David Bokovoy and a Kuhnian Approach to Mormonism

[_Sethbag]

Both sethbag an dartagnan are completely avoiding the issue of the spiritual witness. Why is that? It is the basis for the argument. I realize it is unhandy to deal with.

No it's not. It's bogus. It's a subjective judgment by a person experiencing something internally which they interpret as some cosmic confirmation of eternal truth. Well, it's not.

The problem is, however, that when one stands upon this "spiritual witness" they become completely stubborn and obstinate in maintaining their chosen belief system, all evidence and reason be damned. When the chosen belief system is fairly benign the damage might be limited to believer. When it's not benign, whole nations can pay.

[_Runtu]

No it's not. It's bogus. It's a subjective judgment by a person experiencing something internally which they interpret as some cosmic confirmation of eternal truth. Well, it's not.

The problem is, however, that when one stands upon this "spiritual witness" they become completely stubborn and obstinate in maintaining their chosen belief system, all evidence and reason be damned. When the chosen belief system is fairly benign the damage might be limited to believer. When it's not benign, whole nations can pay.

In essence, what I hear is that the subjective testimony Trump's everything, so all evidence must be adjusted or rejected to fit within the testimony paradigm. This is what Monson was getting at when he said that doubt must not be allowed to enter into our minds. We must stand firm against so-called science and so-called facts and tell them our faith will not be undermined.

[_dartagnan]

Both sethbag an dartagnan are completely avoiding the issue of the spiritual witness. Why is that? It is the basis for the argument. I realize it is unhandy to deal with.

There is no such thing as a spiritual witness that Mormonism is true and that this means no matter what evidence goes against it, it should be relegated to the trash bin. Everyone who leaves Mormonism talks of their former “spiritual witness” the same as current TBMS. It is really just an exercise in confirmation bias where an individual’s hopes and desires induce good feelings. This is then interpreted as God speaking to the individual, once the teenage missionaries do their spin job of convincing them this must be true.

You cannot even prove a spiritual witness exists in the first place, so until you do there is nothing to address or to avoid. This is like me telling you to address the Pink Elephant in my dreams who speaks for God. The “spiritual witness” is just the scape-goat argument used by apologists when their talk ceases to sound reasonable. Eventually real logic is completely abandoned, and they have to pull out the “God told me so” retreat.

So God told you Joseph Smith could translate Egyptian when all evidence is to the contrary? So God told you Joseph Smith could interpret scripture properly when he screwed the pooch on Rev 1:6? The list of irrefutable evidences against Joseph Smith is numerous, and all the apologists can do is keep shifting their paradigm to maintain plausibility.

Example: Oh, so it turns out that the papyri doesn’t translate to the Book of Abraham? OK, time for a convenient paradigm shift; anything to avoid conclusions that Joseph Smith wasn’t what he claimed. So let’s see, I know, let’s suppose that the Book of Abraham was actually translated from a missing scroll. Better yet, maybe the existing roll was ten feet long. Maybe the missing roll is ten feet long? Yeah, that’s the ticket!

The amazing thing about this kind of thinking is that David just crystallized why the LDS apologist is the last person who should be given any credence in LDS debates. The LDS apologist personifies all that is subjective and void of reason. You essentially just admitted that no amount of evidence could ever move you from your position that the Church is true, but at the same time you criticize critics because you think they are not really willing to be dissuaded from their positions. Every critic I know is willing to be proved wrong. The problem is that every apologist takes a wild run at debate and then eventually has to resort to the “spiritual witness” gambit.

Well hell, why didn’t you just say that in the first place and drop all this apologetic nonsense back in the sand pile? You guys act like you out to prove something and then when it turns out you can’t prove anything, and in fact the debate runs down a road where the Church is worse off than before you started defending it, you fall back on the “well go ask God.”

I have and God didn’t answer.

So what’s the excuse now?

I didn’t have faith?

I’m unspiritual?

I was bad in the preexistence?

My wife has negro blood in her veins?

What paradigm shift accounts for this?

Surely if God leads the Church and tells the Church to commit investigators during the second discussion, then this means God planned on responding to their request during that period, right?

[_cksalmon]

In essence, what I hear is that the subjective testimony Trump's everything, so all evidence must be adjusted or rejected to fit within the testimony paradigm. This is what Monson was getting at when he said that doubt must not be allowed to enter into our minds. We must stand firm against so-called science and so-called facts and tell them our faith will not be undermined.

That's what I hear David saying as well. He has an unassailable, unwavering, unquestionable ultimate paradigm in the light of which Mormonism cannot even possibly be false. No evidence can even possibly Trump personal testimony. Any and all evidence must be and will be filtered through the lens of absolute fidelity to the truth of Mormonism.

