I can only do my best, even though it may not be good enough for you.
What, lying that...
grindael, as soon as you get into the "lying" stuff, I really don't know what to do with you. It's like you're looking for some kind of malevolent intent on my part. Believe me, there isn't any. I do everything I can to keep honest. To have you imply otherwise is simply a roadblock to constructive conversation.
I know, I've probably at times accused you of lying. If so, I apologize. I think we each do the best we can with the information that we have. I should give you the benefit of the doubt that this is what you honestly try to do.
We end up in different places. And I'm OK with that.
You, OTOH, don't seem to be quite as amenable to that.
Aero wrote:Why? Because without knowledge, free will can't truly exist. You can either have free will or faith, but not both at the same time. Which one do you want?
OK. Let's let this be the hypothetical truth for the sake of conversation and so that you can answer the following questions:
...Now to the real world that we live in. Where does this complete and unadulterated knowledge exist? Location? Method of retrieval? If you can tell us, I think there may be a LONG line at the kiosk.
Do we have to have a boarding pass or ticket of any kind to get to this source of knowledge that you're...at least I think...saying exists?
Complete knowledge and free will to boot. What a deal! Where do we sign up?
Aero wrote:Why? Because without knowledge, free will can't truly exist. You can either have free will or faith, but not both at the same time. Which one do you want?
OK. Let's let this be the hypothetical truth for the sake of conversation and so that you can answer the following questions:
...Now to the real world that we live in. Where does this complete and unadulterated knowledge exist? Location? Method of retrieval? If you can tell us, I think there may be a LONG line at the kiosk.
Do we have to have a boarding pass or ticket of any kind to get to this source of knowledge that you're...at least I think...saying exists?
Complete knowledge and free will to boot. What a deal! Where do we sign up?
Regards, MG
you are missing Aero's point entirely. he said nothing about the availability of "complete and unadulterated knowledge."
Here is his point:
You can either have free will or faith, but not both,
I have a question wrote: Why would my interpretation of that experience be predicated on wether or not I believed in God?
Do/did you believe that your experience and/or witness originated with/from deity? If you do then wouldn't there be a direct correlation between that experience/witness and what you do with it?
I have a question wrote:Is the conclusion about what that experience was different if I believe in God than if I don’t?
It would be for me, I think. If I didn't/don't believe in God I would find some other way to explain my experience/witness that aligns with my thinking in regards to belief in God. I would be more likely to find a rational explanation for it...even if I had to stretch to get there.
I have a question wrote:Your contribution to the thread is the premise that we can differentiate between self induced feelings and spiritual ones presumably regardless of ones pre determined belief on the basis that the two are demonstrably distinguishable one from the other. Otherwise both positions would be indistinguishable from confirmation bias because they were predicated on a pre determined belief about the experience.
I won't argue that there is the very real possibility that so called spiritual experiences/feelings can be self induced and mistaken for what may be the 'real deal'. Actually, I think this happens quite often. And I think confirmation bias can be involved in a 'false positive', so to speak.
mentalgymnast wrote:I think that this hypothetical is totally unrealistic 'on the ground'. If your proposition fell within the realm of probability and everyone was listening, then yes, I think that would be possible.
But again, I don't see that as being probable, at all.
Wouldn't it be nice, though?
Would you be open to it?
So apparently we're moving away from the possibility of a 'face-to-face' with God now?
Soap Maker is going to be disappointed.
Regards, MG
Not disappointed at all - Over time I've happily accepted that nobody really knows how god communicates so human beings are left to speculate and assign their own ideas of how god communicates to them. However, I was a little disappointed to learn that god is constrained by time and space. I guess god is still working on fine-tuning that "Trump" mentioned in D&C 88.
