Following the Spirit

[_bbwfw]

https://ldslaughsandlearning.blogspot.c ... -word.html

Post about following the spirit. What do you think of the post? Comment in the pst or below.

[_Maksutov]

Not relevant to me. YMMV.

[_I have a question]

The post doesn’t seem to take into consideration influences such as:
Confirmation Bias
Hallucinations
Chemical imbalances
Hormone imbalances
Mental conditions
Spiritual influences other than God and the Devil, Xanu for instance.

It’s somebody bearing their Primary grade Testimony using some grown up words hoping it’ll sound more convincing.

[_Demultiplexer]

For those not born and raised in Christianity, the Holy Spirit seems way out there near Big Foot, so how do you describe a Spirit that can fill entire rooms of people, reach around the Earth, and make them feel motivated to follow a religion all at once? The Christian has big explaining to do and needs to see things from an Atheist's perspective.

There is a tool to bridge the gap between the Atheist to the Christian. It is abstract thinking. We use abstraction when communicating mathematics. The symbol "0" and the symbol "1" represent nothing and something. Similarly, there is empty space and there is matter. "0" and "1" can represent space and matter, or "0" can represent something we want it to that we can relate to, such as not having an apple, and "1" means that we have an apple.

Atheists will most likely say there is "0" or no Holy Spirit, because they can't relate to something they can't describe. Imagine if you don't know what an apple is. Counting apples and the fact that someone has one might mean nothing to you, especially if you grew up in a part of the world where there was no fruit and everyone ate fish, like villages do in the far North. But Christians want to say there is a Holy Spirit, so the division between non-believer and believer is like an ocean between two islands.

At one time in history, mankind only knew to count on fingers. Later, we got numbers that we could write down, and that lead to more possible symbols. Eventually, we got to using alphanumeric symbols in Mathematics. This abstract technique in Algebra allows us to place a letter in an equation to represent an unknown number.

There are a lot of things that Christians don't know about God. Most claim they have not seen God, and it may be true about all the people on Earth at any given time in Earth's history. Christians have so little material knowledge of God that they have to describe their personal spiritual experiences.

This can be problematic without a common terminology and a standard set of symbols to describe these unknown values pertaining to God. An Atheist may determine that the Christian is having a psychological experience when it comes to the Holy Spirit manifesting. Christians should describe their experiences in this way to the Atheist. Now the Boolean value "1" or "true" is established for the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is an abstract unknown variable.

In psychology the mind is being studied and discoveries are showing that instinctual knowledge is inherited from our ancestors. This can be the still small voice that Christians claim teaches them truths. The ability to hone in on it is a developing science. Psychologists are interested in learning how to tap into the inherited knowledge of our ancestors, and religion may be a method that has had some results. This common interest makes it valuable to have a common language and common symbols.

Since the purpose of the still small voice is to raise the individual up the hierarchy of righteous living, or in Atheist's terms the hierarchy of truth and value based living that the Western World has adopted, Atheists can identify the Holy Spirit as the hierarchy that subconsciously establishes a truth that is the absolute of all truths. This hierarchy has been in the blood line of humans for millenniums.

As a result, humans have physical responses to social and emotional situations such as religious ceremonies that cause the sensation of goose bumps at times, or the warm feeling in our hearts that causes our heart beat to pound in our chest when we are in awe.

These genetic connections that we have inherited from our common ancestor that cause the physical and emotional reactions to the truths that we hear, are a way to explain the method that the Holy Spirit can touch the hearts and minds of people around the world at the same time. The genetic how can be studied and modern science can take a look at the activity of the brain in connection to these religious experiences that may be tapping into the ancestral knowledge that we all have in common.

At one point our great ancestor became self aware and gained the ability to sense the good and the bad, to sense life and death, to possess knowledge of his own existence. This is our divine connection. The mystery of life contains a story within us that points to something we don't understand about the Universe, which is God, and how God/the Universe made life or how we were made or came to be alive.

By being alive on Earth we are at the top of a hierarchy of planets where the bottom contains no life. Not only is there space and matter, but where there is matter there is no life and there is life. Here, where life is is where the top of the hierarchy is raising mankind upwards to gain increasing knowledge and understanding greater truth. We are becoming more aware and we have millenniums of knowledge built into us that we can gather from when we face a short life with little time to reason every choice out in our minds. This is the value of the still small voice.

