The Top Ten and Only Reasons to be a True Believer

[_Chap]

... A leap of faith is required and a walk in the spirit. Both of which seem like foolishness to someone of the world.

Um ... it is also likely to seem meaningless to somebody who believes in a different religion from that favored by Franktalk.

Of course they are all spiritually blind too, or they would be Mormons.

There is of course no problem about believing that there is a deity who created mankind and wishes them to know about him, but who has only succeeded in getting over the secret of how to do this to about 1.7% of the population of the United States, and even tinier proportions of the rest of the world population.

He must be a marvelous communicator.

[_Drifting]

Now here's the rub.
I complied fully with the criteria set out in this scripture. Including having the right intent. Everything I did, why and how I did it, was exactly as specified by Moroni. I had the honest intent of finding the truth and God witnessed to me that the truth is the Book of Mormon is fraudulent.

Let us say this is true.

Frank, it is true but you seem to be having a hard time accepting that.

Then what did you do next? What church do you belong to? Was that choice witnessed to? What doctrine do you believe in? Was that witnessed to? Please tell me all about the good fruit that came from this experience.

Are you suggesting that the burning in the bosom isn't sufficient witness of truth?

[_subgenius]

Now here's the rub.
I complied fully with the criteria set out in this scripture. Including having the right intent. Everything I did, why and how I did it, was exactly as specified by Moroni. I had the honest intent of finding the truth and God witnessed to me that the truth is the Book of Mormon is fraudulent.

which if you admit is the truth, then the promise was indeed fulfilled...that the truth would be revealed to you.
But if that were true, the the method is a fraud and your answer must certainly be a fraud...at which case the Book of Mormon is not a fraud.
See, what you have done is merely put forth a cute parlor trick, trying to bring incompleteness theory or the liar's paradox into a paradigm where it has no place.

The following statement is true.
The preceding statement is false

or how about:

this statement is false

propositional logic does not rule the universe my friend...nor should it rule you.

Your error is thinking that God is bound by the same rules and paradigms as we are. If you can not recognize that simple fat then you will never recognize God as something other than yourself.

[_Chap]

Your error is thinking that God is bound by the same rules and paradigms as we are. If you can not recognize that simple fa[c]t then you will never recognize God as something other than yourself.

Of course.

Here is an analogy. Suppose I have two numbers, X and Y, and X and Y are not equal to one another.

Then 0*X = 0, and 0*Y = 0

Divide both equations by zero. We obtain two further equations:

X = 0/0, and Y = 0/0

Therefore X=Y, and since X and Y could have been any number, that proves that any two numbers are equal. Now of course the flaw was the division by zero. That is against the rules of arithmetic, because it produces a meaningless result as shown above.

Similarly, once you allow the term 'God' into what is otherwise a perfectly normal proposition, all bets are off. You might think it is obvious what consequences flow from it, but no - subgenius will pop up and wag his finger at you. How naïve you are to think you can tie God down with logic!

That is not a good state of affairs. The obvious solution is to treat 'God' like dividing by zero. Don't let that word into any of your sentences. It will only lead to trouble ....

[_Themis]

Second you erroneously propose that religious experience require interpretation and provide no support for that position, and in fact, the opposite is true.

All expereince has to be interpreted. You want your spiritual ones to be exempt simply because they don't stand up to scrutiny. Even self evident ones have to be interpreted, although many epistemologists don't think any proposition can be self evident.

You cannot really have any expereince without interpretation. Interpretation adds the meaning to an experience.

[_SteelHead]

I am confused... Is sub referring to Olodumare when he speaks of god? If so he does not understand the nature of Olodumare.

[Guest]

Spiritual discernment

Discernment is not a logical argument. No one can learn discernment. It is a free gift of God once you get to a certain place on your spiritual walk. There is nothing I can do to give you rules for discernment other than the scriptures I have already shared.

All we got was rambling from you.

Imagine if you would a large container filled with green balls. Then two blue balls are added to the pile. If we ask a color blind person to get or discern the Blue balls we find he can not. They all appear the same to him.

So?

The same is true of spiritual discernment but in this case the person who wishes to find the "truth" can not find it unless they obtain spiritual glasses.

And where does it say this?

A leap of faith is required and a walk in the spirit. Both of which seem like foolishness to someone of the world.

The reason it is foolishness is that any group can claim the same for their beliefs, Gods and religious texts. How stupid does this supposed God have to be. Is it really fair to condemn people for talking a leap of faith with the wrong God. Would you not feel unfairly dealt with to find out you picked the wrong one to have faith in?

[_just me]

Two blue balls. Really?

[_SteelHead]

Two blue balls. Really?

Freud rears his ugly head.

[_just me]

Two blue balls. Really?

Freud rears his ugly head.

and leaves me snickering like a deacon...