1829-32 Doctrine of the Nature of God

[mfbukowski]

On 12/25/2017 at 9:54 AM, Spammer said:

If only there was an objective ground for one's definitions, and thus one's presuppositions. If you find it, let me know. 🤓

 

Go ahead and publish one and go where no one has ever been able to go coherently

This is the current most widely held view of truth.  Yours has been shot down consistently.   You will see the objections to correspondence in the second article.   It just doesn't work.

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

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Spammer]

9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

two for two

Since this has come up twice, let me correct it.

Pragmatism is about experience AS IT IS

It knows reality perfectly - AS EXPERIENCE which cannot be put into words.

YES I know what a tree "really is"- i have bumped into many of them and have stubbed toes to prove it.   What I bumped into was a tree as it really is.

If you cannot read the Rorty statement below and understand it, I cannot explain it better than he has.  Sorry.

The tree is the "CAUSE INDEPENDENT OF HUMAN MENTAL STATES"- out there, INDEPENDENT OF HUMAN MENTAL STATES

What is a tree "really"??   Is it really atoms of wood?  Who came up with the idea of atoms?   Are they the particles inside the atoms? Are trees conglomerations of energy and electric charges "in reality"???

Can't you see that the "scientific explanation" of what a "TREE" is is not about trees but about nuclear physics???  Which it self is hardly "complete" and never will be????

Do you read physics at all??

And then does nuclear physics describe trees as we see them?

Do you understand you do not see light waves or particles or whatever they are, and that color is produced by your brain??   DO YOU KNOW THAT?

Pragmatism explores how we speak and THINK CLEARLY about these issues and is not about "reality being subjective" AT ALL!!!!!!!!!

CAN YOU SEE that talking about TREES at all IS TALKING ABOUT HUMAN MENTAL STATES???

very very frustrating pardon me for losing my patience but it gets old 

very old

i suppose i should stop trying with this group and move on

Got it. Understanding Pragmatism isn't the problem. I'm focusing on the implications of our knowledge only being knowledge of mental states. If we can't somehow break through to the object itself, then what's the point? Why exactly are you here? Defending Mormonism from a Pragmatic standpoint is equivalent to defending the truth of your favorite flavor of pie.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Spammer

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

If you recognize that "all narratives" (including your own) boil down to "unprovable assumptions", then why do you take confidence in a narrative that claims certain knowledge?  Doesn't that seem like a less intellectually honest approach?

In regards to your question regarding pragmatists and trees.  I don't think any pragmatist would see a "tree" and behave as if it was something else, unless they were on LSD or magical mushrooms or some other hallucinogenic.  A pragmatist would behave as if it was a "tree" because that is their experience of it, and that is what works for them.

Bingo.  

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, Spammer said:

Got it. Understanding Pragmatism isn't the problem. I'm focusing on the implications of our knowledge only being knowledge of mental states. If we can't somehow break through to the object itself, then what's the point? Why exactly are you here? Defending Mormonism from a Pragmatic standpoint is equivalent to defending the truth of your favorite flavor of pie.

What you are not getting here is that it is a defense of ALL religion.  Period.

No I cannot prove your testimony is "better" than mine, but guess what- atheists cannot prove your testimony is false or unreasonable either

I'll take the compromise and continue knowing that secularist religions like "save the whales" cannot logically be held to be more reasonable than theism.

THAT is the point.

I am defending you as much as I am defending Mormonism.

I just think that seeing God as Human is a much better paradigm for the world today in a world of Humanism than seeing God as a......  substance which is immaterial and undefinable.

If we have to come up with a paradigm for people to hang on to, it might as well make sense since they are all wrong in the long run anyway.

People understand people they do not understand ineffable clouds of substance - who can relate to that?

Super Fathers- they can relate to.  Ideal Humans

That's it all straight up.

Edited December 26, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Spammer]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Go ahead and publish one and go where no one has ever been able to go coherently

This is the current most widely held view of truth.  Yours has been shot down consistently.   You will see the objections to correspondence in the second article.   It just doesn't work.

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

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/

 

I've read them both. Again, if deflationary theory is true, truth is unknowable. All human knowledge, including deflationary theory itself, is self-refuting. Life is paradox and all of our religious and ideological debates are only arguing about whether ale or lager is best. Just trying to work through the implications. 

