We Actually Do Know that Literal “Spirits” Aren’t Real

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Can you please help me out. Why is referring to experts on certain subjects an appeal to authority and as such, a logical weakness.  Don't you post all sorts of stuff from all sorts of experts on all sorts of things in order to make your point?  Is it an appeal to authority when you do that?  This is an honest question and I trying to understand.  Thank you

I think the difference is subtle, and it may or may not be happening here (I haven’t been keeping up, and have a bad habit of responding only to the latest post in a thread):

But an “appeal to authority” fallacy occurs when a claim is to be accepted just because an authority figure supports the claim. The appeal is based on the stature of the person, ideally an expert, and not the content of their argument to support the claim. Like the difference between dogmatism (living by the stature of the rule in one’s eyes) and discipleship (living by the personal verification of the rule). Sorry – I’ve been thinking through those terms from another discussion!  Or, “Do it because the prophet said so,” vs. “Try it because I did and like it.”

[Analytics]

On 5/8/2024 at 1:29 AM, BlueDreams said:

@Analytics

I’m going to see if I can sneak some time to mention my overarching thoughts. I should note, I am not a scientist. So, I definitely can’t talk about the underpinnings of what a physicist says as that’s by no means my background. I think part of my hesitation in entering is that in all the examples you give I have a knowledge-base deficit without much desire to buff up on certain subjects. So since people have talked a good amount about the physics part, I’m going to avoid that since it’s the knowledge base I feel least qualified to talk about. I do have an interest in biology, and neuroscience. So Imma focus on these aspects. Besides, my biggest concerns are the underpinning assumptions. Starting with your Intro.

First with the use of “proof”…this is a seriously lofty claim that science in general hedges carefully around....

True. I was using the word “proof” in a colloquial sense, trying to fairly but concisely relay Sean Carroll’s point. 

On 5/8/2024 at 1:29 AM, BlueDreams said:

For example you give a broad assertions about NDE’s…that’s not actually true. This is something I’m interested in…and have read several books that focused on more the research or medical orientations around NDE’s. This is not a closed field, no one is fully certain what’s happening (though there’s certainly theories/hypotheses). This study also has some stigma in scientific circles which reduces funding and understanding for this area (though it’s an opening field for exploration) Two books that I’ve read in the past are called “After” by Bruce Greyson and “Proof of Heaven” by Eben Alexander. Greyson’s book gives a synthesis of what occurs and is common themes in NDE’s, including the initial account that shook him when he met a patient who had an NDE and described exactly what he did and wore - down to a stain on his tie – in vivid detail while unconscious....

I need to stop you there. Does it really make sense for a disembodied spirit to literally see a stain on a neck tie? When people see things, it’s in a lit space. Light rays bounce off objects, are focused through a lens, go into a dark eyeball, strike retina, which generates electrical signals that travel through the optical nerve to the brain. That’s what it means to see. If an disembodied spirit was capable of seeing, we should be able to clearly see how it distorts the light it is gathering to see, not to mention its eyeball. So does a disembodied spirit see actual light rays? Or is the argument that the spirit is in another dimension or is interacting with some sort of spirit matter? If that’s the case, when Greyson was eating physical spaghetti to feed his biological body, did the spaghetti have a spiritual essence that his spirit was eating? Did that spiritual spaghetti sauce fall onto his spiritual tie and leave a spiritual stain? If that is what the disembodied spirit saw, it raises the question of why blind people can’t use their spiritual eyes to see what’s going on in the world.

The same line of reasoning goes for hearing--how can a spirit hear a conversation without disturbing the sound waves, etc.

For me, believing the transcendental explanation of NDE's is the correct one would take a lot more evidence than the anecdotal evidence that I’m aware of. I think NDE’s happen, but not very many constitute evidence of actual spirits literally leaving the body. That’s the way I see it.

On 5/8/2024 at 1:29 AM, BlueDreams said:

That’s not an “illusion” that can easily be explained away. The other was from a neurosurgeon who had an NDE when he had a serious case of meningitis. The last part of the brain dissected the common science based explanations for what he experienced and why it doesn’t work for his circumstance. I also listened to a more brief explaination of what happened during NDE’s from a more materialist orientation….and it was surprisingly underwhelming and holey.

