quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: BlackBlade, why should we believe that your experiences are different?
We have your word, and the words of all the others.
Each of you says essentially the same thing. And when they sound the same to an outside observer, have the same effects, and can in fact be simulated in a lab, what is one supposed to ocnclude?
What would you conclude if this was the evidence presented in some other, non-religious psychological thing?
You don't HAVE to believe me. God is completely capable of speaking for himself. Go out there and see if there really is a God out there. Go live your life as best you can, and if one day God visits you make sure you are ready to listen. God does not do anyone any favors when he visits the unprepared.
edit: But if you live your life with the unshakable conclusion that there is no way a God could exist because the world seems so convoluted then you probably wouldn't believe God anyway even if he explained it all.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Go live your life as best you can, and if one day God visits you make sure you are ready to listen.
When most people (statistically) do this and get an answer from what they believe is god, it is not the god that you believe in. Are those people any less sincere? And if they are sincere, how can we, the unbelievers, differentiate between y'all?
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quote:And you are wrong that religious conversion is a one way street.
The evidential process is what I'm referring to. Every time you label a particular experience "God" you increase your evidentiary support of God, while you allow no consideration to subtract from that evidence. The best you can do, (and this is rare, in my experience) is to decide after the fact that perhaps one of those "spiritual" experiences wasn't spiritual after all, usually because of interference from the real world such as when a friend's sexually abusive father was called by inspiration to be an LDS Bishop where he served for several years before being reported.
How do you even know he was called by inspiration? Now if YOU yourself felt you had been told by God to call the man and in fact he turns out to have been the devil himself for at least a decade before being then you need to consider,
1: Did I make a mistake?
2: Perhaps what I believe is God is not.
Now if you could produce proof that say the Book of Mormon was not true, or that Joseph Smith was not just capable of human error but actually an evil person, then I would probably sluff off religion and leave the possibility of God open, but VERY skeptical in believing in anything specific about Him. In fact I'd probably have difficulty believing anything ever again.
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quote:Now if you could produce proof that say the Book of Mormon was not true
I just want to point out, we can give you evidence that claims the Book of Mormon makes are false...which may or may not add up to "proof" that it isn't true, depending on how you feel.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Go live your life as best you can, and if one day God visits you make sure you are ready to listen.
When most people (statistically) do this and get an answer from what they believe is god, it is not the god that you believe in. Are those people any less sincere? And if they are sincere, how can we, the unbelievers, differentiate between y'all?
For crying out loud quick asking me, "But BlackBlade, how can we know the difference between you and WhiteBlade the Muslim."
Leave the convincing to God, if you have an experience that leads you to believe Jesus was the way, and along comes a Muslim whose words stir you into accepting Mohamed then go that route. God's as far as I know is not going to get upset at you for following your convictions, only for being intentionally less then you could be, or a fool or gullible.
I personally have found more truth in Mormonism then any other religion, it has made me want to be better as a person and increased what I believe to be my understanding of God. It has shown me miracles in my life and in the lives of others. Could I be wrong, yes, but so could you.
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quote:Now if you could produce proof that say the Book of Mormon was not true
I just want to point out, we can give you evidence that claims the Book of Mormon makes are false...which may or may not add up to "proof" that it isn't true, depending on how you feel.
Well I've heard that claim many times. It usually does not cut mustard, and not because I am unwilling to believe it.
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My point exactly. There's no 3: God doesn't really inspire callings. It just isn't even a conceivable response because it's a -1 and only 0 or +1 are allowed.
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quote:Well I've heard that claim many times. It usually does not cut mustard, and not because I am unwilling to believe it.
A plain review of the evidence is fairly convincing to an objective outsider, but FARMS is pretty good at framing it in a way that it doesn't seem so damning to a believer, so I don't usually get into that.
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posted
Yet the other people will say God spoke to them as well.
In fact, the God they claim spoke to them depends on what beliefs they possess, as well!
And I've already gone out there, I've already looked. I was ready throughout all my childhood, I knew God was there, believed it all my heart. You could never sway me from that faith.
