David Bokovoy and a Kuhnian Approach to Mormonism

[_bcspace]

Ah! The simple pleasures then? It's blissssssssssss.....................

Personally, I'd rather have a bottle in front of me......

You do. It's called Mormonism.

.....than a frontal lobotomy. lol

[_bcspace]

Ahem. Just a quick note here. People "shift their paradigms" in Covey and the world of motivational speaking. In Thomas Kuhn, a paradigm is restricted to science and spans numorous scientists and their institutions as well-organized research.

Can't stand Covey. He dissed me publically as a teenager during a youth conference. There were no seats left and I let a girl sit on my lap. I was on the front row. Something about going to hell (Ouch!).

lol

[_charity]

What you are ignoring here is my history. I started out with the idea that Church wasn't true. I joined at the age of 19, without having any previous experience with the Church or its doctrines. There was an intense time of study when I didn't know if the Church was true or not. That doesn't fit in with your little made up assessment of me.

I'm not ignoring your history.

Question, yes or no: is it possible that the LDS church is not true, and that Joseph Smith was a sexual predator who not only took advantage of women and young girls, but also invented scripture that he passed off as the ancient records of various people? Is this possible?

In the sense that anything is possible. I suppose a total stranger could possibly come up to me and hand me the winning ticket in the Powerball lottery. I would say that was about the same probability.

And it does sound to me like your experience was euphoria. Nothing I have experienced in the way of spiritual witness fits that description.

[_Runtu]

Anything is possible. Problem is, many often try to shift their paradigm to fit what they want to be true, not what actually is true. All exmos I've ever met seem to fall into this category.

I'll try to say this kindly, but who are you to tell me what I wanted to be true? I wanted more than anything in the world for the church and the gospel to be true. That it turned out to be false was perhaps the most devastating disappointment of my life. My paradigm shifted out of necessity, not out of desire. If you can't allow for that, you are truly devoid of empathy.

[_bcspace]

Anything is possible. Problem is, many often try to shift their paradigm to fit what they want to be true, not what actually is true. All exmos I've ever met seem to fall into this category.

I'll try to say this kindly, but who are you to tell me what I wanted to be true? I wanted more than anything in the world for the church and the gospel to be true. That it turned out to be false was perhaps the most devastating disappointment of my life. My paradigm shifted out of necessity, not out of desire.

So you're an exmo then? Your name is removed from the records?

If you can't allow for that, you are truly devoid of empathy.

I think it would be extraordinarily cruel not to have high expectations.

[_Runtu]

So you're an exmo then? Your name is removed from the records?

I remain in the church under threat of divorce. That's the only reason I haven't resigned. We've had this discussion before.

I think it would be extraordinarily cruel not to have high expectations.

I have no idea what you mean, so I'll not comment.

[_Roger Morrison]

I'm late in via:

Moksha, pasting D. B.:


Quote:
David Bokovoy at the MAD forum:


Quote:
Is there ever a good reason to abandon Mormonism?

Not if one has obtained a spiritual witness from God concerning the truthfulness of the Church. Still, throughout our lives, many of us encounter pieces of doctrinal and/or historical information that appears to indicate that we have been deceived, that in fact Mormonism is not true.

In these moments, perhaps before doubting our spiritual convictions, we should approach our concerns from the perspective of a paradigm shift, meaning a change in the basic assumptions concerning Mormonism that we hold to be true.

In other words, perhaps the only thing that we have encountered that is untrue is our basic assumption concerning the doctrine and/or historical information rather than the Church itself.



I ask, "is there ever a good reason to accept Mormonism?" I answer, "of course for the one accepting it."

That being the case, "of course there are good reasons to abandon Mormonism, for those abandoning it."

Since DB didn't ask what such "good reasons" might be, but prefers to assume there must not be any, as "he" hasn't found just-cause to do so; I can only wonder, "how sincere is his question?"

Mok, maybe ya can relay back?? Warm regards, Roger

Thanks Mok. Maybe some comments? In scanning the posts here i'm not sure what is more at question: the technics of paradigm shift or the morality and ethics of being true to ones self?

[_dartagnan]

charity’s pithy nonanswers:

I think someone who doesn't know what a spiritual witness is, is in a really poor position to tell someone else they don't know what it is, either. Your "scientific" argument appears to be "I have never had a spiritual experience, so nobody else ever has either."

