Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

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Doctor Steuss
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

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Alphus and Omegus wrote:
Thu Mar 16, 2023 3:23 pm
[...] They tell you all the time that if you have faith you can literally move a mountain. And yet that never, ever happens [...]
One thing that's always stood out to me in early LDS history, up until the early 1900s, was how commonplace the more traditional gifts of the spirit, and miracles were.

I think it's President Snow's journals (memory is fuzzy) where he recounts angels appearing and ministering to members in regular ole sacrament meetings. Speaking in tongues was also a fairly regular occurrence. Brigham would pray in "tongues," which Joseph said was pure Adamic language. Brigham would also preach sometimes that way too (with someone else interpreting... too bad McKay's gift wasn't around then). It was also a somewhat regular occurrence in LDS worship.

Just in my own family's history, there's someone who had their hearing restored by baptism, someone who witnessed a resurrection first hand, multiple people who would converse face-to-face regularly with family (i.e. angels) on the other side of the veil, someone who commanded a storm to stop (which it did), to just name a few.

The gifts of the spirit, and miracles within Mormonism flowed freely and incredibly... until the gifts and miracles became correlated and corporate with everything else. From faith to be healed, and mountains to be moved, to faith to not be healed and mountains to stay as they are.
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

Post by Alphus and Omegus »

Doctor Steuss wrote:
Thu Mar 16, 2023 4:40 pm
One thing that's always stood out to me in early LDS history, up until the early 1900s, was how commonplace the more traditional gifts of the spirit, and miracles were.
Religion's miraculous claims always shrink as humanity understands more about how things work. Religion is proto-science and proto-journalism. No wonder it hates the genuine articles.
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

Post by JohnW »

dastardly stem wrote:
Thu Mar 16, 2023 2:44 pm
I don't know that I"m correct, John. But it sounds like you are saying since there is a God and the LDS Church is true, He is in charge and whatever happens is what He desires to happen. So if one has faith and they don't get healed then they have to accept that's what God wanted. If one has faith and is not healed and it causes them to question God or question their religion, then they do not have strong faith because they must accept that no matter what happens, it's God's will...

Or something?

To me God is a terrible dude expecting his followers to accept goofy things and is ready to punish any who doesn't accept goofy things.
You're maybe somewhere in the general area of being correct. I'm not sure I can explain well, but I give it a try. The whole point of faith is to have faith in God, not necessarily to have faith that God can do something. God does what he wants, just like any other being with free will. Faith has power in someone's life when they have faith in God the person. Faith doesn't have nearly as much power when that someone has faith that God will do something for them.

To first order, faith is the same thing as trust. If we trust in a teacher, we are willing to do what they ask far more readily than if we only trust that the teacher will give us certain knowledge. The second one only works if we are asking for simple knowledge, not complex knowledge. It is a little bit like the original Karate Kid. Mr. Miyagi had the karate kid, Daniel LaRusso, do a bunch of household chores like painting the fence. Daniel didn't trust the teaching methods of Mr. Miyagi. In fact he didn't even recognize he was being taught. He only trusted that Mr. Miyagi would teach him about karate, which he thought was not happening. He didn't trust him as a teacher. It turned out he was teaching and training him the whole time.

This isn't a perfect analogy, but it gets the general idea. Yes, the things God asks us to do or the things he lets us suffer through are a mystery, sometimes even goofy or harmful. If we trust the teacher, we may learn a thing or two in the process. This is true faith, and yes, every once in a while it also produces a miracle.
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

Post by dastardly stem »

