NDEs and no singularly true faith

[mfbukowski]

20 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I think this is matter of what points one wants to emphasize.  I want to emphasize that this reality actually exists and that there is significant value and meaning for us humans to want to be more closely aligned with accurate descriptions of that reality from a pragmatic perspective.  We gain value in this life the better we understand how things are working and our relationship to those things, in that we are able to better navigate all the challenges of life and hopefully alleviate suffering and serve others better.  

For example, if I am someone that still believes that I need to sacrifice the very best products that I produce via my work, i.e. the first fruits of my harvest and the best livestock on my farm, to an unseen yet very powerful deity, in order to appease this deity's wrath.  Then I am literally wasting important resources that could be put to much better use if shared with my society.  

Understanding how the mechanisms of the universe work better will help us navigate this universe.  Not all paradigms are created equal and some paradigms contain concepts that have a negative impact on society and if discarded and/or revised and updated to be more in line with "reality" then the collective will benefit.  

So when you say that reality doesn't really exist in a philosophical sense, I can understand what you're saying, but its really just academic because reality is what all of us are living every day, and the closer we can get to useful and accurate (in the sense that they work better) descriptions of reality, the better.  

Who could possibly disagree with that?

But that leaves no room for the "reality" of religious experience, no matter how well it works in your life. And to me regarding those experiences as not real is simply not a good description of reality.

One must see that Alma 32 applies as much to science as anything else, and that religious experience is as real as science in its sphere.

Does the love of your family have any pragmatic value to you at all? Does that count as real?

Do the whisperings of the spirit have any reality in life?

Might it be as important as the cure for cancer in your life? If the entire Community could feel that would it be a "reality" beneficial to humanity?

Is that reality on the same level as sacrificing to an unseen God, which you see as unreasonable?

That entire question was handled completely by William James over a hundred years ago, and he as an agnostic acknowledged the reality of religious experience and their varieties, and he was at the forefront of most contemporary philosophy.

That is the only question at hand here and has always been the only question.

I read a wonderful article recently about how the so-called "psychological sciences" are on the same level as religion in having their sole purpose to be to make one feel better.

Is psychological therapy scientific and deals with reality?

How is it different than religion?

Was Freud a prophet in his way, developing his entire "theology" which has no basis in "reality"?

Edited November 27, 2018 by mfbukowski

[hope_for_things]

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Who could possibly disagree with that?

But that leaves no room for the "reality" of religious experience, no matter how well it works in your life. And to me regarding those experiences as not real is simply not a good description of reality.

One must see that Alma 32 applies as much to science as anything else, and that religious experience is as real as science in its sphere.

Does the love of your family have any pragmatic value to you at all? Does that count as real?

Is that reality on the same level as sacrificing to an unseen God?

That is the only question at hand here and has always been the only question

The way I see religious experience is that these experiences are subjective and have an element of confirmation bias to them, which we both seem to agree on.  However, as people become more educated about how reality works, they can improve their confirmation bias mechanism to be more aligned with "reality". 

For example, if I get bit by a poisonous snake and I believe that a priesthood blessing will heal me, so I intentionally don't go to a doctor to get the anti-venom and instead just get the priesthood blessing, my religious bias towards the power of priesthood blessings has given me a death sentence that could have otherwise been avoided.   The Alma 32 test fails for this individual because their bias towards their religious belief kept them from seeking the technology of medicine that could have otherwise saved them.  

As for your question about the love of family, I do think it has great pragmatic value towards my overall well being psychologically and how much I enjoy my experience in this life.  So its real for me, yes, very much.  I'm not saying it isn't.  But if that love of family is conditional and based on religiously influenced bias against my LGBT family members because of traditions about LGBT people that aren't based on the best modern understanding of what it means to be LGBT, but instead are based on fear and bigotry, then my uneducated religious bias can do great harm to my family and the love that they withhold and the judgment they hand out becomes toxic to these relationships.  

