mentalgymnast wrote:There is a lot of "throw the baby out with the bath water" mentality around here.
You point to a bath that appears to be entirely empty, and keep asking us to be careful what we throw out.
Why should we take any notice of you if you can't show us the slightest evidence (apart from your vehement assertions) that the bath is not completely devoid of both water and baby?
And, may I say, even amongst theists the kind of "I know. I just know!" assertion made by Mormons is really very rare. I know of what I speak, having been an active believing member of a major Christian church for much of my life.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
mentalgymnast wrote:There is a lot of "throw the baby out with the bath water" mentality around here.
You point to a bath that appears to be entirely empty, and keep asking us to be careful what we throw out.
It is on this point that we diverge. I don't think the bath is "empty". Go back and read my last two posts. It's not a simple as you would like to make it.
Here's the thing, Chap. The world is a BIG place. Millions/billions of people. Would you expect...on the assumption that there IS a creator/God...that all of these folks would be having 'carbon copy' spiritual experiences?
I don't.
It doesn't make any SENSE to think that they/we would. We're all SO different. Environment. Predispositions. Aptitudes...you name it.
mentalgymnast wrote:Yep. Exactly. That's what I've said also...repeatedly. The thing is, zerinus, these guys CAN"T go this direction because it muddles/screws up the validity and/or 'oomph' of some of these 'nineteenth century creation' arguments they keep on using to discredit the Book of Mormon.
Really. Can you not see his claims are different then yours. Your allows for 19th century content in the Book of Mormon. His does not. He is claiming there is none. He is in line with it is either all true or all false.
I appreciated your willingness to share your testimony. I think that the Lord gives to each person a testimony in a format/way/means that is unique and individual to them. You have had a spiritual witness that you can't deny. That should be valued and should be part of the conversation. Not automatically rejected.
You've got to remember that these folks, on the whole (there are a few exceptions), are agnostic/atheist/secularist types. They, by default, are not going to accept anything having to do with revelation and/or a witness of the Spirit.
Many in different religions have received spiritual witnesses they cannot deny. Most here have been there MG. Many who once said they could not deny it, now say the interpretation they had was wrong. I have no problem looking at the possibility of revelation/spiritual witness claims. I look to see if they hold water. honorentheos has provided some really good ideas that you don't seem much interested in looking to see if it is anachronistic.
mentalgymnast wrote:Yep. Exactly. That's what I've said also...repeatedly. The thing is, zerinus, these guys CAN"T go this direction because it muddles/screws up the validity and/or 'oomph' of some of these 'nineteenth century creation' arguments they keep on using to discredit the Book of Mormon.
Really. Can you not see his claims are different then yours. Your allows for 19th century content in the Book of Mormon. His does not. He is claiming there is none. He is in line with it is either all true or all false.
Go back and read what he said again.
I think he was saying that anything that has 'nineteenth century feel' to it is a result of the actual translation process. He can correct me if I'm wrong. This is basically what I've been saying also.
You claim to be a centrist, but has there been any Church-approved narratives about the Book of Mormon you 100% believe are false?
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
Because so-called revelation and spiritual witnesses have been shown time and time again to be notoriously unreliable as a means of determining things.
So, what else you got?
It's not a matter of what else I have. It's simply a fact that needs to be taken into consideration when talking with those that are agnostic/atheist/secularists. It's a chasm that exists in communication.
Granted, some of the spiritual experiences that people claim to have can be dissected and be found to be wanting. But I don't think that is reason to either disrespect and or negate the experience of folks who claim to have a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon. If you believe that the sum total of experience is in the mind/brain, you will look at EVERY spiritual experience as having no basis in materialistic fact. On the other hand, if you look at 'light and truth' as being relative, and on a scale of lesser to greater, then we have a much wider spectrum of possibilities.
There is a lot of "throw the baby out with the bath water" mentality around here.
Regards, MG
So you've got nothing else. Thanks for clearing that up.
