and I use it over and over. And I don't know if people see that. Some people see that. Some listeners actually get frustrated with that kind of language. I've had at least one listener come to me and say, why don't you just come out and say this like other podcasters do? And I had to respond. I said, well, this is the way, you know, I approach things. And I find that underplaying things usually is more effective. Well, it's always more effective than overplaying

John Dehlin [00:35:13] something you just said. Always.

RFM [00:35:15] I will. And if you find an exception for this, you go ahead, because there probably is. There's always going to be an exception to always. Okay, let's not try and unwrap that. It's too early in the morning. But what I'm trying to say is that if you. If I underplay something.

John Dehlin [00:35:30] Yeah.

RFM [00:35:30] Then the audience Generally more effective. The audience is going to increase the power of what I'm saying.

John Dehlin [00:35:36] It creates the backfire effect. It creates resistance.

RFM [00:35:38] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:35:39] I would just. I would just agree with you both that as soon as somebody says always or never, you know they're wrong.

Randy Bell [00:35:46] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:46] It's like an immediate tell. It's like, let me invite you to destroy me as soon as soon as you have certainty, I know, or I'm right, or this is everything that's true, or they're always wrong, you got them. So it's just dumb.

Randy Bell [00:36:00] Yeah. And what's really problematic is that I think It's Joseph Smith, 1 19, where he's quoting God, not Brigham Young, who we dismiss. He's quoting God saying, all churches are wrong. They're all corrupt. All their creeds are an abomination. There's three. There's not one. There's three absolutes. You find one exception, one creed that's not an abomination. And I got one. It's called the Jesus creed. It's just the first and great commandment, love God and love your neighbor. And that's a creed. And so there you got them in the courtroom. They be toast with that, with those three absolutes.

John Dehlin [00:36:38] Yeah. And I was raised in a Mormonism that's like, this is God's one and only true church on the face of the earth with his only chosen prophet, you know, and the Book of Mormon is the most correct book and blah, blah, blah. And it's just like all of that should be blaring red flags to people that it's not an open construct, you know, and of course the church will say continuing revelation, but I think it's contradicting with these expressions of total truth and knowledge.

RFM [00:37:08] I have a friend named Darrell Adair whose name I will mention, who whenever that quote comes up about Joseph Smith saying that the Book of Mormon is the most correct book, he always stops and corrects me or whomever and says no, Actually, what he said was, the Book of Mormon is the correctest book.

John Dehlin [00:37:25] Nice.

Randy Bell [00:37:28] All right, thanks.

John Dehlin [00:37:29] Rfm. That's helpful. That's super helpful.

Randy Bell [00:37:32] Okay,

John Dehlin [00:37:36] so we want an open construct to have critical thinking. All right, what's next?

Informed Consent and Going to the Source

Randy Bell [00:37:41] Number two is informed consent.

John Dehlin [00:37:42] We like that here on Mormon stories.

Randy Bell [00:37:44] Yes, we do.

John Dehlin [00:37:44] Why is that important?

Randy Bell [00:37:45] And it's important in academia, too, you ensure that the information is ethical. Well, we just actually kind of covered this one. Logical, emotionally healthy. And we've included both sides of the story. The one we just kind of covered is, I think we kind of Nailed this one in the prior conversation, I think.

RFM [00:38:06] So one of the things that I wanted to mention that you had brought up is you go to the source, right?

Randy Bell [00:38:10] Yeah.

RFM [00:38:10] And that's one of the things you'll always hear in probably every religion, including Mormonism, which is, if you want to know the truth about Mormonism, you go to the missionaries or to. To the members of the church. You don't go to the enemies of the church. Now, that is true, but only insofar as it goes, because it is not completely true. Correct. You do have to find out what the people who are espousing the beliefs believe, but you also have to take into account the fact that they are going to give you one side of the story, which is a side that supports what they believe. So there actually is value in going to other sources, including people who are different and maybe even antagonistic to those beliefs. So you can get the other side of the story, recognizing that both sides have their biases, and then figuring out what's going on. Because you can't just go to the Mormons. And God knows, the history has shown us this is the case. You cannot go to the leaders of the church and expect to get both sides of the story. In fact, something I'll be mentioning tonight is the famous quote from elder Oaks in 1985, which he said is, it is not. And he says this, this is on the record. It is not the responsibility of the church to tell both sides of the story.

Randy Bell [00:39:24] Oh, yeah. And in the courtroom, I want to know what the opposing experts written said. I go through the deposition transcripts. I try to understand their point of view maybe as well or better than they do, or that that camp does you deliberately go into enemy territory, if you want to call it that, or, you know, opposition, the opposition's territory, and understand exactly where they're coming from.

RFM [00:39:50] Right.

Randy Bell [00:39:51] And you don't dodge it.

RFM [00:39:52] This is one of the things that's so impressive to me about Randy is that he is a Christian. He believes in Jesus Christ. He believes in God and the Creator. And he doesn't just believe that, and he doesn't just read books that support his point of view. He actually has gone way out of his way to read all of the major works and more so of atheists and mark them up and read them and read them multiple times so that he understands what the opposing view is in order to come to his own conclusion.

John Dehlin [00:40:21] Yeah, we respect that. And you should check out Randy's original interview on Mormon stories, where he goes. Where he demonstrates that he's done a lot more work than many skeptics or atheists or agnostics have in trying to understand all sides. And I'm just going to add it in terms of Mormonism passing the informed consent test, I think this reflects what you already said. RFM two huge red flags within Mormonism are they whitewashed their history, they hide their history. They literally have a 200 year history of not providing all the relevant information and, or intentionally hiding it or distorting it so that members or investigators won't know the facts. That's a problem. But then also that they have. They're either constantly punishing anyone who's critical or excommunicating them, or they're warning their members to stay away from and avoid and never talk to, quote, apostates. And that's, you know, if I run a business that I'm proud of, I want, I want my custom, my potential customers to talk to people who have interacted with my business, who have bought my product. And if I'm confident in what I sell, I'll say, yeah, okay, talk to everyone who's done business with me. There'll be critics, there'll be people that are unhappy, but there'll also be people that are happy. And then make an informed decision. If I'm confident in my product, I've got no problem with open kimono. It's only if I've got a problem with my product where I don't want people to talk to people who have interacted with my product. And I. So I just think that's a brilliant and a really important point.

Randy Bell [00:42:01] Well, thanks, and thanks for the kind words. Rfm. I would say one of your finest podcasts, John, was with Kara Santa Maria. She's an atheist and I've listened to her podcast a couple times. She's brilliant and I have nothing but respect for the position she's coming from. So I'm not down. I am a Christian and I'm very happy with my decision. But in terms of I'm not down on atheists. And that's a good example of a really wonderfully thoughtful atheist point of view that I respect.

John Dehlin [00:42:34] Yeah, beautiful. Okay, we're, we're down to number three.

Logical Reasoning, Burden of Proof, and the Daubert Standard

Randy Bell [00:42:39] Number three, logical reasoning, logical reason reasoning. Here we get into types of. Well, I'll just read it. You use deductive, inductive and abductive reasoning. And let's just break them down real quickly. Deductive is to solve math. So if we add 2 plus 2 here in salt Lake City, Utah, it's Going to be four. And it's the same thing in Japan, where you went on a mission. It's the same thing in England where I went on a mission, you know, all over the world. That's deductive reasoning. Inductive is to basically take historical information and project the future. But in the courtroom, what RFM's doing, I'll let you speak for yourself, is abductive reasoning. That's where the detective goes out and finds the fingerprint, finds the drop of blood, and puts together a trail. And nobody's there to actually witness the crime, but by the evidence, it leads, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt that it's so and so committed the crime or didn't commit the crime. So it's really to understand the three types of reasoning. Deductive, inductive and abductive logic.

John Dehlin [00:43:42] Okay, and so how do we apply this to, let's just say Mormonism to illustrate the point. I mean, this is a. This is my immediate reaction with you, Randy, is this is a problem for all religion, not just Mormonism.

Randy Bell [00:43:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:56] Because in some sense, religion could be described as illogical. Like, it doesn't make sense. I'll just. If I'll just go straight to Christianity. Doesn't make sense that a human is, number one, the child of a deity, and number two, that a human could die and then resurrect after three days. Yeah, illogical doesn't square with my understanding of the world. And I'm not here to bash on Christianity or Jesus at all, other than to say, isn't religion by definition illogical?

Randy Bell [00:44:30] Parts of it are. I would own that as a religious person. I would also say that I've read a lot of books on science and I was shocked to learn how illogical out of science is, even in math. The guy out of Stanford, I forgot his name, but he's on TV a lot talking about math. That some mathematical algorithms are getting so complex they don't even know if they're computing the right numbers. But more to the point, when you get into quantum physics and quantum mechanics and translogical. In science, they call it translogical. I have no trouble believing in the resurrection. When I look at scientists that are saying that particles can be in the same place at the same time, or solids through solid or. There's a whole host of things that are going on in the quantum physics world that are more mystical and magical than Christ being resurrected. So if we're going to own that, and I do own that with religion, we got to own it on the science side, too. And that at least to me, gives permission to think in different realms.

RFM [00:45:33] Hey, Randy, can I just mention something?

Randy Bell [00:45:34] Yeah.

RFM [00:45:35] I think you meant one particle can be at different places at the same time.

Randy Bell [00:45:39] Oh, did I?

RFM [00:45:39] Yeah, you said same place, same time, but I think that's what you meant.

Randy Bell [00:45:42] Yeah. Correction. Yeah, thanks.

John Dehlin [00:45:45] Okay. Well, yeah, of course, science has all sorts of flaws. I'm just wondering how you apply logic to faith in. And like. Yeah. Do you have an example?

Randy Bell [00:45:59] Well, yeah, I think when you get into, you know, a lot of the books I'm reading right now are Bart Ehrman, the Early Forefathers, and then the ddk, which is one of the first writings of first century Christianity. That's the kind of Christianity that I've subscribed to, which is little more than believing in the deity of Christ and also loving God, loving your neighbor, loving yourself, that I talked about in, I think, our first episode or second. So I don't subscribe to a lot of things that have been added on by evangelical Christianity and other branches of Christianity. When you get into the third century, you start reading the Apostolic Fathers, you already start seeing a bunch of talk about obeying the church leaders, and women have their role in church, which is subservient to men. I don't like that stuff. But the original Christianity taught in the first century is what I subscribe to. And so I bypass a lot of that stuff that I don't. You don't agree with it and neither do I.

John Dehlin [00:46:56] You're kind of saying the simpler you keep it, the better. Maybe.

Randy Bell [00:46:59] Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, what was really taught was so simple that you could get these Palestinian sheep herders to get it. And that was all they really needed. And that's all I think I really need, too. And once you start piling on, you know, layers and layers of stuff, of course it looks ridiculous. You know, there's. In my mind, there is bad religion, and I fully acknowledge that there's also good religion. There's bad science and there's good science. I mean, in the courtroom, we call the bad science John science or pseudoscience. And it's rampant. There's a lot of it. So that's why we need critical thinking skills to kind of navigate through this stuff and come to the best decisions for ourselves.

John Dehlin [00:47:39] Okay. But just to kind of like, tie this up.

Randy Bell [00:47:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:41] There's a degree to which any most major religious truth claims at some level are illogical. True.

Randy Bell [00:47:51] Illogical in the religious sense. Yes, I would agree with that. And translogical is what they call it in science. It's yes on. On science or religion to me. Both have elements that are mystical and beyond our three and a half pound brains to wrap our heads around.

John Dehlin [00:48:09] Okay. All right.