[mfbukowski]

59 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

The way I see religious experience is that these experiences are subjective and have an element of confirmation bias to them, which we both seem to agree on.  However, as people become more educated about how reality works, they can improve their confirmation bias mechanism to be more aligned with "reality". 

For example, if I get bit by a poisonous snake and I believe that a priesthood blessing will heal me, so I intentionally don't go to a doctor to get the anti-venom and instead just get the priesthood blessing, my religious bias towards the power of priesthood blessings has given me a death sentence that could have otherwise been avoided.   The Alma 32 test fails for this individual because their bias towards their religious belief kept them from seeking the technology of medicine that could have otherwise saved them.  

As for your question about the love of family, I do think it has great pragmatic value towards my overall well being psychologically and how much I enjoy my experience in this life.  So its real for me, yes, very much.  I'm not saying it isn't.  But if that love of family is conditional and based on religiously influenced bias against my LGBT family members because of traditions about LGBT people that aren't based on the best modern understanding of what it means to be LGBT, but instead are based on fear and bigotry, then my uneducated religious bias can do great harm to my family and the love that they withhold and the judgment they hand out becomes toxic to these relationships.  

Both of these examples would violate the Prime Directive, Thou shalt not mix spiritual discourse with alleged "facts" about the world.

That's like confusing mah jong with basketball.

That is clear in example 1, and in example two, the confusion is between "modern understanding" and "love thy neighbor".

So it seems to me that both examples mix the two contexts resulting in error.

It seems to me that every criticism just strengthens my case, since every alleged criticism violates the principles I am putting forth.  

 

[hope_for_things]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Both of these examples would violate the Prime Directive, Thou shalt not mix spiritual discourse with alleged "facts" about the world.

That's like confusing mah jong with basketball.

That is clear in example 1, and in example two, the confusion is between "modern understanding" and "love thy neighbor".

So it seems to me that both examples mix the two contexts resulting in error.

It seems to me that every criticism just strengthens my case, since every alleged criticism violates the principles I am putting forth.  

 

Well, I agree with the limits you put on how religious experience should inform the decisions we make and the way we operate in the world, however, this is not how the majority of orthodox Mormons operate from my experience, and it certainly is not how correlated Mormon doctrine is taught.  

Also, I don't agree with you that the Alma 32 test is applies to science in the same way as it does to religion.  The Alma 32 test is essentially confirmation bias in that it is designed to get people to look for confirmation that the experiment they try is producing fruit.  However, the scientific method is essentially the polar opposite approach.  Science is constantly looking for evidence to disprove its current theories.  Theories are constantly being tested in a very methodical and rigorous way. 

Religious confirmation bias via Alma 32 (which I like by the way) is not methodical or rigorous or constantly trying to disprove itself.  Alma 32 applies well to things like love and beauty, but it fails and would be horrible to use this process for academic science.  However, It does work fairly well for pseudo science.  

[Kevin Christensen]

What part of the Alma 32 test encourages an individual to tease snakes and avoid doctors and medicine at all costs?  What part of being LDS, when the current Prophet is a noted heart surgeon, who occasionally tells stories about how he has been inspired about how to perform heart surgery, including a famous account of how to repair a faulty heart valve, justifies this as an apt paradigm reality as lived by most believing LDS? 

Quote

For example, if I get bit by a poisonous snake and I believe that a priesthood blessing will heal me, so I intentionally don't go to a doctor to get the anti-venom and instead just get the priesthood blessing, my religious bias towards the power of priesthood blessings has given me a death sentence that could have otherwise been avoided.   The Alma 32 test fails for this individual because their bias towards their religious belief kept them from seeking the technology of medicine that could have otherwise saved them.

My wife was trained as a nurse at BYU and worked for several years at LDS hospital in Salt Lake City (Note the name and location, which tends to contradict the hypothetical poisonous snake story).  Indeed, I recall an LDS story told by Joseph Smith  One one occasion, I crushed a fingertip with a jackhammer handle, and was sent to the LDS Hospital Emergency Room.  Note that none of this is eccentric or unusual for an LDS person growing up in Utah, or in any significant LDS population.

