charity wrote: Some of those things you have never heard in Church is because you didn't happen to be in the right place at the right time. I have heard the Adam and Eve, Noah thing you mentioned.
I am happy for you - in General Conference and other publications released under the stamp Corporation of the CoJCoLDS - you will never hear or read such a thing...the Brethren are stuck in the traditional naïve level 1 teachings..
You won't hear the similarities in religions pre-date Christianity because it isn't true.
obviously we no longer share a similar naïve paradigm. I thank the great spider in keene's back yard for that one..
Christianity started in the allegorical or not Garden of Eden. Human religious history started there. Can't get an earlier than that.
ignoring the natural history of the world, does not make it go away.. you just fail to see or acknowledge it.. must be the paradigm you are stuck in..
And of course, you won't hear that Joseph Smith made up the Restoration. DUH on that one.
if you were in church with me last week, you would have heard it.. I did get an elbow from my wife. but I am getting used to that :)
The real question however is whether or not your own paradigm is a superceeding paradigm that accomodates all other paradigms. In other words, the super black and white. Mine can and therefore it does not matter what paradigm is presented to me, truth remains truth and does not change.
A paradigm is a way of looking at the world. Your paradigm insists that certain experiences are spiritual in nature and testify of truth. You seem to want to argue that your "truth" paradigm accommodates all other paradigms, but then you insist it isn't a paradigm.
I'm not knocking your paradigm. As I said, if it works for you, it works. But to insist that it's no paradigm is just kind of weird to me.
It does not appear that I have insisted any such thing.
Nor am I going to argue about the Book of Mormon and the temple rites. To me, the evidence is pretty clear, as it apparently is for you. So what would be the point?
Only to show that all paradigms, except the superceeding one which encompasses all truth, are products of one's interpretation.
Though it is a little odd to hear you say that there's no evidence against its antiquity.
There certainly some arguments against it; I'll grant you that.
It does not appear that I have insisted any such thing.
I must have misread this:
No, it's [a testimony] a truth which remains true no matter what the paradigm (as all truth does).
You seemed to be suggesting that a testimony exists outside or above a testimony. Apparently, you don't really mean that.
I think you did. The 'superceeding paradigm' contains all truth and such truth remains true, even there. Since it is all in the mind, it simply represents a casting off of all that is not true.
Enuma Elish wrote:That's correct. That is the one view I'm unwilling to change. Everything else is negotiable.
David, I just can't agree with this, though I respect your right to believe as you see fit.
This means that if you're wrong about your underlying conviction of having received a spiritual witness, you can never accept that and move on. If your underlying belief is incorrect, you can never allow yourself to come to terms with that, because your behavior is to deflect any and all contradictory information before it can ever get to the underlying belief.
This is the problem I have with people insisting that the right course of action is to start with their testimony and then work their way backwards. To judge each and everything they read or learn from the accepted axioms imposed upon their worldview by their testimony.
It's dangerous, it's short-sighted, it's stubborn, it's intellectually bankrupt, and it prevents us from ever converging on anything like a realistic view of existence.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
About a month ago a missionary friend of mine visited me. A very smart, nice guy, with a sense of humor even. He felt it was his duty to help me get my convictions back. We talked for a while, he tried the usual approach of "how can anything make sense without the gospel.." and I told him that, if he'd consider moving in next door, I could have him deconverted in about a month. I asked a few probing questions to test the level of thought he'd put into the only sensible outlook on the planet, and he was quickly coming up short. It was readily apparent, despite his extraordinary capabilities for math and engineering, that he'd just assumed the church makes all kinds of sense without exploring any contrary or alternative ways of thinking. He started backing down and told me that, on second thought, I might be able to convince him, but then, he'd always go back to the way he felt. And that the feelings of the spirit would Trump any data or arguments.
This sounds like what's being discussed here. My friend, at most, would eventually strain to accomodate the new information but never negotiate on the feelings, or the "spirit". It's been suggested that the spirit isn't what David or others think it is. I made the same suggestion to my friend. I told him that he'd grown up this way and therefore the church would feel natural and familiar and no other setting or study could easily compete with that. Home always feels "right" above anything else, independent of where home is. He maintained his position.
Now, about an hour later, after we were well into the bbq, and I was on my way to intoxication, the subject of sausage came up. He and my wife both come from places that take pride in their sausage. They got into a play/fight over who's sausage tasted better where the self-evident criteria for either position just happened to reflect the values of their respective homelands. Now, no one is ever going to win a battle with my wife where dogmatically appealing to tastes and prejudices decide the outcome. So my friend, trying to be sneaky, made the argument, "I know you feel that way, but you feel that way because that's what you grew up with, you were born ..."
I didn't say anything, just laughed inside knowing that again, atheism won the day. It's almost too easy.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
bcspace wrote:There certainly some arguments against it; I'll grant you that.
And arguments should rely on evidence. Yes, there is evidence to suggest the Book of Mormon is not ancient, and plenty of it. But, in the spirit of this thread, I can see how this may not matter if you still have a conviction of its divine truth based on your spiritual witness. In other words, the paradigm shift could be one that moves from the Book of Mormon as literal history to something else, without dropping a belief in its divine truth. I think this is a legitimate way of viewing things, regardless of others' objections.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
It was readily apparent, despite his extraordinary capabilities for math and engineering, that he'd just assumed the church makes all kinds of sense without exploring any contrary or alternative ways of thinking.
Seeing as how these are my fields, how does math and engineering speak against the Church or cause one to explore 'contrary' or 'alternative' ways of thinking? The scientific method is king and even the scriptures suggest we use it (such as John 7:17).
bcspace wrote:There certainly some arguments against it; I'll grant you that.
And arguments should rely on evidence. Yes, there is evidence to suggest the Book of Mormon is not ancient, and plenty of it. But, in the spirit of this thread, I can see how this may not matter if you still have a conviction of its divine truth based on your spiritual witness. In other words, the paradigm shift could be one that moves from the Book of Mormon as literal history to something else, without dropping a belief in its divine truth. I think this is a legitimate way of viewing things, regardless of others' objections.
Of course it is. My only objection is that it may not be a good move to have any "non-negotiable" parts of the paradigm. But it's certainly legitimate.
And arguments should rely on evidence. Yes, there is evidence to suggest the Book of Mormon is not ancient, and plenty of it. But, in the spirit of this thread,
I've yet to see any though I'm sure that what may be presented in the future will considered evidence by you.
I can see how this may not matter if you still have a conviction of its divine truth based on your spiritual witness. In other words, the paradigm shift could be one that moves from the Book of Mormon as literal history to something else, without dropping a belief in its divine truth. I think this is a legitimate way of viewing things, regardless of others' objections.
I think it is illgitimate. The truth is that the Book of Mormon (and the Bible as well) make claims of historicity. The efficacy, existence, and many critical doctrines of the LDS Church hinges on such historicity. Some TBM's (supposed) on the MADB argued against me on this but then I caught them applying historicity to show that Lehi indeed could've be descended from Manasseh (critical because of Book of Mormon claims about the lineage of Joseph Smith and the identification of him as a prophet).
Consider also...If a prophet is quoted as having taught a principle, proponents of the nonhistoricity of the scriptures will claim that the principle is still true. But how can we know that if the prophet who said that never really existed? Where is his testimony in that case?
So we can quibble all we want about the details of historicity such as a world-wide vs. universal Flood, literal or figurative fruit in the Garden, etc., but there is no truth to LDS (or any other Christian) claims if the scriptures have no historicity. Something historical must have happened to bring us the Fall of man or the Flood, etc.