Tal Bachman On Lds Epistemology

[structurecop]

Maklelan it's statements like this one that drive me nuts.

I was kind of offended when I read what maklelan wrote there. I know some less actives who struggle but who have had very poignant spiritual manifestations nonetheless.

[maklelan]

Maklelan it's statements like this one that drive me nuts. I feel like I should applaud you and greg for having such huge capacitors for spirituality. I am not mocking you. I got a few knickers in a twist when I suggested that god plays favorites. But there have been a couple refs made that seem to suggest that a chosen few really "know" what the spirit feels like and those who leave the church just never knew. I know you did not actually say that here, but you and greg have alluded to a sort of special privelege of a whammy sort of spiritual experience. I thought I had spirituality down pat before I exited Mormonism. I paid a price (you would argue I did not put out enough currecny). I learned the ropes (you would argue I did not read enough or the right books on roping). I felt things. Powerful things. But found out that many people in many religions also feel the spirit "testifying" to them that their religion is the one true religion. Every religion has the glue that keeps the questioning smart ones in tact. You wouldn't venture to say that there aren't any super smart seriously doubting & questioning Jehovah's Witnesses? I know one. She has told me that since I left Mormonism behind, that is just a sign from Jehovah that I am now ready to join the watchtower society. When we talked, she confided some very powerful experiences in how she knew, for example, all other religions but JW were in grievous error. What cements her in her faith? How are you and greg any different?

Noggin

I don't think people who leave the church have never had powerful spiritual experiences, and most of the people I know who are barely active and talk about the spirit as if it were their roommate will probably stay that way their whole lives. In my opinion, spiritual experiences have a period in which they can influence your testimony, but they start to fade with time, and new ones are needed. A testimony is a constant ebb and flow. Think of it like a gym. Imagine working out is equal to spiritual experiences, great and small. You can go in and work out so hard you yack all over the locker room floor, and you'll grow from it, but that won't keep your muscles strong for long. You have to go back or your muscles atrophy. THe guys who get the most from the gym are the guys who work hard consistently, and are constantly adding more and more weight, because the same old stuff doesn't cut it. Then you got the guys that are there every day, but they get heavier, they just keep lifting the same stuff day after day after day, but they talk about their workouts like they're Sergio Oliva. They never get anywhere, but they're dedicated to the gym for life. Others come in and get strong, then lose motivation and stop. Everyone is having experiences with weight training, but some people live in the past, some people think they're progressing when they're not, and some people can't seem to get that drive back into their lives. I hope this stupid little parable makes sense. I don't doubt you and others have had significant spiritual experiences, but a spiritual experience is best judged by how it changes you. People who talk like they're Moses but stay the same throughout their lives either aren't really having spiritual experiences, or they sluff off their influence.

I was kind of offended when I read what maklelan wrote there. I know some less actives who struggle but who have had very poignant spiritual manifestations nonetheless.

I tried to clear up the misunderstanding below. I was referring in the first post mainly to people who are barely active for their entire lives, never even noticing that they're teetering on the edge, not to people who are struggling to find out where they belong.

[structurecop]

I tried to clear up the misunderstanding below. I was referring in the first post mainly to people who are barely active for their entire lives, never even noticing that they're teetering on the edge, not to people who are struggling to find out where they belong.

Now I see what you were getting at, and I would agree.

[Benjamin McGuire]

However, these are both entirely different scenarios then the Moroni challenge. The Moroni challenge is about accessing accurate information about external realities. If one wants to evaluate whether or not a specific historical event occurred, reading one text and then listening to one's "feelings" about it is a process unsupported by either science, logic, or what we know about human evolution and emotions.

There are a few things I want to say about this comment.

There are two different things to look at. The first is that when we talk about nature, and make assertions about nature, nature can resist our assertions. That is, if we assert a flat earth, we can demonstrate that the earth in fact is not flat. We could assert that gravity does not pull things downward and demonstrate this isn't true by tossing someone out a 23rd story window. But in the case of moral, or ethical claims, what is there to resist claims of good or evil? So it seems to me that (if we assume the authenticity of the text) Beastie is misrepresenting Moroni by asserting that his challenge is one of evaluating whether or not Moroni (as a person) really existed. Yet Moroni's language is not about whether or not "a specific historical event occured", it is about truth claims, it is about things that are "good" and "true".

The idea that something is good is a subjective question, and as such it is always a question which can only be posed within a culturally and societally framed construct of ethics and morality (even if it refers to or pretends to be a representation of some external real morality and ethics).

Second, science, logic and what we know about human evolution and emotions don't really have any way of providing us access to external realities. They can provided referential models of reality - but they are not that external reality.

Finally, as I noted earlier in this thread, Moroni himself was not limited (according to his own claims) to a basis of knowledge reliant only on "feelings". Neither was Joseph Smith. To suggest that an encounter with diety is merely a feeling, and emotional state, stands in conflict with my own experiences, and the experiences of others (LDS and non-LDS inclusive). To suggest that our base of knowledge is merely emotional (and thus, as you point out irrational), is really nothing less than asserting that your own personal point of view is the only acceptable (only rational) way to resolve the issue. And to be quite frank, I don't have a lot of faith in your perpspective.

Ben

[BarrelO'Mangoes]

QUOTE(Abarrelomonkeys @ Jan 14 2007, 07:25 PM)

Unless your mirror neurons aren't working properly. Some people (Aspergers, Autism) do not have this intuition and do not get these same "feelings based on the fact that we pay attention to language (verbal and noverbal) on a not-quite-conscious level". Doesn't happen. Or if it does it does not occur in the same way as someone who has mirror neurons that respond appropriately.

I wonder how they are in the God belief department? I'll have to ask my daughter as well as do a HW Wilson Search.