If a worldview is deemed to be absolutely true no matter what, then said worldview is unfalsifiable. As I just posted on MADB, this is an insight into LDS belief that I was, frankly, lacking until now. The fundamental worldview is simply unfalsifiable. It is not even possible that it is incorrect, fundamentally.

I certainly wouldn't argue for Christian theism that way. If I were to do so, then, of course, Mormonism would without question be utterly false. And there is nothing that any Mormon could say that would dissuade me of that belief. No matter what.

It's apparently a privileged worldview that applies only to LDS thinking. No one else could think this way and possibly be a potential convert to Mormonism. If the LDS missionary endeavor is any indication, no one else in the world is allowed the possibility that his or her worldview is utterly and unassailably immune to any sort of contrary evidence.

I don't get it, frankly.

CKS

[_Gadianton]

It's a subjective judgment by a person experiencing something internally which they interpret as some cosmic confirmation of eternal truth.

I can only half agree with this statement by Sethbag. I don't believe Mormons generally are experiencing much internally beyond general "being at home" feelings. I think a "testimony" is something most Mormons have been trained to report through simple brainwashing techniques, like repetition in F&T meetings and pressure to "gain" one. A testimony, for most, represents little more than the mental content of a child while she's reciting a nightly prayer she's memorized from mom and dad.

Notice when someone reports intense pain, it's almost always readily discernable that the person really believes she is in pain. It's almost, to at least a superficial consideration, undeniable. The same goes for intense pleasure. Mormons claim that their "testimony" is the most undeniable thing about their experience in life. But you notice little things about people with testimonies. For instance, F&T meeting is confusing for 90% of the people who bear their absolute knowledge. Why is it, that by Mormon standards, testimony givers are always so confused when they get up to the mic and go on about their winter in St. George, or some emotionally trying time the week before that really has nothing to do with absolute knowledge that Nephi broke his bow? I don't know anyone who ever gave a travel log when they meant to scream out in pain. Nor is a group ritual necessary for those who feel pain to get up and convince other people that they've felt something that's really undeniable.

People will flounder around and come up with anything as a testimony, because it's nothing. Despite ward efforts to "stick to the program", no one really knows what the program is because unlike pain, it's not any real kind of internal state. The church leaders can't clarify further, because they're bluffing too. But with enough community peer pressure, they can all convince themselves and each other it's something real. At best, the church can try and get across a certain behavioral model that others can mimick. But it doesn't work very well so far, in practice.

[_CaliforniaKid]

David,

The Book of Mormon presents itself as a literal history. So does the Book of Abraham. If our paradigm shfts so as to allow that these are fictional, nonhistorical, allegorical stories revealed by God through a creative process that Joseph Smith himself didn't understand at all, if we allow that Joseph's revelations were true even though they're not what they claim to be, why should we think that our own spiritual testimonies sould be any more literal or unambiguous? What's to say that you don't need a paradigm shift in order to understand the meaning of your testimony? If Joseph Smith's revelations were true only in an ambiguous and incomprehensible way, so that for example he created a nonsensical Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, who's to say that your testimony is any less ambiguous or any more comprehensible? The truth is that, within a paradigm where all revelation is so thoroughly filtered by our vision that it comes out completely mangled on the other end, no revealed "truth" is certain.

-Chris

[_Enuma Elish]

Hello Chris,

I certainly wouldn’t describe the revealed truths received via the Restoration as “completely mangled.” Though as you know, I do allow for human error.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers Chris. I simply know what I feel when I apply the doctrines and principles of the Restored Church into my life. Joseph's theology tastes right to me. It’s possible that my views are self-deception, but given the intensity of this spiritual harmony, I have a hard time accepting this position as likely.

Though I’m not preachy about my position, in truth, however, I’m actually a pretty staunch universalist, with a belief that all human beings will eventually progress to the exaltation envisioned within Mormonism.

Which means that my view actually allows for people of other faiths to receive revelatory experiences leading them along a different course, dependent entirely upon how much truth and light they are currently prepared to receive.

[_beastie]

Yes, this is where the rubber hits the road. Believers are only too happy to ascribe to ambiguous revelation until the concept is applied to their own revelations regarding the basic truth claims of the LDS church. Then, it's all suddenly very clear.

[_beastie]

One of my former posts on this subject:

Let's say I need to take some measurements in order to plan a construction project. "Instrument X" is offered to me as a means to obtain the knowledge I want - the lengths of certain plots. However, "instrument X" has a history of producing results that are ambiguous. It is unknown exactly why this occurs, but the history of its use demonstrates quite clearly that, even when used by 'experts', the results are ambiguous. This ambiguity is not a problem with many minor projects, but it would be a problem with the more important projects. When I express concern over the reliability of instrument X due to the past reliability issue, I am told by the folks who are comfortable using instrument X that when the project is important enough, instrument X will no longer produced ambiguous results. I wonder why, when it's the same instrument, used by the same user. What reason would I have to trust that the same instrument is capable of completely clear and accurate results when it has such a long history of ambiguous results? And if it is capable of clear and accurate results for important projects, why would it not simply produce those type of results for all projects?

