What if you ask and the anwer is.....

[_Coggins7]

'

m going to try to give some help here, but please understand that I'm really short of time for the next two days, so I'm not going to be able to follow up much.

Here's how I do it.

I believe some basic things, God exists and is the father of my spirit and he loves me, that are untouchable for me. I no longer dwell on those basics; they are simply part of who I am. I make no excuses for my belief, nor do I try to win anyone else over to my belief. That is simply part of who I am. Everyone who knows me, know those beliefs are just part of me. Over the years, I have developed a relationship with God that I trust more than I trust anything else on this earth. I trust my link to God so that I know what is good for me and what isn't in every aspect of my life. As I've gotten older, I've learned to trust the link I have with God. I've also learned that I don't get to know what's good for someone else (been there, done that, have the burn marks on my heart to prove it).

As far as my religion, the LDS church, is concerned, my inner link tells me that Joseph started off fine, but he got off track with Fanny, and things went downhill from there. I cannot fight my link in order to change my view of Joseph's life. I tried that for a while, and paid the price. I am unwilling to do that ever again, the pain and disruption it caused me was so great. Very little of what Joseph did in the latter years of his life passes unfiltered through my link. So, I discard much of it. Since then, each prophet has done good things and bad things, all in the name of God. My link tells me that I don't have to support everything an individual prophet did, in order to maintain my belief in God. My belief in God in more important to me than the church. As long as the two don't collide, I can maintain my membership.

It's taken me a while to get to this place in my life. I once ran from pillar to post, trying to find a place that was holy (and therefore comfortable) for me. Now I make every place I stand a holy place. I suggest you find a way to make that which is most important toyou basic to your life, so that every place you stand is holy, and therefore comfortable, for you. Right now, I think you're searching for a holy place to stand, and you're uncomfortable and unable to come to terms with the things that are contradictory to your basics. What are you basics? What is the bottom line for you? Once you have established that, you can build on it. Maybe it means you leave the church because it feels too uncomfortable; maybe it means you stay, but on your own terms. But your vision of who you are and the basics of what you believe is what's important. If you remain true to yourself, you will find a way through the maze that is life.

Now you might as well be intellectually honest here, Harmony, and put all the cards on the table. Its not just your personal feelings and perceptions of what Joseph did or did not to regarding plural marriage (and again, there is not direct, compelling evidence regarding Alger. There are no corroborating primary or secondary sources for the alleged misconduct. You have nothing here but your link Harmony, nothing). You don't believe the foundational divine record of the church to the Gentiles and remnant of Joseph in our day, to be a historical document, which is pivotal to the core claims of the church as well as to its founding. You don't believe in a personal adversary (having called him a "myth" in a recent previous posting).

I'm just wondering what, outside of Joseph's alleged affairs and misdeeds, you do support as to church doctrine, practice, and teaching such that you could be called a Mormon in "good standing" were such known generally. Or better yet, what fundamental, basic doctrines of the church do you reject as false?

I'm speaking of basic, settled, foundational doctrines, not things on the periphery.

[_Runtu]

Now you might as well be intellectually honest here, Harmony, and put all the cards on the table. Its not just your personal feelings and perceptions of what Joseph did or did not to regarding plural marriage (and again, there is not direct, compelling evidence regarding Alger. There are no corroborating primary or secondary sources for the alleged misconduct. You have nothing here but your link Harmony, nothing). You don't believe the foundational divine record of the church to the Gentiles and remnant of Joseph in our day, to be a historical document, which is pivotal to the core claims of the church as well as to its founding. You don't believe in a personal adversary (having called him a "myth" in a recent previous posting).

I'm just wondering what, outside of Joseph's alleged affairs and misdeeds, you do support as to church doctrine, practice, and teaching such that you could be called a Mormon in "good standing" were such known generally. Or better yet, what fundamental, basic doctrines of the church do you reject as false?

I'm speaking of basic, settled, foundational doctrines, not things on the periphery.

How is this related to the topic at hand, Coggins?

[_Coggins7]

Not just incredible brainwashing. More importantly, in my mind, evidence of the very hubris he ascribes to Jason. Searching and learning, and not knowing without a shadow of a doubt is not hubris. Only the brainwashed see it the other way around.

That is, of course, the best you can do. Retreat to the Recovery From Mormonism myth template of the brainwashed morgbot. Poor, poor showing gramps. Poor.

Only in the modern, post sixties world where confusion, intellectual wishy washiness, uncertainty, and doubt about the great questions of existence are a sign of intellectual maturity, could such statements be made. Some people out there just may have the truth gramps, and just because you're not one of them, there's no need to think, with Jason, that the state of your own mind must therefore (since you couldn't be wrong in your doubt and uncertainty) be the state of all others.

[_Runtu]

That is, of course, the best you can do. Retreat to the Recovery From Mormonism myth template of the brainwashed morgbot. Poor, poor showing gramps. Poor.