Second there are many “best of books” The books you’re quoting sound like they absolutely fit in that category. But they come from a very specific mindset with underlying assumptions. That’s a problem. I’m currently doing a deeper dive of spiritual/religious beliefs. If I chose the “best of books” from solely a latter-day saint perspective, which I’ve done and valued…but I would get a very narrow pool to dive in. If I did that from solely a judeo-christian tradition, I’d still be limited and would swim within the parameters and assumption based on the bible and common interpretations/traditions based on it (Which I’ve also done and value). I’m currently taking a broader approach with a wider circle of “best books” Seeking out the best information from practice from world religions and exploring the spiritual values and truths emphasized differently. This again gives me something different. There are “best books” that conflict with the assumptions found in the books you’ve given. That needs to be taken into consideration too if one’s to have a broader understanding.

Those are all good points. People I read tend to use Bayesian reasoning to create extremely high thresholds for things that contradict established laws of physics. On the one hand this is an effective way of dealing with fake science and the accompanying replicability crisis. But on the other hand, it does limit what you take seriously. It’s definitely conceivable that there could be a thing or two that are lumped in with pseudoscience that really are true. 

On 5/8/2024 at 1:29 AM, BlueDreams said:

On to part 2

How one might answer this would vary from person to person and religious tradition to religious tradition. Even in the assumption of the quote you give around judeo-christian belief about souled animals….is not correct.  When I google “do animals have souls” I find about 3-5 different answers from JUST a judeo-christian perspective. This ranges from “we dunno, the bible doesn’t say much about this” to “yes, but” responses to “definitely not, but they have consciousness.” This is a common problem when I see atheist/agnostic/secular oriented scientist books discussing religious beliefs: what they depict is usually oversimplified and thus becomes a bit of a strawman. Again, a problem…because its coming from an extremely limited pool to draw from.

I as a latter-day saint am happily comfortable saying “I dunno” to your questions on this. I feel religiously validated in that “I dunno” based on how I view and engage with my religious practice and beliefs. I know other faiths could probably happily extract an answer based on their beliefs that gave a more fleshed out explanation. Those that have reincarnation as a belief would probably shrug and go, the spirit will just reside in a different from. It’s no more homo erectus than you are the clothes you’re currently wearing. Which means the the assumptive “proof” falls pretty flat.

I also find it weird for a biologist to say that biology proves no one has a soul. I’ve never seen a study trying to suss out the soulness of an animal. Heck, I’ve seen research that hesitates to name behaviors similar in us found in other animals as “happy” or “sad” or “grief” etc…because it can anthropomorphize a different species. The line of thought goes, it may look similar but we don’t have a means to prove that these animal experiences happiness or sadness or grief or anger. It’s impossible to fully study. If something so simple is impossible to fully assess with certainty, then I have no clue how biology could tackle that  soul as a whole and which belief system is closest to “getting it right” or if none of them do.

Yuval Noah Harari is actually a historian and not a biologist. Historically, Mormonism has taught that have a distinctive anti-evolution. For example, Russell M. Nelson is on record as saying, "to think that man evolved from one species to another is, to me, incomprehensible. Man has always been man. Dogs have always been dogs. Monkeys have always been monkeys. It's just the way genetics works.” More to the point, Joseph Fielding Smith said, "There is not and cannot be, any compromise between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the theories of evolution......It is not possible for a logical mind to hold both Bible teaching and evolutionary teaching at the same time."

Of course Joseph Fielding Smith being an apostle at the time he said such things doesn’t make such teachings official or binding on Mormons, and as far as I know fewer and fewer Mormons see the world in the same way he did. But in general, a lot of Christianity is very threatened by Evolution. 

Harari’s point was definitely a broad generalization that doesn’t fit with all conceptions of souls, but it is still illuminating.

