The Problem Of Historicity

[Spammer]

Agreed, but that's not the point.  I am not a solipsist.

 

Clearly in this case, she exists AND you have feelings about her.  The question is not whether or not she exists but how you might "verify" YOUR internal feelings about her.

 

You have feelings about things which do NOT exist in the way your wife does.  You might be proud of your country- or for that matter hate your country- that works just as well.  You might feel strongly about violence against women.  You might campaign against breast cancer, or for equal rights, or the right to own a machine gun.

 

These beliefs are what make you, you. They are not "true" or "false" in the sense of being verifiable by external objective evidence.  Is there objective evidence that it is "wrong" to kill babies for fun?  Yet someone like Adam Walsh (is that his name?) has spent his entire lifetime devoted to stopping crime.

 

People devote their lives to the Democrat party or Save the Whales or PETA and have strong beliefs about the "truth" of those causes.  Those beliefs are not subject to verification on any basis whatsoever- historical or otherwise!  Those causes and those outlooks give their lives meaning.  They construct their lives around supporting those organizations.  The believe their cause is righteous and true and that if only all of humanity could see it their way, this would be a wonderful world.  They do "missionary work" for their causes, and hand out flyers etc.

 

Those are "religions".  There is no historical evidence for any of those beliefs.

 

Richard Rorty, an agnostic, speaks about the future of religion:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Religion-Gianni-Vattimo/dp/0231134959

 

I agree with all of this.  I don't think I'm being very clear.  I haven't been discussing claims about internal states and whether the 'truth' of those states can be empirically verified (they can't).  As you put it, I have feelings about things which do NOT exist in the way my wife does.  My feelings about things can't be verified but my wife's existence can be verified.  Religious beliefs that include assertions about the existence of things in the world are subject to verification.  Assume I'm not married.  If I held religious beliefs and a strong inner conviction that I have a wife when in fact I do not have a wife, then any assertions I make about my wife's existence would be invalid.  My feelings about and inner experience of my non-existent wife can't be verified or refuted but my claim to be married can be verified externally and would demonstrate that I suffer from a delusion.  I see religious claims about history in the same light.  If a historical claim is made, it's subject to verification.  I can believe with all my heart that Atlantis and angels built the city.  Doesn't make it true.  Inner religious experiences and historical claims about external reality are in different categories.

 

 

Notice what I have highlighted.

 

That time is NOW!  In Mormonism, God is our "friend".  Our form of Christianity is already reliant on "interiority, dissolving the experience of objective reality into listening and interpreting messages"  That is precisely what a "testimony" IS!

 

We need to put away the metaphysical nonsense of the past and take up a new understanding of all these issues.  This is not a "post-Christian world" but it IS a post sectarian Nicene Creed-believing world.  It could be a Mormon world if we only figured this out instead of hanging onto our metaphysical hangups

 

 

I don't see how interiorizing a traditional metaphysical world-view is any different from what Rorty is proposing.  The proof's in the pudding.  If a believer finds the metaphysical view fulfilling and personally rewarding, then it's true for that person.  Rorty's is proposing replacing one set of concepts and terminology with another.  One set of ideas (in Rorty's view) is objectively better (it leads to greater good for a greater number), so let's get rid of the old and replace it with the new.  But on what does Rorty base that claim that "interiority, dissolving the experience of objective reality into listening and interpreting messages" is objectively better?  On his own subjective views and experience?

Edited August 14, 2014 by Spammer

[mfbukowski]

Well I guess at this point I have to give a tutorial on the history of philosophy, and I am not sure I have the time for it.

It's not just Rorty, it's a large number of philosophers. They are called "Postmodernists". Maybe Wikipedia could help.http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

Edited August 14, 2014 by mfbukowski

[Spammer]

Well I guess at this point I have to give a tutorial on the history of philosophy, and I am not sure I have the time for it.

