KimberlyAnn Moves to Delphi...

[_Nephi]

If anyone here does come up with a way of knowing the metaphysical rather than believing via a leap of faith, then you owe it to the world to write it up and submit it to numerous scholarly journals. Once confirmed by others, a press conference prior to your receiving the Noble Prize would be in order.

The problem here is that the term "proof" is a term used to show that one thing within the realm of reality is true based upon observations or logical deductions from another. However, God is not of reality, but of spirituality (a totally separate realm). Though the two realms co-exist, they are not the same, and so God cannot be proven anymore than science can use faith to use quantum mechanics. I have used this parable below to help explain this further...

"The parable of the Microscope and the Telescope"
Try to use a microscope to prove that galaxies exist. Go ahead. Point it to the heavens and look through. See anything? You may only use this individual instrument for trying to find them. What? Can't find galaxies? Well then. Galaxies must not exist.

Now, use a telescope to prove that bacteria exist. Go ahead. Put a slide in front of it and look through. See anything? You may only use this individual instrument for trying to see them. What? Can't see any bacteria? Well then. Bacteria must not exist.

Obviously, this is not true, but the error comes in using the wrong tool. Simply use the microscope on the slide and use the telescope on the galaxies and you will see what you are looking for. Manytimes, the tools of science are used to try to find God, and they come up empty handed. Some seem to believe that since they cannot find God using science, God must not exist. In the same light, manytimes, the tools of religion are used to try to understand reality (take creationism). The mythology is taken literally and the whole idea makes no sense.

This is kind of what happens when someone tries to "prove" God exists. Its like trying to see a galaxy with a microscope. Proof is a tool of science, and cannot be used to find things within spirituality. The similar tool of spirituality is intuition, or the Holy Ghost, or karma, or what ever religion you find along your path.

I can say this. Well before I was Mormon, I stumbled across a solid belief of the concept of God through Buddhism (which is ironic, considering Buddhism doesn't speak of God). Shortly there after, I started to revisit a drug (LSD) and used that ONLY for spiritual matters in understanding God. I came to a very strong belief of the concept of God through this, falling short of see God Itself (sexuality removed deliberately because I am not speaking of a masculine or feminine part of the concept of God).

Regardless, if one tries to "prove" God exists, they will chase their tail in a circle forever. Its about a futile as trying to use intuition or inspiration from the Holy Ghost to solidify the idea of a Grand Unified Theory.

[_The Dude]

Shortly there after, I started to revisit a drug (LSD) and used that ONLY for spiritual matters in understanding God. I came to a very strong belief of the concept of God through this, falling short of see God Itself (sexuality removed deliberately because I am not speaking of a masculine or feminine part of the concept of God).

So you are saying LSD is a good tool for finding God? Maybe I should try it, since I've found that read-ponder-pray is actually not a good tool.

[_Nephi]

So you are saying LSD is a good tool for finding God? Maybe I should try it, since I've found that read-ponder-pray is actually not a good tool.

many do not use the drug correctly, and many cannot handle what they discover when on it. So it is a good tool for YOU personally to use? I can't say. For many, no, but for a handful, yes. Read, ponder, pray does work, but sometimes we are unable to hear the response. LSD does work, but sometimes it is too much to understand or to take back with us after the trip.

About 3 years after my father's death, I took a LOT of LSD all at once, on the hopes of finding some "key" out, or learning something overly profound that would set the path out before me. I can only remember blips and pieces of that trip, and can dare say that I saw God Itself during that, but I was not ready for what the trip showed me, and so I took very little from it.

To answer your question, though (I already did), the choice to use such a strong hallucinogen must be something you choose. Only you know what you need to continue upon your spiritual path. Just because you are stuck currently doesn't mean a total change of course. Sometimes it is just a minor detail we are missing (I am stuck right now to tell you the truth, but I am not about to go puff up or trip again to try to dislodge myself, for I know this is not what is needed).

[_The Dude]

I've tried hallucinogens but never LSD. The thing that strikes me is the novelty of the experience. You don't just get what you expect to get -- it has open ended possibilities. Whether it reveals "truth" or not is another question.

"Read-ponder-pray" is severely limited. It essentially confirms the biases one starts out with.

[_Nephi]

"Read-ponder-pray" is severely limited. It essentially confirms the biases one starts out with.

Limiting this to only the Book of Mormon (or scripture in general), does lead to a biasness of sorts. The pondering before praying does as well, but do not throw this away. It can be applied to many things, such as news articles, posts on forum boards, other religious texts, et al. The possibilities on it are endless, and that which it teaches are store better in memory than when drugs are used for the same reason.

