Mormon faith: a circular definition and concept

[_sock puppet]

And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

Emphasis added.

Suppose there are 10 propositions--things--for which I hope. I've not seen them; I have no evidence of them. It turns out later that I learn that 4 of the 10 things are demonstrably true. The other 6 demonstrably false. Until the 4 were demonstrated to be true--seen, a perfect knowledge--I had Mormon "faith" in them because I hoped for them.

Where does that leave my hope in the other 6 items before my hope for them was later dashed when those 6 items were demonstrated to be false? On the trash heap of pipe dreams?

Until one has come to know, a 'perfect knowledge' as the Book of Mormon calls it, which of the 10 items are true and which are not, faith has no epistemological value in helping me sort truth from falsity. Faith is just a guessing game until one has evidence and knows something to be true or false. Religion has not provided me any tool or assistance towards the end of sorting truths from falsities.

Paul to the Corinthians wrote

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Indeed, charity is greater than faith or hope; with that I agree. Oddly, we hear more reference to "people of faith" than to "people of charity", even though Paul claimed charity to be greater than either faith or hope.

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Regarding unseen things, how is hope for them evidence for those things?

According to Hebrews 11:3 it is through hope for unseen things that

we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God

In this way, Hebrews 11:3 continues, we understand also that things we see were not made of things we see. What see just sprang into sight from that which we cannot see. Understanding that is what god, strangely, wants of us, not for us to figure out for example how matter (something we can see) came to exist from energy (something we cannot see).

Hebrews 11 concludes by claiming that

without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Hmmm. This Judeo-Christian god is only pleased by those who hope god exists in the absence of evidence of god existing. God is only pleased by those who hold irrational hope that he exists. God only rewards those that diligently seek what they only have hope for: god.

Before and then after evidence is presented in a court of law, the judge instructs the jury that they are to base their decision only on the evidence. Not on speculation. So are people of faith fit to serve on juries? Or are they more prone than others to make leaps "of faith" towards conclusions more detached from the evidence presented? Are "people of faith" more speculative than others?

[_Maksutov]

Great comments, Sock. Yes, I believe there is plenty of circularity in Mormonism. Far more than most belief systems. The key for the apologist/believer is to place you in the circle without you noticing. And so they are great at limiting and framing options a la presuppositionalism, setting up circularity in scriptures like Moroni's promise, endlessly evading and redefining and "answering the question you should have asked"--AKA "mental gymnastics". Joseph Smith's doubling down on fundamentalist positions regarding Biblical interpretation forces the Saints into all kinds of problematic efforts at reconciliation. It only seems to be getting worse.

Your questions about people serving on juries are interesting. How do we assess the competency of a juror?

[_malkie]

And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

Emphasis added.

Suppose there are 10 propositions--things--for which I hope. I've not seen them; I have no evidence of them. It turns out later that I learn that 4 of the 10 things are demonstrably true. The other 6 demonstrably false. Until the 4 were demonstrated to be true--seen, a perfect knowledge--I had Mormon "faith" in them because I hoped for them.

Where does that leave my hope in the other 6 items before my hope for them was later dashed when those 6 items were demonstrated to be false? On the trash heap of pipe dreams?

Until one has come to know, a 'perfect knowledge' as the Book of Mormon calls it, which of the 10 items are true and which are not, faith has no epistemological value in helping me sort truth from falsity. Faith is just a guessing game until one has evidence and knows something to be true or false. Religion has not provided me any tool or assistance towards the end of sorting truths from falsities.

Paul to the Corinthians wrote

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Indeed, charity is greater than faith or hope; with that I agree. Oddly, we hear more reference to "people of faith" than to "people of charity", even though Paul claimed charity to be greater than either faith or hope.

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Regarding unseen things, how is hope for them evidence for those things?

According to Hebrews 11:3 it is through hope for unseen things that

we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God

In this way, Hebrews 11:3 continues, we understand also that things we see were not made of things we see. What see just sprang into sight from that which we cannot see. Understanding that is what god, strangely, wants of us, not for us to figure out for example how matter (something we can see) came to exist from energy (something we cannot see).

Hebrews 11 concludes by claiming that

without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Hmmm. This Judeo-Christian god is only pleased by those who hope god exists in the absence of evidence of god existing. God is only pleased by those who hold irrational hope that he exists. God only rewards those that diligently seek what they only have hope for: god.

