MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

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_I have a question
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _I have a question »

mentalgymnast wrote:I wouldn't use "The Spirit" as the final say all/end all in regards to whether or not a testimony is or isn't valid and/or based upon what may be absolute capital T truth. Like I said upthread, in the end, faith and belief in the restoration becomes a personal matter/choice based upon what one feels are the available evidences that point this way or that.

On the other hand, folks such as zerinus that have had what they believe to be an experience that defies counter evidence...more power to them. I have no qualm with those that go that direction. The problem is though, that you then have to put zerinus, Nightlion, and the Snufferites...oh, and the folks down in Manti that believe they have the truth...and others too numerous to mention, in with the mix.

So I'm not one to place all the eggs in one basket. Even though I've personally had experiences that I would enter/throw into the 'numinous' realm of human experience. As have others here on this board.

Regards,
MG


If the spirit isn’t the determining factor in assessing validity of religious testimony, what is?

What eggs do you place in baskets outside of Mormonism?
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

I just read this article detailing the merger of two churches in order to consolidate costs:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryla ... story.html

Here's the bottom line of the article:

A few faith traditions have fared better. The Muslim and Orthodox Jewish populations are growing, and evangelical Christianity’s numbers are holding steady. But more than 20 percent of Americans say they’re unaffiliated with any religion. That’s the highest number ever.


I know when I see a grown man dressed like this:

Image

I can't help but feel that us GenX'ers which were already skeptical of the status quo and now the Millennials and GenZ types will look at guys like that as being rather cartoonish rather than an authority figure or someone who has answers to life's challenges and mysteries.

I mean, think about when you went through the temple. It wasn't mysterious, at all, to me. It was bizarre and disappointing. In this day and age of massive information diffusion and entertainment saturation simple rites and rituals, where you essentially play dress up and sit in a boring meeting, someone espouses platitudes that are simple, kind of vague, and really don't result in a practical return for your time (you're entertained, you can apply it to better your economic situation, etc.).

I think the reason we're seeing Muslim communities grow, throughout the world, is they're a total system that embodies a sense of community and raison d'etre. Mormonism used to have this until correlation destroyed their sense of community, real community, an ethnicity with its own ways. Christianity, traditional Christianity, is useless because they're not a community. That's probably why you see the megachurches and Evangelicals weathering the storm of secularism. They provide a sense of self and a village-like feeling. You belong to a tribe with its own code and that helps a person deal with the human condition.

If I were a Mormon leader I'd look at the long-term game and realize the trajectory we're on isn't sustainable. It's leading to irrelevancy. I'd probably take a page out of the Osteen playbook and go from there.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_mentalgymnast
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _mentalgymnast »

Lemmie wrote:See mentalgymnast's contradiction of himself already.


No contradiction. Within the context of what we've discussed in this thread I think that other folks will be able to see where I'm coming from. I don't expect that you will.

As has been suggested, this thread has probably run its course. I haven't been reading this board in the last week or so, but popped in last night to see if there were any loose ends on this thread. I wanted to tie up one of them and respond to IHAQ's post.

Again, it has been interesting for me to hear the views of others and mull these things over in my own mind. For years now, I've come to the conclusion that any truth to be found is usually/typically found somewhere in between two extremes/poles. And also that context matters. Often, we tend to look at things in isolation. All of the working parts need to be examined and accounted for.

Regards,
MG
_Lemmie
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _Lemmie »

DrW wrote:
Lemmie wrote:*SNIP*
See mentalgymnast's contradiction of himself already.

Many religionists, including folks on this board now and in the past, seem in many ways to be 'hard wired' for religious belief. As exemplified routinely by MG, DCP and others, no matter how illogical, self-contradictory, internally-inconsistent, or unethical the position - if it is perceived as being in tune with their religion, they just cannot seem to help themselves.
Couldn't agree more.
DrW wrote:Regardless of what one believes about human evolution, it's safe to say most would conclude that the human brain evolved (or was created, if you must) to be receptive to religious belief - be the object of such belief Thor, Xenu, Allah, Jehovah, Elohim, or any of the other hundreds (or thousands) of gods that humankind has invented for itself.

