Wayment & Givens interview

[hope_for_things]

17 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It's hard to say too much without more context as to what he means. After all those paragraphs can be read in very different ways. I assume, but am not sure, that Wayment in the first paragraph simply is thinking of people who had real spiritual experiences but came to doubt them over time. It's the doubt of memory. Had people had those same experiences in the present, they may well act and believe the same as they did in the past. But because they are so far in the past they can be "forgotten." That's what I suspect he means by reconceptualize rather than a more epistemological question of "did I interpret those experiences correctly."

That's not to deny a certain kind of fideism in his comments. As people know from other threads I have rather big problems with fideism and if that's what he is doing I don't find it intellectually honest. I think though one can charitably read him as not taking a strong fideist stance.

Interesting point, its possible he is thinking about reconceptualization the way you suggest.  I think it probably more common for traditional orthodox members to hold a position that they are trusting in their original spiritual experience and the meaning that was created from this experience, rather than re-evaluating their memories using their current perspectives on life.  To me, this is a very natural thing, and as an example it would be like looking back at a young love that someone had and thinking differently about that love today, but still being able to appreciate the intense feelings and nostalgic thoughts when reflecting on that young love.  

I do want to better understand the fideism points you're making.  I looked at a couple online definitions just briefly, and based on that very short review, I don't know if we should call what Dr. Wayment is doing as fideism.  It might be, but I think he's really just trying to bracket the whole inquiry around his personal spiritual experiences.  He also mentioned shelving the question of the historical Jesus in his quote, and I think that perhaps for him, critical inquiry into his spiritual experiences and certain religious questions like the historical Jesus one, are too far for him to go.  Is this fideism?  I'm not sure as I don't understand the philosophical background for fideism, but it sounded to me like fideism has an element of privileging one's religious experiences because they contain a higher level of truth than reason, and I'm not sure Dr. Wayment is privileging these things, he may instead be intentionally avoiding the questions because he's worried about what the possible outcomes of that kind of critical thinking may lead to.  In his defense, he's also employed by the church and has a lot at stake if he were to potentially traverse a path that could put him too far outside what is culturally acceptable to his tribe.  

18 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Givens position is, I think, more problematic. This actually gets at precisely why I find his particular form of apologetics something I just can't accept. I like nearly everything he does but underneath it is this stance I think you get at. Again, being charitable, I'm loath to call this full bodied fideism. (The fideists among us clearly will be more prone to accept this as fideism) I think the problem is that I'm completely open to a lot of inaccuracies in scripture. That is there are reasons to read the New Testament, for example, with what some call a hermeneutics of suspicion. I don't simply assume that because the author said it that it happened. For instance this morning in family scripture study we were reading in Matthew about Jesus' running away from his parents to go learn at the temple. I don't want to say it didn't happen - I just don't know. But it seems exactly the sort of story that might be out there akin to George Washington and his cherry tree that is most likely to be a folk tale. To the degree Givens or Wayment are getting at things like that I don't have a problem. We most definitely should distinguish for a slew of reasons the resurrection or crucifixion narratives from the narrative of Jesus as a child. But at the same time I think we have to be careful that we're not so suspicious we dismiss everything beyond what we find theologically expedient as a core belief.

I completely agree here, and its frustrating because I really like Givens on so many levels.  A related position that Givens argues for in his Crucible of Doubt book is this idea that belief is a choice, and that there are equal reasons to believe or not believe on either side, and we simply need to choose belief.  I have a very hard time with this as I don't feel like belief is a choice for me personally, and it makes no sense to me.  I also don't think that the positions on either side of the argument are equally compelling and that is way to binary of an argument to make.  

18 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't take a similar approach, but I do think that how we treat significant experiences in the past matters a great deal. Cognitively memories aren't just stored and recalled as needed. They're recalled, recreated in part on the basis of fears, needs, and expectations at the time of recall, along with beliefs at the time of recall. The original storage though is for the most part gone. The memory is restored by taking the key components and storing that so it can be recreated when next recalled. However it's the recreated memory that's compressed and stored. That means it's become corrupted since the missing bits are filled by ones psychology at the point of recall. Over time this means memories can be quite corrupted - particularly memories of past spiritual experiences after entering into a faith crisis.

