Is all truth useful?

[_Bond...James Bond]

I got it! The answer to the ultimate question in life is 42! Of course there was that little problem with knowing what the question was...

Ha. In 20 short years I will have reached that age (I'm hoping the answers will come then). Monitor will probably reach it in 21 or so...

[_The Nehor]

Once you've tasted the Holy Ghost, you can tell the difference between human emotion and divine influence. The same as you can tell the difference between sugar and salt.

No you can't. Any Mormon who has taken seriously the idea of guiding his or her life by personal revelation encounters instances when apparent inspiration doesn't work out. And early LDS history is full of unfulfilled prophecies and blessings given by Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith, Sr., etc., etc. So if one who has tasted the Holy Ghost can always tell the difference, they never tasted it.

Don

Assuming that there isn't more than one form of revelation. One that you know for sure is from God and another that you are unsure of.

[_charity]

[qyite="Jason Bourne"]
So God has told me Joseph made a major error with polygamy, that the two earring deal is just Pres. Hinckley's opinion. Do you disagree with me? [/quote]

Of course. This is why we don't get answers from the bottom up.

It could be useful in many ways. First and foremost, it could have been useful during the actual time period of the ban. When certain members agitated for this to be changed, they were treated as rabblerousers or worse. In reality, they apparently were simply one step ahead of the rest of the pack.

You really should hear Darios Clark speak. He is black and really knows what he is talking about.

You can't have it both ways, Charity. If you want to claim that history is in the past and it has no bearing on what happens today, then you can't teach about the first vision, or the translation, or anything having to do with Joseph Smith. You can't just say, "Well, polygamy is in the past and we can't talk about it, but here, let me tell you what a great man Joseph Smith was in all these other areas." That is exactly what BKP was talking about.

I think maybe this was in a post that got lost in cyberspace. I said there were many significant events in the past--creation, the Fall, the life and ministry of the Savior, His atonement, death and resurrection, the Restoration. But very few other events are little more than blips. The really important history is what you do with your life. Concentrating on what others did in the past will not help you do what you need to do.

the road to hana wrote, quoting examctly, "Again, however, this seems to be doublespeak, because I doubt Elder Packer is applying the same standard to the history and/or leaders of other religions."

So hana replied, "I clearly said history and/or leaders. Not just leaders."

I requested that she back up this claim. Her attempt to do so if found in this reply: "Boyd K. Packer is part of an institution that is founded on the premise that the church which Christ established became corrupt. Not just that the church itself became corrupt, but that its followers and its leaders did. That's foundational to Mormonism. The endowment ritual has in the past contained disparaging references to Christian ministers and leaders, including a reference to Satan buying up "popes and princes," which is a specific reference to clergy."

Do you see a name there? I don't. These are comments on doctrine, not on the personal lives of specific individuals.


I wrote: To say that the doctrine of child baptism is a false doctrine is not the same as saying Pope Somebody had illegitimate children.
Road to hana replied: "By that logic, it should be acceptable to say that LDS temple worship is false doctrine, that God was once a man is false doctrine, that baptisms for the dead are false doctrine, and as long as no one is saying anything disparaging about an LDS leader, past or present, it doesn't matter how much someone criticizes the doctrines or practices.
Indeed, to say that the LDS Church is a false and apostate religion, born of the devil and filled with evil, should be all right.
If that's your standar

For anti-Mormons, I expect that. Those who fight against the Church will say those kinds of things.

Then road to hana backs off with this remark, "Again, they don't have to specifically. They talk about leaders of other churches being "evil" and "corrupt," and the priesthood of God being removed because of the "wickedness of men," which is essentially a broad brush of the same." [/quote]

Nice punt. But it doesn't work. You could not provide one reference to Elder Packer doing what you accused him of doing.

I agree that it is wrong for the church to be able to say there was an apostasy and A, B, and C, is evidence of this, but you can't put the same type of critical thought process on the church in the 1800's.