It's not just Rorty, it's a large number of philosophers. They are called "Postmodernists". Maybe Wikipedia could help.http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

 

Yes, I know.  No tutorial needed.  Postmoderns deny that objective truth is knowable.  The view is self-refuting, however.  It's objectively true that there is no objective truth.  Hence, the irony.  I don't know that I can live that way.  I'm unable to put my faith in God unless I have grounds for that belief.  The Pragmatist's argument that it doesn't matter whether God objectively exists is incoherent to me.  If God doesn't really exist then I want nothing to do with religion.  I'm completely lacking in spiritual experiences and if I didn't have something philosophical (like Aquinas's metaphysics) or historical (the existence of purported eyewitness accounts describing supernatural events and recorded church history) to hold on to then I'd be an atheist.  In fact, I was an atheist, until Aristotle and Aquinas made me stop and think.  Take that away and I'm an atheist again.  Maybe that helps to explain why I might seem to be so obtuse when it comes to my dislike of postmodern approaches to religious faith.

 

Thanks for the link to the Rorty/Vattimo book.  That one and Vattimo's "Belief" look like interesting reads.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Spammer

[mfbukowski]

Yes, I know.  No tutorial needed.  Postmoderns deny that objective truth is knowable.  The view is self-refuting, however.  It's objectively true that there is no objective truth.  Hence, the irony. 

 

Thanks for the link to the Rorty/Vattimo book.  That one and Vattimo's "Belief" look like interesting reads.

Gosh what brilliance!

You have revolutionized western philosophy of the 21st century in a few words!

Send in the clowns.

[Spammer]

Gosh what brilliance!

You have revolutionized western philosophy of the 21st century in a few words!

Send in the clowns.

Make sure to notify the Nobel committee.

I've learned a lot from you about Rorty and pragmatism, but I honestly can't see how you can hold that view and validly claim to have any knowledge whatsoever about anything except your own subjective states. "True for me" might correspond with actual truth (the way the world really is) and it might not. There's no way to tell if the correspondence theory of reality is invalid. We're all prisoners of our subjective worlds and, so long as our experiences are "sweet", then our rival world views are all equally valid and true. That's all fine and dandy, until your compatriots send out missionaries trying to convince others that your beliefs are objectively true. That is what the church officially claims, does it not?

Edited August 14, 2014 by Spammer

[mfbukowski]

Not even close.

[MormonFreeThinker]

As far as ad hominem is concerned, my point is that occupying the anti-flood position seems to make strange bedfellows, as scientifically oriented latter-day saints abandon the plain meaning of the standard works as they breathlessly rally to the side of snide and sarcastic unbelievers for support. And I can't help it if the prophet Jacob warns the saints that they should be wary of being in league with such arrogant, anti-God individuals.

 

We don't care what unbelievers think, we care about the scientific evidence.  I believe that flood was local, not Global. 

 

 

Again, I would greatly appreciate it if you could supply the name of the narrator because I would like to know if he is an atheist and possibly even anti-Mormon.

 

His name is Peter Hadfield, he is a geologist, he does not attack faith in God, he only attacks pseudoscience. 

 

 

As for the new video and photo: What in the world that vandalism news video has to do with the flood is beyond me. Perhaps you posted it in error? The same holds true for the photo. 

 

Very simple, if you believe in an Old Earth, how did the geological formations survive the Global Flood? 

This would have been knocked off had there been a global flood 

 

 

and this 

 

 

In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion it's possible that one of the reasons why the Lord deliberately set up the whole of creation in the way He did is so that the day might come when He will astonish to silence those who denied His word

 

But that ignores what Elder Oaks and other apostles said. They have taught us to embrace scientific truths. 

 

 

. I hold a wait and see attitude because in the D&C the Lord promises His people that during the millennium He will reveal how He made the earth,

 

There are many things we do not know, but science has taught us many things.

 

 

But you can prematurely jump to conclusions if you want to; as a free agent it's your prerogative.