The best solution is not to just count on a testimony from the past. A living testimony has to be rediscovered over and over again otherwise it simply dissipates due to the above cognitive process. However if one for whatever reason isn't having spiritual experiences at the point of ones faith crisis or even temporary doubts, then it's worth trying to rethink the original memory in terms of the original beliefs rather than present beliefs trusting that one was being intellectually honest originally. In a certain sense that's attempting to recognize that cognitive process of memory and instead of refilling memory gaps in terms of present experience trying (however incompletely) to restore the memory in terms of those originary beliefs and experiences. While this could easily be abused, I also think it can be done in an intellectually honest fashion.

That said if this entails fideism where one just refuses to investigate and question ones beliefs, then I think that quickly becomes deeply dangerous.

Great points about memory, I wholeheartedly agree and appreciate you bringing this up.  I like how you suggest that this necessitates a continued pursuit of religious experience in the present and not simply leaning on a past experiences.  

18 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I assume because that's what he does still have a testimony of even if he may not have a testimony of other elements such as say the nature of the Book of Abraham. That's completely fine. Heaven knows I can't say more tertiary items I have revelation on. My beliefs on such matters usually arise out of reasoning over the implications of the things I do feel like I know confidently. 

Certainly you're right that many religious thinkers, particularly in the liberal Protestant tradition, have no trouble abandoning the resurrection. I think it worth asking in what sense they're still Christian since the religion seems reduced to a kind of encouragement for morality. But I know many disagree with me on that point. To me ethics and charity are deeply important and a huge part of being a Christian - something that people who might assent to Christian belief frequently don't embody. However if Christianity only is ethics and charity it's worth asking in what sense Christianity is different from an atheist who espouses ethics and charity.

I wouldn't call non-literal approaches to Christian stories abandoning them.  The liberal protestant theologians that I've encountered are very committed to their Christianity, but in a very different flavor than the evangelical biblical literalist vein.  I agree that there would be a considerable amount in common between the atheist who espouses these same ethics and the Christian who does, and I would say that this is a good thing.  

[hope_for_things]

18 hours ago, Calm said:

“But I don't understand why he's adopted a strategy of refusing to renegotiate his own personal spiritual experiences. “

Looking back on spiritual experience may not provide you with the full context of what you experienced. This may make it impossible to judge the quality in hindsight as accurately as when you are going through it. Therefore it makes sense to

trust your original interpretation. (On the phone and in the middle of physical therapy being iced so not fully explained....Clark’s putting it in the context of how memory works is close enough to what I am thinking to say “what he said”) 

Its a good point, but don't we look back on all of our experiences and interpret them through a different lens anyway?  How do you view your first love?  How do you view your relationship with your parents or siblings?  How do you look at a close friendship, or a traumatically embarrassing moment?  

All of our experiences get reinterpreted to some extent, I don't know how we could possibly avoid doing otherwise, unless we're fooling ourselves.  

[hope_for_things]

17 hours ago, CV75 said:

For #1, perhaps in critically evaluating his experiences, the best conclusion Wayment could come up with for some of them is that they were spiritual experiences, and he cannot honestly describe them as anything else.

I still call my experiences spiritual experiences, but I don't believe in an intervening God anymore.  I think for most people, their conceptions about what God is changes over a lifetime, even with orthodox Mormons.  Do you have the same perspectives as you had as a young person?  

 

17 hours ago, CV75 said:

For #2, I think Givens said what he said for the same reason Wayment did, and so he isn’t defending the resurrection and hence neither the logic for its being non-negotiable. In both cases, they are acknowledging that personally evaluated non-rational or extra-rational experiences are as valid as those that can be deemed rational.

I also think that Givens is stating that the resurrection fundamentally defines and cannot be separated from the core faith, making it one of the few points where the faith is the history.

I'm understanding Givens as saying that there are core fundamentals that are non-negotiable, as a strategic position for the church.  This implies that there are non-core items that are negotiable.  My question would be, why the resurrection as a real historical event is a non-negotiable?  Who decides what is negotiable or not?  

 

[hope_for_things]

17 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

A lot of people do reconceptualize their spiritual experiences to the point of losing their faith. I do not see the point in renegotiating with myself the validity of the experiences I have had in the face of ever changing secular ideas about what little we do know of history. I was not there for any of the events that are in question so I cannot speak informedly on them. And I cannot ascertain with certainty whether a person such as Jesus actually lived, was martyred, and was resurrected.  But I can look back with certainty on the fact that I did have some spiritual experiences which have confirmed to me the validity of my faith in those events.

The doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints depend upon there being a historical Jesus, a historical crucifixion, and a historical resurrection, as well as a historical Book of Mormon. The experiences that I have had have convinced me that such is the case, so I have to necessarily shelve anything, any questions that arise for which there is no ready answer. I believe wholeheartedly that such answers will come at some point in time, whether in mortality ot in the next space beyond this time. And I just don't worry about it.

I agree with Clark that "A living testimony has to be rediscovered over and over again otherwise it simply dissipates due to the above cognitive process." I don't actually looking at it as rediscovering my testimony over and over again, but rather building it a bit at a time. There was a point in time when I did have to rediscover my testimony which caused me to shed my doubts and left me with the level of certainty that i now enjoy.

Glenn

Ok, so it sounds like you don't want to critically evaluate your past religious experiences because you've seen other people do this who have lost their faith, at least that seems to be part of your motivation.  I can understand and respect this, and perhaps that is what Dr. Wayment is doing as well.  

I've commented in other discussions on this message board, that I personally don't see a rational justification for belief that personal religious/spiritual experiences can answer any factual questions about history.  If this were true, we should could easily test this claim in a scientific way.  Can someone who claims to have these abilities make accurate statements about history that can be corroborated by other sources.  I think its important to understand what can and can't be derived from spiritual experience.  

On your point about the doctrines of the church, I would ask the question as to who determines what needs to be historical when it comes to the narratives of church doctrine?  Since these doctrines change as the culture and times change, I think its of merit to discuss whether or not certain ideas are non-negotiable as Givens suggests.  

[hope_for_things]

17 hours ago, let’s roll said:

I think the last sentence of my prior post explains my perspective from a practical standpoint.

 I read your comment to say the purpose of reconceptualizing and renegotiating prior spiritual experiences is to determine whether you might understand them differently today than you did when they occurred. If you’re having deep and poignant spiritual experiences on a regular basis that result in the same feelings of pure love, enlightenment, and rest as prior ones, what purpose would be served by re-examining prior experiences?  They’re consistently unmistakable.

I'm not sure its even possible to not reconceptualize experiences from the past at some level.  Our brains aren't computers and we can't access a memory file with the exact data that we had saved last time.  I've mentioned this in a couple other comments in the thread, but how do you look back on a young love that you had today?  How about a close friendship?  How about a traumatic experience, or an experience of extreme joy?  

I think where people are stopping short is that they aren't critically asking the questions about whether or not the meaning that they derived from those earlier experiences is the same meaning they might derive if they had a similar experience today.  Its the process of critically evaluating the experience that isn't happening.  

[clarkgoble]

17 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I think it probably more common for traditional orthodox members to hold a position that they are trusting in their original spiritual experience and the meaning that was created from this experience, rather than re-evaluating their memories using their current perspectives on life.

In general people aren't critical thinkers and most people don't have academic training for critical thinkers. However among the "intelligentsia" who typically discuss these things there is more. However in those cases I think the problem of memory I outlined usually isn't appreciated because cognitive science usually isn't really something they're taught in college. This leads to (I think) a bias in how they analyze and interpret past spiritual experiences because they don't realize that the experience itself has been subtly yet significantly changed by the very experiences leading them to reinterpret the experience. Put an other way the original experience and the memory of the experience being reinterpreted simply aren't the same experience.

I rather doubt Wayment is getting at that - although I don't know. Rather I suspect he's trying to express the phenomena without necessarily understanding what's going on behind the scenes. But I could easily be wrong. I fully admit one could interpret it instead in a fideistic fashion.

But I certainly agree that a lot of people have an experience that convinces them of something and then really don't inquire or engage with it afterwards unless a crisis appears. I'd say that's typical of humans in general and not just people religiously orthodox.

25 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I do want to better understand the fideism points you're making.  I looked at a couple online definitions just briefly, and based on that very short review, I don't know if we should call what Dr. Wayment is doing as fideism.  It might be, but I think he's really just trying to bracket the whole inquiry around his personal spiritual experiences.  He also mentioned shelving the question of the historical Jesus in his quote, and I think that perhaps for him, critical inquiry into his spiritual experiences and certain religious questions like the historical Jesus one, are too far for him to go.  Is this fideism? 

I'm not sure what he meant by "shelved the question of the historical Jesus." As I said it's hard to know what he means from that interview. A lot of the things he says could be interpreted in a large number of ways. My guess is he just means the questions of what is or isn't accurate in the gospels but not whether there was a Jesus or so forth. 

I'm not sure he's completely bracketing inquiry into his spiritual experiences but again I don't know. I don't think it's full bodied fideism but I suspect there's a slight bit of that there. But again I really don't know.

