Another Revelation Thread...this Time It's Personal

[mfbukowski]

My experience has taught me that personal revelation is not about concreteness. Revelations that are concrete don't seem to be reliable.  I used to pray and whatever notion came into my head I called revelation, but I don't think that's how it works. I don't think you can get a revelation about something you don't already know at some level - for example, predicting the future, or telling you what the afterlife will be like. I don't think that sort of revelation exists for anyone, but I could be wrong.

 

For me the purpose of what I'll call inspiration or communing with the divine (or if you like, feeling the Spirit) is to put us in a place where we can become more loving, where we can be more accepting of others, where we can have more forgiveness in our hearts. Less of a downloading of literal information and more about becoming one. Revelation seems to me to be about  personal transformation. 

See now you "get it".

 

One place where Mormons agree with Plato is that knowledge is a kind of "recollection" of what we knew before we came here.

 

He got that part right.  Where he goes wrong is in making the differentiation between knowledge and opinion.  He messed up all of western civilization with that one.  For those who throw out his distinction, the difference between knowledge and opinion is a continuum.

 

Alma 32 gets it perfect as usual- as a belief or opinion becomes "sweet" to us (it works better than other beliefs or opinions) it approaches, then becomes "knowledge".

 

Dang that Plato anyway.  He was on a good track but just got messed up on that point, and then he had to go and reify universals.  Grrr..  We haven't gotten over those errors 2000 years later.

Edit: forgot the link  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_epistemology

Edited February 21, 2014 by mfbukowski

[jkwilliams]

I like to think my good thoughts and my bad thoughts are my own. It certainly seems that way. 

 

Agreed. It's kind of a cop-out to blame our bad thoughts on Satan. As my mission president put it, we sin not because Satan tempts us but because we like to sin.

[MiserereNobis]

Dang that Plato anyway.  He was on a good track but just got messed up on that point, and then he had to go and reify universals.  Grrr..  We haven't gotten over those errors 2000 years later.

 

I was reading an interesting article that mentioned in passing that Aristotle was actually more "spiritual" than the idealist Plato because Aristotle was much less dualistic.  I haven't read Aristotle since college, but I'd like to dust off some of those books and look at him with a different eye and see what there is to see.

 

The eye of flesh perceives physical objects and is the domain of science and is objective.

The eye of mind perceives mental objects and is the domain of philosophy and is rational.

The eye of spirit perceives spiritual objects and is the domain of religion/spirituality and is subjective.

 

Perhaps one problem is when we use the wrong eye for the wrong domain or when we claim that one eye is good for all domains.  The eye of flesh can only tell us how our brain looks while we have a spiritual experience -- it cannot tell us what the experience is.  The eye of mind can manipulate concepts systematically (words, numbers) but cannot tell us if these concepts match the physical world (I know, I know, correspondance and all, but bear with me... I'm thinking of Aristotelian physics, or Dante's cosmology, which are great and fun internally consistent mental games but do not match scientific facts).  The eye of spirit allows us to see the non-duality of reality (the kingdom of Heaven is within, you hippie you) but doesn't help us finish our math homework.  Etc, etc.

 

When science says there is no God, that is the eye of flesh trying to look where only the eye of spirit can see.

 

My eye of spirit confirms that there is a God, and that I have had intense moments of knowing Him, but my poor eye has a hard time conveying that experience to others in words.

 

I like the end of the movie Contact, where the hard-core atheist astronomer/astronaut sees the beauty of the cosmos and says something like "no words, no words, they should have sent a poet."

 

Maybe the most memorable mystics are memorable because they were also dang good poets, too.

Edited February 21, 2014 by MiserereNobis

[mfbukowski]

I was reading an interesting article that mentioned in passing that Aristotle was actually more "spiritual" than the idealist Plato because Aristotle was much less dualistic.  I haven't read Aristotle since college, but I'd like to dust off some of those books and look at him with a different eye and see what there is to see.

 

The eye of flesh perceives physical objects and is the domain of science and is objective.

The eye of mind perceives mental objects and is the domain of philosophy and is rational.

The eye of spirit perceives spiritual objects and is the domain of religion/spirituality and is subjective.

 

Perhaps one problem is when we use the wrong eye for the wrong domain or when we claim that one eye is good for all domains.  The eye of flesh can only tell us how our brain looks while we have a spiritual experience -- it cannot tell us what the experience is.  The eye of mind can manipulate concepts systematically (words, numbers) but cannot tell us if these concepts match the physical world (I know, I know, correspondance and all, but bear with me... I'm thinking of Aristotelian physics, or Dante's cosmology, which are great and fun internally consistent mental games but do not match scientific facts).  The eye of spirit allows us to see the non-duality of reality (the kingdom of Heaven is within, you hippie you) but doesn't help us finish our math homework.  Etc, etc.