 

[Spammer]

1 minute ago, mfbukowski said:

What you are not getting here is that it is a defense of ALL religion.  Period.

No I cannot prove your testimony is "better" than mine, but guess what- atheists cannot prove your testimony is false or unreasonable either

I'll take the compromise and continue knowing that secularist religions like "save the whales" cannot logically be held to be more reasonable than theism.

THAT is the point.

I am defending you as much as I am defending Mormonism.

I just think that seeing God as Human is a much better paradigm for the world today in a world of Humanism than seeing God as a......  substance which is immaterial and undefinable.

If we have to come up with a paradigm for people to hang on to, it might as well make sense since they are all wrong in the long run anyway.

The implication is that all viewpoints are equally valid. Pragmatism defends ALL points of view. They're all the same. Everything is reduced to personal taste.

[pogi]

52 minutes ago, Spammer said:

I take confidence in a particular narrative because it works best for me. I'm a pragmatist. It happens to be a narrative that claims to possess an objective standard - the existence of God can be rationally demonstrated. It also proposes a historical narrative that aligns well with the ancient documentary evidence. I've worked through the proofs and the evidence and it all makes sense to me. Pragmatism. Alma 32. Based on that, I agree there's an objective standard and can point you in it's direction. I'd be an atheist, otherwise. I'm a pragmatist, but not a Pragmatist. I believe an objective standard exists, against which our feelings and personal experiences can be compared.

Mormonism is the exemplar Pragmatic religion. It's truth claims are grounded solely on subjective experience, with no claim to possess an objective standard. It's like the tree example I mentioned. Whether the church really is true, or whether it's really a tree 'out there,' is in principle unknowable. Yet, church members (and analytic philosophers) act anyway as if their subjective feelings and experiences sre objective evidence. What else can they do?  Pragmatists  ascribe to a philosophy that leads to a corrosive skepticism, unless they choose to trust the sensory evidence (like a good follower of Aquinas) and act based on the assumption that it really is a tree 'out there.'  Wittgenstein informs their philosophy, but they put him on the shelf and pick up Aquinas when it's time to go about actually living. 

Thank you for explaining your position.  I am not terribly familiar with Aquinas' work. 

So, what is the "objective standard" for measuring and comparing God against our feelings?  And If there is an objective standard for God that can be rationally demonstrated, then is the pursuit of God merely an intellectual (and if "objective" then scientific) pursuit?  Only the smartest go to heaven? 

What you can't avoid is that even followers of Aquinas are merely acting based on "the assumption" that it really is a tree 'out there', and not on anything more objective.  Doesn't it seem intellectually dishonest to pretend like that is based in certainty/knowledge?

I wouldn't call my practice and understanding of Pragmatism as "corrosive skepticism".  If it was corrosive, I wouldn't have the sustainable and productive belief and faith that I do. One can trust and follow their sensory experiences as useful without assuming that the thing we experience corresponds with our perceptions.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Five Solas said:

When I read mfbukowski, I'm sometimes struck by how unpragmatic pragmatism must be.  Yes, it works pretty good when its purpose is to render the history & doctrines of the LDS Church unfalsifiable and thereby confound the critics (which in fairness is mfbukowski's only known purpose for it).  But to your point, could anyone actually live this way?  Imagine entering a contract with a business partner or a client with such views.  And now imagine there's a dispute and it lands in arbitration and the performance is being contested with the same sort of reasoning and arguments made on the forum.  Not likely to carry the day, is it?

--Erik

_______________________________________

Hey hey I saved the world today
Everybody's happy now
The bad thing's gone away
And everybody's happy now
The good thing's here to stay
Please let it stay

--Eurythmics, 1999

Pragmatism is about experience AS IT IS

It knows reality perfectly - AS EXPERIENCE which cannot be put into words.

YES I know what a tree "really is"- i have bumped into many of them and have stubbed toes to prove it.   What I bumped into was a tree as it really is.

If you cannot read the Rorty statement below and understand it, I cannot explain it better than he has.  Sorry.