Then, I learned how the human mind works. And I noticed how no answers I ever got were anything other than what I wanted to feel. My own thoughts, feelings. Even the random, completely new ones. My mind does that the exact same way even when not praying.
In the end, to make a long story short, and it is very long, I was prepared, I have been prepared, but I will not believe anymore in something in which the only evidence is, which you've shown so very clearly, "because I believe it."
That's all any of your arguements fall down to. Subjective belief, a feeling. A feeling of certainty, surely, but those don't mean a damn thing, as I've observed elsewhere.
All you have is your assertions, your personal feelings, which you believe are somehow different, yet sound identical to those of many, many others, in contradictory religions.
You agree there's a possibility for false revelation, but you give no way to discern between the two, and you do not admit the possibility that you are having a false one. Only those other people who are as certain as you, only in something else. probably have it, essentially.
You have shown nothing at all convincing, and now I can't play at something I don't believe anymore. I just wouldn't admit it. That last bit is the fault of no one here, btw.
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posted
Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies. It's an academic organization that attempts to fit historical data to Mormon doctrine and "official" history.
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quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: Yet the other people will say God spoke to them as well.
In fact, the God they claim spoke to them depends on what beliefs they possess, as well!
And I've already gone out there, I've already looked. I was ready throughout all my childhood, I knew God was there, believed it all my heart. You could never sway me from that faith.
Then, I learned how the human mind works. And I noticed how no answers I ever got were anything other than what I wanted to feel. My own thoughts, feelings. Even the random, completely new ones. My mind does that the exact same way even when not praying.
In the end, to make a long story short, and it is very long, I was prepared, I have been prepared, but I will not believe anymore in something in which the only evidence is, which you've shown so very clearly, "because I believe it."
That's all any of your arguements fall down to. Subjective belief, a feeling. A feeling of certainty, surely, but those don't mean a damn thing, as I've observed elsewhere.
All you have is your assertions, your personal feelings, which you believe are somehow different, yet sound identical to those of many, many others, in contradictory religions.
You agree there's a possibility for false revelation, but you give no way to discern between the two, and you do not admit the possibility that you are having a false one. Only those other people who are as certain as you, only in something else. probably have it, essentially.
You have shown nothing at all convincing, and now I can't play at something I don't believe anymore. I just wouldn't admit it. That last bit is the fault of no one here, btw.
If you say so, it is not within my power to make you see things as I see them.
It does not bother me in the least that MY experiences do not persuade you. A religion where we did not have to do the work ourselves and could instead leech off the experiences of other would be useless to me.
How old are you 0Megabyte? Because unless you are somewhere in the ball park of 70-80 years old don't whine to me about trying and not getting anything. There are people in much harsher circumstances who at very advanced ages found something of value in organized religion, and many of them were atheists for decades.
You are asking something from me that my own theology specifies as impossible. If I could provide an easy precise way to find God, everybody could just do it and that is not a good idea. But you are welcome to your own POV, if you are so certain my religion has nothing new to offer there is not much I can do about that.
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quote:You are asking something from me that my own theology specifies as impossible. If I could provide an easy precise way to find God, everybody could just do it and that is not a good idea.
Isn't it a tenet of your faith that everyone can find God and that it needn't take years to do so? Isn't that what Moroni's Challenge is all about?
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posted
"If you say so, it is not within my power to make you see things as I see them."
No. Partly because our very frameworks for looking at the world are different. I'm a skeptic, in the most positive sense: Unless there's positive evidence for something, I assume something's false. That's generally a good way to do it, because assuming something's true until proven otherwise is a very unwise position, for many reasons.
"It does not bother me in the least that MY experiences do not persuade you."
It's not your experiences that don't move me. It's your lack of evidence for God in the first place.
" A religion where we did not have to do the work ourselves and could instead leech off the experiences of other would be useless to me."
I've done the work. The conclusion it's come to with me is different than yours. Don't assume I'm just some lost soul who hasn't found it yet.
"How old are you 0Megabyte?"
Knowledge of truth or falsehood is unrelated to age, if you don't let your emotions get in the way.
"Because unless you are somewhere in the ball park of 70-80 years old don't whine to me about trying and not getting anything."
