I've switched sides...again

[_Jaybear]

It would seem to me the more rational interpretation of your experience is that God exists, wants us humans to believe in him, and perhaps even venerate him, but doesn't care one way or the other about organized religion.

To me that would be just as irrational. It really is doing the same thing. An LDS person is getting that God exists and this is his church. You describe the other interpretation as God exists and doesn't care one way or the other about organized religion. I suppose the only difference is that yours has no evidence one way or the other, while the LDS one has a lot of evidence against.

Let me spell it out.

Assuming that the spiritual experience comes from God, the evidence to support the conclusion that God doesn't care which church someone joins is the fact that people of every faith claim to have these spiritual experiences.

[_Themis]

Let me spell it out.

Assuming that the spiritual experience comes from God, the evidence to support the conclusion that God doesn't care which church someone joins is the fact that people of every faith claim to have these spiritual experiences.

I see that, but you have to make that interpretation as well, so in the end there really is no difference.

[_Nomad]

... people of every faith claim to have these spiritual experiences.

I don't believe this is true. At least not in the sense of "personal revelation" as it is understood and experienced within Mormonism. Most religions explicitly deny that Mormon-style personal revelation is possible. The sola scriptura Christians that live all around me look only to the Bible. Muslims look only to the Koran. Mormonism appealed to it's earliest converts because it taught the idea of personal revelation that the other churches rejected.

[_consiglieri]

Thank you for your very full, frank and interesting reply. Almost thou persuadest me to be a consiglieri.

But alas, people like me don't feel able to look at the world we live in and say, with Nephi, that

the one thing he knows that is more important to him than all the things he doesn’t know is that God loves his children.

unless, that is the word 'love' has a very different sense when God is the subject of the verb.

Also, when people like me talk about "something beyond myself that is good and fine and true and worthwhile", we can manage no better than thinking about living human beings that we know. Fortunately I do know a few like that! I don't find, by the way, that the possession of religious belief is a disqualification from being admitted to this select group ...

Thanks again, and I hope it keeps working for you.

Thank you for your cordial response, Chap, and for your deftly catching the weakest link in my post; that being the part about how to reconcile God's love for his children with a survey of the world around us.

I have no answer to this, but take some solace in the radical Mormon position introduced by Joseph Smith that God is not all powerful, and hence his love for his children must be tempered by the agency we all have and the often negative impact the free use of that agency has on others, as well as ourselves.

Joseph Smith also introduced the idea of a weeping God in the Enoch section of his Book of Moses, which I take to be tears over the pain experienced by God at the suffering of his children which even he himself is unable to prevent or alleviate.


All the Best!

--Consiglieri

P.S. I fully expect that you are also among those "good and fine and true and worthwhile" people to whom you refer.

[_Buffalo]

... people of every faith claim to have these spiritual experiences.

I don't believe this is true. At least not in the sense of "personal revelation" as it is understood and experienced within Mormonism. Most religions explicitly deny that Mormon-style personal revelation is possible. The sola scriptura Christians that live all around me look only to the Bible. Muslims look only to the Koran. Mormonism appealed to it's earliest converts because it taught the idea of personal revelation that the other churches rejected.

I doubt the OP's experience is in response to Moroni's promise. I don't doubt that religious folks of all stripes have had similar experiences to the OP.

However, I do know of a group that believes in EXACTLY the same revelatory paradigm as the LDS church. They even have their own prophet!

[_jon]

Buffalo, is the age gap between those two significantly different to that between Joseph and his younger brides?

[_consiglieri]

I wonder if this is the worst reason. I know that our expereinces will be more important to us, but I still think we shouldn't give primacy on interpretations when we know that evidence does not support it, and that others around the world have so many different and many contradictory interpretations from their own expereinces.

I understand your concern, Themis.

I think the options are limited. I can either give all reported experiences equal credence (including my own); or I give other experiences that do not jibe with mine less (or greater) credence than my experiences (or those that jibe with mine).

I choose to believe in the subjective reality of the experiences reported by others, primarily because I believe in the subjective reality of my own experiences, and I am not yet vain enough to think I am the only player in this game.

By doing so, and by taking the Book of Mormon (Alma 29) as my guide, I must also believe in the subjective reality of experiences reported by others, even should those experiences contradict my own experiences.

In the final analysis, though, I feel obligated to give the greater weight to my own experiences, not because I believe they are "better" or "more correct," but because they are mine, and I believe they have been, in some sense, "given" to me.

If my experiences have been given to me, I feel responsible for responding to my experiences in the way I think is best.

I have no obligation to respond to someone else's experiences, nor do they have any burden to respond to mine.

I need only follow what light God gives me, whether great or small, and regardless of the direction.

The only conclusion I feel I must reject is that, because others have spiritual experiences contradictory to mine, all must be rejected out of hand.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_Some Schmo]

I doubt the OP's experience is in response to Moroni's promise. I don't doubt that religious folks of all stripes have had similar experiences to the OP.

However, I do know of a group that believes in EXACTLY the same revelatory paradigm as the LDS church. They even have their own prophet!

That picture always sickens me. I mean seriously, what kind of a church encourages that kind of a hairstyle for a young lady like that?

It's abuse, pure and simple.

[_Jaybear]

I see that, but you have to make that interpretation as well, so in the end there really is no difference.

The difference is my conclusion (interpretation) explains why people of other faith also have such an experience. So that makes it a "more reasonable" conclusion.

... people of every faith claim to have these spiritual experiences.

I don't believe this is true. At least not in the sense of "personal revelation" as it is understood and experienced within Mormonism. Most religions explicitly deny that Mormon-style personal revelation is possible. The sola scriptura Christians that live all around me look only to the Bible. Muslims look only to the Koran. Mormonism appealed to it's earliest converts because it taught the idea of personal revelation that the other churches rejected.

People of various faith have spiritual experience which support their preexisting beliefs and expectations. Funny how that works.

[_Themis]

I think the options are limited. I can either give all reported experiences equal credence (including my own); or I give other experiences that do not jibe with mine less (or greater) credence than my experiences (or those that jibe with mine).

I think since I must be as fallible as others, that my interpretation is just as likely to be wrong. Considering that there are so many different ones, then it becomes far more likely that I am not the one getting it right, especially if the evidence is against it. The evidence against LDS truth claims is way more then probably any other major religion, so I tend to think I should not attach to much meaning to the experience, especially LDS ones. But that is just me. :)