The tree is the "CAUSE INDEPENDENT OF HUMAN MENTAL STATES"- out there, INDEPENDENT OF HUMAN MENTAL STATES

What is a tree "really"??   Is it really atoms of wood?  Who came up with the idea of atoms?   Are they the particles inside the atoms? Are trees conglomerations of energy and electric charges "in reality"???

Can't you see that the "scientific explanation" of what a "TREE" is is not about trees but about nuclear physics???  Which it self is hardly "complete" and never will be????

Do you read physics at all??

And then does nuclear physics describe trees as we see them?

Do you understand you do not see light waves or particles or whatever they are, and that color is produced by your brain??   DO YOU KNOW THAT?

Pragmatism explores how we speak and THINK CLEARLY about these issues and is not about "reality being subjective" AT ALL!!!!!!!!!

CAN YOU SEE that talking about TREES at all IS TALKING ABOUT HUMAN MENTAL STATES???

 

[mfbukowski]

2 minutes ago, pogi said:

Thank you for explaining your position.  I am not terribly familiar with Aquinas' work. 

So, what is the "objective standard" for measuring and comparing God against our feelings?  And If there is an objective standard for God that can be rationally demonstrated, then is the pursuit of God merely an intellectual (and if "objective" then scientific) pursuit?  Only the smartest go to heaven? 

What you can't avoid is that even followers of Aquinas are merely acting based on "the assumption" that it really is a tree 'out there', and not on anything more objective.  Doesn't it seem intellectually dishonest to pretend like that is based in certainty/knowledge?

I wouldn't call my practice and understanding of Pragmatism as "corrosive skepticism".  If it was corrosive, I wouldn't have the sustainable and productive belief and faith that I do. One can trust and follow their sensory experiences as useful without assuming that the thing we experience corresponds with our perceptions.

The problem is that the naive view of trees is that they are trees.

They are - no actually- because NO ONE KNOWS nuclear physics perfectly- stews of energy and quarks and who knows what, reflecting particles or waves or whatever light waves are- to our eyes.

On that view "trees" are not "trees"- they are energy fields and ????  who knows what??   Ask your friendly nuclear physics about the latest theories of matter.

What we SEE is our experience of trees- not "trees themselves" anyway

What we SEE is a mental state from the moment we open our eyes.

I hate to say it but the correspondence theory just seems like it is from seeing the world as it was 2500 years ago before we knew all this about "reality"

Oh wait.  Aristotle.

Yes that is exactly what it is, and those who accept it are 2500 years behind the times.

It is Christian philosophy from Aristotle and it hasn't changed since.  Unfortunately it is also based then on Aristotle's physics.

Oops.

[Spammer]

34 minutes ago, pogi said:

Thank you for explaining your position.  I am not terribly familiar with Aquinas' work. 

So, what is the "objective standard" for measuring and comparing God against our feelings?  And If there is an objective standard for God that can be rationally demonstrated, then is the pursuit of God merely an intellectual (and if "objective" then scientific) pursuit?  Only the smartest go to heaven? 

What you can't avoid is that even followers of Aquinas are merely acting based on "the assumption" that it really is a tree 'out there', and not on anything more objective.  Doesn't it seem intellectually dishonest to pretend like that is based in certainty/knowledge?

I wouldn't call my practice and understanding of Pragmatism as "corrosive skepticism".  If it was corrosive, I wouldn't have the sustainable and productive belief and faith that I do. One can trust and follow their sensory experiences as useful without assuming that the thing we experience corresponds with our perceptions.

Put simply, I'm a pragmatist who looked for something that might serve as an objective standard, the likely candidate, and am using that standard as such, despite what deflationary theory might say. To do otherwise leads to the abyss of nihilism. It's an article of faith that God wouldn't abandon us to living without an objective standard to live by. My choice of guiding standard is the result of my own interpretations. I see and acknowledge the paradox. Even so.

 

[Spammer]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

The problem is that the naive view of trees is that they are trees.

They are - no actually- because NO ONE KNOWS nuclear physics perfectly- stews of energy and quarks and who knows what, reflecting particles or waves or whatever light waves are- to our eyes.

On that view "trees" are not "trees"- they are energy fields and ????  who knows what??   Ask your friendly nuclear physics about the latest theories of matter.

