Is Feeling The Spirit Really Just Confirmation Bias?

[Brian 2.0]

Which is another reason I don't judge other's claims to revelation.  Although most protestant doctrines are opposed to the idea of personal revelation to the extent the LDS claim it.

 

A friend of mine in Utah was approached by a Baptist missionary while waiting for the train.  The Baptist was an ex-mormon.  My friend had also left the church but is now atheist/agnostic.  

 

My friend asked why this missionary felt the Baptist were true, was it feeling she had?  A spiritual confirmation?  The Baptist was very against that idea (having been LDS) and said that's not the way to get truth, trusting feelings is not reliable... my friend agreed to this point... but he was curious why then her new faith.  She said it was the Bible, the bible was scripture, the word of God, etc (it's NOT anything feelings related).   The train came so he couldn't ask his follow up question which was why she thinks the Bible is God's word and not the Koran or other scriptures claiming to be God's word?  Why the Bible's version of God true and not another version of God?  I would think the more you probed that question a few layers deeper they would have to say something similar to a spiritual feeling when reading the Bible.  I wish he could have talked to her more.

[KevinG]

Yup!  But most people begin to shy away when their personal onion is being peeled.

 

I'd also say that any Latter-day Saint (current or former) that describes a witness of the Spirit as mere "feelings" is not doing the topic justice.  Start with the gifts of the Spirit and move forward from there.

[TheSkepticChristian]

While there are many, many LDS who support the Theory of Evolution

 

Many, but not most, and few LDS believe humans and chimps share a common ancestor. 

 

 

How such experiences are interpreted (and they can be interpreted many different ways) is very subjective. 

 

Some revelations may come from God, but please remember the human brain sometimes finds patterns that are not real. 

It is called Apophenia, Patternicity, and Randomania. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

 

How do you know your brain did not find patterns that are not real? 

Edited August 25, 2015 by TheSkepticChristian

[omni]

While I remain uncertain, yet hopeful and open to the idea that God communicates to us through the Spirit, one thing I am quite certain of, is it's unreliability. One need look no further than the LDSFF. There was a recent thread in which a number of devout LDS warned of an upcoming end-of-the-world scenario in which the faithful saints will live in tent cities.

What I thought was interesting was the surety they had due to the many powerful spiritual experiences confirming that not only will these events occur, but soon. One poster even shared how the Spirit guided him to find the best combat instructor in the state as well as prompted him to purchase feminine hygiene products for his future (and unknown) wife. These are devout LDS who have undoubtedly had many spiritual experiences throughout their lives, so why are they completely missing it on this? Or maybe I'm looking at it all wrong and we're the ones missing it...

[mfbukowski]

I think clearly all the married people on this board are simply victims of confirmation bias.

What we really need is an objective test for love to eliminate that possibility.

And the idea that it's wrong to commit murder? Also confirmation bias. Being kind to people? You guessed it! Confirmation bias!

None of these can be proven logically - they are just sentimental nonsense. Somebody gets in your way? Shoot them! Where is your objective evidence for all these ridiculous subjective sentiments?

And guilt from any of these things? Confirmation bias!! You are just programmed to think these things are "wrong" and that you should not kill people who get in your way. There is no logical justification for it whatsoever.

And yes, for the sarcasm impaired, this is an example.

[KevinG]

I was programmed to think broccoli was good to eat.

It didn't take.

[SmileyMcGee]

I think clearly all the married people on this board are simply victims of confirmation bias.

What we really need is an objective test for love to eliminate that possibility.

And the idea that it's wrong to commit murder? Also confirmation bias. Being kind to people? You guessed it! Confirmation bias!

None of these can be proven logically - they are just sentimental nonsense. Somebody gets in your way? Shoot them! Where is your objective evidence for all these ridiculous subjective sentiments?

And guilt from any of these things? Confirmation bias!! You are just programmed to think these things are "wrong" and that you should not kill people who get in your way. There is no logical justification for it whatsoever.

And yes, for the sarcasm impaired, this is an example.

I see what you're saying, but I think your sarcastic analogy doesn't quite address the issue. The OP is addressing the source of the feelings, not the feelings themselves. When I claim to love someone, I typically don't assert a source of that feeling. Whereas when I claim to have felt the Spirit, I am claiming to have felt a feeling and I assert a source. I, frankly, don't believe the source is knowable (god, bias, or some other source) but I believe the feelings are felt.

[mfbukowski]

I see what you're saying, but I think your sarcastic analogy doesn't quite address the issue. The OP is addressing the source of the feelings, not the feelings themselves. When I claim to love someone, I typically don't assert a source of that feeling. Whereas when I claim to have felt the Spirit, I am claiming to have felt a feeling and I assert a source. I, frankly, don't believe the source is knowable (god, bias, or some other source) but I believe the feelings are felt.

