Confirmation through the spirit or feelings?

[Gray]

20 minutes ago, Ahab said:

It's not that difficult and it keeps getting easier the better you know the difference between good from evil.

Either that or Satan has gotten better at tricking you into a false sense of security. There is no way to know which explanation is right!

 

Quote

Why do you even ask me?  What point do you think that serves?

I trust what God tells me, regardless of what other people say, and I have never received any conflicting messages from him in the same contexts. But I have discarded some things that I once thought were true based on my own ideas in favor of what God later taught me. 

If you ever radically change some of your beliefs, you may come to understand what I'm talking about. 

Edited April 5, 2017 by Gray

[Gray]

13 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Not in my opinion.  Even the words of scripture mean nothing to me unless or until God says that same thing to me, personally.

What question is this, exactly?

All I need is God's answer to me, personally, and it's just an added bonus when I perceive that God has also told other people the same thing.

Then you'll never know if this method is working. 

[Ahab]

2 minutes ago, Gray said:

Either that or Satan has gotten better at tricking you into a false sense of security. There is no way to know which explanation is right!

From my point of view it is far more likely that Satan has been tricking you, especially considering your low regard for the power of prayer.

2 minutes ago, Gray said:

If you ever radically change some of your beliefs, you may come to understand what I'm talking about. 

Not worth the price to me.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

"Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good"

"Examine" is not equivalent to "doubt".

If we are looking for reason to doubt, we will always find it.  Peter found his reason to doubt in the wind and the waves.  He found it in his understanding of physics and his previous experience with water.  Once you take your eyes off of the Lord who is standing there with his arms extended, doubt will sink us every time.  

Whether you believe this account to be historical or not doesn't matter, the lesson is this:  Don't take your eyes off of the Lord, looking for reasons to doubt or you will miss out on opportunities and experiences with the Lord which may seem difficult to fathom due to our limited ability to perceive when we lean on our own understanding  - "wherefore didst thou doubt?"

 

[Ahab]

5 minutes ago, Gray said:

Then you'll never know if this method is working. 

What method?

You mean comparing what other people say God tells them to what God tells me and then letting the opinions of those other people somehow sway me or determine how I should understand what God has told me?

I'd rather just keep it between me and God.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I attended a conference at USU a couple weeks back about BoM translation.  There were great guests and they had some very interesting discussions.  I was actually following much of these discussions fairly well, which was surprising to me because I'm sure if I had attended a few years ago most of it would have been way over my head.  I guess all the reading I've done on church history in the past few years has really helped.   

http://chass.usu.edu/stay-connected/news/translation-conference

https://www.faithmatters.org/

So, I think it will take time to continue learning, I haven't really even read any philosophical books yet, I have a couple on my wish list, but honestly these aren't at the top of my priority list.  I will get to them at some point, and I'm sure it will help.  

It's a skill like learning a language- it's a way of seeing and speaking.  It's not that hard once you get the hang of it

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

 

So I'm trying to understand how you would process the same thing. I would guess that you don't care in the least whether or not it was historical, and don't care to form an opinion about it, and are probably highly skeptical of the the conclusions of historians to begin with. You find that believing in the story adds meaning and value to your life, therefore it's worth believing. Is that right? But, I'm not sure what you mean by believing in the story. What does that look like? It doesn't sound to me exactly like you're consciously maintaining some kind of mental division between literal and metaphorical? The only thing that matters is whether it adds value to your life?

Feel free to correct anything I've gotten wrong here. 

 

Yeah that's pretty much it- it's not that complicated.

But I see all language as metaphor.  ALL LANGUAGE.

And yes, science is a metaphor which adds to everyone's life.  We can't see quarks and strings or choose your language and description mode to describe things "as they are"

Religion is just as much a metaphor that adds to everyone's life as science is, but the subjects are different.  Psychiatry is somewhere between the two.

Astronomy makes it obvious.  We can never see astronomical objects "as they are"-   Astronomy is the perfect example of the metaphorical quality of science, as is physics actually.

The language of physics is math but guess what- the math still tries to "represent" reality and obviously it still hasn't done that, has it?   It never will.