This would be very interesting to find out. I will ask around a few people I know who have experience in this area (though Juliann probably would know more) and see if they have anything to say.

Upon further thought it would have to follow that these "intuitions" would be relevant to having the "feelings". Perhaps this inability to relate to fellow humans isn't relevant at all to having spiritual experiences?

My daughter has Asperger's and does not have the ability to intuitively understand someone through body language or even through speech. Does this impact her ability to "feel"? No. It just has a negative impact on her ability to relate to others and have empathy.

[T-Bone]

Either you believe in things you can't see or you don't. I mainly believe in things I can see.

Belief in a particular religion might require tithing. Would it be a conflict of interest for the same church collecting my tithing to try to influence my belief, and that I can only show my obedience and faith by my paying tithes? That's where I draw the line.

That line of reasoning would sound very cynical to a religious person. The religious would say that churches require money to operate and that my obedience and faith are required to get into heaven. That just makes me take another step back.

Just my $.02.

T-Bone

[Benjamin McGuire]

Tal writes:

But the real problem with even discussing this statement, as we are trying to do, is this: the first sentence in the preceding paragraph begs the whole question, in that I mentioned "argument" and "evidence", both of which would be meaningless but for a pre-commitment on my part to the value of reason (not that there's any way around this). Do you see what I mean?

The problem here of course is that this approach (as I just noted above) has absolutely zero to say about the non-natural world. It cannot comment on ethics. It cannot comment on morals. It really cannot comment on anything external to its own definitions. Which is why, of course, all of the examples which you present deal with issues where there is something which can clearly be defined as the "right" answer. But how do we determine what is "good" using this approach? Only by creating a culturally and lingusitically framed hierarchy of values (which of course will be different depending on the culture or the language) can we even start to talk about these kinds of issues. Our society today for example, is very market driven. Nearly everything can be spoken of in terms of clients (those who purchase services) and the stakeholders (those who profit by them). And much of our societies ethics are dictated by what is essentially good for a small group (the stakeholders) at the expense of the rest of us (the clients). But is there an external set of morals and ethics that exists apart from the world? That is one of the questions (and assertions) of religion. And there isn't a way of evaluating answers to that question in the model that you present.

In other words, the very claim "I feel it is true, therefore, I know it is true", makes the prospect of discussion, debate, evidence, argument, and every other province of homo sapiens (as opposed to, say, those of the polyp hydra, or any other primitive organism in possession of nerve cells), an absolute absurdity, an impossibility. The claim itself is a rejection of the ultimate value of reason, and necessarily, all those other things which can only be comprehended - which only have meaning - through the use of, because of, reason. There is no way around this. I suppose then, in a profound way, the feelings-claim doesn't even merit an attempt at rational refutation. It can't even enlist any argument on behalf of itself, without underminging itself. It can be no wonder that neither I, nor anyone else (since it is an impossibility), knows of a "convincing argument" that "convincing arguments" never really can be "convincing arguments" (since - as the claim goes - we know we know because we feel we know). You know? (Rimshot)

One of the funny things about this piece of text relates to the notion of understanding. You aren't really a complete skeptic - merely very selective in your skepticism. Suppose person A says something to person B. Person B cannot read person A's mind. He has to determine what person A meant. In doing so, he merely "feels" that he has understood person A. And thus knows what person A meant to communicate. We do this all the time. And particularly when an author is dead (i.e. we don't have the recourse of asking person A exactly what they meant), we aren't simply left hanging wondering if what we feel that the author meant is in fact what the author meant. It rarely occurs to us that an author might have made a grammatical mistake, or that his dictionary meaning might be different from ours, and so on. And we can come up with nice hypotheticals covering a broad range of these issues.

The question might just as well be one about why it is that you place such a high value on "reason" so as to preclude the value of any other form of discourse, or process. And why you think that this "reason" gets you closer to Truth than anything else. And of course why you think that only this model of discourse is rational.

Christopher Hitchens, commenting on strange claims such as the one we're discussing, once wrote that, "that which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". And I might even go him one further: "that which is asserted without evidence, probably ought to be dismissed without evidence". Any fool can make unevidenced, and inherently untestable, assertions about the world, the cosmos, the meaning of life, the past, the future, the government, their neighbours, God, their favourite football team, angels, physics, anything - just as any fool can believe them. But why be fools if we can avoid it? Why else do we have minds?

And this brings up another set of interesting issues. Suppose, for a second, that Joseph Smith actually saw God. (Let's not worry just for the moment about any other issues - just that God - who for the purpose of this hypothetical - really exists, and appears to Joseph Smith). Joseph Smith asserts that he saw God. It may be quite proper (following this line of thinking) to dismiss the idea that Joseph Smith saaw God - after all there isn't any evidence of it. But then, it still really happened. And would Joseph Smith be a fool for believing that he had seen God? Part of this problem revolves around the notion of communities and beliefs held by a community. In a community of believers, there is a commonly held belief in the existence of God. The assertion that God exists doesn't need to be proven, because it is the default position of the community. In a community of atheists, it isn't and would need to be demonstrated (for rational belief). But the reverse is also true. In a community of believers, the non-existence of God would need to be demosntrated to prove that it was rational. And in this case, the notion of a default position being the negative one (the assertion that God doesn't exist) is invalidated by the fact that neither position seems to be rationally demonstratable. So, the question remains. Whether or not I can demonstrate the existence of God, it seems quite rational to believe in God based on the revelation of God which God gives to me individually.

To put it in another light, you may have had some thoughts this morning while you were getting out of bed. You might even assert to us what you were thinking this morning. But, according to you, since there is no evidence that you were actually thinking those thoughts, we would be fools to take your word for it. Obviously according to you, people who assert morals or ethics, or anything else not falling under your umbrella of "reason" are fools. But I think that I find this to be nothing more than a polemical posture, since I doubt very much that your own personal skepticism rises to this level in any general way.