On 5/8/2024 at 1:29 AM, BlueDreams said:

When you brought up part 3 I remembered an old book I read from my college days that I really liked. It was called “Aping Mankind” by Raymond Tallis. He has background in neuroscience, particularly in terms of practical application as a former medical doctor and later professor. His book ripped through the common assumptions, ideological underpinnings, and research flaws found in neuroscience and evolutionary theories to explain human consciousness, behavior, and culture. There’s massive limitations that effect what questions can currently be answered. I quite literally dusted off my old copy and started looking for some tidbits tied to what you mentioned. I found 3 main themes in one section tied to neuroscientific studies using fMRI machines in particular. This included oversimplified definitions/stimuli to make assumption about large and complex human constructs, indirect measures of brain activity being the core manner to do said research, and that the wide variations in results of even simple things like motor function was often lost when averaging results. He gave many different examples and in-depth examples of this. For example he described a paper that noted that physical and social pains seem to “light up” the same area of the brain that then concluded that this shows that in social creatures “the need for solidarity is served by making social exclusion painful and this requirement is met by employing circuitry that has already developed to register physical pain” he notes that a more plausible interpretation is that “the failure to demonstrate fundamental differences between stubbing your tow” and “blackballed by a club…is a measure of the limitation of fMRI scanning and, indeed, other modes of brain scanning.”  He also would later go into conceptual limitations and absurdities.

I would note for myself, a common conceptual concern I had in all your posts is what are the definitions and parameters for the terms you're using. What is free will? Are we talking the freedom to choose completely independently or one of mor ground choice, set in a context of social, biological, and environmental contexts, or something else? What is consciousness? Is it just the capacity to engage with certain stimuli or prompts, is it the sense of self?

I think you would really like the Book Who’s In Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain. Despite his superlatively strong credentials, Gazzaniga is very down to earth and sympathetic. While telling the story of the research that led to the conclusions he shares in this book, he actually provides a definition of consciousness. In context, he says:

Quote

 

This posed the problem of whether each consciousness had its own protagonist: Were there then two selves? Were there also two free wills? Why aren’t the two halves of the brain conflicting over which half is in charge? Is one half in charge? Were the two selves of the brain trapped in a body that could only be at one place at one time? Which half decided where the body would be? WHY WHY WHY was there this apparent feeling of unity? Was consciousness and the sense of self actually located in one half of the brain?

It was turning into a theoretical nightmare! And not only that, we were batting around the term consciousness and didn’t really even know what it meant. No one had bothered to look it up. Years later, I decided to, and this is what I found in the 1989 International Dictionary of Psychology. The definition, written by psychologist Stuart Sutherland, was entertaining, if not edifying:

CONSCIOUSNESS: The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings: awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon; it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written about it.

That last bit was a relief to know, because more than eighteen thousand articles had been written about it the last time I did a Medline search, and Sutherland just told me not to bother reading them.

 

Gazzaniga, Michael S.. Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain (pp. 67-68). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

On 5/8/2024 at 1:29 AM, BlueDreams said:

What is consciousness in comparison to the soul/spirit? What is the soul/spirit? Is there a universal definition of that (no, no there is definitely not) and if not who’s definition do we use?

Those are all excellent questions. Gazzaniga’s research doesn’t start out by answering those questions. Rather, he starts in the clinic doing research, and the research leads to tighter and tighter constraints on what answers are plausible and which are not.

On 5/8/2024 at 1:29 AM, BlueDreams said:

So this is why your proofs don’t really do much to prove it for me. It’s not that the information you’ve given isn’t interesting. It is. I mulled if over for a couple days. But interesting is not sufficient to warrant describing this as proof for me.

I appreciate you thinking about it and am glad you found my thoughts interesting. I wasn’t trying to convince anyone so much as explain where I was coming from. The good news about my belief structure is that I don’t believe people will be punished after their dead for not agreeing with me.

[Analytics]

20 hours ago, manol said:

My day job is in a field where physical science and human perceptions are intertwined.  The perceptions can be studied under controlled conditions, and correlations can be made to physical-world measurements.  Biases must be controlled for in the perceptual studies. 