What we SEE is our experience of trees- not "trees themselves" anyway

What we SEE is a mental state from the moment we open our eyes.

I hate to say it but the correspondence theory just seems like it is from seeing the world as it was 2500 years ago before we knew all this about "reality"

Oh wait.  Aristotle.

Yes that is exactly what it is, and those who accept it are 2500 years behind the times.

It is Christian philosophy from Aristotle and it hasn't changed since.  Unfortunately it is also based then on Aristotle's physics.

Oops.

I agree with all that. Again, I'm just trying to work through the implications of perceiving only our experiences, our experience-derived mental states. It seems it leaves us with arguing only  about personal preferences. Pie flavors. Lager vs ale. I'd like to avoid that. I don't like the implications. Yes, when you bashed your foot into a tree, it's a tree! Obviously. Physics says it's also something else. Does it matter whether your perception of the tree is truer? No. Can that be determined? No. But there are implications for spirituality and meaning and that matters, since that affects how we live our lives. It means our spiritual experiences are also reduced to mental states, with no way of knowing if they are God-sourced. Whether it's God or whether we suffer from delusion is unknowable. We need an objective standard or we're potentially on a fool's errand. Perhaps it's nothing. We'll never know. See my response to Pogi:  

'Put simply, I'm a pragmatist who looked for something that might serve as an objective standard, the likely candidate, and am using that standard as such, despite what deflationary theory might say. To do otherwise leads to the abyss of nihilism. It's an article of faith that God wouldn't abandon us to living without an objective standard to live by. My choice of guiding standard is the result of my own interpretations. I see and acknowledge the paradox. Even so.'

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by Spammer

[pogi]

58 minutes ago, Spammer said:

Put simply, I'm a pragmatist who looked for something that might serve as an objective standard, the likely candidate, and am using that standard as such, despite what deflationary theory might say. To do otherwise leads to the abyss of nihilism. It's an article of faith that God wouldn't abandon us to living without an objective standard to live by. My choice of guiding standard is the result of my own interpretations. I see and acknowledge the paradox. Even so.

I don't follow how Pragmatism leads to the abyss of nihilism.  Pragmatists can find meaning and value in experiences.  Pragmatic people are religious people, as evidenced by some on this forum.

So the objective standard for measuring God is your own interpretations?  How is that objective?

[Spammer]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

I don't follow how Pragmatism leads to the abyss of nihilism.  Pragmatists can find meaning and value in experiences.  Pragmatic people are religious people, as evidenced by some on this forum.

So the objective standard for measuring God is your own interpretations?  How is that objective?

I don't think Pragmatists take it as far as reasoning demands. If everything we experience is reduced to mental states, with no means to determine whether those states correspond to objective reality, there is no basis for determining whether something is true, good, better or best.  There's no standard on which to make those determinations; no basis at all for determining what's true or good. If everything is grounded subjectively, it's all relative, and all meaning is self-determined; notions of value and meaning are therefore matters of personal taste. Any talk of truth, the good, better and best are meaningless.  In principal, everyone's right and no one's wrong, since there's no standard for comparison. 

How do Pragmatists find objective Truth and the Good, if there's no possible way for us to determine whether our mental states correspond with reality? Mfb, for instance, frequently says the Mormonism is the 'best' for humanity's wellbeing. How does he know that, because it works for him?  That's just like saying 'apple pie tastes best, so it is the best.'  

 

 

Edited December 27, 2017 by Spammer

[Spammer]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

So the objective standard for measuring God is your own interpretations?  How is that objective?

Reason demands an objective standard if we want to have any ground for believing our notions of truth, the good, better or best have any validity beyond personal taste. It's reasonable to me that one would exist if God exists and loves us and wants us to know Him, so I went looking for one, yes, grounded on my interpretations of the evidence. Your point about the subjectivity of the process is valid. A subjectively-grounded objectivity is a contradiction. Still, though we only know subjectively, we still need a standard outside ourselves or morality and the pursuit of truth are meaningless and empty. Nihilism. What's the most likely candidate for that standard as pertains to Christianity? For me, whatever best aligns with my experience and my interpretations of the historical evidence as the likely place for that standard, for God would surely provide us with one, is where that standard is found. Once arrived at, although subjectively determined, it becomes the place I go to for objective truth. I submit to it. There's no place for making personal revelation the ground of truth, the arbiter, since that tosses me back onto the ground that is no ground - subjectivity. My process is arbitrary, I know, but doing otherwise leaves me alone with my mental states and the utter lack of certainty and meaninglessness that goes with a philosophy that bases all knowledge solely on those states. 

