Are there still liberal Mormons?

[ceeboo]

Really? You would reject the resurrection claim if not for the Book of Mormon?

Forgive my ignorance when it come to the Book of Mormon: What, in the Book of Mormon, lends additional support directly to the resurrection claim?

It’s questionable whether I would have ever gotten that far. As do others here, I have a natural bent towards skepticism. If my life path had not intersected with the Book of Mormon it’s difficult to know what I would have even entertained as far as religious impulses.

But a real look at the Book of Mormon didn’t come until later for me. So as it was, I was somewhat skeptical of the church and religion in general for quite a few years. It wasn’t that I disbelieved in the resurrection it’s just that I didn’t have any overwhelming reason to be totally on board with that possibility.

Joseph Smith taught that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of Mormonism. That through this book we can come closer to Christ and have a greater faith/hope in his mission. The Book of Mormon is what brought me to the Bible. It’s difficult to say if I would have without the path I took through the Book of Mormon.

It’s very possible that if I hadn’t gone this path and I was raised in a Christian context or had Christian friends that got me to read the Bible I may have developed faith. But again, it’s questionable. I tend to go materialistic/scientific/humanist unless I have pretty good reason not to do so.

The Book of Mormon and its teachings turned me towards Christ in a way that I’m not sure would have happened if my life path had connected only with the Bible first or only.

But it’s hard to say. My thinking is that God leads us each individually along a path that gives us the opportunity to accept ‘truth’ to one degree or another. Whatever we are willing to live by, understand, and obey.

We are all so different and what’s good for one may not be good for another.

Regards,
MG

Thanks, MG.

[MG 2.0]

At the end of the day I guess I’m asking what would it actually take for you to believe?

Regards,
MG

How would I know? When I was a believer, I couldn’t imagine not being one. Now that I’m not a believer, I can’t imagine being one again. I don’t have checklist of things it would take to persuade me to rejoin Mormonism. I’m perfectly happy with my stance toward the COJCOLDS, and see no need to devote time and effort into second guessing my stance. There same is true for every other flavor of religion. Doing my best to be a good husband, father, son, brother, friend and sentient bit of carbon is a full time job. That’s what I try to do. I’m perfectly happy with that.

Perhaps that will change and I’ll discover that I believe in some flavor of deity and join some flavor of religion. Who knows? But I have no idea how that would come about, so how in the world would have the first idea of what it would take?

So, you’ve asked me a question for which I have no answer. Nor do I have the first idea how I would go about figuring out an answer or why I would spend time trying to answer it.

Look, asking you the reciprocal would be an bad question also. Are you happy being a Mormon? Do you think that being a Mormon helps you be a better fellow sentient bit of carbon. If the answer to both questions is “yes,” which I’m pretty sure it is, then why in the world would I want to take that away from you? Why would it even same for me to expect you have some kind of list of the criteria that would lead you give up something that you think makes you happy and a better person. Seriously, who does that?

That’s not my intent in asking you the question. It’s more or less an academic exercise. What would it take for a non believer to believe? Seemingly, it might take actual hands on evidence in the here and now.

My point in mentioning that, if indeed this is true, is that Mormons actually make that claim of having hands on evidence. Admittedly, the Book of Mormon seems to be positioned in a place where one is still caught in a ‘faith’ loop of sorts.

I am not asking the question in order to make you question a life that you have purposfully constructed for yourself and makes you happy. I think I’ve been pretty clear about the way I feel and believe.

To each his or her own…however…

It is too bad Moroni took the plates back.

It would make things a lot easier in some respects and much more difficult in other respects. Depending, of course on your worldview (is faith necessary, do we experience more growth through choice rather than force, supernatural belief, etc.)

I realize that from your point of view Moroni, plates, angels, and God or more or less a non sequitur as the evidence from the point of view of non believers makes Moroni, et al, a moot point.

Again, I asked the question because I am interested in how others view the world and what it would take to change views that are pretty much rock solid. You’re here and so I can ask.

Saying that you really have no interest in changing things up at this point is a perfectly reasonable position to take. We all gradually move to a more ‘fully invested’ position as we grow older.

Par for the course.

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

I question the notion that people are generally persuaded by evidence to believe. Maybe sometimes, but that’s not the method specified by God. Good says to seek a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon. Unless things have changed radically in the last 40 years, investigators are not taught through evidence and arguments.

[Gadianton]

That’s not my intent in asking you the question. It’s more or less an academic exercise. What would it take for a non believer to believe? Seemingly, it might take actual hands on evidence in the here and now.

I'm more of a hardliner than most non-believers on this issue. There is no evidence that could conceivably prove the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, it should be written off without any consideration and people should move on with their lives. Same with the Bible. While the Bible may be legitimately ancient, ten thousand years from now, Joseph Smith will be an ancient person who made up a story about people who lived just two thousand years before he lived. Just like the authors of Genesis were ancient people to us who made up a story (or recast a story) that happened several thousands of years before they lived.

Nobody at a serious Bible school discusses the resurrection as a possible real event. People who attend serious Bible programs will tell you that it's a big test to faith, just look at David B. There is no conceivable scholarly way to prove supernatural events. Such theories always end up as arguments from ignorance -- here's something we don't have a perfect explanation for, therefore God is on the table, probable, and even likely or certain.

Even if there was something "supernatural" that really happened, there just isn't away to absorb it into human knowledge. Maybe people have seen God, if so, there just isn't a way to demonstrate it with any more credibility than somebody who hasn't seen God but is just making it up. Further, a higher species could fool a person into believing they had seen God when they hadn't.

Imagine if Joseph Smith produced real gold plates and donated them to science, and a hundred years later somebody finally cracked the language and behold, it matches the Book of Mormon perfectly. It would just mean Joseph Smith was a bit more gifted than Yuri Knorozov. Imagine if the seer stone was handed down and it really did light up and translate languages. A better guess is alien tech. There just isn't a way to prove things or even comprehend things so far outside of our experience. And we should never infer a deeper ontology than necessary to explain an unknown thing. If an alien can explain it, then there is no reason to make a leap all the way to God. If technology a thousand years ahead is good enough to explain, no reason to infer tech a million years ahead, let alone a trillion years or infinitely greater.

If there is a God, far be it for me to impose motives, but if I have to use my judgment, I'd say God wouldn't be so foolish as to expect people to believe in things that they can't realistically accept in good faith. God wouldn't appear to someone and then expect that person go out and make a fool of themselves, because anybody can claim God visited them and has no more evidence than the real thing. Whatever gimmicks are produced, could be mimicked by a decent fraud.