Am I a naughty Mormon boy if I like Nietzsche?

[USU78]

4 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

I was an English major, and this is SO true...

Derrida was so twisted and contorted into what they wanted him to mean. Poor guy

 

I was German and comp lit. You should see my hairline as a result

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, USU78 said:

Thank you. I need to think about this for a bit. Because doesn't every person get to interpret every sign in accordance with his particular sum of experiences, resulting necessarily in a muddle? Is this where Mark jumps up and runs screaming into the night?

Well what Derrida is arguing about isn't that we can pretend anything means anything. Rather he's focused on rational good faith attempts to interpret signs.

[Meerkat]

On 6/30/2017 at 0:37 PM, boblloyd91 said:

So I recently read Nietzsche's work "The Birth of Tragedy". I actually quite liked how he discusses living an authentic life and embracing the chaotic reality of struggle and suffering. However he also strikes me as a German Korihor with his discussion about relying completely on the self. I was curious what those here on this board who are philosophically inclined think of Nietzsche. Is he hazardous to spiritual health? Or can something be gained from studying him?

The reason we are on this board is because we crave intellectual stimulation.  Many, if not most philosophers deepen our love of God and add to our Gospel insights. Even though Nietzsche Said "God is dead," I believe he falls into the category C.S. Lewis was talking about when he spoke of people who, in their thoughts and acts, worship God unaware.

My wife and I were discussing Nietzsche this morning.  He said The problem with marriage is not a lack of love, it's a lack of friendship.  That's a great thought, and something that made me think, and actually rejoice in the friendship that has occurred over the past 44 years.  It is literally a Heavenly experience.  And I love thinking about Nietzsche's observation and the joy we have discussing all things of any sort with our greatest earthly friend.

[Meerkat]

On 6/30/2017 at 2:38 PM, USU78 said:

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10635.html

It's, accordingly, a mixed bag.  He was certainly no more anti-Semitic than your average German of his day.  Yes, I know, that makes him at best the tallest guy in Mensa.

Someone else on this thread also said we need to take the good with the bad.  I guess that means take the wheat and chafe and sort out what enhances our personal understanding of what we are about.  Even Korihor acknowledged Christ in the end, and taught the people by his example.  We may wish there were no Korihors, but look at the insights we gain when we patiently look at how their lives unfold.  "And thus we see the end of him who perverteth the ways of the Lord; and thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell." Alma 30:60

[mfbukowski]

16 hours ago, USU78 said:

Could you please expand on this:

 I'm struggling with how play figures here.  He absolutely lost me and I want to get this right.

Ready to flip?  I just found this- haven't read it yet, but I knew that Peirce's play was related to Schiller's spiel from the context.  Derrida is the connection to Peirce, or vice versa- whatever.

And note who wrote the article.  Look him up if you don't know the article.  This is apparently not a secret in Mormon circles.

Walt Whitman?  Holy Hollyhocks Batman!!

http://sam-gill.com/PDF/schiller.wpd.pdf

Edited July 6, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Working my way through the Sam Gill article quoted above

Quote

Understood in this way, Schiller, parting from Kant's view, does not base the aesthetic in the subjective. The aesthetic is articulated in terms of being "neither subjectively nor objectively contingent." Beauty, the exemplum of play engaged in the domain of human potentiality, is neither a state of mind nor a class of objects. However, as Anthony Savile shows,12 Schiller discussed beauty primarily in terms of the achievement of the ideal human state and, by extension, that of society and the world. Beauty is necessary to the achievement of this state and characterizes its manifestations. Because of this concern with human ideals and his discussion of human impulses there is the general, but, I believe, incorrect, impression that Schiller held the aesthetic to be subjectively based.

I feel this is vindication to my view in my posts against John Williams in the old days when I used beauty as an example of what was neither objective nor subjective nor verbal but instantly "grokked" by all as being "in fact" "beautiful" and in some sense objective but undefinable in language.

One is driving up a mountain road and suddenly an incredibly "beautiful" vista opens before you.  Instantly through the entire vehicle exclamations of beauty flow freely.

All agree in universal agreement that the scene is "beautiful"

Yet why, expressed linguistically, defined verbally, is a scene of mountains and valleys with a town in a green valley "beautiful"?  What does that have in common with a piece of music, or a "beautiful" human, a sculpture of David or Venus?

