Do Our Ward And Stake Leaders Recognize The Room They Have To Include?

[mfbukowski]

Unless one has been visited by an angelic messenger, and even that has its problems (Is he a messenger of satan in disguise, Am I mentally ill and hallucinating), I can have no certainity.  you can call it knowing and we are likely splitting hairs, but it seems your are defining Knowing as an awareness of something that proves true to you though granting it is not absolute truth as in the stop sign is red.  

The problem here is that you have no basis for this statement philosophically because you have not defined a theory of truth to back it up.  It just represents your own confused concept of what "truth" means.  This is why I think it is VERY important that you at least study these issues, because your credibility as a commentator on Mormonism is on the line.  Those who understand these issues find your commentary useless.  You are obviously a very bright guy, but have not studied these issues far enough yet.

This is a general article

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

And this is the problem with your statement, in my opinion

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/

[Mars]

The problem here is that you have no basis for this statement philosophically because you have not defined a theory of truth to back it up.  It just represents your own confused concept of what "truth" means.  This is why I think it is VERY important that you at least study these issues, because your credibility as a commentator on Mormonism is on the line.  Those who understand these issues find your commentary useless.  You are obviously a very bright guy, but have not studied these issues far enough yet.

This is a general article

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

And this is the problem with your statement, in my opinion

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/

 

I'm literally on my 4th attempt to make sense of these two links.

 

I feel like posting circuit diagrams and assembly code just to make YOU feel stupid.

[mfbukowski]

LOL!!!!!!

It would take a lot less than that.

 

I understand.  What we work with every day has the pathways already formed- taking on new ideas can be very challenging- it is learning different ways to think!

 

It's like a foreign language.  You might be a speed reader in English, but in Polish...... not so much. 

 

We can go over it if you like- either here or pm or email

Edited February 3, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Mars]

I could spend my precious few moments of free time reading on philosophy...

 

or I could play Minecraft.

 

Would you care to wager which will happen tonight?

[DBMormon]

I'm literally on my 4th attempt to make sense of these two links.

 

I feel like posting circuit diagrams and assembly code just to make YOU feel stupid.

That is the issue Mars.  I like MFBukowski but his way of defining truth would not be familiar to other LDS and even LDS leaders.  I validate what he is saying but it is a way to throw historicity completely off to the side as irrelevant and simply hold the value of the principles and teachings involved.  It would take me 4 months of reading to grasp this new way of seeing truth and in the end I would still left saying to myself, the church contradicts itself often enough and it's history is a mess but that is not important to what is "true" and hence nothing becomes something and something becomes nothing.  Others Mormons do this

 

Terryl Givens, Adam Miller, David Bokovoy, Brian Hauglid, Dan Wootherspoon, etc...   When I listen to each of them they each seem able to say that as much as we can rationalize and think through mormonism on a historical level, there are a lot of issues and contradictions and things that simply don't fit that feel like they should .  But in the end that is not important, rather there is enough plausibility, enough room if one makes allowances to make it work if you begin to see mormonism in a philosophical truth level rather than a historical truth level.  And much of me is pulled towards that and yet it doesn't quite feel 100% right either.

 

Take Adam Miller's answer to my question here

 

One person asks Adam

“Do you believe that the Father literally flooded the entire world? Did the Father repent that he had made man?”

 

Adam answers

“I don't know much about this kind of thing, but a universal flood seems pretty unlikely from what I can tell.

I think that, in general, we need to be really generous with how we read these really, really old texts. Especially because these really, really old texts matter so much to us.”

 

So I follow up with

“Knowing that both a local flood has serious issue in terms of the historicity of the restoration narrative as well as a global flood has serious issues of feasibility - how do you reconcile such things without throwing your hands up and tossing in the towel on this narrative?”

 

And Adam responds

“Good question. I guess I don't considerate it a big deal one way or the other with respect to the things that matter to me.”

 

 

To me this seems to avoid the truth question on levels that the Church has told me are important.  I know it works for many and it even works for me some days but it also feels foreign and counter to how I perceive truth seeking.

[DBMormon]

I should add, I did print off the two articles and will read them MFB, and I really would love to grasp this.  Maybe we should revisit an interview where I let you expound on "What is Truth".  If interested email me offline.