 

Did your "best books" genuinely include both sides of the NDE story?  Biases can "gate-keep" what evidence we allow to be considered.  If you haven't read at least one book by Raymond Moody, Melvin Morse, Bruce Grayson, Jeffrey Long, Kenneth Ring, or Pim van Lommel, then you probably haven't gotten an adequate representation of both sides of the NDE story.

Here's a six-minute clip of Dr. Bruce Greyson as an introduction to "the other side of the story"; please at least watch the first 3 1/2 minutes:

There are many other such videos on YouTube, along with many more first-hand NDE accounts, as well as videos disputing the reality of NDEs, if you don't feel like taking the deeper dive into a book.

 

Dr. Greyson's patient accurately describing events she could not possibly have witnessed from where her body was at the time defies dismissal as mere "illusions driven by the physical processes of the brain."  Likewise the experience of the poster in this thread who accurately observed cars in a parking lot from a perspective which would not have been possible from where his physical body was. 

 

It only took one twelve-second flight for mankind to shift its paradigm about human flight from "impossible" (based on then-known science and well-reasoned arguments) to "reality" (based on experience).  Regardless of how well-reasoned the physical-science-based arguments may be that "NDEs are illusions driven by the physical processes of the brain", it only takes one reliably-documented and inexplicable NDE to make the case that current physical science does not have all of the answers on this subject.  And there are many, many more than one. 

 

I appreciate you sharing these thoughts with me. In the post I just made to BlueDreams, I responded in relative detail to this video, which I did watch in its entirety. I follow people talking about NDE’s in forums like this one, but I have never dived into an actual book on the subject--I just haven’t seen enough to think it would be worth my time.

I do agree with you that we don’t have all of the answers about what’s going on in the world, but I do believe we know enough to rule out some explanations of some things, including the transcendental explanation of NDE’s. But I admit that I’m shooting from the hip on that. I’ve read about various attempts to test NDE theories with cardiac arrest patients, and if some of them showed impressive results in a controlled environment, I’d be much more inclined to take it more seriously.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Historically, Mormonism has taught that have a distinctive anti-evolution.

If by historically you mean since JFS and BRM until the present time, I would agree.  The anti evolution thread running through our manuals is, however, being slowly removed, but last time I checked I think I still saw it in the OT manual still.  I hear it falls the next update though.  If not, maybe when Ben Spackman’s dissertation gets published that will provide the last needed nudge…though there may be still references regarding the evolution of humanity even if everything else is not a doctrinal issue, but even that need not be anti evolution as evidenced the EoM entry.

However before JFS and BRM became so dominant in Mormon thought (though there have always been differing strands), evolution was treated in a much more open minded way by most iirc.

Pres Hinckley as an apostle wrote the EoM entry on Evolution (have to get a reference to this as he isn’t given the credit***) and while it reaffirmed that Man is the literal child of God, it does not insist it can’t be evolution that got us to our mortal form:

https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/EoM/id/3666

 

***https://benspackman.com/2022/10/evolution-and-the-gospel/#:~:text=For the 1992 Encyclopedia of,the short article on Evolution.

Quote

From a young age, President Gordon B. Hinckleywas a fan of geology. It’s reading between the lines a little,8 but he favored an old earth, death, and evolution. For the 1992 Encyclopedia of Mormonism, President Hinckley himself ghost-wrote the short article on Evolution.9 It echoed the 1909 and 1925 First Presidency statements, as well as private 1931 First Presidency minutes which said that science belonged to the scientists, and biology, geology, etc. was not central to the Gospel. Notably, that essay Hinckley wrote did not decry evolution as false, only affirmed divine creation and the existence of “Adam as primal parent of our race.”

Ben says the ghostwriter reference is from his dissertation research and interviews, so I guess we will have to wait for specifics.  

In the link Ben gives several prominent Christians who were fine with evolution, including popes, so it should not be an issue for Catholics, so since Catholicism is a majority of Christianity, I think it is fair to say while a lot of Christians have issues with evolution, the majority do not…or should not if they are paying attention to their leaders.    

Edited May 10, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

a lot of Christianity is very threatened by Evolution. 

