The Nehor wrote:The people who receive the Holy Ghost and let it dwell in them get divine knowledge and change for the better. The best become real saints.
Sounds like more circular reasoning:
How do you know it's the HG? Because I received divine knowledge and changed for the better. How do you know that the HG is what did that? Because the HG gives you divine knowledge and changes you for the better.
That's not how you know. That's the external sign of it. You can't know it until you yourself do it.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Tarski wrote:So Will, what amazing feats of knowledge have you demonstrated that don't have a more ready ordinary explanation? Did you write the knowledge down or pass it on in verifable form? Have you performed brain surgery without training or done anything else impossible without divine knowledge?
I am calling your bluff. Provide some compelling evidence of such knowledge!
I don't know what Liz thinks about this, but she shared an interesting story in the Celestial forum about how she learned about her grandmother's passing. Perhaps you could chalk it up to coincidence, but I'm not so quick to dismiss it that way.
What would be interesting would be to find out how many people had similar premonitions only to find out that they were wrong.
Confirmation bias is alive and well.
God . . . "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, . . . and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him ..."
Runtu wrote:One wonders about those folks who changed for the better without divine assistance. I don't think Mormons have a monopoly on positive change, do they?
No, God does though. He's not egomaniacal enough to deny his help just because people won't recognize the source.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Tarski wrote:So Will, what amazing feats of knowledge have you demonstrated that don't have a more ready ordinary explanation? Did you write the knowledge down or pass it on in verifable form? Have you performed brain surgery without training or done anything else impossible without divine knowledge?
I am calling your bluff. Provide some compelling evidence of such knowledge!
I don't know what Liz thinks about this, but she shared an interesting story in the Celestial forum about how she learned about her grandmother's passing. Perhaps you could chalk it up to coincidence, but I'm not so quick to dismiss it that way.
Come on ABman. yes, coincidence. This is critical thinking 101 (or basic skeptics toolbox stuff). This isn't any better than the recent time I got the urge to pull my cell phone out of my pocket and hover my thumb over the answer button while holding it to my ear ready to answer with "hi honey". I knew my wife was about to call me and she did.
Well, she calls me about that time of day often (and grandma's often die and hints abound).
Now lets her about the HG instructing a layperson in how to perform brainsurgery or on how to resolve the rigor problem with Feynman path integrals. Just anything both verifiable and actually impressive. Some real knowledge.
Oh, I prayed and found some lost keys to the church building once too--really!
Last edited by W3C [Validator] on Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
when believers want to give their claims more weight, they dress these claims up in scientific terms. When believers want to belittle atheism or secular humanism, they call it a "religion". -Beastie
yesterday's Mormon doctrine is today's Mormon folklore.-Buffalo
guy sajer wrote:What would be interesting would be to find out how many people had similar premonitions only to find out that they were wrong.
Confirmation bias is alive and well.
I remember several years ago when I was elders quorum president, and the bishopric was going to be changed. My wife told me she had had a powerful witness that I was going to be the new bishop. Funny thing was that I had the same feeling, as strong a witness as I've ever had. They called the second counselor instead. I did get called as executive secretary, though.
The question being asked is, how do we discern what is or is not the Holy Ghost.
Lets use an easy example to start with.
When a Shaker gets up during a church meeting and is convulseing with the "Holy Spirit', is that really the Holy Ghost? Why or Why not? Please give at least a paragraph (5 sentances or more) answer as to why or why not.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato
Gazelam wrote:The question being asked is, how do we discern what is or is not the Holy Ghost.
Lets use an easy example to start with.
When a Shaker gets up during a church meeting and is convulseing with the "Holy Spirit', is that really the Holy Ghost? Why or Why not? Please give at least a paragraph (5 sentances or more) answer as to why or why not.
If you believe that the spirit manifests itself in that way, then, yes, you would probably say that the spirit was manifest in that person. If you don't, you're probably not going to think that.
Why wouldn't it? You're operating from a set of assumptions about how the spirit behaves and why. A Shaker, operating under a different set of assumptions, sees the spirit where you don't.
Tarski wrote:Come on ABman. yes, coincidence. This is critical thinking 101 (or basic skeptics toolbox stuff).
Dismissing out of hand that which does not fit one's worldview? Perhaps that's the only reason why I haven't dismissed it . . .
Well, she calls me about that time of day often (and grandma's often die and hints abound).
Is it usually of strokes? Grandma wasn't quite dead either, she was on life support and answered that question before others had asked it. I find that remarkable although I admit it isn't indisputable proof. Nevertheless, I think it unwise to be so dismissive. I think it more likely that what proof isn't the goal of these experiences so much as guidance and comfort both of which were adequately provided in this case in my opinion. In other words, I think it is more of as I would expect things to do with the assumption that God and spirits do exist. I would expect mere hallucinations to manifest themselves differently--for one I would have expected Liz to have a history of such. For another, I would have expected the details to be fuzzier (that grandma was already dead, or that dreams like this had been occurring for some months / years prior to the hit).
Now lets her about the HG instructing a layperson in how to perform brainsurgery or on how to resolve the rigor problem with Feynman path integrals. Just anything both verifiable and actually impressive. Some real knowledge.
How about Descartes who (as I heard) believed God led him to unify geometry and the rest of mathematics hence giving us Cartesian coordinates? I'd say that's fairly impressive and very useful.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO