The Meeting of the Waters or (Waxing Philosophical)

[Fair Dinkum]

Near the Brazilian city of Manaus, two tributaries of the Amazon come together in a natural wonder known as the meeting of the waters.  This is where the waters of the Rio Negro, a dark muddy tributary, and the Amazon River, also known as Rio Solimões, a clear running tributary, come together.  The two tributaries run side by side together for miles but eventually these two polar opposites must find a middle ground and merge into waters that neither of the two tributaries represent, accepting both the good and the bad and forming what from that point on is the Amazon, the greatest river on earth.

I have witnessed this natural phenomenon first hand when my wife and I picked up our son from his mission to Brazil. Ever since I first became aware of the difficulties in the traditional church narrative, I have been like this river, struggling to find the common ground and make sense of the conflicts within the church narrative and it's truth claims so that I could maintain belief and faith.  

But as time has gone on and as I have attempted to merge the various conflicting clear running traditional truth claims of Mormonism with the actual muddy narrative that actually exists, I have had to form a much more nuanced but less faith promoting reality of what the church actually is.  I have discovered that the church is a very complex organization consisting of both good and bad elements that form what we refer to as "The Church".

Through this process that has been an ongoing process of many years , I have tried to keep an open mind.  I have had to accept that the church as an organization consists of members who are wonderful, good, decent people who try to do much good in the world through tireless acts of service to others and of an organization known as the church that also does much good in the world but is also made up of aspects of its character that are foundational to the institution that cause so much mental anguish, division, shaming and unnecessary pain on both its active, inactive and former members through many of the teaching that it promotes, all well meaning I suppose but yet still inflicting pain.

I'm now at a point where the conflicting narratives have fully merged. I've been to the bottom of the rabbit hole and I see the good and the bad.  The question that remains is whether or not the claimed clear waters that I now see as muddy and somewhat polluted are even drinkable any longer.  I guess I am at an inflection point. 

I recognize that my views are not fully welcomed here (for those that still tolerate me, I thank you for your patience) and yet I don't really want to go to other boards where the tone is often more critical but where my views might be more welcomed. So what to do?

So in the end I'm left with just trying to blend what little faith remains, which isn't much, with the reality of what I believe is actually true and remains. At some point I know I just need to accept reality and move on but it is so difficult to leave something that has defined my entire life.

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[rongo]

I have some questions that would help me to better comment on your OP. 

---

Do you still participate in ordinances (baptism, sacrament, ordinations, temple, healing, etc.)?

Do you continue to fully participate in church life? If so, is it out of a genuine desire to, or is it more cultural or to make other people happy?

Is there still a belief in God? If so, is it more metaphysical than anthropomorphic? 

Do you believe that Jesus was a real historical figure, and that He was actually resurrected? 

It seems to me that you don't believe much, if anything, in the scriptures really existed or happened. Are there some things/people that you do believe existed or happened? I'm thinking more specific than a Bronze Age settlement.

---

Thanks! I think your answers to these help me better see where you are at.

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Near the Brazilian city of Manaus, two tributaries of the Amazon come together in a natural wonder known as the meeting of the waters.  This is where the waters of the Rio Negro, a dark muddy tributary, and the Amazon River, also known as Rio Solimões, a clear running tributary, come together.  The two tributaries run side by side together for miles but eventually these two polar opposites must find a middle ground and merge into waters that neither of the two tributaries represent, accepting both the good and the bad and forming what from that point on is the Amazon, the greatest river on earth.

I have witnessed this natural phenomenon first hand when my wife and I picked up our son from his mission to Brazil. Ever since I first became aware of the difficulties in the traditional church narrative, I have been like this river, struggling to find the common ground and make sense of the conflicts within the church narrative and it's truth claims so that I could maintain belief and faith.  

But as time has gone on and as I have attempted to merge the various conflicting clear running traditional truth claims of Mormonism with the actual muddy narrative that actually exists, I have had to form a much more nuanced but less faith promoting reality of what the church actually is.  I have discovered that the church is a very complex organization consisting of both good and bad elements that form what we refer to as "The Church".

Through this process that has been an ongoing process of many years , I have tried to keep an open mind.  I have had to accept that the church as an organization consists of members who are wonderful, good, decent people who try to do much good in the world through tireless acts of service to others and of an organization known as the church that also does much good in the world but is also made up of aspects of its character that are foundational to the institution that cause so much mental anguish, division, shaming and unnecessary pain on both its active, inactive and former members through many of the teaching that it promotes, all well meaning I suppose but yet still inflicting pain.