[Mars]

That is the issue Mars.  I like MFBukowski but his way of defining truth would not be familiar to other LDS and even LDS leaders.  I validate what he is saying but it is a way to throw historicity completely off to the side as irrelevant and simply hold the value of the principles and teachings involved.  It would take me 4 months of reading to grasp this new way of seeing truth and in the end I would still left saying to myself, the church contradicts itself often enough and it's history is a mess but that is not important to what is "true" and hence nothing becomes something and something becomes nothing.  Others Mormons do this

 

Terryl Givens, Adam Miller, David Bokovoy, Brian Hauglid, Dan Wootherspoon, etc...   When I listen to each of them they each seem able to say that as much as we can rationalize and think through mormonism on a historical level, there are a lot of issues and contradictions and things that simply don't fit that feel like they should .  But in the end that is not important, rather there is enough plausibility, enough room if one makes allowances to make it work if you begin to see mormonism in a philosophical truth level rather than a historical truth level.  And much of me is pulled towards that and yet it doesn't quite feel 100% right either.

 

Take Adam Miller's answer to my question here

 

 

To me this seems to avoid the truth question on levels that the Church has told me are important.  I know it works for many and it even works for me some days but it also feels foreign and counter to how I perceive truth seeking.

 

Fair enough.

 

Although, I'm of the opinion that no set of ideas or solutions will fit "like they should".  Not atheism, not Evangelical Christianity, not nothing.  I don't know if you're holding out on certainty, waiting for revelation, answers, research, or facts to fill in the gaps before you say "I know."  Certainly that is your judgment call.  I don't think any one can fill that tall order, but that's me.

[DBMormon]

Fair enough.

 

Although, I'm of the opinion that no set of ideas or solutions will fit "like they should".  Not atheism, not Evangelical Christianity, not nothing.  I don't know if you're holding out on certainty, waiting for revelation, answers, research, or facts to fill in the gaps before you say "I know."  Certainly that is your judgment call.  I don't think any one can fill that tall order, but that's me.

No, I agree.... It is hard though.  Mormonism teaches you that certainty is the standard and it is within your reach.... and not only is that really not the case (at least for me and many others) but if Mormonism is a puzzle, then a chunk of her pieces are not fitting and look to belong to another puzzle all together....  just frustrating.

Edited February 4, 2015 by DBMormon

[Mars]

It really sucks to struggle to believe something you've been told is a sure thing your whole life. Causes you to question your ability to evaluate things clearly.

[Mars]

PS - It was minecraft.

[Mystery Meat]

But you don't know.  Prophets speak as prophets and they speak as man.  When they note they are speaking for Christ "Thus saith the Lord" is rare and hence we trust that they are speaking for him and recognize at times they don't.  Deciding when they are and are not is not as simple as we teach it.  I could get a 100 good faithful LDS and each would disagree on what is of God and what is not.  I Trust Christ words specifically (what is claimed in scripture that he said during his mortal ministry)  I trust prophets when they directly claim to be speaking on his behalf (Thus saith the Lord) and the rest is mixed as I hold much to be inspired and some not.  And only I have a right to discern for myself

 

When I say claim, I mean what the scriptures claim Christ is saying directly and when prophets are claiming to speak directly on his behalf

 

Sorry Bill, but I don't think you get to decide who knows and who doesn't.

 

All due respect, of course.

[mfbukowski]

That is the issue Mars.  I like MFBukowski but his way of defining truth would not be familiar to other LDS and even LDS leaders.  I validate what he is saying but it is a way to throw historicity completely off to the side as irrelevant and simply hold the value of the principles and teachings involved.  It would take me 4 months of reading to grasp this new way of seeing truth and in the end I would still left saying to myself, the church contradicts itself often enough and it's history is a mess but that is not important to what is "true" and hence nothing becomes something and something becomes nothing.  Others Mormons do this............

 

 

,,,,,To me this seems to avoid the truth question on levels that the Church has told me are important.  I know it works for many and it even works for me some days but it also feels foreign and counter to how I perceive truth seeking.

You don't want to spend the time to figure it out, and then complain that you don't understand it?

 

 

I could spend my precious few moments of free time reading on philosophy...

 

or I could play Minecraft.

 

Would you care to wager which will happen tonight?

