posted
Nothing wrong with that, either, but while your faith in the truth of your experience (and the truth of your church) is certainly foundational to your overall faith, the truth of that faith is definitely not, in at least your or Dagonee's case, as they are mutually exclusive.
Hence at least one of your faith's is not based on the truth of that faith, but only on a belief in that truth.
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What is necessary to gain certain types of knowledge? And can different types of knowledge affirm the same basic truths? If they do, are they all equally valid?
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The point, though, Fugu, is as with my example, that the actual truth *is* more important than the faith and, should we find our perceived truth to be incorrect, we would correct it, rather than hold to it, knowing it was incorrect.
The truth is the importance, not the fact that we believe it is.
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mph: nope, you can only use data which supports you having two arms to say you have two arms; what you said is a shorthand for that you have the feeling of two arms, and that you and others see you have two arms, et cetera.
Can I use the existence of the evil space chicken to prove the existence of the evil space chicken? After all, since he exists, he exists.
With arms: Can I use the existence of my arms to prove the existence of my arms? After all, since they exist, they exist.
Neither has any logical weight.
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An experience which confirms the LDS church is the only current true church is not mutually exclusive with one which confirms the Catholic church is? You will have to pardon me for not following.
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quote:An experience which confirms the LDS church is the only current true church is not mutually exclusive with one which confirms the Catholic church is? You will have to pardon me for not following.
You are pardoned.
Seriously, I'm not going to go into it any more.
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quote: What I mean was, you seem to be saying "these two people, by personal revelation, believe their church to be the One True Church. They cannot both be right, therefore personal revelation is not useful in deciding what is truth."
Personal revelation is not useful in deciding what is Truth. It is useful in deciding whether or not you're going to believe something is true, but has no effect whatsoever on what the truth actually is.
I have a vivid memory of being seven years old and staying home sick when my mother and my younger brother went to Lincoln Park Zoo. I remember playing some video games and reading Fellowship of the Ring and having some soup while the rain poured down. I remember them coming home and shaking off the rain and telling me about the gorillas.
A few years later, we went to Lincoln Park Zoo. I commented that it was nice to finally get a chance to go, but that I didn't like it as much as Brookfield. My mom started; she remembered quite clearly that I had come with her. Oddly, so did my brother.
To this day, whenever my mother and I discuss something that depends on a personal perception of reality, we use the phrase "it's a Lincoln Park Zoo thing" as a shorthand. Because, even twenty years after the fact, we STILL believe our memories of the event.
Am I right? Did I stay home? I mean, I REMEMBER eating soup. But my mother and my brother, both of whom went, remember my being there with them. Is the majority wrong?
---------
Russell, many people believe that revelations can be sent by demons and/or misunderstood. They rarely believe that their own revelations are subject to this, but frankly the Mormons are more responsible about this than many religions -- perhaps because they're encouraged to share testimony of this sort in public, and consequently have had to face up to misunderstood/misinterpreted "revelations" more frequently than many other religions.
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quote:I am reasonably confident in your reality based on my observations of your posts.
Do you trust others as part of your decision to accept him as real? For instance, Jim-Me is Real, having met two or more previously Real Jatraqueros. Does that influence your decision to consider him real?
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yes, Fugu, but your acceptance of my reality based on your observations of my posting is hardly a logical proof... only the testimony of the witness that is you. In other words, you are making the case for personal revelation (as long as it's not mystical, I presume).
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quote:Personal revelation is not useful in deciding what is Truth. It is useful in deciding whether or not you're going to believe something is true, but has no effect whatsoever on what the truth actually is.
Just because personal revelation doesn't effect what truth is doesn't mean that truth doesn't effect personal revelation.
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"Just because personal revelation doesn't effect what truth is doesn't mean that truth doesn't effect personal revelation."
Of course it does. You can get any revelation you want if you try hard enough. None of them have to be true.
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Tom, I agree with you completely-- it's not definitive and it's of no use in proving something abstractly. But it *is* the best thing you can go by. If you were presented with incontrovertible evidence that you were, in fact, there, you would have to say the belief was wrong, correct? In other words, again, the truth is what matters, even if your perception of it is wrong... you would not cling to your perception, no matter what personal benefit you got out of the memory.
Edit: KQ - does the edit make more sense to you? Iwas talking to Fugu, not you Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I think that religion, whether divinely inspired or not, is an attempt to find a formula for creating the most stable and beneficial community possible. If we think of it in terms of biology, for any given aspect of human interaction (reproduction, child raising, obtaining food etc) there are a number of "evolutionarily stable strategies". Any given society will use a subset of these strategies, combined with some non-stable strategies.
