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Polygamy Porter wrote on another thread:

For every Mormon who got a boner from Moroni, there are THOUSANDS of other who receive the same feeling about being born again, following Allah, becoming a nun or priest or minister, becoming a Buddhist.

I responded:

MG: bypassing your apparent fixation on sexual references, why is that?, I would question whether you have any expertise as to what constitutes a spiritual witness...period. If that be the case, your statement carries very little weight, as you really don't have a clue as to what an investigator's spiritual witness consists of vs. a feeling/witness that others may have in response to their own personal inquiries/journeys in regards to things of a religious nature. You seem to be saying that if a spiritual feeling/witness comes to an investigator of the LDS church or member of the church, then that would in some way negate the possibility of others outside of the LDS church having spiritual promptings, or in many cases feelings that may be purely psychological in nature as they make choices. Why?

If you feel the need to respond to this post using sexual innuendo or reference, that's OK. If that's who you are, go with it. I heard my share of it in the drum section way back in high school.

PP didn't respond, but I'd be interested in what others may think in reponse to the question I asked PP. Also, should we reject spiritual experiences that some may have as they investigate the LDS church, or the experiences that many within the church have, simply because having spiritual inclinations/feelings (whether they are psychologically manufactured or not) seem to be a universal trait of mankind?

PP seems to do so.

Regards,
MG

It's not right to dismiss "spiritual" feelings a priori, but it's fair to reject these universal feelings when they directly contradict the facts or your own conscience.

mentalgymnast wrote: Also, should we reject spiritual experiences that some may have as they investigate the LDS church, or the experiences that many within the church have, simply because having spiritual inclinations/feelings (whether they are psychologically manufactured or not) seem to be a universal trait of mankind?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "reject." If you mean, "should we question whether they had them" then I'd say no, we shouldn't reject them. If you mean, "should we believe in their validity", then I say yes, unequivocally, we should reject them.

There's a scene in Finding Nemo when the pelican is telling Nemo about all the trouble his dad's going through to find him, and every time I see it, I'm incredibly moved by it. I have, by all accounts of what people have described, a complete "spiritual experience." Does that mean I should believe in talking fish and pelicans, since that was the vehicle with which the experience came to me? Should I start to worship animated movies?

Just because something appeals to your brain and "moves" you doesn't mean anything more than the fact that you were moved by something. I've been moved by all kinds of things: music, being at the top of a mountain, looking out at the ocean, and touching scenes in movies, to name a few. All it means is that I'm enjoying what I'm perceiving, and that's it. Attributing it to some external supernatural entity does human beings a disservice. The credit should be placed where the credit is due: human beings ability to appreciate stuff.

Some Schmo wrote:

mentalgymnast wrote: Also, should we reject spiritual experiences that some may have as they investigate the LDS church, or the experiences that many within the church have, simply because having spiritual inclinations/feelings (whether they are psychologically manufactured or not) seem to be a universal trait of mankind?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "reject." If you mean, "should we question whether they had them" then I'd say no, we shouldn't reject them. If you mean, "should we believe in their validity", then I say yes, unequivocally, we should reject them.

There's a scene in Finding Nemo when the pelican is telling Nemo about all the trouble his dad's going through to find him, and every time I see it, I'm incredibly moved by it. I have, by all accounts of what people have described, a complete "spiritual experience." Does that mean I should believe in talking fish and pelicans, since that was the vehicle with which the experience came to me? Should I start to worship animated movies?

Just because something appeals to your brain and "moves" you doesn't mean anything more than the fact that you were moved by something. I've been moved by all kinds of things: music, being at the top of a mountain, looking out at the ocean, and touching scenes in movies, to name a few. All it means is that I'm enjoying what I'm perceiving, and that's it. Attributing it to some external supernatural entity does human beings a disservice. The credit should be placed where the credit is due: human beings ability to appreciate stuff.

Hi Schmo. How can you know that the experience that you're describing in regards to Finding Nemo and the profound feelings that you had in conjunction with certain aspects of that film are the exact carbon copy/parallels (at a functional level) of experiences "with the spirit" that religious folks claim to have?

