Elder Bednar’s talk this afternoon (transcript not available yet–I’ll edit it later) about heart transplants used a great analogy, working with the existing imagery. We’ve all got heart failure, due to sin; but God promises:
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. (Eze 36:26)
Bednar said that this new heart would be rejected without daily medication (prayer and scripture) and periodic biopsies (weekly self-examination while taking the sacrament).
But the immune system exists to defend against infection; various viruses and tumors stimulate the release of TGF-β, a natural immunosuppressant, to survive in the body. We’d expect that any successful meme would encourage constant reexposure to the ideas constituting the meme and suppression of ideas that would break them down.
How do we know the difference between a heart transplant and an infection? There’s clearly good in Mormonism; it has many good fruits, as evidenced by the heartfelt service given by the members. But many other faiths have fruits just as sweet. As the Anglican minister John Mason Neale writes,
You have all heard of Thomas Scott the commentator. He was a man of some powers of mind, indefatigable perseverance, and no learning. You may probably have read his “Force of Truth.” If so, you will know the correctness of what I am going to say.
Before Scott came into public notice, he was in his belief an Arminian. Some considerations induced him to think that Calvinism was the doctrine of the Bible; and he determined to study for himself, with no other help but prayer and thought, whether it were or were not. After the labour of some months, he became a confirmed Calvinist. And he argues to this effect:—”I know,” says he, “that I spent vast labour in the search: I know I prayed earnestly during its course: I know that those who do so will be directed into all truth. I came to this conclusion. Therefore, I am right. Therefore, all who differ from me are wrong. Therefore, as the same promise was made to them, they must either have studied insufficiently, or prayed carelessly. If all men took the same pains that I did, they must come to the same conclusion.”
Now this is at least honest and straightforward: conceited enough and presumptuous certainly, but withal, after a sort, manly. The answer is, of course, easy enough. Twenty thousand persons from the same premises may with equal justice arrive at very opposite conclusions: therefore the premises themselves are false.
(Be sure to read the rest of the essay–it’s very good.)
What evidence justifies your beliefs?
