Why I am a Latter-day Saint

[_Themis]

The "explanation of self generated" does quite simply explain how one got the positive or negative sensation, but it does not explain why God did not answer us, but left us to be deceived by our self-generated sensations. In my case it would be around ten years before I realized that the sensation I got could be self generated, so I went ten years thinking that sensation had to be externally generated. Why would God let me be deceived like that?

You make so many unwarranted assumptions just because that's what you want to believe even when it is illogical. If we go with this assumption God would not allow you to be deceived like that, then why does God let the vast majority of the planet be deceived without God correcting them? God either does not exist or does not care what you believe.

In all honesty no. I just didn't want to limit God to answering in one way and one way only when I didn't actually know God was so limited.

It's not about God being limited, but why he would employ a very unreliable method easily mistaken for what the body can create and allows anyone to make up what ever interpretation they want.

If it's from yourself and not God, then what exactly is God doing while you've gotten that self-generated answer? Ignoring you?

People get all kinds of wrong conclusions and you don't see God correcting them anymore then correcting you. Maybe because God does not exist or care what you believe.

Well, then, let me know what I can do to produce such an experience, because I do "really want them."

I had a rushing sensation the other day. It was created by my mind in a fraction of a second from hearing a large dog barking feet from me. Funny thing is the sensation was not negative but felt good. If it occurred while doing some LDS religious activity in the past I would have attributed it to the HG. Now there are many factors we do not know that may cause sensation without any apparent reason, and while I am typing this post I cannot make my mind recreate the sensations I felt with the barking dog.

I was taking no drugs in the month prior to my 1976 experience, and had taken no drugs except prescription medications in the 17 years prior. There was no lack of food or water in the month prior to the experience. A "very hot person" coming up and flirting with me is out too, since I'm married.

So? I just listed a number of ways more extreme sensations may be produced. Many religious people for thousands of years have used drugs to create sensations that consider to be special spiritual experiences.

If God did "show up in person," how would the person to be communicated with know that it was the good God who controls the universe, and wasn't instead an evil or amoral impostor impersonating God? Similarly, if God did "send an angel to communicate with a sincere inquirer," how would the inquirer know whether the angel had come from the good God that controls the universe, and not some other source? There's an implicit assumption here that only good beings can appear to the "sincere inquirer" and claim to be God or sent from God, and I don't see how that assumption is warranted.

It would still be a method of providing people with clear answers. You would still have to decide to believe it, as well as what you want to believe is good or evil. It would in the end be a clear method to communicate information that sensations could never really do.

[_Themis]

Of course the simplest explanation of the whole situation is that God simply doesn't exist. But I really see no point spending a lot of time considering that possibility.

This is really the heart of the issue. You have agreed with what I say is the simplest explanation, but you choose to believe what you want even against a lot of evidence saying it is wrong. This is really why you make up so many unwarranted assumptions. You have yet to provide any reasonable argument to believe what you do, other then it makes you feel better.

[_canpakes]

There was no "clear communication from anyone aside from" myself and my own interpretation in either of those situations. But neither my boss nor the air traffic controllers are God. Nor do they have the same purposes as God does. What my boss and the air traffic controllers do as their normal everyday work depends heavily on objectively-verifiable means of communication. If God did that, then we'd all know by now that God was actively involved in the lives of humans. We don't know that, so we must assume either (1) that there isn't any God, (2) that God simply doesn't have the capacity to communicate with everybody objectively, or (3) that for some reason God's purposes don't require Her/Him to communicate with everybody objectively. I don't see much point in seriously considering (1); my current belief is in some combination of (2) and (3).

These are indeed assumptions, and they exert an interesting limitation on your version of God.

Why couldn't God simultaneously talk to 7 billion people in 7 billion different native tongues or dialects? That seems like child's play for an entity that has, according to some, created an incomprehensibly massive universe bound within the paradox of infinite continuance.

Seriously, why would this be a limitation of God?

