Book Of Abraham Critiques: Requesting Your Opinion

[TruthSeeker2013]

If not word for word....then why did the bishop of my youth require me to repeat the water sacrament prayer 4 times just to make sure I repeated it "Word for Word" as supposedly whispered from God's mouth into Joseph's Ear?

It seem jsut too convenient that words matter WHEN words matter...and when exact word for word translation gets in the way out of necessity to explain away a difficulty in the so called translation of various LDS Scripture...Words no longer matter...rather convenient me thinks...

I have to agree with this to some extent. If the BOA was received by revelation and Joseph made a mistake with the words Egyptus, Chaldea, etc., what other words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books did he possibly get wrong? Also, why wouldn't God correct a mistake that Joseph had made? Perhaps it really was to try the Saints' faith, but I just have a hard time accepting that for some reason.

[TruthSeeker2013]

Or maybe....just maybe those anachronisms were put there by Joseph Smith cuz Joseph didn't know when he wrote the BoM...that they would become anachronism as science advanced beyond the basic understanding and false assumptions that Joseph put in his book.

Clearly this is the most reasonable explanation. But religion necessarily calls for reason to sometimes take a back seat to faith or at least to the as-of-yet-undiscovered factors that could play into reason.

[TruthSeeker2013]

I have no idea what Barney means by "anachronism" in this context, but I really don't know or care much if there was an "ancient redactor" or not.

Frankly I see no need to posit one. I am not a scholar, I am a philosopher. I prefer to use reason and come up with simple explanations which typically challenge others underlying assumptions

I believe as a religious principle that in some sense Joseph was "channeling" Abraham, by the power of God. The religious message is all I care about- how it came to be is, to me, frankly irrelevant and I have found the more complicated a theory is, the more can go wrong with it.

Since ultimately none of these beliefs make sense unless we accept they are from God, I just start with that as a premise, since I have a testimony of that. Starting with that premise cuts to the chase and avoids unnecessary intellectual double-talk, perhaps of the variety you have quoted above.

That premise will eventually come up anyway, so why not start with it as a frank admission? Keep it simple- that's my view!

I respect your approach to Church issues and I have to admit that I'm somewhat envious. Others, like myself, feel that we need to place more emphasis on evidence and view that as an important factor alongside spiritual experiences/faith. Otherwise we do not feel content with our faith and relationship to the Church and God.

You mention that you have a testimony that the BOA is from God and so you start with that premise. For me, I feel that I cannot have a testimony of the BOA without examining the evidence. It's a different approach from yours and I think both approaches are equally valuable, just for different people.

[TruthSeeker2013]

Everyone is still using the word "anachronism" without defining it.

I guess I will have to deny all assertions that there ANY anachronisms with a CFR just to get a definition from someone.

Are you looking for a dictionary definition or a philosophical definition, haha. By anachronism I mean something that did not exist at the time of Abraham, therefore Abraham could not have written about it.

[mfbukowski]

I respect your approach to Church issues and I have to admit that I'm somewhat envious. Others, like myself, feel that we need to place more emphasis on evidence and view that as an important factor alongside spiritual experiences/faith. Otherwise we do not feel content with our faith and relationship to the Church and God.

You mention that you have a testimony that the BOA is from God and so you start with that premise. For me, I feel that I cannot have a testimony of the BOA without examining the evidence. It's a different approach from yours and I think both approaches are equally valuable, just for different people.

Well I hate to do so, but frankly I disagree.

I think that scientific evidence has nothing to do with religious matters and those who believe it does have an epistemological misunderstanding of these issues.

I am pressed for time at the moment but maybe you could look at my website- link below- to follow my reasoning, which is well founded philosophically.

This is one post from there, and might be a start

Common Sense, Correspondence Theory, and Religion

The common sense view of how we get to know things is that there are things out there in the world which we can sense, and discover things about, and then somehow make linguistic pictures of those things which we then pass around to each other so that language is a mirror of nature and of reality. Propositions correspond to the way things are in the world- if they correspond, they are called "true" and if they do not correspond to "reality" they are termed "false".

This is called the "correspondence theory of truth" and is extremely simple to understand- if the statement corresponds to reality, the statement is true. This is the way the Greeks saw the world, and the way we have traditionally understood things as the "man in the street" understands them.