As long as science keeps advancing, it proves more and more that previous science was a metaphor but then they subscribe (the man in the street at least subscribes) to the view that "NOW we have it right"

It will never be "right" in principle because there IS no "right" to achieve to be the ultimate description of reality.

It will always be limited by our perception.  Period.

It's all metaphor, so yes, I do not distinguish between metaphor and "reality" because language cannot BE "reality".   The word "Chair" will never be the reality of a chair.

It is prima facie obvious to me that words are not things and am totally baffled why people think they are.   It is like saying the sun is not shining when it is.  It is very frustrating, quite honestly.

If we were in a class room it would be easier.

I would point to my mouth and say "Word chair"

And then I would point to a chair and say "Thing chair"

And then ask the class to describe the difference.   Maybe that would stick with them.

Edited April 5, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

39 minutes ago, Gray said:

Then you'll never know if this method is working. 

No, you always know it is working.

It's about what's in your mind and nothing else.  The rest is illusion because it is unknowable.  Thinking you know something which you do not know is an illusion.

It's difficult to be wrong about what you are thinking unless perhaps you are mentally ill and controlled by your unconscious.

But even then, your unconscious is still in control and so it is still true that your mental state is in control of reality as you see it.   What remains to be seen is how life-promoting your mental state is.  But that is a value judgement controlled by.....  wait for it.....  your mental state as well.

So the only values are a lifestyle which promotes life or one that promotes death.  Just like the Didache, a first century scripture (to me) says, indicating to me that the philosophy behind Alma 32 was alive and well in the first century.  Not that history matters....

 

[Ahab]

11 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

... language cannot BE "reality".   The word "Chair" will never be the reality of a chair.

It is prima facie obvious to me that words are not things and am totally baffled why people think they are.   It is like saying the sun is not shining when it is.  It is very frustrating, quite honestly.

Not as frustrating to you as your idea that "truth is not independent of language" is to me, apparently.

Truth IS independent of language and language will never be able to fully convey all there is in reality.

[CV75]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

I'm sorry, I didn't follow most of that. That doesn't really represent my approach, from what I understood of it. There is no historical or scientific way to test the notion that God is existence, to begin with. But history has something to say about Nephites, or the life of Jesus. 

Prayer is different because prayer is entirely in the mind. You and I can use our eyes and both see the same rhino at the zoo. 

Our internal experiences are different. We self-generate thoughts and feelings all the time. Some people think that God intervenes and puts some of these feelings and thoughts into our brains directly. How do you confirm that? How would that even work? The kinds of answers people get to prayers suggest that it doesn't work like that at all. 

So you believe that “God is existence” without any test of His historicity, and at the same time form a belief in God-dependent personalities such Jesus and Nephites subject to such a test. I don’t see the consistency in your approach. They are each spiritual tenets, yet you choose to subject them to different tests.

Furthermore, every mental process is entirely in the mind. Do we really see the same rhino? Maybe enough to say we agree upon it, but I bet there are plenty of differences on plenty of levels. The same with prayer. The senses that are used for both sight and prayer are processed in the mind; they are both internal experiences. An “external experience” makes no sense.

The rhino, or the light bouncing off the rhino, puts the image into our brains. Just like people (or the vibrations coming from them) do when they talk to us, and like God does when He communes with us. Integrated with other things that were put into our brains, including our agency, we internally generate thoughts and feelings about those images.

What exactly in your mind spontaneously arose from or in a vacuum?

Some people think parents intervene with a child and put feelings and thoughts into his brain. Do you disagree? How do you confirm that they do, or don’t? How do the parents’ and the child’s brains work, individually and in relation to each other?

Edited April 6, 2017 by CV75

[Gray]

4 hours ago, Ahab said:

From my point of view it is far more likely that Satan has been tricking you, especially considering your low regard for the power of prayer.

Not worth the price to me.

Satan is playing 4-D chess, my friend. He's hidden the actual truth from all of us - that the one and only true path is the Shakers.

[Gray]

4 hours ago, pogi said:

"Examine" is not equivalent to "doubt".