You meant to say "it isn't wrong?" You can try to prove that the Church went apostate. Is that what you were trying to say?

The truth that I find useful is that everything that Charity argues for is purely based on her false "spiritual witness."

You are wrong again, amantha. There are many evidences which are purely scientific in nature.

It is the height of hubris to trust yourself enough to believe that God has definitively spoken to you. You have no way of knowing whether or not your senses are interpreting the incoming data (the spiritual witness) correctly. To say that you cannot possibly be wrong about your interpretation of any experience is to deify yourself.

Wrong again.

ALL truth is useful, that is the very nature of truth. We wouldn't call it truth unless it had the capacity to guide our decision making processes--which is useful.

Many truths are too trivial to have any bearing on decision making processes. Some truths are "better" than others.

The real question is: Do you know truth when you see it? Who can say for sure except through the usefulness of that truth?
Is it true that a human being can trust herself to know that a god has spoken to her? No.

. I know many truths when I see them. I am not perfect, so I probably miss out on a bunch. I can certainly evaluate many truths and see they aren't useful. You have no basis for saying that God does not speak to humans or that the humans don't know it when He does.

Even if communication from God is considered an absolutely reliable source of truth, one cannot with absolute reliability identify such communication, because the divine communication must be identified by an incompletely reliable human being.

Do you mean to say that no human being can be sure of anything? Because with our incompletely reliable humaness, that would mean we can't trust anything.

This being the case, in whose interest is it to question the value of truth? Only those whose advocated position is doubtfully true, or whose ends truth will not serve.

Or anyone who disagrees with the patently erroneous statement that all truths are valuable and lead to our decision making.

Again, criticism is a good thing, and if anyone needs to be criticized it is you. Get over yourself.

Ad hominem attacks weaken your argument.

charity wrote:
Just let me say, beastie, people who know the complexities of the human personality are very cautious about trying to analyze a person sight unseen.


It is not the sight of an individual, but rather the pattern of their behavior, that is the basis for a psychological diagnosis or categorization. And thousands of instances of participation in discussion over a period of years might well provide quite sufficient basis for such categorization.

Observation of the individual in person, rather than from an internet message board. Message boards don't allow for nuances of facial expression, tone of voice, detection of the use of sarcasm. Besides, confrontational interactions set the "observer" into a position of bias where an objective analysis is impossible.

[_amantha]

mispost

[_DonBradley]

Yeah, but as I have said here I have a lot more to go on then feeling good or feeling at peace.....there is the whole talking to God thing and having him talk back.

You're missing the point, Nehor. Or the several points.

Experiences are not self-interpreting. We interpret them. What meaning they have, what their source is, how much epistemelogical value they have--these are all judgments we must make, using reason, with our fallible, human minds. Even if there is a perfect God communicating with us, we can only identify this God's voice imperfectly, because we are imperfect.

And the sense of having the voice of divine inspiration in one's mind is not infallible, and suffers from the same problems as feelings of peace, etc.--which your own scriptures teach you are confirmation of the truth. If you haven't ever had an experience of confirmation, the voice of inspiration, etc. that you later concluded came only from your own mind, then I doubt you've made much attempt to receive and follow personal inspiration. I had impressions of things and was "told" things by personal revelation I was later forced to conclude were false--including my teenage revelation that the Adam-God theory was true, my impression after a conversation with Ezra Taft Benson's son that President Benson would not survive to the next General Conference, an inspiration about the person I was going to marry, etc., etc. And in talking with others who sought and felt they received personal inspiration, I found that the experience of failed inspiration or "misread" impressions was hardly unique.