God, as Latter-day Saints understand Her/Him, always works within natural law. Latter-day Saints also believe that God didn't create the universe out of nothing. I believe that while God found a way to bring the universe into existence using natural law, it is entirely possible that simultaneously broadcasting individual messages in audio to even a _million_ people at one time might simply be something that nobody can do, regardless of whether there's ten dialects or ten thousand.

It doesn't really follow to claim that God always works within natural laws but then to believe that God is of the nature and power claimed by LDS doctrine... and then simultaneously proclaim that God could not simultaneously talk to 7 billion people in 7 billion different native tongues or dialects. I'm not even sure that such a thing would be impossible for a modern-day supercomputer to work out, so the idea that God can't do this does not follow.

Regardless, you have stated that you can interpret something as a particular communication that is not direct communication but rather is an emotional or physical feeling. Presumably your version of God could not directly create this sensation simultaneously within 7 billion people any more so than speak to that number simultaneously, so I am unsure why you lend more credibility to this 'method of answer' anyway.

Hold on there, you left out some other assertions. According to you:

- You can determine, with absolute certainty, that God has answered you by your interpretation of a sensation,
- You can determine, with absolute certainty, the meaning of that sensation,
- You can determine, with absolute certainty, that the sensation that you received would have come from God, and only from God.

This is not a line of inferences that start and end with the same assertion! As just one example of how it's not, I've never used the first statement to argue the truth of the second one. So how can you claim that I'm using circular logic? Furthermore, I've never said that you "can determine, with absolute certainty," any of those three things. They're all contingent on the existence of God, and I've admitted over and over that I don't strictly know that God exists. So why do you assert that I have asserted that you "can determine, with absolute certainty" any of those three things?

Because you state that you have. Hence your claim that your question was answered.

Canpakes, do you consider Euclid's geometric proofs to be circular arguments? He also started with axioms he assumed to be true, and at the end of his arguments he still assumed those axioms to be true. There's no essential difference between my reasoning and Euclid's; the only difference is the axioms we started with.

The essential difference between your reasoning and Euclid's is that Euclid's proofs can be reproduced by anyone using the same set of tools, with exactly the same result. In contrast, your reasoning does nothing of the sort.

Once again establishing that my arguments are not circular.

You stated that your reasoning was exactly the same as Euclid's, and I responded as to why it is not. In any event, a superficial comparison to Euclid's proofs does not remove the problem of your argument being circular.

[_canpakes]

Consider that there is no 'LDS Church' in the afterlife; there cannot be because that would be paradoxical, given that the nature of 'the LDS Church' as you interpret it is based entirely on mortal, earthly existence, occurrences and experiences.

There may not be any "'LDS Church' in the afterlife" in its current form, but I believe quite strongly that it exists there in some form. How have you come to the conclusion that the LDS Church "is based entirely on mortal, earthly existence, occurrences and experiences"? The LDS Church is based on giving service to others, and the vast majority of its members expect that when they die, they will simply go on giving service to others. I expect many of the institutions of the LDS Church, like home teaching and visiting teaching, for instance, will continue unabated in the next life.

It used to be that the threefold mission of the Church was the following:

1) Proclaim the Gospel
2) Redeem the Dead
3) Perfect the Saints

In the last few years, a fourth item has been added:

4) Care for the Poor and Needy

OK, please forgive me for saying so as this is strictly my own opinion - but I don't see that the first three are very good definitions of giving service to others, and maybe a few other folks in the upper ranks thought so as well, resulting in the fourth goal being added. It is my own belief that service to others isn't necessarily achieved by merely 'proclaiming the gospel', and 'redeeming the dead' would not seem to be serving any living being, nor is 'perfecting the Saints' a well-defined item. I really do wish that the Church gave much more time, effort and dollars in giving service to others that are not strictly LDS members or dead folks (who may not need any service from live folks anyway). But I digress...