You can't. Or can you?

Regards,
MG

Runtu wrote:It's not right to dismiss "spiritual" feelings a priori, but it's fair to reject these universal feelings when they directly contradict the facts or your own conscience.

Hi Runtu. What facts are you referring to?

Regards,
MG

mentalgymnast wrote:

Runtu wrote:It's not right to dismiss "spiritual" feelings a priori, but it's fair to reject these universal feelings when they directly contradict the facts or your own conscience.

Hi Runtu. What facts are you referring to?

Regards,
MG

Well, say that the spirit tells you that God has made it so that you can fly and you should prove it by jumping off a cliff and flying. It would be fair to reject that feeling, would it not?

mentalgymnast wrote: Hi Schmo. How can you know that the experience that you're describing in regards to Finding Nemo and the profound feelings that you had in conjunction with certain aspects of that film are the exact carbon copy/parallels (at a functional level) of experiences "with the spirit" that religious folks claim to have?

You can't. Or can you?

I can't know about the authenticity of those experiences any more than someone attributing them to some external spirit. Now you're starting to get it.

I had a long conversation this past weekend with a sister-in-law of mine, and she pulled out the whole "these personal spiritual experiences are my own and are valid to me, whatever anyone else thinks or feels is for them" argument, and I wasn't having it. I asked whether the God she imagined those spiritual experiences coming from was her own little private God who only exists for her, or whether she believes this God is the God of everyone in the universe, and exists for everyone in the universe, etc. The point being she can't go around claiming she can reasonably ignore what everyone else is experiencing out there from God and argue she should go with her own little personal experience because that implies that her own little personal experience applies to everyone.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well, or understandably - I would guess probably not, though how the conversation actually went it was making total sense. I guess what I'm trying to say is you've got a whole world of people going around talking about how they must accept their own personal spiritual experiences as witnessing Truth to them, but inevitably these Truths they are getting a witness of apply not just to themselves, but to everyone - we are, after all, talking about God, and not something personal-only like what their favorite color should be. So we have this whole world full of people going around having their own little private, personal spiritual experiences that are to apply to the whole world, and they contradict each other.

It should be obvious to people that at least most peoples' own personal spiritual witnesses are not true.

I believe in an equal opportunity Holy Spirit. He doesn't tell one person something and expect others to be bound by it, and he doesn't flee when the going gets rough.

Mormons get a ltitle carried away with their promptings from the HG, if you ask me. I recently heard a women mention that she had been prompted by the spirit to prepare her SS lessons on Friday instead of Saturday night. Could that have been plain old common sense? Someone posted on a board a while back that as a child he had gone into an old shack to play with kittens, his parents had warned him many times not to go in there, he felt a prompting to get out and he did, and the shack collapsed a week later. Was that a strangly anti-climataic HG, or was it his own knowledge that he shouldn't have been there? If it was the HG, though, I hope he warned the kittens to get out in time too.

I've teared up at many things during my life, including seeing David O. McKay when I didn't expect to, Pepsi commercials, and the dance of the sugar plum fairy. I can understand now where exactly inside myself those feelings came from.

MG, you scoffed at my epiphany I related on the other thread, which I could very well say was from the Spirit, which came in the words: "there doesn't have to be a Satan." Easy for you to judge that as having been from Satan himself because it doesn't jive with what you fancy the Spirit to be saying. It is very real and true to me that there is no Satan, but I'm not here to convince you of that because that was my personal experience. You did to me what you are whining about PP doing to you.

I'll try to keep sexual innuendo out of this topic. I've thought LONG AND HARD about this, and in my experience the problem is finding a definition of what a spiritual prompting is. Whenever the topic POPS UP, I've asked people to describe their spirutual experiences it's nothing spectacular, just a SPECIAL FEELING DOWN THERE like what I get when I think I've discovered the answer to something that's been bugging me. If I'm searching for religion and think I've found the answer, of course I'll get a special feeling.