stemelbow wrote:Darth J wrote:That is a false analogy. Here is a relevant one:
Two 20 year-old boys come to your house and tell you that they have a sacred book that has a divine message from God. The book says that we should be honest and virtuous, that we should treat other people kindly. However, the book is based on the premise that Rodney Dangerfield is a Martian who became the President of the United States. The boys tell you to pray about the book.
You read some parts from the book about kindness and compassion to others, pray about it, and feel very strongly that God wants us to act the way the book tells us to.
A couple days later, you tell the two boys that you had this experience. The boys tell you this is proof that the book is a true story.
Should you now accept as fact the proposition that Rodney Dangerfield was a Martian who became the President of the United States?
That doesn't correlate at all with my experiences and that which makes up my faith.
Then you never went on a mission and/or never applied Moroni's Promise to the Book of Mormon the way the Church says we should.
Let me again clarify that we are talking about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not some abstract, hypothetical church that is whatever you need it to be at any given moment.
Since you incessantly complain about "deflections," I am sure that you are opposed to getting off topic and derailing threads. My hypothetical is directly relevant to the point of this thread. Therefore, would you like to answer my hypothetical?
This here is for you and Buffalo. it appears to me this analogy applies to the way you guys are going about this (I’m like unto James and you and Buffalo are like unto the other people):
James claims he spoke with someone named jeremy. Upon hearing James' claim other folks doubt that James could have spoken with Jeremy. These other folks say, “you must support your claim that you spoke with jeremy or we will reject it”.
James replies, “well I spoke with him. What are you looking for?”
Other people: “ tell us someone who saw you or heard you speak with him”
James: “no one else was there”.
Other people: “then get us Jeremy to ask him”
James: “Jeremy has since passed on”
Other people: “since you can’t prove your claim we know it didn’t happen”
James: “all right. Go on disbelieving then.”
Other people: “all you have is your claim that you spoke with him. Its circular for you to say you spoke with him and then offer your own claim as the reason for us to believe it”.
James: “all right. Don’t believe me then.”
Other people: “But that’s circular reasoning. You don’t have anything but your own claim that you spoke with Jeremy. Look I can say some guy is a martian. See? I now you must concede that you are wrong or something.”
James: “thanks guys.”
Other people: “You aren’t even logical at all. You can’t even see that your claim for believing you spoek with Jeremy is circular”
James: “Whateves. Take care.”
Other people: “You’re messed up if you really think you spoke with Jeremy. I mean my goodness you can’t even show me nuttin’ that demonstrates that this speaking ever took place.”
James: “peace to your heart”
Other people: “I used to think I spoke with Jeremy too, but now I realize its all just a big ol’ figment of my imagination.”
James: “uh…all right. So you never did speak with him. What do I care?”
Other people: “that means you didn’t speak with him either. I mean if I once felt like I did, but now I have concluded I didn’t that means you didn’t. You see I was confused and thought I did. Now you are confused and thought you did.”
James: “nah..I actually did speak with him”
Other people: “how can you say that? You can’t even show me that you did. You only say you did. That’s so circular. I’m sick of it”
Other people have explained to you why this is an extremely poor analogy. Despite your excuse that analogies are not "perfect," an analogy does not have to be perfect to be relevant or explanatory.
To be a relevant analogy, "Jeremy" in your example would have to be a supernatural being, whose existence cannot be independently verified, who told "James" that Rodney Dangerfield is a Martian and the current President of the United States. Based on this experience, James is now convinced that Rodney Dangerfield is in fact a Martian and the President of the United States.
If you feel that James sincerely believes in his experience, should we now accept as true the proposition that Rodney Dangerfield is a Martian who has become the President of the United States?