I state that the CoJCoLDS "is based entirely on mortal, earthly existence, occurrences and experiences" because, as an entity, it formed out of the actions and commitments of mortals here, while still quite fleshy and alive. The events that define the Church are thus locked into the history and actions of people within it and their interactions with other folks outside of it. Even the Book of Mormon, if taken literally, speaks to events that would have been happening within the mortal phase of any existence. Within any pre-or post-mortal realm the same events do not exist and do not place their particular stamp on any structure from either realm.

Making this statement doesn't seek to affirm or deny any teaching from the LDS perspective; my point was only that it matters not what churches or sects exists here on the planet; any post-mortal realm would exist under its own structure, timeline and events and would not be driven by what is happening on Earth with those crazy humans any more than a cart drives a horse forward.

Yet even that's paradoxical as the scheme cannot be maintained unless 'continuing family life' means a limited family experience for upper-level Celestial Kingdom participants where they are shut off from anyone else not in the same Celestial Kingdom subdivision even if they are 'family'.

I think it will be premature to call something paradoxical until God explains what precisely it is. I don't think we have all the data on the Celestial Kingdom yet.

Therein lies the problem. Where did the existing 'data' on the Celestial Kingdom come from, and why is it so contradictory? It isn't going to work out as stated.

As an aside, I always wondered why the missionaries push the 'families forever' story as if this is a unique blessing that gives the believer something that they cannot attain under any other religion, when the reality is that the LDS version of afterlife 'kingdoms' and the limitations applied to them are actually much more restrictive and problematic regarding families in the hereafter than other mainstream faiths or Christian sects. If you don't believe this, try asking folks outside of the LDS faith if they've ever been taught that post-death they'll never see their great-grandparents or Jolly Ol' Aunt Mary ever again, either because they drank coffee, or didn't believe that Joseph Smith talked to God, or because they were not married in a highly-decorated building, or for no reason at all.

[_Bazooka]

I merely recognise that my assumptions are just that, assumptions, regardless of how much faith (hope) I have that God exists.
I lost my certainty in God when I realised He wasn't at the helm of the Church.

Faith and hope are close together, but they're not identical. But I'm glad to hear that you have one or the other, regarding the existence of God.

What about devotion to God? I have made it clear that I'm very devoted to God. I have put all my eggs in the God basket. I have gambled everything I have, and am determined to keep gambling all that I have, on the existence of a good God, who wants us to know Her/His will, and who has the capacity to answer prayer. I would guess that you had this devotion too, when you were certain that God existed. Did you also lose that devotion when you lost your certainty in God, when you "realized He wasn't at the helm of the" LDS Church? And was that when you got the answer that the LDS Church wasn't true, after you asked God if the LDS Church was true?

You know the Church advises against gambling, right?

I'm not sure you are very devoted to God. You are devoted to your own personal assumption that there is a God and the things that you have associated with that assumption. On that basis, you are very devoted to an image of a God that you have self-generated from what people within the Church have told you to believe about Him and which you have accepted as fitting with what you want to believe. If God exists, then He provides nothing here on earth above and beyond making people like feel a bit better about yourself and your life. If God exists, do you really believe He is the kind of God that is going to require you to shake someones hand correctly whilst chanting some ritualistic oath regardless of how well you've lived?

By virtue of the fact I went through the process of establishing wether or not the Church was true, despite being born into the Church, should tell you that at some point it dawned on me to consider that the Church was not what God wanted and perhaps God Himself was not as He was being portrayed by the Church. That point was my first experience of the Temple Endowment. I went several times after that to try and rid myself of the conclusion I immediately reached, but to no avail. That's when I started asking the question with more fervour than I had ever mustered throughout my Church life.