But there arises a problem. Do we actually see things as they "really are" or is what we see a construction put together by our brains?

We know that light enters our eyes, for example, and that light is something like a wave and also something like a particle, which in some sense "vibrates" at a certain frequency and is reflected into our retinas, causing specific nerve cells to respond to these vibrations and then firing, and stimulating the optic nerve, which then transmits the signal to the visual cortex of our brains, and then because our brains are constructed as they are, we then experience what we in language abstract to be a "color" and we again abstract that impulse, connecting to verbal centers and we call or define that particular stimulus with the word "red".

But is that object "actually" red, or is it just reflecting light of a certain wavelength which our brain defines with the word we have learned to use which is associated with that brain state? In other words, is that thing "out there" actually "red" or is it just a label our brain affixes to the EXPERIENCE of what is called (defined to be) "red"?

And what is the relationship between that experience called "red" and the word "red"? Do each of us experience "red" the same or not? Color blind people do not experience certain colors the way the rest of us do- we know that because sometimes they cannot tell the difference between different colors. That is the only way we surmise they see things differently than we do because we have an experience, which perhaps we call "aquamarine" which they apparently do not have, since they cannot perhaps distinguish it from what we call "blue" and what we call "green"

So what is reality? Is it what is out there or is it what we experience as out there?

This problem has been one discussed by philosophers for the last two thousand years. Perhaps you have seen it in the form of "if a tree falls in the forest does it make a "sound"? It is essentially the same problem. We presume that sounds are vibrations in the air which our ears sense, and we call that process "hearing". But the problem becomes, if a tree falls and creates such vibrations in the air, should such vibrations be defined by the word "sound"- a word which connotes that someone actually sensed those vibrations and "heard" them- or is such a use of the word inappropriate in such a case?

Well it doesn't take too long before one ends up saying "Who cares? What difference does it make if we call it a "sound" or not? Did the tree really "fall" in a humanly understood sense, and did it make a "sound" in a humanly understood sense. Was that even "real"?

But honestly, who cares if we call such an event as "real" or not?

Isn't that about the way you are feeling right now?

At this instant, if you are feeling that way, you are what we call an "Epistemological Pragmatist" which is a fancy way of saying that you understand that we are now quibbling about definitions and in the geneneral course of things, it really doesn't matter what one calls "real" anyway. Is it "true" that the falling tree made a sound or not? After all, it must be one or the other, right?

Not really. It is a matter of definitions. If you want to interpret the question one way, it is "true" or you can interpret it another way and it is "false".

In cases like these, truth or falsity doesn't really matter much- it just depends on how we somewhat arbitrarily decide to look at it.

I am sure you have seen pictures which you can look at and see either as, say, a rabbit or a duck, or an old lady or a young lady or a staircase going up or going down. Such pictures are designed specifically to be perceived in an ambiguous way, and it all depends on your interpretation of what you see.

These are some of the central problems with the correspondence theory of truth. What is "real" in this way of seeing things? Does it matter how we define what is "real"? How can propositions "correspond" to what is "real" if we cannot define what reality is, or what that correspondence could possibly mean if it is all a matter of our perceptions and how we define them?

These are the issues philosophers have grappled with.

The Pragmatist is one who sees all of the world differently than those who see true statements as "corresponding to reality", so they effectively avoid all the issues such a viewpoint raises. The Pragmatist sees these issues pragmatically- true propositions do not "correspond" to a "reality" beyond what we can see feel and touch with our senses or our emotions- for all practical purposes there is no separation between what is real and what we experience- experience IS reality.

Since experience IS reality- there is, practically speaking, no difference between appearance and reality.

Truth becomes a property of propositions and linguistic statements- it is not a property of reality because we cannot "get down" to a reality beyond our experiences of it. We know how to use the word "true" and "false" and those meanings depend on linguistic contexts- not on any state of some non-perceivable "reality" which only exists in our imaginations.

Truth is always based on some practical use for a particular proposition. "The car is red" is not about a state of the world, but is about our linguistic statement of some experience we have. The car is red because we perceive it as what we call, or define as the color "red".

The practical use of such a statement might be to distinguish a red car from a green one etc.

