What constitutes proof?

[_wenglund]

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?

This is a great question.

I don't wish to answer for Charity, but I look at it much like telling the difference between vivid dreams and real-life experiences (I've not experienced hallucinogenes so I can't speak to that, though I would conjecture that the same principles apply as when differentiating between vivid dreams and real-life experiences). When I was younger, I used to have vivid dreams, and supposed at the time that I was having real-life experiences. However, the more I experienced real life and vivid dreams, I was gradually able to recognize subtle, and then later obvious differences.

The same, to me, is true for emotions and certain spiritual experiences (there are some spiritual experines that aren't all that similar to emotions). I used to confuse the two--which, at times, became problematic because I had made some choices based on what I thought to be spiritual experiences, but that were emotions or self-induced "feelings", which choices weren't always in my best interest. But, the more I have experienced emotions and certain spiritual experiences, the better able I am to descern the difference, to the point now the difference is quite obvious.

Please don't ask me to describe the obvious difference because I am not sure that I can put it into words. It is something we each have to learn by experience--sorry if that sounds cliché.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_krose]

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.

I think you are right.

I believe that there are certain people that are genetically predisposed to feel heightened spiritual experiences.

I compare it to depression. There are certain people who are born with a genetic chemical imbalance that can cause clinical depression. Now, I get sad every so often, but I have never felt anything close to what a clinically depressed person must feel.

Just as I have never felt this kind of burning spiritual witness that is so much more powerful than just a good feeling.

You've got me thinking (thanks for that). I wonder if there is a connection. As I think about it, many of the same people I know who seem to experience highs spiritually tend to get really down now and then. On the other hand, I'm like you; I'm pretty even keel, having never been deeply depressed or enthralled. And what's more, the time in my life when I believed most strongly was the time when I was most prone to emotional swings (adolescence and young adulthood).

[_krose]

Tell him/her/it that he/she doesn't have to be afraid of me. I've been praying to him/her for over 40 years and he/she seems to be avoiding me. Now, I know it's not because I'm a bad person and I need to be shunned. So I figure he/she is just afraid of me.

Oh, and in case the question comes up, yes, I've been listening.

Well said. It's as if you were speaking for me as well, except that I gave up after less than 30 years.

[_Maxrep]

While they may in some aspects of their lives rely on evidence and science (such as participation on this BB), they also maintain a
God box for beliefs which they are entirely unwilling to examine with any objectivity. And, they cannot do that. Objective examination of religious dogma demonstrates that it is unreliable.

JAK

I agree with the convenient compartmentalizing practice of putting spurious beliefs in a "God Box", where they can be shielded from the rigors of reality. One poster once stated that testimonies are genetic, we inherit them from our LDS parents.

When these two thoughts are combined, it is clear to see why middle class America wants nothing to do with the church, while educated BIC members have burning testimonies.

[_beastie]

When not even God's "prophets" can accurately ascertain the difference between an externally originated "revelation" and an internal cognition or emotional event, then it's obviously just not possible. The ambiguity and uncertainty of revelation is the core issue of why I lost faith.

In regards to whether or not the LDS church is a "cult" that "brainwashes" people, I generally avoid those terms because they're hopelessly pejorative. in my opinion, all religions, at point of origin, manifest traits that would be called "cult-like" by some today. And the idea of "brainwashing" in the extreme sense of the world is rarely appropriate, even as a speculation. But in terms of a religious institution strictly controlling its members in the most intrusive way possible, I think the LDS mission is a serious candidate. And the fact that it takes place at such a formative period is compelling, as well. Obviously LDS themselve believe that the mission experience hardens commitment to the church, and I'm sure they're right. So that experience is worth detailed examination. Your time is controlled, your exposure to the outside world is controlled, EVERYTHING is controlled. My bf and I often comment on our "missed years". It was like we were abducted by aliens and removed from earth and its culture during those years. I remember arriving home right after Reagan's election, smack in the middle of the hostage negotiations. I was confused that, weeks after Xmas, so many people still had lights in their windows. I had no idea that the hostage crisis had even occurred.

[_beastie]

I happened upon the journal I was keeping when I got married, and reread the portions I’d written about getting engaged to a man I’d only been out with three times. I also talked about my exhusband’s emotional trauma in that he’d been married and divorced before, and his wife had committed adultery with his best friend. All the red flag warning signs that are so clear to me now, back then, were just signs he needed to “heal” through love and faith. After one episode in which he emotionally withdrew from me and began acting critical and distant (a harbinger of things to come), I wrote:

when I came home, I prayed and prayed. The next day I prayed with all my might for X – that he might be emotionally healed. I didn’t want it just for the sake of our relationship, but because I believe X has lived righteously and deserved to be healed of that grief – at least enough so that he can go on with what the Lord would have him do. I prayed, oh how I prayed till I shook. About an hour later, X called and asked if he could come down. I said I thought you said you wanted to wait until Friday? He said “I said a lot of things” (insert, he had insinuated I wasn’t good enough for him and might not want to marry him after all) I couldn’t believe his change, but yes, I could. I have prayed in faith before, and have seen miracles.

Since then, things have been really good. We decided to marry in Otober instead of January, though. (etc etc)

And why did I overlook all the red flags, other than believing he just needed healing? Because of what I’d been taught about marriage, seen here, on the same date:

I believe that a marriage becomes celestial not because there are no problems or friction, but because of the celestial manner in which we deal with the problems.

There were other events I’d forgotten about it that were clear “signs” from God that this was the man I destined to marry.

Of course, as most of you already know, he turned out to be emotionally disturbed with untreated bipolar, and viciously verbally abusive. It was, no doubt, the worst decision of my entire life, excepting the fact that I got three wonderful children out of the situation.

This is not what destroyed my faith in Mormonism, but contributed to my loss of faith that God really EVER communicates clearly with human beings. I was doing the best I could, being as faithful as I could, praying my heart out for guidance, and obviously, no God was telling me to marry my ex-husband. It was my own foolish heart – it was infatuation.