Yeah, but the reality is that you have shown me that you DO understand it, and it was not that difficult for you to "get"

 

YOU are the one who said this- and THIS is all there is to it:

Yes, I believe I understand you properly.  You are saying that truth as an other/outside thing that you try to zero in on is fruitless because what matters is the experience and what you decide it implies/means?

 

It's that simple.

 

We can never get outside ourselves to compare our experience to what is "real", so for all practical purposes, what is "real" is what we experience inside us.  That's all we can know!

 

What the heck is so dang hard about that????

 

We live in a bubble our own brains have created and can never get "out".

 

So all this worry about what "really happened" is irrelevant.  What really happened might as well have happened in a different galaxy- we can't know it, so why worry about what happened in a different galaxy?

 

For the life of me, I don't have a clue why that is so hard.   It's totally undeniable- all I can know is what I can know.  If I can't know that the BOM is historical because every possible bit of "evidence" could be in error, it doesn't matter if it IS historical or not.

 

Everything can be doubted if you want to- ultimately we take it on faith anyway!

 

In the final analysis it will come down to what I WANT to believe about it anyway, so why not just dispense with all the silliness in between?

Edited February 5, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

And I didn't make this stuff up- MOST contemporary philosophers really do also think this way, and I can back this up if I have to.

 

This is not wacko Bukowski talking here- this is a summary of what most believe.
 

 

The deflationary theory has been one of the most popular approaches to truth in the twentieth century, having received explicit defense by Frege, Ramsey, Ayer, and Quine, as well as sympathetic treatment from many others. (According to Dummett 1959, the view originates with Frege.) The following passages all contain recognizable versions of the doctrine, though they differ on points of detail.

It is worthy of notice that the sentence ‘I smell the scent of violets’ has the same content as the sentence ‘it is true that I smell the scent of violets’. So it seems, then, that nothing is added to the thought by my ascribing to it the property of truth. (Frege 1918)....

...In addition to being popular historically, the deflationary theory has been the focus of much recent work. Perhaps its most vociferous contemporary defenders are Hartry Field and Paul Horwich.

One reason for the popularity of deflationism is its anti-metaphysical stance. Deflationism seems to deflate a grand metaphysical puzzle, a puzzle about the nature of truth, and much of modern philosophy is marked by a profound scepticism of metaphysics. Another reason for the popularity of deflationism concerns the fact that truth is a semantic notion, and therefore takes its place along with other semantic notions, such as reference, meaning, and content. Many philosophers are concerned with trying to understand these semantic notions. The deflationary theory is attractive since it suggests that, at least in the case of truth, there is less to be puzzled about here than one might expect.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/

 

To me, saying that one doesn't want to try to understand it is like saying that one does not want to try to be educated.   Fine with me-  no skin off my nose.

 

The reason this is so important to Mormonism is that it does away with the metaphysical garbage of the last 2000 years.

 

It does away with "Substance" and "Being" and all those metaphysical realms and dualisms and finally makes truth make common sense.

 

It IS a Mormon way of seeing, NOT a Creedal way of seeing where God and Christ are one in "Being", whatever that is supposed to mean.  They are two persons, working together, one in purpose, getting a job done.

 

Total common sense!

Edited February 5, 2015 by mfbukowski

[DBMormon]

Sorry Bill, but I don't think you get to decide who knows and who doesn't.

 

All due respect, of course.

LVJD66 - I think you misunderstand what I was saying "But you don't know.".  Maybe not but I will clarify just in case.  I am saying that unless one has had a angelic messenger, asked to shake his hand and even then it is not 100% certainty that what we are told or taught is absolutely the word of of God.  I don't know who knows and who doesn't (who has had an angelic messenger and shaken their hand) but I think it is fair to say that a spiritual experience with the Holy Ghost that doesn't reveal testable information being given, can be proven to show that the trust in words being God's words is unmistakable and 100% trustworthy (i personally make an exception for when Jesus talks himself during his mortal ministry and when prophets tell me in certain terms they are now speaking as a prophet, but even that has deep flaws - translation errors, false assumptions, etc...)  We have no certainity that when Pres. Monson speaks in conference which sentences are God's and which are not.  Again members will disagree, some have held no false theories to have been God's word only to have time prove them wrong, It is so messy and complicated and full of examples of contradictions that one is simply holding to their own perception of truth and real absolute "knowledge" (outside of rare extremely sacred experiences that only very few claim to have) is impossible to nail down.