THIS is is what I would call "direct experience" and is akin to religious experience.  This is what I would call the world "as it is" to a human.  It is a uniformly human reaction and virtually universally accepted as "beautiful" and yet totally non verbal.  It is beyond the contingency of language or of the self- it is universal and yet individual.  Chimps do not exclaim about "beauty", it is what makes us human and makes us godlings in embryo.

Our need for form is God's need for form and organizing matter from matter unorganized.

Clark, this post will become part of a project I am working on of which you are aware.  Again thanks for the Derrida explanation.

[Bobbieaware]

On 6/30/2017 at 11:00 PM, Bobbieaware said:

One of the reasons why Nietzsche despised the notion of the Christian God is because he couldn't understand why a supreme being, an entity who can't help but remain in a state of static perfection forever, would want to be praised all of the time, as if he had accomplished some great thing. I can see his point. Praised for what exactly? Praised for not sending some to eternal sufferings in hell on a whim?

Conversely, the Gods of Mormonism are authentic conquering heros who actually deserve to be praised because they faced the most fearsome and destructive powers of moral opposition that exist spiritually and temporally and overcame those very real powers through unconquerable trust in the fact that there always have been and always will be intelligent beings who perfectly embody the eternal principles of goodness, wisdom, justice, mercy, faith, hope and charity. 

While it's true Christ saves us through the atonement, it's equally true that as the ultimate prototype of a saved being he teaches each of us how we need to think, feel and act in order to overcome the everlasting opposing forces of spiritual darkness and finally gain our exaltation. In every sense of the word, he truly is our exemplar.

There is no such thing as a static God. The only Gods who exist are conquering heros of faith who have been tried, refined and proven in the crucible of ultimate adversity.

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Meerkat said:

Someone else on this thread also said we need to take the good with the bad.  I guess that means take the wheat and chafe and sort out what enhances our personal understanding of what we are about.  Even Korihor acknowledged Christ in the end, and taught the people by his example.  We may wish there were no Korihors, but look at the insights we gain when we patiently look at how their lives unfold.  "And thus we see the end of him who perverteth the ways of the Lord; and thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell." Alma 30:60

It's a dialectic, opposition in all things.

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, USU78 said:

Thank you. I need to think about this for a bit. Because doesn't every person get to interpret every sign in accordance with his particular sum of experiences, resulting necessarily in a muddle? Is this where Mark jumps up and runs screaming into the night?

More like this:  

I see a weakness in that argument as I understood it.  I understand it differently now but but still don't see a need to postulate the three cylinders going round and round.

 But this Schiller stuff is amazing as interpreted by Sam Gill.  I still do not fully understand Peirce or why all the mechanics are needed.  Still reading the article, gotta go do my temple shift so I can meditate while doing initiatories    Now that is an incredible mantra, but I should be more aware of the words - bad boy!

[mfbukowski]

16 hours ago, USU78 said:

Maybe you could help me, too.  Just how is it useful to break things down into a tripartite phenomenon of sign, cause and interpretation/translation?  It's awfully muddled, to my way of thinking, and doesn't appear to shed any light on the already-quite-clear name for the Ding-an-sich and the Ding-an-sich as experienced by a human upon observing the Ding itself.

USU "Ding!  Ding!  Ding!" 78

Wittgenstein:  Seeing vs seeing as

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Ready to flip?  I just found this- haven't read it yet, but I knew that Peirce's play was related to Schiller's spiel from the context.  Derrida is the connection to Peirce, or vice versa- whatever.

Play is Derrida's term. Peirce uses it a bit but prefers the term musement - especially in his Neglected Argument for God. Some have suggested Peirce's musement is influenced by Schiller. I just don't know enough there to have an opinion.

http://staff.washington.edu/schenold/chid390/readings/supplemental/on peirce/Salas-Peirces Abduction and Musement in NA.pdf

I confess I know very little of Schiller (one of the many gaps in my education). However Peirce and Schiller did correspond and some of the correspondence is in the Peirce papers. I know many note the resemblance between their thought, especially relative to Peirce's early phase.

http://www.helsinki.fi/~pietarin/brpage/Peirce-Schiller-Pietarinen.pdf

I'll add that while Peirce thought aesthetics was the foundation of everything he actually wrote very little about his aesthetics. Typically when his vague comments are brought up it's in the context of Kant and Schiller. Again this is an area I know relatively little about. Partially because Peirce said so little about it I'm always suspicious of a lot of projection going on.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27902744?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Edited July 6, 2017 by clarkgoble

[USU78]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Working my way through the Sam Gill article quoted above

I feel this is vindication to my view in my posts against John Williams in the old days when I used beauty as an example of what was neither objective nor subjective nor verbal but instantly "grokked" by all as being "in fact" "beautiful" and in some sense objective but undefinable in language.

One is driving up a mountain road and suddenly an incredibly "beautiful" vista opens before you.  Instantly through the entire vehicle exclamations of beauty flow freely.

All agree in universal agreement that the scene is "beautiful"

Yet why, expressed linguistically, defined verbally, is a scene of mountains and valleys with a town in a green valley "beautiful"?  What does that have in common with a piece of music, or a "beautiful" human, a sculpture of David or Venus?

THIS is is what I would call "direct experience" and is akin to religious experience.  This is what I would call the world "as it is" to a human.  It is a uniformly human reaction and virtually universally accepted as "beautiful" and yet totally non verbal.  It is beyond the contingency of language or of the self- it is universal and yet individual.  Chimps do not exclaim about "beauty", it is what makes us human and makes us godlings in embryo.

Our need for form is God's need for form and organizing matter from matter unorganized.

Clark, this post will become part of a project I am working on of which you are aware.  Again thanks for the Derrida explanation.

I'm having a friggin' meltdown here.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[USU78]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Play is Derrida's term. Peirce uses it a bit but prefers the term musement - especially in his Neglected Argument for God. Some have suggested Peirce's musement is influenced by Schiller. I just don't know enough there to have an opinion.

http://staff.washington.edu/schenold/chid390/readings/supplemental/on peirce/Salas-Peirces Abduction and Musement in NA.pdf

I confess I know very little of Schiller (one of the many gaps in my education). However Peirce and Schiller did correspond and some of the correspondence is in the Peirce papers. I know many note the resemblance between their thought, especially relative to Peirce's early phase.

http://www.helsinki.fi/~pietarin/brpage/Peirce-Schiller-Pietarinen.pdf

I'll add that while Peirce thought aesthetics was the foundation of everything he actually wrote very little about his aesthetics. Typically when his vague comments are brought up it's in the context of Kant and Schiller. Again this is an area I know relatively little about. Partially because Peirce said so little about it I'm always suspicious of a lot of projection going on.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27902744?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

You can pick up his Letters on Aesthetic Education of Man in English on Amazon for a song .  https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Aesthetical-Education-Classic-Thought/dp/1519782942/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EE2HYD3PZKZD0XWEN7NF

[USU78]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Working my way through the Sam Gill article quoted above

I feel this is vindication to my view in my posts against John Williams in the old days when I used beauty as an example of what was neither objective nor subjective nor verbal but instantly "grokked" by all as being "in fact" "beautiful" and in some sense objective but undefinable in language.

One is driving up a mountain road and suddenly an incredibly "beautiful" vista opens before you.  Instantly through the entire vehicle exclamations of beauty flow freely.

All agree in universal agreement that the scene is "beautiful"

Yet why, expressed linguistically, defined verbally, is a scene of mountains and valleys with a town in a green valley "beautiful"?  What does that have in common with a piece of music, or a "beautiful" human, a sculpture of David or Venus?

THIS is is what I would call "direct experience" and is akin to religious experience.  This is what I would call the world "as it is" to a human.  It is a uniformly human reaction and virtually universally accepted as "beautiful" and yet totally non verbal.  It is beyond the contingency of language or of the self- it is universal and yet individual.  Chimps do not exclaim about "beauty", it is what makes us human and makes us godlings in embryo.

Our need for form is God's need for form and organizing matter from matter unorganized.

Clark, this post will become part of a project I am working on of which you are aware.  Again thanks for the Derrida explanation.

That same sense of the Beautiful would be, in my view, if not identical to then fraternally twinned with Religious Awe, Personal Revelation, and Religious Experience generally.

And thus we come around back to Jung, who "grokked" that there are things we all share regardless of language or culture or even the sum of our personal experiences, and those things are the vocabulary of dreams and, I hold, revelation.  Think of Nephi's experience of the rerun of Lehi's dream, where his expression in language of his experience differs markedly from his father's, but we can grok that what they both saw and experienced was the same.

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, USU78 said:

That same sense of the Beautiful would be, in my view, if not identical to then fraternally twinned with Religious Awe, Personal Revelation, and Religious Experience generally.