Ben

[beastie]

Ben

So it seems to me that (if we assume the authenticity of the text) Beastie is misrepresenting Moroni by asserting that his challenge is one of evaluating whether or not Moroni (as a person) really existed. Yet Moroni's language is not about whether or not "a specific historical event occured", it is about truth claims, it is about things that are "good" and "true".

You know I tried to allow for this, but no one followed up on it. You followed up on it but did so by pretending I didnâ??t make this allowance at all. Hereâ??s what I said:

Iâ??m not talking about determining whether or not one believes in God â?? the Moroni challenge supercedes that, and even seems to assume a pre-existing belief in God. The Moroni challenged is about determining whether or not specific historical events occurred, depending upon how one phrases the question.

Of course, if you want to interpret the Moroni challenge in a vaguer way, thatâ??s fine. Maybe asking whether or not the BoM is â??trueâ? only means â??does it contain spiritual teachings of which God approvesâ? and has nothing to do with whether or not JS translated actual plates of gold, or whether or not the people described in the text actually existed. Normally that is not the interpretation believers give the Moroni challenge.

You are interpreting the Moroni challenge in a vaguer way, in that â??is the BoM true in that it contains spiritual truths?â? Since spiritual truths only exist internally, then feelings are a legitimate way of ascertaining whether an individual can accept those spiritual truths as God-given.

And, of course, the Moroni challenge normally includes this understanding, but it also includes the understanding that the BoM being â??trueâ? also includes:

1 â?? Joseph Smith actually had ancient gold plates that an angel gave to him, and he translated them by the power of God

2 â?? The people described therein were real people who lived anciently on the American continent

In my experience, believers are normally including both of these factors when they refer to the BoM as â??trueâ?. If you are going to only refer to the spiritual teachings as â??trueâ? that changes the conversation entirely.

[riddled1]

Here is my explanation as to why such a variety of persons have powerful, moving spiritual experiences:

God is universal and the experiences themselves are personal and deem no measure of absolute truth, thus they are irrelevant.

Some have postured the possibility that these other peoples are experiencing Satan's deception. While a possibility, it doesn't make sense since person's lives change so dramatically for good and for happiness. Further, whats to say that my experience isn't a product of Satan's influence?

So, it seems for me, that these experiences are highly personal, but are irrelevant in a global context (i.e. they don't define truth for me).

I'm open for more insight from the people here. This discussion has been very constructive for me. Thanks for your input!

[beastie]

I followed up on the â??feelingsâ? issue not because I particularly care whether or not it is labeled feelings, but because I was immediately challenged for â??documentationâ? and â??referencesâ? for my statements. So I provided several references that demonstrate that LDS believers, themselves, across the pulpit, refer to the experience as a type of feeling. Now I am being told that it still doesnâ??t count, because they mean something different than I do by the word â??feelingâ?. (conversations like this make me wonder why I ever bother giving documentation when others demand it, knowing full well they still will never accept the documentation as support for my statement)

Iâ??m very willing to use the word revelation instead. In fact, I have participated already in long conversations on this board using the word revelation. Revelation is a bit broader because it can include visual or auditory input, and normally that is not what is occurring when we talk about the â??feelingsâ? aspect, but if we all understand that caution, Iâ??m willing to use the word revelation instead. The same problems continue to plague us.

Human beings began to make astonishing progress in terms of understanding how the world works and accessing that information to our advantage when we realized that our natural way of thinking and processing information contains certain tendencies that can lead us to embrace erroneous assumptions about the world and how it works. In an effort to control that tendency, humans developed certain formulas, so to speak, that could be followed by anyone and were controlled to eliminate the natural tendencies to error, and could be reliably replicated â?? the scientific method and rules of logic. These methods provided a reliable manner in which anyone, no matter his/her natural bias, could test hypothesis for reliability. This is what has allowed human beings to harness so much of the natural world for our benefit. Itâ??s not revelation. Itâ??s a strict formula that deliberately set up controls to avoid our natural tendencies to err.

Please do not interpret this to mean that revelation, or any other internal reality, is pointless and meaningless. Of course it is not. Science and logic teach us how the external world works, but internal states make that life meaningful and beautiful.

Often LDS try to present the Moroni challenge as another reliable method of obtaining information about how the external world works. Is it really a formula that produces reliable results, like the rules of science and logic? Is it really a formula that allows anyone to reproduce the experiment and obtain the same results?

We donâ??t even have to talk about why revelation does or does not do this. All we have to recognize is that revelation does or does not do this.

The history of the religious world in general, and the LDS church in particular, demonstrates it doesnâ??t. Revelation is an unreliable method of obtaining results that can be reproduced by anyone following the formula.

Believers understand this, because they try to provide reasons for why it didnâ??t work the way it was supposed to. The fact that believers are forced to offer reasons for why it didnâ??t work the way it was supposed to is all the evidence we need for the fact that it doesnâ??t.

So revelation, or feelings in general, certainly provide useful information in the world, and help give the world meaning and beauty. Revelation or feelings in general do not, on the other hand, provide reliable information about the external world and how it works. Revelation and feelings are about internal states.