Whine? Don't you dare patronize me. The Mormon faith, your faith, claims that if I read your book, search my soul, ask God for the truth, He will reveal it. I've done that very thing, with both your Book of Mormon, the Bible in general, and God in particular.
The answer was simple: Silence. I tell you a little of MY experience of faith, and you call it whining! Please!
You should stop whining about how we shouldn't need evidence then.
"There are people in much harsher circumstances who at very advanced ages found something of value in organized religion, and many of them were atheists for decades."
There are people who do the opposite too. So what? That doesn't make someone right. And when you're close to death, there's a benefit to going back to religion: You see your death becoming immenant, and death is the great primal fear of our species. A religion that promises an afterlife, which is familiar to a weak old person, is obviously going to be both comforting and attractive. It has nothing to do with God showing Himself to them.
"You are asking something from me that my own theology specifies as impossible."
No I'm not. I'm saying I did what your missionaries, and yourself, told me to do, already and the only answer I got was complete silence outside of my own thoughts and feelings. I found your Book of Mormon to ring suspiciously false to the ears. The language, for example, sounded like a 19th century fellow trying to sound ancient. As a single example.
" If I could provide an easy precise way to find God, everybody could just do it and that is not a good idea. But you are welcome to your own POV, if you are so certain my religion has nothing new to offer there is not much I can do about that. "
I never said there is nothing to offer. In fact, I pointed out the opposite early on.
The fact is, with no evidence for God, but a lot of evidence for humans being skilled at self-deception, which should I assume is correct? On the scales of evidence, which as a skeptic I tend to look at, you can guess where the scales tilt.
That's beyond the fact that I've done what you've said. I've even had what one could call a religious experience or two, thank you very much. And you can't refute that, you cannot claim it was not true.
But the cause of those experiences was not God but my own mind, my own desperate attempts to make what I so wanted to be true, true.
So don't you dare assume I'm just not there yet. That I haven't taken the journey. I can't say there is no God, but I can say there's no evidence. There's no proof at all that I've ever seen that is in any way convincing, that describes anything that natural explanations don't explain better.
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posted
If we don't keep the discussion a little more in the theoretical, then it can move into the realm of "convert[ing] people to your own religious beliefs, or . . . disparag[ing] others for their own religious beliefs." If y'all don't mind, could you please rein it back just a tad? I'm not trying to shut anyone down, and I recognize that it's a grey area -- I just ask that you endeavor to keep it to the lighter side of grey.
posted
Physically seeing someone is a much better indicator of existence than having a feeling.
Your eyes may trick you, but with your multiple times physically seeing him, along with, what I'd imagine, is others seeing him, it's a lot easier to believe. Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:You are asking something from me that my own theology specifies as impossible. If I could provide an easy precise way to find God, everybody could just do it and that is not a good idea.
Isn't it a tenet of your faith that everyone can find God and that it needn't take years to do so? Isn't that what Moroni's Challenge is all about?
What I mean is a method that was as simple as say snapping the fingers, or looking through a spyglass. The method is sufficiently easy enough that anyone COULD do it. But not everyone WILL.
0Megabyte: In retrospect I owe you a bit of an apology. Its not common for me to be disparaging to anyone, but I certainly meant to irk you when I called your a whiner. For that I apologize. I try to be a good ambassador of my faith and often times it can be pretty hard channeling Jesus rather then just being human. But again that does not excuse my behavior, so I am truly sorry.
It's just frustrating to have to debate with somebody on their terms. You state that you have performed the experiment exactly as prescribed in the scriptures. That statement puts me at a disadvantage.
1: I was not there, I cannot know the nuances of your experiment or how YOU perceived things.
2: Even if I was there and let say you did EVERYTHING I don't know the will of God on the matter.
Either there just wasn't a God around to take your call, or else He chose to remain silent.
As I said before, all I can offer is that I myself had to wait longer then I thought was fair to get the experience I had desired as to God's existance and the truthfulness of the religion I had already followed for years.
I've heard of people knowing it was true the moment the touched the book, and I have heard of people getting nothing but just living their life as best they could for decades and finally it all fell into place.
