Dr. Peterson question about MormonTimes article

[_moksha]

... they chose not to reinforce something they desired, but chose to find out what is truth.

As far as truth goes, being true to yourself in fulfilling that desire rather than seeking an external validation of that truth may give greater satisfaction. The truth claims of religion can never be quantified, so the quest for truth on an empirical basis will be doomed to failure. That quest still leaves desire hanging in the dark and remaining unfulfilled. A leap of faith is required to fulfill that desire.

[_Daniel Peterson]

In religious matters, I don't typically expect definitive proofs or definitive disproofs. The idea that one can, by means of academic or amateur-academic research, somehow arrive at the absolute truth about religious claims strikes me as very unlikely to be correct.

I don't believe that a person's decisions about most truths are utterly divorced from that person's psychology, personal history, presuppositions, general worldview, educational strengths and weaknesses, and etc. -- and I certainly don't believe that to be true in the case of religion. So I don't find a stark division between "desires" and "truth-seeking" to be either plausible or even possible.

[_Wisdom Seeker]

In religious matters, I don't typically expect definitive proofs or definitive disproofs. The idea that one can, by means of academic or amateur-academic research, somehow arrive at the absolute truth about religious claims strikes me as very unlikely to be correct.

I don't believe that a person's decisions about most truths are utterly divorced from that person's psychology, personal history, presuppositions, general worldview, educational strengths and weaknesses, and etc. -- and I certainly don't believe that to be true in the case of religion. So I don't find a stark division between "desires" and "truth-seeking" to be either plausible or even possible.

I would think a person's psychology, personal history, presuppositions, general worldview, educational strengths and weaknesses are most directly influenced by nurture and not nature. It is also quite possible that it is nurture that is going to affect a person's ability to accept faith as the guiding principle of belief. Some people are going to require some sort of proof to determine that the religion they follow is not a tool simply to control and rule over them. How should someone proceed if simple good feelings about one's belief is just not enough?

[_Buffalo]

Because the back-and-forth and methodical tentativeness of scholarly argument will never, by itself, supply a solid basis for spiritual life.

Surely that's more reliable than relying on the mystical tinglings and bosom burnings that seem to confirm a thousand conflicting faiths.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Surely that's more reliable than relying on the mystical tinglings and bosom burnings that seem to confirm a thousand conflicting faiths.

My point, of course, was that, since the publicly available evidence is insufficient to definitively prove or disprove fundamental religious claims, any conclusion regarding them necessarily goes beyond the publicly available evidence.

William James offers an interesting nineteenth-century parable:

Imagine that you're in a carriage at the top of a hill. The driver steps off to attend to something, and the carriage begins to roll -- at first imperceptibly, and then faster and faster. Before you fully comprehend what's happening, you're hurtling downhill at a very rapid speed.

Should you jump? Should you stay in the carriage? You don't have enough facts to ground a purely logical, empirically justifiable decision. But you must make a decision.

We're all in that carriage.

[_Jason Bourne]

And people who fornicate would have the Spirit with them too. So no, it does not equate to good feelings, though such may be a secondary result.

And Self Righteous overly pious saints may not have the spirit with them either.

But let me ask you, if a person who is committing fornication cannot have the spirit how does that person repent? If I read the scriptures correctly it is the Holy Ghost that works upon the sinner to convict them of their need to repent and turn to Christ.

Keep in mind any sin can keep us from the spirit and we all have sin and continue to do so. I suggest you focus on that part of the gospel.

Sure some antiMormon's will stack the deck in support of the antiMormon position, but many want the whole truth and have read both sides of the argument to make a better informed decision, which I would suggest is the wiser path to take.

I've never had a problem with that. I see a lot of baptisms that way. But I've yet to see a critical work that didn't lie or omit, and that's what usually leads to baptism.

All are biased no doubt. But I think critical works lead more away from the Church than to it. Some times it works that way but my guess is more often it does not.

China suppresses information about Tiananmen Square as the LDS church suppresses as much as it can the things that it does not want it's members to know about.

Apples and oranges. In the LDS case, while it does (and not unreasonably) put it's best foot forward, information ostensibly critical of the Church is readily available and often quoted in antiMormon works.

I have admitted that the Church is in a tough position. While it does focus on all the positives of its history to really create, in my opinion, a mythical history that has only partial bearing in the reality of the founding of the Church, I understand why it does this. The Church wants to bring souls into its brand of the gospel. To be more balances would likely divert from that goal to a certain extent. And the fact that there is really a lot that the Church would rather not have to talk about enforces that fact even more.

[_Jason Bourne]

My point, of course, was that, since the publicly available evidence is insufficient to definitively prove or disprove fundamental religious claims, any conclusion regarding them necessarily goes beyond the publicly available evidence.

This is certainly true and also it can be problematic. Joseph Smith is the only witness to his vision. According to the Church whether or not Joseph Smith really was a prophet and whether the Church is true all hinge on that. There are two points I would like to make about this.

1: When I was a missionary we were told to teach the FV account, teach people that the spirit would tell the investigator that it was true, they would feel the spirit while we taught and they would know that they should be part of the Church that came from that. If they had issues as we continued to teach we would point out if they know Joseph Smith saw God and was called as a prophet that nothing else mattered. The Church was true and all that came from Joseph Smith was true and that is how they could resolve their issues.

But this approach is too simplistic. Even if Joseph Smith did see God do we know God wanted him to start a Church? Do we know the other claims Joseph Smith made of supernatural interventions are true? Could he have had direction to start a Church and strayed from it? Could he have been a true prophet that was a fallen prophet as many of those who followed and then became disaffected believed? Could he have been a prophet and introduced false ideas later on in his career?