The practical use of a scientific description would be the fact that such a statement works better in achieving a practical result than some other statement. (Copernicus works better than Ptolemy, Einstein works better than Newton)

Such scientific understandings change from time to time in paradigm shifts which change our definitions and understandings of our collective experience. Copernicus did not change the observational "data" just its interpretation.

Similarly, moral propositions are "true" because they work better socially- societies which do not sanction murder for example are more desirable to live in that those who might oppose those ideas.

So what does this have to do with religion?

Like all other propositions, religious beliefs have nothing to do with some abstract "reality" we cannot see or feel- they are judged by how they function in our lives in giving our lives meaning and peace.

Statements about God, like the statements about the "red car" are about out perceptions and experiences, not about anything else. Religious statements are subjective in the sense that the difference they make is within us- in personal experience, and are not verifiable by others.

But all of the most important decisions or ideas we have as human beings are subjective as well- we decide whom to marry, what is right or wrong, whether or not we should do something perceived as "wrong" or not, based on subjective feelings. There is no objective scientific way to decide what is right or wrong in our lives- whether or not abortion is wrong, which political party to vote for, which church to join, whether or not the historic person Jesus was the Son of God and our redeemer, or not.

What the heck- I will include another.

This post is already too long for people to actually read, so here is more you won't read!

My Version of Pragmatism in a Nutshell

Is religious experience the same as objectively verifiable scientific experience? Of course not!

The view that I would endorse says that religious experience is subjective, not objective. The difference is that many people can simultaneously verify an objective statement, whereas a subjective statement can only be "verified" or stated by the individual making the statement.

All of us can verify the boiling point of water, but only I can verify that I have a pain in my toe, or how I feel about abortion, yet in all these cases we commonly might call such beliefs "true" or "false".

What "truth" is can be complicated, obviously but I think, in a general way a pragmatic view of truth works best, and there is a reason for that.

In fact, in all cases "what works best" is a pretty good definition of truth generally speaking. A moral principle can be said to be true because it "works best for humanity" just as a scientific principle can be said to be true if it works better than the other hypotheses.

Planes fly better with wings than without, aspirin works better for a headache than rat poison. But if you want to kill rats, aspirin probably doesn't work at all.

All of these are objectively verifiable. We can line up 500 rats and everyone can observe how well they live with rat poison in their systems as opposed to aspirin. Everyone can see which works "better".

Note that in each case, we are finding what works better for a specific purpose. Hammers are not very good for taking small nuts off of small bolts.

The test for religious views are what works best to give us what we go to religion to accomplish. Most people turn to religion to seek solace, to give their lives meaning, to find their place in the universe, to decide if God exists, or if one should worship a higher power.

But those answers- what gives one's life meaning and peace for example, cannot be objectively verified. I cannot see what gives YOU peace. That is what testimony is for. That does not mean that statements about what gives one peace cannot be "true"- just that only you can know what beliefs work best for you.

Essentially what we do as Mormons and what happens in Alma 32 is that we ask others to "taste this and see if you like it". As it says in that scripture, if we try it and if we like it, and it becomes "sweet" to us, we will follow that path.

Obviously we know there are many reasons people do not follow up on the path, but it is our belief that though people may find something that works for them, we believe that our path works better than any other if they would just follow it and taste its results.

So I don't know if you call that "relativism' or not. I call it "Pragmatism". I think that the truth is found in what works best for its given purpose.

That's it in a very small nutshell!

Edited May 17, 2013 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Are you looking for a dictionary definition or a philosophical definition, haha. By anachronism I mean something that did not exist at the time of Abraham, therefore Abraham could not have written about it.

OK well as I said before then,

These are only "anachronisms" if you assume it was a translation in the first place. You are begging the question. The papyri could have been wallpaper- what they "said" literally is irrelevant. They were a catalyst for revelation, like staring into a fire or looking at tea leaves, or watching the ocean, though Joseph thought it was a translation.

It was a direct revelation from God, through a very human prophet, as all prophets are. Nothing much more to say about it.

It is a revelation about religious truths- not worldly things at all. That's it.

[ERayR]

If not word for word....then why did the bishop of my youth require me to repeat the water sacrament prayer 4 times just to make sure I repeated it "Word for Word" as supposedly whispered from God's mouth into Joseph's Ear?