Edited December 27, 2017 by Spammer

[Spammer]

This conversation reminds me of R Pirsig's attempt to derive an objective quality, documented in Zen and the Art of Motorycle Maintenance. Those who read the book know what happened to him!  

Edited December 27, 2017 by Spammer

[Five Solas]

4 hours ago, Spammer said:

I've read them both. Again, if deflationary theory is true, truth is unknowable. All human knowledge, including deflationary theory itself, is self-refuting. Life is paradox and all of our religious and ideological debates are only arguing about whether ale or lager is best. Just trying to work through the implications. 

Feels like an extreme illustration, Spammer.  Ale is certainly best.  Unless it's a hot summer day & you just mowed your lawn - in which case a momentary preference for a lager is understandable.

;0)

--Erik

[Five Solas]

On 12/25/2017 at 3:24 PM, mfbukowski said:

...

The Trinity is one by means of a magic undefinable stuff called substance.

...

One in stuff that makes them one is incoherent and says nothing, explains nothing and is circular.

Many LDS take vigorous exception to the long-standing Christian teaching that Father, Son and Spirit are of the same substance.  (And probably none more than you, mfbukowski.)  They take it apart, examine it as it first appeared in the ancient creeds, and then solemnly declare it evidence of apostasy, corruption owning to the influence of ancient Greeks, etc. 

But it's always seemed like a sideshow, at least to me.  We need some way to articulate our uncreated God revealed in Scripture, who exists eternally as three persons, separate from His creation.  How else would you articulate the commonality of the persons constituting the Trinity?  Serious question.  If not substance, what word would you use? 

The alternative, it seems to me, is to deny an uncreated God and thereby assert "turtles all the way down" (which in Mormonism looks like an infinite chain of gods spawning gods).  Debating substance really is a pretty silly distraction, isn't it?  A way to ignore the elephant in the room - that LDS deny the very existence of the omnipotent God of Christianity (capable of speaking creation into existence, ex-nihilo). 

--Erik

_____________________________________

And they gave him away
Like in 'Whistle Down The Wind'
By the look on his face
He never gave in

--New Order "Vanishing Point"

[Spammer]

56 minutes ago, Five Solas said:

Many LDS take vigorous exception to the long-standing Christian teaching that Father, Son and Spirit are of the same substance.  (And probably none more than you, mfbukowski.)  They take it apart, examine it as it first appeared in the ancient creeds, and then solemnly declare it evidence of apostasy, corruption owning to the influence of ancient Greeks, etc. 

But it's always seemed like a sideshow, at least to me.  We need some way to articulate our uncreated God revealed in Scripture, who exists eternally as three persons, separate from His creation.  How else would you articulate the commonality of the persons constituting the Trinity?  Serious question.  If not substance, what word would you use? 

The alternative, it seems to me, is to deny an uncreated God and thereby assert "turtles all the way down" (which in Mormonism looks like an infinite chain of gods spawning gods).  Debating substance really is a pretty silly distraction, isn't it?  A way to ignore the elephant in the room - that LDS deny the very existence of the omnipotent God of Christianity (capable of speaking creation into existence, ex-nihilo). 

--Erik

_____________________________________

And they gave him away
Like in 'Whistle Down The Wind'
By the look on his face
He never gave in

--New Order "Vanishing Point"

In Mormonism, it really is turtles all the way down. There's an infinite regress of gods and matter is eternal. Mormons commonly argue that Nicene theology comes from Greek philosophy, yet the concept of eternal matter is Platonic and Neoplatonic. Only Christianity teaches ex nihilo, preserving God's omnipotence, omniscience and limitlessness thereby.

Edited December 27, 2017 by Spammer

[Spammer]

1 hour ago, Five Solas said:

Feels like an extreme illustration, Spammer.  Ale is certainly best.  Unless it's a hot summer day & you just mowed your lawn - in which case a momentary preference for a lager is understandable.