If we are looking for reason to doubt, we will always find it.  Peter found his reason to doubt in the wind and the waves.  He found it in his understanding of physics and his previous experience with water.  Once you take your eyes off of the Lord who is standing there with his arms extended, doubt will sink us every time.  

Whether you believe this account to be historical or not doesn't matter, the lesson is this:  Don't take your eyes off of the Lord, looking for reasons to doubt or you will miss out on opportunities and experiences with the Lord which may seem difficult to fathom due to our limited ability to perceive when we lean on our own understanding  - "wherefore didst thou doubt?"

 

If you haven't doubted, you haven't examined. If you want to really examine, you have to be ready to abandon any belief that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. If you can't do that, then you've fallen victim to a spirit of fear. Cherished beliefs are shielded from scrutiny, only because we fear they might not hold up.

[Gray]

4 hours ago, Ahab said:

What method?

You mean comparing what other people say God tells them to what God tells me and then letting the opinions of those other people somehow sway me or determine how I should understand what God has told me?

I'd rather just keep it between me and God.

If you have no basis for comparison, you can't possibly know if the feelings you feel when praying hold up to some kind of external reality. That's the problem with using prayer for divination. It works about as well as any other type of divination - that is to say, it doesn't work at all. Prayer has a valuable function, a sacred function. But divination is not possible.

[Gray]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yeah that's pretty much it- it's not that complicated.

But I see all language as metaphor.  ALL LANGUAGE.

And yes, science is a metaphor which adds to everyone's life.  We can't see quarks and strings or choose your language and description mode to describe things "as they are"

Religion is just as much a metaphor that adds to everyone's life as science is, but the subjects are different.  Psychiatry is somewhere between the two.

Astronomy makes it obvious.  We can never see astronomical objects "as they are"-   Astronomy is the perfect example of the metaphorical quality of science, as is physics actually.

The language of physics is math but guess what- the math still tries to "represent" reality and obviously it still hasn't done that, has it?   It never will.

As long as science keeps advancing, it proves more and more that previous science was a metaphor but then they subscribe (the man in the street at least subscribes) to the view that "NOW we have it right"

It will never be "right" in principle because there IS no "right" to achieve to be the ultimate description of reality.

It will always be limited by our perception.  Period.

It's all metaphor, so yes, I do not distinguish between metaphor and "reality" because language cannot BE "reality".   The word "Chair" will never be the reality of a chair.

It is prima facie obvious to me that words are not things and am totally baffled why people think they are.   It is like saying the sun is not shining when it is.  It is very frustrating, quite honestly.

If we were in a class room it would be easier.

I would point to my mouth and say "Word chair"

And then I would point to a chair and say "Thing chair"

And then ask the class to describe the difference.   Maybe that would stick with them.

It strikes me then that your approach is pretty Biblical. If you were to ask early Christians whether the resurrection was literal or metaphorical, I suspect they wouldn't really get how there was a difference.

But my brain doesn't seem to work that way. While I acknowledge that there is a gap between our words and reality, I think we can approach and approximate reality more closely with some ideas than with others. Our current understanding of the cosmos is a much closer approximation of reality than the three-tiered universe envisioned by ancient peoples.

I don't think science really "overturns" itself anymore either. The changes that happen over time get smaller and smaller, like an uphill climb that starts out very steep and gradually tapers off until it's a barely perceptible incline. But I know that wasn't really your point.

 

[Gray]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

No, you always know it is working.

It's about what's in your mind and nothing else.  The rest is illusion because it is unknowable.  Thinking you know something which you do not know is an illusion.

It's difficult to be wrong about what you are thinking unless perhaps you are mentally ill and controlled by your unconscious.

But even then, your unconscious is still in control and so it is still true that your mental state is in control of reality as you see it.   What remains to be seen is how life-promoting your mental state is.  But that is a value judgement controlled by.....  wait for it.....  your mental state as well.

So the only values are a lifestyle which promotes life or one that promotes death.  Just like the Didache, a first century scripture (to me) says, indicating to me that the philosophy behind Alma 32 was alive and well in the first century.  Not that history matters....

 

Is it working to tell you objective facts about the universe? The binary question, did God grant his authority to the LDS church? Can prayer tell you whether God did it? Or does prayer instead tell you whether you really believe it in your heart?