I don't know. Did you have trouble reading?

[ERayR]

Or maybe....just maybe those anachronisms were put there by Joseph Smith cuz Joseph didn't know when he wrote the BoM...that they would become anachronism as science advanced beyond the basic understanding and false assumptions that Joseph put in his book.

Or maybe they are not anachronisms but only appear so to you because you are don't understand what you are reading.

[TruthSeeker2013]

For mfbukowski:

I guess my confusion about your position, then, is that I read Abraham differently. When I read it, Abraham seems to be concerned with many worldly things, like astronomy for example. But perhaps you don't see that as something worldly? How exactly would you define worldly things? Is your position that religious things are not to be taken literally? When you read about Nephi and Lehi in the BOM is your position that they are just religious truths and not physical beings that once lived on this earth and did the things the BOM says they did?

You state, "Like all other propositions, religious beliefs have nothing to do with some abstract "reality" we cannot see or feel- they are judged by how they function in our lives in giving our lives meaning and peace." What do you mean by religious beliefs? Aren't many if not all religious beliefs based on things which ourselves or others at one time saw or felt? (Sorry for so many questions, your position fascinates me and I would love to have further insight into it.)

Edited May 17, 2013 by TruthSeeker2013

[ERayR]

I have to agree with this to some extent. If the BOA was received by revelation and Joseph made a mistake with the words Egyptus, Chaldea, etc., what other words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books did he possibly get wrong? Also, why wouldn't God correct a mistake that Joseph had made? Perhaps it really was to try the Saints' faith, but I just have a hard time accepting that for some reason.

You seem to think that revelation is synonymous with dictation. Revelation often comes in the form of concepts which are then couched in the receivers own words.

[Johnnie Cake]

I don't know. Did you have trouble reading?

Ummm...no actually I'm a voluminous reader...but truth be told as a 16 year old boy feeling pressure to do my utter best before a large congregation...I merely allowed my nerves to get the best of me...after 4 attempts to recite the prayer perfectly...and failing to do so...the Bishop finally gave up on me and asked another priest to recite the prayer...it only took him 2 more attempts

[TruthSeeker2013]

You seem to think that revelation is synonymous with dictation. Revelation often comes in the form of concepts which are then couched in the receivers own words.

I'd have to disagree to some extent. Joseph did translate the BOM word by word according to many accounts. These accounts indicate that Joseph would look into his at at a stone sitting in his hat and the words would appear one by one which he would then dictate (the plates would be in another room or somewhere else many times). So it's not too far fetched to believe that IF he received the BOA by revelation that he may have received the BOA by dictation from God as well (but I think the evidence that he received it by revelation and not translation from the papyri is sorely lacking).

[Johnnie Cake]

You seem to think that revelation is synonymous with dictation. Revelation often comes in the form of concepts which are then couched in the receivers own words.

I would just like to pin this down for the sake of discussion...So the translation process was not translation as we might interperate the word (according toERayR) in that Joseph would translate a Nephite or Egyptian word into English...instead God would reveal broad concepts to Joseph and he would then put these broad concept into words taht he waqs familor with...or copied them from books he was familor with rather than dictate the broad concepts...but he did not translate a word TO word translation...and we know this why? (Yea I know the papyri and G. Plates weren't used)

And in the probably case that I've gotten it wrong...could you please jsut share with us the translation process as it happened? (more specific than the by the power of God PLZ)

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

The Egyptian grammar effort of Joseph and his brethren (his scribes wrote nearly all of it) was an attempt to create either a translation key, or to create a cipher key. In fact, William Phelps had already begun working on ciphers before the mummies and papyri arrived in Kirtland. The effort was an obvious failure, and died aborning (they gave up without finishing it). Revelation may provide a translation, but it does not teach one how to read Egyptian. Other issues intrude to make it unlikely that Joseph in fact thought the Sensen text was the Book of Abraham.

