Gemli explains...

[Marcus]

And just the obligatory nonsense from the proprietor.

DanielPeterson Mod gemli
3 hours ago
gemli:. "Is *facepalm* the proper response when someone asks you for evidence that is proportional to your claims?"

No.

And please don't try to pretend that you care about evidence. You have more than thirteen thousand comments here demonstrating that you don't.

Asserting that supernatural evidence is not evidence is not not caring about evidence.

[huckelberry]

It is explicitly written in Moroni's promise.

Then comes Moroni's promise: “If ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things

so I was mistaken. I thought I was to pray to get closer to realizing the truth. I did not realize I was supposed to be exercising my sincere desire to believe. That is tricky as my desire to believe wavered sometimes due to a variety of reasons. Perhaps my mistaken desire led me out of the church.

Is the book or Mormon a true history and brought by the power of God?
or
I believe the Book of Mormon , please help this righteous belief to get stronger.
please confirm my sincerity so that it can grow.

[Moksha]

The sailors sincerely did not wish to fall off the edge of the ocean. So there, Gemli!

[Rivendale]

It is explicitly written in Moroni's promise.

so I was mistaken. I thought I was to pray to get closer to realizing the truth. I did not realize I was supposed to be exercising my sincere desire to believe. That is tricky as my desire to believe wavered sometimes due to a variety of reasons. Perhaps my mistaken desire led me out of the church.

Is the book or Mormon a true history and brought by the power of God?
or
I believe the Book of Mormon , please help this righteous belief to get stronger.
please confirm my sincerity so that it can grow.

It is circular. You have to believe before you believe. And if you think you're sincere and take the promise; yet get no validation you are not a master of your sincerity. Ultimately you can't choose your beliefs any more than you can choose to breath under water.

[Res Ipsa]

It is explicitly written in Moroni's promise.

so I was mistaken. I thought I was to pray to get closer to realizing the truth. I did not realize I was supposed to be exercising my sincere desire to believe. That is tricky as my desire to believe wavered sometimes due to a variety of reasons. Perhaps my mistaken desire led me out of the church.

Is the book or Mormon a true history and brought by the power of God?
or
I believe the Book of Mormon , please help this righteous belief to get stronger.
please confirm my sincerity so that it can grow.

Gemli’s word “justification” is carrying a whole lot of water. I’ve heard people of faith claim something to the effect that sincerely held religious beliefs are per se reasonable. In that sense, I suppose, sincerity of belief could be offered as a justification for the reasonableness of belief.

But I don’t think I’ve ever met a theist who offered up their sincerity as evidence or justification for the truth of their beliefs. That certainly wasn’t what I believed when I was LDS. The justification was the spiritual witness.

The sincerity mentioned in Moroni’s promise isn’t a reference to the religious beliefs of LDS people — it’s a reference to sincerely asking God a question. The promised spiritual witness is the justification offered for the belief.

I think you did just fine.

[huckelberry]

so I was mistaken. I thought I was to pray to get closer to realizing the truth. I did not realize I was supposed to be exercising my sincere desire to believe. That is tricky as my desire to believe wavered sometimes due to a variety of reasons. Perhaps my mistaken desire led me out of the church.

Is the book or Mormon a true history and brought by the power of God?
or
I believe the Book of Mormon , please help this righteous belief to get stronger.
please confirm my sincerity so that it can grow.

Gemli’s word “justification” is carrying a whole lot of water. I’ve heard people of faith claim something to the effect that sincerely held religious beliefs are per se reasonable. In that sense, I suppose, sincerity of belief could be offered as a justification for the reasonableness of belief.

But I don’t think I’ve ever met a theist who offered up their sincerity as evidence or justification for the truth of their beliefs. That certainly wasn’t what I believed when I was LDS. The justification was the spiritual witness.

The sincerity mentioned in Moroni’s promise isn’t a reference to the religious beliefs of LDS people — it’s a reference to sincerely asking God a question. The promised spiritual witness is the justification offered for the belief.

I think you did just fine.

Res Ipsa. On reflection I think what Marcus is looking at is that spiritual witness is not always clear and strong so the trust a person gives what they feel is a yes the church is true answer is undergirded by feelings of sincerity. People think I am sincere so my spiritual answer is to be trusted. That would help justify that little problematic rider of church observations that one should start with at least a touch of hope that it is true.

Starting with an expectation that you will get an answer that the church is true renders the test unreliable to an important degree. It is best to read the idea as you have. (to my mind and your legal mind) But we both have left the church not having received the assurance needed.

Gaining and building a testimony by stating that you know the church is true is a grim trespass to my mind. I checked when that was famously said. It was some time in the 1980 well after I stopped attending LDS church. Still thinking back I recognize a social pressure and an internal expectation that pushes people in that direction . I may feel a bit like the church is true so I can join with the others and say so. There is a shared human atmosphere, spiritual feeling , created by shared ritual. Again a feeling of sincerity helps this along.

[Marcus]

...People think I am sincere so my spiritual answer is to be trusted.

It's interesting you would suggest that as an explanation, as I recall hearing something very similar to that in the 70s-80s quite a bit. It sounds like I left about half a decade or so after you, so it's very plausible the emphasis increased during that time. I recall messages like youth and missionaries bring told 'if you aren't all the way there in your belief yet, then just rely on your local leaders'/mission president's/bishop's beliefs etc. and trust them-so you can act like you believe, until you do. In other words, rely on their apparent sincerity as justification for a belief.

That would help justify that little problematic rider of church observations that one should start with at least a touch of hope that it is true.

