Question for bomgeography about the flood

[_spotlight]

Well for the record Clark, I'm not seeing where you established private subjective experience/evidence as sufficient to prove the truth claims of the church on an individual basis.

I posted a link for a thought experiment of where a private experience was sufficient to prove a controversial claim for the individual but not others. To avoid the baggage of religion I gave an example I think is intrinsically false (spaceships from an other world violating FTL) I think the thought experiment does a good job showing the principle. The only real rejoinder was that the person in such a case ought think themselves mentally ill which I also replied to.

Yes and Fence Sitter responded to that pretty well. His explanation is better than yours. My take on it is that the whole thing introduces a contradiction with well established science despite all the philosobabble you (were required?) to pick up at BYwoo.

[_Fence Sitter]

Well there is public evidence surrounding what you want to call private evidence. Fence Sitter brought up some good points about seeing things nor really there. I also brought up that we could predict with some good accuracy how a person will interpret these private evidences based on their world view. That's good evidence people are not accurately interpreting them.

I think I stated that experiences need to be interpreted and people can misinterpret them. So if you go back you'll see that I agreed with you there. But some experiences narrow the range of interpretation.

I thought my answer to the problem of mental illness was reasonable. If an experience is repeated and I can take reasonable step to try and discern hallucinations or mental illness then I think I'm justified in accepting the experience. If mental illness is such that I can't tell I'm thinking incorrectly consistently and no one else can then of course all bets are off. Not just for religious knowledge but any knowledge of anything.

First of all I should explain I am not by any means an expert in the field of mental illness, nor am I trying to imply that Clark's personal experiences derive from them. But the way Clark is painting mental illness is very black and white, as if it would be simple to test whether or not an experience is the result of an actual outside influence or visitation or if it was a result of mal functioning brain chemistry and or physically induced event through fasting, drugs, or other outside stimuli. It's not. Mental illness manifest itself in so many ways that it is very difficult to even diagnose correctly. Is the person schizophrenic, schizoaffetive, manic depressive or what? And getting into causes is another whole can of worms. Bottom line is that the affected vary in how their disease manifests itself from people who live a fairly normal life (more below) without knowing there is an issue to those who end up on the street or in an institution or dead, as is often the case in extreme untreated cases.

My wife's best friend, a lady who is in her 50's, that we have know for over a decade, who has a masters degree and has a successful long career in education is probably, in my uninformed opinion, suffering from mental illness, though it has taken me years to come to that conclusion. She talk to spirits, and it is fairly common. She believes she can see and speak with spirits and does so on a daily basis. She realizes this is unusual but thinks she is just "gifted" or "blessed" as did my wife initially. After being around her for years I have come to believe that she does not talk to spirits but has a mild form of mental illness with which she copes, at times rather badly, but most of the time, quite well. She is quite private about her "visions", so for the most part even those close to her are not aware of when one is going on.

If this was a hundred and fifty years ago she would be seen as some sort of visionary and her experiences would be believed by many. Today it is clear what she is dealing with a form of mental illness.

As far as jumping from religious knowledge being unknowable to

" If mental illness is such that I can't tell I'm thinking incorrectly consistently and no one else can then of course all bets are off. Not just for religious knowledge but any knowledge of anything."

Again one has to understand how mental illness is affected by culture to see this simply is not true. Here in the Christian dominated western hemisphere mental illness has a tendency to produce psychoses that are religious in nature, which I have seen on several occasions firsthand. (In one group session I attended an elderly lady was talking about her adult son who lived in her garage who had brought home for safe keeping two rocks that were he though were the petrified brains of Adam and Eve.) On the other hand in eastern countries where the is a much larger emphasis on groups and nationalities,where psychoses tend to manifest themselves with delusions centered on threats to society.

In other words the uncertainty one might have regarding a religious event is not expandable to the entire body of human knowledge.

[_Themis]

Well for the record Clark, I'm not seeing where you established private subjective experience/evidence as sufficient to prove the truth claims of the church on an individual basis.