To me fideism is just choosing to believe by taking a leap of faith and treating it as if it were true. (I recognize that some don't like that phrasing, particularly "as if" language - but I'm not sure a better phrase that conveys the idea) The point of fideism is that you don't have good reasons for this. The problem with applying this to Wayment is that clearly he's had experiences that likely he thought were good reasons to believe. That evidentiary element that's so common in Mormonism seems to be the problem with thinking Mormonism in terms of fideism or blind faith. I don't dispute that for some Mormons though it works. I had quite a few friends back in college who took that approach - often with a strong affinity to Kierkegaard. (I'm not sure K is actually a fideist though) My experience is that usually they took this route because they didn't feel they'd had experiences that justified belief and were looking for a reason to still belief independent of a spiritual experience. While I didn't keep up with everyone taking that approach, those that I did usually didn't keep the faith for long. So while it may work for a while I'm pretty skeptical that fideism can really survive the surge of skepticism one encounters in contemporary life - particularly if one is intellectually inclined. But clearly it does for some.

36 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm not sure as I don't understand the philosophical background for fideism, but it sounded to me like fideism has an element of privileging one's religious experiences because they contain a higher level of truth than reason, and I'm not sure Dr. Wayment is privileging these things, he may instead be intentionally avoiding the questions because he's worried about what the possible outcomes of that kind of critical thinking may lead to.  In his defense, he's also employed by the church and has a lot at stake if he were to potentially traverse a path that could put him too far outside what is culturally acceptable to his tribe.  

I think that's a good distinction to bring up. I'm not sure it's fair to Wayment to assume he's avoiding uncomfortable issues. Again I don't think we can tell from the interview what he's doing, but I think it's uncharitable to assume he's not being intellectually honest.

To your view on fideism, that's certainly one type of fideism. The other type is more just taking a leap of faith, to use Kierkegaardian language. The analogy is often to romantic love where one must make a kind of commitment beyond what one is justified in. But typically as you say it's placing tradition/scripture as a better source of truth than reason. Which I certainly find deeply problematic. I'd fully admit that reason has its issues - often in the 17th through early 20th century people appealing to reason frequently overstated things and were insufficiently skeptical. That's why you could get silly pseudoscience arising like phrenology but also why people seem to consistently confuse "best answer based on evidence" with "very probably true." It's hard to read the history of say medicine without seeing the problems of reason combined with hubris for instance. However even if reasoning has its problems, I'm not at all convinced fideism is the solution. Even in a more philosophical form such as William James. Again though the issue is to what degree one is open to continued inquiry. To be fair to James he was open to inquiry so his fideism is a qualified one.

42 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I completely agree here, and its frustrating because I really like Givens on so many levels.  A related position that Givens argues for in his Crucible of Doubt book is this idea that belief is a choice, and that there are equal reasons to believe or not believe on either side, and we simply need to choose belief.  I have a very hard time with this as I don't feel like belief is a choice for me personally, and it makes no sense to me.  I also don't think that the positions on either side of the argument are equally compelling and that is way to binary of an argument to make.  

Yup. He's getting that out of a particular reading of Kierkegaard. I think it completely wrong though. I just don't think belief is volitional. I think when we keep treating belief as volitional we end up hurting ourselves because we won't really understand how doubts work.

The example I keep bringing up on this is looking outside on a bright sunny day with a blue sky and choosing to believe the sky is actually black. You can't do it. You might be able to verbally assent that it is true, but that's a lie. Historically, particularly in philosophy after Descartes, there was a tendency to think in terms of doubts that weren't really doubts. That is to treat belief and doubt as if one was just writing and manipulating mathematical equations. But doubt and belief simply don't work that way. Those are just paper beliefs and paper doubts.

Givens makes some good points in his apologetics. However I feel that the fideism behind it is ultimately deeply counterproductive. Even those who think others should embrace a fideism that works for them have to acknowledge that fideism is not terribly persuasive to most people. If belief isn't volitional there are very good reasons for that which fideists like Givens often brush under the table - undermining their very apologetic approach.

48 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I wouldn't call non-literal approaches to Christian stories abandoning them.  The liberal protestant theologians that I've encountered are very committed to their Christianity, but in a very different flavor than the evangelical biblical literalist vein.  I agree that there would be a considerable amount in common between the atheist who espouses these same ethics and the Christian who does, and I would say that this is a good thing.  