Only in the modern, post sixties world where confusion, intellectual wishy washiness, uncertainty, and doubt about the great questions of existence are a sign of intellectual maturity, could such statements be made. Some people out there just may have the truth gramps, and just because you're not one of them, there's no need to think, with Jason, that the state of your own mind must therefore (since you couldn't be wrong in your doubt and uncertainty) be the state of all others.

How funny, Cogs! You respond to a "myth template" with namecalling. I think I'd go with the myth template, myself.

Poor, poor showing indeed. But it made for a nice chuckle. Thanks. :-)

[_harmony]

Now you might as well be intellectually honest here, Harmony, and put all the cards on the table. Its not just your personal feelings and perceptions of what Joseph did or did not to regarding plural marriage (and again, there is not direct, compelling evidence regarding Alger. There are no corroborating primary or secondary sources for the alleged misconduct. You have nothing here but your link Harmony, nothing). You don't believe the foundational divine record of the church to the Gentiles and remnant of Joseph in our day, to be a historical document, which is pivotal to the core claims of the church as well as to its founding. You don't believe in a personal adversary (having called him a "myth" in a recent previous posting).

Cog, you wouldn't recognize intellectual honesty if it bit you in the behind, so don't try to tell me what I know or don't know.

I'm just wondering what, outside of Joseph's alleged affairs and misdeeds, you do support as to church doctrine, practice, and teaching such that you could be called a Mormon in "good standing" were such known generally. Or better yet, what fundamental, basic doctrines of the church do you reject as false?

I'm speaking of basic, settled, foundational doctrines, not things on the periphery.

You're speaking of something you know nothing about, and since that's your normal MO, I'm going to do what I normally do with your posts: allow them to stand as a beacon that shines with the limited light you've been granted.

[_Coggins7]

Well, no, that's not much of a difference. Your statement simply joins the realm of millions of similar faith/knowledge statements based on spiritual witness. Does yours have more force, say, than the statements of the kids from Fatima? Why or why not?

The potential force of your argument here depends entirely upon the viability of your claim that the millions of other statements of knowledge of spiritual tings are indeed, based upon a spiritual witness, and the potential contradictions or philosophical problems with the concept of the LDS testimony rises and falls with that.

Really, you speak as though you think LDS aren't and haven't always been aware, from our own scriptures, that there are any number of other spiritual witnesses in the world, as well as experiences that can be misconstrued as one. The real testimony is, of course. the real article in a sea of counterfeits, precisely the same predicament we find ourselves in in most other questions of life.

[_Coggins7]

Heh - yeah, I was going along with him, until he got to that part. "Well, I have the spirit on my side, so my 'knowledge' is better than yours."

So you admit you don't have the Spirit on your side then?

[_Runtu]

The potential force of your argument here depends entirely upon the viability of your claim that the millions of other statements of knowledge of spiritual tings are indeed, based upon a spiritual witness, and the potential contradictions or philosophical problems with the concept of the LDS testimony rises and falls with that.

I made no claim other than to say that your statement sounds exactly like the truth claims of millions of other people. They may all be valid, or not, and it makes no difference. The only way to "know" that your statement is indeed based on a spiritual witness is through subjective experience.

Really, you speak as though you think LDS aren't and haven't always been aware, from our own scriptures, that there are any number of other spiritual witnesses in the world, as well as experiences that can be misconstrued as one. The real testimony is, of course. the real article in a sea of counterfeits, precisely the same predicament we find ourselves in in most other questions of life.

Again you know not of what you speak. I said nothing about true and false witnesses. What I said stands: your statement is exactly like millions of others. You cannot say one way or another that your witness is either materially different or stronger or truer than any of the others because you did not receive their witness.

[_Jason Bourne]

I think your fundamental, core, primary challenge Jason, is to overcome this thoroughgoing and pervading hubris. This is pride, if I may say so not meaning to give offfence, in a most aggressive and implacable form, and I think it is precisely for this reason you are having your troubles with the principle of testimony, and why prayer, up to this point, has not worked for you.

There was a time, not too long ago that I would have said prayer gave me all the answers and testimony that I was as assured in as you seem to be. I said all the right LDS things and did all the right LDS things. I have just come to a point where much of what I believed was the truth and as sure about it as you are started appearing irrational.

I have no idea what species of arrogance or presumption could exist in your mind such that you could make statements about the metaphysical actualities and perceptions of others for them, but apparently such has come to exist in your own inner world.

I have experienced what LDS call the witness of the spirit again I am guessing, just as much as you have. Because the facts of history are not conflicting with that testimony I have come to suspect that perhaps what I thought was revelation was some other emotional response. This is the reason I started this thread. Are we really asking to know truth to being told that we should ask until what someone is telling us is true. I think there is a fundamental difference.

