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Peterson's Rule
By Daniel C. Peterson
Years ago, while a graduate student
in Egypt, I was introduced by a friend to a chemistry professor
at the University of Cairo. After a pleasant conversation, the professor
asked what an American was doing in Egypt, studying Arabic and Islam.
“Are you a Muslim?” he inquired. When he was told no,
he asked, “Why not?”
Such a question is, of course, a bit sensitive
and difficult for anyone to answer who hopes to avoid offense or
argument. So the answer was, simply, “I’m a Christian.”
“Really?” replied the professor.
“You believe that God has a son (which, of course, everybody
knows is completely impossible), and that he sent his son to earth
and arranged to have him killed in order to buy himself off?”
I replied that, while that was not exactly how I would have phrased
it, I do in fact believe something along those lines. “Amazing!”
exclaimed the Muslim professor. “How can any intelligent person
possibly believe anything so obviously crazy?”
Brilliant Men and Women
Now a professor myself, I’ve reflected
on that experience many times since. The fact is that, however strange
it may appear to a Muslim scientist (or to any other outsider),
many people of extraordinary intelligence have been, and continue
to be, believing Christians. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Pascal,
Kierkegaard, and C. S. Lewis are just a few who come to mind.
And this is true of other faiths, as well. Brilliant
men and women can be counted among the writers and thinkers of Islam,
Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and all the great religions of human
history.
Undoubtedly, of course, there are also
stupid, thoughtless, and ignorant people in every movement, people
who believe on the basis of bad reasons or of no real reasons at
all. But, while certain insignificant movements have drawn their
ranks largely from the unbalanced or uninformed, every religious
or ideological group that has appealed to large numbers over extended
periods of time has contained elements that satisfied and seemed
plausible to sensitive, intelligent, sane men and women. Otherwise,
it is simply inconceivable that such groups could have survived
for any lengthy period.
Dehumanization
This leads to an insight: If you encounter a
religious group or an ideology or even an atheistic position that
has attracted many people of diverse backgrounds for a considerable
length of time, and you cannot see “how any intelligent person
can possibly believe anything so manifestly crazy,” the problem
is probably in you ? at least as much as it is in the other person.
You don’t know or understand enough to
make a judgment, for intelligent people undoubtedly do believe it.
So long as you imagine that no “intelligent” person
could honestly fall for such nonsense, you dehumanize those you
disagree with, or you assume (and this is very common) that they
are all, somehow, dishonest.
It isn’t necessary, in considering another
system of beliefs, to accept it. But it is necessary, if you truly
want to understand it, to try to imagine how someone else could
believe it, could find it emotionally appealing and intellectually
satisfying.
Critics often publicly wonder how any honest,
intelligent person can believe in the Book of Mormon, the visitation
of God and angels to Joseph Smith, or the divine potential of humankind.
Yet, although their honesty and intelligence are frequently questioned
by anti-Mormon crusaders, many such people do exist, some of them
quite well-informed.
On the other side, not a few Latter-day Saints
vocally marvel that anybody who knows anything could be a Catholic,
and cannot see how sane, intelligent people can possibly swallow
doctrines like the Trinity. But the fact is indisputable: Many of
the most brilliant thinkers in the history of Western civilization
have been devout Roman Catholics, and, of these, many have written
on precisely the issue of the Trinity.
In the interreligous discussions and, yes, arguments
that, for various reasons, are very likely to arise as Mormonism
becomes more and more of a public issue in the next few months and
years, it would help if each side could grant the other to be, on
the whole, sincere, honest, intelligent, and sane.
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