Themis wrote:You may, and some others may agree with you, bot no stem, many if not most believers do not agree with you. You talk like you represent them, but you do not. I think most believers would think it is silly to say faith is evidence. The evidence members use is what they believe to be communication with the HG. This is the evdience they base their faith on. The question then can be whether this really is the evidence they believe it to be?
The evidence that is faith is experience with the Holy Ghost. hebrews teaches us the faith is evidence. Do I dispute many members don't get that? sure.
You can question a person's personal experience with the Holy ghost all you want, but that's personal. that's not getting anywhere in terms of real discussion because there will always be people who maintain their experience is real and worth putting their trust in.
Love ya tons, Stem
I ain't nuttin'. don't get all worked up on account of me.
Stem very few critics approach Mormonism they way you just described. You really don't get ...it ahhh well. More often it goes something like this.
TBM - "Joseph smith was a true prophet of God, The Book of Mormon is true, and the church is true. blah blah blah the only true church on the face of the earth blah blah blah we have the full truth blah blah blah ours is the only church with authority and living seers and oracles blah blah blah you can know its all true you only need to ask god!"
critic - "You say you have the only true church, living oracles, priesthood authority, you also say blah blah blah. While you may feel comfortable simply saying these things like they are verifiable truths I have questions and concerns. IF what you say is true then a discussion of evidence will should lead me and anyone else in a direction towards accepting your claims. This is the known evidence blah blah blah. It appears the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of your claims being false. How can you believe blah blah blah in spite of blah blah"
TBM- "How dare you say you want to discuss Mormonism when you don't want to discuss my testimony that I can't explain or demonstrate in anyway! All you are doing is showing me how my beliefs do not match yours!"
Critic-"uhh ok... Since you won't discuss evidence that is clearly at odds with your claims lets discuss your beliefs and doctrines and see if those have changed over time or contradict."
TBM-"Wow no wonder you call yourself a critic, all you want to do is tear down and persecute!"
Critic-"I'm not trying to tear down anything. I am trying to discuss the claims you are making. I am not invested for any desired outcome... I just want to explore..."
TBM-"Wow its apparent you don't want to discuss Mormonism... All you are doing is tearing my faith apart"
Critic-"I'm not trying to tear your faith apart...So are you going to dicuss or just parrot the same [I have faith and a testimony...] line?"
TBM-"Obviously you aren't here to discuss Mormonism, just argue."
Critic-"Obviously you aren't here to dicuss Mormonism, just testify."
stemelbow wrote:The evidence that is faith is experience with the Holy Ghost. hebrews teaches us the faith is evidence. Do I dispute many members don't get that? .
According to Joseph, Hebrews actually teaches that faith is based on evidence. It is an assurance of things hoped for and an evidence of things not seen. For example, if I prayed to God and asked him to reveal himself to me so that I may follow him and do his will and God kept his word and revealed himself to me then I would have an assurance that God exists and I can trust in him. If a year later he asks me to to steal some gold plates and tells me he will provide a way then I can have faith that hell provide a way. Why? well because he kept his word before. You see I now have an assurance of future things and an evidence of things not seen (they aren't seen because they have yet to come to pass, but based on past experience they will)
ETA: if faith is then suppose to be an evidence or assurance of things, how can you approach faith as something of merit when it fails to provide the same or even similar results for others. If some guy was working the streets and told everyone that if they put their hand in his hat they would pull out a rabbit then everyone should pull a rabbit out of the hat. You put your hand in first and pull a rabbit so from your experience what he said was true. Others try after and a few also pull a rabbit out of the hat but many more pull nothing out and others still pull bears, monkeys and beavers out. How is your evidence credible and why should it have more weight than those that pulled nothing out of the hat or got a bear or a beaver?
Last edited by Guest on Mon Nov 14, 2011 5:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
stemelbow wrote: The evidence that is faith is experience with the Holy Ghost. hebrews teaches us the faith is evidence. Do I dispute many members don't get that? sure.
If you want to interpret it that way, but I think the more well thought out member would not. Faith really is belief and action. Faith can be created from evidence, or what a person thinks is evidence for a particular proposition. I think most well thought members and other religious people would consider this one to be an incorrect translation of what was really meant. If one understands what these words mean, this becomes fairly obvious.
You can question a person's personal experience with the Holy ghost all you want, but that's personal. that's not getting anywhere in terms of real discussion because there will always be people who maintain their experience is real and worth putting their trust in.