It is kind of odd to me this is so if one doesn’t insist the Bible is inerrant and can be easily understood and therefore “after their kind” requires no evolution ever.  If souls are not pre existent as I understand most Christianity believes, then what does it matter if there has been significant changes in species over time?  There would have been no human spirits put in nonhuman bodies and each spirit made could be tailored to the body under production and grow along with the body.

Edited May 10, 2024 by Calm

[ZealouslyStriving]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

However before JFS and BRM became so dominant in Mormon thought (though there have always been differing strands), evolution was treated in a much more open minded way by most iirc.

Let's examine that:

https://scriptures.byu.edu/#099027:t3f7a3&evolution:st&&1830&2024&j&n&30@0$evolution

Charles W. Penrose (1883):

"The doctrine of evolution, as it is called, is true in some respects—that is, that species can be improved, exalted, made better, but it remains of the same species. The advancement is in the same line. It is unfoldment. We do not find any radical change from one species to another. It is an eternal principle that every seed produces its own kind, not another kind."

Erastus Snow (1878):

"There is a theory put forth by Mr. Darwin, and others, that is the school of modern philosophers, which is termed in late years, the theory of Evolution, that man in our present state upon the earth, is but the sequence and outgrowth of steady advancement from the lowest order of creation, till the present type of man, and that we have advanced step by step from the lowest order of creation till at last man has been formed upon the earth in our present sphere of action; in short, that our great-grandfathers were apes and monkeys. And how much satisfaction these philosophers have in the contemplation of their grandfather monkeys, we are left to conjecture; but such are the theories put forth by some of our modern philosophers. But we find nothing on the earth, or in the earth, nor under the earth, that indicates that any of these monkeys or apes, or any other orders of creation below man have ever accomplished any great exploits. So far as the history of this earth is known, whether written or unwritten, or whether written in volumes of books, whether engraven upon metallic plates, or whether found impressed in rocks, neither geologists, nor any other scientists have ever been able to show us any great exploits of any of these inferior grades of being to indicate that there was any such vitality in them, as to develop in their future progress, the present order of beings we call man."

Orson Pratt (1878):

"This we find out by reading the first two chapters of Genesis, as revealed anew, and many other things, of which we were profoundly ignorant, until God raised up this youth, this unlearned Prophet of the nineteenth century, to bring these things to light. By revelations given in ancient days, and renewed through this young Prophet of God, we learn that we, ourselves, did not begin to exist when we were born into this state of existence; we learn that we are of higher origin than that assigned by poor, unbelieving man. Contrast the ideas of the last few centuries with the ideas that God has revealed from heaven. They would make man look for his origin down to the very reptile and the worm that crawls upon the earth, and to the fish of the sea—as the first father, the first origin, the first oyster. Such is the reason of the learned of the last few centuries—the evolution theory; in other words, that which you learn from books, the creation of man's folly and foolishness. But when we learn through the revelations of God that instead of man's coming up from the poor worm of the dirt, he descended from that being who controls the universe by his power; that he descended from that being who is the fullness of all knowledge, and who sways his scepter over more planetary systems than there are sands upon the seashore. We are his offspring, we are his sons and his daughters, we are his children, he has begotten us, and we existed before the foundation of the world."

**On this earth we have been devolving physically since the perfect man Adam.***

[Calm]

I didn’t say all.  Ben quotes 4 other church leaders besides Pres Hinckley.  I do retract “most” though I would probably be able to back a “most” claim for an old earth.  No way can we tell the majority position on evolution though, imo.  Maybe Ben will be able to (I am so looking forward to his dissertation, most eager I have ever been for one except for my husband finishing his).  Talmage obviously was open to evolution, I can’t remember other references I have seen.  I am pretty sure BH Roberts was.  Also John Widtsoe and Henry Eyring (not the apostle, his father…which makes me wonder what Elder Eyring’s opinion is).

It’s a shame Pres McKay did not come right out and teach evolutionary ideas from the pulpit.  Since others thought it fine to teach anti evolutionary ones, they opened the door….but General Conference is not a court of law nor a debate session, so we don’t get battling interpretations across the pulpit (at least haven’t since BY’s time iirc) even if that would be fun.