Finally, you're failing entirely to deal evenhandedly with the fact that others experience the voice of God (and other strong forms of inspiration) telling them things diametrically at odds with your own beliefs and inspirations. Muhammad reported seeing an angel and receiving the exact words of God, which told him, among other things, that God had no Son and would accept no Atonement made by anyone but the sinner himself. Numerous non-Mormons have had visions--a far, far stronger form of inspiration than a voice in the mind--contradicting LDS beliefs. Mary has appeared to thousands of Catholics, sometimes to hundreds at once, often teaching them very "Catholic" doctrines and making very Catholic prophecies--things contradicting your own religious 'knowledge.' Over a hundred million Pentecostals have received the gift of tongues, though they lack the LDS "gift of the Holy Ghost" that is supposed to be its prerequisite. The gift confirms their faith to them, and is often accompanied by inspiration at odds with LDS beliefs. Mormon fundamentalists (present-day polygamists) of various groups have borne testimony to me along these lines: "I know in the same way I know that the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith is a prophet that [Owen Allred, Rulon Jeffs, Gerald Petersen, et al., et al.] is the one man holding the keys." If you would actually talk with such people, you would find that they are entirely sincere (sincere enough, in the case of the women, that they will even become part of a veritable harem) and that they report experiences of personal revelation no different from those of LDS--only the content is different, and at variance.

The hubris in your position is that you "know" your beliefs are true because "God talk to" you, while blithely dismissing or ignoring what others "know" in precisely the same way. If what you "know" is true, what they "know" on the same experiential basis is false--which means they don't really know it at all. Get it? Religious experience isn't a source of knowledge in the way you assume: if it were, these people would "know" as well--their beliefs would be true along with yours, and there would thus (necessarily) be no contradiction among the things you all "know" by the same means.

Pray about that, and see what answer you get. Then, when somebody else gets the opposite answer, pretend you can still say you "know" yours is true.

Don

[_DonBradley]

Assuming that there isn't more than one form of revelation. One that you know for sure is from God and another that you are unsure of.

Sadly, however you might kid yourself, there isn't one that you can be so sure of. For any religious experience you could claim, I could point you to a number of evidently sincere others who claimed the same type of experience, but with contradictory content.

[Guest]

Gazelem said:

That has got to be the single most blindly ignorant post ever typed.

Exactly how many testimonies or witnesess do you need, that all edify one another, to understand how the Holy Ghost works? All Mormon missionaries do is go around teaching people how to receive a witness of the Spirit. Thousands of people are baptised every year because they receive an answer to their prayers by the power of the Holy Ghost. This isn't some chemical reaction brought on by wishful thinking, this is no illusion of an oasis in the desert, it is a real and honest responce by God to an earnest prayer.

Even those on this board who have left the Church will testify of it.

Pack up your things and come back when you have something intelligent to offer.

Your hyperbole betrays you. I have struck at the core of your self-deception. You claim to be omniscient with regard to an experience you regard as a "spiritual witness." However you quantify and qualify your experience, your characterization of it is independent of that experience. You have interpreted your experience according to the cultural milieu wherein you had the experience. The words "Holy Ghost" were given to you--I presume you did not coin them. Yet you are certain that those are the "true" words.

No, you're not, even though you would like to assert that there is no possibility that you are not 100% correct in your interpretation of a human experience.

Come down from your high place and admit that you are not certain that there could not be other explanations or possibilities with regard to your personal epiphany. But you won't.

Gazelem said:

Once you've tasted the Holy Ghost, you can tell the difference between human emotion and divine influence. The same as you can tell the difference between sugar and salt.

I have tasted both salt and sugar and neither experience tells me that god visited Joe "the philanderer" Smith. I have merely tasted salt and sugar and whether or not I can adequately communicate those experiences in words has nothing to do with my knowledge of god and neither does an experience which you choose to interpret as a witness from a spirit. You have merely applied a meaning to an experience which cannot be refuted. But, of course, there is no other possible interpretation. Simply not true.

amantha wrote:


The truth that I find useful is that everything that Charity argues for is purely based on her false "spiritual witness."



You are wrong again, amantha. There are many evidences which are purely scientific in nature.