No I am very much aware of what the “spiritual witness” is, and the Church confirmed it for me. Nobody wanted the Church to be more true than I did when I was a 16 year-old investigator. I experienced all the “bosom burning” one could experience. But I was just a kid who wasn’t educated and had no clue about psychologically, self-induced feelings. The elders insisted my feelings were from God so I believed them because I wanted to. A year after my baptism I served a mission and was instructed to get everyone I could to “pray” after reading feel-good scriptures, and then ask them how they “feel.” We never ask investigators how they reasoned, only how they feel. For the Mormon paradigm, feelings based knowledge is more accurate and trustworthy than knowledge acquired from reasoning and independent research. This is why the LDS paradigm is intellectually deficient. Following this approach one can create whatever reality he or she wants, depending on how desperate they are to prove to themselves the Church has to be true.

Every person is different and it all depends on how much they have vested in the Church. This is why the Church tries to root itself into every social aspect of the member’s life. It makes leaving the Church seem to horrible to even consider, so members either go into denial or exercise confirmation bias, which is what David is prescribing.

Other people like yourself believed the “spiritual witness” just the same, and have since vested an entire life rooted in all things Mormon. You cannot imagine life without the Church so you cling onto the long held belief that the Church is true and that this means you’re someone more special in the eyes of God. You have every incentive to cling on to this hope and desire.

You are getting the cart before the horse. The horse pulls the cart. The cart does not pull the horse. Causing and being caused by and two different things.

Stop trying to wriggle your way out of your own ignorant comments. You sound like Juliann here. Your premise here is that you’re LDS and so you cannot be wrong about anything. Only the critics are spiritually inept and can’t be right. Even when you make goofs here you can’t acknowledge them, and must retreat in confirmation bias, or “change your paradigm” to reward yourself with compensating feelings. The fact is confirmation bias is pretty much a tendency to rely strictly on feelings than reason. This is what the LDS testimony is all about. Investigators are not told to reason in their mind the facts. They are told to get a quick “feel good” answer from God after only scraping the surface of the data in a single discussion with missionaries.

Gosh, I wonder why it has been noted that the more educated an LDS person is, the stronger their committment to their beliefs, while just the opposite is true of other religions. Care to explain that in your put down of reason among LDS faithful?

Education means nothing here as is proved by the fact that you’re supposedly educated, yet you cannot argue intelligently without making stupid comments like these. You think being highly educated means you automatically reason things out regarding the Church? What an absurd connection to make. Good grief, just listen to you. You and David both are essentially saying, reject the evidence and remain firm in your presupposition, which by the way, cannot be proved. Where does reasoning come into play here? You and David both have an advanced degree, but you’re die-hard Mormons first and foremost. You do not apply critical thought to your own faith because your faith has conditioned us all to reject that tendency.

There is a reasons Mormons have a tendency to become apologists; because it is a defense mechanism. Not against critics, but against their own innate tendency to be self-critical. They cannot follow through with those feelings to be skeptical because the Church discourages it. Morons need apologetics. They need to read some lame FARMS article that takes two errors from an anti-Mormon book and spins a tale that says the entire book, as well as the entire world critical of the faith, should not be listened to at all. FAIR and FARMS is all about shifting paradigms and confirmation bias. It is all about giving that doubting member some sense that maybe the Church is still true in spite of the evidence.

It is faulty reasoning that is the tool of satan. Men can come up with some pretty cockamamie thinking. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." "All women secretly want to behave sexually with their fathers." "The earth is the center of the solar system." "Diseases are caused by 'bad air.' " Arm of flesh. Reasoning of men.

Thank you for proving my point. You pretend to be interested in reasoning and logic but when it all boils down to it, you reject both because the Church has taught you to. All you did here was provide a few examples of bad reasoning, and then used it as an excuse to reject reasoning altogether. Gee, one could do the same thing with bad revelation.

“God wants me to marry your 14 year old kid, as well as my neighbor’s wife.” “God wants us to deny blacks the priesthood until the world created an environment where this will no longer be tolerable in society.”

Arm of the spirit. Divine revelation.

Actually, if you read what I said, you would have noticed I said psychology CANNOT at this time explain spiritual communications. Talk about a comprehension deficit.