Another problem is that we can sometimes get our body and mind to create the experience for us. Our mind doesn't need our eyes and ears to create the experience of sight and sound. It's much like our dreams. I used to have more religious oriented dreams as a believer, but now, hardly at all. We don't need a dysfunctional brain to create these experiences, and we have many ways to get our brain and body to create the experiences. These would be drugs, fasting, lack of sleep, stress, etc.

[_ClarkGoble]

We can accurately predict how most will interpret these experiences. Interpreting the experiences as aliens was not likely a thousand years ago, but more likely angels and demons. Now we see a lot more aliens interacting with us. The point is private experiences like these are not reliable and should not be used as a way to believe objective claims about the universe like the Book of Mormon.

Again we have to distinguish between claims to the experience by others - which is why they aren't reliable to trust and how we would deal with them if we had them. I'm here assuming everyone here isn't typical and is a critical thinker and would attempt to verify the experience and think through alternatives.

It's certainly true we can convince ourselves of false things. False memories are easy to establish in people. I'm sure we've all had times where something we remembered wasn't accurate or even that we remember something that happened to someone else happening to us. That's why careful inquiry, examine alternatives and most importantly repeatable experiences are so important.

[_ClarkGoble]

First of all I should explain I am not by any means an expert in the field of mental illness, nor am I trying to imply that Clark's personal experiences derive from them. But the way Clark is painting mental illness is very black and white, as if it would be simple to test whether or not an experience is the result of an actual outside influence or visitation or if it was a result of mal functioning brain chemistry and or physically induced event through fasting, drugs, or other outside stimuli. It's not. Mental illness manifest itself in so many ways that it is very difficult to even diagnose correctly.

I don't think I'm doing that at all. Far from it.

Let me turn the question around. Are your experiences right now trustworthy? Is there a way you can tell they aren't delusions from mental illness?

I'm going to bet that you do not consider your experiences, even key hugely important experiences, the result of mental illness. If you don't, why don't you? What process of thinking are you going through to determine that?

[_Themis]

Again we have to distinguish between claims to the experience by others - which is why they aren't reliable to trust and how we would deal with them if we had them. I'm here assuming everyone here isn't typical and is a critical thinker and would attempt to verify the experience and think through alternatives.

Not sure what you are getting at, but my point is that if I interviewed a 100 people about their religious beliefs, I could reliably predict what their interpretations of spiritual experiences that occurred after those interviews. The only reliable factor is their religious or non--religious beliefs previous to having the spiritual experience.

It's certainly true we can convince ourselves of false things. False memories are easy to establish in people. I'm sure we've all had times where something we remembered wasn't accurate or even that we remember something that happened to someone else happening to us. That's why careful inquiry, examine alternatives and most importantly repeatable experiences are so important.

And how would you do this with the Book of Mormon? We are asked to pray and ask if it is true, and you seem to suggest a way someone can know, but haven't given any details on how one can do so.

[_Fence Sitter]

I don't think I'm doing that at all. Far from it.

Let me turn the question around. Are your experiences right now trustworthy? Is there a way you can tell they aren't delusions from mental illness?

I'm going to bet that you do not consider your experiences, even key hugely important experiences, the result of mental illness. If you don't, why don't you? What process of thinking are you going through to determine that?

Hi Clark,

Thanks for responding to this minor tangent.

We started off this when I responded to your comment below.

If I see a being floating in the air do some reasonable basic tests, am reasonably sure I'm not mentally ill then why should I question the experience?

by pointing out that mental illness, schizophrenia specifically, was often associated with religious experiences, that this was not unusual, and frequently those who were affected did not know they were affected. If fact, part of the disease actually tends to persuade those affected that they are fine and the rest of the world is wrong or misinformed. ( I want to repeat here, I do not think this is you and am not trying to imply it is.) They even have a name for this by the way. It is called "The God Complex" because the afflicted person believes he alone is singled out by God for divine institution As one article puts it:

People with schizophrenia experiencing religious delusions often develop the belief that they are special or have been chosen by God to be a saint or prophet. Sometimes they will believe that they are Jesus Christ himself. Alternatively they may start to believe that they are being punished for past sins and will start to pray and fast excessively. They may start to attend places of worship very frequently where their behavior can sometimes be disruptive

See here.