 

When science says there is no God, that is the eye of flesh trying to look where only the eye of spirit can see.

 

My eye of spirit confirms that there is a God, and that I have had intense moments of knowing Him, but my poor eye has a hard time conveying that experience to others in words.

 

I like the end of the movie Contact, where the hard-core atheist astronomer/astronaut sees the beauty of the cosmos and says something like "no words, no words, they should have sent a poet."

 

Maybe the most memorable mystics are memorable because they were also dang good poets, too.

Oh yeah I agree with you about poetry- that is the only way mystics can communicate.

 

The trick is realizing that even prose is ultimately mythic poetry. 

 

The "mind-body" dualism you mention is at the basis of all this.  We don't make that distinction- for us even "spirit" is matter.- perhaps what physics may one time define as some kind of "field" which is physical in nature.

 

But that is for me the genius of Mormonism that Joseph could never have figured out with his education etc.  He solved the problem of dualism and even carried it into what we now- 150 years later- are starting to see in physics.  And his "epistemology" fits perfectly (Alma 32) into all that.

 

Nietzsche, Kuhn, William James, Rorty and Joseph Smith.   Who wudda thunkit? 

[mfbukowski]

Check out what Harold Bloom says about "strong poets"- they are those who define their own reality- to put it in a nutshell.  And that includes scientists.

 

Bloom liked Mormons for a while....   Rorty loved Bloom.

But all these ideas are in the pot simmering.....

 

http://ldsmag.com/1/article/8952

Edited February 21, 2014 by mfbukowski

[Ahab]

I'm not sure God or Satan are telepathically beaming all my thoughts into my brain, and my only contribution is whether I accept God's messages or Satan's messages. Seems like a waste of all the computational power I have in my head.

Each thought you have is the same thought either God or Satan has, though, and you can't possibily think of a thought either God or Satan agrees with and hasn't already shared with other people. Compute that thought for as long as you want to at no time will you ever get a thought that either God or Satan hasn't already had. Edited February 21, 2014 by Ahab

[jkwilliams]

Check out what Harold Bloom says about "strong poets"- they are those who define their own reality- to put it in a nutshell.  And that includes scientists.

 

Bloom liked Mormons for a while....   Rorty loved Bloom.

But all these ideas are in the pot simmering.....

 

http://ldsmag.com/1/article/8952

 

It has never occurred to me to apply Bloom's notion of the "strong poet" to scientists, and I don't remember Bloom associating strong poets with defining their own reality. That sounds intriguing. Do you have a reference to where Bloom talks about strong poets defining their own reality or extending that to scientists? If you have something like that, I'd appreciate seeing it, as it would cause me to consider Bloom in an entirely different light.

[Ahab]

My experience has taught me that personal revelation is not about concreteness. Revelations that are concrete don't seem to be reliable. I used to pray and whatever notion came into my head I called revelation, but I don't think that's how it works. I don't think you can get a revelation about something you don't already know at some level - for example, predicting the future, or telling you what the afterlife will be like. I don't think that sort of revelation exists for anyone, but I could be wrong.

For me the purpose of what I'll call inspiration or communing with the divine (or if you like, feeling the Spirit) is to put us in a place where we can become more loving, where we can be more accepting of others, where we can have more forgiveness in our hearts. Less of a downloading of literal information and more about becoming one. Revelation seems to me to be about personal transformation.

They transform us, to the extent that they do, by sharing their thoughts and feelings with us, to help us know what they like and don't like, and what they approve and don't approvr of, while we choose fot ourselves who we want to be like as we become like one of them, or a mix of both of them, either totally good or totally evil or a mix of both good and evil.

[CV75]

Alma 32 gets it perfect as usual- as a belief or opinion becomes "sweet" to us (it works better than other beliefs or opinions) it approaches, then becomes "knowledge".

 

My eye of spirit confirms that there is a God, and that I have had intense moments of knowing Him, but my poor eye has a hard time conveying that experience to others in words.

“I can taste the principles of eternal life, and so can you. They are given to me by the revelations of Jesus Christ; and I know that when I tell you these words of eternal life as they are given to me, you taste them, and I know that you believe them. You say honey is sweet, and so do I. I can also taste the spirit of eternal life. I know that it is good; and when I tell you of these things which were given me by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you are bound to receive them as sweet, and rejoice more and more.” Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6:312.