I know what you said, you idiot. And I am telling you that there is nothing to “explain” since it doesn’t exist. Why don’t you “explain” the living conditions on Alpha Centauri for us? If it doesn’t exist, there is nothing to explain. Psychology doesn’t acknowledge spiritual confirmations any more than it acknowledges life on Mars. So there is nothing to “explain.” You live in this fantasy world where your brain pumps out a fantasy world to your liking, where God and creator of all is constantly in personal communication with you via your feelings, making you feel really special. You think the rest of us living in the real world must “explain” things you conjure up as “spiritual.”

Only thing that ruins your little rant is that the Church, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, anything else you care to name is being confirmed day by day by science. While the arguments against continue to fall

See what I’m talking about people? The reality is quite the opposite, but charity is not interested in reality. Her mind has a system of confirmation bias rigged from the start. No matter what evidence there is against the Church, she can change her paradigm to make it evidence for the Church. Astonishing.

Charity, your comment above is nothing short of absolute stupidity. Nothing about the Church’s truth claims are being “confirmed” with science. NOTHING.

I don't think anyone who knows anything puts forth the premise that Joseph Smith "translated" the papyri, any more than he "translated" the Book of Mormon. Translated in the sense that a person fluent in two languages takes a document in one languages and transforms it into the other.

This is just more blathering idiocy that doesn’t acknowledge reality. Of course Joseph Smith “translated” the papyri in the same way he “translated” the Book of Mormon. He read from two texts containing ancient languages and translated them into English. Problem is, we already know Joseph Smith could not translate Egyptian since we have the papyri he used and science doesn’t confirm his translations. In fact they contradict, proving he was a fraud. But because you are neck deep in confirmation bias, I expect you to deal with none of these unpleasant facts because you have too much at stake here and cannot afford to think the Church is not true.

[_dartagnan]

David, first let me say thanks for responding to this thread. I was afraid charity was the only person willing to speak on for the LDS side, and she has a tendency to lower the level of intelligent discourse. I also want you to know I will get around to reading and responding to the other thread sometime today or tomorrow.

I wouldn’t define my approach as making all things LDS irrefutable, but rather all things God defines as true irrefutable.

But this is merely begging the question, you realize this right?

As you know, I’m more than willing to refute a traditional understanding of LDS orthodoxy when the view does not concur with the evidence.

The evidence? Your evidence is based in your own so-called “spiritual witness.” This serves as evidence for no one but yourself, in which case you’re arguing based on data that is questionable and whose source is more likely psychological than spiritual. I think it is more accurate to say you will deny traditional orthodoxy when it doesn’t concur with your chosen paradigm. I know you keep saying you’re a Church educator and all, but how far do you want to push this? How far do you think you can challenge orthodoxy and maintain your position? You’re essentially saying the LDS prophets were wrong when they gave these challenges to the world.

I certainly wouldn’t argue against a critic’s right to challenge LDS truth claims. I think our claims need to be constantly challenged by both critics and believers.

But this is a dubious claim since you already admit you have already limited expectations and permissions on what the evidence can prove. You have your mind already made up that some things cannot be proved, especially the points that Joseph Smith wasn’t a real prophet and thus, the Church isn’t what it claims to be.

I believe that they stand up to such challenges, even if sometimes the challenge requires a paradigm shift.

But you’re essentially basing your apologetic defense on fallacious reasoning and then calling this phenomenon a paradigm shift. It still doesn’t change the fallacy of it all. Further, this constant shifting of one’s paradigm is not “standing up” to the challenges at all. It is quite the opposite. If you’re constantly shifting your paradigm then you are constantly shifting your ground; you are constantly moving back the goal posts; you are constantly changing the argument; you are constantly trying to avoid the conclusions logical induction would otherwise lead you.

Why in the hell would anyone want to argue with someone who thinks like this? As my Mom would say, it would be like arguing with a brick wall. There is no hope of progress from the get-go. But what blows me away is the apologetic claim that critics are to be discredited in some way because they approach Mormonism with the premise that it isn’t true, and refuse to be dissuaded. I have heard this from people like you and Schryver on many occasions. If this is true, then how much more is the apologetic position to be discredited? After all, you have to psychoanalyze the critic in order to determine whether he or she can be dissuaded (most critics I know are willing to be dissuaded if the evidence is compelling, but the “it is my spiritual witness” gambit doesn’t compel anyone but yourselves) but in your case, you come right out and state emphatically that you have no intentions of letting the evidences lead you to logical conclusions, if it means your original premise must be wrong. This is why I am a little astonished that you would come right out and discredit yourself in this way. I admire and appreciate the honesty, but it was poorly planned. You just explained for us why nobody should give the apologetic position any credibility whatsoever.