 

You are the one that is quickly jumping to conclusions, you have already concluded that there was a Global Flood, You are 100% sure. Who is prematurely jumping to conclusions? 

[Scott Stevenson]

Not even close.

 

So with all the talk of postmodernism and historicity not counting, why Mormonism then? I think I get where you're coming at as far as not playing the historicity game but I don't know if I really have a clear idea as to why you've then chosen Mormonism. How did you come to that belief among all of the other beliefs?

[mfbukowski]

So with all the talk of postmodernism and historicity not counting, why Mormonism then? I think I get where you're coming at as far as not playing the historicity game but I don't know if I really have a clear idea as to why you've then chosen Mormonism. How did you come to that belief among all of the other beliefs?

Because postmodernism IS Mormonism. It is humanism raised exponentially. What better God could a humanist conceive of than a Human God?

Postmodernism is the view that humans organize reality through our senses and each of us creates our own worlds out of matter unorganized.

Sound familiar?

[mfbukowski]

The correspondence theory is pure Cartesian dualism and tied to the sectarian philosophies of the past.

The Restoration requires a new conception of truth based on direct experience, and therefore affirming religious experience. Truth is about things as they ARE, meaning as experienced, not as how they are represented.

[Scott Stevenson]

Because postmodernism IS Mormonism. It is humanism raised exponentially. What better God could a humanist conceive of than a Human God?

Postmodernism is the view that humans organize reality through our senses and each of us creates our own worlds out of matter unorganized.

Sound familiar?

 

I think that the anthropomorphic god is one of the most compelling parts of Mormonism. I think it's probably why you have a large number of exmormons becoming Atheists. It's hard to go from an anthropomorphic god to a nebulous, immaterial one.

[MiserereNobis]

I haven't read all the pages of this thread (you know how I desperately try to avoid philosophical debates with you, Mark), so I may be repeating something already said.

 

I've never met a Mormon, in person, tell me the things you tell me, so it's hard for me to believe that Mormonism is post-modern.  All the Mormons I've ever talked to in person are 100% into historicity and correspondence theory and a very literal understanding of the Bible, even more so than most Catholics.  So I have a hard time believing that Mormonism is the way you represent it.  It might work for you, but I don't think it is the mainstream, standard, orthodox, (fill in your adjective) understanding of Mormonism.  Or is my experience of Mormonism outside of this board a strange outlier?

 

But I must say that your ideas are always very interesting

Edited August 14, 2014 by MiserereNobis

[Spammer]

Not even close.

 

deleted.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Spammer

[teddyaware]

We don't care what unbelievers think, we care about the scientific evidence.  I believe that flood was local, not Global. 

 

 

 

His name is Peter Hadfield, he is a geologist, he does not attack faith in God, he only attacks pseudoscience. 

 

 

 

Very simple, if you believe in an Old Earth, how did the geological formations survive the Global Flood? 

This would have been knocked off had there been a global flood 

 

 

and this 

 

 

 

But that ignores what Elder Oaks and other apostles said. They have taught us to embrace scientific truths. 

 

 

 

There are many things we do not know, but science has taught us many things.

 

 

 

You are the one that is quickly jumping to conclusions, you have already concluded that there was a Global Flood, You are 100% sure. Who is prematurely jumping to conclusions?

1) I will remain loyal to the prophets by continuing to believe their testimonies in the scriptures that the flood was global, accomplished by God through miraculous means, until that promised millennial day (previously referenced in D&C 101) when God Himself will reveal how he created the world. And as that scripture from D&C 101 says, among the many things God will reveal about the creation will be "hidden things that no man knew," and I guess that would include you. Knowing God is a God of stupendously great miracles, I see no reason to jump the Standard Works ship before that great millennial day of revelation concerning the creation. I'll continue to ere on the side of the scriptures while you continue to ere on the side of science. There's no law against either one of us.

2) And just as I suspected, Hadfield is a hardcore atheist. A little cagy on your part you left out that pertinent fact. Like I said strange bedfellows.

