Runtu wrote:wenglund wrote:Beside the pragmatic socio-epistemic rule of thumb: "presumption of innocence" (which I extended initially to you and others here, and I still believe you are genuine and sincere in your expressed thoughts and actions--though I think you are mistaken in some ways) I have, through my several decades of extensive and indepth research into the Church, and my personal interactions with members at all ecclesiastical levels of my faith (including apostles), found no significant reason to doubt the genuiness and sincerity and good faith of the Church, and more than ample reasons sufficient to give me high confidence that the Church is genuine and sincere and acting in good faith. I have every reason to think that, overwhelmingly, the faithful members, like myself, and chosen leaders (particularly those at the General Authjority level), have faith in the verity of the restored gospel of Christ, and their words and actions, for the most part, are a convincing witness and a testiment to their genuiness, sincerity, and good faith therein.
How about you?
Thanks, -Wade Enlgund-
It's really depended on the situation. I saw my mission president gloss over or deny uncomfortable truths. I saw GAs that I worked with do the same, as well as beat up on anyone who questioned. I heard from eyewitnesses and family members of the victims about the church's appalling behavior during the Hofmann episode. But by and large, most people believed sincerely.
So, I'm left in a quandary. The evidence that the church is not what it claims to be is pretty overwhelming. The evidence that its leaders are intentionally misleading people is perhaps less overwhelming, but it's there nonetheless.
I can understand if you say there is a lack of evidence for you to believe, or sufficient evidence to raise doubts about the verity of Church. But, I think you significantly overstate your case, or you have jumped to false conclusions, to say that there is overwhellming evidence that it is NOT what it claims to be. Do you understand the important distinction? For example, I may say that the evidence for space aliens visiting the earth and abducting people is insufficient to cause me to believe, and some of the evidence has raised doubts whether space aliens have visted earth and abducted people, and I may believe there is a more viable explanation. But, I don't think there is sufficient evidence to disprove the claims that space aliens visited the earth. It would be a cognitive distortion to suggest that there was sufficient evidence to disprove the claim.
It would also be a cognitive distortion were I to, like you, take a few instance when I perceived ET advocates as hedging or dodging hard questions, and conclude from that the ET movement is a lie and presenting false pretenses and not acting in good faith, and deceptive.
And, were I to have once believed in ET's, and spent considerable time and energy and money acting on that belief, and then later stopped believing, it would be a cognitive distortion to view ET believers, on that basis, as lying and deceptive and not acting in good faith--though I could consider them as mistaken.
John, there is a reason that you, and relatively few others of you, believe the Church is lying, deceptive, and not acting in good faith and deceptive. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be that you have a distorted view of things for reasons of your own?
Wade, if the church were not what it claims to be, how would you go about figuring that out?
The same way that I went about determining if it was what it claimed to be. These are two sides of the same coin. I explain this in greater detail in Tal's interview with me.
Thanks, -Wade Englund-