JohnW wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:52 am
You're maybe somewhere in the general area of being correct. I'm not sure I can explain well, but I give it a try. The whole point of faith is to have faith in God, not necessarily to have faith that God can do something.
If someone has faith there is a God who does nothing, is there a point to that belief? For instance those who espouse a deistic God may believe He's a God who essentially does nothing for anyone. But it seems to me believing that implies the God who is intimately involved in human affairs is not.
God does what he wants, just like any other being with free will.
Whether anyone has free will or not, we do what we want. But it'd be interesting to understand what God wanted, if there were a God. If the Mormon God is true, vs the God of traditional Christianity, we'd likely expect God to want different things than what the non-Mormon Christian God wants. Really for no other reason than the two have different perspectives, lives and influence around them. God on Mormonism is one among many. Is physical and dependent upon those who came before. He, for instance, wants people to live out their dreams. But knows most of them dream of not being with Him and thus hopes to penalize those who apparently don't quite get it. The God of Christianity, it seems, wants to see many people in hell, otherwise He wouldn't have planned it that way. Those whom He saves are all He seemingly cares about. He doesn't want everyone praising Him for eternity. He wants a relative few arbitrarily selected individuals to fan Him, tossing non-existence grapes in His mouth and singing praising hymns for eternity. But it seems to me, neither of these two really decides what they want. It just is.
Faith has power in someone's life when they have faith in God the person. Faith doesn't have nearly as much power when that someone has faith that God will do something for them.
And if people have faith God is a deist God is there any power to be had there? How does believing in some unknown entity bring power to one's life? And what is power in this context?
To first order, faith is the same thing as trust. If we trust in a teacher, we are willing to do what they ask far more readily than if we only trust that the teacher will give us certain knowledge. The second one only works if we are asking for simple knowledge, not complex knowledge. It is a little bit like the original Karate Kid. Mr. Miyagi had the karate kid, Daniel LaRusso, do a bunch of household chores like painting the fence. Daniel didn't trust the teaching methods of Mr. Miyagi. In fact he didn't even recognize he was being taught. He only trusted that Mr. Miyagi would teach him about karate, which he thought was not happening. He didn't trust him as a teacher. It turned out he was teaching and training him the whole time.
This sounds similar to what I was describing. That is God knows what He's doing even if we don't. If someone loses faith after being told they would be healed through blessings and fail to be healed, it appears there is no more power in that person and God will rightfully condemn them for that lack of faith. But if a person's faith only grows stronger when the priesthood blessings prove untrue then God will justify that person. God is behind it and knows what He's doing. Let's assume 2 people. One is healed and the other is not, after a priesthood blessing for each saying they would be healed in due time. God punishes the one healed for not having enough faith to not be healed, we'll say and then punishes the other for having no faith to be healed, since we'll say in this instance, healing was God's desire but that sick person lost faith in God. If these instances are possible, what's the good of God's power? What does it do to bring anything to anyone?
This isn't a perfect analogy, but it gets the general idea. Yes, the things God asks us to do or the things he lets us suffer through are a mystery, sometimes even goofy or harmful. If we trust the teacher, we may learn a thing or two in the process. This is true faith, and yes, every once in a while it also produces a miracle.
Thanks.
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― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

Post by JohnW »

dastardly stem wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:00 pm
JohnW wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:52 am
You're maybe somewhere in the general area of being correct. I'm not sure I can explain well, but I give it a try. The whole point of faith is to have faith in God, not necessarily to have faith that God can do something.
If someone has faith there is a God who does nothing, is there a point to that belief? For instance those who espouse a deistic God may believe He's a God who essentially does nothing for anyone. But it seems to me believing that implies the God who is intimately involved in human affairs is not.
It looks like you may be thinking I'm talking in extremes here. I didn't intend to say God does nothing. I intend to say that it appears to us humans that sometimes God does nothing when we expect him to do something. That can mean God is doing something that we did not perceive, or God actually did nothing.

Yes, belief in a God that always and forever does nothing is essentially pointless. Maybe not completely pointless, but close enough to functionally be the same.
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

Post by JohnW »

dastardly stem wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:00 pm
JohnW wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:52 am
God does what he wants, just like any other being with free will.
Whether anyone has free will or not, we do what we want. But it'd be interesting to understand what God wanted, if there were a God. If the Mormon God is true, vs the God of traditional Christianity, we'd likely expect God to want different things than what the non-Mormon Christian God wants. Really for no other reason than the two have different perspectives, lives and influence around them. God on Mormonism is one among many. Is physical and dependent upon those who came before. He, for instance, wants people to live out their dreams. But knows most of them dream of not being with Him and thus hopes to penalize those who apparently don't quite get it. The God of Christianity, it seems, wants to see many people in hell, otherwise He wouldn't have planned it that way. Those whom He saves are all He seemingly cares about. He doesn't want everyone praising Him for eternity. He wants a relative few arbitrarily selected individuals to fan Him, tossing non-existence grapes in His mouth and singing praising hymns for eternity. But it seems to me, neither of these two really decides what they want. It just is.
I'm not sure I follow you here. Yes, I think we sometimes feel like we have free will and can choose anything we want, but also, at times, circumstances just plain exist and limit our choices. I don't think it is all that different for God. Yes, he would love to save everyone, but when dealing with other individuals with free will, sometimes circumstances just don't make that possible.

My son is off at college. I am happy to give him advice. I'm happy to help him. I don't really need to punish him. If he were to make dumb choices, the natural consequences would be punishment enough. I can't really dictate what he does with his life. It is really up to him. Also, I definitely don't want him to come home and feed me grapes (smily face). I want him to become an upstanding adult with a successful happy life. I suspect the same is true of God.
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

Post by JohnW »

dastardly stem wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:00 pm
JohnW wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:52 am
Faith has power in someone's life when they have faith in God the person. Faith doesn't have nearly as much power when that someone has faith that God will do something for them.
And if people have faith God is a deist God is there any power to be had there? How does believing in some unknown entity bring power to one's life? And what is power in this context?
Yeah, the power comes from trusting him enough to learn the lessons he has for us. When we learn those lessons, we become more adept at living life. If God weren't involved in our lives, then there wouldn't be any power to be had from that trust because there are no lessons being taught.
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