;0)

--Erik

That is so true. I stand corrected. More nuance in all things beer was definitely called for.

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Spammer said:

Oh, I agree with all of that, and can and do parse appearances from reality. Augustine, Paul and Augustine were correct. We do see through a glass darkly. What I find curious is how those who reject the existence of objective standards still go on talking about truth, the good, better and best without caveating every statement with an admission that what is being said is merely 'my truth, no different than my pie preferences.' 

Assuming 1) God exists, and 2) Jesus is his Son and rose from the dead, it's inconceivable to me that we would be left without a standard against which we can compare subjective experiences to determine which best aligns with reality. 

You missed it.

Pragmatists say appearance IS reality because it is all we can know about.

The only way you can possibly know God exists is by feeling Him.  There are other possibilities for every other hypothesis.

[Spammer]

29 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

You missed it.

Pragmatists say appearance IS reality because it is all we can know about.

The only way you can possibly know God exists is by feeling Him.  There are other possibilities for every other hypothesis.

I understand, but we'll never know whether what we feel really is God. There's no way to know. I'm not debating Pragmatism, just that the implications also apply to our spiritual experiences. If all we can know is our mental states, whether God truly exists is unknowable. 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Five Solas said:

...But it's always seemed like a sideshow, at least to me.  We need some way to articulate our uncreated God revealed in Scripture, who exists eternally as three persons, separate from His creation.  How else would you articulate the commonality of the persons constituting the Trinity?  Serious question.  If not substance, what word would you use? 

No maybe YOU need a way to articulate an "uncreated God" but Mormons do not.  "But everything must have a beginning"   Everything?  Why not a history for God??

The pagan greeks found change "imperfect" and of course God cannot be "imperfect" so of course he is without beginning and without end.   Pretty silly logic if you look at it.   I see a beautiful rose as "perfect" but of course I am not a pagan Greek.   I see a newborn baby as "perfect" but I guess not Christians.  After all, we are born with original sin so the assumption from the get-go is that we are corrupt beings

It is that assumption that creates your problem.  God is one but three at the same time?   Easy.  They are one in purpose- they all agree on everything.  They are one as a family, one as a married couple, one as Christians themselves are supposed to be.   One as in one baptism and one creed.   You know- ONE 

THAT is your problem that the invented word "substance" was supposed to fix but instead the reality/ appearance distinction leads to you being able to make real flesh that looks like bread. That is the logic of substance when you separate appearance from reality.  It's called transubstantiation.

Reality is substance and appearance are "accidents" and never the twain shall meet.  So you take the metallic substance of lead and change its appearances and make gold out of lead.  That is called alchemy, also based on substance theory.   You take three persons in one substance and make three persons one instead of making them one in purpose or as a family or any other possible explanation for how three people can be "one" but no- Plato likes "Forms" that you pour "substance" into and that is what Christianity goes with.

Great idea- 2000 years ago but not so good nowadays.

Quote

The alternative, it seems to me, is to deny an uncreated God and thereby assert "turtles all the way down" (which in Mormonism looks like an infinite chain of gods spawning gods). 

Yes, or actually admit that our puny brains cannot figure it out.   Of course the King Follette Discourse implies what you have said. that it is essentially "Gods all the way down" put crudely.

Where was the first human family?   It's either Adam or its evolution and evolution is is compatible with Adam in many interpretations.   How does this matter in your life?  "FEEL" uncomfortable with that explanation?  Fine- I feel uncomfortable with yours! 

You can't put God in a bottle and I think it is human hubris that demands bending over backwards with ridiculous theories rather than admitting we don't know.

Quote

 

Debating substance really is a pretty silly distraction, isn't it?  A way to ignore the elephant in the room - that LDS deny the very existence of the omnipotent God of Christianity (capable of speaking creation into existence, ex-nihilo). 

--Erik

 

Lol, my dear Erik, yes debating substance is a horrible distraction which is why I think I will stop.  Substance theology does not work and why I hate having this discussion at least weekly.  It should be clear that Reality is what it appears to be except sometimes we have optical illusions- in other words perceptual mistakes

So you dream up all this substance appearance distinction and get confused for evermore because we don't know how to account for perceptual mistakes?