3) Like I said, God is a God of stupendous miracles, and as the Saviour said, "with God all things are possible." Are you aware of the fact that in 1 Corinthians 10:2 we are told that the children of Israel "were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud?" There are many ways a God of miracles -- who can instantaneously raise from the dead to immortal glory billions of human beings -- could have accomplished this feat without the landscape being disturbed. At His resurrection, Jesus looked so fresh and clean that some who saw him refused to be it was the same marred man who was hanged on a tree.

4) In his statement, does Elder Oaks specifically endorse organic evolution? Or are you jumping to convenient conclusions once again? Although his name seems to be anathema around here (strange thing for active Latter-day Saints to revile one of the Lord's anointed) Apostle Bruce R McConkie said the following:

"All things are to be revealed in the millennial day. The sealed part of the Book of Mormon will come forth; the brass plates will be translated; the writings of Adam and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and prophets without number will be revealed. We shall learn a thousand times more about the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus than we now know. We shall learn great mysteries of the kingdom that were not even known to those of old who walked and talked with the Eternal One. We shall learn the details of the creation and the origin of man and what fools mortals are to follow the fads of the evolving evolutionary nonsense that litters the textbooks of academia. Nothing in or on or over the earth will be withheld from human ken, for eventually man, if he is to be as his Maker, must know all things." (The Millennial Messiah)

 

I'm in agreement with the following wise counsel given by President Harold B. Lee:

"Perhaps if we had the full story of the creation of the earth and man told to us in great detail, it would be more of a mystery than the simple few statements that we have contained in the Bible, because of our lack of ability to comprehend. Therefore, for reasons best known to the Lord, He has kept us in darkness. Wait until the Lord speaks, or wait until that day when He shall come, and when we shall be among the privileged either to come up out of our graves and be caught up into the clouds of heaven or shall be living upon the earth likewise to be so translated before Him. Then we shall know all things pertaining to this earth, how it was made, and all things that now as children we are groping for and trying to understand. Let's reserve judgment as to the facts concerning the Creation until we know these things for sure." (Teachings of Harold B. Lee)

 

But if you want to, you can ignore President Lee's sage counsel; it is your privilege. But I will heed his counsel till that great millennial day of revelation when all the "hidden things that no man knew" concerning the creation of this earth are revealed by the Lord of Glory Himself. I'll await His word while you and the other "scientifically oriented" Latter-day Saints lean on atheist Hadfield et al.

5) Incorrect. This is what I actually think:  I am 100% sure I'm going to ere on the side of the scriptures until the great millennial day when God reveals how He created this world. There is a difference...

Edited August 14, 2014 by teddyaware

[Spammer]

Not even close.

 

 

I think yours is some new kind of Mormonism, not the kind I was born into and my LDS friends and family believe in. I've never met another Mormon who believes what you believe.  Every Mormon I know believes that their representations of Book of Mormon people and places corresponds with actual facts of history.

 

 

[Spammer]

The correspondence theory is pure Cartesian dualism and tied to the sectarian philosophies of the past.

The Restoration requires a new conception of truth based on direct experience, and therefore affirming religious experience. Truth is about things as they ARE, meaning as experienced, not as how they are represented.

 

Delete.  Never mind.   I can't accept that our representations don't correspond in some way to reality and don't want to waste any more of your time.  I do appreciate the food for thought, Mark.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Spammer

[brainburn]

Heh. This thread is only a little bit left of center to the philosophical smoking hole that used to be the bright and burning core of the true believer's paradigm. I think you're absolutely correct in your resistance to focus on historicity because the case against Mormonism (and many other religious paradigms/cultures and their emotional gravity) is purely philosophical.

For the count, I, personally, have only met one Mormon who has expressed views in any way similar to yours. Big doubts as to whether there are many post-modern pragmatist Mormons, at all.

