Theoretical change is often achieved through the reinterpretation of ambiguous data that people often didn’t realize was ambiguous.

On a recent trip, I was debating the following question with a surfer dude after stopping at a Mormon Cathedral.

Imagine that you have met your dream marriage partner. For the purposes of our debate, this was a female who was what you were looking for in almost all respects (smart, good sense of humour, highly compatible values, beautiful, common interests, and so on). Again, this is your dream marriage partner. Except for one thing. She is Mormon (which in itself doesn’t bother you), but in order for her to marry you, you must convert. (Say, for example, that her familial relationships will be damaged significantly if she doesn’t marry a Mormon, and she values them highly. For the purposes of the thought experiment, imagine that this won’t involve lots of Mormon religious activities after marriage - say a couple of hours a week.)

Would you convert? I said after half a second of hesitation, yes. He said no. My reasoning was that well-being is only partly about truth, and so converting to a religion where you might not agree with everything (or have to interpret things figuratively a lot of the time) shouldn’t trump your well-being in central areas like to whom you will be married. I accompanied this with my idea of how integrity matters - in personal relationships, you want integrity, so you would of course tell her exactly what you thought about various Mormon doctrines and practices, and tell her family members if they asked, but as far as making an institutional pledge it wouldn’t matter. His reasoning was that one girl wasn’t important enough for him to convert.

Having had some time to think about it, I still would say yes to converting. I don’t think that religion should make your life worse off - and that would include interfering with marrying the right person. (To put it in perspective, a bigger problem I would have is the Mormon tithing, where the church asks for 10% of your income.)