The fact that no one can really know WHAT another person experiences internally â?? and this is not just true of revelation, but of any other internal state, including love and pain â?? does not alter this fact. In fact, it makes its use as a reliable method even more problematic. Just imagine what a disaster the scientific method would be if, at the end, instead of a reliable and universally recognizable result, we could only experience â??somethingâ? and never be certain that it is the same â??somethingâ? other experimenters experienced. For all you know, when other LDS testify as to their own revelatory experiences, they may really just be talking about mundane feelings. In fact, when I was doubting the church but hadnâ??t yet lost faith and left, I talked to many different members about why they believed Joseph Smith was a prophet. I was amazed at how mundane some of these stories really were. They werenâ??t stories of burning bushes at all. They were things like â??I feel good when Iâ??m at churchâ?, or, from a convert, â??I liked the emphasis on the familyâ?. They werenâ??t stories of clear revelatory experiences. Sure, these realities feel significant to the individual, but is it â??revelationâ?? They think it is. Does it match what YOU think is â??revelationâ??

So the fact that no one can really access or understand the internal states of others makes the use of internal states as a method of determining the validity of claims about the external world even more problematic. You tell someone that they will receive revelation, and maybe all they feel is hope and wishful thinking. Or the intense desire to belong, to have answers to lifeâ??s complex questions. So how reliable can this method be, when itâ??s not even possible to have a standard?

[koakaipo]

1)My concern with this sort of thing (apart from it constituting a relinquishing of our own miraculous cognitive capacities) is that it seems that it sets everything down a path which can only culminate in a battle of wills to power, of non-rational might, with brute, a-rational beasts competing via force of some type or other...over whatever: territory, "converts", followers, audio space, air waves, women, property, etc. It in effect denies (not to repeat myself too much) the essence of homo sapiens ("knowing man"), and grants that in the end, his rational faculties are chimerical, or at least, of no real use in sorting through what has reason to believed, from what does not (since again, it makes the whole concept of "a reason to believe" an absurdity). And since even the actual conception of the claim itself, and its (inadequate) defenses, could only have come about because of the (unconscious?) granting to reason of primacy over feelings (when's the last time you think a hamster spoke such a claim to himself?), it seems to me pretty much self-refuting. But why such antagonism to the human brain? Nature, or God, or whoever, has never created any more brilliant truth detection system ever...Intuitions, feelings, emotions, experiences, all subserve our rational faculties and ability to navigate complex problems. In some emergency cases, their immediate assumption of dominance over calculation will save our lives...but as a guide to life, how can we ever subscribe to "I feel it's true, therefore, I know it's true"?

2)Christopher Hitchens, commenting on strange claims such as the one we're discussing, once wrote that, "that which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". And I might even go him one further: "that which is asserted without evidence, probably ought to be dismissed without evidence". Any fool can make unevidenced, and inherently untestable, assertions about the world, the cosmos, the meaning of life, the past, the future, the government, their neighbours, God, their favourite football team, angels, physics, anything - just as any fool can believe them. But why be fools if we can avoid it? Why else do we have minds?

This post is long enough already, so I should end it.

3)There is no human being reading this who could hear a man say, "I know the Holocaust was basically a hoax, because the feelings I get when I read David Irving's books confirm that it was", without not only not taking the man's feelings as a reason to believe the Holocaust was a hoax, but thinking that the man was in a very poor psychological state. And even people on this very board who would hear a Muslim say, "I know Islam is the only true religion in the world, because I have felt Allah's power through the Koran, and at mosque, telling me just that", would instantly disbelieve him, and think that his way of "knowing" was unreliable to the point where they could barely (if at all) find it in themselves to take his claim with any seriousness at all...but I confess it is very difficult to find any fundamental difference between these particular claims (which all of us would rightly disregard), and any other claim of knowledge (which perhaps some of us wouldn't), which was reducible to, "I feel it's true, therefore, I know it's true".

1) One thing that strikes me about this paragraph is the fact that our common culture has SO little actual vocabulary words for interior workings. Feelings can speak to something like to hungry or gassy to......love. That's sorta crappy in terms of what it even speaks to. There are other cultures that pinpoint and map internal workings in a much more mature and meticulous way. But we have a tendency in our culture to be very immature in terms of how we deal with what we simply call feelings. Part of this is simply due to the fact we are out of practice from relying on our internal senses--we've dulled them in the sense that we do rely more on external methods of understanding. And that's swell-I'm glad to be living in the modern age, science is my friend. But not all interior workings are brutish like that, and not all feelings are simply flightly and whimisical feelings that are made up of equal parts pixie dust and rainbow sherbert and puppy whimpers. Our perceptions of internal workings are more reflections on ourselves and our approaches and atttitudes honestly than on internal workings. Just as someone who is multi-ethnic and cultural, it's very interesting to see such contrast in approaches. And I see wisdom in cultural approaches that if judged by our own cultural standards, would be seen as backwards and nonrational. I see some middle ground here, I don't see polar extremes.

2) Oh no you di'in't say Hitchens-I find him interesting and smart, and yet he's so repulsive to watch on television as he yells and poses. Okay, back to your point though, I agree. I always qualify myself here for instance, cause I can only speak for myself. But I don't think there is only one standard for truth either. I don't think the only way to make religion relevant is to attempt to frame it's relevance through the recourse of social science as that standard for instance. How rice cakey would life be for me if I did so, I think even sorta delusional in the sense that it ain't the social science that my devotion is based on-it's based on faith. And it's not something, my faith, that I feel I need to avoid, or something that I see I'm not using my mind for. I just see this sort of setup here as once again, something that is very much a part of this culture, where we attempt to control and u nderstand everything by standards we know are reliable. But that doesn't mean that standard applies to everything. Just because we can't control or understand or peg something, doesn't mean we simply discard it. I think the key to being faithful is more about qualifying your approach because faith is not sure knowledge, and to always be mindful of the dark side of faith. I think it's when people attempt to not qualify or acknowledge that not everything is sunshine and daisies when it come to faith ever individually or collectively, then you can have problems.

