Nightlion wrote:Because pride of necessity had to cover up the incompetence of LDS spiritual leadership good feelings was accepted as a legitimate substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost. People who want the church to be true will have good feelings about it.
That may happen a lot, but if the people
really think about what they're doing they'll realize that if they
actually are biased one way or the other then they
can't count on God answering their question.
The whole idea is that God will give the person an answer if the person
really needs the answer, and can't get the answer in any other way. If the person isn't ready to receive
either a yes or a no answer from God, then where's the need for God to get involved at all? If the person isn't prepared to change the whole rest of that person's life depending on
whatever God tells her/him, then why in the world should God get involved in the process at all?
That was the challenge for me, anyhow. I got that initial good feeling, quickly concluded God must have inspired the Book of Mormon, but almost as quickly realized that I had
wanted that positive answer, and therefore realized that I
couldn't count on God having provided that good feeling. I worked on it for a long time before I finally got to the point where I
was willing to base the rest of my life on either a yes or no answer, but I eventually made it, and that's why I'm a Latter-day Saint today.