I'm now at a point where the conflicting narratives have fully merged. I've been to the bottom of the rabbit hole and I see the good and the bad.  The question that remains is whether or not the claimed clear waters that I now see as muddy and somewhat polluted are even drinkable any longer.  I guess I am at an inflection point. 

I recognize that my views are not fully welcomed here (for those that still tolerate me, I thank you for your patience) and yet I don't really want to go to other boards where the tone is often more critical but where my views might be more welcomed. So what to do?

So in the end I'm left with just trying to blend what little faith remains, which isn't much, with the reality of what I believe is actually true and remains. At some point I know I just need to accept reality and move on but it is so difficult to leave something that has defined my entire life.

 

Please just take what you have problems with AS parables to teach us how to live.

Maybe they are, maybe not.

They are not canonized history because we cannot tell which are historical and which are parables.

But they were SELECTED for their spiritual value and NOT THEIR HISTORICAL VALUE.

We have a long tradition of Protestant fundamentalism because of early converts who WERE Protestant fundamentalists.

But this is 2021.  Virtually no one except fundamentalists believe in a literal 6 day creation, global flood, etc.

It's time for each of us to put off childish beliefs and see the glorious gospel for what it is  - the best paradigm and goal for humanity, seeing our full human potential by understanding both sides of the "river", one side representing literal Fundamentalism and the other a more figurative interpretation. 

See how mixed those rivers are a few hundred miles downriver from their intersection as two rivers become one, and the two gospel traditions become one

That two hundred miles represents the 2 hundred years of the gospel

It's time to put off the differences between Fundamentalism and figurativism and see the wonderful beauty of the best paradigm for humanity that God has ever given us 

It's time to grow up.

 

[Vanguard]

Good post. But is this more an issue with a belief in God or an issue with the particular LDS belief? It's nice to define the parameters of the debate. In other words, it seems silly to be discussing whether the Polynesians are of Lamanite descent (or some such) with someone who thinks God is a fabrication. 

As an aside, my folks came to pick me up in Brazil too (back in '87!). I hope your trip was as wonderful as it was for my own parents. : )

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Near the Brazilian city of Manaus, two tributaries of the Amazon come together in a natural wonder known as the meeting of the waters.  This is where the waters of the Rio Negro, a dark muddy tributary, and the Amazon River, also known as Rio Solimões, a clear running tributary, come together.  The two tributaries run side by side together for miles but eventually these two polar opposites must find a middle ground and merge into waters that neither of the two tributaries represent, accepting both the good and the bad and forming what from that point on is the Amazon, the greatest river on earth.

I have witnessed this natural phenomenon first hand when my wife and I picked up our son from his mission to Brazil. Ever since I first became aware of the difficulties in the traditional church narrative, I have been like this river, struggling to find the common ground and make sense of the conflicts within the church narrative and it's truth claims so that I could maintain belief and faith.  

But as time has gone on and as I have attempted to merge the various conflicting clear running traditional truth claims of Mormonism with the actual muddy narrative that actually exists, I have had to form a much more nuanced but less faith promoting reality of what the church actually is.  I have discovered that the church is a very complex organization consisting of both good and bad elements that form what we refer to as "The Church".

Through this process that has been an ongoing process of many years , I have tried to keep an open mind.  I have had to accept that the church as an organization consists of members who are wonderful, good, decent people who try to do much good in the world through tireless acts of service to others and of an organization known as the church that also does much good in the world but is also made up of aspects of its character that are foundational to the institution that cause so much mental anguish, division, shaming and unnecessary pain on both its active, inactive and former members through many of the teaching that it promotes, all well meaning I suppose but yet still inflicting pain.

I'm now at a point where the conflicting narratives have fully merged. I've been to the bottom of the rabbit hole and I see the good and the bad.  The question that remains is whether or not the claimed clear waters that I now see as muddy and somewhat polluted are even drinkable any longer.  I guess I am at an inflection point. 

I recognize that my views are not fully welcomed here (for those that still tolerate me, I thank you for your patience) and yet I don't really want to go to other boards where the tone is often more critical but where my views might be more welcomed. So what to do?

So in the end I'm left with just trying to blend what little faith remains, which isn't much, with the reality of what I believe is actually true and remains. At some point I know I just need to accept reality and move on but it is so difficult to leave something that has defined my entire life.