I know Jesus is the Christ without any possible doubt. I know it directly and completely. I know that his church is on the earth, and that Joseph Smith was his Prophet. I know these things fully and without conceptual ambiguity because God himself has revealed them to me. I understand that you do not know, and I appreciate that, but I'm not sure at all I understand or appreciate how you think you can claim what is essentially an oracular insight into what I or other Mormons know or don't know based upon your own subjective experience of not knowing.

I do not want to be disrespectful. I used to say this exactly as you. I have bore such a testimony hundreds of time in Church, as a missionary, to friends I was sharing the gospel with. The fact is such knowledge is not knowledge in the same sense as knowing that if I drop an apple it will hit the ground. Now maybe someday the apple will not hit the ground but empirical evidence is such that I pretty well can say I know it will hit the ground. The same empirical evidence is not there for the LDS testimony. Other people of other faiths testify just as vigorously as we do and think Joseph was a false prophet.

Additionally, your testimony as well as mine in the past, disputes what the Book of Mormon teaches in Alma 32. There Alma says that when we have a perfect knowledge we no longer have faith. The testimony you describe above still requires faith and thus is not a perfect knowledge.

Yes Coggins there was a time I knew as much as you say you know. Now I cannot say I know. Wish I could.

I do appreciate the troubles your having, but to reconcile them, I think your going to have to relinquish a great deal of the wall against doing it the Lord's way you seem to have built around the solution. You already seem to have made up your mind what the answer to your problem with revelation and testimony is, and that seems to be that the principle is, in essence, fictitious. Of course, if you've already found the answer, what point is their in the further exploration of the questions?

What is the Lord's way Coggins? This is my point. If one asks and they get an answer different then your, or what the Church says, is that a true answer? Or if the only answer is what Joseph taught and what the Church says and the prayer is simply to confirm that we should not teach that we do not expect one to follow blindly. We are then saying there is really only one answer.

If you'll forgive me, I also don't really think you have a very good grasp of the meaning of the term "faith" as understood in the Restored Gospel. You are attempting to extract faith from revelation and knowledge and isolate them, and that's going to further wreck any attempts you might make to resove your questions and doubts because they cannot be so extracted and compartmentalized.

I am positive I understand the term and meaning of faith and LDS doctrine as well as you if not better.

[_Trojan Tapir]

My statements were descriptive, they were not intended as a logical argument from premises to conclusions.

Oh, my mistake. No need for logic when you being descriptive! As long as you concede they were devoid of logic...

I should probably cut this short because, in all my other discussions with you, you have shown no predilection whatever for serious critical discourse or even the ability to honesty characterize the statements of those with whom you disagree.

Um, I don't recall ever having a discussion with you. Did the spirit tell you you've had a discussion with me in the past?

This absolute claim to knowledge of what I and other LDS know or do not know indicates a thoroughgoing presumptuousness and a dogmatic certitude that mirrors precisely the certitude in the testimony of other Saints that Jason finds so disconcerting. Yet Jason would not claim revelation as the source of such certitude as to the contents of my mind and heart, so what then? The difference is, I would tell Jason what I know. Jason would, even before testifying to me of what he "knows", feign tell me what I know. The difference, as I see it, is that all I'm claiming is that I know some truth about the universe. Jason is claiming he knows a truth about what is within another mind; what I know about the universe, less the universe of which he is a part. I can't know anything for him, which is why I would bear my testimony. He seems to think that what he perceives as reality must, therefore, since he perceives it, be the same reality perceived by all others. Although this sounds like something akin to solipsism, I don't think that's the problem.

The difference is, it seems to me, is that Jason seems to think there is an objective truth, and "knowledge" identifies that truth (if so, I agree with him). You appear to now be making the claim that knowledge is purely subjective; that there is no one "truth." If that's the case, I'm sure Jason would be more than happy to admit that you actually think you "know" the things about the universe you claim to know. I'm sure he would be happy to admit that your "knowledge" is what you perceive to be reality. I admit the same. However, I don't think Jason ever made a claim that he knows what is in your head. His claim is about objective truth. He thinks (as do I) that "knowledge" refers to objective truth, not perception. If someone tells you that he "knows" the earth is flat, would you have a problem with that "knowledge"? Or would you refuse to point out that he can't know this because doing so would necessarily be claiming a truth about what is within another mind?

Because I believe in objective truth, I don't see any difference between you bearing your testimony that you know beyond any doubt that [blah blah blah] and you claiming that someone else's knowledge is false.

You're just begging the question in a very big way here. Has God revealed "an endless variety of mutually exclusive "knowledge" to others, or, well, has he? That's the question, and you don't go about answering a question like that just by repeating it at length.

OK, OK, millions of people CLAIM that God has revealed to them an endless variety of mutually exclusive "knowledge". Was that implication not already apparent? Obviously, I don't actually believe that these people each received inconsistent revelations from God. I think any person who claims that God has directly revealed to them any knowledge is deluding themselves. And your claim of direct revelation is no more compelling to me than anyone else's.