It makes me laugh how many times you and some others say the same thing even though you have been told so many times that most of us are not questioning whether the expereince is real, but the interpretation of the experience. I suppose ignoring this makes one feel better that they know the experience was real, therefore my interpretation must be true.
reuigen verrater wrote:Stem very few critics approach Mormonism they way you just described. You really don't get ...it ahhh well. More often it goes something like this.
TBM - "Joseph smith was a true prophet of God, The Book of Mormon is true, and the church is true. blah blah blah the only true church on the face of the earth blah blah blah we have the full truth blah blah blah ours is the only church with authority and living seers and oracles blah blah blah you can know its all true you only need to ask god!"
critic - "You say you have the only true church, living oracles, priesthood authority, you also say blah blah blah. While you may feel comfortable simply saying these things like they are verifiable truths I have questions and concerns. IF what you say is true then a discussion of evidence will should lead me and anyone else in a direction towards accepting your claims. This is the known evidence blah blah blah. It appears the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of your claims being false. How can you believe blah blah blah in spite of blah blah"
TBM- "How dare you say you want to discuss Mormonism when you don't want to discuss my testimony that I can't explain or demonstrate in anyway! All you are doing is showing me how my beliefs do not match yours!"
Critic-"uhh ok... Since you won't discuss evidence that is clearly at odds with your claims lets discuss your beliefs and doctrines and see if those have changed over time or contradict."
TBM-"Wow no wonder you call yourself a critic, all you want to do is tear down and persecute!"
Critic-"I'm not trying to tear down anything. I am trying to discuss the claims you are making. I am not invested for any desired outcome... I just want to explore..."
TBM-"Wow its apparent you don't want to discuss Mormonism... All you are doing is tearing my faith apart"
Critic-"I'm not trying to tear your faith apart...So are you going to dicuss or just parrot the same [I have faith and a testimony...] line?"
TBM-"Obviously you aren't here to discuss Mormonism, just argue."
Critic-"Obviously you aren't here to dicuss Mormonism, just testify."
Look RV, my position is this.: I have faith in the major tenets of Mormonism. Meaning (for RockSlider and co) I believe, based on personal spiritual experience, that there is a God as taught in Mormonism, and that Christ is the Savior of the world and that the Gospel was restored beginning with Joseph Smith. I humbly admit my faith, even if evidence to me, is not a valid demonstration of my beliefs. Therefore I concede my position is untenable in the realm of formal argument. I then have decided since its untenable in terms of logical argument, I am left to see whether the critics position is tenable. As I examine the claim that the Church is proven not true, I am left to note that is also untenable. My faith then continues to have room to flourish. Afterall for me, my faith is evidence.
Love ya tons, Stem
I ain't nuttin'. don't get all worked up on account of me.
"Lectures on Faith" Joseph Smith, School of the Prophets Faith is the moving cause of all action. It is the assurance, the full expectation, absolute knowledge. You know, the move mountains type of stuff. Not sure where all the wishy washy hope in things not seen crap came from.
RockSlider wrote:"Lectures on Faith" Joseph Smith, School of the Prophets Faith is the moving cause of all action. It is the assurance, the full expectation, absolute knowledge. You know, the move mountains type of stuff. Not sure where all the wishy washy hope in things not seen crap came from.
Fine, but clearly you can see this is a distraction from the thread, right?
We could very well discuss this topic elsewhere rather than deflect.
Love ya tons, Stem
I ain't nuttin'. don't get all worked up on account of me.
RockSlider wrote:"Lectures on Faith" Joseph Smith, School of the Prophets Faith is the moving cause of all action. It is the assurance, the full expectation, absolute knowledge. You know, the move mountains type of stuff. Not sure where all the wishy washy hope in things not seen crap came from.
It comes from members that believe in "the church" and when they ask for God to reveal himself are satisfied with a warm fuzzy or soft peaceful feeling for the rest of their mortal probation. Apparently there is no assurance, full expectation, or absolute knowledge that God would reveal the truth in the same way the prophets that wrote about him experienced.
I think some time ago the correlation committee felt uncomfortable teaching about these full expectations or absolute knowledge because they themselves never had real experiences beyond warm fuzzies and peaceful feelings. Faith soon became something that exists entirely outside of knowledge and evidence, but a precursor to gaining any. Thus correlated church who never experienced any real miracles, revelations or spoke with God were all able to sleep comfortably in their beds knowing that faith was a wishy washy hope, essential, but only preparatory. I suppose that line of reasoning explains why Gordon Hin. could call himself a seer and revelator while only getting impressions and good feelings.