I actually consider myself agnostic now. In that your experience of what God told you and mine are diametrically opposed even though we did the same things. That means God is either a really crappy communicator or we have to consider He isn't talking to us at all. Either way, I decided the best policy was to leave belief in God to one side and just get on with trying to be the best Father, Husband, Son, Brother, Friend, Neighbour, Colleague, Acquaintance, Stranger that I can possibly be and let the chips fall where they may after I'm a goner. If God is the bloke you believe He is, I'll be in better standing with Him by how I am now, than by spending my time looking after the ordinances of dead people and learning a bunch of nutty cultish rituals.

[Guest]

The "explanation of self generated" does quite simply explain how one got the positive or negative sensation, but it does not explain why God did not answer us, but left us to be deceived by our self-generated sensations. In my case it would be around ten years before I realized that the sensation I got could be self generated, so I went ten years thinking that sensation had to be externally generated. Why would God let me be deceived like that?

You make so many unwarranted assumptions just because that's what you want to believe even when it is illogical.

Themis, why do you think that anything I have said is illogical?

If we go with this assumption God would not allow you to be deceived like that, then why does God let the vast majority of the planet be deceived without God correcting them?

How would God go about correcting the "vast majority of the planet"? Blaring out for everybody to hear, "This is God! The Zoroastrians are right! Everybody become a Zoroastrian"? Even if God could create such an audio message for everyone to hear, which I doubt, how would the world know that that message came from the good God who controls the universe, and not from an evil or amoral impostor, who wants to deceive us into believing erroneous things about God?

In all honesty no. I just didn't want to limit God to answering in one way and one way only when I didn't actually know God was so limited.

It's not about God being limited, but why he would employ a very unreliable method easily mistaken for what the body can create and allows anyone to make up what ever interpretation they want.

Why do you think anyone can "make up what ever interpretation they want"? If someone asks God a yes or no question, God is certainly capable of answering it by giving a positive experience as a yes and a negative experience as a no. If the person asking the question really wants to do the will of God, s/he can interpret it the way God wants her/him to.

I was taking no drugs in the month prior to my 1976 experience, and had taken no drugs except prescription medications in the 17 years prior. There was no lack of food or water in the month prior to the experience. A "very hot person" coming up and flirting with me is out too, since I'm married.

So? I just listed a number of ways more extreme sensations may be produced. Many religious people for thousands of years have used drugs to create sensations that consider to be special spiritual experiences.

So if, as you indicate, my experiences can be explained away by references to natural processes, that didn't involve drugs or lack of food or water, then what are they? If natural processes could have caused the rushing feeling I got, then tell me what those natural processes are, so I can repeat them and get the rushing sensation again.

If God did "show up in person," how would the person to be communicated with know that it was the good God who controls the universe, and wasn't instead an evil or amoral impostor impersonating God? Similarly, if God did "send an angel to communicate with a sincere inquirer," how would the inquirer know whether the angel had come from the good God that controls the universe, and not some other source? There's an implicit assumption here that only good beings can appear to the "sincere inquirer" and claim to be God or sent from God, and I don't see how that assumption is warranted.

It would still be a method of providing people with clear answers.

Yes, clear answers that were totally useless, because nobody would know whether they were true or false! Why would any deity in Her/His right mind broadcast messages that S/He knew weren't going to do any good?

[_Bazooka]

You make so many unwarranted assumptions just because that's what you want to believe even when it is illogical.

Thsmis, why do you think that anything I have said is illogical?

*pssst*
Clue:

I am a Latter-day Saint because I believe in God. I believe in God because I recognize that I am not God, nor likely to become God in the next thousand years or so. I recognize that my conscience requires that I work toward the preservation, forever, of some good things; I owe that much to future generations of the human race. I recognize that I am not by myself capable of preserving, forever, any good things, so I have faith that someone else is doing it, and I am trying to work in tandem with that someone else; this is what I meant by saying I believe in God. I don't see an alternative that is both conscientious and realistic.

[_canpakes]

If natural processes could have caused the rushing feeling I got, then tell me what those natural processes are, so I can repeat them and get the rushing sensation again.