But this sort of avoids the central question of what the Christianity they are committed to means and how it differs from an atheist concerned with wonder, ethics and so forth. That is it seems the content is the same and all that differs are the metaphors and organizations they express this through. I think this can be deeply problematic particularly if someone is a pastor with such beliefs and most of their congregation actually believes in a historic Jesus, an actual atonement, an actual life after death and so forth.

45 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

All of our experiences get reinterpreted to some extent, I don't know how we could possibly avoid doing otherwise, unless we're fooling ourselves.  

This is definitely true. And reinterpretation isn't bad. I do think though that we need to be skeptical and questioning of how we do this. If psychology, philosophy and cognitive science have shown us anything, it's that reasoning as often as not is actually just justification for present beliefs and fears. That doesn't mean reason isn't good. But I think to reason well we have to recognize that bias our brain tends to give us and attempt to look for it and correct for it.

[stemelbow]

Thanks guys.  I appreciate the responses and I get the feeling of not wanting to air out personal spiritual experiences, particularly with one who is coming from a more skeptical perspective.  So, what was given is good enough for me to understand where you're coming from.  In closing (hah) I'd like to add one interesting perspective (at least to me) on that, which I may have shared here before.

My boy had just turned 12.  Soon after he entered young men's they had a joint meeting with the young women.  The bishop spoke, as he recalls, and various topics were mentioned.  LGBTQ issues were raised and the tenor of the room was an ugly one from my boy's perspective.  everyone seemed quite negative and judgmental, very dogmatic and perhaps a bit hostile, including the bishop.  My son, newly arriving with the group, hesitated and was nervous but felt he needed to speak up.  He tried to counter and challenge the views expressed.  A short discussion, and back and forth ensued with everyone seemingly being patient with the obsequious boy.   It ended with the bishop telling him, hoping to move along, that the Church is correct about this issue and all he needed to do was pray about it and he'd know.  So my son decided to pray.  he prayed that night and felt strongly the Church was wrong, but wasn't clear and didn't feel is impressions were necessarily directly from God.  he prayed the next and the next.  Each time he prayed he felt stronger and stronger that the Church was wrong.  But, again, he didn't feel God spoke to him.  He just felt it.  A week went on like this, and he decided to ask me.  He asked and I in my unorthodoxy stated without equivocation as he recalled, when he told me about this years after it happened, that the Church is wrong on this issue and it'll have to change or confront the errors it has made at some point.  That made him feel good about his own thinking as he was on the verge of feeling a little crazy and/or unworthy because he wasn't getting direct communication from God as, it seemed to him, the bishop promised.  

Well, this little story was told to me by my son a few months ago (he's 20 now).  I dont' really remember him asking me, but what he relates was probably exactly something I would have said at that time.  But back to it.  After this week of praying and feeling like the Church was wrong, after he asked me about it, he had a very vivid dream.  He dreamed that the world was in gray.  he noticed he was not.  he was in color.  The people he saw and interacted with were all gay and were in gray.  He noticed that these gray folks really hated him.  They didn't like him and treated him poorly.  He knew he was different because he was in color, but they couldn't see color and didn't know why he was so different.   There was a factory.  He didn't see in the factory but he saw couples going in and coming out with new babies.  That's how babies were made, as far as he knew.  With all of this happening around him, as he grew, he found someone else who was in color.  It was a pretty girl whom he liked.  As they liked each other, dated and spent time together, everyone got meaner.  The hate grew worse.   But their love for each other grew and they decided to marry.  The hate was so bad that the decision was made by the mobs to kill them.  and then his dream ended.  

He shared this with me, as a said a few months ago.  He his girlfriend and I sat up late one night chatting about life and the topic of belief in God came up.  He said he was an atheist now, and couldn't reconcile a God, but questioned this little experience.  he thought if God, then perhaps this dream was from God.  he looks back and wonders if it was God, or just him creating a story while dreaming to confirm his own feelings and thoughts.  The issue he has is whether this experience is evidence of God, or if treating such a spiritual faith experience as evidence is really just fideism.  It takes faith for him to see the dream as an answer from God, and therefore as evidence of God.

Just a story to illustrate the issue, I hope.  

[mfbukowski]

14 hours ago, Gray said:

The nature of the experience is the same, the interpretation has changed. The experiences don't interpret themselves.

Of course they do. Or more accurately there is no need to interpret them.

If a bear is chasing you do you stop and interpret the experience before you run?