Stem wrote: That's why there's nothing unique about Mormons on this. My old boss used to get inspired thoughts and feelings about new directions to take as a business group. Sometimes it seemed to work ok, other times it didn't. Revelation, spiritual experience amounts to the same experience people have when they watch Lion King or take part in innovative business practices and get enlivened or encouraged. There's nothing near exact science in this. We just pretend there is because, heck we have nothing better to do.
mentalgymnast wrote:On the whole and in many if not most situations/experiences I'd tend to agree with you. And yes, it is puzzling why folks can either make wrong decisions and/or be led the wrong way through what they think have been spiritual influence/impressions. It does get a bit confusing and can even be somewhat disorienting at times. That's why, like I've said, I tend towards a natural skepticism in regards to much of what we refer to as the influence(s) of the Spirit. But for me, that doesn't negate the absence or non-existence of the Spirit/Holy Ghost.
And I think we can only speak for ourselves and not others.
Regards, MG
Stem wrote:Good. I can get on board with this thinking.
Stem, I've gone back and corrected your earlier post. You had me saying what you were saying and visa versa.
Lemmie wrote:you are missing Aero's point entirely. he said nothing about the availability of "complete and unadulterated knowledge."
Here is his point:
You can either have free will or faith, but not both,
without knowledge, free will can't truly exist.
OK. For you then, let's go back to my post and plug in "knowledge" instead of "complete and unadulterated knowledge". I think the questions and the hypothetical still stand.
by the way, I don't think I was "entirely missing [his] point"...but let's not get sidetracked there.
I have a question wrote: Why would my interpretation of that experience be predicated on wether or not I believed in God?
Do/did you believe that your experience and/or witness originated with/from deity? If you do then wouldn't there be a direct correlation between that experience/witness and what you do with it?
I have a question wrote:Is the conclusion about what that experience was different if I believe in God than if I don’t?
It would be for me, I think. If I didn't/don't believe in God I would find some other way to explain my experience/witness that aligns with my thinking in regards to belief in God. I would be more likely to find a rational explanation for it...even if I had to stretch to get there.
I have a question wrote:Your contribution to the thread is the premise that we can differentiate between self induced feelings and spiritual ones presumably regardless of ones pre determined belief on the basis that the two are demonstrably distinguishable one from the other. Otherwise both positions would be indistinguishable from confirmation bias because they were predicated on a pre determined belief about the experience.
I won't argue that there is the very real possibility that so called spiritual experiences/feelings can be self induced and mistaken for what may be the 'real deal'. Actually, I think this happens quite often. And I think confirmation bias can be involved in a 'false positive', so to speak.
Regards, MG
Where we have got to now seems to be that spiritual experiences can only be differentiated as such if one already believes in God and that he communicates via spiritual experiences.
But you asserted that one can differentiate between the spiritual and the self induced because ‘burning in the bosom’ is a qualitative differentiator. The differentiator wasn’t predicated on ones pre determined belief.
How can I establish, without reference to what I am pre disposed to believe, that my experience as described earlier was either a spiritual one or a self induced one? What are the hallmarks of one versus the other if not ones pre determined belief?
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
This is getting ridiculous. The saying "hindsight is 20/20" is said with irony. You're reading it as straightforward normative wisdom.
I can see where you're getting confused, a quick and dirty saying might help you justify post-hoc rationalization. Ironically, your lack of irony when reading this ironic saying leads you to lose yourself in the kind of bad reasoning the ironic saying is meant to steer the sayer away from in the first place.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
mentalgymnast wrote:I think that this hypothetical is totally unrealistic 'on the ground'. If your proposition fell within the realm of probability and everyone was listening, then yes, I think that would be possible.
So, you admit that God does have the power to reach everyone on earth under the right circumstances. I would think that God wanting to share his message with everyone would qualify as a special circumstance. Under those conditions God could choose to do so, but he doesn't. He has the power to make sure every single person on the planet knows he exists and what his plan for them is. Why doesn't he give people that knowledge and allow them to truly make a choice?
So apparently we're moving away from the possibility of a 'face-to-face' with God now?
I was never there to begin with. The discussion is why God doesn't just provide the knowledge to everyone that he exists and what is plan is for them. We've now established that is is possible within the realm of your beliefs, but God chooses not to do so.