And thus we come around back to Jung, who "grokked" that there are things we all share regardless of language or culture or even the sum of our personal experiences, and those things are the vocabulary of dreams and, I hold, revelation.  Think of Nephi's experience of the rerun of Lehi's dream, where his expression in language of his experience differs markedly from his father's, but we can grok that what they both saw and experienced was the same.

Yes fully agree. 

I notice how we LDS say "music brings the spirit" and I was thinking that when one hears a concerto etc that just takes one to another place, THAT is what spiritual experience is like.

But it is not the same of course because religious experience is without the stimulant of music- in a sense I have always been suspicious of that idea that music brings the spirit because what I think it brings is a counterfeit of the spirit which comes without physical vibrations in the atmosphere which were created by men.  Music is more like philosophy in arousing the highest joys and yet it is linguistic in nature and so is almost like a "philosophy of men". Sometimes I almost see music as crack cocaine delivering the emotion artificially yet another part of me wars against that.

On the other hand I think what we might term "natural beauty" is an entirely different thing.

I can't decide.

Edited July 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[USU78]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes fully agree. 

I notice how we LDS say "music brings the spirit" and I was thinking that when one hears a concerto etc that just takes one to another place, THAT is what spiritual experience is like.

But it is not the same of course because religious experience is without the stimulant of music- in a sense I have always been suspicious of that idea that music brings the spirit because what I think it brings is a counterfeit of the spirit which comes without physical vibrations in the atmosphere which were created by men.  Music is more like philosophy in arousing the highest joys and yet it is linguistic in nature and so is almost like a "philosophy of men". Sometimes I almost see music as crack cocaine delivering the emotion artificially yet another part of me wars against that.

On the other hand I think what we might term "natural beauty" is an entirely different thing.

I can't decide.

Pythagoras may not have been completely up in the night.

[MiserereNobis]

10 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes fully agree. 

I notice how we LDS say "music brings the spirit" and I was thinking that when one hears a concerto etc that just takes one to another place, THAT is what spiritual experience is like.

But it is not the same of course because religious experience is without the stimulant of music- in a sense I have always been suspicious of that idea that music brings the spirit because what I think it brings is a counterfeit of the spirit which comes without physical vibrations in the atmosphere which were created by men.  Music is more like philosophy in arousing the highest joys and yet it is linguistic in nature and so is almost like a "philosophy of men". Sometimes I almost see music as crack cocaine delivering the emotion artificially yet another part of me wars against that.

On the other hand I think what we might term "natural beauty" is an entirely different thing.

I can't decide.

I think the beauty comes through the senses to aid us in getting into a space where we are open and receptive. The beauty of the senses, like music, cannot create spiritual experiences, but they can open us up so if God wants to touch our souls, we are ready to allow Him.

From my Catholic experience, this is why beautiful churches are a wonderful thing. A High Mass in a beautiful church touches the senses. Sight: stained glass, vaulted ceilings, beautiful vestments, flowers, statues, candles. Smell: incense. Sound: chant and polyphony. Etc. Having my senses opened prepares me to receive God. The Good, the True, and the Beautiful all lead us to God.

For the LDS, I would think the temple would be something similar, in that these are beautiful buildings on the outside so I assume they are also beautiful on the inside.

Do you think LDS Sunday services could benefit from an increase in beauty? The plainness of the building and meetings seems to come from a Puritan tradition.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

I think the beauty comes through the senses to aid us in getting into a space where we are open and receptive. The beauty of the senses, like music, cannot create spiritual experiences, but they can open us up so if God wants to touch our souls, we are ready to allow Him.

From my Catholic experience, this is why beautiful churches are a wonderful thing. A High Mass in a beautiful church touches the senses. Sight: stained glass, vaulted ceilings, beautiful vestments, flowers, statues, candles. Smell: incense. Sound: chant and polyphony. Etc. Having my senses opened prepares me to receive God. The Good, the True, and the Beautiful all lead us to God.

For the LDS, I would think the temple would be something similar, in that these are beautiful buildings on the outside so I assume they are also beautiful on the inside.

Do you think LDS Sunday services could benefit from an increase in beauty? The plainness of the building and meetings seems to come from a Puritan tradition.

Well I am glad you said this and brought up the issue and made me think about it more.  The "puritan tradition" is part of it all.

Imagine Christianity before there were even churches, with meetings held wherever they could be held, in someone's home or perhaps a rented room as in the Last Supper, with only the spirit to inspire with no grand surroundings.   