Experiences are usually a full body reaction. one would not stand there and try to figure out if the bear was illusory or real. The growling running Bear is the experience.  It is real and there is no interpretation. 

Driving a car is the same thing. Falling in love is the same thing.

Reality as we know it is uninterpreted experience, from nano second to nanosecond in every day of our lives.

We look at a chair and sit down. We don't analyze the fact that there is more space between the atoms than solid before doing so and wonder if we should actually sit there or not.

Do we feel happy or sad in a movie? do we jump and then laugh at ourselves for doing so?

The interpretation clearly comes after the raw experience as a different experience of us observing ourselves, and then comes the analysis.

Edited January 17, 2019 by mfbukowski

[hope_for_things]

58 minutes ago, blueglass said:

For me I feel spiritual experiences - perhaps I have more mindfulness now than in the past?  I also have implemented a check and outside looking in analysis process to avoid manipulation by a music score in a church video.  Largely due to studying the mark hoffmann deceptions, I feel like checks and balances against trusting people, or cognitive elevation is important.  

This is a good point, thanks.  Everyone has feelings and there are many complex factors that contribute to the feelings we experience.  This is what I mean when I'm talking about the meaning we derive from the experiences we have.  In any group of people you will have a wide variation of different interpretations of meaning that people derive from things they experience as a group in the same place listening, seeing, and smelling the same air.  I also have noticed significant change within my own personal self in how I interpret things and derive meaning in my own life as I get older. 

I think this is unavoidable, because we can't stay static as our brains are elastic and being influenced by a countless number of things that we can't possibly control.  I would go so far as to assert that even claiming that you aren't reconceptualizing your previous experiences is at least partially a self deceptive act.  

[clarkgoble]

17 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

He his girlfriend and I sat up late one night chatting about life and the topic of belief in God came up.  He said he was an atheist now, and couldn't reconcile a God, but questioned this little experience.  he thought if God, then perhaps this dream was from God.  he looks back and wonders if it was God, or just him creating a story while dreaming to confirm his own feelings and thoughts.  The issue he has is whether this experience is evidence of God, or if treating such a spiritual faith experience as evidence is really just fideism.  It takes faith for him to see the dream as an answer from God, and therefore as evidence of God.

Just a story to illustrate the issue, I hope.  

Most dreams don't have anything that would really allow one to distinguish them from what their unconsciousness could produce. Some do. Doesn't mean they aren't meaningful of course. Our interpretations of experience often are quite involuntary. If I'm convinced of something after an experience asking why I'm convinced may not be as fruitful as some suggest. Too much is going on in an unconscious fashion.

All that said, not all dreams are like that. The example I gave earlier of accurate predictions of something one didn't already know seem pretty compelling - particularly if done in a consistent way over time. The usual way to test any theory of a phenomena is to look at what predictions it makes and see if those predictions pan out over time. Sometimes very different interpretations & hypotheses make identical predictions. In which case we can't distinguish them. Typically though we can draw out a difference and make a prediction from that.

If one feels there are answers to prayers, those answers include predictions, and those predictions are unusually accurate then to me that's strong justification. Now of course we still need to be careful. Selection bias can occur where we pay attention to predictions that pan out and ignore ones that don't. So a certain degree of skepticism and care is necessary. However obviously I believe one can use this to come to knowledge.

[Gray]

12 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Of course they do. Or more accurately there is no need to interpret them.

If a bear is chasing you do you stop and interpret the experience before you run?

Experiences are usually a full body reaction. one would not stand there and try to figure out if the bear was illusory or real. The growling running Bear is the experience.  It is real and there is no interpretation.  

Driving a car is the same thing. Falling in love is the same thing.

Reality as we know it is uninterpreted experience, from nano second to nanosecond in every day of our lives.

We look at a chair and sit down. We don't analyze the fact that there is more space between the atoms than solid before doing so and wonder if we should actually sit there or not.

Do we feel happy or sad in a movie? do we jump and then laugh at ourselves for doing so?

The interpretation clearly comes after the raw experience as a different experience of us observing ourselves, and then comes the analysis.

"There are no facts, only interpretations." - you

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I do not want to rationally examine my spiritual experiences. At least not much. The issue is that the experiences are purer, more real. When I descend into analysis I am turning from the more real to the less real and less reliable. To use the old LDS pure spring analogy I am going from the fountain of living waters to the muddied water further from the source after the cows and whatever have been mucking about in it.

Thanks for explaining.  This sounds to me more directly like the fideism that Clark is talking about.  I'm not sure it mirrors what Wayment or Givens are saying, but it is somewhat related.  

