charity wrote:Sorry, runtu, this is the part of discussions over here that I find most distressing. You just told me what I believe.
THe only place where he seems to tell you what you believe is where he says Mormons believe the church is true. Is that not what you believe?
"We of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith." - Gordon B. Hinckley
"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks
Pokatator wrote: This post is completely and totally signature line worthy. This post captures just about everything that goes on daily at MAD. Trying to nail jello to the wall and talking colors to a blind person. This post fully illustrates my frustration when I was at MAD. It explains the methods used in FARM and FAIR articles and the character of the apologists and their arguments. The perfect example of how they think.
This thread is probably one of the most honest and revealing threads that I have read recently on the mind of the apologist. As Sethbag has responded earlier that all this has been stated before by critics but it seems to me that it is the first time that a major apologist and a major poster at MAD has admitted it.
This is a very enjoyable thread.
I am glad you are enjoying this. It is a little frustrating when the blind men keep insisting there is no such thing as color, and people who see color are only deluding themselves. We learned early on in our study of sensation that we are limited by our our senses. We have the five senses, hearing, sight, taste, feel, kinesthetic. We can invent measuring devices for these senses. We can measure light, even in frequencies not visible to our own eyes. But we can perceive light. What if there is some sensory mechanism we humans do not possess? We would be totally unaware of it, because we do not have any sensory mechanism to detect it.
But isn't it the heigth of arrogance to demand that there are only five sensory mechanisms with which any event may be experienced? Does your paradigm admit to the possibility that there may be something out there that others are experiencing that you , and others who deny the validity of the spiritual witness, aren't?
I'm glad you're glad that I am glad I am enjoying this. And yes I am.
I think you have hit a height of arrogance with me several times in the past. You have told me repeatedly to continue to pay, pray, and obey, to rely on someone else's testimony until I get my own. That it is my fault that Moroni's promise never worked for me. I didn't ask with a contrite spirit, etc. etc. This seems the same as telling me to move my paradigm but don't face the facts but keep on keeping on.
I do discount the possibility that you have experienced anything beyond your 5 senses. Why? Why do you think there couldn't possibly be something more that we simply have not learned how to detect? A case in point. It is a well documented fact that some animals display agitation before an earthquake. Even before there are any registered seismological events. Is there some sensing mechanism that they have that we don't? The idea that we know or can know all there is to know of the physical world, much less an aother dimensions or spiritual world if you will, is simply human arrogance.
I think that most spiritual witnesses are explainable. Southwest's are mostly emotional and are mixed with a little bit of physical symptoms. I think most SWs come about from a time of distress, stress, loneliness and hardship, etc. And/or they occur during fasting which is most likely low blood sugar and/or stomach gas from lack of food. Or lack of sleep or euphoria from lengthy reading of anything. These things have been described previously. And I can tell you that my strongest spiritual witness happened under none of those described circumstances. Out of the blue. Having had three suare meals a day. Not in any time of distress, and I hadn't even been reading my scriptures. And I can certainly tell the difference between that and the time BYU beat Utah in the last few seconds of the game and there were thousands of people, including me, in a state of euphoria. It was not the same experience at all.
SWs are paradigms, especially for the BICs, in my opinion. You can attribute them to the Holy Ghost if you like, I can't. I can't ignore facts either. I don't ignore facts, either. I guess maybe you just accept some "facts" on faith. I think is what is a difference in anti and pro-thinking. We each think our facts are unassailable and can't admit our "facts" may be wrong. And if faithful LDS do that, so do non-believers. Think of Dan Vogel. His paragdigm is that there aren't any angels, visions, etc. He can't possibly be wrong about that, in his mind. Is he any different in degree of blindness than you think LDS faithful are?
I can't blindly move my paradigm to fit a puzzle that is without a doubt false. Here you just said the mantra of the non-believer. "Without a doubt false." And you criticize us for "without a doubt true?" I guess I am just a prick you are kicking against. I don't kick against anyone. Just their ideas. And you are a much nicer guy than what you said.
I think someone who doesn't know what a spiritual witness is, is in a really poor position to tell someone else they don't know what it is, either. Your "scientific" argument appears to be "I have never had a spiritual experience, so nobody else ever has either." A way to make yourself feel better for your deficit. Do you also belong to the school that won't permit cochlear implants because being deaf is a valid experience and to do so would admit there was something wrong with the deaf person?