Now you are asking me about my experiences in general and how I can trust them. Well, to date, I have not had any experiences which even remotely meet the description you give above so I do not see your question as relevant to my pointing out that the type of descriptions you gave, which are frequently experienced with those suffering from with mental illness as opposed to every day experiences. Maybe you want to expand on what you meant by "hugely important experiences"?

Frankly it seems like you are way over reaching here, to go from "seeing a being floating in the air" to comparing them to my everyday experiences.

[_spotlight]

In view of the tendency of some to claim adherence to LDS theology while disbelieving in a global flood of Noah I am adding this reminder that the global version of the (non) event is also taught in the New Testament and by Jesus himself in the gospel according to Matthew for example. I'll let the fundamentalists defend their own turf here:

http://creation.com/nt-global-flood

If we can't trust these scriptures from the New Testament concerning the nature of the flood, how can we trust other statements from the New Testament such as "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive"?

[_ClarkGoble]

Not sure what you are getting at, but my point is that if I interviewed a 100 people about their religious beliefs, I could reliably predict what their interpretations of spiritual experiences that occurred after those interviews. The only reliable factor is their religious or non--religious beliefs previous to having the spiritual experience.

i.e. most people persist in their beliefs and don't question or inquiry. I'd certainly agree with that. But I think you'd also agree that some people do inquire. They change their beliefs. Since I think many here went from being believers to non-believers we have to assume that we can change.

And how would you do this with the Book of Mormon? We are asked to pray and ask if it is true, and you seem to suggest a way someone can know, but haven't given any details on how one can do so.

I don't think there's one type of answer. I had a series using C. S. Peirce's approach to epistemology I was writing on this for T&S and SMPT but I then got a tad too busy. I was here more just addressing whether there is a way, not that such extreme cases are how most people know.

[_ClarkGoble]

...by pointing out that mental illness, schizophrenia specifically, was often associated with religious experiences, that this was not unusual, and frequently those who were affected did not know they were affected. If fact, part of the disease actually tends to persuade those affected that they are fine and the rest of the world is wrong or misinformed. ( I want to repeat here, I do not think this is you and am not trying to imply it is.) They even have a name for this by the way. It is called "The God Complex" ...

Right. And we have to be careful here. Even if there is a strong correlation of the schizophrenic having religious experiences that doesn't imply the other is common (that those with religious experiences are schizophrenic). But more importantly the question is that if you are suffering from that are there ways to discern you are, such as by acquaintances. My point was if there is no way to know, then discussion is over because you will simply not think you are. But if there is a way to know, then by definition you'd be able to tell if that is the reason for your beliefs.

The point is that when you put the logic like that the problem disappears. In one fork you can't really know much at all so talking about it is pointless. In the other fork there will be signs we can intepret to know if we're mentally ill.

Now you are asking me about my experiences in general and how I can trust them. Well, to date, I have not had any experiences which even remotely meet the description you give above so I do not see your question as relevant to my pointing out that the type of descriptions you gave, which are frequently experienced with those suffering from with mental illness as opposed to every day experiences.

Just that I think we have to assume we have a way to tell if we're mentally ill or not to conduct our way. Now what I think you wish to say is that mental illness is tied just to these kinds of extreme religious events but of course that's not true. I've known people suffering from mental illness convinced people love them or other more 'mundane' classes of events were happening but that acquaintance could tell were completely unjustified.

My point was just that we have to assume a way of discerning we're mentally ill. If the claim is we can be significantly mentally ill to the point of schizophrenia but have it not affect any other aspect of our life except a few narrow religious beliefs then I'm just extremely skeptical of that.