KevinSim,

1. Stare into the eyes of your newborn son or daughter.
2. Think about the awesome nature of your relationship with and and love for your wife.
3. Listen to a certain piece of hauntingly beautiful music.
4. Visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.
5. Eat three Cinnabons and wash it down with a double cappucino.

You're welcome,

-canpakes-

[_Bazooka]

If natural processes could have caused the rushing feeling I got, then tell me what those natural processes are, so I can repeat them and get the rushing sensation again.

KevinSim,

1. Stare into the eyes of your newborn son or daughter.
2. Think about the awesome nature of your relationship with and and love for your wife.
3. Listen to a certain piece of hauntingly beautiful music.
4. Visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.
5. Eat three Cinnabons and wash it down with a double cappucino.

You're welcome,

-canpakes-

6. I find taking 3 x 100mg Cocodamol on an empty stomach will achieve exactly the same feeling as Kevin describes.

[_Themis]

Themis, why do you think that anything I have said is illogical?

I can tell you are a good person, but most of what you say on this topic is illogical. That you cannot see it may be a good question to explore. You want to assume your LDS God exists based on no good evidence. You assume he would not let you be self deceived by your self generated sensations. If you assume this, you have to assume he would also do the same for everyone else in the world. This is obviously false as people do this on a daily basis. If God is not going to correct them then it is logical she won't correct you either. All you really have done is confirm that your particular God does not exist.

How would God go about correcting the "vast majority of the planet"? Blaring out for everybody to hear, "This is God! The Zoroastrians are right! Everybody become a Zoroastrian"? Even if God could create such an audio message for everyone to hear, which I doubt, how would the world know that that message came from the good God who controls the universe, and not from an evil or amoral impostor, who wants to deceive us into believing erroneous things about God?

You are attempting again to distract from the issue with what I call the absolutism game. The issue was not about knowing anything absolutely, which is impossible. The issue was about how God could communicate clearly his message to sincere inquirers. I gave you some clear ways that are so much above subjective feelings you interpret the way you want. We cannot know anything absolutely, so how is some feelings with no message better then an angels appearing and telling you in your own language what is true? At least with the angel you will have a very hard time confusing the message, regardless of whether is is a good or bad angel.

Why do you think anyone can "make up what ever interpretation they want"? If someone asks God a yes or no question, God is certainly capable of answering it by giving a positive experience as a yes and a negative experience as a no. If the person asking the question really wants to do the will of God, s/he can interpret it the way God wants her/him to.

Easy. Someone makes up the question they want. They word it the way they want. They get to look for positive or negative feelings or events to interpret it as an answer to a questions they created and also created how to interpret a potential answer. This way one could pray about the Book of Mormon and look for a negative event to interpret it as an answer it is not true, unless they ask it in a way that they will interpret a positive event as an answer the Book of Mormon is not true. See how easy it is? They are not doing anything different then you did.

So if, as you indicate, my experiences can be explained away by references to natural processes, that didn't involve drugs or lack of food or water, then what are they? If natural processes could have caused the rushing feeling I got, then tell me what those natural processes are, so I can repeat them and get the rushing sensation again.

The brain does not work that way. Have you already forgotten my own story of having a rushing sensation through my body recently that I said I could not just think and recreate the experience. Bio-chemistry provides the answers to why we feel certain sensations, including yours. Why would you consider yours reasonably outside of self-generated? Level of intensity or rarity does not explain it. These happens to all of us, and for events non-religious in nature.

Yes, clear answers that were totally useless, because nobody would know whether they were true or false! Why would any deity in Her/His right mind broadcast messages that S/He knew weren't going to do any good?

You have got to be kidding me. You think some sensation with no message attached to it other then what you provide is somehow superior to some being showing up and talking to you in your own language.? If an angel shows up and tells you Scientology is the right and only true path to God, this is somehow a useless message because you cannot be certain it comes from God? If so then how much more useless is your own experiences? Be honest now.