Randy Bell [00:48:11] Yeah, let's go to four.

John Dehlin [00:48:14] So that's that. We just established a foundation. Now we're gonna. Now we're gonna follow a protocol according to your graphs, right?

Randy Bell [00:48:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:23] 4, 5, and 6 are under the title follow protocol.

Randy Bell [00:48:26] Yeah, the first one. And I. I'm anxious to hear RFM's comments, but it's honest per brandi. Excuse me. That's Latin for. Well, basically, it's saying that the party that makes the claim has the responsibility for the burden of proof. This is a burden of proof argument. So if I come to you, John, and I say, hey, I'm a Christian, and I think you should be a Christian, and I've started telling you what to do, and I make this claim, I have the burden of proof. I cannot shift that to you. The plaintiff has the burden of proof in the courtroom, not the defendant. And I've actually been on the defense cases where we don't really put on a case. All we do is attack the plaintiff's position, the fact that they didn't meet their burden of proof, and we don't have a responsibility to really counter that. However, if I come to you and say, hey, John, I'm a Christian, I'm happy with that. What are you. And you say what you are, and we look for common ground. I don't have a burden of proof because I haven't tried to convert you to anything. And that's why I am very careful in my languaging not to try not to ever tell anybody else what to do. I'm just talking for what works for me. But onus probande, once you make a claim, you have the burden of proof. You cannot shift that to the other person.

John Dehlin [00:49:42] Got it. Rfm. Did you have something to add to that?

RFM [00:49:45] Just briefly? This frequently comes up with arguments about the Book of Mormon, because, of course, as a Mormon, you're claiming the Book of Mormon is authentic, it's historic, it's can be verified in some way, and then the opposite side says, no, it's not. It's a product of the 19th century. And as soon as the other person says, no, I don't think I agree with you, that it's actually ancient. What frequently happens is that the person who is proposing it to be ancient says, okay, well, now you need to prove that it's not.

John Dehlin [00:50:16] How'd the Book get created? It's so amazing if. If it. You know, how was it created?

RFM [00:50:21] Right, right, exactly. So that's a way of shifting the burden of proof, and it can be an effective strategy. But it's helpful to have this in mind, as Randy's put it in his outline, to keep that in mind as to who has the burden of proof and not allow the person who has the burden of proof to shift it to the other party.

John Dehlin [00:50:42] Yeah, beautiful.

Randy Bell [00:50:43] Well said.

John Dehlin [00:50:44] That's important.

Randy Bell [00:50:45] Yeah. And we've already, you know, number five is burden of proof, and so we're kind of already there.

John Dehlin [00:50:50] How are those two different?

Randy Bell [00:50:51] Well, onus probande is identifying who has a burden of proof, and the burden of proof breaks down to different levels. There's actually 10 different levels of burn of proof. You know, number 10 would be I saw the crime committed, so that's a 10 out of 10. I saw it.

John Dehlin [00:51:07] That's the highest.

Randy Bell [00:51:08] Yeah, that's the highest. That's never met in. And people don't understand that number nine is beyond any reasonable doubt. That's what you use in your criminal cases. I'm in the civil world, in civil cases. And that's a very different burden of proof. That's 51% or better. It's the preponderance of evidence. In other words, 51% are better. So I have a lower burden of proof to deal with in the courtroom than RFM does in your courtroom, where it's the criminal cases going on. So it's just understanding what level of burden of proof that do you have. And on questions like, is there a God? We'll never have a 10, and all we'll have, at best, is a preponderance of evidence. And we need to understand that kind of those 10 different categories of burden of proof.

John Dehlin [00:51:53] Got it. All right.

RFM [00:51:56] Yeah. In a criminal case, just so you. I think you understand, it's not that you've been charged or tried criminally, but the entire procedure is set up with the burden of proof in mind, which is that it is the. The government that brings the charge. They have to bring the allegation. When you get to trial, opening statement, who goes first? Well, the state goes first. The prosecutor goes first. Because they have the burden of proof. They're making the allegation. Then the defense goes. And the defense doesn't even have to give an opening statement. They can elect to waive it or reserve it for later. Then you have the presentation of evidence. Who goes first? The state goes first because they brought the allegation. And then after all that's over. The defense can present theirs if they choose to. They don't have to present anything. They can make it a reasonable doubt case and try and say they have not met their burden of proof. And that's a totally valid line of defense because they have to prove it. And any prosecutor would totally second what I'm saying, because that's the way it's all set up. And that's why you get to the closing argument. Who goes first? The prosecutor goes first. Why? Because they have the burden of proof. Then the defense gets to go. And in a criminal case, by the way, because the burden of proof is so high, there's something different about a criminal case from a civil case, which is that the prosecutor now gets to give a second piece to the closing argument, their rebuttal. So prosecutor, closing argument, defense, and then prosecutor again. But that's in recognition of the fact that their burden of proof is so high.

John Dehlin [00:53:26] Got it. Nice.

Randy Bell [00:53:29] Okay, number six, Daubert challenge. Well, the Daubert challenge is a rule in federal court. The in state court is called fry in a lot of states. But Daubert is basically the judge has a gatekeeping role to keep junk science out of the courtroom. And that means that as an expert, you have to cite to a collaborative evidence in peer reviewed literature and you have to dismiss the junk science. And so that's basically saying in the world of critical thinking, academically or legally or whatever, that you have to challenge what you're given. You don't just passively accept stuff you're told. You need to really critically look at it and look at what other people are saying, what the other literature is saying. Is this really in conformance with mainstream literature? And if it's not, that's okay. But you know, you have to challenge it against that established literature.

John Dehlin [00:54:27] So this feels to me like reflecting the, the notion of duos, of getting multiple perspectives. And what comes to my mind immediately is Mormon apologetics. The fact that Hugh Nibley may be saying something about the Book of Abraham Papyrus, or, or you know, our buddy John, John G. Or his buddy Carrie Mills, Carrie Milstein. But then when you talk to any non Mormon Egyptologist like Robert Rittner, right. The entire field would say that they're all, they're all crazy, that they're all actually practicing not only pseudoscience, but like embarrassing, fraudulent, you know, lose your, lose your degree worthy kind of shoddy scholarship. And the fact that stuff that the Maxwell Institute or FARMS would publish would never even be accepted to be evaluated for, you know, reasonable Peer review shows that there's a real problem with. With our history within Mormon apologetics. Did I ever state that? Rfm.

RFM [00:55:31] No, I don't think so. There are two things that go on with this. We call it fry analysis. It's Daubert and federal court. Correct. I practice mainly in state court up in Washington, but it's the same idea. And to have an expert witness come in front of a jury and express an opinion to the jury. There's a couple of things. There's more than a couple. But for purposes here, there's two things that have to happen. First off, this individual has to be qualified as an expert in the subject on which they're going to testify. And that's where the judge has the gatekeeping function. You can't just have anybody come in and spout stuff to a jury because the judge recognizes and the court rules recognize. We want to make it so that what they're going to hear is. Has the best chance of being legitimate, since you're going to be making a decision based upon it. So you have to have an expert, and not just an expert. You have to have an opinion that they're expressing that is accepted, generally accepted in the scientific community. It cannot be a fringe opinion. So you could have an expert who is a legitimate expert, and you like John Gee. Okay. So he would qualify as an expert because of his education, but his opinion is not generally accepted in the scientific community, and therefore it is almost certain judges would differ. You know, there's different kinds of judges. But as a basic principle, he would not be allowed to testify about the Book of Abraham being ancient in front of a jury. So he would be excluded on that part. Now, Rodney Meldrum, whom you had on your show, I think, is that right?

John Dehlin [00:57:05] Yeah, I believe so.

RFM [00:57:06] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:57:07] Last time I checked.

RFM [00:57:08] The thing about Rodney Meldrum is I. I appreciate what he has to say, and I. When I say appreciate, I mean I appreciate his willingness to come on your show and say it. I certainly don't agree with everything he has to say. But from a legal perspective, number one, he doesn't qualify as an expert. He would not be allowed to testify in a court of law because he's not an expert. And not only is he not an expert, what he's opining about is not generally accepted in the scientific community. In fact, exactly the opposite. It is generally rejected in the scientific community. So he would not be allowed to testify in a court of law on both bases.

John Dehlin [00:57:45] Yeah.

Randy Bell [00:57:46] Yeah. Well said. And, you know, I mean, my mom's not here to toot my horn. But I, I have qualified in federal court on ancient America archaeological findings as it relate to Indian Native American lands. And in doing that, to qualify and to pass the Daubert challenges and everything else, to get into federal court, I had to demonstrate to the federal judge my knowledge of the topic. I had traveled coast to coast and looked at the mounds. I had seen the American Stonehenge, which he doesn't mention. A lot of these things were known to Joseph Smith prior to him writing the Book of Mormon. And that's why you might recall I submitted that question that you did ask Rodney about what other PhD level university league experts subscribe to this. And he kind of didn't give to me, at least for me, a satisfying answer. And you're absolutely right, rfm, he would not make it into court to testify. And although I have, I gotta be very careful to stay in my lane what the judge allows me to testify, not wander off into other points of view and other areas of expertise.

John Dehlin [00:59:04] So if Mormon apologists wanted to be ethical and follow the principles of critical thinking, they would have invited Michael Coe to, you know, in front of their audiences and said, michael, just tell us what you know about Mesoamerica and how the Book of Mormon does or doesn't reflect your understanding and the, and the, the scientific community's understanding of Mesoamerican archeology, anthropology. They would have invited Robert Ridner to come to byu, tell us what, what the papyra actually says and then they would have figured out what they're going to do from there. Instead of denounce, co. Denounce Rittner, smear them all. Yeah, try and hide the information from their community and then make up junk pseudoscience by people on the payroll to try and justify their positions. Fair.

Randy Bell [00:59:53] More than fair. And what's crazy interesting, when I was looking into Christianity along with everything else, I met some people at Biola University down in la. They literally, and this is in such contrast to Mormonism, they literally invite all the local and even international or national atheists and they have open debates in front of the entire student body of Christian versus atheists. And this is the Veritas Forum that comes out of Harvard University where they do this Christianity at all the major universities. They literally get the opponents and they have an intelligent, respectful debate or dialogue, whatever you want to call it. Imagine this. Imagine getting a call saying, hey, let's have John Dehlin, let's have rfm Bill Real, Jonathan Streeter, Alan Mount, Lindsey Hanson Park. I'VE missed somebody there.

John Dehlin [01:00:41] Jen's smiling. Why are you smiling, Jen?

Guest [01:00:43] I see an event in my future I'm putting together. I'm going to put it together.

Randy Bell [01:00:48] Let's bring them all to the Marriott center and have the apostles and prophets on one side and this crew on the other and let's have a discussion, a respectful dialogue. Yeah, that's exactly what goes on at Biola University, at universities ucla, Stanford, Harvard, Yale. It's going on all over the country, but it doesn't happen at byu. Okay. Does that look like real, legitimate critical thinking in an academic setting? It doesn't look like that to me. So how about you?

John Dehlin [01:01:17] Our families look like that to you?

RFM [01:01:18] No, it's a great point. And I don't know, by the way, Jen, get working on that, will you?

Guest [01:01:22] I will. I was good until we had to bring the profits in.

RFM [01:01:25] I know it went from doable to impossible. Yeah, but why is it impossible?

Guest [01:01:29] Because they won't.

RFM [01:01:30] Because they won't. They will not put their opinions out there in a forum in which they can be challenged.

John Dehlin [01:01:35] They wouldn't be interviewed by the press these days.

Guest [01:01:37] Really.