You wouldn’t get many early, early church leaders discussing evolution since Darwin’s Origin of Species was not published until around 1860.  Caught on pretty quickly and became mainstream science in a decade or two iirc.

Edited May 10, 2024 by Calm

[ZealouslyStriving]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

I didn’t say all.

I know... You said "most". 🙂 

I'm more than willing to be corrected. I know it will take time to track down quotes, so no rush. The BH Roberts Foundation might be a better source than the BYU Scriptures site.

[Calm]

22 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

I know... You said "most". 🙂 

I'm more than willing to be corrected. I know it will take time to track down quotes, so no rush. The BH Roberts Foundation might be a better source than the BYU Scriptures site.

I withdrew the “most” claim realizing that was simply my impression because I had only been interested in reading those who were open to it.  Not really interested in this debate at this time, but will provide some easy ones…check out Ben’s link I gave above and this below includes those open to it as well as the most well known against.  Of those against it for humans, some were fine for other life forms.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Primary_sources/Evolution

Edited May 10, 2024 by Calm

[ZealouslyStriving]

44 minutes ago, Calm said:

 I do retract “most” though I would probably be able to back a “most” claim for an old earth.

I take no issue with old/er earth ideas based on my personal reading of the Book of Abraham. But I don't believe old/er earth and evolution necessarily need to be conflated, though I am admittedly ignorant enough to maybe open to non-human evolution within species groups.

[Calm]

21 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

I don't believe old/er earth and evolution necessarily need to be conflated

I agree they are separate issues, though if you agree with evolution, you must agree with old earth or have some pretty odd ideas about how it works. 

Edited May 10, 2024 by Calm

[ZealouslyStriving]

7 minutes ago, Calm said:

I agree they are separate issues, though if you agree with evolution, you must agree with old earth or have some pretty odd ideas about how it works. 

Agreed 👍 Those arguing for evolution must also believe in an old earth.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

If an disembodied spirit was capable of seeing, we should be able to clearly see how it distorts the light it is gathering to see, not to mention its eyeball.

Why?

What if spirits are made out of gamma rays?  That argument ain't goin' no place.

Let's get some disembodied spirits together and see if you are right!

But wait- to test that directly contradicts your own argument that they don't exist.

Pretty bad argument....

[manol]

6 hours ago, Analytics said:

I appreciate you sharing these thoughts with me. In the post I just made to BlueDreams, I responded in relative detail to this video, which I did watch in its entirety. I follow people talking about NDE’s in forums like this one, but I have never dived into an actual book on the subject--I just haven’t seen enough to think it would be worth my time.

I thank you for taking the time to watch the video. 

6 hours ago, Analytics said:

I think NDE’s happen, but not very many constitute evidence of actual spirits literally leaving the body.

^^This^^ is actually a lot more common common ground than I expected!  I agree that relatively few NDE's include elements which are arguably objective evidence of actual spirits literally leaving the body.  Imo a transcendental experience does not necessarily imply "the spirit left the body".  On the other hand, accurately reported and documented observations made from a perspective that would have been physically impossible arguably constitute evidence of such.

I found an interview with Dr. Michael Sabom, who authored one of the first and best studies of operating room observations reported by near-death experiencers, entitled "Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation” (sadly out-of-print).  The following NDE account is about as close as you can get to a controlled experiment:  The patient's body was cooled to 60 degrees and all the blood was drained from her head under extremely well-controlled and thoroughly-monitored conditions.  Should be cued up to start at 19:50, go to about 31:40; he speaks slowly and distinctly so you can speed it up a lot:

 

 

6 hours ago, Analytics said:

The good news about my belief structure is that I don’t believe people will be punished after their dead for not agreeing with me.

HA!  That's BRILLIANT!  I LOVE it!  And, I agree with you 100%!! 

Maybe this is asking too much, but you might consider this topic to be a case where the inexplicable calls for investigation (assuming one is genuinely curious) rather than dismissal.  To quote John Archibald Wheeler:

“In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it.”

