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Zachary Wright

By Study and Faith – Episode 7: Confidence and Bias

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by Zachary Wright

Introduction

Imagine for yourself, for a moment, that a critic of the church stumbles across some quotes about the Adam-God theory.  “Brigham Young taught this, and seeing as he was a prophet, this must be what Mormons believe!” they reason to themselves.  They post these quotes on social media, proclaiming that “Mormons believe that Adam was God the Father!  Your leaders taught it, it’s what you profess to believe!”  However, what this critic did not know is that as early as 1897, we have records of church leaders stating that Brigham “no doubt expressed his personal opinion or views upon the subject,” supporting the idea that members of the church are under no obligation to support the notion that Adam was God the Father (1).  The critic doesn’t retreat from their position though, doubling down on how members of the church believe it.  At the end of the day, their bias led them to an incorrect conclusion about what members of the church believe. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 7: Confidence and Bias

By Study and Faith – Episode 6: Cognitive Biases

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by Zachary Wright

Introduction

Someone I know, who is a very vocal LGBTQ+ advocate, once got into an argument with me about concepts behind gender.  I did everything I could to understand where they were coming from, seeing as this is a complex topic with differing perspectives.  However, they were trying to convince me (among other things) that gender is a social construct.  Having studied the issue, I pushed against their ideas, arguing that gender is more complicated than that and it certainly isn’t a mere social construct.  However, despite my best efforts, my research and perspectives fell on deaf ears.  Instead, my friend seemed to cling to the ideas of the people she agreed with.  I’ll be sure to go over LGBTQ+ perspectives another day.  However, my purpose in telling this story is to show an example of what researchers and psychologists call cognitive bias, which we’ll discuss today. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 6: Cognitive Biases

By Study and Faith – Episode 5: Epistemology

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by Zachary Wright

Introduction

In my life, I’ve found that everyone has a specific philosophy that they live by, whether they realize it or not.  Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to the philosophical branch of epistemology.  Epistemology, while sounding complicated and boring to some, is just the fancy way of saying “the study of knowledge.” Consider the following: [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 5: Epistemology

By Study and Faith – Episode 4: Logical Fallacies

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by Zachary Wright

Introduction

In the last article, I took some time to describe some of the basics of logic, and how to form good arguments.  However, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that not all arguments are created equal.  For example, when it comes to deductive reasoning, the premises need to support the conclusions in order to be valid.  When they don’t, the argument is called “fallacious”, that is, it’s based on poor reasoning.  While there is some variety in how someone defines the term “fallacy,” and a massive history behind its usage (1), it’s generally understood that fallacious arguments are simply bad arguments due to either a faulty premise or a lack of important information (2).  We’ll get into how that is in a moment, but it almost goes without saying that critical thinkers need the ability to discern the difference between valid and fallacious reasoning.  Without being able to parse through the validity of good and bad arguments, critical thinkers are unable to arrive at appropriate conclusions. Consequently, they’re unable to analyze information accurately, and thus cannot maximize their problem-solving efforts.  There’s not a ton of background information I need to provide that I haven’t already provided in my previous article, so we’re going to do things a little differently today.  For this article, I’m going to list common fallacies and give examples of them in relation to historical and theological topics relating to Latter-day Saints.  Let’s get into it. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 4: Logical Fallacies

By Study and Faith – Episode 3: Logic

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by Zachary Wright

Introduction

If you’ve ever listened to an argument, you’ve probably heard someone angrily protest to the other “You’re not being logical!”, or something to that effect.  When I heard the term “logic” previously, I usually thought of things like “facts” or “math,” or even more vague ideas like “things that make sense.”  This is mostly true, but there’s a bit more to it than that – and that “bit more” is what we’re going to talk about today.  Logic, at its core, is a methodology for creating and evaluating arguments (1).   Of course, when I say “arguments” I don’t mean shouting matches like the one in the previous example, rather, I mean “a reason given for or against a matter under discussion” (2).  We make these kinds of arguments daily: at work, at home, and even in church. You see, we as people run into problems, and have to make decisions all the time to survive, maintain relationships, and accomplish the tasks we set for ourselves.  As critical thinkers, it’s important to understand what “logic” is, because logic is key in helping us convince other people of our ideas, evaluate the arguments of others, and can help us make those decisions based on the information we have obtained (like from the good sources we learned to evaluate in our last article).  No matter who you are, logic can help you accomplish your goals, make informed decisions, and be the kind of people God wants us to be.  That being said, there is a lot of information to cover.  First, we’re going to be talking about the history and basics of logic, then we’re going to talk about how to make a logical argument, then finally we’ll talk about the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning.  Let’s begin. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 3: Logic

By Study and Faith – Episode 2: Evaluating Sources

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by Zachary Wright

Introduction

In the last article in this series, we discussed some elementary ideas behind critical thinking. We showed how critical thinking skills like asking questions and evaluating worldviews may help deal with controversial topics behind LDS theology and history.  Now, those skills are essential for approaching a controversial topic.  Even so, we still have a long way to go to improve our critical thinking skills and achieve our goal to learn “by study and by faith.”  That prompts some questions though:  What should we be asking questions about?  What worldviews can we practice identifying?  The short answer to these questions is “You can use these skills on whatever you want,” but to do that, we need to first go over how to evaluate which sources are good and which ones are not.  We’ll be focusing on that topic today.  Specifically, I’ll be going over what makes a good source in general, what makes a good source from a historical perspective, and then give an example of how I would deal with a historical source.  Let’s get into it. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 2: Evaluating Sources

By Study and Faith – Episode 1: What is Critical Thinking?

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by Zachary Wright

Have you ever wanted to problem-solve better? Not just the daily issues we deal with, but the massive world-changing problems we deal with constantly? What about wanting to be more effective in your study? Have you ever wanted to learn to differentiate between what’s true and what’s not? Maybe you’re not as ambitious, but you want to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ and learn more about Him and His gospel. All these skills, and more, apply at least some form of critical thinking skills, and I’m here to help you learn how to be a more effective critical thinker. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 1: What is Critical Thinking?