3)Sure. I am of the belief I can't speak for anyone, only myself. Even when I speak for myself here, I qualify what TYPE of Mormon I am, so people further understand where I come from-location, gender, age, ethnicity, etc. Your faith isn't something you really can transmit to people or anything. That has to be something that happens on their own. And that faith is going to be set up by a number of factors-tradtion, background, approach to the world, own experiences, personal nature,etc. It doesn't come out of a vacuum.

Is it your take though that faith is something to avoid, because it's not something that will ever pass some rational standard?

[koakaipo]

PS-re: Enlightenment:

A long standing philosophical habit the West is to take the Enlightenment view of human nature. That's the optimistic view. Some in the West take the more somber view that emphasizes the aggressive animal base, the dark instinctive base, which is older than our ego. According to that view, our civilized human houses are built over that presocial animal ground. The base is important cause it does not change.

As many have asserted before me, any thought of Christianity and five hundred years of the Enlightenment has softened that brutal animal ground had to be abandoned with the first pictures of Auschwitz.

[Deborah]

Christopher Hitchens, commenting on strange claims such as the one we're discussing, once wrote that, "that which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". And I might even go him one further: "that which is asserted without evidence, probably ought to be dismissed without evidence".

I take it that you are saying those who claim spiritual manifestations are doing so with no evidence to support it. However, if we take the example of Joseph Smith, not only do we have his claims of revelation and visitations of angels and God but we have other witnesses who claim to likewise have seen this angel and the plates of which he spoke. We also have tangible evidences in the doctrines he taught which for some make perfect sense in the context of the Old and New Testaments. We have many other witnesses of spiritual manifestations including healings, visions and other testaments to his prophetship. So we come back to the question of what is evidence?

You can present all kinds of evidence to someone about the truth of a scientific principle, but if that person has no back ground to understand that evidence then it is meaningless. Likewise a person who is spiritually attunded cannot present any evidence to someone who is not which will satisfy that person as evidence.

[Not quite me]

You can present all kinds of evidence to someone about the truth of a scientific principle, but if that person has no back ground to understand that evidence then it is meaningless. Likewise a person who is spiritually attunded cannot present any evidence to someone who is not which will satisfy that person as evidence.

I agree with you, Deborah. Unless one is predisposed to accepting the kind of evidence you offered, one will probably not find it convincing. The interesting thing for me is that some of us, like me, once accepted that kind of spiritual evidence you cited, and now we do not. Usually, some excuse is offered (we were offended, Satan got us, or we "intellectualized" the gospel), but for me, it was weighing the tangible evidence against the intangible. I suspect we all do that sort of thing, even those who claim that they are resting purely on the spiritual.

Despite what people say, I'm quite certain that religious faith has a rational basis. And it's disagreement over whether the evidence supports that rational decision that marks the difference between believers and nonbelievers.

[Deborah]

Despite what people say, I'm quite certain that religious faith has a rational basis. And it's disagreement over whether the evidence supports that rational decision that marks the difference between believers and nonbelievers.

I agree. In fact for me the rational basis is the doctrine, such as the nature of heaven, the pre-existence, the work for the dead, the nature of God. These are things which make sense to me so yes I do find things outside of the spiritual evidence that supports my belief, and of course there are other things measurable only to me such has miracles, changes in my life etc.

[Abulafia]

Here is my explanation as to why such a variety of persons have powerful, moving spiritual experiences:

God is universal and the experiences themselves are personal and deem no measure of absolute truth, thus they are irrelevant.

Some have postured the possibility that these other peoples are experiencing Satan's deception. While a possibility, it doesn't make sense since person's lives change so dramatically for good and for happiness. Further, whats to say that my experience isn't a product of Satan's influence?

So, it seems for me, that these experiences are highly personal, but are irrelevant in a global context (i.e. they don't define truth for me).

I'm open for more insight from the people here. This discussion has been very constructive for me. Thanks for your input!

I think I understand what you are writing. At present I have concluded that God, or the 'God' within us, will usually let us know what is best for our own personal development and perhaps for those closest to us. To me this is the simplest explanation for the diversity of faith that has always existed in human society. Truth then becomes relative rather than absolute.

[beastie]

I think I understand what you are writing. At present I have concluded that God, or the 'God' within us, will usually let us know what is best for our own personal development and perhaps for those closest to us. To me this is the simplest explanation for the diversity of faith that has always existed in human society. Truth then becomes relative rather than absolute.

When I first left the church but still believed in God, this was the only way I could make sense out of any of it. Many paths on the mountain, and all the different religions are simply like different languages God is speaking. If I ever did believe in God again, I would guess that is the explanation that would once again make some sort of sense to me.

Of course, this presents some challenges to "one true" ideologies, no matter what brand.

[Tal Bachman]

Hi, just a few quick follow-up comments.

Benjamin, you ask "is there an external set of morals and ethics that exists apart from the world? That is one of the questions (and assertions) of religion. And there isn't a way of evaluating answers to that question in the model that you present".

Okay Benjamin, hear me out for one second here. See if what I'm about to say makes any sense to you.

Suppose there is such a set apart from the world - something like a set of Platonic forms somewhere out there, or else, just "the will" which exists in God, etc. Here are my follow-up questions: What on earth is the "argument" from your ground, for granting that some ideology, some religion, or some mystic dictator, or pope or priest or prophet, literally has consistent access to it? You have NO explanation for why any such assertion of contact should ever be credited, and as I mentioned on my other post, I think (since any explanation would have to make primary recourse to logic and what we can appreciate of reality), any answer you could give what essentially refute the very point you're trying to prove. Can you see that? It would be like me arguing for the primacy of reason, and then when asked why, I say, "Because that's what my palm reader told me to believe, and I really felt it was true". My palm reader "argument", like yours, I suggest, would be incoherent, regardless of how nifty it sounded on the surface.