Actually by Catholic standards, LDS temples are also rather "austere" for the most part.  Remember we do have chapels within temples which are used for large meetings, but the chapels inside temples are virtually the same as the chapels outside, and NO ordinances are performed in the chapels- they are strictly meeting rooms for talks and instruction, etc.

I have never even heard of a sacrament service done in a temple chapel, but there is no reason such a think could not happen.  Actually sacrament services are administered by the bishop of the ward in which they take place geographically so I think technically if such a thing were to happen the local bishop would have to give permission, but that is speculation

Anyway, do a google search for "lds temple interior photos" and you will see what I mean.  The "ordinances" or sacraments happen usually in relatively small rooms which are luxuriously appointed but rather like more like a Victorian living room in "beauty" than a Catholic cathedral.  You will notice that typically celestial rooms look the way you might imagine a wealthy person's sitting room or living space might look, as some might imagine "God's house".  Remember for us the Temple is literally the "house of the Lord" so we imagine them as grand houses, the best of everything.  An old fashioned term for our chapels are "Ward Houses" no matter how large they are- you hear this still all the time. We are a family and we meet in houses.  Kids run around in sacrament meetings, and may be brought into the arms of another member, no problem.  They are not supposed to, but that is what kids do.  People talk and whisper instead of being "reverent" but that's what families do.

This notion of the Celestial Family pervades everything and the Celestial Room itself often looks more like a grand living room than anything else, designed for quiet visiting.   In fact private prayer and meditation in some private corner is encouraged, but organized, group prayer is actually strongly discouraged.

  The endowment is carried on either in perhaps as few as two rooms in small temples, or in rooms representing the creation, the garden of Eden, the "Lone and Dreary World" and the Terrestrial Room.  One essentially, at least in large and older temples, walks literally in the path of Adam and Eve through the Plan of Salvation, learning things about that journey along the way.  In smaller temples one stays in one room and hears the same message.

Imagine the history of Catholicism essentially as if one journeyed symbolically AND literally from the baptism font in procession to an outer chapel in the cathedral representing the "Mass of the Catecheumens" and then beyond the choir veil into the main altar itself for the culmination of the mass, concluding with a symbolic entry into heaven.

So the function of each room is not "shock and awe" at the beauty of the room, it is centered on the message being taught therein.

Regarding beauty and the senses, I think that we ourselves take it into our senses of course, there is no other way for anything to get "in" to us other than our senses.

I don't think I would separate "the senses" from spiritual experience, but I understand the tendency to see it your way.   If anything I would see spiritual experience as another sense or perhaps perfect unification of all senses at once.

The minute one becomes conscious of the word "beauty" one takes it into the realm of language, but again one immediately realizes how paltry language is.  You stand there before the lookout looking at pieces of 3 states saying "How beautiful" over and over again.

There are no words to contain it.  The experience is extraverbal and extrarational.   Yes it comes through the senses, and we are organizing even this, but we are doing it without language.  And in "natural beauty" NONE of that scene is man-made except in the sense that WE are making that scene using our whole beings.

So I see artificially enhanced "beauty" staged for human perception as somewhat different than natural beauty which we create for ourselves

Imagine taking a beautiful child and putting makeup on to make her "more beautiful"

I kind of like the Puritan view better I suppose.   I don't want to make a big thing of it though at this time- I am still not sure how I feel about it.

Sorry this is so long- I got to rambling I guess.  

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

I think the beauty comes through the senses to aid us in getting into a space where we are open and receptive.

I think it is the "aid" aspect that bothers me.  It's like a couple of drinks to get us in the mood in a social situation.  That is not a Mormon way of seeing it.

I think that beauty is to be created and organized from matter unorganized within us without "aid", including without verbal aids.

I have found that meditation gets me there but I think meditation is play itself.  It is an activity in which one loses oneself and opens oneself to the universe.   For now I kind of like that idea and suspect I will be going with it for a long time, and think that I have always know it was that way.

I think it was anamnesis from the pre-existence and no that does not make me a Platonist.

Edited July 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[USU78]

The Spiritual is experienced "jenseits von Sinn und Form."

[clarkgoble]

28 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I have never even heard of a sacrament service done in a temple chapel, but there is no reason such a think could not happen.

