Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

[MG 2.0]

So it's continue vitality and growth is proof that God is at the helm, but not too much growth, only limited growth, suggesting it's still the underdog, which proves that God is at the helm.

You're good for a laugh, MG, that's for sure.

Humor. Different strokes for different folks.

Always looking for ‘proofs’ that meet your preferred expectations.

Now, that’s kind of funny in its own way.

Not to the point of laughing, but still.

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

Those Texas sharpshooters are getting mighty tired. Painting bullseyes is a lot of work.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

*snip*

Pilpul. Your brain is literally incapable of addressing direct questions honestly and goes into pilpul’ly machinations to avoid giving the obvious answer.

- Doc

[Gadianton]

Always looking for ‘proofs’ that meet your preferred expectations.

My expectations? How about yours?

If an invigorated Bahai told you that the Bahai faith had continued with vitality and growth, proving that God is at the helm, but then when somebody points out that growth had significantly declined over the years and then this Bahai individual says such is expected due to persecution, making them the underdog, therefore once again proving God is at the helm, would such an individual have met your preferred expectations of proof that the Bahai faith is true?

[IHAQ]

What would your organization have to do to be Not True?

I think this is a key question that gets right to the heart of the matter. Kevin, can you answer Doc's question?

Doc’s question was a tricky one for KevinSim, so what happened? KevinSim disappeared and MG2.0 showed up to splatter the thread with tripe for page after page to make this question disappear for KevinSim. Same old pattern.

[Moksha]

I had to look that one up.

Pipul: fig tree of India noted for great size and longevity; lacks the prop roots of the banyan; regarded as sacred by Buddhists.

Regards,
MG

[Morley]

I agree with your comment but I think mine still stands. I'm addressing someone's accusation that another is lying. I think to support the accusation that one has lied, the subject's intent needs to be taken into account. If someone says something that is not true, we most definitely ought to make comment in hopes to stop the spread of the falsehood. I don't think that confirms the falsehood as stated by the subject was that subject's lie, even if it was someone else's lie. A person could very well believe a lie is true and repeat it as if it were true. In this case, I don't think a believer is necessarily lying if they say they know their religion is true, or God is there or any such thing. they actually believe they have knowledge on the matter, or as close as we can get to knowledge.

I think I agree of both of you. False information causes damage regardless of intent. But lying isn’t just stating false information, it requires some type of knowledge about the truth.

I get the point that both of you are expressing, but I dunno; I’m going to take a hard line on this.

I’ve become much less willing to give a pass to the cover that religion, ignorance, or (increasingly) politics has provided. As Res acknowledges, self-deception is not ever limited to the self in the damage it causes. When I’m willing to lie to myself, when I cover my willful ignorance in a patina of self righteousness, then I think everyone has the right to call me on my prevarications. Self-deceivers who bathe themselves in holy water are still telling lies. Sometimes they half-realize what they’re doing, but think that if they can shout the deception loud enough, and long enough—or deliver it in the correct tone of condescending spirituality—it will count as being wholly true. I’m beyond tired of forgiving that type of behavior. [/rant]

[dastardly stem]

I think I agree of both of you. False information causes damage regardless of intent. But lying isn’t just stating false information, it requires some type of knowledge about the truth.

I get the point that both of you are expressing, but I dunno; I’m going to take a hard line on this.

I’ve become much less willing to give a pass to the cover that religion, ignorance, or (increasingly) politics has provided. As Res acknowledges, self-deception is not ever limited to the self in the damage it causes. When I’m willing to lie to myself, when I cover my willful ignorance in a patina of self righteousness, then I think everyone has the right to call me on my prevarications. Self-deceivers who bathe themselves in holy water are still telling lies. Sometimes they half-realize what they’re doing, but think that if they can shout the deception loud enough, and long enough—or deliver it in the correct tone of condescending spirituality—it will count as being wholly true. I’m beyond tired of forgiving that type of behavior. [/rant]

Understandable. I guess I'm still at the place of giving them a bit of a pass on the sincerity meter.

[Morley]

I get the point that both of you are expressing, but I dunno; I’m going to take a hard line on this.

I’ve become much less willing to give a pass to the cover that religion, ignorance, or (increasingly) politics has provided. As Res acknowledges, self-deception is not ever limited to the self in the damage it causes. When I’m willing to lie to myself, when I cover my willful ignorance in a patina of self righteousness, then I think everyone has the right to call me on my prevarications. Self-deceivers who bathe themselves in holy water are still telling lies. Sometimes they half-realize what they’re doing, but think that if they can shout the deception loud enough, and long enough—or deliver it in the correct tone of condescending spirituality—it will count as being wholly true. I’m beyond tired of forgiving that type of behavior. [/rant]

Understandable. I guess I'm still at the place of giving them a bit of a pass on the sincerity meter.

Which is because you're a real mensch, Stem.

[Benjamin McGuire]

I have (for a long time now) been more than a little fascinated by this statement that gets used that "I know the Church is true". The idea that "the church is true" is at least grammatically a funny thing. It has a very specific function that isn't necessarily obvious. A Church (as a thing) can't be true strictly speaking, just as rocks aren't true and trees aren't true, and so on. Things aren't true, but propositions can be true. And so when someone says "I know the Church is true" what that really means is that they hold a certain number of propositions about the Church that they believe are true. And when you say this in a testimony meeting, someone in the congregation can say 'Amen' or say that they too know the Church is true. And by this they also mean that they hold a certain number of propositions about the Church that they believe are true.

The kicker is that they don't have to be the same set of beliefs or propositions. In fact, if you took an entire congregation, there would probably be some things that are very different from one person to the next - perhaps even contradictory things (in fact, every single member of a congregation could agree with the statement and yet apply that statement to unique sets of propositions). As a community, this sort of shared expression functions to bring people together without the need for members to visibly express the underlying diversity. Whether or not this is good or bad - I am probably agnostic about it. I would rather see people in sacrament meeting enumerate the propositions that they hold to rather than simply bundle them together, but I can also recognize that this sort of thing helps those that don't have a highly developed awareness of the propositions that they believe and hold to.

As far as the OP goes, I am not convinced by either side of the deterministic/non-deterministic argument. I think that its likely that reality may be somewhere in between. It is interesting to me (from the perspective of Mormon theology) that the Book of Mormon seems to suggest that 1) humanity has only a limited agency (and not absolute agency), and 2) humanity is only held accountable when they are able to exercise the limited agency that they have. Consequently, Lehi argues in 2 Nephi 2 that true agency only comes after the redemption from the fall. Just as interestingly, Lehi also illustrates this by arguing that meaningful choice could only be made prior to the fall because God created specific circumstances to make it so. Without that intervention by God, there would have been no real agency prior to the fall.

A final note about the notion of lying. Lying means telling someone something that you don't believe. Lying (conceptually) doesn't care about the truth. Telling the truth and telling a lie aren't really opposites. Donald Davidson describes it this way (and I like Davidson): "In lying, one must make an assertion so as to represent oneself as believing what one does not". The example I have used in the past is of a young man who is running late for school, and leaves his homework on the table when he runs out the door. When he gets to school and realizes that he forgot it, he tells his teacher that his dog ate it. What he doesn't know is that while eating breakfast, he dripped bacon grease on his homework, and his dog, smelling the bacon has in fact eaten his homework. By Davidson's definition, the boy is lying (making an assertion of something that he does not believe) while also telling the truth. The challenge with this idea of lying in connection with an assertion like "I know the Church is true" is additionally that the assertion is ambiguous - it is a place holder for the belief about a series of propositions - which are often not at all expressed. The truthfulness of those propositions can be hard to evaluate if they are not presented.