[_beastie]

Hmmm. I've been told by theists that the reason the world WITH God looks exactly like the world WITHOUT God is due to the necessity of faith. At the same time, certain of these theists insist they can "know" God exists. What happened to the need for faith?

[_gramps]

Nephi wrote:

About 3 years after my father's death, I took a LOT of LSD all at once, on the hopes of finding some "key" out, or learning something overly profound that would set the path out before me. I can only remember blips and pieces of that trip, and can dare say that I saw God Itself during that, but I was not ready for what the trip showed me, and so I took very little from it.

So, how much was a LOT? In micrograms? 500? 1000? more?

[_Canucklehead]

I would venture that, regardless of any personal experiences you might have had, you cannot KNOW that it was an encounter with god, just as I cannot KNOW that I'm living in a real, physical world and not merely a figment of my imagination. The only thing that we can truly KNOW is that we exist in some sense (with a nod to Descartes).

That is what you said, and these propositions have logical implications, do they not? I critiqued them under that assumption and found a number of interlocking logical contradictions, or inconsistencies in the implied argument you are making.

You and Kant can assert what you will, but your assertions must be part of a systematic belief system that is internally consistent.

All that I am saying is that knowledge is (almost) always uncertain. This seems to be a very simple and straightforward observation, yet you are trying to make it more than it is.

Of course, there is a possibility that certain entities which exist in the universe have ways of eliminating all uncertainty. However, I think that the probably that you are one of them is infinitesimally small. One assumption about reality that I make is that all members of the human species have relatively similar mental capacities and similar sensory experiences. I think that this is an eminently reasonable assumption to make, and yet I am open to the possibility (however remote) that it is flawed. Perhaps you truly are a freak of nature who has come upon some incredible method for removing all vestiges of uncertainty from knowledge, but I highly doubt it. As I said, everyone acts as though they KNOW that their perceptions of reality are completely accurate, even though they are often not. In many ways, our senses deceive us and so it is only reasonable to acknowledge that we might be wrong in some ways. I always find it hard to wrap my head around the idea that matter, which seems to be so solid and substantial, is actually 99% empty space, occupied only by atomic force fields.

Would it make you feel better if the claim which spawned this thread was changed to "there is only an infinitesimally small chance, based on reasonable and highly probably assumptions about the nature of human beings, that coggins actually KNOWS that god exists, that Jesus something something, and that Joseph Smith restored the only true church of Jesus" ?

Whenever I talk about knowledge, I am generally only speaking of probabilities. I knowingly make the assumption that the same goes for every other person in the world, although I am open to the possibility that I am wrong in this regard. So far, coggins, you don't give my any reason to doubt this assumption.

[_Nephi]

Nephi wrote:

About 3 years after my father's death, I took a LOT of LSD all at once, on the hopes of finding some "key" out, or learning something overly profound that would set the path out before me. I can only remember blips and pieces of that trip, and can dare say that I saw God Itself during that, but I was not ready for what the trip showed me, and so I took very little from it.

So, how much was a LOT? In micrograms? 500? 1000? more?

I didn't make it, and since I didn't have some way of measuring what the quantity was on each square (it was paper) it would only be a guess...

So, it is suggested that a single "hit" of LSD is somewhere between 100 and 500µg. I had friends who ate single hits of the stuff, and they claimed it to be extra potent (we were all very familiar with LSD and knew a strong hit from an average or weak one), so judging from their reactions, the stuff was on the heavier end of this scale, or closer to 500µg. I ate 10 hits, so we are approaching 5000µg. I would guess it be somewhere between 3500µg and 5000µg or so.

[_beastie]

Of course, if you really get down to it, as others have already mentioned, there really is no such thing as certain knowledge. But I think we can overlook that problem and deal with practical living. In practical living, there are some things we can know with certainty due to various input the world gives us. One of the inputs that gives us certainty is the fact that other people also have contact with that same input and draw the same conclusion as we do. Aside from the minor possibility of a mass delusion, the conclusions of others can be viewed as repeatability, in terms of a quasi-scientific method. So given this understanding, we can have certain knowledge that if we drop an apple it will fall to the ground, the sun warms the earth, etc.

And it is the issue of repeatability that is the problem for certain knowledge of other, abstract, ideas, such as the existence of god. There are too many variabilities in regards to interpretation of the type of input that is essentially and almost exclusively internal - you know, the dreaded word "feelings". (I do not mean to minimize the power that can be evoked by these sort of feelings, but no matter how powerful they may be, they are still appropriately labeled "feelings") There is no reliable repeatability. So there is not even the illusion of certain knowledge, except for those people among us blessed with extraordinary hubris. That is why religions universally proclaim it a matter of faith