Edited May 10, 2024 by manol

[MiserereNobis]

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Well I was joking, but I have mentioned it here before - I was in the Philosophy Action Committee which tried to influence the UCLA Philosophy Department to hire her as a prof. who was working on her PhD down in San Diego studying with MARCUSE.   We wanted to make philosophy more "relevant" of course because that was the rhetoric 

 Of course that name was in neon lights for a young and stupid, confused Commie philosophy activist wanna-be like me 

But we actually did get her to come to UCLA and I was one of about 25 of students in her Dialectical Materialism class,  and I visited with her in her office when I had questions about Hegel and how he influenced Marx with his ideas on history.   So yes, I knew her and had several conversations with her.  The "buddy" part was a joke.

But oddly those conversations, years later, oddly seemed to apply to... wait for it....   Joseph Smith, who was in many ways a dialectical materialist at heart.  It was almost as if he was a student of Hegel mixed with Marx. 

Opposition in all things- proving things by discussing their "contraries",  yet history will end in a predictable way in a Utopia.   All is matter, even spirit is matter "more refined".    So in that soup of ideas,  Marx and Smith would agree on many things.  Not God!

But I got better. 

 

I think you should start your next testimony by declaring all truth is relative and then end with how Joseph Smith was a Marxist 😁

[MiserereNobis]

11 hours ago, Calm said:

In the link Ben gives several prominent Christians who were fine with evolution, including popes, so it should not be an issue for Catholics,

We’re cool with it. You can go waaaay back to St. Augustine and read that the Genesis can be read as an allegory. 
Of course you can also find about any opinion in a huge church that’s been around for 2000 years. 

[Peacefully]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

I think you should start your next testimony by declaring all truth is relative and then end with how Joseph Smith was a Marxist 😁

I want to attend that testimony meeting, lol. 

[Peacefully]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

We’re cool with it. You can go waaaay back to St. Augustine and read that the Genesis can be read as an allegory. 
Of course you can also find about any opinion in a huge church that’s been around for 2000 years. 

Best summation of the day “we’re cool with it” lol. 

Edited May 10, 2024 by Peacefully

[Nofear]

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

I need to stop you there. Does it really make sense for a disembodied spirit to literally see a stain on a neck tie?

I can certainly empathize with your objections about the reality of NDE's. To me, it doesn't make sense that on death or spirit bodies immediately pop into the spirit world. Brigham Young taught that the spirit world is co-local with the earth. Perhaps so, but imagine a group of spirits gathered around in a place that happens to be at the same location as a forest fire. There they are doing something and suddenly a group of now-deceased firefighters "pops" into the middle of the group. It would be disorienting to the already post-mortal spirits and the newly post-mortal spirits alike to say the least. I don't think death works like that.

But that does not mean I reject a post-mortal existence. Nor do I reject the possibility of NDE's. I think we all will have a death-experience (near or otherwise). The transition from our physical matter environment to a the spirit world has the potential to be very disorienting (just as our transition from spirit world to physical world was). For me what makes the most sense and offers the greatest flexibility is that each of us will experience a "virtual" transition to acclimate our minds to what is going on. That transition experience can be tailored to each individual according to their needs. Kind of like taking a train from point A to point B but points A and B are not in physical/spiritual spatial extent but in the mind. It is very easy for me to imagine a species that spans the cosmos has the technology to do just such a thing. In this speculation NDE's are where one gets on the train but the get off before arriving at the end station.

[mfbukowski]

TO THE POSTERS HEREIN:

I want to make it clear that I do not believe nor did I mean to imply that "Joseph Smith was a Marxist".   HE CLEARLY WAS NOT.

My comment was addressed to those few here who have any concept whatsoever about the nature of the philosophy of Hegel and what a "Zeitgeist" is.

Directly translated it includes two words as one meaning "TIME-SPIRIT" or as we say in English, "the spirit of the times".  This term is important to the philosophy of Hegel.

Marx came along and it might be said "co-opted" portions of Hegel's philosophy including the notion of "dialectic reason" which goes back as well as far as Socrates.  Socrates, as we "know" through Plato-(Socrates never wrote a word personally in his life-that we know of-) developed his philosophy through actual conversations with others, not unlike what goes on in this board.   I say something, someone responds.  This process is not a lecture- it is a "DIA-LECT-UR" or a process of reasoning through conversation that develops the truth or falsity, perhaps, of some proposition.  And so we have "dialectical reasoning".   Hegel saw this as essential to developing his notion of "Zeitgeist"- or Spirit of the Times, which vary according to....  THE TIMES!   