 

Focusing on: "The question that remains is whether or not the claimed clear waters that I now see as muddy and somewhat polluted are even drinkable any longer. "

Having a testimony that the keys have been restored, "if [you] drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt [you]..." My application is, if by faith you see clear water, and by eyesight you see muddy water, for all intents and purposes the water is good to drink. If you lack faith, all you have to go by is eyesight, unless a particle of faith holds you back. Non-rational does not mean useless.

The Church has put out this app, a non-denominational approach to living a happier life through simple spiritual (which means non-rational) exercises: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/become This might help developing faith outside those specifics which might bother you.

News release: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/become-app

[Fair Dinkum]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

I have some questions that would help me to better comment on your OP. 

---

Do you still participate in ordinances (baptism, sacrament, ordinations, temple, healing, etc.)?

Do you continue to fully participate in church life? If so, is it out of a genuine desire to, or is it more cultural or to make other people happy?

Is there still a belief in God? If so, is it more metaphysical than anthropomorphic? 

Do you believe that Jesus was a real historical figure, and that He was actually resurrected? 

It seems to me that you don't believe much, if anything, in the scriptures really existed or happened. Are there some things/people that you do believe existed or happened? I'm thinking more specific than a Bronze Age settlement.

---

Thanks! I think your answers to these help me better see where you are at.

 

I would prefer to not go into specifics. EDIT: I'll disclose that I currently question the existence of a god and I'm ok with that.  Leave it say that my faith is in tatters,  feel free to draw any conclusions you care to draw from that. (that probably seems a bit obvious from my posts on this board)

Edited September 23, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[Fair Dinkum]

39 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Please just take what you have problems with AS parables to teach us how to live.

Maybe they are, maybe not.

They are not canonized history because we cannot tell which are historical and which are parables.

But they were SELECTED for their spiritual value and NOT THEIR HISTORICAL VALUE.

We have a long tradition of Protestant fundamentalism because of early converts who WERE Protestant fundamentalists.

But this is 2021.  Virtually no one except fundamentalists believe in a literal 6 day creation, global flood, etc.

It's time for each of us to put off childish beliefs and see the glorious gospel for what it is  - the best paradigm and goal for humanity, seeing our full human potential by understanding both sides of the "river", one side representing literal Fundamentalism and the other a more figurative interpretation. 

See how mixed those rivers are a few hundred miles downriver from their intersection as two rivers become one, and the two gospel traditions become one

That two hundred miles represents the 2 hundred years of the gospel

It's time to put off the differences between Fundamentalism and figurativism and see the wonderful beauty of the best paradigm for humanity that God has ever given us 

It's time to grow up.

 

I think that is exactly where I am in my faith journey.  My only problem is that I have little left to find belief in.

[CV75]

6 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I think that is exactly where I am in my faith journey.  My only problem is that I have little left to find belief in.

What areas of your life do you find bring you and yours happiness on a non-rational basis? Aren't these enough; if not, why?

[Fair Dinkum]

6 minutes ago, CV75 said:

What areas of your life do you find bring you and yours happiness on a non-rational basis? Aren't these enough; if not, why?

I live a full, happy, active existence.  But that doesn't mean that I can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I care about LDS truth claims.  It has taken time but I've found a happy place within my own worldview.

[mfbukowski]

41 minutes ago, CV75 said:

The Church has put out this app, a non-denominational approach to living a happier life through simple spiritual (which means non-rational) exercises: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/become This might help developing faith outside those specifics which might bother you.

News release: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/become-app

Even atheist philosophers think that belief in God is perfectly rational, as rational as believing that murder is wrong. 

Thanks for those references!

[let’s roll]

4 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I live a full, happy, active existence.  But that doesn't mean that I can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I care about LDS truth claims.  It has taken time but I've found a happy place within my own worldview.

My experience has been that a relatively few moments of true communion with Deity provide much more peace than an encyclopedia of verified truth claims.  

I have a doctorate degree and an IQ north of 140 but I’ve learned infinitely more in those moments of communion than I have with my “natural” abilities and scholarship.

[mfbukowski]

34 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I think that is exactly where I am in my faith journey.  My only problem is that I have little left to find belief in.

To me, those two statements sound contradictory.  Just trying to figure out what you mean, I don't mean to sound like I am prying here.  Also the phrase "truth claims" implies that faith is not necessary.  But then again What is truth? 