[mfbukowski]

Just now, Gray said:

"There are no facts, only interpretations." - you

You confuse verbally stated facts with raw experience.

Fact: " Antarctica is where the south pole is located."

It is a verbal statement which implies other verbal statements about where Antarctica is located the name of Antarctica what south pole means etc.

That one fact takes a mountain of interpretations from other human interpretations just to make sense.

That is what Nietzsche meant.

Reacting to a growling bear is quite different.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I do not want to rationally examine my spiritual experiences. At least not much. The issue is that the experiences are purer, more real. When I descend into analysis I am turning from the more real to the less real and less reliable. To use the old LDS pure spring analogy I am going from the fountain of living waters to the muddied water further from the source after the cows and whatever have been mucking about in it.

Yes this is it.! Reality is raw experience. After that comes the interpretation.

I like that phrase "descend into analysis."

That is where we get what are called meta-narratives. We end up talking about talk, not reality.

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I agree with you about renegotiation, and I think that everyone does this at some level, whether they are aware of that they are doing it or not, and it crosses religious categories.  I'm not hung up on rationally justifying subjective experiences, although I think some people may feel the need to do this.  Perhaps Dr. Wayment feels a need to protect his spiritual experiences from rational evaluation.  That is what it sounded like to me.  

For the Givens quote, I do wonder if he's just trying to be politically correct, but I don't know.  He is a very smart person and extremely well read, so I have to assume that he's familiar with other Christian theologians that don't consider a historical resurrection to be a non-negotiable.  So, I do think that he may be establishing certain boundaries that he believes are important to hold fast on.  

I have heard Givens be charitable to those who have a non-historical approach to the BoM before, but I've heard him articulate something along the lines that this position is not an easy one to hold in Mormonism.  I'll have to try and dig up that quote and refresh my memory, I think it was an interview he did when the BoM historicity question came up. 

That's why I get him. "The Book of Mormon is historical" is a dialetheistic statement, like "Fred is in the room" when he is standing in the door. as it stands it is both true and false depending on the context in which you see it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetheism

So both statements are true depending on the context. In a discussion on faith it is true. In a discussion about history it is true, undetermined, or at worst, false.

Edited January 17, 2019 by mfbukowski

[stemelbow]

25 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Most dreams don't have anything that would really allow one to distinguish them from what their unconsciousness could produce. Some do. Doesn't mean they aren't meaningful of course. Our interpretations of experience often are quite involuntary. If I'm convinced of something after an experience asking why I'm convinced may not be as fruitful as some suggest. Too much is going on in an unconscious fashion.

All that said, not all dreams are like that. The example I gave earlier of accurate predictions of something one didn't already know seem pretty compelling - particularly if done in a consistent way over time. The usual way to test any theory of a phenomena is to look at what predictions it makes and see if those predictions pan out over time. Sometimes very different interpretations & hypotheses make identical predictions. In which case we can't distinguish them. Typically though we can draw out a difference and make a prediction from that.

If one feels there are answers to prayers, those answers include predictions, and those predictions are unusually accurate then to me that's strong justification. Now of course we still need to be careful. Selection bias can occur where we pay attention to predictions that pan out and ignore ones that don't. So a certain degree of skepticism and care is necessary. However obviously I believe one can use this to come to knowledge.

Joseph's dreaming visionary experience is nothing short of another good example of the issues raised here.  Was it him or can we legitimately say it was more than him?  

[Gray]

33 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

You confuse verbally stated facts with raw experience.

Fact: " Antarctica is where the south pole is located."

It is a verbal statement which implies other verbal statements about where Antarctica is located the name of Antarctica what south pole means etc.

That one fact takes a mountain of interpretations from other human interpretations just to make sense.

That is what Nietzsche meant.

Reacting to a growling bear is quite different.

The experience must be interpreted to have meaning.

[The Nehor]

4 minutes ago, Gray said:

The experience must be interpreted to have meaning.

Does it though?

Then again I am a proud supernaturalist that believes spiritual experiences are a direct spirit to spirit communication that requires little or no interpretation. In general though most experiences do have to be interpreted.

PS: Yes, I know the LDS position is that nothing is truly supernatural and that all is natural so please nobody feel the need to pedantically correct me with a long spiel that will put everyone to sleep because we have all heard it a million times.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

Thanks for explaining.  This sounds to me more directly like the fideism that Clark is talking about.  I'm not sure it mirrors what Wayment or Givens are saying, but it is somewhat related.  