If the source is unknowable,the whole question becomes irrelevant. It is what it is and has no other basis for comparison. It just exits and we have to deal with it or ignore it. Just hope its not a real bear about to take your head off

[CV75]

While I remain uncertain, yet hopeful and open to the idea that God communicates to us through the Spirit, one thing I am quite certain of, is it's unreliability. One need look no further than the LDSFF. There was a recent thread in which a number of devout LDS warned of an upcoming end-of-the-world scenario in which the faithful saints will live in tent cities.

What I thought was interesting was the surety they had due to the many powerful spiritual experiences confirming that not only will these events occur, but soon. One poster even shared how the Spirit guided him to find the best combat instructor in the state as well as prompted him to purchase feminine hygiene products for his future (and unknown) wife. These are devout LDS who have undoubtedly had many spiritual experiences throughout their lives, so why are they completely missing it on this? Or maybe I'm looking at it all wrong and we're the ones missing it...

For those who are inclined to even acknowledge they receive spiritual inspiration, I think the point at which someone is wrong about his inspiration and/or the source of his inspiration is that point where he picks up the spirit of contention, lying or enmity over it (individually or collectively). He can also run with a good idea imperfectly or apply it to wickedness, in a similar vein as the parables of the sower or the ten virgins.

 

I think the Lord shows grace toward the humble, who tend to assess their own reliability in "realistic" terms, to give them confidence in the good inspiration He renders them.

[Gray]

Spiritual experiences aren't to tell us things we don't already know. They're how we can appreciate sacredness. When you try to use a numinous/transcendent experience as a kind of internal divining rod or Ouija board, you'll get things like personal revelations about buying up massive quantities of survival equipment for the tent cities apocalypse. 

Edited August 25, 2015 by Gray

[TheSkepticChristian]

If the source is unknowable,the whole question becomes irrelevant. It is what it is and has no other basis for comparison. It just exits and we have to deal with it or ignore it. Just hope its not a real bear about to take your head off

 

What if we are making our own morality and meaning? Morality is necessary for survival, that is called natural selection. However, the universe and evolution don't care about morality and meaning, but I hope there is a God that cares. 

 

 

Spiritual experiences aren't to tell us things we don't already know

 

 but we pray to know the BOok of Mormon is true. 

 

and please respond to what I said 

 

Some revelations may come from God, but please remember the human brain sometimes finds patterns that are not real. 

It is called Apophenia, Patternicity, and Randomania. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

 

How do you know your brain did not find patterns that are not real? 

 

Are you looking for a face? or did your brain atomatically find it? It is not like you are actually looking for a face. 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2015 by TheSkepticChristian

[Gray]

 but we pray to know the BOok of Mormon is true. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think you can use prayer to find out if the BOM is historical. You can certainly pray and experience that the book is sacred. Numinous/transcendent experiences work in the subjective realm of values and sacredness, not in the objective world of fact and non-fact.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Gray

[Brian 2.0]

I don't think you can use prayer to find out if the BOM is historical. You can certainly pray and experience that the book is sacred. Numinous/transcendent experiences work in the subjective realm of values and sacredness, not in the objective world of fact and non-fact.

Agreed. We shouldn't expect the spirit to "speaketh of things as they really are."

[mfbukowski]

What if we are making our own morality and meaning? Morality is necessary for survival, that is called natural selection. However, the universe and evolution don't care about morality and meaning, but I hope there is a God that cares. 

This is an important moment for you to understand what I have been trying to tell you. I agree essentially with that video- except the "delusion" part.

Please listen. The delusion is that there is nothingness. YOU DO make your own meaning- that is the idea that we as gods in embryo organize matter unorganized and organize worlds. Think about it. If we make our own worlds, nothingness is no more "true" than God. There is no evidence to decide between the two! Both are the ultimate end- either there is NOTHING or there is GOD and we create our own view of morality and the question of God OR nothingness.

God is no more or less a delusion than nothingness! The delusion is not belief in God, it is belief in nothingness! But YOU CHOOSE!! No evidence on either side- it's up to you

Follow your gut, follow your hope. Why not? IF you really "hope" for God, that is called "faith"- "hope for things unseen"!!

It's up to you to decide what world you will create for yourself.

[mfbukowski]

What if we are making our own morality and meaning? Morality is necessary for survival, that is called natural selection. However, the universe and evolution don't care about morality and meaning, but I hope there is a God that cares. 

