‘I’m genuinely interested in your answers’: When pretended curiosity becomes a weapon to undermine faith

At least one of the reasons the New Atheist movement of the mid-2000s has markedly waned in influence was its off-putting aggressive antagonism toward faith, which Richard Dawkins famously called “militant atheism.”
One especially common tactic in this decades-long rhetorical assault was portraying scholarly investigation as fundamentally incompatible with faith itself — “sorry, the evidence just doesn’t back up your precious belief.” Along with the beguiling simplicity of this rhetoric, the basic argument soared in popularity thanks to our outsized trust bestowed as a society upon those who dedicate their time and energies to the single-minded pursuit of truth “independent of their biases.”
And for good reason: Look at all we’ve learned as human beings in attempting to control our biases, measure the world around us systematically, and hold our most cherished hunches out for empirical testing.
It probably shouldn’t surprise us, then, to see these same revered ideals of curiosity and detached inquiry become co-opted as yet another rhetorical weapon in America today. With each passing year, the widening cultural hostilities around us all keep proving that nothing is so sacred that it can’t be turned against our ideological opponents.
Including the innocent act of “just looking for some answers.”
It was Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor who raised caution about what he called “pseudo-questions” — namely, hidden arguments, accusations or demands masquerading as a question.
For any genuine question, of course, there are certain elements that are non negotiable, such as being aware of limitations to our current knowledge, curious to explore new perspectives and open to learn from the inquiry.
None of that shows up in a counterfeit question, which, by its highly finessed nature, betrays something else going on.
“Simple questions are a prime tactic for the propagandist,” says Richard Williams, founding director of Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute. Compared with authentic questions that run “deep enough to set the stage for answers of substance,” this professor argues that questions are often being used to “set traps for the vulnerable and uninformed” as they are “carefully framed to direct the reader in a particular, predetermined (though very subtly arranged) direction and to predetermined answers.”
By way of illustration, psychology professor Ed Gantt remarks on how many online “questions” about faith are posed in the form of “Did you know? Were you aware? Have you ever wondered why the church says X but according to these obscure historical documents actually did Y — or vice versa?”
Such loaded, ‘gotcha’ questions are very different from the kind of genuine questions that can spark more learning and growth for anyone. And certainly, none of this denies the value of authentic inquiry into a wide range of questions, including those reflecting serious concerns. “Asking questions is a healthy spiritual practice,” reiterates writer Dan Ellsworth, reflecting long-standing teachings of Latter-day Saint leaders. “But questions about church doctrine, history and policy should be balanced with questions about our own assumptions, worldview, emotional biases and more.”
Gantt’s scholarship has focused on examining often hidden philosophical assumptions in the social sciences, joining BYU-Idaho scholar Jeffrey Thayne in a recent book about “Reframing Our Questions for a Richer Faith.” For those with only a simple understanding of their faith’s history and doctrine, he points out, the presentation of some juicy nugget of information about the past — often lacking necessary context — can lead them to “come away thinking they have been introduced into some great secret the church has been keeping hidden away from everyone.”
“At no point, however, does anyone stop and examine the nature of the questions or the incompleteness, mischaracterization, or rhetorical manipulation of the questions being posed,” he says, let alone the intent behind “the ‘honest questioner’ in the first place.”
Such a concern is certainly not novel, with a growing number of scholars in recent decades investigating the profit motives behind corporate research, and the sociopolitical agendas behind various kinds of “activist research.”
In the case of industry-driven inquiry, the agenda is clear: Sell a particular product. In the case of politically-driven inquiry, the equally clear interest is to retain or increase power.
A new clarity now seems to be emerging in regards to agenda-driven “inquiry” targeting various faith communities. More often than not, these popular arguments are not aiming to either expand general knowledge or deepen others’ spiritual walk. Instead, the true aim is very much in the opposite direction: unsettling what believers say they know and corroding faith from the inside out, until there’s little desire to walk any spiritual path at all.
Arguably the most common way this kind of weaponized “truth seeking” shows up is in the common tendency of partisans to insist that “all the evidence” proves and justifies their party’s positions on the contested issues of the day. The same pattern shows up with industry-linked researchers who brazenly insist that “all the evidence” confirms the positive effects of whatever product they are hawking (with “no evidence,” of course, for any of its purported harms).
Similar absolutist claims have been used to assail different faith traditions more and more, especially from critics pretending that sacred books of scripture have “no evidence” archaeologically or otherwise backing them up.
When Daniel Peterson, emeritus professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at BYU, hears from critics that there’s “absolutely no evidence” for the Christian gospel or for faith in God, he pushes back. “Absolutely none? Really?”
“I can respect a person saying that there isn’t sufficient evidence to convince him or her,” Peterson told me. “But to assert that none exists at all is simply to assert a falsehood.” This scholar suggests that it’s basic “integrity” to be willing to “acknowledge that there is evidence that conflicts with one’s position,” even for “propositions that we ultimately reject.”
Consistently, Terryl and Fiona Givens have argued in “The God Who Weeps” that it’s by divine design that human beings hear competing persuasive claims about the evidence, stating: “In this world, one is always provided with sufficient materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial … there must be grounds for doubt as well as belief, in order to render the choice more truly a choice.”