RFM [01:01:38] No, they won't. That's why they have their spokespeople ever

Randy Bell [01:01:40] since the BBC and Holland, I think.

John Dehlin [01:01:42] Yeah.

RFM [01:01:43] Oh, yeah. Yes. Elder Holland realized at that point why it was that apostles do not give interviews. I think that he thought, I've got the age. He's thinking, I got the gift of blarney. I can handle this. And he found out about five minutes into it. Too late. He couldn't. No. But this is something that. I hope this isn't off topic, but remember when the lawsuit in England and the fellow with the second anointing, Tom Phillips. Thank you. Tom Phillips was suing the church and he subpoenaed President Monson to come and testify. Now, it was a bit of a grandstand thing and I think anybody who knew anything about law, even in England, which is a little bit different, but we are derivative from the English common law. Right. Knew that this case probably wasn't going to go anywhere and he's going to get dismissed. But the church lawyer showed up and they immediately filed motions to quash the subpoena. So the. That Thomas Monson did not have to come over and testify in court. And, you know, this is a part of transition. We'll put it in yesterday's show. But the thought occurred to me, first off, I knew he was grandstanding Tom Phillips, and that the lawyers were going to get this quashed. But then it occurred to Me. You know, Thomas S. Monson is the president of the church, and he claims to be a prophet of God, and his job is to bear his witness of Jesus Christ and teach the gospel to the world. Why would not a prophet of God say, do not quash that subpoena. I'm showing up and I'm going to preach the gospel and bear my testimony in a forum that's been created for me by Tom Phillips and given me this platform. You bet I'm going to take it. I'm going to be there and I'm going to preach Christ and him crucified and Joseph Smith and him martyred.

John Dehlin [01:03:24] That's almost like what Abinadi did in front of, like, King Noah, right?

RFM [01:03:27] Yes. Except he doesn't have to worry about getting executed at the end. So he's executed.

John Dehlin [01:03:33] Did he get killed? Didn't it, Bennett? I'm rusty.

RFM [01:03:35] Well, yes, Abinadi did.

John Dehlin [01:03:37] Okay.

RFM [01:03:37] Thomas Monson would not really have to worry about okay.

Randy Bell [01:03:40] Yeah, he'd be okay.

John Dehlin [01:03:41] Okay.

RFM [01:03:41] At the end. But I. But this is where I start thinking about what's going on in the reality of the situation versus what should be going on. If the church leaders really are who they claim to be.

John Dehlin [01:03:51] Yeah. They should welcome an opportunity to testify to the world. Right?

Randy Bell [01:03:57] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:03:57] Yeah. Okay. All right, Randy, so now we've. We've finished the second section of your 15 principles of critical thinking, which was called Follow protocol. We're on to pursue authenticity with number seven, which is the Dunning Kruger effect. I hear that batted around a lot. Tell us what that is.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect and Calm Reasoning

Randy Bell [01:04:17] Yeah, it's basically. Basically, I have three sons and I won't tell you which one, but I have one son in particular that I'll be bringing up a topic. He won't know what the term means, so I'll see him Googling Wikipedia and read the first sentence off Wikipedia, and then he'll be an expert on that topic for the rest of the conversation. That's classic. Textbook Dunning Kruger effect. It's basically learning a little bit about a topic and then just being so excited to think you know everything about it.

John Dehlin [01:04:47] That's not a good thing.

Randy Bell [01:04:48] It's not a good thing. And we want to avoid the newcomer overconfidence and understand in court they expect legitimate proficiency. You've got to show up with your CV or curriculum Vette or your resume, whatever you want to call it. And you got to avoid the dogma where you know something and really you don't. You haven't really spent enough time researching it. And Normally people that get into dogma have not spent enough time researching or they be less dogmatic.

John Dehlin [01:05:15] So we're going to apply this to Mormonism. I mean, one example that comes to mind is just the missionary program. Like who do they choose to be the church's emissaries or the church's salespeople for the entire world. It's people that barely graduated from high school, haven't even been married yet, don't really know the church's history, its doctrine or theology, have not even had to live of Mormon doctrine of theology as an adult, and yet they're bright eyed, bushy tailed, super energetic, you know, missionaries. I don't know if that counts, but it comes to my mind and they're

RFM [01:05:48] much more likely to think that they do know.

John Dehlin [01:05:51] Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Missionary knows everything. Right, right.

Randy Bell [01:05:55] Well, I know I did.

John Dehlin [01:05:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rfm.

RFM [01:06:00] Yes, Hugh Nibley, I want to quote Hugh Nibley here so he does not get forgotten because he actually had a number of really wonderful insights and this is one of them. He talked about the gas law in physics, the one they got to see in, remember the class? But the gas, the law, the gas law, excuse me, is that any amount of gas, no matter how small, will expand to fill any container, no matter how large. That's what defines a gas in a very real way. And you're familiar with that idea. But what he said was he applied that to learning and to knowledge. And it's like this. He says any amount of knowledge, no matter how small, will expand to fill any container, no matter how large. And I think that's what you're talking about. And he talks about that as something to be avoided and to be aware of.

Randy Bell [01:06:48] Yeah, yeah. And this leads right into point A. And that's calm reasoning. And this is really, this is one to pause on and really consider, because calm reasoning is what they look for in the courtroom. I was in on the Scott Peterson trial, you know, the Lacy Peterson murder trial. I was actually in the courtroom and I was there the day the expert witness blew up because he had been nailed in terms of the credibility of his expert report. And he literally stood up and started yelling and it was like a movie theater. And the jury and the judge were all just looking at him like, what is going on? That's where you lose it. When you lose your composure, it's kind of all over. And my professors in the doctoral program, you could bring up any topic, these really ugly ethical debates over post birth abortion, which really ugly topics. They would stay very calm and reasoned in their discussions where I felt like flipping tables. And I see that a lot in the. And we're talking here about dogma, but I see people leaving the church, but they don't leave the dogma. They still have to be. It's all about being right. It's just changing the topics, and we got to be really keenly aware of that and just turn the dial down, have empathy for other people's points of view and look for common ground rather than being. I'm absolutely true. The church is true one day, and I'm absolutely true that there is no God. And if you do, you're a fool, and I'm going to call you bad names. I mean, that's all dogma, and it's all equally ridiculous. In my humble opinion.

RFM [01:08:32] It's always dogma.

Randy Bell [01:08:33] Yeah.

RFM [01:08:34] Yes. No. What I found out through my development is that it was very helpful to me to gain a certain amount of distance from a subject. And this really came home to me back when I was doing a musical back in the early 1980s. And there's this other guy who was a friend of mine. His name is Rusty. He is an inactive member of the church. And of course, I'm trying to do my job to get him to be active, but we are told we need to preach the gospel. We need to introduce people to the gospel, we need to talk about it to other people. And Mormons are really, really bad at doing that. And one of the reasons they're so bad at doing that is because they're scared to do it. And I think I'm just speaking for myself now. The reason I was scared to do it is because this is so closely held to me, and it is so part of me. Excuse me, These beliefs that I have about Mormonism that if my. If I put it out there to somebody and they reject it or make fun of it, then I feel like they are rejecting or making fun of me personally rather than this idea that's out there and what happened. So I didn't talk to many people about the gospel because they didn't want to risk it. What I saw Rusty doing backstage was talking about the premortal existence with other cast members, you know, were not on stage at the time. And. And I'm looking at him, and he just talks about the premortal existence and how this makes sense and this certain aspect of whatever it was he was discussing with these cast members, and he goes, you know, and that kind of makes sense. And they're going, yeah. And I'm looking at that freaking inactive Mormon. And I'm thinking, why is he so much more able to share the gospel with other people than I am? And I'm the one who believes it. It, I'm the one who's the real Mormon here. He's just inactive. And over time, I started realizing it's because he has a bit of distance from it. It's not so important to him that it be true. And if it's not so important to you, then you can be more objective about it and you can discuss it more or less emotionally with people. And I think that's what Randy's talking about. It's a hard thing to do, especially with religious beliefs, which is why religion promotes controversy and conflict and sometimes violence.

John Dehlin [01:10:41] Another thing that comes to mind in, in this calm reasoning thing isn't just anger and frustration, but, but also reverence. Because if you think about, let's just take General Conference, for example. Imagine there was no prayer. Imagine there was no huge auditorium with the right, you know, with the right stained glass windows or ornate chandeliers. Imagine that there's no Mormon tabernacle choir to set the mood and the hollowness and the flowers and then the, the voice of the general authorities echoing throughout the great acoustics. You know, imagine all of that emotionality was taken out of it, and it was just those dudes getting up and without their general authority voices that's echoing throughout the tabernacle. It's just like them explaining what they're saying. It's a very different experience. But religions, cathedrals, stained glass windows, choirs, they, they rely on emotion to deliver the message, which is effective. But what it does is it, it puts it more in the, in the amygdala. It puts kind of the reasoning more in the amygdala or the emotional center than it does in the cerebral frontal cortex, which is the executive functioning or the logical center. And so I think what we're saying is to, you know, it's, it's often useful to remove as much of the emotion as possible if you want to engage your cerebral frontal cortex and do the logical critical thinking and the reasoning.

Randy Bell [01:12:19] Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I, I, and I get your point 100%. I think that emotion still has a role to play. But no, for sure, yeah, yeah, I know that's not what you're saying, but I mean, looking at my own notes, it says, choose explanatory calm logic over confirmatory hot dogma. I got that phrase from Luna. Lindsay Corbden. We have a lot of conversations I have a lot of respect for Luna and also reject ignorant dismissals. That's kind of part of this calm reasoning. When people are charged up and emotionally charged, like Vinnie, you were talking about RFM and you present something, a book or an idea or something, the dogmatic person will give it an ignorant dismissal and just slap it down without considering it. Whereas at least the way I'm now at this point in my life, if somebody comes up with a new idea that's very contrary to a current belief, I'm happy to get the book, read it, talk about it generally calmly with like minded people. I love the diversity and the conversation over a whole spectrum of things. And I love sitting down with a Hindu and saying, you know, why is this monkey God so important to you? You know, obviously you have a lot of reference to build this big statue. Tell me about it and sit there and listen rather than having this agenda that I've got to shut down the ridiculousness of the Hindu monkey God. So that's the whole point of calm reasoning, is just sit and talk to people rather than trying to insert, you know, how they're wrong and you're right.

John Dehlin [01:13:49] I get it. I was just trying to maybe add a tiny bit to it. If you think about heart cell and the way the Mormon church used multimedia for decades, television commercials.

Randy Bell [01:13:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:59] The family. Isn't it about time There are other ways to inject emotionality other than anger and dismissal.

Randy Bell [01:14:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:06] There's also positive emotional manipulation that I think also can cloud reasoning. That's all I'm saying.

Randy Bell [01:14:13] Yeah. And you brought up heart cell. That's a fascinating topic. Have you done an episode on that? No, that would be really cool to get into.

John Dehlin [01:14:22] All right, so calm reasoning.

Randy Bell [01:14:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:25] Is number eight. What's number nine?

Randy Bell [01:14:27] Number nine is a big one. Full disclosure. And now this sounds a lot like

John Dehlin [01:14:31] informed consent to me.

Randy Bell [01:14:33] It is, but it's. It's full disclosure. When you buy a washing machine, you get a packet. That information tells you everything. All the lawyers want you to know you as a, as a human being, you can expect, expect and should expect complete transparency. Dismiss the distractions and non sequiturs and any dishonest witnesses. That's what happens in the courtroom. And we have a right to full disclosure. And you know, speaking for myself, going on a mission to England, I don't feel like I was told everything I should have been told and that I'm kind of learning now in my 50s and 60s.