If I start with the premise that God told me the moon is made of cheese, and then I find out that astronauts landed on the moon and kicked up moon dust instead of grated parmesan, then according to your approach all I need to do is change my paradigm in order to accommodate the new data without changing my original premise that the moon is cheese. All it takes is a creative mind. So maybe those astronauts were too deluded by solar flares to think properly. Maybe we’re all just living in the matrix and this is a big conspiracy to hide this “irrefutable divine truth” from us? The possibilities are limitless with a creative mind, and this appears to be what you’re proposing for struggling LDS who cannot reconcile the facts with LDS truth claims.

That’s not what I’m presenting.

Of course you are. You might not realize it but you are. You have made it perfectly clear that since you already begin with a premise you believe to be absolute, that all other facts, data and evidences must be interpreted in ways to fit that premise. Anything to avoid leaving the faith (i.e. deducing from the facts that it isn't true).This would be considered psychological dysfunction in any other context. It is like an abused woman who keeps insisting her husband is a good man. She never prosecutes because her main premise is that he is a good man and she keeps changing her paradigm to account for the evidences presented by her scratches, bruises and her children who live in fear. This is a dysfunctional household for the same reasons you would have struggling LDS remain LDS even though they no longer accept the original premise that the Church is true.

[_Pokatator]

charity’s pithy nonanswers:

I think someone who doesn't know what a spiritual witness is, is in a really poor position to tell someone else they don't know what it is, either. Your "scientific" argument appears to be "I have never had a spiritual experience, so nobody else ever has either."

No I am very much aware of what the “spiritual witness” is, and the Church confirmed it for me. Nobody wanted the Church to be more true than I did when I was a 16 year-old investigator. I experienced all the “bosom burning” one could experience. But I was just a kid who wasn’t educated and had no clue about psychologically, self-induced feelings. The elders insisted my feelings were from God so I believed them because I wanted to. A year after my baptism I served a mission and was instructed to get everyone I could to “pray” after reading feel-good scriptures, and then ask them how they “feel.” We never ask investigators how they reasoned, only how they feel. For the Mormon paradigm, feelings based knowledge is more accurate and trustworthy than knowledge acquired from reasoning and independent research. This is why the LDS paradigm is intellectually deficient. Following this approach one can create whatever reality he or she wants, depending on how desperate they are to prove to themselves the Church has to be true.

Every person is different and it all depends on how much they have vested in the Church. This is why the Church tries to root itself into every social aspect of the member’s life. It makes leaving the Church seem to horrible to even consider, so members either go into denial or exercise confirmation bias, which is what David is prescribing.

Other people like yourself believed the “spiritual witness” just the same, and have since vested an entire life rooted in all things Mormon. You cannot imagine life without the Church so you cling onto the long held belief that the Church is true and that this means you’re someone more special in the eyes of God. You have every incentive to cling on to this hope and desire.

You are getting the cart before the horse. The horse pulls the cart. The cart does not pull the horse. Causing and being caused by and two different things.

Stop trying to wriggle your way out of your own ignorant comments. You sound like Juliann here. Your premise here is that you’re LDS and so you cannot be wrong about anything. Only the critics are spiritually inept and can’t be right. Even when you make goofs here you can’t acknowledge them, and must retreat in confirmation bias, or “change your paradigm” to reward yourself with compensating feelings. The fact is confirmation bias is pretty much a tendency to rely strictly on feelings than reason. This is what the LDS testimony is all about. Investigators are not told to reason in their mind the facts. They are told to get a quick “feel good” answer from God after only scraping the surface of the data in a single discussion with missionaries.

Gosh, I wonder why it has been noted that the more educated an LDS person is, the stronger their committment to their beliefs, while just the opposite is true of other religions. Care to explain that in your put down of reason among LDS faithful?