(Also, doesn't your talk about the cultural evolution of hierarchies of values even seem to hint that crediting some claim of contact with the cosmos, or Ultimate Good, or God, or the Virgin Mary, or Allah, is unjustified?)

By contrast, what I would say in response to your question is this: "I would like to believe that there is an external set of morals and ethics that exists apart from the world, but if there is, I know of no way we could ever reliably know just what it consisted of, and no reason to believe that any other mortal has continuous access to it. And my understanding of human nature, and of human history, leads me to conclude that it is infinitely more likely that some man should believe mistakenly he has such access, or deliberately falsely claim he does in order to gain power over his fellow mortals, than that any man really has had it, and that therefore it is unwise, if not dangerous, to give credit to such men in the absence of good (as in, solid evidentiary) reasons to do so.

"So, my belief in morals and ethics must be grounded not in wishes about how things were, but rather, in an appreciation of how things actually seem to the best of our (justified) understanding. And how they seem is that our moral sense comes from within us. Perhaps it was instilled originally by a creator; perhaps it is the result of evolution; but whatever its provenance, it is there, and it is there in nearly every human being on the planet.

"Even the worst criminals have it. Thieves say, 'at least I'm not a rapist'. Rapists say, 'At least I'm not a murderer'. Murderers say, 'at least I'm not a child molester'. Child molesters say, 'at least I'm not a murderer'. We all have an instinct to absolve ourselves, to weigh different acts according to some moral scale, and in a nutshell, everything suggests that human beings (as James Q. Wilson and more recently, Marc Hauser have tried to show) are hard-wired with a moral sense".

In philosophy, there is a constant (and to me, tiresome) discussion about the "conflict" between "Athens and Jerusalem", reason and revelation. But what is the epistemic conflict? Anyone can make any claim they want, and ascribe it to communication from the gods - but it seems like it requires a high degree of foolishness to believe such claims in most cases, if not all, because there is simply no good reason to believe that the creator of the universe is consistently revealing his will for everyone on earth through one 'appointed' man or woman. There just isn't. So, why not make the best we can of what we really seem to have?

By the way, I also love the stories about intuitions telling people to disregard things - at least when they have happy endings. The Dallin Oaks story about getting accosted by some thug was pretty cool - he said he had an instant vision that if he grabbed the gun, the gun would go off killing the thug. He seemed to imply that had that happened, he would not have been called to the Quorum (I don't know why that should be; I'd consider him a hero if he blew away some gun-toting thug!). There are all kinds of other stories like that. What about the one in the New Yorker magazine, about the LA cop who instantly drew and shot at a trench-coated man approaching him, who he killed, who they found out a few seconds later, was carrying a flame-thrower to blast them with?

(On the other hand, you have dudes who "intuit" things that aren't there, and then end up doing horrible things...).

Deborah, I hear what you are saying about the witnesses. I think the response many people would give you, would go something like this:

You can find eleven, or twenty, or 100 people of good reputation on this planet, to testify to almost anything. All you have to do is listen once to the Art Bell show. Millions of people testify to miracle cures, extra-dimensional alien abductions, astrology, virgins appearing in broom closets, tarot, all sorts of things that you yourself would not believe in just based on that personal testimony.

Why wouldn't you believe? For the same reason other folks don't give much credence to the witnesses you mention. That is, you already have a good appreciation of the laws of physics; and you know that even 100 people telling you that they've been abducted and raped by visitors from another dimension, is not enough evidence for you to believe that it happened, because you know that the laws of physics which govern our world have never been known to be violable, and that they have never been known to allow for the existence of extra-dimensional aliens, or for their visits in and out of different dimensions.

In other words, your own experience and reason tell you that it is far more likely that the explanation for such claims involves the human psyche, and/or the needs and weaknesses of human nature, rather than actual extra-dimensional rapists, or a Taurus moon rising. And it would only make you more doubtful (if that were possible) about such claims, if some of the witnesses to any such phenomena, appeared later to equivocate, wouldn't it? It's for the same reason you don't believe in the curative powers of a water fountain in France, even though thousands of Catholics tell you that a virgin healed them through it, or any of the other thousands of witnesses I mentioned, that others aren't all that impressed with the witnesses you mention. Does that make sense?

[Benjamin McGuire]

Beastie writes:

You are interpreting the Moroni challenge in a vaguer way, in that â??is the BoM true in that it contains spiritual truths?â? Since spiritual truths only exist internally, then feelings are a legitimate way of ascertaining whether an individual can accept those spiritual truths as God-given.

No. This isn't the case at all. And this is why your argument here (and Tal's) is partly so problematic. Moroni never talks about "feelings" (except once, in reference to the Lamanites being beyond them). He says that God will "manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost". Does Moroni base his belief on "feelings"? And if not, then why are you trying to assert that this is the model of the challenge? Even if we take Joseph Smith as the author, who claimed to have been standing in the presence of God the Father and Jesus Christ, who claimed to have been visited numerous times by angels, who claimed to hear the voice of God - does Joseph suggest that this witness is necessarily mere "feelings"? This is why this entire thread, dealing with LDS epistemology is problematic (as I noted several days ago). Feelings are perhaps the least of the LDS justifications for epistemological claims.

In my experience, believers are normally including both of these factors when they refer to the BoM as â??trueâ?. If you are going to only refer to the spiritual teachings as â??trueâ? that changes the conversation entirely.

But what is under consideration isn't what I am referring to, but what Moroni was referring to, isn't it?

Iâ??m very willing to use the word revelation instead. In fact, I have participated already in long conversations on this board using the word revelation. Revelation is a bit broader because it can include visual or auditory input, and normally that is not what is occurring when we talk about the â??feelingsâ? aspect, but if we all understand that caution, Iâ??m willing to use the word revelation instead. The same problems continue to plague us.