John Dehlin [01:15:13] RFM, did you ever. Did you have a thought you wanted

Adversarial Systems, Full Disclosure, and Logical Fallacies

RFM [01:15:15] to add to that briefly, once again, the court system, we have the adversarial system in the United States. And the idea behind the adversarial system is that if you have both parties from different points of view trying to present their cases as effectively as they can, that has the greatest likelihood of giving full disclosure to the jury who ultimately has to make the decision. It is a huge temptation. Let me just tell you, if when I was a prosecutor, which I was for eight years, every now and again you're going to run up into somebody who doesn't want an attorney, they want to represent themselves, and it's always a bad idea. I just said always. But maybe this is a true, always not a good idea to represent yourself. Because the old saying is a person who represents himself has a fool for a client and the fool for a lawyer. Right? So. But when I'm a prosecutor and this happened once, going to trial is probably a DUI. It's 30 years ago, for crying out loud, this guy's representing himself. I know now that I can get away with a lot of things that are objectionable and get that into evidence in front of the jury, because this guy's not going to know to object. And it's really not the judge's job to object. For him, a person who represents themselves has to live with the consequences. The judge isn't supposed to. Supposed to be there to protect them. And so what it ends up being is that if you're the prosecutor or me as the prosecutor, I am not going to be telling the other side of the story for this guy. That's his job. With the result that the jury is not going to get as much full disclosure as they would if this defendant were represented by an attorney who were better able to present. That's that side of the case. And I think that, I don't know, this probably doesn't apply to all prosecutors. It probably did to me, which is not a good thing about me. But I'm there to win a case. I'm there to prove a point. I'm there to get a guilty verdict. That's what prosecutors do. And therefore, what is going to be the most likely to reach that guilty verdict is what I want to do. And that is not always about full disclosure. I'm not there to do the defense attorney's job. That's for the defense lawyer. Right. So. And I think it's very common. If I'm a defense lawyer, which I am now, I don't want to do the prosecutor's job. I don't Want to bring up. If I see something in the prosecutor's case that's bad for my client and it doesn't look like the prosecutor seen it, I'm not going to bring it to the prosecutor's attention and say, oh, I think you missed this. So it's this idea that full disclosure is usually not something that's going to come from one side or the other. It's usually probably going to come if you go to both sides, you need both. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:18:13] Yeah. And be worried about any system that doesn't work hard to give you all sides.

Randy Bell [01:18:18] Bingo.

John Dehlin [01:18:19] Right. Can I do you, Randy? And we may. This is just the thought. We may put off the discussion about Heaven's Gate for a separate episode because I sense. I don't know, it's just a thought. Think about that. But I'm going to share a quote that I want to analyze based on the 0.9 full disclosure. This is a recent statement that just came out, like yesterday, the day before by an LDS Church attorney about why the Mormon Church doesn't disclose its finances. Let's just see if it fits the full disclosure test. I'd love Randy and rfm. And even, of course, you, Jen, your analysis of the statement and why it might be problematic.

RFM [01:18:58] Can I just say one thing? I haven't heard the statement, but I'm going to tell you right now that any answer it's going to give is wrong. There is not going to be any rational and reasonable.

Randy Bell [01:19:11] Let's start with point number one. Open construct.

RFM [01:19:13] Right? Right. There's not going to be anything.

John Dehlin [01:19:16] We should be open, Randy.

Randy Bell [01:19:17] Well, let's hear what he has to say and let's.

RFM [01:19:20] I'll just tell you right off the bat. I can predict this based upon past performance. There's not going to be any legitimate reason that the church has.

John Dehlin [01:19:27] And I'm going to say you're violating Randy's.

Randy Bell [01:19:30] Yeah, you're violating number one.

John Dehlin [01:19:31] Have an open construct. Have an open construct.

Randy Bell [01:19:34] They're coming clean. Let's will see.

RFM [01:19:37] We will see if I am a prophet.

John Dehlin [01:19:38] Whether or not you're a prophet doesn't mean you're following the rules of critical thinking.

RFM [01:19:42] No, but it means I have a direct connection to God and you should listen to what I say.

John Dehlin [01:19:45] Now that's legitimate. If anybody is a prophet, it's rfm. True. True, Jen. Actually, Jen's the prophet. Okay, here's the quote. Quote, Coerced disclosure of church finances already sealed would expose innumerable ecclesiastic decisions about how and where sacred church funds are spent. It would subject those decisions to public scrutiny, pressure, and questioning. And that's why we should not. The church should not be made to disclose its finances because it would subject the church's decisions to. To public scrutiny, pressure, and questioning.

Randy Bell [01:20:32] Yeah, I call bs.

John Dehlin [01:20:36] Give a critical analysis of that.

Randy Bell [01:20:38] Yeah, I think I forgot to put BS on here, but let's start with the first word.

RFM [01:20:43] Coerced.

Randy Bell [01:20:44] Yeah.

RFM [01:20:44] Why should it have to be coerced? This is victim language. Do not force us to disclose the secrets of the things we're hiding. Right. Because if you do, it's coercion. And coercion is something that we don't like in our society. Therefore, we're going to start with the very first word. And you're going to work in sacred. You're going to work in all this subject to. Right. It's all victim language. That we are hiding things from the members and from the world. And if you force us to disclose it, that is by its very nature a bad thing. And the first question I have is, why the hell does it have to be coerced in the first place?

Guest [01:21:20] Because then first comes to my mind is that then they would have to apologize. And they don't apologize.

RFM [01:21:28] Yeah. And. Well, the only thing.

Guest [01:21:29] Because it would have facts.

RFM [01:21:30] Yes.

Guest [01:21:31] And we. They would need to apologize. It would be what they should do. And they already have stated they will never apologize for anything.

RFM [01:21:42] I think the only thing that makes it worse, Jen, it's my money.

Guest [01:21:46] Yeah.

RFM [01:21:46] They're talking about my money.

Guest [01:21:48] Yeah.

RFM [01:21:48] That they won't disclose.

Guest [01:21:50] Well, and they're talked about. They're talking about God's money. Like, truly. Because they said that they are going to, you know, gather it from all of us who gave it to God. And it's God's money. It's not to, you know, build up their empire or their malls or, you know, investing in. In things that aren't giving back. Like Jesus would, you know, they're using it for their own gain. And that's. That's not what we gave it to.

RFM [01:22:22] No. And there's this great meme that synopsized this idea so the other day. Sometimes memes really get to the kernel of truth. They've got Jesus talking to this, this guy and there's all these fish in the background. And the guy's talking to Jesus and says, I gave you a. I gave you 5 million fish over the course of my life, and now I'm hungry. Can I have one of those fish? And Jesus is saying, not so fast. I. You need to be. What is it? Independent. You need to be financially independent. And that just brought it all home. Right. That will take. And this is another thing about the church. I'm sorry about this. This really lights me up because it's a recent kind of realization.

John Dehlin [01:22:59] Live episode is in the works.

RFM [01:23:01] No, no. Well, somebody else has said this, but when they said it, it brought it home so much to me that when the church wants money from its members, the church has to be paid first off the top. When a member needs help, the church is the last person in line that the member should go to.

Guest [01:23:19] Yeah, they do state that. They tell, tell you to go to family first and. Or, you know, get, you know, work, work more or I don't know. They, but they do. They, they say to go to the bishop last.

RFM [01:23:34] Right. And now with the new manual, they actually put the government in there before the church. Oh, and Ezra Taft Benson is doing that in his grave, Spinning in his grave. Because the government was never supposed to be something you were supposed to go to as a Latter Day Saint. You went to your family, you went to your friends, then finally to the church. But now they've got government before church in there.

Randy Bell [01:23:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:56] And just to kind of close out this quote, Randy, what's wrong with the statement? It would subject those decisions, the church's decisions, to public scrutiny, pressure and questioning. They're saying that that's a bad thing.

Randy Bell [01:24:11] Well, that's the 180 degrees from critical thinking. It's 180 degrees from egos, logos, pathos and duos. You have to wonder yourself in the courtroom. You get information suppressed and sometimes the jury kind of catches onto that and wonder what are they hiding? And I just don't buy it. I think the more times you turn on the lights and have open conversations and authenticity is when you get the best decisions. When you turn off the lights and you're hiding and concealing things. I don't care how much lipstick you slap on that pig, it's still a pig. And it still looks really pretty ugly. Yeah, it's a great example of non full disclosure. We're entitled. You know, I will only join a. And the same problem exists frankly in the Christian community where some Christian churches hide their financials and others have open transparent financials. Maybe not to the public, but certainly to all the contributors. And I wouldn't ever join a church that doesn't. That's just one of my criteria.

John Dehlin [01:25:12] What's super weird is non profits are required to disclose their finances annually, but religions aren't Totally wrong. I don't know why that makes sense.

Randy Bell [01:25:20] It makes no sense.

John Dehlin [01:25:21] Someone can explain that to me. I'd love to understand.

RFM [01:25:23] I will put it forward as a general principle that if the church doesn't want to tell you something, it's because it makes the church look bad.

John Dehlin [01:25:30] Yeah, absolutely.

RFM [01:25:31] If the church. If something makes the church look good, they're going to be at the front of the line telling you.

John Dehlin [01:25:36] That sounds like critical thinking.

Randy Bell [01:25:38] Well, the church was actually a client of mine back when I was with PricewaterhouseCoopers and I got a little glimpse into the vast wealth. And it is a remarkably wealthy institution that has a vast real estate portfolio, holdings that are really remarkably impressive. And I've seen lots of. I got clients that are billionaires that own a lot of real estate. The church just, you know, casts them in a big shadow. I mean, they, they loom over everyone else.

John Dehlin [01:26:05] It's like 4% of Florida.

Randy Bell [01:26:07] That and a lot of other stuff. And. And yeah, it's phenomenally wealthy.

John Dehlin [01:26:12] Okay. We are leaving pursue authenticity to reject flawed arguments. Number 10.

Randy Bell [01:26:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:20] Is logical fallacies.

Randy Bell [01:26:21] Well, logical fallacies, but there's one other comment rfm you made to me the other day that I want to go back to. To full disclosure. You said everybody that joins the church should be given a. Like you buy a washing machine, you get. You get the. The disclosure. And it was your idea. You know what I'm talking about.

RFM [01:26:38] Oh, yeah, I do remember, because you brought up the washing machine analogy. It's like when you get a washing machine, you get this huge packet. It may be fine print, but you get all this information that you're required by law to give to the consumer. Plus you get like 30 days or whatever it is to return it and get your money back if you're not satisfied, no questions asked. And I was just talking with you and we're laughing about. Everybody who takes the missionary discussion should be given a copy of all of the church essays, minimum to read over. And if they change their mind within 30 days after getting baptized, they can turn their membership back in.

John Dehlin [01:27:10] It's like, it's like a ecclesiastical annulment, basically.

Randy Bell [01:27:14] Well, you should get the full disclosure. You should get all the essays and they should be signed and they should be handed to you. And before you join this organization, what are you joining? If you want to join, terrific. But you have full disclosure.

John Dehlin [01:27:28] Yeah.

Randy Bell [01:27:29] Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. Moving on to reject flawed arguments. There's three categories here, and the first two are really Luna Lindsay Corbin's categories, Logical fallacies and cognitive bias. I think we probably knock these two out at once, but. And Luna's podcasts here were brilliant.

John Dehlin [01:27:51] We'll include those in the show Notes.

Randy Bell [01:27:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:53] Recovery agency is the book. Yeah, yeah, it's a great, great book. Great podcast series.