I have often published demonstrations that the epistomology in Alma 32 is very like that offered in Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1436&index=8

So yes, Alma 32 is profoundly insightful when compared to science, particularly, as regards the moments in science that call for a choice between competing paradigms.

 

Quote

Martin Harris having boasted to the brethren that he could handle snakes with perfect safety, while fooling with a black snake with his bare feet, he received a bite on his left foot. The fact was communicated to me, and I took occasion to reprove him, and exhort the brethren never to trifle with the promises of God. I told them it was presumption for any one to provoke a serpent to bite him, but if a man of God was accidentally bitten by a poisonous serpent, he might have faith, or his brethren might have faith for him, so that the Lord would hear his prayer and he might be healed; but when a man designedly provokes a serpent to bite him, the principle is the same as when a man drinks deadly poison knowing it to be such. In that case no man has any claim on the promises of God to be healed. (June 16, 1834.)  D.H.C. 2:95-96.

A valid paradigmatic story ought to fairly represent the general situation, rather than an eccentric and unusual one.  And there is a difference between having a blessing for a snake bite when a person is far from any other care, and a blessing is the only chance and only option, and deciding that it's more convenient to expect a miracle than to seek help that is available.  In a recent general conference, I recall one speaking repeating the famous joke about someone putting off opportunities for rescue from a flood because the supplicant expected God to save him.  In the next life, God says, "I sent a truck, a boat, and a helicopter..."

There is a difference between a love that is conditional, and a love that is willing to state the actual conditions and consequences of behavior even at the cost of social tension.  There is a difference between the love Jesus taught, about seeing ourselves in connection and relationship to others, to nature, to all life and eternity, and the kind of self-love that Ayn Rand popularized.

https://www.salon.com/2018/11/26/how-author-ayn-rand-contributed-to-americas-greed_partner/

Is it really preferable to live in an enabling society that never states conditions, that favors peace and political correctness and personal preference over truth, that hushes up and suppresses any discussion of consequences, and that decides that what Jesus should have said is, "Because I love you, I encourage you to make your own commandments, set your own boundaries, behave in all things as you see fit, live for the moment, and forget notions of eternity, because after all, what could I, a simple Jewish peasant, possibly know that you don't?"  And by the way, Shame on Mormons for shaming people because shaming is bad except for shaming Mormons for shaming people.

Does my essay demonstrate no more than toxic fear, bias, and bigotry?

http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleChristensenRashomon.html

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited November 27, 2018 by Kevin Christensen

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Well, I agree with the limits you put on how religious experience should inform the decisions we make and the way we operate in the world, however, this is not how the majority of orthodox Mormons operate from my experience, and it certainly is not how correlated Mormon doctrine is taught.  

Also, I don't agree with you that the Alma 32 test is applies to science in the same way as it does to religion.  The Alma 32 test is essentially confirmation bias in that it is designed to get people to look for confirmation that the experiment they try is producing fruit.  However, the scientific method is essentially the polar opposite approach.  Science is constantly looking for evidence to disprove its current theories.  Theories are constantly being tested in a very methodical and rigorous way. 

Religious confirmation bias via Alma 32 (which I like by the way) is not methodical or rigorous or constantly trying to disprove itself.  Alma 32 applies well to things like love and beauty, but it fails and would be horrible to use this process for academic science.  However, It does work fairly well for pseudo science.  

Sigh.

My stake president who is about as traditional as they come, thinks otherwise about how  "correlated" my views are.

I think you and I have been over this a few times, Mr. C!

But it pretty much ends up always the same way. 

Edited November 27, 2018 by mfbukowski

[hope_for_things]

34 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Sigh.

My stake president who is about as traditional as they come, thinks otherwise about how  "correlated" my views are.

I think you and I have been over this a few times, Mr. C!

But it pretty much ends up always the same way. 

Yes we have, but I would say we're making some progress as of late.