Newsflash:  Yes LDS deny the alleged "God of Christianity" or at least the irrational Greek philosophy describing a contradictory God who can or cannot make a boulder he can or cannot lift.   "Omnipotence" makes no sense- "He can do anything"- what does that even mean?   Contradict himself?  Sin?  Commit mass murder?  That is precisely the problem- the ill defined God of Christianity is contradictory because He is believed to conform to human words and be describable by our puny brains

A God who is truly omnipotent would never define himself in stupid human words that make no sense and leave his reality to those who receive revelation knowing that experience of God is beyond words and indescribable.

And another Newsflash:   God did NOT create Ex Nihilo.

Problem solved.   POOF.   Nothing to explain.

You create the problem with contradictory or poorly defined language and then create more problems by trying to explain the contradictions.

Don't ask me how to make sense out of the contradictions of what is called "Christianity".

[mfbukowski]

30 minutes ago, Spammer said:

I understand, but we'll never know whether what we feel really is God. There's no way to know. I'm not debating Pragmatism, just that the implications also apply to our spiritual experiences. If all we can know is our mental states, whether God truly exists is unknowable. 

Yep

That's why we call it "faith".   You have nothing better anyway.

But guess what?  That is also why people die for their country or will do anything for their family or have a purpose in life that they feel is important or know wht is immoral

Feelings.   That's it.

Edited December 27, 2017 by mfbukowski

[pogi]

5 hours ago, Spammer said:

I don't think Pragmatists take it as far as reasoning demands. If everything we experience is reduced to mental states, with no means to determine whether those states correspond to objective reality, there is no basis for determining whether something is true, good, better or best.  There's no standard on which to make those determinations; no basis at all for determining what's true or good. If everything is grounded subjectively, it's all relative, and all meaning is self-determined; notions of value and meaning are therefore matters of personal taste. Any talk of truth, the good, better and best are meaningless.  In principal, everyone's right and no one's wrong, since there's no standard for comparison. 

How do Pragmatists find objective Truth and the Good, if there's no possible way for us to determine whether our mental states correspond with reality? Mfb, for instance, frequently says the Mormonism is the 'best' for humanity's wellbeing. How does he know that, because it works for him?  That's just like saying 'apple pie tastes best, so it is the best.'  

It's all about perspective.  Here is my personal paradigm:

All truth is interdependent in an interconnected web.  

In Mormon talk, “All truth can be circumscribed into one great whole”, a.k.a At-one-ment.  It is all "one eternal round".  We cannot compartmentalize truth and pretend to perceive it/understand it as it is.

Every bit of truth we gain alters our perspective of every other interconnected bit truth.  Just like one red pixel purposely placed next to a yellow pixel alters the appearance of both to  appear orange from the intended perspective.  The red pixel causes the yellow pixel to be more vibrant and warm, while the yellow pixel subdues the starkness of the red pixel.  If you compartmentalize them, then you will never understand the intended purpose of each pixel and will be blind to "the big picture" due to a limited perspective.  If you compartmentalize any single atom of a tree (a hydrogen atom, for example), you will never appreciate its purpose, its role, or perceive of the big picture.  Your perspective is too limited and you will never see, hear, smell, touch, or taste the tree it is apart of.

We cannot entierly understand/perceive one truth (a tree) as it is, independent of every other truth, without first seeing every other truth (all things) as they are.  In other words, you cannot know one thing with certainty, without knowing all things with certainty and perceiving of how it is all interrelated, connected, and flows in one eternal round.  

I understand your concern that relativity might destroy the eternal constancy and absolute nature of truth.  I don't believe it does however.  With my paradigm, there IS an absolute, eternal, and constant big picture, Capital 'T' Truth.  That is God's truth.  Relativity is simply the intellectually honest admission that our perspective of truth is limited to our present position and gazing direction in the overall big picture.  Can we be certain of what we see if we only see 1,000 pixels on a screen of seemingly endless pixels?   That is what the "all seeing eye" sees and knows.  God doesn't give us the big picture.  He gives us bits/pixels of truth. 