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JohnW wrote:
Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:20 am
Yeah, the power comes from trusting him enough to learn the lessons he has for us. When we learn those lessons, we become more adept at living life. If God weren't involved in our lives, then there wouldn't be any power to be had from that trust because there are no lessons being taught.
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

Post by JohnW »

dastardly stem wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:00 pm
JohnW wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:52 am
To first order, faith is the same thing as trust. If we trust in a teacher, we are willing to do what they ask far more readily than if we only trust that the teacher will give us certain knowledge. The second one only works if we are asking for simple knowledge, not complex knowledge. It is a little bit like the original Karate Kid. Mr. Miyagi had the karate kid, Daniel LaRusso, do a bunch of household chores like painting the fence. Daniel didn't trust the teaching methods of Mr. Miyagi. In fact he didn't even recognize he was being taught. He only trusted that Mr. Miyagi would teach him about karate, which he thought was not happening. He didn't trust him as a teacher. It turned out he was teaching and training him the whole time.
This sounds similar to what I was describing. That is God knows what He's doing even if we don't. If someone loses faith after being told they would be healed through blessings and fail to be healed, it appears there is no more power in that person and God will rightfully condemn them for that lack of faith. But if a person's faith only grows stronger when the priesthood blessings prove untrue then God will justify that person. God is behind it and knows what He's doing. Let's assume 2 people. One is healed and the other is not, after a priesthood blessing for each saying they would be healed in due time. God punishes the one healed for not having enough faith to not be healed, we'll say and then punishes the other for having no faith to be healed, since we'll say in this instance, healing was God's desire but that sick person lost faith in God. If these instances are possible, what's the good of God's power? What does it do to bring anything to anyone?
I think you may be getting confused from the whole idea of punishment. I don't think God actively punishes people as much as we think.

Imagine a tutor at college. This tutor has office hours. Students are free to come and go during those hours to get help on their homework. The student who trusts the tutor enough to go to the office and get help will reap the benefit. The student who doesn't trust the tutor will not go to the office nor reap the benefit. There isn't any active punishing going on, just natural consequences.

To mimic your analogy, say we have two students are struggling with their Chemistry lab homework. Both of them go to the tutor to request help (priesthood blessing). The tutor does something unexpected, like asks them to mix chemicals in an odd way. The end result is that one student solves the lab problem and the other doesn't (healed or not healed). One will have more trust in the tutor and the other will lose trust in the tutor. The one who loses trust may not go to the tutor ever again and reap the natural consequences of not getting help on their homework. They both may have followed directions carefully but gotten different results. Chemistry lab homework is finicky. There could be a bunch of reasons why one student got the lab to work and the other didn't while following the same instructions.

I know this analogy doesn't work the greatest, but the point I'm trying to make (and the point I think E. Bednar was trying to make in that talk) is that sometimes life just happens and something goes wrong when it comes to faith in an outcome. We can't really explain why. When E. Bednar says we need to have faith not to be healed, I think what he is trying to say is that we need to have enough faith in God that one perceived failure on God's part won't destroy our faith. We are building a relationship with God. Like in any relationship, we need something strong enough that it can survive the good times and the bad times. It is easy to just say God doesn't exist, but there are a gazillion other things that may have caused our expected outcome to just not be in the cards. If we lose trust in God, that is a pretty big deal. Hopefully we are extremely careful when weighing the reasons behind our loss of faith before we cut ourselves off from that source of help. When I was going through my faith struggles, I am forever grateful that I decided to not give up on God. Sure, at the time it seemed completely irrational to trust in God when he appeared entirely absent, or worse, the cause of my struggle. It was only years later that I realized it was the right choice for me. I understand that it may not be the right choice for everyone. Like any relationship, there is sometimes a need for divorce. It is just a decision that should be thought out carefully.
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Re: Modern Miracles - David McKay's "Gift of Tongues"

Post by dastardly stem »

JohnW wrote:
Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:18 am

I'm not sure I follow you here. Yes, I think we sometimes feel like we have free will and can choose anything we want, but also, at times, circumstances just plain exist and limit our choices. I don't think it is all that different for God. Yes, he would love to save everyone, but when dealing with other individuals with free will, sometimes circumstances just don't make that possible.

My son is off at college. I am happy to give him advice. I'm happy to help him. I don't really need to punish him. If he were to make dumb choices, the natural consequences would be punishment enough. I can't really dictate what he does with his life. It is really up to him. Also, I definitely don't want him to come home and feed me grapes (smily face). I want him to become an upstanding adult with a successful happy life. I suspect the same is true of God.
But if god is all knowing and all benevolent, whatever those actually mean, the outcome would be exactly what he wants. If people don’t choose him, he’s the only one who knows why. Or if everyone can potentially know him, only he knows what inspiration or what information each person needs. But apparently he chooses not to sufficiently inspire or inform many. I say apparently because he intends plenty to end up in outer darkness or even the Telestial kingdom. Coorect?
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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