Don't get stuck in abstractions and classification. They lead to confusion. Say it directly for what it is.

But yes, I do consider myself a Fideist as I understand the word but that doesn't mean that is the same classification that Clark understands as the word.

This is the way I see it, maybe Clark agrees with this article maybe not.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/

I am too busy worrying about the way I think of things than worrying about what Clark thinks about them 

He's lucky that he doesn't live in my head that's all.

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Most dreams don't have anything that would really allow one to distinguish them from what their unconsciousness could produce. Some do. Doesn't mean they aren't meaningful of course. Our interpretations of experience often are quite involuntary. If I'm convinced of something after an experience asking why I'm convinced may not be as fruitful as some suggest. Too much is going on in an unconscious fashion.

All that said, not all dreams are like that. The example I gave earlier of accurate predictions of something one didn't already know seem pretty compelling - particularly if done in a consistent way over time. The usual way to test any theory of a phenomena is to look at what predictions it makes and see if those predictions pan out over time. Sometimes very different interpretations & hypotheses make identical predictions. In which case we can't distinguish them. Typically though we can draw out a difference and make a prediction from that.

If one feels there are answers to prayers, those answers include predictions, and those predictions are unusually accurate then to me that's strong justification. Now of course we still need to be careful. Selection bias can occur where we pay attention to predictions that pan out and ignore ones that don't. So a certain degree of skepticism and care is necessary. However obviously I believe one can use this to come to knowledge.

Dang.

We agree again. What's happening Here?

 

[clarkgoble]

4 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

But yes, I do consider myself a Fideist as I understand the word but that doesn't mean that is the same classification that Clark understands as the word.

Just to be clear, I think there's a range of meanings of fideist. It's a somewhat broad term. I don't feel like l completely understand your own position although my sense is that it's somewhat close to William James'. That's different from the fideism of say a Catholic saying tradition and scripture trumps reason. And as we discussed last week I'm not sure either Wittgenstein or Kierkegaard ought be considered fideists for subtle reasons although they're often included in the category.

 

4 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Dang.

We agree again. What's happening Here?

Our positions often sound quite similar. I think the different is the place I give prediction and the future. And yes, the place I give classification. It must be the Peircean in me since he was given to perhaps undue focus on taxonomies. However I think classifying and then testing and attempting to falsify classifications is hugely important for making clear our conceptions.

 

[stemelbow]

13 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I think the different is the place I give prediction and the future. 

 

Do you mind explaining more of this?  I can't see any meaningful difference between your view and Mfbukowski's.  I'm scratching my head wondering what place you give prediction and the future that shows any difference.  

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Just to be clear, I think there's a range of meanings of fideist. It's a somewhat broad term. I don't feel like l completely understand your own position although my sense is that it's somewhat close to William James'. That's different from the fideism of say a Catholic saying tradition and scripture trumps reason. And as we discussed last week I'm not sure either Wittgenstein or Kierkegaard ought be considered fideists for subtle reasons although they're often included in the category.

 

Our positions often sound quite similar. I think the different is the place I give prediction and the future. And yes, the place I give classification. It must be the Peircean in me since he was given to perhaps undue focus on taxonomies. However I think classifying and then testing and attempting to falsify classifications is hugely important for making clear our conceptions.

 

Well I'm pretty Kantian, fan of Tertulian etc. I agree with the Stanford article.

But I really hate discussing taxonomy. That's what I dislike about Peirce.

And yes I like predictability as well. But we have discussed that before with no understanding.

What we predict is raw unfiltered experience, like the growling bear. If he's asleep and I predict that I will have the experience of being chased and poke him with a stick to find out I will receive another Raw experience of being chased.

When Galileo first saw the rings of Saturn, it was a raw experience. Every time he looked at it again it was still a raw experience, but over time he decided that what he was seeing were "rings".

Now in a verbal context that became a "fact." We know what rings are and that was an interpretation and a verbal description.

Before that they were just white blurry blobs of raw experience.

[mfbukowski]

3 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Do you mind explaining more of this?  I can't see any meaningful difference between your view and Mfbukowski's.  I'm scratching my head wondering what place you give prediction and the future that shows any difference.  

None. That's Clark's thing that I don't get either.

[mfbukowski]

Temple is calling. Ah, to bask in the spirit, for hours on end, first a session and then work for 6 hours helping others to get their session in.

Pure Bliss  see y'all later.

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by mfbukowski