I think this is very important to discuss the EG. Having been involved with several discussion mainly reading Will, it does indeed appear that this was Phelp's project and that it was never finished and it was abandoned. Ciritcs thought at one point they had a smoking gun with the EG and Abraham 1:12 and the Sensen text. Essentially TS is just regurgitating these old theories. As I recall too, there was a theory out there that parts of Abraham 1:12 we probably not even original and were added latter and should not even be in the text. I think Will and Metcalf and Chris had huge threads about this. Really they were interesting reads.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I would just like to pin this down for the sake of discussion...So the translation process was not translation as we might interperate the word (according toERayR) in that Joseph would translate a Nephite or Egyptian word into English...instead God would reveal broad concepts to Joseph and he would then put these broad concept into words taht he waqs familor with...or copied them from books he was familor with rather than dictate the broad concepts...but he did not translate a word TO word translation...and we know this why? (Yea I know the papyri and G. Plates weren't used)

And in the probably case that I've gotten it wrong...could you please jsut share with us the translation process as it happened? (more specific than the by the power of God PLZ)

As described by JS, was the translation of the BoM done in the same manner as it is done today? Meaning that one would tranlate an ancient Greek text into English in an academic manner? Edited May 17, 2013 by Mola Ram Suda Ram

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I'd have to disagree to some extent. Joseph did translate the BOM word by word according to many accounts. These accounts indicate that Joseph would look into his at at a stone sitting in his hat and the words would appear one by one which he would then dictate (the plates would be in another room or somewhere else many times). So it's not too far fetched to believe that IF he received the BOA by revelation that he may have received the BOA by dictation from God as well (but I think the evidence that he received it by revelation and not translation from the papyri is sorely lacking).

Word for word? Are you sure about this? Are you suggesting that JS thought he was producing what we would call a "tight" translation? I think one could argue very successfully that he did not.

[TruthSeeker2013]

Word for word? Are you sure about this? Are you suggesting that JS thought he was producing what we would call a "tight" translation? I think one could argue very successfully that he did not.

Yes, word for word, according to David Whitmer, Martin Harris, Michael Morse, and Joseph Knight, Sr. Here are some quotes (source: Mormonthink.com):

David Whitmer:

David Whitmer was one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. The majority of the translation work took place in the Whitmer home.

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man."

"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation... . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation"

REF: Page 12 of his book An Address to All Believers in Christ. Also, Interview given to Kansas City Journal, June 5, 1881, reprinted in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Journal of History, vol. 8, (1910), pp. 299-300.

Martin Harris:

Martin Harris, a Book of Mormon scribe for the lost 116 pages of the BOM, also one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, provided this information to his friend Edward Stevenson, who would later become part of the LDS First Council of Seventy.

"Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say "Written," and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used."

In his Comprehensive History of the Church (CHC), LDS historian and Seventy Brigham H. Roberts quotes Martin Harris, one of the three witnesses whose name is found in every edition of the Book of Mormon since its original edition. Harris said that the seer stone Smith possessed was a "chocolate-colored, somewhat egg-shaped stone which the Prophet found while digging a well in company with his brother Hyrum." Harris went on to say it was by using this stone that "Joseph was able to translate the characters engraven on the plates" (CHC 1:129).

Martin Harris was one of the scribes Joseph Smith used to record the writing on the plates. This enabled him to give a first-hand account of how Smith performed this translation. Harris noted, "By aid of the Seer Stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say 'written;' and if correctly written, the sentence would disappear and another appear in its place; but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used" (CHC 1:29).

Michael Morse:

The first-hand account of Michael Morse, Emma Smith's brother-in-law, was published in an 1879 article in the RLDS publication Saint's Herald:

"When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while the scribes - Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down.

Joseph Knight, Sr.:

Joseph Knight, Sr., an early member of the Church and a close friend of Joseph Smith, wrote the following in a document on file in the LDS Church archives:

"Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and darkened his eyes then he would take a sentence and it would appear in bright roman letters then he would tell the writer and he would write it then that would go away the next sentence would come and so on. But if it was not spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated." (spelling preserved from original). Reference: Neal A Maxwell Institute

[TruthSeeker2013]

Word for word? Are you sure about this? Are you suggesting that JS thought he was producing what we would call a "tight" translation? I think one could argue very successfully that he did not.

I also agree that one could argue very successfully that he did not. Especially given the many anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. So I don't know what to make of it.