Education means nothing here as is proved by the fact that you’re supposedly educated, yet you cannot argue intelligently without making stupid comments like these. You think being highly educated means you automatically reason things out regarding the Church? What an absurd connection to make. Good grief, just listen to you. You and David both are essentially saying, reject the evidence and remain firm in your presupposition, which by the way, cannot be proved. Where does reasoning come into play here? You and David both have an advanced degree, but you’re die-hard Mormons first and foremost. You do not apply critical thought to your own faith because your faith has conditioned us all to reject that tendency.

There is a reasons Mormons have a tendency to become apologists; because it is a defense mechanism. Not against critics, but against their own innate tendency to be self-critical. They cannot follow through with those feelings to be skeptical because the Church discourages it. Morons need apologetics. They need to read some lame FARMS article that takes two errors from an anti-Mormon book and spins a tale that says the entire book, as well as the entire world critical of the faith, should not be listened to at all. FAIR and FARMS is all about shifting paradigms and confirmation bias. It is all about giving that doubting member some sense that maybe the Church is still true in spite of the evidence.

It is faulty reasoning that is the tool of satan. Men can come up with some pretty cockamamie thinking. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." "All women secretly want to behave sexually with their fathers." "The earth is the center of the solar system." "Diseases are caused by 'bad air.' " Arm of flesh. Reasoning of men.

Thank you for proving my point. You pretend to be interested in reasoning and logic but when it all boils down to it, you reject both because the Church has taught you to. All you did here was provide a few examples of bad reasoning, and then used it as an excuse to reject reasoning altogether. Gee, one could do the same thing with bad revelation.

“God wants me to marry your 14 year old kid, as well as my neighbor’s wife.” “God wants us to deny blacks the priesthood until the world created an environment where this will no longer be tolerable in society.”

Arm of the spirit. Divine revelation.

Actually, if you read what I said, you would have noticed I said psychology CANNOT at this time explain spiritual communications. Talk about a comprehension deficit.

I know what you said, you idiot. And I am telling you that there is nothing to “explain” since it doesn’t exist. Why don’t you “explain” the living conditions on Alpha Centauri for us? If it doesn’t exist, there is nothing to explain. Psychology doesn’t acknowledge spiritual confirmations any more than it acknowledges life on Mars. So there is nothing to “explain.” You live in this fantasy world where your brain pumps out a fantasy world to your liking, where God and creator of all is constantly in personal communication with you via your feelings, making you feel really special. You think the rest of us living in the real world must “explain” things you conjure up as “spiritual.”

Only thing that ruins your little rant is that the Church, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, anything else you care to name is being confirmed day by day by science. While the arguments against continue to fall

See what I’m talking about people? The reality is quite the opposite, but charity is not interested in reality. Her mind has a system of confirmation bias rigged from the start. No matter what evidence there is against the Church, she can change her paradigm to make it evidence for the Church. Astonishing.

Charity, your comment above is nothing short of absolute stupidity. Nothing about the Church’s truth claims are being “confirmed” with science. NOTHING.

I don't think anyone who knows anything puts forth the premise that Joseph Smith "translated" the papyri, any more than he "translated" the Book of Mormon. Translated in the sense that a person fluent in two languages takes a document in one languages and transforms it into the other.

This is just more blathering idiocy that doesn’t acknowledge reality. Of course Joseph Smith “translated” the papyri in the same way he “translated” the Book of Mormon. He read from two texts containing ancient languages and translated them into English. Problem is, we already know Joseph Smith could not translate Egyptian since we have the papyri he used and science doesn’t confirm his translations. In fact they contradict, proving he was a fraud. But because you are neck deep in confirmation bias, I expect you to deal with none of these unpleasant facts because you have too much at stake here and cannot afford to think the Church is not true.

This post is completely and totally signature line worthy. This post captures just about everything that goes on daily at MAD. Trying to nail jello to the wall and talking colors to a blind person. This post fully illustrates my frustration when I was at MAD. It explains the methods used in FARM and FAIR articles and the character of the apologists and their arguments. The perfect example of how they think.

This thread is probably one of the most honest and revealing threads that I have read recently on the mind of the apologist. As Sethbag has responded earlier that all this has been stated before by critics but it seems to me that it is the first time that a major apologist and a major poster at MAD has admitted it.

This is a very enjoyable thread.