If I recall it did happen before the move to the consolidated meeting schedule. In those days you'd have sacrament in both Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting. I seem to recall people talking about meetings in the temple chapel which were much more like a Sunday service but I may be conflating that with the terrestrial room in the SLC temple which is organized much like a chapel (including hymnals). Certainly the brethren used to regularly take the sacrament in the Apostles Room in the SLC temple. I tried to find confirmation but my google-fu failed me. 

[MiserereNobis]

20 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I think it is the "aid" aspect that bothers me.  It's like a couple of drinks to get us in the mood in a social situation.  That is not a Mormon way of seeing it.

I see what you're saying, but it seems like all religions use "aids" to prepare for spiritual experience, such as prayer, fasting, meditation, reading, etc.

[mfbukowski]

6 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I see what you're saying, but it seems like all religions use "aids" to prepare for spiritual experience, such as prayer, fasting, meditation, reading, etc.

Yeah, well notice that I kind of cheated there and I added meditation probably after you made this post, but I am not sure.

But I think those are activities we perform for ourselves manifesting faith that they will work to achieve the goal.   It's like our Moroni 10

Quote

 

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

6 And whatsoever thing is good is just and true; wherefore, nothing that is good denieth the Christ, but acknowledgeth that he is.

 

The rest of the chapter https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/moro/10.3-5 continues in adding requirements for salvation etc, but it always requires faith to receive the spiritual experience.

To me that is not the same as having these feelings induced by decorations or beautiful music.  On one hand we are making a positive effort and on the other, it is a pre-designed stimulus to induce the experience artificially without effort on our behalf.  One reflects our efforts in creation of the experience and the other reflects what may be interpreted as God giving us a gift

But what am I talking about then, that we have to make a positive effort if we perceive beauty without words, suddenly?  That is not a positive effort!?!

I think again this comes down to "language" for me in the sense of overtly cultural responses to beauty vs non-verbal responses.  I think this is a continuum so I don't want to make hard and fast definitions.

But I suspect that Saul really was seeking God in his life and just doing it in the wrong way and God knew what he needed.  He did not need music and neither did Joseph.

They just needed to be clobbered by the spirit.  Sometimes we need to seek through faith and sometimes when we have already done that, we are ready to be clobbered.

I think the sudden beauty of an unexpected view is kind of like getting clobbered by the spirit (that is a technical theological term by the way) while study and learning and gradual spiritual growth is the other part of the equation

I think the bottom line is that it is up to us- there are some I am sure that would not even appreciate the magnificent vista, or complain about the sunset being difficult to drive into, or fall asleep in the concert and never listen to a philosophy lecture, or visit an art museum.  Such is life.

But I really think that our attitudes and desires are of prime importance to us as we create our worlds, and play and appreciation of the non-verbal is central.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

If I recall it did happen before the move to the consolidated meeting schedule. In those days you'd have sacrament in both Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting. I seem to recall people talking about meetings in the temple chapel which were much more like a Sunday service but I may be conflating that with the terrestrial room in the SLC temple which is organized much like a chapel (including hymnals). Certainly the brethren used to regularly take the sacrament in the Apostles Room in the SLC temple. I tried to find confirmation but my google-fu failed me. 

Oh yeah, I am sure they do that.  

In many temples the chapels are more for use as "waiting rooms" waiting for an endowment session to start.  LA is not structured that way so we use our chapel pretty exclusively for "Stake Chapel Sessions" which include talks from the Temple presidency to patrons from a single stake.  

The best of these I have attended include instruction using temple language about the ordinances themselves which is only possible inside of temples.  VERY cool stuff to hear a temple president speaking about actual phraseology of ordinances, referring to it word by word and discussing interpretations.

We workers have such informal sessions often waiting for another assignment etc.

I have mentioned this before but there was once a fellow-temple worker I knew who had been a Catholic priest and knew Catholic symbolism better than I did and we had some whoppers of discussions!   I think one of the most important reasons temple workers continue as temple workers is the fellowship with other workers.  You make fast friends with people who live 50 or 100 miles away who have similar interests with whom you would never even interact or meet in any other way.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

I think it is the "aid" aspect that bothers me.  It's like a couple of drinks to get us in the mood in a social situation.  That is not a Mormon way of seeing it.

I don't think I agree.  We have testimony meetings to hear others share their spiritual witnesses to open ourselves up to our own, we have Treks and other youth activity to do the same.  The missionary discussions are set up to 'set the mood'.  I can think of endless things we are told to do in order to "invite the spirit".

Perhaps we are defining "aid" differently...