I am perfectly happy with this shift (since I think it is more applicable). In the Book of Mormon, of course, the great model is the vision of the Tree of Life. When Lehi tells his family of his experience, it is not enough for them, and we are presented with two different resposnes in the search for understanding. The right model (the one presented in the person of Nephi) isn't to take Dad's word for it, or to ask him for the meaning of it, but to go to God and receive his own version of it - noting in the process that because the revelation is personal and experiential, that Nephi's revelation was different from Lehi's revelation. And the wrong way (in the persons of Laman and Lemuel) was to ask for understanding from the oracle (from the one receiving the revelation). This then is the point of Moroni's challenge. Revelation is personal, it is experiential. And as Tal suggested, we shouldn't accept others interpretations, we should seek the revelation ourselves. And I add that our revelations do not have to be the same, nor should they be, or will they be. But, we cannot get a knowledge of deity from others, we must go to God. We suppose that God is external to the world. And can therefore provide us with truth (filtered as it may be by language, by society, by culture) but this revelation then serves as the basis for recognizing the existence of God, and thus becomes the basis for LDS epistemology. But it is still a personal, individual thing.

Please do not interpret this to mean that revelation, or any other internal reality, is pointless and meaningless. Of course it is not. Science and logic teach us how the external world works, but internal states make that life meaningful and beautiful.

I am not sure that I follow (or agree with) what you are talking about here. Would you define the "external world"?

So how reliable can this method be, when itâ??s not even possible to have a standard?

Because not having a standard, or a way of measurement doesn't actually relate to the reliability of the method. What method do you know of that can determine morality and ethics and what is the standard?

Ben

[Greg Smith]

Hi Greg, I'll jump in with this. There are millions of non mormons who say the same thing to their apostate comrades. You sound much like those Jehovah's Witnesses who patiently chide away at the forer JW's on the JW forum.

I wasn't aware that Jehovah's Witnesses placed much stock in personal revelation. (I well remember seeing something written by them how only a rational approach to reading the Bible was a sure method of obtaining religious truth.) I'd like to see JW writing on the topic.

Or the Catholics. It's quite common for the still faithful Catholic, Muslim, JW or Evangelical Christian to say much if not all of what you are saying here for reasons why you choose to remain faithful.

I have never heard a Muslim talk about "revelation" in this sense. Most the Muslims I've talked to seem to feel that the manifest beauty and elegance of the Qu'ran ought to make it completely clear that it is a divine book, and that interrogating God on the subject would be presumptuous at best. Got any examples of Muslim personal revelation?

Again, I've read Evangelical Christian material actually advocating AGAINST prayer to determine the truth, but Evangelical theology and teaching is hardly monolithic, so there could well be exceptions. Do you know of any?

Catholicism may well come closest, but that isn't surprising since I think the LDS approach to such matters is closest to Catholicism, even though our theology is widely divergent on many points. (See below for one example from that tradition which I think does dovetail well with my own experience.)

After all, with the problems in each of these religions, there has to be some sort of glue to hold the smart ones in tightly into the fold.

Sure, of course people have reasons for what they do. Contrary to the secularist cliche, I don't think most believers are irrational.

I'm not convinced that in most cases various faiths would describe their reasons in anything like the same terms, but perhaps they would.

Why ought this to bother me, exactly?

Those who take the time to learn the history, the weaknesses, the arguments of their respective religion... some of them will falter and leave Catholicism, JW, Evangelical Christianity, Islam and a good many will turn to their god and seek after him for assurance.

And, I have no doubt that they could get that assurance. I would be astonished if they did not, in at least some cases.

And you know? In each of these religions, the assurance comes time and time again.

Well, I don't know that. Nor do you. Each case would have to be seen individually.

But, if it were true it wouldn't particularly bother me. (I would be far more bothered if it were not the case). Indeed, the Book of Mormon says point blank that I ought to suspect such things:

8 For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true. (Book of Mormon | Alma 29:

Why on earth would it be surprising to me (or alarming) that God speaks to other people besides me, out of my tradition? That's His business and theirs, not mine. (And, He loves them as much as He does me, and if I'm right in my religious beliefs, they may actually need MORE of His attention and care than I do, sometimes.) God is far more involved with everyone than we realize, I suspect.

I strongly suspect that there are times when, for cultural reasons if nothing else, God leads people into something for their good and development that isn't "the LDS Church" while respecting their circumstances and agency.

After all, would I rather that medieval Europe be run by the Roman church (even with its flaws) or, say, Germanic paganism? There's no contest. Would I rather the Arabs were still in the grip of a rather superstitious pantheism, or had access to the potential moral greatness that is Islam?

I know which I'd rather see. (And, not inconveniently, I fancy that God agrees with me. )

Powerful witnesses. There are a million Greg Smiths in each of the world religions.

Heaven help the world!!

Oh well, at least the religions of the world will be filled with attractive, urbane, cultured individuals with impeccable taste.

Each of them equally convinced that they are in the One True Religion.

Perhaps equally convinced. Whether they ought to be so equally convinced is another matter, but one which I cannot answer for them.

But, as I keep emphasizing, those people and their experiences aren't my business.

And, deciding to "do nothing," or "suspend judgment" is also a choice in these matters. One makes a choice or decision regardless. Thus, one does the best one can, using the best evidence at one's disposal.

Again, I find it extraordinary that those who raise these kind of objections don't think that I (or others) thought of them before I got revelation. God knows what it takes to satisfy us. Only He and we know if our searching has been thorough and sincere.