Randy Bell [01:28:00] And logical fallacies. Avoid pure conjecture and logical errors. There's all kinds of examples. Straw man, ad hominem, red herring, the Barnum effect.

John Dehlin [01:28:10] We had John Larsen on Mormon stories recently talking about logical fallacies, which is a decent intro.

Randy Bell [01:28:16] Yeah, I. I think Luna has put enormous amounts of thought.

John Dehlin [01:28:22] We should have Luna on. To talk about logical fallacies.

Randy Bell [01:28:24] Well, absolutely. Yeah. I thought she did.

John Dehlin [01:28:28] They. They came on and talked about undue influence.

Randy Bell [01:28:32] Oh.

John Dehlin [01:28:33] But we haven't had a special on logical fallacies.

Randy Bell [01:28:36] That would be epic.

John Dehlin [01:28:37] Yeah.

Randy Bell [01:28:38] Because Luna has. He. She's. Luna's got that market cornered.

John Dehlin [01:28:42] Yeah.

Randy Bell [01:28:43] Along with cognitive bias, which is to refute errors and thinking and bias and feelings before evidence and reason. That's where we're talking about confirmation bias and bandwagon thinking, that kind of thing. Those are both gigantic subsets of critical thinking, and they're in my mind, essential reading or listening to really get somewhat of a command of this topic.

John Dehlin [01:29:08] So I've got a couple examples that come to my mind about classic Mormon logical fallacies or cognitive bias. But do you want to. Do you want to float any RFM before I jump in?

RFM [01:29:17] My favorite one at this point in my life has to do with what Elder Holland said recently. Well, not that recently. More in general conference about crawling under, over around the Book of Mormon to get out of the church. And he talks about how Hyrum Smith and Joseph Smith were in Carthage jail that afternoon right before the mob shows up and they end up dying and being murdered. But reading that Book of Mormon. Remember he held up the Book of Mormon, the very book with the page still turned down that. That Hiram had read from. And he proposed the fact that he proposed the idea. These men would not have given their lives unless. Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [01:29:55] Yeah, keep going.

RFM [01:29:57] Unless this were true. Unless they really believe it or true. Unless this were really true and they'd really experience the things that they had experienced, especially Joseph Smith and First vision and everything else. Right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:06] Well, that's to the bombers, to the 911 and men who flew their planes into the. The trade towers. Like people die for their religious beliefs all the time.

RFM [01:30:18] Within that bubble. It makes sense, Right?

John Dehlin [01:30:21] Yeah.

RFM [01:30:22] Within that bubble of the Mormon audience who wants to already believe it and is not going to pursue thinking about what he said.

John Dehlin [01:30:29] Right.

RFM [01:30:29] At all.

John Dehlin [01:30:30] Tell that to Jim Jones and his followers. Tell that to David Kresh and his followers. Like lots of people die for their religious beliefs. Beliefs doesn't make the beliefs true.

RFM [01:30:37] Right. Yeah, that's exactly what I have here.

John Dehlin [01:30:39] That's perfect. Yeah.

RFM [01:30:40] Just a little bit different because it's based upon this premise which we, when you put it this way, it immediately makes it obvious that it's not true. But here it is. Just because someone is willing to die for their beliefs doesn't mean those beliefs are true.

John Dehlin [01:30:55] Yeah. Right.

RFM [01:30:57] Which totally undercuts his entire argument about that.

John Dehlin [01:31:00] Totally.

RFM [01:31:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:01] Yeah.

RFM [01:31:01] Logical fallacy.

John Dehlin [01:31:02] Love it. Yeah. A couple that come to my mind. You know, you, you've got the ad hominem here. Like how common is it when anybody critics criticizes the church? The church will just. Well, it's the, it's the going. It's the Scientology fair game notion. You just smear the critic.

Randy Bell [01:31:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:20] Whether it's Simon Southerton, well he was an adulterer. Or Fawn Brody, well she was a lesbian. Or you know.

Randy Bell [01:31:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:27] Pick whatever. John de Lynn because he earns an income running his non profit. Like the church smears its critics and that's ad hominem. That's a logical fallacy because the validity of my argument has nothing to do with attacks on my character or anyone else's character. It's the argument that should be evaluated. Not especially. And it's even worse when you're making up smears to ruin someone's reputation. Yeah, that's even, that's doubly worse because you're not only it doesn't matter what their character is, but then you're lying to smear them. Like that's doubly bad. So that's, that's the past 150 years. Like I'm so still frustrated with how the hurlbut affidavits have been just like dismissed as totally worthless and non credible when it comes to Joseph Smith's character. Wait a minute. These were the people that freaking knew him, that knew his family. They were his neighbors. They went on the treasure digs. Why shouldn't the hurlbut affidavits be some of the most important evidence we have to testify to the Smith family character. But the Mormon church says nope, they were critics of the church. Emma's dad was a critic of the church. He didn't like Joseph. So his, his testimony is completely invalid. So you know, that's, that's a logical fallacy. And then the other one, cognitive bias is Just remember growing up and how like the Mormon Church is growing. Look at all the temples dotting the globe. You know, Rodney Stark says we're going to have 200 million Mormons within 10 or 20 years. What is that? What logic? What, you know, what bias, you know, what logical fallacy is that bandwagon, isn't it?

Randy Bell [01:32:59] Right, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:00] It's basically saying because we're growing, it must mean we're true. And not only is that, not only is that a logical fallacy, it turned out to be inaccurate because the church is within a few decades of actually shrinking, not growing. Right, right.

Randy Bell [01:33:15] Yeah, I'll get examples. Yeah. And it's really unfortunate when you start labeling people apostates or, you know, when I came to my decision to leave Mormonism and ultimately my decision was to convert to Christianity, mainstream Christianity, you know, I got called to my face. You know, you're in a dark place and all kinds of, you know, put downs. These labels are no fun. You kind of know they're coming because I was once one of the people that, you know, use those labels. You know, fortunately, I've graduated beyond that point. But. And they're sometimes effective in the courtroom. I mean, you tell me, you're the attorney, but, you know, calling people names or pointing out, you know, past mistakes can be very effective, but it really is dodging the issue. And when you're desperate and insecure about the argument itself, that's the go to place. Start calling people names.

John Dehlin [01:34:06] Yeah, absolutely.

Randy Bell [01:34:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:08] Okay. Logical fallacies and cognitive bias. What is number 12? Undue influence. I guess we did a whole series with Luna Lindsay on this, but go ahead.

Randy Bell [01:34:17] Yeah. And again, yeah, Luna is brilliant. Consider Kuo Bono, which is basically who benefits from the argument. Reject groupthink, you know, echo chambers, manipulation. And this is the big one, prohibiting open questions. I remember in the mission home in England, I once had a question because I was asked, asked by an investigator a question. I asked this question to the mission president and his wife happened to be standing there. And I said, well, I had this question posed to me and I asked the question and he gave an answer that wasn't really compelling. And so I kind of re asked the question and kind of drilled down a little deeper and his wife just kind of. I didn't want to say she shouted at me, but she was quite loud in her, you know, what is it with you, Elder Bella? Are you losing your testimony? It was like, no, this is a question. I didn't know the answer. And I'm asking you. Apparently you don't have an answer either, but I felt very shut down and simply not even my question. Asking an investigator's question wasn't cool. And that's a cultural problem that's usually amassed for the fact that underneath it all is something that's desperate and insecure.

RFM [01:35:30] It's one of those thought stopping techniques.

Randy Bell [01:35:32] Yeah.

RFM [01:35:32] Like, it's not pertinent to my salvation. Excuse me. How many times have I heard that raise up an issue? Well, it's not pertinent to my salvation, which means I'm not going to go there and I'm not going to let you go there. And after a while hearing this enough, I started responding with, how could you possibly know whether this is pertinent to your salvation? And usually they didn't have an answer to that, but the conversation stopped anyway.

John Dehlin [01:36:00] Doubt your doubts is another one, right?

RFM [01:36:03] Yes. Especially if you say it in a Teutonic accent. I'm just waiting for Elder Uchtdorf to say, get the chopper.

John Dehlin [01:36:16] We love you.

Randy Bell [01:36:18] We certainly do.

Undue Influence and Questioning Closed Organizations

John Dehlin [01:36:20] All right. Yeah. So undo influence. Yeah. Beware of any organization that discourages questions and doubts. Run away. Run away from that organization. Look for organizations that are like, bring us your hardest questions. We want to do better. We want to be better. You know, I, I'll never forget our interview with Kelly Lang, who's in the US Navy. He helps commandeer several submarines for the US Navy. He, he said that, that, that, that the military needs critical thinking. The military. You would think sometimes of the US Military as an organization that would completely issue and disincent criticism or questions, but people's lives are at stake. They're trying to defend our country. And he says there's a real culture of inviting criticisms. And that's not to say the military is perfect, but when the military is doing better than your religious organization, you probably have a problem.

RFM [01:37:18] Right.

Randy Bell [01:37:20] Yeah, that was a compelling point.

John Dehlin [01:37:23] All right, so that's Undo Influence. And check out Luna, Lindsay Corbden's book Recovering Agency. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. But it's the best book I know of. About. Along with Stephen Hassan's book on combating cult mind control.

Randy Bell [01:37:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:38] The whole bite model. It's all about undo influence.

RFM [01:37:41] Can I make the passing observation that when you're talking about religion, almost always undue influence is built into the system? Because generally it's, you believe what we say to believe and do what we say to do, and the undue influence is heaven or hell or for eternity, you're going to be in a better place or a worse place.

Randy Bell [01:38:00] Well, I would agree with you in large part. I can tell you, having explored all kinds of different religions, both Christian and non Christian, that's not. That's not the point of view of a lot of other religions. In fact, one thing that caught my ear is Rick Warren said in a sermon where I was attending Saddleback Church, he said, you know, forget your feelings. You can get a good feeling from a burrito. You know, go and, you know, check this evidence. Read this book. And he was getting very logical, and that was very appealing to me. So not all religions are. I agree with you in large part, but. But there are smart religions out there. I'll stand by that.

Accepting Compelling Arguments and Evaluating Evidence

John Dehlin [01:38:41] All right, so that covers our reject flawed arguments section. We're down to the last section of your model, Randy Bell, which is accept compelling arguments. And point 13 on that is rules of evidence.

Randy Bell [01:38:58] Yeah, and this is, again, a very big topic. And I'm sure RFM has a lot to contribute here on what. What gets allowed into the courtroom is evidence. There's direct evidence, meaning. Here's. Let me see. Direct. Where is it? Well, circumstantial evidence, you know, rfm, I got my notes, but they don't make a lot of sense. You can kind of talk about what kind of evidence is more compelling than others.

RFM [01:39:25] The answer to that is it's up to the person, it's up to the jury to decide. There's a specific jury instruction on that issue. And all evidence is divided into two main kinds. There's direct and there's circumstantial. And in our culture, for whatever reason, we are trained to think that direct evidence is better than circumstantial evidence. We used. We talk about circumstantial evidence as if that means something that's weak compared to direct evidence, which is strong. And the purpose of this instruction to the jury is to correct that misapprehension and say direct evidence is simply a type of evidence. It means the witness is saying, I perceived this with my own senses. Usually I saw, could be, I heard, even smelled. But it's something the witness is saying. I have this direct experience. Direct evidence. Right. Circumstantial evidence is anything other than direct evidence, which includes, by the way, fingerprints. It includes DNA. That's circumstantial evidence. Fingerprints are circumstantial evidence. There's this wonderful old story that I learned in law school, which is called circumstantial evidence can be very strong, like the trout in the milk, which makes absolutely no sense. It Made no sense to me until I get the backstory, which is back probably around Joseph Smith's day, maybe a little bit later. It was very common to. You had milk and you had it in open jugs or whatever containers that you would sell to people who'd come in to buy the milk. Excuse me. Well, believe it or not, there were some unscrupulous dairy farmers who would increase their profits by putting water in the milk, and they might go to the stream, get some water in there, halfway, fill it up with milk, and then sell it. All right? And so this became a lawsuit. And the idea was that circumstantial evidence of watering the milk down can be very strong, like finding a trout in the milk, because there's no freaking way a trout's going to get into a milk jar unless it's been watered down at the stream. They don't typically come through the cow. Right.