The state with the highest rate of affinity fraud is Utah, where more than 60 percent of its population belongs to the LDS Church. The FBI calculates that there were more than 4,400 victims in 2012 with a net loss of $1.4 billion. It’s not that LDS Church members and Utahns haven’t been warned. In 1982, then BYU President Jeffrey R. Holland warned students about such schemes. Warnings have appeared many times over the years in conferences and church publications with a similar theme — if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.
“I was working … on the BYU—Hawaii Campus only to open the Sunday edition of the Honolulu Advertiser to read this headline: ‘Mormon Utah called a test market for scams,'” Elder Holland said. “‘Utah’s large Mormon population has become a prime target for con artists and swindlers.'”
Why are Mormons particularly susceptible to being conned compared with people that don't use the spirit to guide their decision making?
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
mentalgymnast wrote:There is a lot of "throw the baby out with the bath water" mentality around here.
You point to a bath that appears to be entirely empty, and keep asking us to be careful what we throw out.
mentalgymnast wrote: It is on this point that we diverge. I don't think the bath is "empty". Go back and read my last two posts. It's not a simple as you would like to make it.
Nope. It is that simple. You keep on asserting that the bath is not empty, but apart from your unsupported assertion you give no reason for thinking that it is not as empty as (to all evidence) it appears to be. So because we are reasonable beings rather than disciples of the prophet mentalgymnast, we'll go with the evidence, which indicates an empty bath.
mentalgymnast wrote:Here's the thing, Chap. The world is a BIG place. Millions/billions of people. Would you expect...on the assumption that there IS a creator/God...that all of these folks would be having 'carbon copy' spiritual experiences?
I don't.
It doesn't make any SENSE to think that they/we would. We're all SO different. Environment. Predispositions. Aptitudes...you name it.
Precisely. Some people make no claim to anything so grand as 'spiritual experiences'. Some do. But what they report experiencing is clearly explicable in terms of their upbringing and experience. That's why it is extremely unlikely that it reflects some kind of perception of an objective reality underlying the phenomenal world.
The fact that you have Mormon 'spiritual experiences' just shows us that (hold on to your seats) you are a Mormon. Nothing else.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
21 pages and not a single response as to whether or not the Koran is man made or God given.
21 pages and not a single response to explain how e-meters work that will convince Scientologist they are not what they claim to be.
We cannot simply throw out the Koran and e-meters with the bath water now can we?
It seems there are folks here that simply do not want to have anything to do with Islam or Scientology.
I'm simply pointing out that the experience that Muslims and Scientologist claim to have had should not be automatically discounted and/or disbelieved.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
Fence Sitter wrote:21 pages and not a single response as to whether or not the Koran is man made or God given.
21 pages and not a single response to explain how e-meters work that will convince Scientologist they are not what they claim to be.
We cannot simply throw out the Koran and e-meters with the bath water now can we?
It seems there are folks here that simply do not want to have anything to do with Islam or Scientology.
I'm simply pointing out that the experience that Muslims and Scientologist claim to have had should not be automatically discounted and/or disbelieved.
What about the Laffertys? Was the revelation Ron received a valid spiritual experience similar to that of Nephi's when he cut the head off Laban?
Or how about:
"Consider, for example, that of David Brainerd, an eighteenth-century missionary to the American Indians. He had been experiencing what we today would call a meaning-of-life crisis. In an attempt to resolve it, he resorted to prayer, even though he thought the activity was pointless. But then, he writes,
As I was walking in a thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the apprehension of my soul. I do not mean any external brightness, nor any imagination of a body of light, but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before, nor anything which had the least resemblance to it. I had no particular apprehension of any one person in the Trinity, either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost; but it appeared to be Divine glory. My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable, to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being. . . . I continued in this state of inward joy, peace, and astonishing, till near dark without any sensible abatement. . . . I felt myself in a new world, and everything about me appeared with a different aspect from what it was wont to do." - a century before Joe (and many others) had very similar experiences.
"your reasoning that children should be experimented upon to justify a political agenda..is tantamount to the Nazi justification for experimenting on human beings."-SUBgenius on gay parents "I've stated over and over again on this forum and fully accept that I'm a bigot..." - ldsfaqs
