And my point is factual. None of them have been empirically proven.
Again, the same irrelevant observation. How many more instances of this will there be?
They are matters of faith. Why this sends you into an apoplexy fit is beyond me.
Here are the "matters of faith", reconstituted in positive form:
It would be more appropriate to say that they are matters of faith when they are matters of faith, and matters of direct knowledge when they are matters of direct knowledge. Knowledge negates faith in the sense of the term in which faith is understood as an active conviction of something for which there is, at that point, no direct perception.
I understand this as well. I have experienced these things in my life on all these points to one extent or another. I also understand that such experiences are subjective and unique to the recipient.
1. Their subjectivity implies nothing, in any necessary sense, about their truth value
2. The uniqueness is on the periphery; in the manner or means through which the Holy Ghost communicates with us, but the core experience is the same, as is the message, otherwise, we could not be one in Christ, and united as a people, as "Saints", and as a church.
Over the years I have met others who have claimed spiritual experiences that witness to truths that may conflict with my foundational truths. I am left to conclude that either they or I am wrong or that there is something that maybe should cause us to understand these experiences in a way different than to claim them as knowledge in the way one normally interprets the words "I know."
Here you begin to tergiversate and hedge around the clarity and lucidity of experience that lies at the core of the witness of the Spirit. When others do not do that, it is you who experiences apoplexy.
Yes, yes I know the cultural pressure the Church puts on us to say I know. But you don't know nor does anyone else really know in the way we think of what the words "I know" means.
The claim of "cultural pressure" is your own personal philosophical or psychological gloss upon both Church doctrine and the experience of others within the Church, and in importing your own subjective perceptions of what the witness of the Spirit actually is, and what the terms "I know' actually mean to others outside of your own subjective thought world, you have at one and the same time contradicted your own argument here, as well as engaged in some of Kimberlyann's ESP into the minds and experiences of others (this seems to be a favorite exercise of Atheists and secularists as well, to claim "I don't know if there is a God and
you don't know either...").
I have had what I believe is as strong and solid a TBM testimony as the next person.
Again the evasive, indecisive, indeterminate language. Have you had the revelations of Jesus Christ that have witnessed to your soul the truth of this Church and its Gospel, or have you not? If you don't know, that, of course, is a valid answer as well. What does "I have had what I believe is" mean?
As I have dug deeper into the heritage and history of what I claimed to know I have had to modify what I can say I do and do not know.
I engaged in such archeology as well, and I've found my claims to knowledge stronger know than when the digs began.
I think faith is more reasonable and more honest at least for me.
OK...
And as noted on your own OP, you can say you know all the day long and all I have is your word for it which is subjective and cannot be verified in any empirical way. I am slow to trust you or anyone else on this because I feel that those I trusted to give me knowledge about that which I claimed to know were not disclosing the total facts so I could really determine what is was I was testifying about what I knew.
But nothing in this Church teaches us to take anyone's word for anything. We each have the Holy Ghost to verify and confirm that which we are taught. I'm not at all, in any case, persuaded by more appeals to alleged facts, such as regarding polygamy etc., that upon closer inspection turn out to be hypothesis, theories at various levels of plausibility, wishful thinking, and innuendo. I do believe I was immersing myself in anti-Mormon church "history" when you were still a child, and it does not seem to have affected me as it has you. This of course obtains, because I am an witless, uneducated idiot, devoid of rational, critical thinking abilities.
I mean, that must be the case, mustn't it?
Well if you know the fruits of it don't show much here in how you interact with those you attempt to persuade.
I have never said a cross or improper word to anyone here who has engaged me in a civil, sincere manner, and who has been up front and honest regarding their motives and perceptions. Never. The people whom I, rightly or wrongly (and I know it is wrong) disdain, impugn, and poke fun at, are those who I perceive are trying to pull the wool over my eyes, defame and slander the Church while pretending to noble motives, and those who attack my intelligence, education, and motives for no other reason than I am defending the Church. Charity, bc, rc, and Wade receive the same treatment here on a continual basis, so I'm not whining.
Its one thing for you to deny that I know something I say I know. Its quite another to claim that you
know I don't know something I claim to know (as this implies you have access to the same infallible knowledge I claim to have...but which you have already claimed I do not, and hence, should not be available to you).
I then noted that it was not the brightest move for you to point our that the core things of our religion cannot be empircally proven. They are subjective.
It would not have been the brightest move if what we were doing here was empirical science. We are speaking here, however, of spiritual things, which cannot, --and this includes any number of potential empirically verifiable phenomena--be empirically verified or falsified through empirical investigation. Why it has to be emphasized over and over and over and over and over and over again that we are in a
probationary state of crucial significance, and that direct, obvious, empirical and factual demonstration of the central truths of the Gospel would negate and circumvent the need for faith and trust in Jesus Christ, his servants, and his power to see us through mortality, is quite beyond me (and, it would spoil all the fun). The first principle of the Gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not faith in any specific principle of the Gospel. Even when, though the spirit of Prophecy, we come to know that Jesus is the Christ, there is still mortality and its challenges (including, in many senses, horrific challenges) to face, and it is then that faith can become even more a pressing need that direct knowledge. My point is that empirical knowledge of the existence of Book of Mormon peoples would change very little regarding the degree to which most LDS live the Gospel or people outside of the Church would be willing to join it. Satan and Babylon are very adept at turning up the heat, and the hotter it becomes, the less empirical knowledge matters and the more faith is required to "endure to the end".
Knowledge with faith is useless, as it is only faith which motivates action and activity.
What Jason does and does not know it irrelevant. What is relevant is while you say you know you cannot prove it.
It would make no difference. Were I to "prove" to you that the First Vision actually occurred, all I would have done is to spoon feed you the truths of the Gospel, which you could absorb intellectually with little effort beyond say, reading a scientific study, watching news coverage of the event (assuming such things were possible at the time), or what have you.
The struggle to comprehend and accept the central truths of the Gospel, in spite of all your conditioning, enculturation, biases, predispositions, and intellectual prejudices, are yours and yours alone, and that is what makes this life a probationary state requiring the rigorous exercise of faith and not a scientific experiment (although scientific experimenting go on as a part of it, within there own sphere).
Nor can I disprove it nor do I care to try. But to use that position as a point of triumph really seems rather stupid. The Pope who is now visiting the USA and the thousands that adore him as their religious conduit to God believe he is the man that speaks for God as much as you do the Thomas Monson is the man. Why is their spiritual witness deficient to yours? The sheer arrogance and hubris of claiming that it is in my opinion is a poor reflection on what happens when one think that they know when what they have is very strong faith.
This is just a soft Korihorism Jason. All claims to knowledge that cannot be seen, observed, and verified empirically must be understood as relative, arbitrary, indeterminate, and contingent. We cannot know of any such being as Christ, or his Gospel, with any certainty. Claims to certainty regarding eternal truths or universal metaphysical principles imply hubris, bigotry, and arrogance. The Church exists to bind men down and repress them. It is the servants of God who are the wicked, not the wicked to whom they are sent with a warning voice and with the good news.