Anyway, TBH I am not sure I care to continue this particular conversation but I wish you well in whatever path seems right to you.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert: I believe we must take the conversation in a new direction, and prove that Papa Janitor doesn't exist.
Who's up for it?
A philosphy teacher once said to prove that he did not have 3 little green men inside his watch making it work, comparing it to faith in God. I think that is a much better activity.
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posted
My genetics teacher asked the class to prove to him that DNA was indeed the method of inheritance. He came up with his own theory and took every piece of evidence and explained how that did not disprove his theory and in some ways even strengthened it.
edit to add: my philosophy teacher used the little alien from Flintstones that kept getting Fred in trouble.
posted
The point of those things is that asking for proof of everything you believe is futile. You cannot truly prove the vast majority of your beliefs, including things that we are all extremely confident are true.
I think our beliefs typically require four different elements: 1. Evidence, with which to base our belief upon 2. Logic, with which to determine what we can infer directly from our evidence 3. Judgement, with which to make conclusions that can't be inferred directly from the evidence, but which we personally believe the evidence supports 4. Faith, so we can trust the conclusions that can't be inferred directly from the evidence but that we judge to be true based on that evidence nonetheless
I think most discussions about God go awry because it is much easier to discuss only (1), (2), and (4): What evidence do we have, what can we prove with it, and is it okay to have faith in things that we can't prove? But the truth is nobody can prove their religious view is correct based solely on evidence and logic - not even atheists. And even if we were to agree it is wise to have faith in things that go beyond what the evidence can say, that does not tell us anything about which beliefs we should have faith in.
Instead, the critical point at which atheists and members of different religions disagree is Judgement (3). We don't agree on what jumps are wise to make beyond the evidence. Should we use Occam's Razor? Should we trust the Bible? Should we trust personal experiences? The answers we give to those sorts of questions will determine whether we are atheists, theists, or whatever. But those are "should" questions. They don't have clear answers. We can't really do a study to determine if trusting the Bible is wise. As a result, we aren't going to be able to prove to others that our methods of judgement are better than theirs. That's not to say it isn't productive; it just means you can't expect to force anyone to change their viewpoint, and should not get frustrated when they don't.
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posted
The problem with #3 is that there is no control on it. It's the point in the process where we start believing things because we want them to be true or we discard evidence because it doesn't fit our established beliefs. It's spiritual overdraft protection. "Well, my evidence and logic accounts are empty, but I've still got $225 in the judgment account, so God really did help me find my car keys."
My frustration is not with the specific beliefs but the runaway dependence on #3.
#4 is just a byproduct of #1-#3.
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posted
One thing I consider are the implications of various beliefs that I could hold on a particular matter. How will various ideas that I could have about something work in reality?
For example, I could choose to believe that the Theory of Gravity is just a theory, and doesn't hold any real weight (har, har). Maybe gravity won't work one second from now, and when I jump out of my seat, I'll keep floating up to the ceiling. Nope. Still working.
True, I have to have faith and use my judgment in many areas of my life. Maybe the sun won't be there tomorrow. Maybe the laws of physics will change. Maybe I'll realize that Zeus is my patron Olympian deity, and if I don't sacrifice a fatted calf he'll throw lightening bolts at my car tomorrow.
Some of these beliefs and judgments are critical to my life, and easily confirmed, even if only in the short term, from observations. Others are at best guesses, and can be swapped out for other guesses with no real life consequences, or at least no observable consequences.
If I worship Zeus, Christian God, the Earth Mother, Satan, or nobody 5 minutes from now, I won't be able to observe any difference. If I throw a chair over my head and believe really hard that gravity isn't real, I'll learn unequivocally that I'm wrong.
I very well could be wrong about my spiritual beliefs as well, but since I can't find out one way or the other with any degree of certainty, it seems rather pointless to me to bother.
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I'd hope so, I think gravity is a law, not a theory. Not that I am defending creationists in any way.
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However, the term law, in scientific settings, is essentially not much different than a theory at all.
It's basically jazzing it up because it's so important. It has no higher level of truth than a scientific theory.