[_SteelHead]

Whole lot of woo. Belies that fact that most athiests in our society were raised Christian. Conflates frission with the holy Spirit. Fine and dandy except demonstrating that the frission is something supernatural is impossible. There is no value in the still small voice.

[_Maksutov]

"Holy Spirit" is a name assigned to a set of phenomena. It's arbitrary and culture-bound. The phenomena can be examined and the process of assigning the name can also be examined and both yield additional information. The Holy Spirit can be approached as purely psychosocial in nature.

[_moksha]

I liked this Elder Jeff Foxworthy stuff on that website:

You May Be Mormon If…you were married by 20.
You May Be Mormon If…know where Rexburg, Idaho is.
You May Be Mormon If…you named Jell-O as a food group.
You May Be Mormon If…you have taken part in an MLM scam.
You May Be Mormon If…you live in Utah.
You May Be Mormon If…you judge people who drink Coke.
You May Be Mormon If…you prefer essential oils to vaccines.

[_Demultiplexer]

I’ve actually talked to athiests who were raised by athiest parents and never went to a Christian church. Religion seems quite bizzar to them, with its Holy Spirit and spiritual manifestations. But it is a pshycological and physical phenomenon that can be symbolized in the secular world differently than calling it the “Holy Spirit.” It may well be tapping into instincts that we’ve inherrited. These instincts can definately be considered inspirational and a quiet voice in our mind that we feel but don’t really hear.

A recent study was done where male mice were trained to avoid a smell. The artificially inseminated offspring raised in separation avoided the same smell. This is information passed on through DNA, and in a real world environment the information might be from an ancestor that survived an environmental danger. Isn’t this similar to having people feel attracted to religions that tap into instincts that feel peaceful in avoiding danger in a world we don’t have enough time to understand by reasoning everything out logically?

Here is a link to a similar article to the one I read that said the mice were artificially inseminated. In this article, the male mice bread with females, but the same results were produced:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... cc179cb94f

[_Amore]

I’ve actually talked to athiests who were raised by athiest parents and never went to a Christian church. Religion seems quite bizzar to them, with its Holy Spirit and spiritual manifestations. But it is a pshycological and physical phenomenon that can be symbolized in the secular world differently than calling it the “Holy Spirit.” It may well be tapping into instincts that we’ve inherrited. These instincts can definitely be considered inspirational and a quiet voice in our mind that we feel but don’t really hear.

A recent study was done where male mice were trained to avoid a smell. The artificially inseminated offspring raised in separation avoided the same smell. This is information passed on through DNA, and in a real world environment the information might be from an ancestor that survived an environmental danger. Isn’t this similar to having people feel attracted to religions that tap into instincts that feel peaceful in avoiding danger in a world we don’t have enough time to understand by reasoning everything out logically?

Here is a link to a similar article to the one I read that said the mice were artificially inseminated. In this article, the male mice bread with females, but the same results were produced:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... cc179cb94f

Could be something to that. My dad was telling me about a documentary, “Ghost in your genes.” For a while (still?) alcoholism was thought to have been inherited. I don’t believe alcoholism is inherited but I could see how addictive nature could be partly inherited and partly taught/learned.

I read that about 70% of people go along with herd mentality. And one major need for humans, is to feel a sense of belonging. This would apply especially to those who missed it in childhood. (Trying to understand why my mom converted & is so fanatic.) If someone also has BPD or some other issue that involves a lack of a secure sense of identity, the church will look very appealing and will become god-like. Having one prominent ancestor way back when, would make such a sense of identity in the church even more instinctive. Of course it would be pretending all of the less Mormonly attractive ancestors didn’t exist. :)

One other point: some people are more intuitive... seeing the forest big picture, while others focus on the immediate 5-senses, “tree.” That’s part of the personality traits Carl Jung suggested.

I think everyone follows the spirit at times - whether it be going to church, going to see a movie or listening to music.

[_DoubtingThomas]

The post doesn’t seem to take into consideration influences such as:
Confirmation Bias
Hallucinations
Chemical imbalances
Hormone imbalances
Mental conditions
Spiritual influences other than God and the Devil, Xanu for instance.

It’s somebody bearing their Primary grade Testimony using some grown up words hoping it’ll sound more convincing.

Exactly!