When I was a about 28 I home taught a lovely new convert family. They were a few years older than me. They were a great family and we grew very close. A few years after they joined the wife started running into issues that bothered her. Blacks and the priesthood, polygamy, women not having a chance to lead like men and so on. I used the if Joseph Smith saw God he was a prophet and all else was true. And in my immaturity I told her that it did not matter what she thought if this was true, she just needed to get her thinking in line with God and move on. This did not quite work for her. I now understand why.

The approach is really to simplistic. And this leads to my next point.

2: If we are to trust Joseph Smith and conclude that what he claimed was true then how are we to do so? Certainly with spiritual matters one needs to pray and include God in the decision making process. But one needs to look the to the evidence as well. What evidence do we have from Joseph Smith? Well we have the Book of Mormon, the revelations, the organization and so on. We also have his life and the way he behaved and acted. Theses things weigh heavily on whether or not we can trust his claims of fantastic intervention by God and angels.

And this is where I as a missionary as well as the Church I think falls short. To make a life altering commitment I think requires more than what the Church typically offers when it tells its members or prospective members to pray and act on the feelings they get based on those prayers. Feelings are fickle and can betray one often. We can get warm feelings that are that are like what the Church teaches is the spirit witnessing of truth by watching a good movie or reading a good book. I felt as powerful an emotion when I finished reading the Lord of the Rings the first time as I did when I prayed about the Book of Mormon.

I am not sure I have an answer for all of this. Maybe this is why I look more the the evidence now and sadly for me at least, it makes it hard for me to trust JSs claims in their entirety.

William James offers an interesting nineteenth-century parable:

Imagine that you're in a carriage at the top of a hill. The driver steps off to attend to something, and the carriage begins to roll -- at first imperceptibly, and then faster and faster. Before you fully comprehend what's happening, you're hurtling downhill at a very rapid speed.

Should you jump? Should you stay in the carriage? You don't have enough facts to ground a purely logical, empirically justifiable decision. But you must make a decision.

We're all in that carriage.

Do you really think God wants us to make a decision about the truth of the LDS Church in the same way we would have to make a decision to jump out of the carriage? Does God want us to act under circumstances that would be a urgent life or death situation? Or would he rather have us be able to examine, pray and take a reasonable approach?

[_Tchild]

William James offers an interesting nineteenth-century parable:

Imagine that you're in a carriage at the top of a hill. The driver steps off to attend to something, and the carriage begins to roll -- at first imperceptibly, and then faster and faster. Before you fully comprehend what's happening, you're hurtling downhill at a very rapid speed.

Should you jump? Should you stay in the carriage? You don't have enough facts to ground a purely logical, empirically justifiable decision. But you must make a decision.

We're all in that carriage.

Well, I don't know that all are in that carriage. The metaphor presumes a certain religio-cosmological viewpoint that many do not presume (that this life is some sort of test to either pass or fail, that there is sin and a God-in-the-sky who judges actively or passively).

It may be a very good metaphor for the state of being part of Mormon belief. However, such a metaphor reflects poorly, in my opinion, on a religion that such a metaphor describes.

A God that requires us to make a life or death decision without "justifiable" facts? Now you can understand how it is that for the ex-believer and with their crisis of faith in Mormonism, also goes the belief in the purported author of that religion (God as described in Mormonism).

[_Daniel Peterson]

Do you really think God wants us to make a decision about the truth of the LDS Church in the same way we would have to make a decision to jump out of the carriage? Does God want us to act under circumstances that would be a urgent life or death situation? Or would he rather have us be able to examine, pray and take a reasonable approach?

No analogy is perfect.

If it were perfect, it wouldn't be an analogy, it would be identity.

But we are all dying, from the moment of our birth. And the question of whether to live life theistically or atheistically faces all of us. Not to decide is, in its way, to decide nonetheless.

Well, I don't know that all are in that carriage.

We're all in the carriage that I had in mind, and that William James had in mind.

Unless, that is, you've discovered the secret of terrestrial immortality.

The metaphor presumes a certain religio-cosmological viewpoint that many do not presume (that this life is some sort of test to either pass or fail, that there is sin and a God-in-the-sky who judges actively or passively).

No it doesn't.

It may be a very good metaphor for the state of being part of Mormon belief. However, such a metaphor reflects poorly, in my opinion, on a religion that such a metaphor describes.

You've misunderstood the analogy.

Incidentally, though he was exceptionally sympathetic, William James was not a Latter-day Saint.

A God that requires us to make a life or death decision without "justifiable" facts?

You may disagree, but most thinkers don't believe that the indisputable facts exist to either decisively prove or decisively disprove theism.

That isn't a peculiarly Latter-day Saint viewpoint.

Now you can understand how it is that for the ex-believer and with their crisis of faith in Mormonism, also goes the belief in the purported author of that religion (God as described in Mormonism).

That has little if anything to do with what I was talking about.

[_Wisdom Seeker]

Imagine that you're in a carriage at the top of a hill. The driver steps off to attend to something, and the carriage begins to roll -- at first imperceptibly, and then faster and faster. Before you fully comprehend what's happening, you're hurtling downhill at a very rapid speed.

Should you jump? Should you stay in the carriage? You don't have enough facts to ground a purely logical, empirically justifiable decision. But you must make a decision.

I think it is a good analogy, however I would change a few things, You approach the driver asking why he is not braking and picking up speed down the long hill. You discover that what you thought was a licensed driver was simply a mannequin. You can either jump off, stay and hope for the best or try and take control. I think most people here are trying to take control.