This may be hard for you who are "past feeling" to understand, but it's like this: when confronted with two possible answers to a gospel question, the answer is the one that supports and sustains faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church on earth. The Lord's ways are not the world's ways.
It is refreshing when Mormons come clean and admit that their sole reason for believing, is based on "feelings." No, we're not "past feelings," we've simply matured as human adults and know how to control and interpret our feelings, especially in light of uncomfortable facts.
This board is a perfect example of how reason alone is not sufficient to answer questions about the truthfulness of the gospel.
This is just something apologists are forced to say whenever reasonable deduction produces conclusions that challenge the "I know the Church is true" assumption. And unfortunately for you guys, this is frequent.
Hence the need for the Holy Ghost to know "the truth of all things." By no other means can one come to a knowledge of the truth but by the Holy Ghost.
Which has been proved to be a silly, self-serving, and inadequate means of knowing truth. You can't even prove such a thing even exists. You might as well tell us all we need Jig-Saw, the purple dragon from Alpha Centauri, to know all things. Just close your eyes and think really hard of the color purple, and then saw Jig-saw three times, and then the first thing that comes to mind, is the answer to your question!
When I read Jeff Lindsay's arguments about the Book of Abraham, my faith is strengthened and the Holy Ghost whispers to my soul that what he says is true.
A couple of things. One, Jeff Lindsay has no arguments. He merely compiles various apologetic talking points from FARMS authors. Secondly, this business of "strengthening faith" simply because you get some feel good sense that an apologetic argument has been shown to be equally plausible as a critical argument, really is silly on its face. And finally, Lindsay's reliance on poor scholarship is only evidence of his apologetic tunnel vision. Like most apologists, he begins with the assumption and conclusion that a critic's argument is wrong, and so he forces all the evidence to meet that conclusion. And if he needs to flat out misrepresent the data, he'll do it. Because for apologists, the end justifies the means.
When I read California Kid's arguments, I feel a coldness, a darkness, a sense that while it sounds enticing, his theories are really just clever deceptions.
This is because as a Mormon, you're taught to believe reasoning is evil. You're taught to believe that any conclusions that shed doubt on your religious assumptions, are to be understood as Satan's grasp of the situation.
Only one familiar with the Holy Ghost and His promptings can truly understand the process of knowing by revelation and not just "knowing" by logic and reason.
Most of us here were LDS who used this same kind of irrational logic, but the fact is you are simply describing a chemical process that is easily explained by science as confirmation bias. Your feelings is not a good indicator of truth. All your feelings do is confirm what you want to be believe. So when you hear something that challenges your set presuppositions, you "feel" negatively about that, so you associate Satan with it. Normal, rational human beings might recognize this for what it is: you being uncomfortable with facts that challenge you to change your mind of whatever it is you believe to be true. But Mormons spit in the face of logic and rationality, claiming their feelings Trump all, and then give it a name ("Holy Ghost") so they can say it is beyond science; in order to avoid the clear fact that all they are experiencing is a natural chemical process in their body. Studies have shown that when people are faced with facts that challenge their religious or political presuppositions, an area associated with irrationality and emotion lights up like a lightning storm in their brains, and this continues as they respond with knee-jerk apologetics and excuses, which are only designed to bring back that "good feeling" they once had.
When logic and reason are used to support and sustain faith, the Holy Ghost acts to certify and confirm the truth.
But there is no logic or reason to Mormonism, otherwise you wouldn't have to rely on this irrational cop-out about "faith." Even the biblical concept of faith has nothing to do with believing in stupid crap just for the sake of having "faith" in something. Biblical faith doesn't mean believing something that runs contrary to a mountain of evidence. The Church has traditionally attacked the concept of reason. It is always mentioned in the most negative ways in LDS scripture, conference talks, etc. You know, "reasoning of men" and the "arm of the flesh" nonsense that they use to convince their sheep that it is OK to be irrational and believe is ridiculous things without evidence.
When logic and reason are used to destroy faith, the Holy Ghost confirms and certifies to the faithful to reject the philosophies of men, whether mingled with scripture or otherwise presented.
Well he sure isn't doing a good job of it. Most people who joine the LDS faith end up leaving it to some extent, and it should be clear from every angle who is winning this battle on the internet. Apologists don't stand a chance. It seems like we get people coming here on a weekly basis, usually from MAD or some other LDS venue, after looking for apologetic answers to quell their concerns.
So, in short, I trust Jeff Lindsay's arguments because they strengthen my faith in what I know to be true (by the power of the Holy Ghost) and the Holy Ghost confirms to me that they are true.
No, you trust him because you want to. Because it makes you feel good to see some fellow member putting on this one-man show, beating up on critics, when in reality he would never stand a chance in a debate or allow the critics to offer rebuttals to his claims on his website. You like him for the same reason you like to listen to these kinds of lectures from the pulpit. But none of these people can handle a debate over most of these issues.
That those who are hardened to the truth acknowledge their inability to feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost further confirms that my method for discerning truth (which is the Lord's method--see Moroni 10:3-5) works.
Calling everyone else "hardened" begs the question, but it is something that the LDS Church teaches you to think about apostates. The Lord, if he exists, has nothing to do with Joseph Smith's 19th century novel called the Book of Mormon. This method is so easily disproved, especially by the fact that most people who pray about the Book of Mormon do not get that "witness" from God you keep talking about. Of course you rationalize that as well. They didn't do it with sincere faith, right? See, you always have some excuse, making your faith unfalsifiable.
Anyone who follows the Lord's method can know the truth. Those who reject it cannot, and do not. It works every time, and is truly marvelous.
If that is the Lord's method, then God is really stupid. Why would the Lord's method be the most subjective and unreliable method imaginable? Just trust your feelings? The human being can essentially cause himsel to feel whatever it is he wants, and that is all LDS members do when they get good feelings from reading other apologists. They have to completely shyt down the reasoning faculties of their brain and go with emotions. It is the same method used by care salesmen, abusive husbands who always find a way to get their wives to take them back, etc. Emotions are easily manipulated either by yourself or by others. To say this is an unreliable standard of truth is the mother of all understatements.
Bearing your testimony in the face of a simple question for evidence, is typical, but won't fly here, because we know how to interpret our feelings. It isn't the means by which God communicates to us.