For any given environmental situation (where the environment includes not only the the climate, soil etc. of a given area, but also the current human factors such as the state of technology and so on) there may be a single combination of all possible stable strategies which, if followed, would lead to a society which is maximally stable and maximally beneficial to the members of that society. This condition is, ideally, the condition that all societies are striving for. Each society likely follows certain ESS which are the same as those in the ideal case, and they also have certain startegies which are less than ideal. Each society therefore can look at another society and see things which are clearly shortcomings. However, some things they see as shortcomings are really just a different but equally good strategy, some really are inferior and some may even be superior but the viewer doesn't realize it because of his own cultural biases. Further, the current combination of strategies may be formulated in such a way that a given society could not get to the ideal situation without first taking some intermediate steps to a different ESS.
The problem with all of this is that when one is "inside" this jumble of strategies, so to speak, one cannot know what the ideal looks like- there isn't any way to measure whether one strategy or another is objectively better because all of the strategies are so interconnected that the effects of a single strategy cannot be measured.
This is where God comes in. If the foregoing simplistic view is more or less accurate, the place for God is in helping societies to transition from where they are now to the ideal state.
A complicating factor involved in all of this is the clear fact that societies are made up of individuals and societal mores are really just a measure of the mean of a population.This means that any transition to a different set of strategies really consists of a transition of the "mean" of the population. Further, there must be room made for the different successful individual strategies which may vary from the mean but which are still acceptable.
Once again, this is where God comes in. If every member of the society is in individual contact with deity then they will know when and to what extent their personal deviations from the mean are acceptable.
Now, to wrap this all up and get back to Rabbit's question. I think that all religions, philosophies etc. have a certain number of the "right" strategies mixed with the wrong ones. Some have a much higher ratio of the "right" strategies than others. If this is the case then there are two major factors which are important in choosing an ideology: 1) Which one has the highest ratio of "right" strategies? 2) Which one is most adept at abandoning the wrong strategies and moving toward the right one?
This relates to Rabbit's question in that one who is worried only about the first question could easily accept falseness in the mythology of an ideology as long as that ideology has a high ratio of the "right" strategies. However, falsehood in the mythology would be disastrous if one is also searching for an ideology which is strong in the second characteristic since paramount to those ideologies is the link to the objective source of truth.
In my opinion most humans can sense in an imprecise sort of way the gross differences between societies with a high ratio of the right strategies, but if there is a single set of strategies which is the very best then it seems to me that we require outside objective guidance to find it. Further, I think that on an individual level perhaps there is not one single ideology which one could immediately adopt which is the best for everyone. Perhaps intermediate steps are required first, and likely no extant ideology really contains all of the aspect sof the ideal. Therefore an individual consulting God might really receive a different answer based on his current circumstances.
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quote:Personal revelation is not useful in deciding what is Truth. It is useful in deciding whether or not you're going to believe something is true, but has no effect whatsoever on what the truth actually is.
Personal revelation is useful in discerning what is Truth and even if there is Truth--but yeah, it doesn't change the Truth.
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quote:Originally posted by Jacare Sorridente: I think that religion, whether divinely inspired or not, is an attempt to find a formula for creating the most stable and beneficial community possible.
This I disagree with completely.
I think Religion is an attempt to codify and pay deference to the fact that "there are things in heaven and on earth.. that man was not meant to know." That there are things, call them luck, fate, gods or what have you, that are bigger than man and at whose mercy man exists. A recognition of the fact that I have no claim on my body or existence-- I didn't create it and I do not get to choose when and how to give it up. A recognition of the fact that the mere physical reality of the world does not cover human experience, whether that experience is real or dreamt.
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I think most organized religion tries to do both, by combining Rules to Live By with Reasons for Living.
Whether this is like getting chocolate in someone's peanut butter or spreading sardines over banana bread is entirely up to your point of view.
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Tom -- I quite understand that. Its just not relevant.
I've actually been working on a work on the truth of perception (but not necessarily what it is a perception of) for quite some time.
In a sense I am making the case for personal revelation, though its not particularly relevant to my point (and only in a rather limited sense). My point was only in regards to whether faith was (edit: necessarily) based on truth or faith in truth, not any sort of judgment on whether that was good, bad or whatever.
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I tend toward sardines and banana bread, myself...I like to keep the two seperate.
But, for example, Confucianism is a relgion by Jacare's standards, not by mine. And that is how I would have it, too.
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Perhaps we could agree that faith is based on perceived truth? That is, based on the portion of the truth that we know?
Like the people groping the elephant in the dark room, we may not have the whole picture, but that doesn't mean that what we sense is wrong or useless.
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quote: I think Religion is an attempt to codify and pay deference to the fact that "there are things in heaven and on earth.. that man was not meant to know."
Well, as you pointed out I am using "religion" as a sort of generalized shorthand for the way one understands the world & the way of defining the way a person should live.