 

 

 

 but we pray to know the BOok of Mormon is true. 

 

and please respond to what I said 

 

Some revelations may come from God, but please remember the human brain sometimes finds patterns that are not real. 

It is called Apophenia, Patternicity, and Randomania. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

 

How do you know your brain did not find patterns that are not real? 

 

Are you looking for a face? or did your brain atomatically find it? It is not like you are actually looking for a face. 

 

 

Because we create a pattern who's to say they are not "real"??

Remember making your own interpretation of the universe?? If we choose that "reality" it is confirmation bias to choose nothingness!

You have confirmaiton bias either way! There's no evidence for either position!

[TheSkepticChristian]

I agree essentially with that video

 

about time someone agrees with a video I share 

 

It's up to you to decide what world you will create for yourself.

 

I agree. However, the universe doesn't care about our decisions.  

 

I hope there is life after death, but my decision won't change the truth. 

 

 I hope there is a God that loves us, but my decisions won't create a God. 

 

Either God is somewhere or he is not anywhere. 

 

but hope is a good thing. 

Edited August 26, 2015 by TheSkepticChristian

[Gray]

Agreed. We shouldn't expect the spirit to "speaketh of things as they really are."

 

I think it can do that, but not in terms of learning new objective facts about the world. More like coming to appreciate that something is subjectively true and good. 

[Brian 2.0]

I think it can do that, but not in terms of learning new objective facts about the world. More like coming to appreciate that something is subjectively true and good. 

 

I get that idea, and respect it.  I just think the scriptures, and church teachings, go beyond that.  I think the scriptures teach and many people believe the spirit can testify that Christ actually existed, was God's son, took upon our sins, and was resurrected... not just subjectively true and good, but fact.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Brian 2.0

[Gray]

I get that idea, and respect it.  I just think the scriptures, and church teachings, go beyond that.  I think the scriptures teach and many people believe the spirit can testify that Christ actually existed, was God's son, took upon our sins, and was resurrected... not just subjectively true and good, but fact.

 

As the church arose in the 19th century, it's not surprising that orthodox interpretation of scripture tends to be fundamentalist. But that does not mean that fundamentalism (literalism) is the default correct way to read the scriptures. 

[ERayR]

about time someone agrees with a video I share 

 

 

I agree. However, the universe doesn't care about our decisions.  

 

I hope there is life after death, but my decision won't change the truth. 

 

It will for you.

 

 I hope there is a God that loves us, but my decisions won't create a God. 

 

It will for you.

 

Either God is somewhere or he is not anywhere. 

 

but hope is a good thing. 

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

 

I agree. However, the universe doesn't care about our decisions.  

What does that have to do with any thing? It sounds like a throw away line to just ignore the point MF makes.

[TheSkepticChristian]

What does that have to do with any thing? It sounds like a throw away line to just ignore the point MF makes.

 

Not at all, just think

[mfbukowski]

I agree. However, the universe doesn't care about our decisions.

Since you are a positiviist meaning that you believe nothing without evidence, I was going to give you a CFR on that one, to prove that "the universe doesn't care about our decisions"

But I won't. But I did answer it maybe to make you think a little bit about your assertion. First of course it implies that the universe is capable of caring one way or another and that indeed it IS capable of caring and that indeed you have access to information accessible to no one else to know what in fact the universe does and does not care about, and that you know that in fact it doesn't care, and that you have evidence to make that assertion.

Just a bit of a stretch. So if indeed you really believe that "the universe doesn't care", that is clearly a violation of your own beliefs that all beliefs should be based on evidence.

But I am on your side if indeed you are starting to see the importance of faith.

Your video asserts that we should affirm life while we are here. There is no evidence for that either.

But I am glad that even at its heart it makes a statement of faith while totally deriding people of faith as being part of the "great delusion".

At least the video maker is as deluded as all the rest of us then if he is right, but apparently just doesn't see it, I guess.

[mfbukowski]

This is it in a nutshell as far as I am concerned. To me this is a VERY brief outline of a secular "theology" in which God is not even necessary- until the end

The video asserts nihilism as liberating because "we should live for now and make our own meaning with each other"

Why?

As a nihilist why believe that? What evidence is there that that is "true"

YES we should live for now and make our own meaning with each other. That is an affirmation of LIFE!

That "should" maybe the only should one can muster, but then why affirm life at all? That is indeed the beginning of belief that life should and does have meaning.

From that point, we are affirming that others count, and that there are ways of acting which are better than others. If nothing else we "should" create meaning.

We should embrace all that is "good". But what is good? It is doing what we know is "best" based on what an ideal human should do.

