keithb wrote:I actually think that you're still giving the Mormon truth ritual way too much credit here. There are a ton of implicit assumptions that go into these versus. Here are a few.
1.God exists
2.God answers prayers
3.The Christian God is the correct choice
4.Praying is an effective means of communicating with God
5.Finding out the truth by the "Holy Ghost" is a phrase that has meaning
6.Ghosts exist
7.Effort is required for an individual to receive an answer to a prayer
And many, many other assumptions that are completely unfounded in anything except supernatural tradition.
Indeed, it is very much like the whole voodoo ritual at its base.
As I stated in my previous post, I see
no reason whatsoever for the requirement that the person asking God have "faith in Christ," so that does away with assumption (3). Is there a
significant difference between (2) and (4)? As I did away with (3), so I'd dispose of (6); I see no reason why the asker would be required to assume that ghosts exist; all the asker has to do is assume that
God exists, and that God can communicate with said asker.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding (7), but it looks to me like a tautology; the only effort the asker is required to do is
ask the question, say
the prayer. How can you get an
answer to a prayer that you don't
say?
So the only
significant assumptions I see are (1), (2), and (5).
I guess I just find it more reasonable to assume that God exists than to assume that a chant about a "third eye" is going to lead one to truth; or to assume that thyme, red candles, herb dishes, and red wax will lead one to truth.
I mean, what's the reasoning behind talking about a "third eye"? Is there some
inherent reason why such an eye will lead to truth more certainly than a
third ear would, or perhaps a
second nose? And I think Plato made a
very persuasive argument that
real truth comes from
inside someone's mind, not from anything external at all.
And what's with the thyme and herb stuff? There are
lots of edible things out in the world; why should
thyme and herb dishes lead us to truth more certainly than, say, carrots and zucchini? And why does it have to be
edible things that lead us to truth?
On the other hand, the simple fact is that if the universe doesn't have someone in it that knows how to preserve
forever some good things, and that isn't
acting to preserve forever some good things, then there's no way that
I know of that anybody can ever find out
for certain the truth about
anything. Or, KeithB, can
you perhaps think of some way of finding out the truth for certain about anything?
It just seems to me that if one
really wants to know the truth about eternal things, then that one has two choices. That one can
assume a forever preserver does in fact exist, and go to that forever preserver with a question, the answer to which that one can use as a certain foundation for that one's knowledge of eternal things; or that one can spend that one's life attempting to
become the mentioned forever preserver.
KeithB, can you think of any alternative?