John Dehlin [01:41:35] So that's good to the other.

RFM [01:41:36] And the thing that's really shocking is that you've heard of the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is where people. There's a group of people who are going back into old cases, old convictions, usually murder cases, before DNA evidence was available or the analysis was as sophisticated and as determinative as it is today. And going back and finding cases where there was. Were samples taken that are still subject to DNA analysis and running it through the mill and finding out so they have managed to free from life sentences or extremely long sentences, people who they find out through DNA analysis actually did not commit the crime that they were convicted of.

John Dehlin [01:42:21] Yeah.

RFM [01:42:22] And the thing that's especially shocking about it is that when they went back to the trials, they found out that a large proportion of those people who were wrongfully convicted, we know they're wrongfully convicted now because of the DNA. A large proportion, and maybe even a majority were convicted based upon eyewitness.

Randy Bell [01:42:40] Yeah.

RFM [01:42:40] Testimony. Direct evidence.

Randy Bell [01:42:43] Yeah. Oftentimes That's a great point, because the only thing I really got out of my analysis of evidence was oftentimes the circumstantial evidence will trump the direct evidence. So the notion that circumstantial evidence is inferior is just not utter nonsense.

RFM [01:43:00] Oh, and by the way, this plays into Mormonism, too, because it seems that Joseph Smith was very aware and cognizant and wanted to create a. An evidentiary basis for the Book of Mormon. So he gets three witnesses and then 12 witnesses. So there's something going on where he is thinking this is important to do so. And whatever else was going on, it's Obvious that this was important at the time, at the foundation of Mormonism, to have some kind of evidentiary basis with witnesses, unfortunately. Well, regardless of what the witnesses saw or said they saw or when they said they saw it. And I know there's a lot of controversy there. That's eyewitness testimony, that's direct evidence. And it could be strong, but it's not necessarily strong. And innocent people have gone to prison for life based upon that same kind of testimony.

John Dehlin [01:43:53] Yeah, yeah. In the case of Joseph Smith's witnesses, once you really scratch that surface, it almost looks like he was trying to create the appearance of. Of. Of witness testimony versus actual witness testimony. Just like BYU and Mormon apologists try to create the appearance of scholarship without actual scholarship.

RFM [01:44:16] Well, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:16] And objectivity being applied.

Randy Bell [01:44:19] Yeah. Excuse me. The. When I first was going through my thing five years ago, I went to Fair Mormon. We were allowed to say Mormon back then. And. And I superficially, I thought, oh, my gosh, here's all this academic research and this is going to save the day. Because I was. Nobody on planet Earth wanted or still wants the Mormon Church to be true more than me. I was thoroughly happy in the church and was looking for a logical basis to stay in. Superficially, this looked like great academia that was going to save the day. And then I started reading the responses and I just thought, oh, my God, my gosh, this is the best they got. This is so adolescent and absurd. And at that point, I. That was that.

John Dehlin [01:45:06] Yeah. Randy, I have to sometimes play a little bit of a. Sort of like a devil's advocate or even a critical role. Even when I really respect you and what you're saying, when we start getting into the realm of rules of evidence, I again, I start to think, wow, is this. Is this even possible in a religious worldview? Because whether it's. Was there an Adam and Eve or how many animals, you know, was there a Noah? And how many animals did he put on the boat? Or did God appear to Moses at the burning bush? Or was Jesus resurrected? Or did Joseph Smith have golden plates? Or is there a God? Like, if I'm actually looking for evidence, I don't have evidence of any of that. That really satisfies my. I mean, that was part of my experience with the Mormonism. They kept saying, pray about it, pray about it. And I would. And I wouldn't get any. God wouldn't come talk to me. He still hasn't come to talk to me.

Randy Bell [01:46:04] Right.

John Dehlin [01:46:05] And the only way that I could ever get there is if I, like, reinterpreted talking to God to being my own feelings, which are easily mistakeable. Obviously if there's a 10,000 religions out there, people are confusing their feelings with God unless God is the author of confusion and is creating all 10,000 religions. And so like sometimes I feel like why are we even talking about evidence in a religious context? But I know we've had done entire podcasts on that, but I just, I just have to sort of, I know that there's going to be viewers and listeners that are going to be saying, well, as soon as we're talking about evidence, religions kind of dead in the water.

Randy Bell [01:46:46] Yeah, and I would definitely disagree on that point. I mean, can you can you at

John Dehlin [01:46:50] least acknowledge or empathize with that feeling?

Randy Bell [01:46:53] Yeah, I've felt the same feelings myself, so I can more than empathize. I've shared the same doubts and to some degree I still do. I mean our talk about preponderance of evidence, you know, is there a God starting with that one? I'm not a, out of one to ten. I'm not a ten.

John Dehlin [01:47:10] Right.

Randy Bell [01:47:11] You know, but I think there's compelling evidence. I kind of summed it up in a little thing I wrote. It's very brief. It says, but this is where I'm coming from. Denying the existence of God leads us to the remarkable conclusion that nothing produces something random. Luck produces a fine tuned universe and raw chemicals magically produce self forming self replicating cells with DNA more complex than the space shuttle. More fantastic is that cosmic debris randomly became conscious, self aware and altruistic. So that's a summation of where I'm coming from. So landing on there is no God, you have to. By that, by that position, there's a lot to defend there that I can.

John Dehlin [01:47:54] That there is no God, but that there isn't compelling evidence. Oh, we don't, we are not going to get back into this. We have an entire episodes about this. Yeah, I'm just asking you, I'm just sort of representing the point of view that when we're. It's difficult to talk about compelling evidence in a religious framework. That's all I'm saying. And I'm asking you to defend it. I, I'm just putting forth that point.

Randy Bell [01:48:17] I appreciate it and I totally can empathize with that.

John Dehlin [01:48:21] Yeah, yeah.

Randy Bell [01:48:22] And I think your feelings on that are very valid.

John Dehlin [01:48:25] But I'm not trying to say religion's invalid. That's not what I'm saying.

Randy Bell [01:48:27] Yeah, yeah. And that's what I love is we have four different points of View in this room. And we have calm logic. You know, we have calm reasoning.

RFM [01:48:35] Can I jump in the. In the middle of this knife fight? Always a dangerous proposition.

John Dehlin [01:48:41] I love each other.

Randy Bell [01:48:42] That's right.

RFM [01:48:42] I know. But it's a good thing that you're seated, you know, that far. That's all I can say. Here's what I want to say, just as an attorney, and you'll understand this and you'll know this right, which is that there is a difference between proof and evidence. Evidence is what is admissible by the judge because it's considered to be relevant to whatever the issue is that the jury has to decide. If it's irrelevant, it doesn't come in. If it's irrelevant, it does come in. But that's evidence. Then you take it to a jury of 12 people who are supposed to be 12 reasonable people, and you have a jury selection process to try and ensure that as much as you can, that you've got 12 reasonable people. And what will frequently happen is that everybody is instructed on the jury. This is the evidence. It's only what is presented in court. You're not to go out and look up any evidence of your own that could cause a mistrial. If that happens and it comes to the knowledge of. Of the court. It's what is presented in court only. So the jury, all 12 of them, hear the exact same evidence. They all know exactly what the burden of proof is in the case. And yet it will frequently happen that you will have a hung jury. And they cannot all agree that the exact same amount of evidence convinced them to whatever that burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt in my case, as in the criminal context, that this person is guilty or that degree of evidence has been attained to prove to them. So that's the proof. The proof is the internal part. Evidence is objective. Proof is how much it convinces you. So all I'm saying is that with reasonable people, the exact same evidence will frequently convince one of the jurors beyond a reasonable doubt, of guilt. Yeah, but another juror says, no, I'm not convinced.

John Dehlin [01:50:31] Yeah. And if I'm. If I'm trying to look at your argument, Randy, your quote, with empathy, you're basically saying, hey, this. This existence is so beautiful, it's so complex. It's so inspiring to think that it just sprung forth out of nothing, from nothing, with no design, with no energy or power bringing it into existence. That doesn't make sense.

Randy Bell [01:50:59] Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [01:51:00] And I. I think there's. I think. So you're saying for you, that's Evidence. Right. And that may or may not be. What was the other term you use

RFM [01:51:09] evidence for you too, right?

Randy Bell [01:51:10] It's evidence. It's just. It may be.

John Dehlin [01:51:12] Exactly, exactly. It's evidence.

Randy Bell [01:51:14] But it may not be compelling to you. But it's compelling to me, so.

John Dehlin [01:51:17] Well, I live in the. I live in the question question. So, yeah, you'll never paint me as an atheist or agnostic because I don't identify that. I'm happy living in the mystery.

Randy Bell [01:51:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:27] And saying I'm not sure and I'm not either.

Randy Bell [01:51:29] That's why I'm kind of an agnostic theist.

RFM [01:51:31] And the difference here could be as simple as this, that the evidence that you both agree on because it's all around us. And if you've done your due diligence and studied and gotten both sides of the story, that perhaps that evidence does not convince you beyond a preponderance of the evidence more than 50% that God exists, you could actually be at 49% and not be convinced. Randy could be at 51% and you're really not that far apart.

John Dehlin [01:51:58] Yeah. And religion would say that's why you need faith to make up the difference.

Randy Bell [01:52:03] Oh, that's what really happened over a little bit. But that's what religion says, some religion does. But for me, the evidence there is evidence. It's a question of whether it's compelling or not. For me, it pushes me over 51%. And I don't know that. But you know, I've written articles on the scientific method. A hypothesis is. You have to have faith in your hypothesis so we can get into that, you know, that old thing. But the cool thing is, I mean, rfm, we've had this conversation where in the legal. Take the legal scene, you got the best, brightest, presumably minds in the world or certainly the United States on the Supreme Court. And you put a case before them and the evidence before them and they can be sharply divided. And it's not that they're nice, not smart, it's not that they're not cool, it's not that they're not friendly, but they just have different points of view. And that's when we're talking about critical thinking. We have to accept the fact that we're not all going to land on the same page. And I think that makes it for a more interesting world.

RFM [01:53:05] Right. And it's helpful to understand that that's a great example that we've talked about. But. But the idea that just because someone does comes to a different conclusion than you does not Mean that they're ignorant or stupid or dumb or in some way inferior. I mean, it could be that case, but generally speaking, it's just because they view the evidence differently than you do.

John Dehlin [01:53:29] Sure.

Randy Bell [01:53:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:53:32] Okay. So Rules of evidence is 13. Now we are on to. We're almost done to 14, which is test assumptions.

Cross-Examination and Imagining Critical Missionary Discussions

Randy Bell [01:53:42] Yeah. That's where we directly question our proponents, opponents, neutral parties, and always test everyone's knowledge for errors. In other words, this is where we just test and check out things. And cross examination, you know, in the courtroom, witnesses and expert witnesses earn the right to be there. Not so much by the cross examination. That's your own side or. Not that we're picking sides, but that's where your clients are asking questions. Cross examination, how do you stand up to the cross exam? And I'm sure you've seen witnesses in the courtroom, rfm, who came across great on direct, and then under cross, they just fell apart. I've seen it all the time. I. I don't know if any stories come to mind, but it's a big deal.