Before and then after evidence is presented in a court of law, the judge instructs the jury that they are to base their decision only on the evidence. Not on speculation. So are people of faith fit to serve on juries? Or are they more prone than others to make leaps "of faith" towards conclusions more detached from the evidence presented? Are "people of faith" more speculative than others?

Yahoo Bot believes (or at least used to believe) that people of faith are more fit to serve on juries than those with no religious convictions. I think that's a bit of a strange idea for an officer of the court, but then what do I know?

I'd rather have people who are hard-headed about evidence, and are committed to a fair evaluation of the evidence, not on what their faith tells them god wants.

[_kairos]

Faith has to do with your developing a close personal relationship with JC- it is a gift of God to you-you simply receive it with your mind, heart and soul. You can also reject it.

Hope is also a gift - you accept it or you can reject it; if you accept it then it gives you the means to trust the LJC in all things, now and to come in your life till you meet and live with Him in the heaven.

Charity is also a gift. Most Christians blow off this "pure love of
Christ BS" that the Mormons like to throw out to us, without definition. Thus true
charity is the gift of God's love- you can also reject it. But if you accept this gift, God's love penetrates your deepest being to the point that your own spirit will manifest itself in the characteristics Paul cites in I Cor 13. And your own character will reflect them in your daily life.


Why is love the greatest gift? Because it is the means by which the HS pours God's love into your heart so that you can accept the gift of salvation, be regenerated and have a deep personal lifetime relationship with Jesus.

just sayin

k

[_brade]

Here's how I put it a few years ago. Imagine two worlds that are identical in every respect except for one particular feature of each world. There is a rope bridge. In world 1 the rope bridge is secure. In world 2 the rope bridge features a flaw not detectable by the sort of human inspection that one could make from either end of the bridge. The flaw is such that the bridge will fail with human size weight at the midpoint of the bridge.

Both worlds feature a man named Bob. And both Bobs are identical in every respect, including their mental states. In each world each Bob is positioned at, let's say, the South side of the bridge and each wants to cross to the North. The senses of each are presented to by their respective worlds identically so that any information World 1 Bob could possibly obtain from his position as described, World 2 Bob could and would also obtain, and vice versa.

Both world 1 and 2 Bobs want to cross. Both Bobs hope the bridge is secure. But Alma renders it such that only World 1 Bob has faith, because only in world 1 is it true that the the bridge is secure. World 2 Bob's mental states are identical to World 1 Bob, yet World 2 Bob does not have faith because the bridge is not secure. In other words, if Alma is right about the nature of faith, then whether one has faith or not depends on the luck of the world happening to cooperate with one's propositional hopes.

It gets worse, or at least weirder, though, because to have faith is to hope that a proposition is true without evidence that it is true. We can, of course, observe both Bobs in this thought experiment and say which has faith or not (based on Alma's view). But on Alma's view, neither Bobs are in a position to say of themselves whether they have faith because they don't have access to their worlds in this way. If it were ok for World 1 Bob to say of himself he has faith based on what he does know (which can't include whether or not the bridge is in fact secure), then it would have to be ok for World 2 Bob to say of himself he has faith, since World 2 Bob's mental states are identical to World 1 Bob's mental states (their respective worlds give them the same perceptual evidence). But it seems strange, if Alma is right, to say that World 2 Bob can say, "I have faith", when that cannot be the case (he would be saying something false since his world isn't cooperating with his hope). If Alma is right, can Mormons rightfully say of themselves, "I have faith"?

A necessary component of faith, on Alma's view, is luck. I think there's sense to be made of the concept of faith. I don't think Alma, and most Mormons, make it.

[_deacon blues]

Alma 32:28 says truth will enlarge your understanding.
A list of some of the truths that enlarged my understanding of Joseph Smith:
1- He used a stone found in a well to translate the Book of Mormon
2- He incorrectly translated the Book of Abraham facsimiles and papyri, using an incorrect grammar.
3- He married other men's wives, and young girls, using coercion to accomplish this goal.
4- He led several of his followers on an unsuccessful treasure hunt to Salem, Massachusetts.
5- He sanctioned Sidney Rigdon's call for a "War of Extermination" by having the speech printed and disseminated.
6- He encouraged the outnumbered Saints to retaliate against the Missouri Mob, which ensured their exile from Missouri, the place his prophecies told them would be a place of refuge.
and so on................