So we have a "faith journey" with "little to believe in".  Surely you have moral beliefs, political beliefs, beliefs in human rights or no human rights, etc without any scientific or empirical "evidence" for any of those.  Just trying to get where you are coming from clear in my mind

 

[Fair Dinkum]

28 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

To me, those two statements sound contradictory.  Just trying to figure out what you mean, I don't mean to sound like I am prying here.  Also the phrase "truth claims" implies that faith is not necessary.  But then again What is truth? 

So we have a "faith journey" with "little to believe in".  Surely you have moral beliefs, political beliefs, beliefs in human rights or no human rights, etc without any scientific or empirical "evidence" for any of those.  Just trying to get where you are coming from clear in my mind

 

I like what Thomas Edison said.  "For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope."  so at least for me, faith must be built on a foundation of truth. If I find that the foundation I based on faith on was fiction then at least for me my faith disappears

Edited September 23, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I live a full, happy, active existence.  But that doesn't mean that I can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I care about LDS truth claims.  It has taken time but I've found a happy place within my own worldview.

The thrust of my question was meant to understand what non-rational experiences have replaced your belief in LDS teachings. Second to that, supposing you to be generally and sufficiently happy with that, to understand, if not, why.

[bOObOO]

7 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I like what Thomas Edison said.  "For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope."  so at least for me, faith must be built on a foundation of truth. If I find that the foundation I based on faith on was fiction then at least for me my faith disappears

I think you'll be okay as long as you realize nobody can prove something you believe in but haven't seen isn't true, or any other negative.  You are the only one who can choose to stop believing in what you haven't seen but choose to believe anyway.

The main reason people choose to stop believing in something they believe in but haven't seen is because they allow themselves to believe in what someone else says they should believe in, allowing their beliefs to be dictated by what other people tell them.

You believe in God, for example, even though you haven't seen him, or at least not that you can remember.  And you can continue to believe in God for as long as you want to, even if someone else tells you they do not believe in God.

But if you were to change your mind and start believing what the person who doesn't believe in God tells you, thinking he is right when he says there is no God, you'd be allowing that person to dictate what you believe and you would stop believing in God.

Not because he has any evidence that there is no God.  There is no proof of any negative.  You would just be changing your mind because you would start believing a person who didn't believe was right.

Or take another example from a thread that you just started.  There is no proof that people from America never migrated to the Polynesian islands.  And there is no proof that people never came to America from the Middle East, as the BoM indicates.

What you believe are facts is all up to you, just as determining what is fiction is all up to you.  Or you could allow someone else to tell you what is fact and what is fiction with you just agreeing with whatever that person tells you.  What you do is all up to you.

[Fair Dinkum]

31 minutes ago, CV75 said:

The thrust of my question was meant to understand what non-rational experiences have replaced your belief in LDS teachings. Second to that, supposing you to be generally and sufficiently happy with that, to understand, if not, why.

For good or naught, I do not put any time towards the support of non-rational experiences beyond perhaps the celebration of the holidays such as Christmas, merely out of tradition.  I tend to gravitate toward rationality.  Honestly as my faith melted away I had to completely reconstruct my purpose for living.  Not that I was ever considering ending that life, just finding new purpose and focus.  And yes I find joy , purpose and happiness within my new life paradigm.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[CV75]

43 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

For good or naught, I do not put any time towards the support of non-rational experiences beyond perhaps the celebration of the holidays such as Christmas, merely out of tradition.  I tend to gravitate toward rationality.  Honestly as my faith melted away I had to completely reconstruct my purpose for living.  Not that I was ever considering ending that life, just finding new purpose and focus.  And yes I find joy , purpose and happiness within my new life paradigm.

The science proves that you in fact do put almost all your "time" towards non-rational experience and the application thereof, a different subject. But you answered my question in that the celebration of holidays and other traditions provides as much non-rational gratification as your former beliefs in the Gospel (am I correct in that understanding?).

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I like what Thomas Edison said.  "For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope."  so at least for me, faith must be built on a foundation of truth. If I find that the foundation I based on faith on was fiction then at least for me my faith disappears

He may have been great at physics and electricity but did not understand spirituality at all.

Faith based on facts?  

I haven't clue what that could possibly mean.  It's like saying that fire has to be based in water, or that without crime, justice could not exist.  Actually that last one makes MORE sense!

Galileo said that scriptures teach you how to go to heaven, not why the heavens go.   Two different questions, two different perspectives, but we have been over this several times.

OK well I wish you well in your journey, we have never quite connected on this one.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I tend to gravitate toward rationality. 

I suggest you take some philosophy classes online or wherever on epistemology and how we know what we know  and what professionals regard as "rational". 