But my point is, a few posts in this thread demonstrate it almost as clear as can be... that the church is simply "True" could mean everything to a philosophically misinformed, culturally enmeshed TBM.

Because for some, when they really take in the principles of a post-modern approach... They are "unplugged from the matrix", as we like to say. "Truth" disappears from "Reality" and everything their own personal lizard brain thought was a part of "True Reality" becomes a bunch of really sacred networks of words attached to a mess of conflicting emotions about those words and their sense of what is "real". An honest thinker with the will to walk through the logic with their heart open could find that many of those sacred words include more than a few of the foundational cornerstones of Mormonism... "True Reality" disappears and there goes "True Revelations", "The True Priesthood", "The True Prophet", "The True Gospel", "The True Restoration" and catastrophically so on... Mf, honestly, you're getting better and better at preaching the good word. :]

I'm sure you have a retort by now... And I admire your logical talents. I really do. But could I wager a guess that you've quickly supposed I conveniently left out the possibility that there is one True candidate that "works" as a solid foundation for the Mormon paradigm? If so, don't worry, I've had it in mind all along...

I understand that we can truly, deeply, confidently, trust in one epistemically solid, capital T True Foundation for the Mormon paradigm:

Our testimony of a super-sensory experience and the narrative of how your super-charged senses (especially of critical super-senses of certainty, trust, belonging, etc) changed your life in a super-powerful way.

But, wait. You don't use the term "super"' do you? Hmmm.... What do I mean by "super"?

I'm here to answer questions :]... My version of the term is designed to be just as well defined as the term "spiritual", but without a spiritual paradigm necessarily attached.

And I use it to demonstrate a troubling mystery... Why are the terms "super sensory" and "spiritual" interchangeable but the possible paradigms they could be upholding aren't necessarily as interchangeable. Do you see where I'm going with this?

(...and seriously, you don't think we have a good history? We barely have any history, at all. What leads you to that judgement?)

Edited August 14, 2014 by brainburn

[MormonFreeThinker]

Delete

Edited August 14, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[mfbukowski]

I haven't read all the pages of this thread (you know how I desperately try to avoid philosophical debates with you, Mark), so I may be repeating something already said.

 

I've never met a Mormon, in person, tell me the things you tell me, so it's hard for me to believe that Mormonism is post-modern.  All the Mormons I've ever talked to in person are 100% into historicity and correspondence theory and a very literal understanding of the Bible, even more so than most Catholics.  So I have a hard time believing that Mormonism is the way you represent it.  It might work for you, but I don't think it is the mainstream, standard, orthodox, (fill in your adjective) understanding of Mormonism.  Or is my experience of Mormonism outside of this board a strange outlier?

 

But I must say that your ideas are always very interesting

There are a few of us who see it, a few BYU professors in the philosophy department.

But you are right and it is a tragedy for us, because you see all this nonsense on these threads tied to flat earth epistemology.

But if we survive a hundred years more of this, the man in the street will be postmodern after postmodernism is dead, perhaps on the cutting edge it already is.

Catholicism has continually propped up scholasticism in their universities, but that is the only place it still is taught except in history classes, and we see the consequent lack of growth for you guys. I am just stating the facts as I see them.

There are a couple of Heideggerians at the Y and they totally get it. Ostler as a process theologian does a wonderful job of inserting process thought into his stuff, so there is hope for bus yet.

But these folks on the board don't read this stuff so they don't get it.

Give it 50 to 100 years and it will be taught in primary.

[mfbukowski]

I think yours is some new kind of Mormonism, not the kind I was born into and my LDS friends and family believe in. I've never met another Mormon who believes what you believe.  Every Mormon I know believes that their representations of Book of Mormon people and places corresponds with actual facts of history.

I believe it does, just that historicity is irrelevant to the message. Big difference.

[ERayR]

 

 

I don't care about his personal life, I simply agree with him that there are many problems with the Global Flood theory.

Like I said, he only attacks pseudoscience (Young Earth creationists claims), he doesn't attack faith in God, the faith that has nothing to do with bad science.  