Starting with an expectation that you will get an answer that the church is true renders the test unreliable to an important degree.

No argument there. Both as a mathematician and as a post Mormon, that is literally my single biggest issue with many Mormon apologetic arguments, as I've stated here repeatedly.

The fact that Muhlestein, an academically trained researcher, openly admitted in a conference address that that is how he constructs his LDS arguments simply boggles my mind.

Gaining and building a testimony by stating that you know the church is true is a grim trespass to my mind.

Yes it is. It speaks to the heavily indoctrinated way of some Mormon cultures that it is so easily accepted by some. It's not healthy.

[I Have Questions]

Gemli’s word “justification” is carrying a whole lot of water. I’ve heard people of faith claim something to the effect that sincerely held religious beliefs are per se reasonable. In that sense, I suppose, sincerity of belief could be offered as a justification for the reasonableness of belief.

But I don’t think I’ve ever met a theist who offered up their sincerity as evidence or justification for the truth of their beliefs. That certainly wasn’t what I believed when I was LDS. The justification was the spiritual witness.

The sincerity mentioned in Moroni’s promise isn’t a reference to the religious beliefs of LDS people — it’s a reference to sincerely asking God a question. The promised spiritual witness is the justification offered for the belief.

I think you did just fine.

Res Ipsa. On reflection I think what Marcus is looking at is that spiritual witness is not always clear and strong so the trust a person gives what they feel is a yes the church is true answer is undergirded by feelings of sincerity. People think I am sincere so my spiritual answer is to be trusted. That would help justify that little problematic rider of church observations that one should start with at least a touch of hope that it is true.

Starting with an expectation that you will get an answer that the church is true renders the test unreliable to an important degree. It is best to read the idea as you have. (to my mind and your legal mind) But we both have left the church not having received the assurance needed.

Gaining and building a testimony by stating that you know the church is true is a grim trespass to my mind. I checked when that was famously said. It was some time in the 1980 well after I stopped attending LDS church. Still thinking back I recognize a social pressure and an internal expectation that pushes people in that direction . I may feel a bit like the church is true so I can join with the others and say so. There is a shared human atmosphere, spiritual feeling , created by shared ritual. Again a feeling of sincerity helps this along.

It was Packer who said that, in 1982 at General Conference.

It is not unusual to have a missionary say, “How can I bear testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the gospel is true? If I do not have such a testimony, would that not be dishonest?”

Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it!

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... d?lang=eng

So the best way to gain a testimony of Scientology, is to bear a testimony of belief in Scientology.

It was in that same talk that Packer explained that you can’t really trust the feeling of the Holy Ghost.

The spiritual part of us and the emotional part of us are so closely linked that it is possible to mistake an emotional impulse for something spiritual. We occasionally find people who receive what they assume to be spiritual promptings from God, when those promptings are either centered in the emotions or are from the adversary.

[Res Ipsa]

Gemli’s word “justification” is carrying a whole lot of water. I’ve heard people of faith claim something to the effect that sincerely held religious beliefs are per se reasonable. In that sense, I suppose, sincerity of belief could be offered as a justification for the reasonableness of belief.

But I don’t think I’ve ever met a theist who offered up their sincerity as evidence or justification for the truth of their beliefs. That certainly wasn’t what I believed when I was LDS. The justification was the spiritual witness.

The sincerity mentioned in Moroni’s promise isn’t a reference to the religious beliefs of LDS people — it’s a reference to sincerely asking God a question. The promised spiritual witness is the justification offered for the belief.

I think you did just fine.

Res Ipsa. On reflection I think what Marcus is looking at is that spiritual witness is not always clear and strong so the trust a person gives what they feel is a yes the church is true answer is undergirded by feelings of sincerity. People think I am sincere so my spiritual answer is to be trusted. That would help justify that little problematic rider of church observations that one should start with at least a touch of hope that it is true.

Starting with an expectation that you will get an answer that the church is true renders the test unreliable to an important degree. It is best to read the idea as you have. (to my mind and your legal mind) But we both have left the church not having received the assurance needed.

Gaining and building a testimony by stating that you know the church is true is a grim trespass to my mind. I checked when that was famously said. It was some time in the 1980 well after I stopped attending LDS church. Still thinking back I recognize a social pressure and an internal expectation that pushes people in that direction. I may feel a bit like the church is true so I can join with the others and say so. There is a shared human atmosphere, spiritual feeling, created by shared ritual. Again a feeling of sincerity helps this along.

I agree with you that sincerity plays a role in the process of gaining and bearing testimonies. I just don't agree with the claim that LDS folks justify their religious beliefs by appealing to the sincerity with which those beliefs are held.

I think your observation about the church loading the dice by starting with a hope it is true is a good one. That gets leveraged into "if you haven't received the promised witness, you're doing it wrong."

I was out a few years before Packer's statement. (Thanks for digging that up, IHQ). I think "grim trespass" is putting it mildly. It should be anathema. It's straight out of the list of techniques cults use to brainwash. It's is not mentally healthy to claim that you "know" something to be true when you don't believe it or have serious doubts.

I also agree that the sincerity with which testimonies are shared at F&T meetings helps build a sense of community. But, again, that's different than what us offered as a justification for religious beliefs.

[I Have Questions]

Packer’s sentiments on how to get a testimony are still promoted today.

Testimony grows gradually through experiences. No one receives a complete testimony all at once. It grows as individuals show willingness to serve in the Church and to study, pray, and learn. It increases as individuals obey God’s commandments. Testimony grows as it is shared.

Part of a testimony’s development comes when it is shared.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... ng#title48