[Gray]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

So you believe that “God is existence” without any test of His historicity, and at the same time form a belief in God-dependent personalities such Jesus and Nephites subject to such a test. I don’t see the consistency in your approach. They are each spiritual tenets, yet you choose to subject them to different tests.

That doesn't make sense. You can't test the historicity of God (unless you're defining God as something like the voyage of Columbus). Defining the Universe as God is a choice. It's completely subjective, just like defining California as home. The universe exists. We can explore the universe with physics. But there is no branch of science that deals with what we define as God. You can define Elohim as God, but that's also subjective, even if Elohim really exists.

Jesus was a historical person who lived and breathed and walked in Palestine. Therefore he is subject to historical inquiry. The Nephites are alleged to be historical people as well, and subject to the same inquiry. My definition of God is not subject to historical inquiry. That's a category error.

 

 

Quote

Furthermore, every mental process is entirely in the mind. Do we really see the same rhino? Maybe enough to say we agree upon it, but I bet there are plenty of differences on plenty of levels.

You're describing hallucinations, not vision. Vision is not entirely in the mind. It's interpreted by the mind but there is a clear external input as well.

 

Quote

 

he same with prayer. The senses that are used for both sight and prayer are processed in the mind; they are both internal experiences. An “external experience” makes no sense.

Prayer is different because there is no discernible external input.

 

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Gray

[Ahab]

35 minutes ago, Gray said:

If you have no basis for comparison, you can't possibly know if the feelings you feel when praying hold up to some kind of external reality.

Huh? "Hold up to external reality"???

Oh, wait. Are you talking about discerning why I feel what I feel while determining whether it's "just me" or someone else is having a conversation with me while sharing his thoughts  and feelings? If so my basis for comparison is how well I know myself and knowing when someone else is communicating with me.

35 minutes ago, Gray said:

That's the problem with using prayer for divination. It works about as well as any other type of divination - that is to say, it doesn't work at all. Prayer has a valuable function, a sacred function. But divination is not possible.

Says you, but I know better than to believe you.

[Mars]

conversation is moving too fast for me to keep up, so i'm sorry if i missed this.

i am fine with multiple answers to multiple prayers.  the convergence doesn't need to happen *now*, we have the eternities to settle in on a steady state.  let God guide His children wherever He feels they need.  maybe that's Catholicism.  maybe that's Mormonism.  maybe it's secular humanism.  that's great.  everyone's gotta start with something.  it may sound like hubris to make sole truth claims, but the key claim of the Priesthood (see what I did there?!) is more about delegation of authority and access to promises, blessings, and covenants than having a fulfilling and intimate relationship with God.  or having "all the truth".  shucks, we don't even believe we have all the truth just yet.  so no sense in beating the drum of being the only truth havers.

assuming for the moment that the correct answer is 'Mormons,' and tacking onto that assumption the plain observation that humans process change very slowly, it makes great sense to me that God would allow patience for His children who are not prepared, or given their historical and cultural context, unwilling to believe our message until such a time as those factors are removed and the playing field for processing new information is then leveled.

i trust the general process; good works and faith beget more of the same and you grow brighter and brighter until the perfect day.  eventually that will require that every knee bow and every tongue confess.  but in the here and now, if someone isn't ready or isn't willing to hear the message of Mormonism, then i say love them, serve them, trust them to follow the path they feel is right, and let them be.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Mars

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, Ahab said:

Not as frustrating to you as your idea that "truth is not independent of language" is to me, apparently.

Truth IS independent of language and language will never be able to fully convey all there is in reality.

Think about your theory of truth

Truth is independent of language and language will never be able to fully convey all there is in reality

So truth is not connected to language and language is never able to convey full reality

So truth and reality are floating around out there not connected by language.  There appears to be no connection between truth and reality at all.

I don't think that works.   It appears to be a tad incomplete.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

It strikes me then that your approach is pretty Biblical. If you were to ask early Christians whether the resurrection was literal or metaphorical, I suspect they wouldn't really get how there was a difference.