If you follow that utilitarian value forward far enough, ultimately it will get back to the assertion of something like the Golden Rule that we should treat others as they wish to be treated. Indeed this idea is at the core of civilization and arguably evolved as a belief to allow civilization to even exist. Because we are civilized, we have technology. Because we have technology and civilization, we have spears and huts and fire and huts which have developed into houses and cars and dishwashers and video games and the internet. But the golden rule eventually- in many different forms- is often discovered by philosophers in seeking to define the "good". No golden rule, no civilization, no progress, no advancement of humanity

Because of this imperative to act in a civilized manner, we have enthroned the idea of a "Perfect Man" as someone who always acts perfectly and in the interest of others. We see rules of civilization as liberating. It is more pleasant to live in a society which is peaceful and allows us to pursue what we want as long as it doesn't hurt someone and we enshrine that notion as an "unalienable right" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".

The rule of law is therefore enshrined in the golden temple of the hall of archives and seek human rights for all people. All "good" values become based on these humanistic values- why "humanistic"? because these values put humans at the center of all we value.

What concept of God fits best with this idea? The concept of God as a infinitely advanced human, whom we can become like. He is a God who lives in a family structure as we do, and he fellowships with other more inferior humans as a Father interacts with his children.

For purely rational reasons, I can conceive of no better paradigm for God than this. The conception is purely rational to raise human values to the point of making them celestialized.

That is reason enough to become a "Mormon" or something like one- a full humanist who believes in a paradigm that humans can become godlike. Pure rationalism, pure understanding that science is a collection of theories some of which explain the world better than others, and others which do not "survive" because something else comes along which gives better results.

But suppose one day, as our theoretical nihilist, something happens and in gazing on the wonders of the universe, we have an experience which confirms to us that indeed there is an "intelligence" out there, OTHER than my ownself, who knows me and loves me?? An experience so "real" that it cannot be denied!?

So as I see it, being a Mormon in that vein is the most reasonable thing one can do. It is indeed nihilism turned on its head, and an affirmation of life as opposed to an affirmation of.....nothing. To "affirm nothing" itself is self- contradictory- even the writer of the video could not imagine nothingness.

It is interesting to note that he actually believes in the existence of something he cannot himself even imagine, yet affirms that it "exists" and is the direction of the universe. Your nihilist has more faith than I can muster!

So as a perfect act of reason, we can call upon ourselves to affirm life and something more. If there is life, there is survival and there are values which promote life and civilization. If we take those values to their logical extreme, we must eventually develop a conception of an "Ideal Human" and what values are "better" than others and what values such an individual, an Ideal Human, would affirm. Civilization demands parenthood- babies cannot raise themselves. Humanity demands parenthood - the raising of children is the most important value for the preservation of the race. Those values which protect and preserve civilization are "the ten commandments" and those values which damage civilization must be seen as "wrong".

As we become more civilized, and as we create a more civilized world by organizing matter unorganized- which is the work of gods, we become more like that Ideal Human we have postulated for civilization itself is the organization of matter unorganized. The act of civilizing is the act of creating gods. Working together toward the most perfectly civilized society we will become the most civilized humans we can become. There is interaction in forming the individual with society- ideal humans create ideal societies and ideal societies create idea humans. Indeed Mormons call this concept "Zion".

So to me this is the completely rational faith. One could live one's life following this path on reason alone, as far as I am concerned. But when one is given the knowledge of the "Other" intelligence- that God is real and that this is HIS path, it all changes. Suddenly it's not all just about us, it's not about civilization and creating the ideal civilization. Suddenly it becomes about eternity. All actions now have eternal repercussions not just effects on society. Suddenly we can actually become one with our final destiny and have firm knowledge that in the final analysis there IS eternity.

But while waiting for that revelation, my advice is to proceed with the most rational path available to any human- and I see that as the Mormon path, odd as that may sound.

Edited August 27, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Brian 2.0]

This is it in a nutshell as far as I am concerned...

 

Do I sense some autobiography in our "theoretical nihilist" who has an experience beyond himself?  

 

I like all this.  Correct me if I'm wrong when trying to rephrase, but are you saying that in a way our rational nihilist and the enlightened Mormon that is working to create Zion almost see the world the same and are trying to achieve much the same goals towards become like our "Ideal Man"?  The Mormon just believes that someone has gone down this path before and achieved the goal of being an Ideal Man (God) and that person is communicating to us who are further back in the path while the rational nihilist believes that either no one has proceeded further down this path yet, or if someone has we don't know about them and how it all worked out in the end and they don't seem to be communicating back to us.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Brian 2.0