David Bokovoy and a Kuhnian Approach to Mormonism

[_Sethbag]

Nevermind. I have real work to do for now. I'll be back later.

[Guest]

I am glad you are enjoying this. It is a little frustrating when the blind men keep insisting there is no such thing as color, and people who see color are only deluding themselves.

So what do you say to people who have experienced what you define as the spirit, but no longer accept it as evidence for things like the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Are we blind men trying to convince you that your experience of something we can't appreciate is untrue? I felt the Spirit very profoundly. I think I know what that is about.

[_SatanWasSetUp]

How does this shifting paradigm idea fit in with cognitive dissonance theory? We've beaten cog-dis to death, to the point where it is often misused. But If I recall correctly cog-dis theory is when information comes along that disturbs your existing beliefs, it creates dissonance which we overcome by either ignoring the information, or adjusting our beliefs to make it fit. Am I correct in this? Is this discussion just another flavor of cog-dis theory?

[_guy sajer]

A paradigm IS NOT an experience. A paradigm is an intellectual contstruct.

A spiritual witness IS an experience. A spiritual witness can occur when a person has no intellectual construct about spiritual witnesses.

It only becomes a spiritual witness when it is interpreted as such, and that requires a paradigm.

This then leads to another question. Suppose a person with no paradigm which allows for spiritual experiences has "an experience." There is no way for him to adequately evaluate the experience as being spiritual since he is missing an important evaluative tool. So he is forced to evaluate it as something else, even when it may in fact be a spiritual experience. Correct?

That sounds reasonably correct to me.

On the other hand, someone's who's paradigm tells her that certain types of experiences are spiritual experiences, even when they're not, will interpret them as spiritual experiences

that's what Mormonism does. We did it as missionaries. We'd, for example show people the sappy and emotionally manipulative "I'll Build You A Rainbow" filmstrip and then tell people at the end that was the spirit they were feeling when they got all choked up. It's not always that blatant, but that's pretty much the MO for how Mormonism, from the time we are children, drills into our heads to associate emotions with "spiritual experience."

That's the Mormon paradigm in a nutshell, "Emotions = Spirit Witness" (provided, of course, that the emtions confirm Mormonism's truth claims).

[_guy sajer]

How can people be brought to Christ if Christ (a historical figure) didn't exist?

The same way people are brought to Alla, to Buddah, to Shiva, or to a whole host of other Gods and mystical, mysterious figures. A dose of self-delusion, a dose of ignorance, a dose of wishful thinking, a dose of gullibility, a dose of magical thinking, a large measure of cognitive dissonance, and, VIOLA, there you have it.

[_guy sajer]

I am glad you are enjoying this. It is a little frustrating when the blind men keep insisting there is no such thing as color, and people who see color are only deluding themselves.

So what do you say to people who have experienced what you define as the spirit, but no longer accept it as evidence for things like the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Are we blind men trying to convince you that your experience of something we can't appreciate is untrue? I felt the Spirit very profoundly. I think I know what that is about.

I'll accept it, with the proviso that you provide me with some kind of objectively verifiable evidence that what you experienced was a true spiritual experience; otherwise, all I have is your word (and in your case, knowledge of the very flawed paradigm in which you are laboring) and, frankly my dear, that's not good enough.

Or, as an alternative, demonstrate to me in some kind of objectively verifiable manner why your spiritual experience, which tesitifies of Mormonism' truth claims, is more valid than, say, a Baptist's spiritual experience that tells her something entirely different and contradictory.

Also, I'd like you to articulate to me what the a priori decision rule is to decide whether an experience is a "spiritual" one or something else.

Can you do it?

[_Sethbag]

Well she's already agreed that my profound spiritual confirmation of the Book of Mormon, while on my mission, was probably just euphoria. But her feelings aren't. No way. I think I see a pattern emerging. It goes something like this.

If you ever felt the spirit really strongly, but then leave the church, then your spiritual witness was just euphoria or emotions. If you didn't leave the church, then it was really the Holy Ghost. Does that make sense to you?

[_beastie]

When I shared my story about how part of the reason (the largest part) that I lost my faith was because God never would answer my prayer about Joseph Smith being a prophet, despite my desperate pleas, Charity informed me God probably didn't answer me because I asked too much. I was just supposed to ask ONCE, then quietly live the rest of my life as if it were true, and one day God would condescend to answer me.

I admit, that was a first for me - a believer who told me, basically, God didn't answer me because I was nagging him. Most believers just try to parse the "way" I asked to point out what I was doing wrong. You know, if I said mother may I just right, with my eyes crossed and a special hand sign, he would have answered gladly.

[_Runtu]

When I shared my story about how part of the reason (the largest part) that I lost my faith was because God never would answer my prayer about Joseph Smith being a prophet, despite my desperate pleas, Charity informed me God probably didn't answer me because I asked too much. I was just supposed to ask ONCE, then quietly live the rest of my life as if it were true, and one day God would condescend to answer me.

Ah, yes. "Fake it till you make it."

I admit, that was a first for me - a believer who told me, basically, God didn't answer me because I was nagging him. Most believers just try to parse the "way" I asked to point out what I was doing wrong. You know, if I said mother may I just right, with my eyes crossed and a special hand sign, he would have answered gladly.

It's funny that theoretically they will allow for a different answer than the one they got. But not in practice.

[_wenglund]

That sounds reasonably correct to me.

On the other hand, someone's who's paradigm tells her that certain types of experiences are spiritual experiences, even when they're not, will interpret them as spiritual experiences

that's what Mormonism does. We did it as missionaries. We'd, for example show people the sappy and emotionally manipulative "I'll Build You A Rainbow" filmstrip and then tell people at the end that was the spirit they were feeling when they got all choked up. It's not always that blatant, but that's pretty much the MO for how Mormonism, from the time we are children, drills into our heads to associate emotions with "spiritual experience."

That's the Mormon paradigm in a nutshell, "Emotions = Spirit Witness" (provided, of course, that the emtions confirm Mormonism's truth claims).

That is a grossly oversimplified version (some may rightly call it stereotyping) of my Mormon paradigm--though, I can accept that it may have been your paradigm when you were a member, which may explain why I am still a member and you are not.

While it is true that emotions have at times been confused for spiritual experiences, confusion alone may not be sufficient cause to negate the existence of spiritual experiences, otherwise, were the same test applied to the physical world, one would have to reject belief in a physical reality because it has been confused with realistic dreams, or one would have to reject real pain and sickness because of instances of psychosomatic episodes.

But, just as one develops the ability to distinguish physical stimuli from mental or emotional sensation/illusions of the same, one can develop the ability to distinguish spiritual stimuli from mental or emotional sensations/illusions of the same--that is, if one's paradigm is open to and grants a spiritual reality.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-