RFM [01:54:35] Usually the direct examination is going to be easier than the cross.

Randy Bell [01:54:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RFM [01:54:38] And hopefully you're preparing your witness for the cross. Right. Effectively enough that they won't. But sometimes, you know, they will fall apart. I've certainly had that experience.

Randy Bell [01:54:47] Yeah. And if you're going to make a claim, you by definition should expect cross examination. But when you shut down that dialogue and don't allow cross examination, like some folks I know on South Temple, that really is puzzling. Because if these are true truth claims, where's the right for cross examination? That's just a fundamental of any courtroom and trying to get at the truth of a matter.

RFM [01:55:15] Yeah. One of the basic things I do with preparing a client for cross examination is I tell them, look, the other side has some points to make and they're valid points if they. But they're going to ask you that question. I mean, they've got to. Right. They're going to ask you this question. Just admit it. All right? Yeah, Just admit. Don't fight it, because all you're going to do is fight it. And then you're going to be wrapped around the axle. And after five or ten minutes of flailing, then you're going to have to admit it anyway. And if you admit it up front, then, okay, you're done. You took your lump. It's okay, you admit it. You were honest. That's good for the jury. And the prosecutor doesn't have anywhere to go because they made their point if you start fighting it, then the point becomes much bigger because not only do you have to admit it, you're trying to hide it. And that makes the point that the prosecutor, or me, if that's the case for me, much more powerful to the jury. Which is why, as a psychological tactic, the church should just admit things instead of always hiding it. It's the old line about the COVID up is worse than the original crime.

John Dehlin [01:56:27] Yeah. Yeah. And again, if the church really had confidence in its product, it would welcome investigators to talk to former members who. Who ideally would just say, hey, I had a great experience and I've moved on to something else, but I really recommend it. Like, there's plenty of people that could say, I love my Camry and now I'm driving a Beamer. Right, Right. And I don't think a Toyota. Toyota would fear, you know, saying, go talk to my Camry owners. They may not be driving a Camry now, but they still will feel good about their experience with the Camry.

Randy Bell [01:57:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:07] So, like, a truly ethical organization that is governed by principles of critical thinking, thinking, again, will encourage a discussion with former adherents or participants.

RFM [01:57:18] Randy, can I give you an example, which I think may be a good example from Mormonism about testing assumptions, which is something that I've heard many times, which is that if the Book of Mormon is true, then President Nelson is a prophet of God.

John Dehlin [01:57:32] Mm.

RFM [01:57:33] What do you think about those assumptions that are involved in that kind of argument?

Randy Bell [01:57:38] Well, if the Book of Mormon is true, Russell M. Nelson could be a prophet of God, but so could the president of the community of Christ, or there's several derivative restoration movements. And so it could mean any number of things. It could also mean that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and got that right, and then was a fallen prophet, and then that was the end of it. I mean, there's not much, much difference between the Book of Mormon and the. And the New Testament. There's no unique Mormon doctrines that come out of the Book of Mormon. So it can mean any number of things. But no, the two don't connect in terms of critical thinking.

RFM [01:58:21] Right. And I think that's because if you test the assumption like you just did, then the argument does not follow.

Randy Bell [01:58:29] Yeah. It's a non sequitur.

RFM [01:58:30] Yeah.

Randy Bell [01:58:31] Yeah.

Guest [01:58:31] I also kind of feel like the opposite happens too, sometimes. Like with the 15 principles in the missionary field, mission field, they seem to skip from 1 to 14. So, like, they. They open the concept to them and, you know, they talk, they get the good feelings, and then they say Take the test that's in the Book of Mormon, you know, pray about it. And then the next time they meet, they ask him to get baptized. So they, they Skip like the 13 critical thinking in between 1 and 14, kind of in the mission field, it seems.

John Dehlin [01:59:14] And they skip number one because they don't start with an open construct. They start with the closed construct of we're the source of all truth and wisdom. So I mean, they kind of skip 1 through 13, but they, they give

Guest [01:59:24] them like a new, a new evidence, a new thing to like think about. And then they skip right to test it in this way.

John Dehlin [01:59:32] It really is. Here's a couple concepts and a couple stories. Pray about it. And if you feel good, give the rest of your life and 10% of your income to this way of life.

Guest [01:59:41] Without all of these things that are so important.

John Dehlin [01:59:45] Can you imagine if the missionary program followed your, the Mormon, the LDS Church missionary program followed your 15 principles of critical thinking in its missionary work?

Randy Bell [01:59:54] That would be interesting, I gotta say, back in the day before the Internet, because when I went on a mission, never heard of the Internet, we would think in our own minds that we were being really critical thinkers, you know, but to get information meant going to libraries and finding the right book and finding the right page out of 400 pages to get that information. And then, you know, of course, the labels of anti Mormon lies that, you know, made you not even want to get that book. But even if you did, getting information was really, really difficult. What's kind of transformed, at least in my mind, is with the invent of the Internet, that's where everything just exploded. And it's very difficult, if not impossible, to conceal things that have been concealed for literally decades.

Guest [02:00:41] And I think that Covid gave the members a pause in the indoctrination

RFM [02:00:53] that

Guest [02:00:53] allowed them to actually critical think.

Randy Bell [02:00:55] Great point. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:00] And I'll just say that whole testing assumptions thing again and Randy, don't be annoyed by me by saying this, but just representing some of my listeners, this idea of testing assumptions becomes difficult. It's really the question of epistemology, because how do you test a lot of these assumptions without ultimately relying on feelings? Because many people who claim religious certitude or you know, participate in true religion, religious devotion, ultimately base it on feelings that they had or feeling, you know, and that's maybe, maybe feelings have been shown to be a less reliable way of testing the truthfulness of something. And I would say the religious testimonies that I value the most are frankly, like yours. It's somebody that's living a certain way of life. They're not dogmatic. They're not imposing on people. But like you, Randy, one of the reasons I like you so much is you live your Christianity. You just look around, you know, when I've got an event, you're sticking around afterwards saying, hey, can I help with the chairs? You know what I mean? That's you. That's you, Randy. When. When I have a friend that's in need, it just turns out that Randy was the guy that kind of slipped him a little bit of something to help him through a hard time. That's the lived. That's the lived religiosity that I respect way more than somebody just saying, well, I felt it was true that one time they're living it, and it's. And I guess that. That by their fruits you shall know them. I think there's maybe something to that.

Randy Bell [02:02:31] I think there is, and I appreciate the kind words. The. The other point I would make is that in my mind, and when we're talking about Mormonism, we're talking primarily about BYU as an academic institution, and we're talking about Rodney Meldrum and Brad Wilcox and a couple other folks. And that's an interesting debate, and for me, it's very fun and interesting to watch that debate or kwaku. That's all very interesting. Going into what I would consider a realm of healthy religion. You're not dealing with byu. You're dealing with the Veritas Forum comes out of Harvard. Veritas is Latin for truth, and it started at Harvard and now it's in every major university. And there's a really vibrant, open conversation where the questions you're asking, which I would say are very valid, real questions, but the debate is a whole higher, newer, brighter level. And I love it. Both in the kind of the North Star spiritual aspect of my life, but also in the intellectual, because I'm very fascinated by that intellectual debate. I'm very fascinated with what agnostics and atheists have to say about it, and I'm very welcoming those questions. I'm not interested in dogma from anyone. And I think largely we land in a lot of the same places, but it would be a boring place if we landed all on the same place. It would just be a boring life.

John Dehlin [02:04:00] Life, yeah. Love it.

RFM [02:04:02] It'd be as if the entire church or the entire world converted to Mormonism. Can you imagine?

Randy Bell [02:04:09] It's a lot of white shirts.

RFM [02:04:11] President Nelson just told us in the last General Conference, the only way to Peace. Only way to have peace is through Jesus.

John Dehlin [02:04:19] Yeah, that's not very. That's not an open construct.

RFM [02:04:22] No, but it can be very peaceful where descending views are not permitted.

John Dehlin [02:04:27] If you're in the hierarchy, it's very peaceful. Okay. We are now closing in on principle 15, which is research methods. Yeah, this is home. Randy Bell. Dr. Randy, bring us home.

Research Methods, Epistemic Humility, and Closing Thoughts

Randy Bell [02:04:42] Well, we're talking about research methods and epistemology are synonyms. Some people prefer just calling it research methods. You know, when I was in my doctoral program, I put a chart together. There's hermeneutics, phenomena, phenomenology, ethnography, empirical research, comparative research, action research, rationalism, constructionism. Really, 15 is really saying that with critical thinking, you adapt the ability to get in and roll your sleeves up and do research. You know, rfm. I've shown them literally stacks of books the other day. Where you've got it, there's no substitute. Frankly, I want to plead guilty. I think President Nelson made a great point about lazy learners. And I'll confess, I was a lazy learner as a member of the church. Quite honestly, I think I'm anything but lazy now because I'm just devouring tons of books. I love the content you guys are putting out. It's just brilliant. And epistemologies is jumping in the deep end and swimming through all kinds of new ideas and, you know, kind of formulating what value system resonates with ourselves and what intellectually makes sense. We may not land on the same place, we won't land on the same place, but we can sure have a lot of fun and respect for each other as we all trying to kind of sort out a very crazy, confusing world.

RFM [02:06:08] Yeah, that Veritas format that you talked about. Yeah, I became aware of that and I've only watched one. It's because a very dear friend sent me a link to one with Christopher Hitchens, and he was debating, I apologize, I don't remember the other person's name, but the pro God and the theist side of things. And obviously this person was extremely intelligent. And watching them both go at it on this very high level was extremely informative to me and I found it wonderful. Not that I had to agree with one side or another, though I might have tended to agree more with one side or another. But to be able just to watch two individuals approach conflicting views in an objective, polite, intellectual, and for them, honest kind of way and just allow the audience to make their own decision.

Randy Bell [02:07:00] Yeah, and I can. I can have a lot of empathy for agnostics. Because I am an agnostic in large part and atheists because I've seen some, some people go through sheer hell and give up on any belief in God. And had I gone through what they went through, I may have ended up in the same place. So I think as long as we avoid the extremes and dogma where we think we know with absolute certainty and stay in a more well reasoned, we don't really know, but we can figure out and get glimpses of truth here and there kind of mode, I think we can really, you know, build something valuable and in my case, spiritual and some people, you know, a naturalistic point of view that brings value to them. One of my very best friends, he was my best man. I was his best man. I just had lunch with him. He's phenomenally successful, he was raised Muslim. I actually met him at byu and now he's an atheist. And he is the most kind hearted, giving guy. He ran 10 distribution centers around the world. He knew every employee's name, he knew their kids names, he was always slipping them little help here and there when he knew about problems with, you know, affording a car payment or this or that. And so, you know, that's the kind of conversation that I find really compelling. You know, at the end of the day, a lot of it's just semantics. It really comes down to, like John said, it comes down to, you know, how are we conducting ourselves, you know, because I know some, some religious people that I just cringe when I, I just, I, I can't handle it. And I, so I know some atheists that are just absolutely wonderful and I know vice versa. So the labels don't help. They, they can come sometimes kind of get in the way, I think.