Those "evidences" as you mistakenly call them are ultimately founded on your equally erroneous spiritual witness--and you know it--you just like to fight.

amantha wrote:


It is the height of hubris to trust yourself enough to believe that God has definitively spoken to you. You have no way of knowing whether or not your senses are interpreting the incoming data (the spiritual witness) correctly. To say that you cannot possibly be wrong about your interpretation of any experience is to deify yourself.



Wrong again.

I am absolutely right. You think you cannot possibly be wrong about your interpretation of your "spiritual witness." What absolute and glaring arrogance--and once again--you know it.


amantha wrote:


ALL truth is useful, that is the very nature of truth. We wouldn't call it truth unless it had the capacity to guide our decision making processes--which is useful.



Many truths are too trivial to have any bearing on decision making processes. Some truths are "better" than others.

How did you decide that? Could it have been the nature of the truth? The "truth" helped you to make a value judgment of "better" or "worse." ALL truth has value otherwise you would not call it truth, you would call it something else, like "a waste of time," which is what I call apologetics.

The real question is: Do you know truth when you see it? Who can say for sure except through the usefulness of that truth?
Is it true that a human being can trust herself to know that a god has spoken to her? No.


I know many truths when I see them. I am not perfect, so I probably miss out on a bunch. I can certainly evaluate many truths and see they aren't useful. You have no basis for saying that God does not speak to humans or that the humans don't know it when He does.

Can a person trust themselves to be absolutely certain that the speaking was done by "God." No. A person only says that they are.

Even if communication from God is considered an absolutely reliable source of truth, one cannot with absolute reliability identify such communication, because the divine communication must be identified by an incompletely reliable human being.



Do you mean to say that no human being can be sure of anything? Because with our incompletely reliable humaness, that would mean we can't trust anything.

What does trust have to do with absolute certainty? You know this. You just want to win a fight. Quit it already.

DonBradley wrote:

This being the case, in whose interest is it to question the value of truth? Only those whose advocated position is doubtfully true, or whose ends truth will not serve.



Or anyone who disagrees with the patently erroneous statement that all truths are valuable and lead to our decision making.

Patently Obvious statement you mean. Truths are valuable AS guides to our decision making and that is all. A truth has no intrinsic value. I don't love truth for truth's sake. I love it because it guides me towards value and and away from things I don't value.

amantha wrote:



Again, criticism is a good thing, and if anyone needs to be criticized it is you. Get over yourself.



Ad hominem attacks weaken your argument.

Only in your eyes. I don't care what you think because you are an openly deceitful human being. I don't think you are sincere. I think you know exactly what you are doing and I find it, frankly, despicable. I see right through you. I am as certain of what I am saying as you are of your "spiritual witness."

You have never made an argument that needs refutation. There is only one thing to refute in this whole Mormonism thing and that is the "spiritual witness." Without that, everything else falls down. And I'm sure you would agree. If as you say, there is a Holy Ghost which can witness truth, you are still unable to be certain that it is a Holy Ghost which you have communed with. That label is arbitrary. It could have just as easily been the Tap Dancing Beaver that spoke to you.

[_charity]

Only in your eyes. I don't care what you think because you are an openly deceitful human being. I don't think you are sincere. I think you know exactly what you are doing and I find it, frankly, despicable. I see right through you. I am as certain of what I am saying as you are of your "spiritual witness."

The fact that you post in response to my posts means you do care. Show me how much you don't care by ignoring my posts after this. I hope you will. You are not contributing to the discussion with only vitriol.

You have never made an argument that needs refutation. There is only one thing to refute in this whole Mormonism thing and that is the "spiritual witness." Without that, everything else falls down. And I'm sure you would agree. If as you say, there is a Holy Ghost which can witness truth, you are still unable to be certain that it is a Holy Ghost which you have communed with. That label is arbitrary. It could have just as easily been the Tap Dancing Beaver that spoke to you.