In this case, Joseph Smith is pointing out that the principles, words and spirit of eternal life are sweet (good), and are given, received and tasted (sensed) by inspiration (revelation)-- whether we come by them through Jesus Christ directly or through the words of a prophet.

[Ahab]

“I can taste the principles of eternal life, and so can you. They are given to me by the revelations of Jesus Christ; and I know that when I tell you these words of eternal life as they are given to me, you taste them, and I know that you believe them. You say honey is sweet, and so do I. I can also taste the spirit of eternal life. I know that it is good; and when I tell you of these things which were given me by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you are bound to receive them as sweet, and rejoice more and more.” Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6:312.

In this case, Joseph Smith is pointing out that the principles, words and spirit of eternal life are sweet (good), and are given, received and tasted (sensed) by inspiration (revelation)-- whether we come by them through Jesus Christ directly or through the words of a prophet.

Not everybody likes what we call sweet or good, though, because some people love what is evil. And the world as a whole is taught by both God and Satan, while people choosing whether to accept good or evil.

[jkwilliams]

Not everybody likes what we call sweet or good, though, because some people love what is evil. And the world as a whole is taught by both God and Satan, while people choosing whether to accept good or evil.

 

It's possible that what we call sweet and good may not necessarily be sweet and good. I readily admit that I could be wrong about a whole host of things, so I am reluctant to say that people who disagree with me love what is evil.

[Ahab]

It's possible that what we call sweet and good may not necessarily be sweet and good. I readily admit that I could be wrong about a whole host of things, so I am reluctant to say that people who disagree with me love what is evil.

I think we're both in agteement in principle.

Those who love what is evil call what they love good, even when it is actually evil, and to them what the righteous call good is not what they call good or sweet because to their way of thinking it isn't.

[jkwilliams]

I think we're both in agteement in principle.

Those who love what is evil call what they love good, even when it is actually evil, and to them what the righteous call good is not what they call good or sweet because to their way of thinking it isn't.

 

I suppose it all depends on whether we think we are righteous or not. I find that the moment I think I'm being righteous, I am crossing over into pride, which is antithetical to righteousness. In such cases where good people disagree, humility is what is called for. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm working on it.

Edited February 21, 2014 by jkwilliams

[CV75]

The "mind-body" dualism you mention is at the basis of all this.  We don't make that distinction- for us even "spirit" is matter.- perhaps what physics may one time define as some kind of "field" which is physical in nature.

Alma 17:5 describes the Lord’s servants as using mind, body and spirit: “they did suffer much, both in body and in mind, such as hunger, thirst and fatigue, and also much labor in the spirit.”

D&C 84:80 and 88:124 seem to indicate that our spirit, mind and body work together (though sometimes they do not—Matthew 26:41): “And any man that shall …continue faithful [an attribute of the spirit] in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, nor joint…” Also, “arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated. And above all things, clothe yourselves with the bond of charity [an attribute of the spirit], as with a mantle, which is the bond of perfectness and peace”

This isn’t to say that the spirit, body and mind aren’t matter. We know we had a spirit before a body and that it had a mind in one fashion. But once we came into mortality, the connected/integrated spirit and body (soul) attained a mind in yet another fashion.

[CV75]

Not everybody likes what we call sweet or good, though, because some people love what is evil. And the world as a whole is taught by both God and Satan, while people choosing whether to accept good or evil.

"Sweet!" I mean "Good!"

[jkwilliams]

Alma 17:5 describes the Lord’s servants as using mind, body and spirit: “they did suffer much, both in body and in mind, such as hunger, thirst and fatigue, and also much labor in the spirit.”

D&C 84:80 and 88:124 seem to indicate that our spirit, mind and body work together (though sometimes they do not—Matthew 26:41): “And any man that shall …continue faithful [an attribute of the spirit] in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, nor joint…” Also, “arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated. And above all things, clothe yourselves with the bond of charity [an attribute of the spirit], as with a mantle, which is the bond of perfectness and peace”

This isn’t to say that the spirit, body and mind aren’t matter. We know we had a spirit before a body and that it had a mind in one fashion. But once we came into mortality, the connected/integrated spirit and body (soul) attained a mind in yet another fashion.

 

The duality still exists in LDS doctrine. Body and spirit are spoken of as matter and "refined matter," but the duality remains, hence the idea that we are subject to the temptations of the flesh.

[CV75]

The duality still exists in LDS doctrine. Body and spirit are spoken of as matter and "refined matter," but the duality remains, hence the idea that we are subject to the temptations of the flesh.

In that case, the mind serves as part of a triality--at least temporarily or under certain conditions--where the spirt and body may be strong but the mind weak, and still very much in need of the prefecting process.