Google "the death of positivism" which is the position you are attempting to defend here.  Virtually no philosopher of science would defend your position.

http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p128271/mobile/ch01s02.html

Unfortunately your belief that it is irrational to believe ideas NOT based on "Facts" is itself not based on empirical facts.   It contradicts itself from the very beginning.

THAT is your statement of faith right there- your belief in that non-verifiable principle.

Quote

 

At the base of logical positivism is the famous Verification Principle. This says that only assertions that are in principle verifiable by observation or experience can convey factual information and be meaningful. Assertions that have no imaginable method of verification must either be analytic (tautological) or meaningless (Magee, 1997). Thus, the two central ideas of logical positivism relate to language: the analytic-synthetic distinction and the verifiability theory of meaning. The first idea relates to the distinction between analytic statements, which are true in themselves (basically a tautology), and synthetic statements, which are true or false in relation to how the world is. The second idea is that experience is the only source of meaning and the only source of knowledge. Thus, if a sentence (in a theory, say) has no possible means of verification, it has no meaning. Scientific statements were to consist of verifiable, and hence meaningful, claims.

Karl Popper in his autobiography (Popper, 1986) takes the credit for ‘killing’ logical positivism as early as 1934 by pointing out some of its mistakes in Logic der Forschung (Popper, 1934), not published until 1959 in English as The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Popper, 1980). Popper was opposed to the concentration upon minutiae and especially upon the meaning of words by the logical positivists, and the avoidance of metaphysical problems. A difficulty with the Verification Principle is that it is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable itself and therefore, according to its own criterion, is meaningless. The Verification Principle has the effect of outlawing more or less the whole of metaphysical speculation in philosophy – everything apart from logic. Popper also showed that the Verification Principle eliminated almost the whole of science. An aim of science is the search for natural laws, which are unrestrictedly general statements about the world that are known to be invariantly true: for example, Boyle’s Law, the law of gravity, or E=mc2. Popper showed that these laws are not empirically verifiable, acknowledging that the English empiricist David Hume had made this observation two-and-a-half centuries before. The problem is that of induction: from no finite number of observations, however large, can any unrestrictedly general conclusion be drawn that would be defensible in logic. For example, we cannot prove ‘all swans are black’ no matter how many swans we observe.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism

 

Logical Empiricism

https://plato.stanford.edu › entries › logical-empiricism

by R Creath · 2011 · Cited by 201 — Meanwhile in Chicago the Encyclopedia of Unified Science was established with ... Later he claimed to have “killed” logical positivism.

‎Mapping the Movement · ‎Some Major Participants in the Movement · ‎Issues · ‎Impact

 

Vienna Circle

https://plato.stanford.edu › entries › vienna-circle

by T Uebel · 2006 · Cited by 172 — While the Vienna Circle's early form of logical empiricism (or logical ... forced exile and death meant that after the murder of Schlick in ...

 

Rudolf Carnap

https://plato.stanford.edu › entries › carnap

by H Leitgeb · 2020 · Cited by 17 — His influence declined, therefore, when logical empiricism lost its ... The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 Edition), ...

 

Alfred Jules Ayer

https://plato.stanford.edu › entries › ayer

by G Macdonald · 2005 · Cited by 20 — ... what were understood to be the major theses of logical positivism, ... their daughter, who died suddenly of Hodgkin's disease in 1981.

 

There are probably hundreds of articles on this

Edited September 24, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 9/23/2021 at 2:37 PM, Fair Dinkum said:

I like what Thomas Edison said.  "For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope."  so at least for me, faith must be built on a foundation of truth. If I find that the foundation I based on faith on was fiction then at least for me my faith disappears

This is yet another strong article against positivism.

Sorry, I was unable to copy the URL, but if you simply search the title and author, you will find the full article.  "Cryptopositivism" would be the hidden positivism found in faulty reasoning. He's against it 

 

Abstract

Approaches to research in the social sciences often embrace schema that are consistent with positivism, even though it is widely held that positivism is discredited and essentially dead. Accordingly, many of the methods used in present day scholarship are supported by the tenets of positivism, and are sources of hegemony. We exhort researchers to employ reflexive methods to identify the epistemologies, ontologies and axiologies that are salient in their scholarship and, when necessary, transform practices such that forms of oppression associated with crypto-positivism are identified and extinguished.