Posts such as this, with ridicule and mocking, usually mean that there is some measure of envy involved. It sounds like a case of sour grapes. I am sorry if you have tried to obtain a spiritual witness and failed to do so. It isn't too late for you to change your attitude and put yourself in a position that you can know for yourself.

[_DonBradley]

You really think that a person is ignorant of the fact that he/she is overweight? :D (Thanks, Dr. Shades for the smiilie. That statement that a person needs someone to tell them they are overweight really deserved it.)

BKP, and therefore you, have used the argument that not all truth is valuable because it isn't good to tell passersby they're ugly and fat. My response was that this confuses multiple issues. While it isn't good and valuable to give and receive gratuitous insults, even if these are rooted in factual information, it is good to know the truth. It's good, in fact, to know that one is overweight, since being overweight can considerably impact one's health. Whether one can be overweight and not know is immaterial to the fact that it's useful to know it--which speaks to the issue at hand.

by the way, the fact that one is unlikely to be overweight and not know is one of the reasons it is merely rude and uncivil to tell people they are fat. It isn't helpful to tell people that because they already know it. Believers in false religious claims, on the other hand, by definition do not know these claims are false; so it is potentially helpful to make them aware of evidence against those claims.

You cannot make a case for misunderstood or not understood history to lead to the decision that beliefs are false or leaders are uninspired.

The history in question is understood just fine by those without an incentive to misunderstand or not understand.

Truth with civility? I don't see the connection.

That's a shocker.

What Elder Packer said didn't come anywhere close to saying that being honest and accurate was cruel.

That's exactly what he said, Charity. His analogical argument for withholding truth was, and I quote, "I could tell most of the secretaries in the church office building that they are ugly and fat. That would be the truth, but it would hurt and destroy them."

How is this any different from saying that being honest and accurate about their "ugliness" and fat would be cruel, and that it would therefore be kinder to withhold truth?

Don

[_amantha]

Only in your eyes. I don't care what you think because you are an openly deceitful human being. I don't think you are sincere. I think you know exactly what you are doing and I find it, frankly, despicable. I see right through you. I am as certain of what I am saying as you are of your "spiritual witness."

The fact that you post in response to my posts means you do care. Show me how much you don't care by ignoring my posts after this. I hope you will. You are not contributing to the discussion with only vitriol.

You would like that wouldn't you. No communication with you amount to a "discussion." I simply care to point that out. If you notice, I generally don't speak directly to you. I speak about the inanity of your posts. Feel free to ignore.

You have never made an argument that needs refutation. There is only one thing to refute in this whole Mormonism thing and that is the "spiritual witness." Without that, everything else falls down. And I'm sure you would agree. If as you say, there is a Holy Ghost which can witness truth, you are still unable to be certain that it is a Holy Ghost which you have communed with. That label is arbitrary. It could have just as easily been the Tap Dancing Beaver that spoke to you.

Posts such as this, with ridicule and mocking, usually mean that there is some measure of envy involved. It sounds like a case of sour grapes. I am sorry if you have tried to obtain a spiritual witness and failed to do so. It isn't too late for you to change your attitude and put yourself in a position that you can know for yourself.

You are a devious and evil one aren't you. Now I am supposed to be envious of your profound skills. You already know that NO ONE takes you seriously who is not a sympathetic Mormon. You are an absolute joke and the people here who are kind enough to "discuss" things with you, do so out of the goodness of their hearts, because they know there is no real discussion going on.

Oh, It is not too late for you to stop telling people that it is not too late, but that would just kill your fun, so by all means--go for it. But there is not a sorry or compassionate bone in your body when it comes to people who don't see the world as you do, there is only condescension and patronizing guile. You love to cunningly remind people of the punishment which you hope is in store for them, just so you can be right.

Again, keep up the good work of reminding those who come to the internet to shore up their faith, that they need look no further than your sly and deceiving words to see the convulsive death throws of the caustic ideology that is Mormonism.