Given that I feel a certain kinship with our Catholic friends, I've always liked what one Catholic author said about such things:

Our faith [as Christians] begins at the point where atheists suppose that it must be at an end. Our faith begins with the bleakness and power which is the night of the cross, abandonment, temptation and doubt about everything that exists! Our faith must be born when it is abandoned by all tangible reality; it must be born of nothingness, it must taste this nothingness and be given it to taste in a way that no philosophy of nihilism can imagine. - J

[Noggin]

Here is my explanation as to why such a variety of persons have powerful, moving spiritual experiences:

God is universal and the experiences themselves are personal and deem no measure of absolute truth, thus they are irrelevant.

Some have postured the possibility that these other peoples are experiencing Satan's deception. While a possibility, it doesn't make sense since person's lives change so dramatically for good and for happiness. Further, whats to say that my experience isn't a product of Satan's influence?

So, it seems for me, that these experiences are highly personal, but are irrelevant in a global context (i.e. they don't define truth for me).

I'm open for more insight from the people here. This discussion has been very constructive for me. Thanks for your input!

That (universal god thoery) seems to almost maybe start to go down the road where we worship a god who does not actually care what religion we belong to as long as we are actively pursuing a god and trying to make our lives better with this tool.

Noggin

[Noggin]

Thanks for the thoughts Greg.

In my experience, when I actually became a thorn in the Jehovah's Witnesses side (much like I am here) and "studied" with them for a spell, I asked them repeatedly how I am to know they were right and everyone else was in greivous error. I did the following with Catholicism, Eckankar, JW, Islam, Evangelical Christianity

First I'd set them up clearly establishing that they had god's truth.

Then I would ask why I should join their religion. (Because we have the truth and our religion is the only one that has the power to save a man's soul)

Then I would ask them what would happen to me if I did not join their church (hell, start my reincarnation process over as plant fungus, become a void in god's mind, purgatory)

Then I would review the various other truth claims and ask them how I was to divine that theirs is the only truth worth pursing (because their god is really the only true god and everyone else follows inventions)

True. Many like Islam and JW told me I could know because their interpretation of scripture was the best or their holy book was perfect and just see if you can produce even one surah as perfect as the koran. Cant do it? See? Islam is truth.

But when I pressed the issue about perfect books not holding water as a standard of truth (Joseph Smith also said the b of m was the most correct book on earth) I did get the response I was looking for. They told me that god would lead me to the truth if I was sincere in my quest.

How would I know I was being lead?

Feelings. Peace. Signs.. (one person recounted a tale in Islam where a pagan truth seeker was wrestling with wether or not Islam was true and the next day when he was about to bow down to his idol, a dog came into his hut and urinated on the idol. This was "proof" that Allah was the real god). Other methods were mentioned.

Out of time,

I'll write more.

Noggin

[Calm]

Now I am being told that it still doesn’t count, because they mean something different than I do by the word “feeling”. (conversations like this make me wonder why I ever bother giving documentation when others demand it, knowing full well they still will never accept the documentation as support for my statement)

I'm sorry that you feel this way, but I did make every effort from the beginning to emphasize that you were likely using the word differently and that the only thing I and likely the others were interested in was the "category" issue. That you happened to misread it and continue on in your efforts is unfortunate.

You missed responding to my last question and I would appreciate an answer because I am now confused about your actual understanding of the issue.

I'll repeat it for ease of access:

Certainly mystical experiences transcend, in their intensity, normal, run-of-the-mill “feelings”. But they still are within the same category, just of different intensities.

Do you still hold this position that revelatory/spiritual/mystical experiences are the same type of feelings as the "normal, run-of-the-mill" emotional feelings which only vary in intensity or do you now define them as at least at times (accepting that some define their 'purely' "mundane" feelings as "revelatory") a different type that involve additional qualities or attributes?

PS: I see one place where you might be in essence answering this question, but it's written in such a way that I am confused as to whether or not you are limiting the revelatory/mystical experience to the same continuum given above.

[cksalmon]

Perhaps, to shape the direction of this thread a bit (though you were all doing fine without my interposition), I pose the following question:

Is the LDS revelatory experience (ala Greg Smith's useful elucidations above) productive of absolute knowledge? That is, given that some experience, in excess of mere "feelings" has occurred, what is the rationale for arguing to unassailable knowledge thereby (if one does so, in fact, argue)?

If such knowledge is unassailable, what is the rationale for treating it as such? Or, if you don't treat it as such, how do you treat it and why?

I'm obviously interested in Ben McGuire's, Greg Smith's, and Tal Bachman's insights, but the comments of others are also more than welcome.

Best.

CKS

[koakaipo]

Perhaps, to shape the direction of this thread a bit (though you were all doing fine without my interposition), I pose the following question:

Is the LDS revelatory experience (ala Greg Smith's useful elucidations above) productive of absolute knowledge? That is, given that some experience, in excess of mere "feelings" has occurred, what is the rationale for arguing to unassailable knowledge thereby (if one does so, in fact, argue)?

If such knowledge is not unassailable, what is the rationale for treating it as such? Or, if you don't treat it as such, how do you treat it and why?

I'm obviously interested in Ben McGuire's, Greg Smith's, and Tal Bachman's insights, but the comments of others are also more than welcome.

Best.

CKS

Ck-Mormonism distinguishes most experiences from sure knowledge. Almost all Mormons have personal experiences that inform their faith. But we still distinguish faith and testimonies from sure knowledge.

Faith is believing without proof, testimonies are essentially a testament to that faith without proof but a strong belief nonetheless, and sure knowledge is about having a proof personally that is undeniable and without doubt. It's not something that can be confused either-JosepH Smith explained sure knowledge as such that the heavens basically open up to you.

So, people basically give their testimonies, not their sure knowledge, of the gospel as they see within Mormonism.