But my brain doesn't seem to work that way. While I acknowledge that there is a gap between our words and reality, I think we can approach and approximate reality more closely with some ideas than with others. Our current understanding of the cosmos is a much closer approximation of reality than the three-tiered universe envisioned by ancient peoples.

I don't think science really "overturns" itself anymore either. The changes that happen over time get smaller and smaller, like an uphill climb that starts out very steep and gradually tapers off until it's a barely perceptible incline. But I know that wasn't really your point.

 

 Words cannot describe "reality".  I think "reality" is raw experience.   Again one cannot describe the experience of "red" to a blind man.  I kind of object to the idea that there is a "gap" between words and reality, it is kind of like saying there is a gap between a painting of Napoleon and his corpse buried for a hundred years.  There is an attempted connection but the experience of the corpse and the experience of the painting are quite different obviously and neither "ARE" Napoleon.

I do not know if things are "reality" or not. I do not know what that word means unambiguously.  Words are symbols in the air, things are perceived as not caused by mental states. That does not make them "real" necessarily- read the Rorty quote below.  He also does not use the word "real" either.  The gap is between "thing chair" and "word chair"- different kinds of entities we perceive with the same name- one entity is vibrations in the air and linguistic and so created by a human mental state and the other entity as a thing in the world one might trip over is not caused by a human mental state. (perhaps I should have used "rock" instead of "chair" because chairs are indeed designed by humans)

I tend to agree that we need to get back to Restored early christianity and so agree that probably the difference between metaphor, allegory, and experience, was not as strong before dang Descartes messed up the world and decided to make a divide between spirit and matter.   LDS materialism- the idea that spirit is matter- goes a long way toward getting beyond that error but as a church we are still afflicted with the Western Disease of dualism,  as I would argue perhaps you tend to be.  Sorry but I think Descartes is essentially your worst hang up.   In a nice way of course.   You see the inner and outer as separate, I see them as one- no dualism for me, it is all mental for me.   It all gets filtered through a brain if I can put it that way, but to be consistent I cannot because that is a scientific theory.  That is also Alma 32- if an experience "works" and achieves its purpose it becomes valuable to us.  

You are still chasing "approximations of reality" which I see as a futile pursuit.   I see all we can know as simply human experience some of which is shared and and other important pieces of human experience cannot be shared.  Either our actions and experiences achieve a desirable end or they do not.  If they achieve a desirable end, we repeat them until something changes

I also never said that science "overturns" itself- I said that that was the (erroneous) view of the man in the street- that we are getting closer "approximations of reality" in science.   Perhaps that was not clear enough.

 

[Ahab]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Think about your theory of truth

Truth is independent of language and language will never be able to fully convey all there is in reality

So truth is not connected to language and language is never able to convey full reality

So truth and reality are floating around out there not connected by language.  There appears to be no connection between truth and reality at all.

I don't think that works.   It appears to be a tad incomplete.

There can be a connection/association  between truth/reality and language but truth/reality doesn't require language in order for truth/reality to be/exist.

A planet you don't know about yet is still out there right now whether or not you know it or talk about it.

Nothing is missing. That is just how it is.

[snowflake]

17 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Define truth. That's the problem. Certainly truth is not a thing so there is no such thing as truth.

Then your statement isn't true if there is no such thing as truth.

I've always thought of truth as reality or fact.  Interesting that Jesus said that he was truth.

truth

tro͞oTH/  

noun

noun: truth

1. the quality or state of being true.

   "he had to accept the truth of her accusation"

   synonyms:

   veracity, truthfulness, verity, sincerity, candor, honesty; More accuracy, correctness, validity, factuality, authenticity "he doubted the truth of her statement"

   antonyms:

   dishonesty, falseness

   • that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

     noun: the truth

     "tell me the truth"

     synonyms:

     what actually happened, the case, so; More the gospel (truth), the honest truth "it's the truth, I swear" fact(s), reality, real life, actuality "truth is stranger than fiction"

     antonyms:

     lies, fiction

   • a fact or belief that is accepted as true.

     plural noun: truths

     "the emergence of scientific truths"

     synonyms:

     fact, verity, certainty, certitude; More

[Bobbieaware]

20 minutes ago, snowflake said:

Then your statement isn't true if there is no such thing as truth.