[DBMormon]

We can never get outside ourselves to compare our experience to what is "real", so for all practical purposes, what is "real" is what we experience inside us.  That's all we can know!

MF, I do get this.  It simply doesn't satisfy me.  It feels like a dodge.  And While it may the closest to truth we can get it wipes out any ability anyone here has for shaming another's beliefs or for disagreeing with the Church, or for being a cafeteria mormon. to each their own and we each get to have our truth validated by each other as my truth is no more true than your truth.  My truth is just as valid and perhaps more or less valid than your truth but since we can only know our truth we should never be negative towards another's truth.  That is a slippery slope to nothing really matters at all.  Law for instance tries to get at the truth by building a case and looking at evidence and making that case.  This seems to be the mode of truth most of us are in.  IF we move to your idea of truth we can easily say "The Book of Abraham is too messy, too contradictory to the facts to be a divine document, but I still believe it to be so and hence it is true" in spite of evidence being much smaller in comparison to the critics evidence (again outside of a divine messenger).  We simply are choosing to believe what we want rather than be open to where the evidence takes us.  

 

Also the papers you sent are not layman enough for my pea brain.  Is there a "truth for dummies" book or a basics book that introduces this stuff on a layman level.

[DBMormon]

And I didn't make this stuff up- MOST contemporary philosophers really do also think this way, and I can back this up if I have to.

 

This is not wacko Bukowski talking here- this is a summary of what most believe.

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/

 

To me, saying that one doesn't want to try to understand it is like saying that one does not want to try to be educated.   Fine with me-  no skin off my nose.

 

The reason this is so important to Mormonism is that it does away with the metaphysical garbage of the last 2000 years.

 

It does away with "Substance" and "Being" and all those metaphysical realms and dualisms and finally makes truth make common sense.

 

It IS a Mormon way of seeing, NOT a Creedal way of seeing where God and Christ are one in "Being", whatever that is supposed to mean.  They are two persons, working together, one in purpose, getting a job done.

 

Total common sense!

I think you missed the part where I wrote that "by the way I printed those off and will read them".  Which I did and did.  Seems to me to be a hundred pages of saying we really can not know truth outside ourselves and there is no real way to arrive at truth.  This also means anything goes and who am I to say another's truth is nonsense and my truth is more valid, nor any other saying the same thing to me. 

[HappyJackWagon]

 

 who am I to say another's truth is nonsense and my truth is more valid, nor any other saying the same thing to me. 

DB,

 

This makes perfect sense to me. It is relinquishing the idea that there is an absolute truth that we all experience in the same way. I can say that another's truth is nonsense to me but that is not an authoritative claim that it is actual nonsense. It only applies to me and any others I can persuade. This philosophy seems to give those who are seeking for room to accept/reject/integrate our perceptions of truth into something that truly allows us freedom and contentment. We no longer need to fit into someone elses mold but can freely create our own. We become our own authority

[mfbukowski]

We must understand that this applies to religious truth, and not what happens when I turn the key to my car.

 

At the bottom line, it is the same though.  All we know even about scientific "truth" is what works.  The sentence "It is true that water boils at 212 degrees F"

is logically the exact same as the statement "Water boils at 212 degrees F"  or some other scientific statement.  We observe xyz to be the case on a repeated basis.  Nothing is added by calling it "true".

 

Adding "It is true that....." is superfluous.  Saying that "It is true that God exists" means exactly the same as the statement "God exists".

 

In a context we know what "true" and "false" means, in a court of law we can decide what is a lie and what is not- that is common sense.  Either the car is red or it is blue, saying that it is true that it is red is superfluous.   In a court of law, one might ask "Was the car that hit the white car red or blue?"   One person might say red, the other blue, but only one statement is "true".   Of course we know what that means- either it happened that way or it didn't.   It is a practical concern.  Money is riding on the issue of which car hit whom.  No problem in deciding "truth" at all.