Edited May 17, 2013 by TruthSeeker2013

[ERayR]

Ummm...no actually I'm a voluminous reader...but truth be told as a 16 year old boy feeling pressure to do my utter best before a large congregation...I merely allowed my nerves to get the best of me...after 4 attempts to recite the prayer perfectly...and failing to do so...the Bishop finally gave up on me and asked another priest to recite the prayer...it only took him 2 more attempts

Then you are not alone are you? Most of us have had that experience but are still active believers.

Edited May 17, 2013 by ERayR

[mfbukowski]

Ummm...no actually I'm a voluminous reader...but truth be told as a 16 year old boy feeling pressure to do my utter best before a large congregation...I merely allowed my nerves to get the best of me...after 4 attempts to recite the prayer perfectly...and failing to do so...the Bishop finally gave up on me and asked another priest to recite the prayer...it only took him 2 more attempts

That was totally out of line on the bishop's behalf.

After the second time, he should have stood up and walked over and showed you where you were going wrong and perhaps stood next to you to guide you through it. You never give up on a young person, you help them.

Edited May 17, 2013 by mfbukowski

[ERayR]

I would just like to pin this down for the sake of discussion...So the translation process was not translation as we might interperate the word (according toERayR) in that Joseph would translate a Nephite or Egyptian word into English...instead God would reveal broad concepts to Joseph and he would then put these broad concept into words taht he waqs familor with...or copied them from books he was familor with rather than dictate the broad concepts...but he did not translate a word TO word translation...and we know this why? (Yea I know the papyri and G. Plates weren't used)

And in the probably case that I've gotten it wrong...could you please jsut share with us the translation process as it happened? (more specific than the by the power of God PLZ)

Come now quit trying to score points. It does not have to be an either or. I wasn't there nor have I had the opportunity to interview Joseph so am unable to give you a definitive answer..

[mfbukowski]

For mfbukowski:

I guess my confusion about your position, then, is that I read Abraham differently. When I read it, Abraham seems to be concerned with many worldly things, like astronomy for example. But perhaps you don't see that as something worldly? How exactly would you define worldly things? Is your position that religious things are not to be taken literally? When you read about Nephi and Lehi in the BOM is your position that they are just religious truths and not physical beings that once lived on this earth and did the things the BOM says they did?

You state, "Like all other propositions, religious beliefs have nothing to do with some abstract "reality" we cannot see or feel- they are judged by how they function in our lives in giving our lives meaning and peace." What do you mean by religious beliefs? Aren't many if not all religious beliefs based on things which ourselves or others at one time saw or felt? (Sorry for so many questions, your position fascinates me and I would love to have further insight into it.)

Well maybe you could start with this article on Fideism.

Here's another

I was educated in the philosophy of William James and Wittgestein

Widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was also one of the most controversial and difficult. Wittgenstein famously argued that “meaning is use”—that our words mean what they do by virtue of the role they play in our discourse. Moreover, he argued that words are used in more than one way, and that it is a mistake to “sublime the logic” of our language—i.e., to treat any single function of language as paradigmatic. “Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The functions of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects” (1958, I, §11).

In his later writings, Wittgenstein calls these diverse phenomena language-games, in order, he explains, “to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life” (1958, I, §23). Renouncing his own earlier quest for a general form of propositions, his later writings suggest that these language-games “have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all,—but that they are related to one another in many different ways” (1958, I, §65).

Although Wittgenstein was not by conventional standards religious, his philosophical remarks and journal entries reveal what might be described as a religious sensibility and are informed by a definite sympathy toward at least certain features of religion. For Wittgenstein, as for Kierkegaard, whom he admired, religion was less a matter of theory than of practice. “I believe that one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. They have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.)…Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion” (1980, 53e).

It has been argued that Wittgenstein's later thought, though perhaps not overtly fideistic, nevertheless lends itself to fideistic interpretation. According to this interpretation, religion is a self-contained and primarily expressive enterprise, governed by its own internal logic or “grammar.” This view—commonly called Wittgensteinian Fideism—is variously characterized as entailing one or more of the following distinct (but arguably inter-related) theses: (1) that religion is logically cut off from other aspects of life; (2) that religious discourse is essentially self-referential and does not allow us to talk about reality; (3) that religious beliefs can be understood only by religious believers; and (4) that religion cannot be criticized.