I have had many spiritual witnesses. They were powerful and moving. And now I can see the subjectivity and emotional interplay that helped me thing thie was God talking to me when it was likely not. Yet they were still powerful and had meaning. And guess what? I have them now as well for many things. When I ride my bike and enjoy the beauty of creation, the fascinating machine I am powering with the fascinating machine I call my body, when I see the clouds, the sunset, that trees, brooks all of it, I have faith there is some sort of God out there. But it is faith and still not empirical and subjective. It may be God but it may be my emotions as well and the chemical my body releases in response to physical and emotional stimuli.
Almost every one here who is ex or disaffected LDS had just as much testimony as you Charity. I know I have and I know that spiritual emotional driven witnesses cannot be relied on for determining truth. That is just the way it is.
Jason Bourne wrote:Then, in the best way, and most dramatic as well, we would tell the FV story in Joseph's words. After we would bear our testimony and then say
"Mr Brown, how did you FEEL when we taught you about Joseph seeing God and Jesus."
"Oh I felt really good, at peace."
"And what are those feelings?"
"The Holy Ghost"
"And what does the Holy Ghost teach about?"
"Truth"
"So if you felt peace or good while we taught you what does that say about our message?"
"I must be true"
And if it is true and Jospeh was told to join no Church and that God would call him to be a prophet what does that tell you about the LDS Church?"
"That it is true"
Well you get the gist.
Holy hell. I never went on a mission, and I thank god every day that I made the decision not to go. Is this really the type of crap they peddle? Please tell me you're joking and this isn't really the sales pitch.
"We of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith." - Gordon B. Hinckley
"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks
SatanWasSetUp wrote:Holy hell. I never went on a mission, and I thank god every day that I made the decision not to go. Is this really the type of crap they peddle? Please tell me you're joking and this isn't really the sales pitch.
Mine was a little different, but yeah, that's the gist of it.
1. Church member has a spiritual witness that the Church is true. A spiritual witness is not a paradigm.
Why do you claim this when it is simply false. Even my scientist friend says that laws of physics that we think we have empircal evidence of are subject to reinterpretation and thus would qualify as a paradigm.
A spiritual witness is a paradigm as much as any you hold.
But tell yourself this long enough and you may believe it.
charity wrote: Fascinating. Kevin says that David's position is that "all other facts, data and evidences must be interpreted in ways to fit that premise." You then walk him through a series of steps that do just that. And then you tell him to stop making a claim he didn't make.
Shaking my head over this one.
Right back at you, runtu. The FACTS are not interpreted, as I clearly state. The paradigm is re-examined. In the example I gave, the fact (prophet makes a statement in error) is not changed, not interpreted. The pagadigm (prophet infallibility) is what changes. I really do not see how you don't understand that.
What if the people living at the time believed the prophet was not in error, and what if he believed he was not in error but today we know he was in error? How does that fit the spiritual witness of those who heard the error and believed it and had a spiritual witness of it?
Jason Bourne wrote:Then, in the best way, and most dramatic as well, we would tell the FV story in Joseph's words. After we would bear our testimony and then say
"Mr Brown, how did you FEEL when we taught you about Joseph seeing God and Jesus."
"Oh I felt really good, at peace."
"And what are those feelings?"
"The Holy Ghost"
"And what does the Holy Ghost teach about?"
"Truth"
"So if you felt peace or good while we taught you what does that say about our message?"
"I must be true"
And if it is true and Jospeh was told to join no Church and that God would call him to be a prophet what does that tell you about the LDS Church?"
"That it is true"
Well you get the gist.
Holy hell. I never went on a mission, and I thank god every day that I made the decision not to go. Is this really the type of crap they peddle? Please tell me you're joking and this isn't really the sales pitch.
Nope I am not joking. We went in. Told them we would tell them God has called prophets and apostles in modern days, restored his true Church and if that were true would they want to be part of it. Then we taught them about the HG, how they would know it was true, teach FV, testify, tell them they heard the spirit, challenge to be baptized then and that we would then teach them what the needed to know and do to be ready.
1. Church member has a spiritual witness that the Church is true. A spiritual witness is not a paradigm.
Why do you claim this when it is simply false. Even my scientist friend says that laws of physics that we think we have empircal evidence of are subject to reinterpretation and thus would qualify as a paradigm.
A spiritual witness is a paradigm as much as any you hold.
But tell yourself this long enough and you may believe it.
A paradigm IS NOT an experience. A paradigm is an intellectual contstruct.
A spiritual witness IS an experience. A spiritual witness can occur when a person has no intellectual construct about spiritual witnesses.