What if the whole point is for us to embrace every pixel given to us and live it to the best of our ability, as we understand it (even if our understanding is incomplete and unwhole)?  The more we live and embrace, the more we are given as our perspective enlarges and our understanding broadens, and past truths (pixels) are seen in relation to new light and knowledge and thus our perspective and understand of it evolves over time, until we see as God sees and know as God knows.  We become God ourselves in other words.  You see, that is the beauty of Mormonism.  It gives us hope beyond nihilism.  It gives us truth without paradox.  The faith of eternal life, being one-with-God and all other truths through the at-one-ment, gives purpose, meaning, and direction to present uncertainty.  We can embrace the uncertainty that a tree is 'out there' as we perceive it, without falling into nihilism, because of the hope and faith in exaltation.  

We can determine if something is good (even if we don't entirely comprehend it as it is) by its fruits - the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, etc.) which, if you will notice, are all subjective mental states.  Faith in those feelings, that we can only interpret as "good" because they feel good and bring more good into our lives, brings more bits of truth and more feelings of good, until all things are circumscribed in our eye, ears, and hearts into one great whole, and we see the big picture, and see everything as it is.  It is all about perspective. 

Quote

Joseph Smith:

He who scattered Israel has promised to gather them; therefore inasmuch as you are to be instrumental in this great work, he will endow you with power, wisdom, might, and intelligence, and every qualification necessary; while your minds will expand wider and wider, until you can circumscribe the earth and the heavens, reach forth into eternity, and contemplate the mighty acts of Jehovah in all their variety and glory.
History of the Church, 4:129.

Quote

President Howard W. Hunter:
With God our Heavenly Father, all truth, wherever found or however apprehended, is circumscribed into one great whole. Ultimately, there are no contradictions, no quarrels, no inscrutable paradoxes, no mysteries. (President’s Formal Charge of Responsibility , LDS Church News, 1994, 11/26/94 .) 

For me and my paradigm, absolute truth exists.  That is God's truth.  But it can only be known with absolute certainty with an absolute knowledge of all things.  Until then, our limited perspective relegates us to relative truth.  We each perceive it differently from our unique perspectives and experiences with different bits/pixels of truth.  But those experiences with the gifts of the spirit upon obedience to trying the word, gives us hope and faith to endure uncertainty.  The more we obey, the more sure our anchor becomes. 
 

Edited December 27, 2017 by pogi

[pogi]

5 hours ago, Spammer said:

Reason demands an objective standard if we want to have any ground for believing our notions of truth, the good, better or best have any validity beyond personal taste. It's reasonable to me that one would exist if God exists and loves us and wants us to know Him, so I went looking for one, yes, grounded on my interpretations of the evidence. Your point about the subjectivity of the process is valid. A subjectively-grounded objectivity is a contradiction. Still, though we only know subjectively, we still need a standard outside ourselves or morality and the pursuit of truth are meaningless and empty. Nihilism. What's the most likely candidate for that standard as pertains to Christianity? For me, whatever best aligns with my experience and my interpretations of the historical evidence as the likely place for that standard, for God would surely provide us with one, is where that standard is found. Once arrived at, although subjectively determined, it becomes the place I go to for objective truth. I submit to it. There's no place for making personal revelation the ground of truth, the arbiter, since that tosses me back onto the ground that is no ground - subjectivity. My process is arbitrary, I know, but doing otherwise leaves me alone with my mental states and the utter lack of certainty and meaninglessness that goes with a philosophy that bases all knowledge solely on those states. 

You demand reason, but what happens when your "objective standard" is an admittedly unreasonable "contradiction"?  How can you embrace that standard with intellectual honesty and good reason?  There are other alternatives beyond nihilism.  It is not an either or situation. 

So the best historians go to heaven?  I'm sorry, I just don't see it.  That seems totally absurd to me to say that the only evidences of God are historical.  That makes him feel so distant, impersonal, and...historical.  God resides in my heart, not in the past, but in the present.  Isn't that what we learn from the great Catholic mystics?  He is not some dead, inactive relic of the past, only to be discovered through artifacts, rather he is alive, active, and present in our hearts.  That is where we find Him.  The words of the prophets on historical documents are a map to that truth.  The map is not the truth, it simply points to it.