 

That has nothing to do with "anything goes".  If it was the red car, person x gets the money, if it was the blue car, person y gets the money.  Period,

 

But religious truth is entirely different.  Did Mary appear to the children at Fatima?  Did God appear to Joseph Smith?  Did the events in the BOM "really happen?"

 

Is Zoroastrianism and the Avesta "True"?

 

NONE of these things are "provable" in a conventional sense.  Did Jesus die for my sins?  How can you prove that??  Get out the Sin-O-Meter and see if a Christian's Sin reading is lower than a heathen's?  We can say that "I know Mary appeared at Fatima" or that "I know that God appeared to Joseph".   What that means is that I have a great degree of certainty that these beliefs have made my life better, and have given my live meaning and purpose.

 

These are my core beliefs upon which I have chosen to build my life, and therefore I SEE THEM as "true".  I cannot see them differently BECAUSE I have built my life around these principles.  They give my life meaning.  I have chosen them because they work for me.

 

If you are a Marine, honor and duty and upholding freedom are core beliefs that you would die for.   Those beliefs are core values around which you build your life, and which if necessary, you would build the purpose for your death.  You KNOW those are "true principles".

 

How many would die for the church if push came to shove?  How certain are you that there was a man named Ammon who cut off all those arms? 

 

Moral truths are socially observable.  A society which prohibits random murder for fun is a more pleasant society in which to live than a society in which one might be murdered at random walking down the street.  Not fun.

 

A society which decides that one should drive on a certain side of the road works better than a society in which one is free to drive on the right or left, or down the sidewalk.  This is simple stuff.  You have rules, you follow them because they work and you call them "true" if you want to.  This applies to all the 10 commandments.  They work.  Simple.  It's not "anything goes" by any sense!

 

We therefore say "murder is wrong".  Society cannot tolerate that behavior.   Adultery is wrong.  If everyone committed adultery, children would not have stable homes in which to be raised, and would grow up......   well, just look around you to see the natural consequences of adultery.

 

Very simple stuff.  "What works" works to make cars go and make for a good society.  It has nothing to do with "anything goes".  In fact if it doesn't go, it doesn't work.   

 

Does the belief bring about the desired result?  THAT is the question.  Does believing the BOM is literally true bring you closer to God?   Does believing in freedom and duty and honor give purpose to your life?  Does believing that gasoline is required to run your car get you to work on time?  Does going to work provide you food clothing and shelter?  Does believing in the atonement give you peace in your life?   Do you have experiences which confirm that belief?

 

Do you have experiences which confirm that you should go to work in the morning?

 

I believe all these things, but I don't need to use the word "true" to believe any of them.   I believe them because they work for me.

 

But adding the word "true" to a sentence does not add anything to make it more "true" than it was before.  Either it works or it doesn't.  Either it gives desirable results or it doesn't.  THAT is what makes it "true or false"

[mfbukowski]

DB,

 

This makes perfect sense to me. It is relinquishing the idea that there is an absolute truth that we all experience in the same way. I can say that another's truth is nonsense to me but that is not an authoritative claim that it is actual nonsense. It only applies to me and any others I can persuade. This philosophy seems to give those who are seeking for room to accept/reject/integrate our perceptions of truth into something that truly allows us freedom and contentment. We no longer need to fit into someone elses mold but can freely create our own. We become our own authority

AND THIS is ultimately what Joseph Smith was all about.

 

Think about it.  The story goes that he had a question about God.  What did he do?  Did he go to a preacher?  Did he go to the bible?  Did he ask an "educated expert"?  Did he read scholarly works?   Actually he did all those things, but in the final analysis, he went to God and got his own answer and through inspiration developed his own new way of seeing all of these questions.

[DBMormon]

MFB - you keep missing my asking for a layman's introduction to these ideas of truth?

[mfbukowski]

MFB - you keep missing my asking for a layman's introduction to these ideas of truth?

I will look further.  Check wikipedia.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Theories_of_truth

 

The bottom line is that it is impossible to define what "truth" is- it is not really definable.  Any definition we come up for it, ultimately does not work in all instances.

 

So it is pointless to argue about.  The word only confuses the issue, so it is best to explain oneself more fully and explain why one's beliefs are important to oneself, what they help us to do in our lives, etc.   Just asserting that they are "true" doesn't help anyone.

Edited February 5, 2015 by mfbukowski