John Dehlin [02:08:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we, I, I think maybe as a way to close. That's one of the things I love about you, Randy, is you have a, and we talked about this with Sean McCraney in our discussion between him and Anthony Magnabasco. This notion of epistemic humility where you, it's okay to have beliefs. Well, beliefs, if you, if you believe in scientific method, you have a belief, right, You're a believer. But let's have humility. There's, there's two things that are, you know, insufferable. A dogmatic religious person and a dogmatic, you know, anti religious person. Like, let's just have humility and let's be respectful of all sides and let's realize that none of us, we all really are technically agnostics, whether we admit it or not. Whether we own or embrace that identity or not, none of us really, really know anything for certain. In fact, I think RFM you shared yesterday, the more you've learned, the more you realize you know nothing. Which was not your idea. That was freaking Socrates or Plato or Aristotle, you know, how many millennia ago. Like, let's just be humble. Let's figure out what, what makes sense for us and then let's stay open and listen to other people and have constructive dialogue. And that's what I love about you, Randy Bell, is maybe I'm 49%, maybe you're 51%, but we can get in a room and love each other and talk about it. At the end of the day, we're trying to help people.

Guest [02:10:23] Yeah.

Randy Bell [02:10:24] And I'm always kidding you guys, because I think anytime, at least the God, if there's a God, and I believe that there is, I imagine a God who loves it when people are turning on the lights and telling the truth, whoever they are. Who can be against that? And that's what I love about RFMs. Bill Reels, Mormonism Live, and Jonathan Streeter and Alan Mount and the whole list. And you, John Dehlin, is you're turning on the lights. These are uncomfortable topics nobody likes thinking about. Gee whiz, I was this dupe for decades in my life. I mean, you want to throw furniture with that one. But turning on the lights, coming to terms with the reality, as difficult as it is, it's really, at the end of the day, it's very refreshing where you can just, you know, whether I'm right or wrong, this is what I generally think. And being in the room with people that are like minded in terms of sharing what they think. And by golly, I may be wrong and they're sharing something that I should maybe, you know, check into more. That's what really takes life from black and white and dogma to full color spectrum and 3D, 3D, you know, pictures.

John Dehlin [02:11:37] I love it.

Randy Bell [02:11:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:11:38] All right, Randy Bell. Well, we didn't really get to Heaven's Gate, but I think sometimes less is more. And I just want to say let's have you back to talk about that in another part because I think that. And it deserves its own pictures and visuals, by the way. You've got all that.

Randy Bell [02:11:53] I got a whole file on it. I'll dig it out if you want.

John Dehlin [02:11:56] Let's make a presentation and you tell the story of Heaven's Gate from someone who spent two years investigating it. And then let's look at it through the filter of these 15 principles of critical thinking. And by the way, see how it maps on to orthodox or fundamentalist Mormonism. Because people love it when we tie high demand religions to unhealthy Mormonism. Let's call it that.

Randy Bell [02:12:19] Yeah. And that's why. That's why I never label the Mormon Church as a cult. I know some people do, and I can empathize why they do. But Heaven's Gate, when. When they're actually killing, you know, it's mass suicide. That's. I guess, you know, that's a hard cult. I mean, that's, That's. That's as extreme as it gets.

John Dehlin [02:12:38] But any organization that believes in the principles of critical thinking is open to that discussion of how do we be less cult like. Yeah, the military, the government, educational systems need, like, if, If Mormon stories of the Open Stories foundation are being too cult like. I want to know and I want to change. I think any healthy organization would want to be less cult like and shouldn't take offense at applying the principles of undue influence to themselves.

Randy Bell [02:13:10] I can tell you from everything I've seen, the Open Stories foundation and the Thrive events and you, John, everything I've seen, we've seen. I've spent a lot of time with you and the events. It's anything but cult like. And that's coming from someone who knows a little bit about cults, having worked with for a couple years. Yeah, it's. It doesn't.

John Dehlin [02:13:30] It doesn't qualify in rfm. We need you more in Salt Lake City. Because it's one thing to have the amazing rfm, you know, live streaming from somewhere in Washington state, but having you in house where we can touch and feel you.

Randy Bell [02:13:47] Rfm, Emphasis on the touch.

John Dehlin [02:13:54] There's a whole nother ball game.

Closing Conversation and Farewell

RFM [02:13:55] By the way, I just had a question for you, John. If you're trying not to be too cult like, is it okay if I have my daughter back? That's all I'm asking.

Randy Bell [02:14:03] Your daughter back?

RFM [02:14:04] It's a polygamy joke. It's a polygamy joke. Okay. All I'm saying is.

John Dehlin [02:14:09] Okay, I get it now.

RFM [02:14:10] All right?

John Dehlin [02:14:11] Yes, you can have her back.

RFM [02:14:12] Thank you. All right. You take the constructive class.

John Dehlin [02:14:15] Find some others.

RFM [02:14:16] Thank you. Okay. Something else that occurred to me, by the way. Thank you. Okay, look, here's my. Here's my tentative plan, which you're going to hear publicly for the first time. All right?

John Dehlin [02:14:24] Okay.

RFM [02:14:26] I'm drawing back on the law practice. I am trying to. That part's not new. It might be new. To you, but I announced that before in order to devote more time for the podcasting. My goal, My goal is to finish representing the clients that I have now, hopefully by the end of the year, which means no more law practice, full time podcasting. Recent developments have made me more footloose, less constrained as to where I live.

John Dehlin [02:15:02] All the single ladies. All the single ladies. You know, I told.

Randy Bell [02:15:08] I told RFM this morning.

Guest [02:15:10] Do you want me to edit that out? RFM?

RFM [02:15:12] No, it's okay. You told me what? This morning.

John Dehlin [02:15:16] RFM's on the market. I told RFM.

Randy Bell [02:15:19] I said, you know, I was talking to John yesterday. We've decided your course of path. Your course of life is to choose a new path. And we've. There's no. There's no decision making on your part. We've already made the decision that you need to move to Salt Lake City.

John Dehlin [02:15:32] So. And if postmort, if progressive and post Mormonism can provide RFM with a livable wage, then I don't want anything to do with it. I am. I have a very high level of confidence, rfm, that if you move to Salt Lake, we can. We can help you raise a livable income. That's, That's. It's just obvious with the talents and the character that you have displayed.

RFM [02:15:56] It may be obvious where my point was going, but I'll go ahead and say it anyway. That my goal is that by the end of the year to move down here to Utah.

Randy Bell [02:16:04] See, he. He obeyed John. We told him what to do and he did it.

RFM [02:16:09] But it's not a cult.

John Dehlin [02:16:13] I'll join RFM's cult any day. If you start a cold RFM. I'm in.

Randy Bell [02:16:16] I'm in too, man. You too?

John Dehlin [02:16:18] I'll think about it, Jen.

Guest [02:16:20] I'll think about it.

John Dehlin [02:16:22] I'd rather join Jen's Colt in RFMs. No offense, RFM, but I'd rather join Jen.

Randy Bell [02:16:26] It's a bargain.

Guest [02:16:26] I decline.

Randy Bell [02:16:28] I've told you guys, I've saved $150,000 of therapy costs. Just listen to your podcast. Seriously, there's tremendous benefit.

RFM [02:16:37] Well, thank you. It's so great. One of the great things for me is to get to know people like you, John Long, hero. And I get to know you on a personal basis. Randy is a fantastic person, like you talked about. I've never met a better person in my life. He's a walking sermon, to borrow a phrase. And Jan, I just saw for the first time yesterday in person, and she's wonderful too, and it's just so great to Be able to make these connections and have these relationships through this process.

Randy Bell [02:17:08] Yeah.

RFM [02:17:08] These are what relationships in the church should be like.

Randy Bell [02:17:11] Yeah.

RFM [02:17:11] My experience was that they were never.

Randy Bell [02:17:14] And can I say something about Jen? Yes, I can and I will.

John Dehlin [02:17:19] I was.

Randy Bell [02:17:20] When we were doing my episodes. That was your very first. First day here.

Guest [02:17:23] Yeah. You're my first.

Randy Bell [02:17:24] Yeah. And. And your voice here is just so cool. You bring such a great vibe. And I just want to say that. I just think I did.

Guest [02:17:36] Thanks, Randy.

John Dehlin [02:17:37] I'm getting a lot of emails and comments from people saying they're loving.

Randy Bell [02:17:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:41] You have to bring Jen.

Randy Bell [02:17:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:43] And I share everyone with you, by the way.

Guest [02:17:45] Yeah. He tries to.

Randy Bell [02:17:46] And the fact that you had to chase horses this morning to get here.

Guest [02:17:54] My horses got out. It was not the easiest morning, but that's okay. It was worth it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:18:01] Well, Randy Bell. Let's everyone. Listeners, check out Randy Bell's new podcast, Post Traumatic Thriving. Post Traumatic Thriving. Available on what? Spotify. Everywhere.

Randy Bell [02:18:12] It's on Spotify. Apple. We're already ranked on Apple.

RFM [02:18:15] Apple.

Randy Bell [02:18:15] We're just. It's a new podcast. We've got maybe 12, 14 episodes out. But it's a lot of fun because

John Dehlin [02:18:22] what the world needs is another podcast.

Randy Bell [02:18:24] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:18:25] No, the world needs more. Not Cowbell. Randy Bell

Randy Bell [02:18:31] and Sandra Tanner.

RFM [02:18:33] But his podcast is so important because trauma is sort of almost a universal.

John Dehlin [02:18:39] Yeah.

RFM [02:18:39] Experience. And what he's taught, talking about is giving people principles not only to survive trauma, which is important enough, but to actually thrive beyond trauma and use that trauma in order to propel them to a greater level and a higher level than they were at before they experienced the trauma.

John Dehlin [02:18:59] Yep.

Guest [02:19:00] I'm super excited.

Randy Bell [02:19:01] Yeah.

Guest [02:19:01] To listen to some of those.

Randy Bell [02:19:03] Thanks. The. The number one problem, I think, on Planet Earth is unresolved childhood trauma. You know, And I wrote my book, Post Traumatic Thriving, kind of in a arrogant, you know, kind of an academic tone. You need to do this, you need to do that to survive your trauma. I didn't realize I was writing the book for me because I was suffering, in a literal sense, post traumatic stress disorder from my childhood heart surgery, which was an unresolved emotional trauma. And I was finding myself getting triggered. And my co host is Tanya Brown, the sister, Nicole Brown Simpson. We just had Jessie Buttafuco on. She told crazy stories about her dad, Joey. We're laughing, we're crying. And the word Mormon has not come up yet. Not that I'm afraid of discussing things, but it's talking about trauma and the steps, more importantly, to recover from it. And like you say, RFM ultimately thrive in the aftermath. And that's, I think what we're doing. I think this conversation kind of exemplifies it.

John Dehlin [02:20:07] All right, well, thanks again, Randy and rfm. It's so great to have you both.

Randy Bell [02:20:10] Thanks.

John Dehlin [02:20:11] Thanks Jen, for being here. You are a light to us all.

Guest [02:20:14] Thanks.

John Dehlin [02:20:15] Yeah. And thanks to our viewers and listeners. If you value this content, support Radio Free Mormon, Support Mormonism Live. Donate to them, help keep them afloat. Love you Bill. Real support Randy Bell. Buy his books, check out his podcast and and we are always grateful for those of you who donate to Mormon Stories podcast. You can go to mormonstories.org click on the donate button. If you value this content, please join our family of subscribers and donors, become a monthly donor and we'll, we'll do this for as long as you are able to support us. And there are other ways to support us, including giving us a positive review on Apple Podcast app because we have haters giving us one star reviews just to bring our average down. They don't even listen to the podcast. You can also give us five star reviews on Spotify and on the Mormon Stories Podcast Facebook page. And you can always refer us to others and spread the good word and like us and subscribe to us and follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and I'm sure new social media platforms coming to you. So thanks everybody. You guys take care and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. See ya.

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