What Do People Here Believe?

[Marcus]

…I made the mistake yesterday (day before also?) looking at and then responding to your post.

…i’ve mentioned it before but will say it again, you’re not worth my time.

…I will no longer lower myself…

…That should save a LOT of wasted time….

Lol. Your indignation is noted, as was your hubris earlier, mentalgymnast. It’s by no means the first time you’ve combined them with your trademark flouncing off, and it obviously won’t be the last.

[canpakes]

It’s intuitive. How can one find God by looking in the wrong place?

I’d be willing to bet that a nearly windowless, concrete block building is pretty far down on the list of places where any God prefers to be.

[canpakes]

Think about this if it is true.

If you are exalted you are just going to keep cranking out hundreds of billions of spirits. And they are going to suffer. And you are going to do it again and again. And you're going to do it again and again. After 100 billion generations why the exalted couple does not suffer I don't know. If this doesn't piss you off I don't know what is wrong with you.The people I love think this is the nature of reality. That we are just this endless factory producing endless suffering. It's offensive on the deepest level. I can't imagine believing this it is sick. ......If it's true we have one task. We have to hunt down what ever being started this and kill it.

Exactly. As an exalted couple, your primary task is to create spirits (why?) and insert them into a flawed, sloppy and oftentimes cruel ‘life’ scenario where they’ll stand a much better than even chance of suffering and dying unnecessarily. This is done so that your spirit kids can repeat the same process, under the same flawed and sloppy plan. Rinse and repeat through countless generations, and then live your heavenly life apart from most of those spirits anyway after their death, and never stop rerunning the process until the end of time.

I can see why this plan doesn’t elicit a lot of enthusiasm from most folks.

[Vēritās]

I believe only that which is true.

[Chap]

I believe only that which is true.

If only! Would you settle for:

"I believe only those things which, after an appropriate amount of investigation and reflection, I conclude I have good grounds for thinking are true. Of course, it may always turn out that I am wrong about that in any particular instance."

[Marcus]

I think I clearly laid out a rather concise and all encompassing “Mormon Story”.

Mentalgymnast said something interesting here, I think giving away his strategy. He didn’t say “I told MY story” or even “I clearly laid out MY experiences.”

Instead, he seems to indicate he created an “all encompassing ‘Mormon Story’ “, one which he could then use as a base to show how he chose differently (and of course better than everyone else here), and segue back to giving his testimony. Why would he say it had to be “all encompassing” unless he felt the need to create a story that would encompass and then bypass all other stories?

Recall that the “all encompassing” storytelling started when Doc posted

I mean, if MG has an apostasy cum redemption arc, then let’s hear it. He’s been claiming for years that he was at where we were and are, so I want to see if there’s an actual ‘fabricated farce’ within his reconversion story.

- Doc

Seeing mentalgymnast call his rendition of his life “a rather concise and all encompassing “Mormon Story” puts his response in a slightly different light...

…As we mature and gain experience and understanding we reach certain pivot points where what was once little understood becomes open to further enlightenment and comprehension. It’s a natural progression unless that process is inhibited or stumped along the way. You can see examples of this all around you. Education follows that pattern. The workplace follows that pattern. Relationships follow that pattern. Religious/metaphysical knowledge and understanding follows that pattern. Scientific knowledge and understanding follows that pattern.

As I grew and matured I came across things that didn’t fit in with my traditional views and understandings of ‘Mormonism’ and the Restoration. Science and religion. Conflicts in moral values. Creationism and scientism. Etc.

Pivot points.

Just like many, I gradually…and then suddenly…hit the wall. Where to go? Hard times. Very hard.

I had to decide where and what to do. And as it was, I had a family that was moving along, generally, on a traditional ‘LDS path’. So for a while I mimicked that activity as best I could. It was hard. Very hard….

Great story. Well constructed object lesson. Like a fable, even.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Great story. Well constructed object lesson. Like a fable, even.

I’ve had an epiphany. There seems to be a divergence of Truth not only here, but across our broader culture. There’s the technical truth, and there’s a cultural truth.

I’m starting to believe there is the ‘technocrat’ truth, which began when people started to write words down on clay and then later parchment and then later electronically, and then used the written word as a sort of prosthesis through which truth is mediated. You could refer to these words and documents as measurements of truth, a record through which one can compare and contrast claims. Technocrats tend to have a mind for reading, analyzing, and studying words. They’re beholden to literality and verifiable hard truths.

And then there’s an ‘oral tradition’ truth, where a community or individual transmits truth that validates their notions, and as such is adaptive to circumstances as required. We see this tradition even down to the individual level when they tell themselves how an event occurred, or what role they might’ve played in their own history. Oral traditionalists tend to have minds for videos, memes, and rallies. Oral traditionalists are beholden to truths as verification of tribal alliances, traditions, and agreements that solidify social norms and customs.

There seems to be a growing gulf between technocrats and traditionalists, between the written truth that verifies fact, and can help the reader come to factual information, and the oral traditionalist, who transmits their cultural truth via media (yes, to include written words) as a testament to their own lived experiences that feel like truth to them. And while we think the era of oral truth was coming to an end, thanks to the written word - to the Internet, it appears oral traditionalists have simply adapted to our times by continuing their story telling traditions which verify their cultural truth. I’m not sure there’s any way to crack that nut, because their minds are most likely wired differently from others.

- Doc

[honorentheos]

I'd argue the line you describe is better drawn through Bacon, but it bends to the gravity of Hume, such that it is never as pure a line as one imagines.

[honorentheos]

I believe only that which is true.

What if it's not true but still praise worthy? Or just lovely? Don't forget being of good report.

[Vēritās]

I believe only that which is true.

What if it's not true but still praise worthy? Or just lovely? Don't forget being of good report.

Nah, that's overrated.