[jkwilliams]

In that case, the mind serves as part of a triality--at least temporarily or under certain conditions--where the spirt and body may be strong but the mind weak, and still very much in need of the prefecting process.

 

I've never heard the mind distinguished from the spirit or body in an LDS context. Do you have some references for that?

[CV75]

I've never heard the mind distinguished from the spirit or body in an LDS context. Do you have some references for that?

Only in the scriptures i provided in the post you responded to. But I would think it is also touched upon by the teachings on those who are not accountable  -- though their bodies and/or minds are not as developed as an eight-year old's, they are alive in Christ. I'll check for some other scriptures. Edited February 21, 2014 by CV75

[Gray]

Agreed. It's kind of a cop-out to blame our bad thoughts on Satan. As my mission president put it, we sin not because Satan tempts us but because we like to sin.

 

Don't tell anyone this, but I think Satan is more of a construct and a metaphor than an actual anthropomorphic being. 

[Gray]

Each thought you have is the same thought either God or Satan has, though, and you can't possibily think of a thought either God or Satan agrees with and hasn't already shared with other people. Compute that thought for as long as you want to at no time will you ever get a thought that either God or Satan hasn't already had.

 

I just hope I don't get slapped with a lawsuit for violating the intellectual property of Heaven, LLC or Hell, Inc. 

Edited February 21, 2014 by Gray

[MiserereNobis]

Each thought you have is the same thought either God or Satan has, though, and you can't possibily think of a thought either God or Satan agrees with and hasn't already shared with other people. Compute that thought for as long as you want to at no time will you ever get a thought that either God or Satan hasn't already had.

 

I think you make a major mistake by putting God and Satan as opposites, but then again, perhaps I don't understand the LDS perspective on this.  The Christian perspective is that Satan is a fallen angel.  Powerful, yes -- angels are powerful beings! (the most common greeting an angel gives when he first arrives, "be not afraid," is probably because being in the presence of such a powerful being would be rather terrifying).  But Satan cannot be an equal to God.  He is not omnipotent nor omniscient.  God is ultimate goodness, but Satan is not, cannot be, ultimate evil.  For starters, Satan has being, and being is good.  Satan also has intelligence, and intelligence is good.

 

A much better opposite for Satan is Michael the Archangel, who led the fight against Satan in the war in Heaven.  This is expressed in the traditional prayer to St. Michael the Archangel:

 

St. Michael the Archangel,

defend us in battle.

Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.

May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,

and do thou,

O Prince of the heavenly hosts,

by the power of God,

thrust into hell Satan,

and all the evil spirits,

who prowl about the world

seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

 

Demons are evil and powerful, but they are not the polar opposites of God.  They are the opposites of the righteous angels who did not fall.

[CV75]

I've never heard the mind distinguished from the spirit or body in an LDS context. Do you have some references for that?

I found another scripture: In Enos 1:4-10, he talks about “my soul” (v. 4 and v. 9), “me” (v. 5), “the spirit” (his—v. 10), and “my mind” (v. 10). I don’t know if he was using the D&C 88:15 definition of “soul,” but he does not seem to use these terms synonymously.

[Ahab]

I think you make a major mistake by putting God and Satan as opposites, but then again, perhaps I don't understand the LDS perspective on this. The Christian perspective is that Satan is a fallen angel. Powerful, yes -- angels are powerful beings! (the most common greeting an angel gives when he first arrives, "be not afraid," is probably because being in the presence of such a powerful being would be rather terrifying). But Satan cannot be an equal to God. He is not omnipotent nor omniscient. God is ultimate goodness, but Satan is not, cannot be, ultimate evil. For starters, Satan has being, and being is good. Satan also has intelligence, and intelligence is good.

A much better opposite for Satan is Michael the Archangel, who led the fight against Satan in the war in Heaven. This is expressed in the traditional prayer to St. Michael the Archangel:

Demons are evil and powerful, but they are not the polar opposites of God. They are the opposites of the righteous angels who did not fall.

We use the word "God" when referring to a person, usually referring to our Father, and when referring to the kind of being our Father is, which is also the same kind of being Satan is, while realizing God (our Father) is the epitome of how good we can be and that Satan is the epitome of how evil we (or our kind of being) can be.

[Ahab]

I suppose it all depends on whether we think we are righteous or not. I find that the moment I think I'm being righteous, I am crossing over into pride, which is antithetical to righteousness. In such cases where good people disagree, humility is what is called for. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm working on it.

I prefer to classify thoughts and actions as either righteous/good or unrighteous/evil, while living as well as I can, and while knowing we will all be judged by someone who is as great and good as we can become.