Now, communication between God and man is instrument X. Although it can be called by various names, for simplicity, I'll call it revelation. Here are some generic groups I've noticed within Mormonism (again, please use common sense and accept that variations exist, and that this is not unique to Mormonism). I'm going to use the terms I've seen used on this board.

Group A: fundamentalist: There is no ambiguity in the results. Any apparent ambiguity is a result of human error in record keeping or clearly understanding the words of the person reporting the results.

Group B: liberal (I'll call them cafeteria liberals) There is some ambiguity to be expected, this is normal and human. But this ambiguity is only a factor in peripheral issues, the foundational issues of the church have no ambiguity.

Group C: full blown liberal: All religion is predicated on a certain degree of ambiguity, and that includes Mormonism. Although there is no way that I can have assurance that I, personally, am not erroneous in my conclusions, and will not be judgmental towards those who have concluded differently, I believe Mormonism is just as valid as any other religious path, and it is the one that I prefer.

Group A is consistent, although they may be challenged in proving their case. Group C is consistent. Group B is inconsistent.
Group B tends to defend their inconsistency by stating, or insinuating, that there are different types of revelation and that some is so clear that there can be no doubt as to the conclusion. Leaving aside the question of why, if that degree of clarity is possible between man and God, why then doesn't God be consistent in his clarity - there remains the problem that, since revelation is inherently subjective and impossible to share, one never knows how "strong" one's own revelation actually is, comparatively speaking. Perhaps the strongest revelation one has ever received is actually quite tepid and weak in comparison to the revelation someone of a different belief system has received. I've seen this argument used to explain how people can receive spiritual assurances about faiths other than the "one true" church, Mormonism, but the knife cuts both ways.

Let's demonstrate:

Born Again EV: I have received assurance that I am saved!!! It was such a strong experience I have no doubt of its validity. I have no interest in finding a "more true" faith because of the strength of this experience. People who think they have had spiritual assurances about OTHER faiths are being misled, either by satan, or because they haven't experienced an event as strong, and clear, as my own.

Mormon: I have received a testimony of the truthfulness of the church!!! It is such a strong experience I have no doubt of its validity. I have no interest in finding a "more true" faith because of the strength of this experience. People who think they have had spiritual assurances about OTHER faiths are being misled, either by satan, or because they haven't experienced an event as strong, and clear, as my own.

??????: I have received a witness of the truth of (faith X). It is such a strong experience I have no doubt of its validity. I have no interest in finding a "more true" faith because of the strength of this experience. People who think they have had spiritual assurances about OTHER faiths are being misled, either by satan, or because they haven't experienced an event as strong, and clear, as my own.

Now, the entire problem is that NONE of these people can ever KNOW what the other experienced, and hence, has absolutely no rational justification for dismissing the others' as less strong or clear. And each person has no way of knowing whether or not an even MORE clear or strong experience could be had in another faith.

The result: ambiguity.

Yes, ambiguity is a part of life, a part of all communications, and, by definition of the experience, an inevitable part of revelation. Either embrace it in its entirety or stop trying to pretend that you do.

[_Blixa]

Joining the discussion late, but one observation.

The difference between this:

David,

The Book of Mormon presents itself as a literal history. So does the Book of Abraham. If our paradigm shfts so as to allow that these are fictional, nonhistorical, allegorical stories revealed by God through a creative process that Joseph Smith himself didn't understand at all, if we allow that Joseph's revelations were true even though they're not what they claim to be, why should we think that our own spiritual testimonies sould be any more literal or unambiguous? What's to say that you don't need a paradigm shift in order to understand the meaning of your testimony? If Joseph Smith's revelations were true only in an ambiguous and incomprehensible way, so that for example he created a nonsensical Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, who's to say that your testimony is any less ambiguous or any more comprehensible? The truth is that, within a paradigm where all revelation is so thoroughly filtered by our vision that it comes out completely mangled on the other end, no revealed "truth" is certain.

-Chris

and this:

Enuma Elish:

Joseph's theology tastes right to me.

is incommensurate, no? These are two absolutely different epistomological registers. Given the way EE boils it down above, I have no idea why he makes an appeal to Kuhn in the first place. Perhaps slightly less than bcspace and charity, EE still wants "something" outside of the theoretical ("paradigms"), some experientialist moment beyond the reach of critique.