The Nehor wrote:Well, what with the Second Coming in three years we had to go a little nuts.
Well actually, in the 1970s most members thought the Second Coming was not far away. My stake president expressed the feeling it would be within 10-15 years maximum, from the late '70s. I don't think any at that time seriously thought we'd make the 21st century.
charity wrote:My experiences would have to be classified under a sixth sense also, because no emotion is what I experienced.
Charity, how would you, personally, define the difference between revelation and emotion?
That's easy. Revelation is knowledge which originates externally. Emotion is an internally generated mental state.
But it is experienced internally. That is the ONLY way humans perceive anything. Studies show that when the brain is triggered by an event, it reacts exactly the same way, whether it happened "outside" or "inside."
So, the real question for you is "how do you know the experience originates externally?"
How do you know you see a mountain or hear a drum? Of course, everything is experienced internally. Our "experience" does not extend even a miilimeter outside our own skin. But even though it is ALL in our brains, we experience some things as externally generated events. But you can see and hear. Those who have learned to "listen" can receive spiritual experiences in the same way.
How do you know what you see originates externally?
krose wrote:I have heard it postulated that some people are born with a much greater ability to sense spiritual phenomena. These are the mystics. If that's true, and if it's also true that a spiritual witness is the God-designed method of obtaining and verifying truth, all I can say is that it's incredibly unfair.
I "tried my guts out" for a long time in an effort to get that feeling, and what I got didn't come anywhere close to the 'witness' that is spoken of by some people. It was no more than the good feeling that comes on many other occasions, and I'm quite certain that it was self-generated.
Krose,
Does it occur to you that these people may be so victimized by brainwashing that they have come to believe their own religious dogma?
Your problem is that you think. In religion and religious dogma, thinking is generally prohibited.
If one makes a real academic study of the evolution of religious doctrines and beliefs, one has great difficulty coming to the conclusion that one and only one[/b] of these many religious [I]God boxes is right.
Your correct that the feeling are/were self-generated. I suspect, you were indoctrinated by religious dogma. If you were, you have somehow managed to transcend that when others are unable to do so.
JAK
I'm a victim? Who can I sue?
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
charity wrote:My experiences would have to be classified under a sixth sense also, because no emotion is what I experienced.
Charity, how would you, personally, define the difference between revelation and emotion?
That's easy. Revelation is knowledge which originates externally. Emotion is an internally generated mental state.
But it is experienced internally. That is the ONLY way humans perceive anything. Studies show that when the brain is triggered by an event, it reacts exactly the same way, whether it happened "outside" or "inside."
So, the real question for you is "how do you know the experience originates externally?"
How do you know you see a mountain or hear a drum? Of course, everything is experienced internally. Our "experience" does not extend even a miilimeter outside our own skin. But even though it is ALL in our brains, we experience some things as externally generated events. But you can see and hear. Those who have learned to "listen" can receive spiritual experiences in the same way.
How do you know what you see originates externally?
Exactly Charity. You are beginning to catch on. Or maybe not.
“What is real. How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. This is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix. You've been living in a dream world, Neo. This is the world as it exists today.... Welcome to the Desert of the Real."
[from "The Matrix", Morpheus explains the Matrix to Neo]
Your problem is that you think. In religion and religious dogma, thinking is generally prohibited.
For Mormons, whatever thinking needs to be done is already done, by someone else.
Yes, I choose to accept that God who knows all comes to better conclusions than I do.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Your problem is that you think. In religion and religious dogma, thinking is generally prohibited.
For Mormons, whatever thinking needs to be done is already done, by someone else.
Yes, I choose to accept that God who knows all comes to better conclusions than I do.
Interesting thought. Did you think that one up yourself, or did someone tell you to think that way?
"If False, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world, calculated to deceive and ruin millions… " - Orson Pratt on The Book of Mormon
BishopRic wrote:I've been thinking about this lately -- in matters of religion and elsewhere, there is always the question of certainty, knowledge...and the proof that one needs to make a conclusion. What is absolute proof?
As an eye doctor, I can assure you that vision can be decevieng. The eyes are good, and generally trustworthy, but not always. So if one says "I saw it with my own eyes," it may be 99.9 % "proof" that it happened, but not 100% I'm sure the same can be said for the other senses.
We often hear about "spiritual witness." Charity frequently promotes her claim that she has had "witness" that gives her enough proof to say she "knows the church is true." Nehor talks to God -- and I assume hears back, so he (I assume) claims that this is enough proof that he "knows" God exists. And so on.
So one question I have is, what is a spiritual witness? Charity often insists it is not a feeling. What sense, or senses, are used to receive this witness? Why is it so vaguely defined? And why does it seem to be so diverse, even among Mormons. I know that for the first 40 years of my life, I claimed to have received this witness, but I interpret what it was differently today. But maybe I was/am just wrong!
One reason I'm a bit more curious than normal is that I was reading the recent Sunstone presentation by Dr. Robert Beckstead regarding the possible use of hallucinogens by Joseph to induce visions:
...and thought about the possibility that many of us misinterpret what our brain "sees" at times for reality. Perhaps in a dream state, we have an experience that is so real, then later when we try to re-construct it, we create a dramatic event that we could swear was real....
Your thoughts?
Why all the effort to try to explain Joseph Smith's visions to fit within some kind of complicated model? Is there any evidence he actually used hallucinogens?
From where I sit, Joseph Smith was a fraud (pious or otherwise). One of a long list of religious frauds who discovered that they can use religion and their pipeline to God to get power, into people's wallets, and into women's bloomers.
To me, that is the simplest AND most plausible AND most likely explanation.
God . . . "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, . . . and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him ..."
Ten Bear wrote:Interesting thought. Did you think that one up yourself, or did someone tell you to think that way?
I'm not sure but I do know I started doing it with seriousness when I contacted God and felt awe at meeting something way beyond me.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo