Themis wrote:I have been very fair with you. You misunderstand what I was asking. I was never asking you to prove your religious evidence to me. I was asking how you prove it to yourself. This is the issue that is the problem. How does one know any sensation or thought is from a divine source or some other source including yourself. Then add in how sensations have no interpretation. Each person adds that interpretation based on what they have been taught and believe. As missionaries we tell investigators how to interpret their sensations and hope they believe us and are able to get some positive feeling. These are not questions believers like to address.
When is come to science you do cherry pick and misrepresent things to fit with what you want to believe.
The epistemology is clear, as you have described it already, but there is a flaw in your description.
Because it is not just manifest by sensations. It is by manifestations in general, and they come according to the various spiritual gifts people have. Only at certain times are "sensations" the actual manifestations I speak of.
Trying to help people interpret their sensations is only the beginning of the process. Somebody has to do it, and somebody has to try to get them to recognize their spiritual gifts through which the manifestations are manifest. While feelings are sometimes the way things are manifest in the beginning, because it is a common manifestation, especially among new members, as people gradually shift toward more spiritual discernment, the manifestations start to get more pronounced according to specific spiritual gifts that these people have.
For me, it happens to be the manifestations of the Holy Ghost through the gift of synchronicity and the gift of prophetic dreams, and once in a while a prophetic thought of something that immediately happens after the fact (which is still a manifestation of synchronicity, and sort of a deja-vu-ish type thing). Words can't precisely describe my spiritual gift, as you can see, because it is a weird mixture between synchronicity, deja-vu, prophecy and dreams.
Are you familiar with the word Umwelt, as used by neuroscientists?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1lqFXHvqIhttp://www.eagleman.com/blog/umweltIf your mind is only tuned to what your senses sense in their "default" state, and you have not used your body and brain to attune yourself to the manifestations according to your spiritual gifts, you are constrained by the default state of what your biology will sample for you.
So no, I don't sit here and presume that the sensory perceptions of mere "feelings," in every case but rather int is literally a science of the way that the manifestations are made to you by the Holy Ghost in the surrounding world, and by experience, the identification of those manifestations. If you are going to attune yourself to it, somebody has to train you in it in the first place. So, I realize that you have no respect for what missionaries are doing, but they are giving "babes" real basic instruction in the science of the EXPANSION OF THE UMWELT, to recognize the manifestations of the Holy Ghost.
And so, because each person's Umwelt is different according to their spiritual gifts, a good "common ground" to start with is feelings, because some spiritual gifts sometimes are manifest in feelings. But for those who do not have the good old "burning in the bosom" as their spiritual gift, this is not a one size fits all. Those people have a more difficult time identifying what part of their particular umwelt the Holy Ghost will use to speak to them, and how to sense those manifestations.
I know you have no respect for this, but what Dr. Eagleman is doing with technology and how the brain interprets the data coming in, is precisely what misisonaries are trying to do with people. They are trying to give them basic training in how to get their mind and brain to recognize the part of their personal umwelt and the patterns and principles used through which the communication and manifestations of the Holy Ghost comes.
This is the epistemology. Take it or leave it. If you don't respect it, that doesn't bother me. I am comfortable with it, and I use it, and I train my children to discover their specific spiritual gifts through which the Holy Ghost is manifest to them, and it is not always the good ol "burning in the bosom."
But I think that you can see here, that my analysis of the situation is not the naïve Mormon "feeling" argument, but rather, I am trying to identify the manifestations of the Holy Ghost more broadly than that, and how people can detect them, so they can know how the Lord is specifically speaking to them.
So, as ex-Mormons, if you are going to properly address the issue of the Holy Ghost and how you don't believe it, you can't just address this by saying your old John-Dehlin-esque cliché that feelings are not good indicators of truth. Rather, you need to address the fact that people who "never got answers" likely never were obedient long enough in order to finally encounter the way the spirit would finally manifest itself, or were never trained in such a way that they were able to find the precise spiritual gift through which the spirit would speak to them. And this is a flaw in the training aspect of how to understand the manifestations of the spirit, because the Church concentrates on the "feeling" type of manifestations too much. More often than not, these are people who do not have the burning of the bosom as their spiritual gift. And therefore, for these people, it is not as simple as never having had the feelings. Furthermore, I agree that feelings are not necessarily a good indicator of truth, only for those with that type of gift, and more often, that is not their only gift, so they ought to move forward to a better indicator. A good indicator of truth is to identify in a particular case what a person's spiritual gift is, to have them exercise themselves in that gift, and finally for them to be able to discern that indicator. This is not a simple problem. And so, the oversimplified criticism of the feeling thing is indeed that. Yes, the Holy Ghost speaks through spiritual manifestations, not particularly feelings. And because of that fact, dismissing it on the issue of feelings is not a good thing to do, because it cannot address the bigger problem that if people are not "feeling the spirit," maybe they aren't supposed to "feel" the spirit in the first place. Maybe they are supposed to sense the spirit in some non-conventional way. Maybe they are supposed to see a spiritual manifestation before their eyes. Maybe they are supposed to witness a spiritual manifestation in action. Maybe they are supposed to hear a voice. Maybe they are supposed to dream a dream. Maybe they are supposed to see angels. Maybe they are supposed to witness meaningful disconnected occurrences that some would supposedly call "coincidences." Maybe their gift is more "spooky," where they are supposed to dowse to get their answer, like Heber C. Kimball with a rod. Maybe they are supposed to perform bibliomancy with the scriptures to get their answer. Maybe they are supposed to see a spirit to get their answer. Maybe they are supposed to miraculously heal someone as a sign to get their answer.
In other words, let's boil this down. What kind of sign from heaven are people supposed to have in their particular case? Because more often than not, yes, a feeling is not necessarily their gift.
I don't see in Moroni's promise a promise of a burning in the bosom. I see a promise of a manifestation according to the gifts of the spirit that belong to an individual. That is not a simple thing, but is a promise of an eventual manifestation if the person holds out long enough to figure out what it is, and if the person is in the right mindset of "true intent, having faith in Christ," etc. Therefore, it is not a valid thing to say that somebody did not or will not get a manifestation just because they did not get a burning in the bosom. Did they truly recognize what it is, and did anybody help them try to figure it out beyond the burning thing? And to train them to expect that they should get a burning in the bosom as their manifestation is a disservice to them if it is not their gift. To try to figure out one's spiritual gift is not a simple proposition if it does not come as a burning.