I've always thought of truth as reality or fact.  Interesting that Jesus said that he was truth.

truth

tro͞oTH/  

noun

noun: truth

1. the quality or state of being true.

   "he had to accept the truth of her accusation"

   synonyms:

   veracity, truthfulness, verity, sincerity, candor, honesty; More accuracy, correctness, validity, factuality, authenticity "he doubted the truth of her statement"

   antonyms:

   dishonesty, falseness

   • that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

     noun: the truth

     "tell me the truth"

     synonyms:

     what actually happened, the case, so; More the gospel (truth), the honest truth "it's the truth, I swear" fact(s), reality, real life, actuality "truth is stranger than fiction"

     antonyms:

     lies, fiction

   • a fact or belief that is accepted as true.

     plural noun: truths

     "the emergence of scientific truths"

     synonyms:

     fact, verity, certainty, certitude; More

Mark is a student of philosophy and for that reason his statements are often subtle, nuanced and, on occasion, obscure. Very often he comments as if the person he's responding to is also trained philosopher. I can assure you Mark knows and believes truth is SOMETHING in some sense. And I can assure you he also believes Christ is the truth in some sense as well. Hopefully, he'll find a simple way to explain what he means so you'll be able to better understand his thinking on this point.

[CV75]

12 hours ago, Gray said:

That doesn't make sense. You can't test the historicity of God (unless you're defining God as something like the voyage of Columbus). Defining the Universe as God is a choice. It's completely subjective, just like defining California as home. The universe exists. We can explore the universe with physics. But there is no branch of science that deals with what we define as God. You can define Elohim as God, but that's also subjective, even if Elohim really exists.

Jesus was a historical person who lived and breathed and walked in Palestine. Therefore he is subject to historical inquiry. The Nephites are alleged to be historical people as well, and subject to the same inquiry. My definition of God is not subject to historical inquiry. That's a category error.

It depends on what you use for a standard of historicity. You chose to believe that “God is existence,” based on the historical event of your hearing it. That is a very Biblical approach (Romans 10:17). The idea was put into your mind and you chose to believe it.

Sometimes we invite ideas into our minds (Alma 32).

You need to articulate how faith-dependent claims such as Nephites and Jesus are any different from claims that “God is existence.” So far it seems like you arbitrarily picked a different historical standard than you did for God, and such hunches are entirely subjective, internal processes, based on what you choose to invite into your mind and consider.

12 hours ago, Gray said:

You're describing hallucinations, not vision. Vision is not entirely in the mind. It's interpreted by the mind but there is a clear external input as well.

Well, that escalated quickly… But now that you mention it, even your hallucinations have an origin, or an input to your brain.

12 hours ago, Gray said:

Prayer is different because there is no discernible external input.

How did you learn to pray? That would be the discernible external input to the associated mental processes, which are entirely internal.

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, snowflake said:

Then your statement isn't true if there is no such thing as truth.

I've always thought of truth as reality or fact.  Interesting that Jesus said that he was truth.

truth

tro͞oTH/  

noun

noun: truth

1. the quality or state of being true.

   "he had to accept the truth of her accusation"

   synonyms:

   veracity, truthfulness, verity, sincerity, candor, honesty; More accuracy, correctness, validity, factuality, authenticity "he doubted the truth of her statement"

   antonyms:

   dishonesty, falseness

   • that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

     noun: the truth

     "tell me the truth"

     synonyms:

     what actually happened, the case, so; More the gospel (truth), the honest truth "it's the truth, I swear" fact(s), reality, real life, actuality "truth is stranger than fiction"

     antonyms:

     lies, fiction

   • a fact or belief that is accepted as true.

     plural noun: truths

     "the emergence of scientific truths"

     synonyms:

     fact, verity, certainty, certitude; More

Dictionary writers report usage. That accomplished nothing. It is like a photograph of a disease. It does not heal the problem.

I have never alleged that what I have said is true. That would be a vacuous statement without defining  truth.

There is nothing to be said about truth or it's synonyms 

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by mfbukowski