Absolutist claims of “no evidence” ultimately signal a “closed mind,” Peterson concludes — reflecting on how often he’s been shocked to see online influencers “simply ignore evidence and arguments” that respond to critical questions, “pretending that no such arguments and evidence even exist.”
Absolute claims aside, it’s become even more common to see another tactic employed — where otherwise impassioned skeptics claim publicly to be coming from a place of genuine curiosity and earnest desire to know the truth.
This includes a proliferation of podcasts and other influencer content dedicated to exploring a host of “hard questions” about Latter-day Saints and other people of faith — many of whom spend considerable energy signaling to their intended audience, “I’m a member of your tribe so you can trust me.”
Such messaging helps to establish immediate rapport with their intended audience, Gantt told me, while allowing the influencer to “present themselves as somewhat scientific,” in other words, with “no agenda, only curiosity and a desire for answers.”
This kind of an “honest, objective, disinterested, fair-minded” posture allays some listeners’ fears about a faith-hostile agenda, he adds, which — if that hostility were more apparent — would “immediately put most people of faith on the defensive and make their persuasive attempts less likely to succeed.”
“In any truth-seeking enterprise, like science or journalism, it’s best practice to disclose conflicts of interest at the outset,” says writer Cassandra Hedelius, stating the obvious. “Because a reader deserves the chance to take them into account.”
“If someone fails to disclose their conflict of interest, or misrepresents where they’re actually coming from, that’s naturally grounds for reassessing their trustworthiness.”
In many cases that disclosure never takes place. And when answers publicized by antagonistic influencers inevitably diverge sharply from what people have been taught by faith leaders, listeners experience what Gantt calls “a sort of vertigo and confusion” — evidenced by the many examples of people feeling “blindsided,” saying they were “knocked off my feet for a time” and felt “punched in the gut” emotionally from these kinds of encounters online.
Sometimes this primes the pump for a willingness to step away entirely.
“Once people feel embarrassed about their faith,” professor Jeffrey Thayne adds, “no rational answer will resolve their concern.” The main focus of some influencers, says this scholar with a specialty in studying worldviews, isn’t what people think primarily — rather, it’s to “change how people feel about the church, so they don’t even notice the flimsiness of the arguments or evidence presented against it.”
As people try to make sense of the disorienting emotional pain sparked by this new kind of corrosive online content, these same faith-hostile influencers, Gantt notes, are all too happy to help people interpret the angst and agony as persuasive evidence of institutional deceit.
“Look, you see! That’s exactly what I went through,” listeners often hear from influencers. In the same moment someone’s faith has been rocked, this kind of performative empathy leaves listeners feeling supported, Gantt says, by someone “who has experienced the same things and, thus, who understands me at a deep level.”
Perhaps one reason so many believers take this rhetoric for granted is their well-known tendency to presume the best about other people. That means extending trust willingly, including when maybe they shouldn’t — be that Ponzi schemes and scam artists with an offer too good to be true, or influencers with a story too infuriating not to be believed.
There are real-life consequences for granting this trust so easily. For instance, one widely publicized essay surveying a lengthy list of concerns about my own faith has led many readers to conclude the author had “legitimate questions that he was seeking answers to” and which “came from a place of sincere inquiry.” In turn, that has opened up many readers otherwise committed to their faith to quickly entertain “questions” that are custom-designed to unsettle that same faith.
Upon closer examination of this same question list, my colleague Michael Peterson (no relation to Daniel) was shocked to see how much evidence there was of hidden hostility long before the essay was ever written. If not already apparent in the antagonistic, disparaging tone of the original essay, its author’s intent was apparent in extensive efforts to market the piece for broad public distribution, followed by searing personal attacks upon anyone who dared to disagree, and puzzling disinterest in those actively attempting to respond to the very questions about which the author had so publicly demanded answers.
I partnered with Peterson earlier this year in helping publish an analysis behind this effort to attack the faith. This particular author, of course, is not alone — with many others sharing similar rationales for their public advocacy, including one prominent podcaster who claimed for years to be motivated by seeking truth and wanting to simply “hear people’s stories.”
It’s in the real-life impact on readers’ and listeners’ lives where the true motivations are revealed the most — “ye shall know them by their fruits.” Does the video or text bring someone hope, joy and peace? Does it draw them into closer fellowship and love?
Or does it make them sick to their stomach, angry, and isolated from people they once loved and trusted? This particular essay’s list of extensive, rapid-fire questions seems clearly designed for maximum corrosive impact. David Snell called it “a volley of a thousand arrows, hoping that one hits something” and which ultimately aims to “simply overwhelm your senses with reasons not to believe, with little regard for accuracy or the strength of each argument.”
This is reminiscent of the “firehose of falsehoods” employed in the former Soviet era. As Atlantic columnist Anne Applebaum wrote last year in the context of modern Russian repression, “The constant provision of absurd, conflicting explanations and ridiculous lies … encourages many people to believe that there is no truth at all.”
Maybe that’s the point here, too. If there’s no truth, after all, we’re all off the hook. And we can then believe whatever we want and live however we want … with no higher standards or outside voices to questions and raise any discomfort at all.
A poor substitute for a life of rich faith, transcendent joy and unshakeable peace, I would say. But if you’re going to reject all of that, I suppose you have to find some other way to feel personally justified — even if that means trying to burn down the house of faith for everyone else.