Edited September 25, 2021 by mfbukowski

[carbon dioxide]

On 9/23/2021 at 12:03 PM, Fair Dinkum said:

I'm now at a point where the conflicting narratives have fully merged. I've been to the bottom of the rabbit hole and I see the good and the bad.  The question that remains is whether or not the claimed clear waters that I now see as muddy and somewhat polluted are even drinkable any longer.  I guess I am at an inflection point. 

 

I recognize that my views are not fully welcomed here (for those that still tolerate me, I thank you for your patience) and yet I don't really want to go to other boards where the tone is often more critical but where my views might be more welcomed. So what to do?

So in the end I'm left with just trying to blend what little faith remains, which isn't much, with the reality of what I believe is actually true and remains. At some point I know I just need to accept reality and move on but it is so difficult to leave something that has defined my entire life.

I navigate through these waters with a view that the truths revealed in the restoration are true but God allows individuals to go beyond the revealed truth and come up with views that are not really true.  God does not care that much as these false views are not important in the eternal view of things.  He allows us time and space to work these issues out.  So the Book of Mormon is correct but a lot of the side line stuff like where in the Americas that it occurred, where all the inhabitants of the Americas came from, and so forth really are not that important in God's perspective.  God does not hold fireside question and answer sessions where people can ask God any question one is interested in and he answers.  The clear waters is the eternal truths taught in the scriptures.  The muddy water is everything that is not taught in the scriptures.  The muddy water may contain truth but one has to tread through those waters carefully.  You will never have all your questions answered.  The is a fact in life in every area.  Coming to terms with that is essential at navigating the waters of life.  As long as one is grounded in the important waypoints, all the other stuff does not bother me too much.

[bsjkki]

I read so much anti stuff it led me straight back to God. There are some things that will not be reconciled but they no longer seem important. I don’t think you can actually study your way to faith because it is the peace of the spirit that matters. 

[OGHoosier]

On 9/24/2021 at 8:06 PM, mfbukowski said:

This is yet another strong article against positivism.

Sorry, I was unable to copy the URL, but if you simply search the title and author, you will find the full article.  "Cryptopositivism" would be the hidden positivism found in faulty reasoning. He's against it 

 

Abstract

Approaches to research in the social sciences often embrace schema that are consistent with positivism, even though it is widely held that positivism is discredited and essentially dead. Accordingly, many of the methods used in present day scholarship are supported by the tenets of positivism, and are sources of hegemony. We exhort researchers to employ reflexive methods to identify the epistemologies, ontologies and axiologies that are salient in their scholarship and, when necessary, transform practices such that forms of oppression associated with crypto-positivism are identified and extinguished.

I've got your back. The article is "The much exaggerated death of positivism" by Joe Kincheloe and Kenneth Tobin, published in Cultural Studies of Science Education in 2009. 

I've read it and I agree it's pretty good. Reading things like this is always an amusing experience for me. I get the impression that Kincheloe and Tobin would not like me nor my views on most things very much. Such a shame. 

For me, the article that really rang positivism's bell was Alan Goff's The Inevitability of Epistemology in Historiography: Theory, History, and Zombie Mormon History. I still need to read Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism though, that one's the real groundbreaker (or so I'm told.) 

 

[pogi]

On 9/23/2021 at 12:03 PM, Fair Dinkum said:

it is so difficult to leave something that has defined my entire life.

I don't think it is healthy to abandon such a big part of what makes you, you.   Do as you were raised to do as a Mormon and take the good from all religions (that includes Mormonism) and leave the bad.  I think you will find that there is more worthy of keeping than there is worthy of discarding.   I think there is wisdom and peace in honoring and respecting your heritage and roots for how it has sustained you over the years.  I see too many chop at their roots and suffer psychologically. 

The Amazon river is mighty because it uses the confluence to its advantage and doesn't sever one tributary completely.  Let Mormonism continue to fill your banks as a major tributary.  It will serve you well.  

[Fair Dinkum]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

I don't think it is healthy to abandon such a big part of what makes you, you.   Do as you were raised to do as a Mormon and take the good from all religions (that includes Mormonism) and leave the bad.  I think you will find that there is more worthy of keeping than there is worthy of discarding.   I think there is wisdom and peace in honoring and respecting your heritage and roots for how it has sustained you over the years.  I see too many chop at their roots and suffer psychologically. 

The Amazon river is mighty because it uses the confluence to its advantage and doesn't sever one tributary completely.  Let Mormonism continue to fill your banks as a major tributary.  It will serve you well.  

Great advice, I hear you and I believe I am taking the good and leaving the the bad.  Holding to what is true is so endemic to being a Mormon I can't imagine ever discarding my love of what is true.