In short, the purpose of religion is to change your life, and has nothing to do with scientific "facts".

Perhaps it would be useful if you thought about religion in a way similar to the way we speak about moral declarations like "murder is wrong".

How does one prove scientifically if murder is wrong? It cannot be done. No amount of observations about the world can ever lead us to conclude that murder is wrong. Right and wrong have nothing to do with science.

Similarly, religion is about what gives your life meaning and purpose, it is about ideas which change the way you think and live. It has nothing to do with facts.

There are indeed atheists who understand this notion and speak of the future of "religion", substituting working for causes and civil rights, etc. as a "religious" point of view- because they understand that the function of "religion" has nothing to do with science or "facts"

In "The Age of Interpretation," Vattimo, who is both a devout Catholic and a frequent critic of the church, explores the surprising congruence between Christianity and hermeneutics in light of the dissolution of metaphysical truth. As in hermeneutics, interpretation is central to Christianity, which introduced the world to the principle of interiority, dissolving the experience of objective reality into "listening to and interpreting messages."

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Religion-Gianni-Vattimo/dp/0231134959

I personally don't have a lot of time right now to get into it much, but I will be glad to share as much as I have time for.

No, I don't take those passages about astronomy literally, but symbolically.

It is my personal belief that the people in the BOM "actually lived" but indeed that is unknowable in a scientific sense, and pretty much irrelevant to the religious truths they taught us.

[volgadon]

If not word for word....then why did the bishop of my youth require me to repeat the water sacrament prayer 4 times just to make sure I repeated it "Word for Word" as supposedly whispered from God's mouth into Joseph's Ear?

It seem jsut too convenient that words matter WHEN words matter...and when exact word for word translation gets in the way out of necessity to explain away a difficulty in the so called translation of various LDS Scripture...Words no longer matter...rather convenient me thinks...

I don't know the whys, but my mission president related that he was present at a sacrament meeting with the first presidency and quorum of the twelve where one of the apostles got the wording wrong, yet president Hinckley approved it.

I'm sorry you had to go through that.

Edited May 18, 2013 by volgadon

[TruthSeeker2013]

Well maybe you could start with this article on Fideism.

Here's another

I was educated in the philosophy of William James and Wittgestein

In short, the purpose of religion is to change your life, and has nothing to do with scientific "facts".

Perhaps it would be useful if you thought about religion in a way similar to the way we speak about moral declarations like "murder is wrong".

How does one prove scientifically if murder is wrong? It cannot be done. No amount of observations about the world can ever lead us to conclude that murder is wrong. Right and wrong have nothing to do with science.

Similarly, religion is about what gives your life meaning and purpose, it is about ideas which change the way you think and live. It has nothing to do with facts.

There are indeed atheists who understand this notion and speak of the future of "religion", substituting working for causes and civil rights, etc. as a "religious" point of view- because they understand that the function of "religion" has nothing to do with science or "facts"

http://www.amazon.co...o/dp/0231134959

I personally don't have a lot of time right now to get into it much, but I will be glad to share as much as I have time for.

No, I don't take those passages about astronomy literally, but symbolically.

It is my personal belief that the people in the BOM "actually lived" but indeed that is unknowable in a scientific sense, and pretty much irrelevant to the religious truths they taught us.

Thank you for sharing, I love your approach to religion! Interestingly (or maybe not so much given your statement about atheists), I've heard of members who have lost their testimony of the BOA or BOM but who still want to practice take a similar approach. They love the teachings of the scriptures and sometimes even believe that they are inspired but won't believe they literally happened. It's a way they can reconcile their love the teachings of the church and scriptures while still staying intellectually true to themselves.

[mfbukowski]

Thank you for sharing, I love your approach to religion! Interestingly (or maybe not so much given your statement about atheists), I've heard of members who have lost their testimony of the BOA or BOM but who still want to practice take a similar approach. They love the teachings of the scriptures and sometimes even believe that they are inspired but won't believe they literally happened. It's a way they can reconcile their love the teachings of the church and scriptures while still staying intellectually true to themselves.

The only reason I even brought up the atheists was to show that this is a accepted position of those who philosophically understand that religion has nothing to do with science, and indeed believe it is possible to be "religious" without even believing in God.

I agree with their position, but of course I am a theist.