How the brain evolved to be susceptible to belief in imaginary magical beings, what structures are involved, and how these brain structures function (or malfunction) to accommodate religiosity is something that is now fairly well understood. However, because of a bias of the general public toward religious belief, the information is not as widely disseminated as it probably should be.

Nonetheless, Mormon religionists might benefit from an awareness of at least some of what is going on in their brains when they bear testimony as to their 'sure knowledge' of the truthfulness of a gospel comprised of a mishmash of 19th century ideas and beliefs, and founded by a 19th conman, polygamist, sexual predator and fraudster. Time for a new thread.

I hope what I bolded means you are considering starting it! I enjoyed this thread very much and am looking forward to your next.
_mentalgymnast
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _mentalgymnast »

Lemmie wrote: I enjoyed this thread very much...

Hey, we found something we can agree on. :lol:

Regards,
MG
_I have a question
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _I have a question »

I have a question wrote:
mentalgymnast wrote:I wouldn't use "The Spirit" as the final say all/end all in regards to whether or not a testimony is or isn't valid and/or based upon what may be absolute capital T truth. Like I said upthread, in the end, faith and belief in the restoration becomes a personal matter/choice based upon what one feels are the available evidences that point this way or that.

On the other hand, folks such as zerinus that have had what they believe to be an experience that defies counter evidence...more power to them. I have no qualm with those that go that direction. The problem is though, that you then have to put zerinus, Nightlion, and the Snufferites...oh, and the folks down in Manti that believe they have the truth...and others too numerous to mention, in with the mix.

So I'm not one to place all the eggs in one basket. Even though I've personally had experiences that I would enter/throw into the 'numinous' realm of human experience. As have others here on this board.

Regards,
MG


If the spirit isn’t the determining factor in assessing validity of religious testimony, what is?

What eggs do you place in baskets outside of Mormonism?


Bump.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
_Gadianton
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _Gadianton »

The idea of spiritual experiences are dispensable, and while people fool themselves through feelings and perhaps worse through the belief their feelings determine base reality, the religious will invariably find a way to fool themselves.

The allure of a feelings based witness of truth has nothing to do with how the typical person making the argument for feelings has felt. I would bet money that an MRI won't reveal Zerinus' testimony. I highly doubt he's had any incredible feelings.

The allure of feelings is all remedial philosophy, and how to ground truth via subject discerning object. The spirit would not "confirm" truth without 19th century epistemology, and it is here z is drawn. Like Boyd K, who is dogmatic and argumentative and not really a man of feeling, a feelings based testimony is simply a convenient framework for advancing one's own certain knowledge.

Why advance such a silly thing? Well, it's silly, but it has a history, possibly with the atheist David Hume who argued for barebones truth in raw impressions.

Science has all but abandoned a bottom-up approach for top down, but the draw of a "world out there" that can be personally accessed is persistently frustratioing, and the spirit idea is an unfalsifiable, easy answer that does have a certain draw for the unaware.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.

LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
_Themis
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _Themis »

mentalgymnast wrote:As has been suggested, this thread has probably run its course.

Still can't answer a simple question about something you consider so important.
42
_mentalgymnast
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _mentalgymnast »

I have a question wrote:
If the spirit isn’t the determining factor in assessing validity of religious testimony, what is?


Individual experiential modes of accessing truth. For me, it's been life long study, prayer, thought, investigation, comparison, and trying to look at the 'big picture'.

I have a question wrote:What eggs do you place in baskets outside of Mormonism?


I think that I've mentioned a number of times, although most people don't read what I have to say...it's gobbledygook according to grindael, and I'm sure by others...that I see the world as one great WHOLE. The restoration of keys of authority and associated ordinances are one piece of that whole. An important part. The most important part, however, being Jesus Christ and the atonement which He made for the eventual salvation and/or exaltation of all those who chose to follow/participate in the Father's Plan. But that plan is BIG. It has something for everyone and is costumed designed for each individual.

So there are LOTS of baskets outside of Mormonism. Mormonism is a piece of a larger puzzle/whole.

Regards,
MG
_mentalgymnast
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Re: MG & JLHPROF: From Whence Come Spiritual Experiences?

Post by _mentalgymnast »

Themis wrote:Still can't answer a simple question about something you consider so important.

What question was that?

Regards,
MG
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