mfbukowski wrote:beefcalf wrote:Bottom line for me: Whether Joseph Smith was a fraudster or whether he really believed in what he was doing cannot fully answer the question of whether the LDS church is true. If the argument you make to yourself is that since the Church couldn't possibly be one large 15-million-person conspiracy, then it must be true... you might be looking at it the wrong way.
This is an interesting assertion.
Let's take a hypothetical Christian leader named John Jones who claims to have visions and alters some important Christian doctrine. He delivers documents claimed to be revelations from God to back up his claims.
Some 15 million people have religious experiences which claim to have brought them peace, have brought them closer to Christ, and have changed their lives and those of their families for the better.
What criterion of "truth" would you use to say that this movement is "not true"?
mfbukowski,
Thanks for your continued willingness to engage.
Consider this:
1) Conspiracies, especially large conspiracies, cannot be kept a secret ('
Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead')
2) From #1, we know that the LDS church cannot be 'a big lie that 15 million members have agreed not to reveal to the world'.
3) Widespread systems of belief have been observed (such as FC) wherein the believers are all sincere, but misinformed or otherwise incorrect.
4) The logical possibility must remain that, even though every LDS church member is absolutely sincere in his/her belief, the truth claims of the church are still false.
I am simply saying that if your testimony relies partially or wholly upon the fact that '15 million people can't be wrong' then you are in a rationally indefensible position.
What is a good indicator of the "validity of belief"?
Edit: let me clarify that a bit- I am not talking about science- I am talking about religious belief of course!
As a good postmodernist, what is your view of religious "truth" if it is not based in something close to "the sincerity of the believer"?
Validity of belief can be obtained when any objective party can use a given process and produce consistent results.
One example of a process would be to let go of an apple in your hand. The consistent results, that any objective observer can obtain, is that the apple will begin to fall to the ground.
Another example of a process that we might investigate is Moroni's Promise. This process, however, does not produce consistent results. Some people who use this process end up convinced that the Book of Mormon is true. Others are not convinced.
From reading your response, it seems you view 'validity of belief' and 'truth' to be defined by whether or not they make you a better person, or whether they make you feel good.
I don't consider this to be a very useful definition of 'truth'. Why not call it 'useful' or 'enjoyable'? If it is not empirically and objectively true, don't call it 'true'.
Perhaps you answer is that there is "no truth" at all- yet your comment above implies that one belief may be more "valid" than another.
There
are absolute truths, and we as rational humans have access to many of them. There are also things which make people feel good which are not empirically true. If I have an aggressive cancer which will kill me in 3 months, my oncologist can still tell my wife that the biopsies were fine, that the tumors are non-malignant and that everything will be ok. My wife will feel
really good. But saying it or believing it doesn't make it 'true'.
And yes, some beliefs are more valid than others. The belief that Genesis is a fiction invented by stone-age desert nomads is
more valid than the belief that the Garden of Eden, the Flood of Noah and the Tower of Babel were real historical events (in the sense that the first belief is 100% true and valid and the second belief is 100% false).