Every historic period, on this view then, has its own "spirit" which we usually name, like "Presocratic" "Roman", the "Middle Ages" the  "Renaissance" "Modernism" "Industrial Revolution""Postmodern" etc etc.

So Joseph and Marx lived during the same ZEITGEIST in which the mode of thought was similar.

Joseph saw the history of religion as being divided into periods as well- he called "dispensations".  He saw them as progressions or recessions to the true message God was providing his children. He claimed, in essential, that the Jews kinda had it, then the Christians carried it for a period, then there was a reaction caused by the intrusion  of Greek philosophy which caused the "apostasy", which then necessitated a "Restoration" of the truth.

This is it self "dialectical reasoning".   Action and re-action.  Conversation- as one generation converses with another.

So Joseph was -arguably- influenced by his Zeitgeist and was immersed by dialectical reasoning himself.

So was Marx.  Instead of seeing things as religious "dispensations" as Joseph did,  because Marx was actually anti-religion- Marx saw these stages through economics.  Starting with the discovery of agriculture, money developed etc.  I won't go into all his stages here, they are irrelevant.  Except for the contemporary times. Inevitably - long story short, the Zeitgeists will end in a Utopian society in which all are equal,called "Socialism". This is not the "Socialism" of today- but NO POLITICS! This is not the "Socialism" yet of Marx - it is imperfect, as it were.

Joseph saw dispensations ending in a society called "Zion"  ruled by Christ himself.   Marxist "Socialism" is totally atheist- Joseph's "Zion" is physically RULED by the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  You cannot find two societies more DIA-metrically Opposed that that!

Furthermore, both Joseph and Marx were both materialists- as Joseph included in the D&C- even spirit is matter!  But spirit is more like "energy"- which is compatible with today's science.  

So I hope that explains what I said strictly for those who already knew all this.   I never meant to imply that Joseph was a Marxist.

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Nofear said:

To me, it doesn't make sense that on death or spirit bodies immediately pop into the spirit world.

This is taking the process literally.  

If you want something to "pop" then pretend that you "energy" continues in a different dimension or some other fib that fits your creative mind. 

We cannot fathom it because our physical brains won't work. Or at least that is the fib my brain says. 

 

 

[manol]

41 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

We cannot fathom it because our physical brains won't work. Or at least that is the fib my brain says. 

I think that's a pragmatic fib.  "Application of Impossible Things" is the apt title near-death experiencer Natalie Sudman chose for her book.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

36 minutes ago, manol said:

I think that's a pragmatic fib.  "Application of Impossible Things" is the apt title near-death experiencer Natalie Sudman chose for her book.

 

 

Make that "Possible Unknown" and I may actually read it. 

And what is a "thing" anyway? 

 

[the narrator]

20 hours ago, Analytics said:

But in general, a lot of Christianity is very threatened by Evolution.

Perhaps, but Christians can pretty easily sidestep the problem by recognizing what the creation accounts are actually doing. Traditional (aka official) Mormon theology is much more threatened by it due to the modern and authoritative demands about God's body and humans being literal progeny of God (not to mention the doctrine that all human life began in Missouri six thousand years ago).

Sure, someone could argue (like Steven Peck does) that the human form is the inevitable result of billions of years of evolution anywhere, or perhaps they could go with an Adam-God-like approach similar to Prometheus, but at that point it seems like it's just playing apologetic games to defend a doctrine while completely departing from how it was understood and taught.

[manol]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Make that "Possible Unknown" and I may actually read it. 

I don't think Natalie would have a problem with that.  She is not the least bit attached to labels. 

Her book is NOT a "this is gonna prove something to the skeptics" book, but it shifted my trajectory.  You can see the first thirty-something pages of it here:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Application_of_Impossible_Things_My_Near/2YVeBAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT3&printsec=frontcover

Edited May 10, 2024 by manol