And in fact, Newton's laws, as to gravity et al, weren't actually accurate. Einstein's theories, as an example, supplanted them.
We still use them, though, because they're useful in the scope of everyday activity and the difference made by using the other calculations when gauging something on a terrestrial level is minimal.
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posted
"0Megabyte: In retrospect I owe you a bit of an apology. Its not common for me to be disparaging to anyone, but I certainly meant to irk you when I called your a whiner. For that I apologize. I try to be a good ambassador of my faith and often times it can be pretty hard channeling Jesus rather then just being human. But again that does not excuse my behavior, so I am truly sorry."
Your apology accepted.
"It's just frustrating to have to debate with somebody on their terms. You state that you have performed the experiment exactly as prescribed in the scriptures. That statement puts me at a disadvantage."
Perhaps. But debating on my terms is simply this: Evidence. I want some. I'm not even asking for a lot. When it comes to Papa Moose, I believe he exists, or at least someone uses that name, first of all because his posts are evident, and people have made sure their claim that they have seen him, physically. Not in a vision, but with their eyes, their senses.
With God, nobody's seen Him physically. Not in a way that other human beings sitting beside them could see, anyway. You cannot call up God and say "hey, this guy doesn't believe, show up with me today so he sees, okay?" You can with, say, Papa Moose, at least it's feasible.
God's feelings are vague enough to be easily interpreted as something else. The same feelings of religious rapture can be done to a person in a lab. The human mind tricks itself in so many other subjects. In other words, it's not at all clear.
On the other hand, to argue on your own terms presupposes God's existence, and presupposes the validity of religious experience. Though I'm not at all perfect, I simply cannot go from that perspective, either.
Really, it seems we both have troubles with the others terms. It's hard to talk in that case, and it's clearly been hard.
"1: I was not there, I cannot know the nuances of your experiment or how YOU perceived things.
2: Even if I was there and let say you did EVERYTHING I don't know the will of God on the matter"
1: Yes. You cannot. Nor can I know for sure if I did whatever correctly.
2: IF God has a will, then it evidently wasn't for me to find truth in the Book of Mormon, or even God at all, at that or at this time. Because I didn't. Assuming there is one, of course.
You cannot know if I did it right. In the same vein, I cannot know if I did it wrong, truly. Really, to respond to my word,s you could always say I evidently didn't do it right, and we'd be stuck. Thank you for not. I'll concede I may have done it wrong. But how can I know, then, if it's such a personal thing?
"As I said before, all I can offer is that I myself had to wait longer then I thought was fair to get the experience I had desired as to God's existance and the truthfulness of the religion I had already followed for years."
Well, we'll see, won't we? I don't say God doesn't exist, just that I find no evidence. And, udnerstanding my mind, I can tell when I'm just fooling myself, at least to an extent, now.
"I've heard of people knowing it was true the moment the touched the book, and I have heard of people getting nothing but just living their life as best they could for decades and finally it all fell into place."
Perhaps. But others do not ever, even if they want it. To compare these anecdotes is meaningless, as neither the ones who get it nor the ones who don't, even when combined, do not really say anything about truth.
"Anyway, TBH I am not sure I care to continue this particular conversation but I wish you well in whatever path seems right to you. "
First, I don't know what TBH means. Could you tell me?
And second. If you do not wish to continue this conversation, alright.
In the end, I'm sorry. By asking my original questions, I realized fully how little evidence I had for God in the first place. Which actually kind of sucks! And it must be distressing, to see somebody go that route. But I'm a skeptic in the positive sense. I try not to believe anything without viable evidence. Or at least keep it at the assumption of negative. It's like... all ideas and statements are innocent of truth until proven guilty. And to prove guilty, you need to get rid of all reasonable doubt. That analogy works. And nothing here has gotten rid of reasonable doubt, while people seeing Papa Moose, along with his responses, combined with the general trustworthiness of the person who mentioned it, well... that does kill reasonable doubt.
WE'll end the conversation though. I hope I didn't upset you here.
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This reflects a misunderstanding of what the word "theory" means in a scientific context. A theory is any explanation of observed facts, regardless of how sure we are of that explanation.
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