 

Where they submerged?  

I am not jumping to convenient conclusions, I make conclusions based on the strong scientific evidence. You are the one that is jumping to conclusions. 

 

In 1931, when there was intense discussion on the issue of organic evolution, the First Presidency of the Church, then consisting of Presidents Heber J. Grant, Anthony W. Ivins, and Charles W. Nibley, addressed all of the General Authorities of the Church on the matter, and concluded, "Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to the world. Leave geology, biology, archaeology, and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research"

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Evolution

 

 

Please do me and yourself a favor and put a little of this wasted discussion board time into studying catastrophism.  Just a wee bit please.

[mfbukowski]

Delete.  Never mind.   I can't accept that our representations don't correspond in some way to reality and don't want to waste any more of your time.  I do appreciate the food for thought, Mark.

how do you get outside of your senses to check if they really correspond?

We live in a bubble of human thoughts and perceptions and can never ever escape to see what's "really out there". Impossible. You would have to stop being human to check if human perception "corresponds" to anything outside of it.

I would love to know what it is like to be an Orca from their point of view, but it's impossible. I would love to see the colors of music but they don't exist for us.

[mfbukowski]

No more flood theory. I will flag every post for the mods to delete. Take your silliness somewhere else.

[Spammer]

I believe it does, just that historicity is irrelevant to the message. Big difference.

Just so I'm clear, are you saying that whether Book of Mormon lands and people really historically existed is irrelevant to your belief that they existed?

[mfbukowski]

Heh. This thread is only a little bit left of center to the philosophical smoking hole that used to be the bright and burning core of the true believer's paradigm. I think you're absolutely correct in your resistance to focus on historicity because the case against Mormonism (and many other religious paradigms/cultures and their emotional gravity) is purely philosophical.

For the count, I, personally, have only met one Mormon who has expressed views in any way similar to yours. Big doubts as to whether there are many post-modern pragmatist Mormons, at all.

But my point is, a few posts in this thread demonstrate it almost as clear as can be... that the church is simply "True" could mean everything to a philosophically misinformed, culturally enmeshed TBM.

Because for some, when they really take in the principles of a post-modern approach... They are "unplugged from the matrix", as we like to say. "Truth" disappears from "Reality" and everything their own personal lizard brain thought was a part of "True Reality" becomes a bunch of really sacred networks of words attached to a mess of conflicting emotions about those words and their sense of what is "real". An honest thinker with the will to walk through the logic with their heart open could find that many of those sacred words include more than a few of the foundational cornerstones of Mormonism... "True Reality" disappears and there goes "True Revelations", "The True Priesthood", "The True Prophet", "The True Gospel", "The True Restoration" and catastrophically so on... Mf, honestly, you're getting better and better at preaching the good word. :]

I'm sure you have a retort by now... And I admire your logical talents. I really do. But could I wager a guess that you've quickly supposed I conveniently left out the possibility that there is one True candidate that "works" as a solid foundation for the Mormon paradigm? If so, don't worry, I've had it in mind all along...

I understand that we can truly, deeply, confidently, trust in one epistemically solid, capital T True Foundation for the Mormon paradigm:

Our testimony of a super-sensory experience and the narrative of how your super-charged senses (especially of critical super-senses of certainty, trust, belonging, etc) changed your life in a super-powerful way.

But, wait. You don't use the term "super"' do you? Hmmm.... What do I mean by "super"?

I'm here to answer questions :]... My version of the term is designed to be just as well defined as the term "spiritual", but without a spiritual paradigm necessarily attached.

And I use it to demonstrate a troubling mystery... Why are the terms "super sensory" and "spiritual" interchangeable but the possible paradigms they could be upholding aren't necessarily as interchangeable. Do you see where I'm going with this?

(...and seriously, you don't think we have a good history? We barely have any history, at all. What leads you to that judgement?)

Just come out and say what you want to say.