I don't hold much with religious mysteries myself. Perhaps that is why we differ on this point.
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There are lots of simultaneous true explanations for the same event. For instance inside a computer, if you ask Q: Why did this flip flop change to a "1" or True state, you could answer it many ways.
You could explain it in terms of electrons and physics, A1: Because this voltage here was raised which caused these electrons to move that way, etc.
You could explain it in terms of electronics A2: Because this transisitor was turned on by this signal, etc.
You could explain it in terms of logic A3: Because it is part of a Nand Gate which became true because one of its inputs went low.
You could explain it in terms of machine code instructions A4: Because this ADD instruction added that register to this other register, causing this bit to go high.
You could explain it in terms of source code instructions A5: Because each time this loop executes, you add one to the index, which is what just happened that flipped this bit high.
You could explain it in terms of the end desires of the programmer A6: Because we're trying to find out if this number is a prime or a composite number, and so we have to loop through this algorithm to test it systematically.
My point is that every one of these answers is true. Scriptures are describing to us the top level truth, but we don't yet have all the substrate levels in between. That's not its purpose, to explain all the mechanics of everything to us. It's more to let us know what we need to know, the essentials, to help us grow as beings and move forward and upward. Therefore they tell us some stuff we don't completely understand, and also stuff we can sometimes misunderstand.
God can work miracles because he understands physics better than us. There's no contradiction between plate techtonics and miraculous earthquakes, for instance. It's because God understands plate techtonics far better than we that miraculous earthquakes are no problem for him.
quote:I'm discussing the side point of what is necessary for a religious belief
And I'm glad we get to hear your views on that, but I would say that someone who does not subscribe to religious beliefs is probably not the best expert on what constitutes said beliefs. Actually, I would expand that and say that those who religious beliefs of any sort are not the best experts on what constitute religious beliefs as a whole. Somewhere in there you're making the assumption that all religious phenomena are similar, which they may not be. I can assume that zen buddhism is spiritual in the way that I'm accustomed to experiencing spirituality, but I can't actually know that it is unless I live the lifestyle and learn the required teachings necessary to become a full-fledged Buddhist.
You can't know what faith is like until you've experienced it, and most religious people will tell you that experiencing it in its fulness requires that you learn and practice for years. You can't pick it up from reading about it and you can't conjecture upon its nature.
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quote:I can assume that zen buddhism is spiritual in the way that I'm accustomed to experiencing spirituality, but I can't actually know that it is unless I live the lifestyle and learn the required teachings necessary to become a full-fledged Buddhist.
Actually, according to most of the Zen Buddhists I know, it's almost completely unlike the way you experience spirituality. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Will B: Have you been reading Tannenbaum?
I've been reading a lot of different people, but not Tannenbaum. Why? Did Tannenbaum say something similar to me?
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Haven't read the whole thread, but I can just say that I don't believe the book of Job happened (Baba Batra 15b, I follow one of the opinions there stating he never was). I also follow the Rambam stating that the first few chapters of Genesis (about Adam, Eve, Kain and Able) are a story to teach us something (just like Job).
quote:Personal revelation is not useful in deciding what is Truth. It is useful in deciding whether or not you're going to believe something is true, but has no effect whatsoever on what the truth actually is.
I definitely agree with this statement; and afr's summary that
quote:Personal revelation is useful in discerning what is Truth and even if there is Truth--but yeah, it doesn't change the Truth.
And so, I used personal revelation in coming to believe what I consider the truth, but what is actually true may or may not be what I believe.
I believe that the Bible is divinely inspired to each letter, the choice of words, etc. However, there is an important distinction to make between "inspiration" and "literally true," because the meaning of "literally true" has changed over time. I would say that the original autographs of all parts of scripture were "literally true" to the people they were written to. This means that when reading these texts today, we must interpret them not as we would interpret the articles in a newspaper or even a biography or history, but as we would interpret another text of the same genre in the culture and time they were written in. This gives us several different genres: Ancient Near East (ANE) Historical Narrative, ANE Law, ANE Covenant, ANE Wisdom Literature, Jewish Prophecy, Second Temple Judaic Apocalypse, Greco-Roman Biography, Greco-Roman Letter, Greco-Roman Rhetoric. These should all be interpreted according to the genre. So for instance, in the book of Chronicles, the chronologies listed are to be treated as factually true with no gaps, because they are part of a Historical Narrative. However, in the book of Matthew, the chronology of Jesus is part of the bios with a specific purpose, so we should allow for the existance of gaps. In Genesis 1-11, the events told should be counted as literally true, because they are also Historical Narrative, whereas in Revelation, which is of the Apocalypse genre, we should not expect the prophesies to have literally intended for the cataclysmic events described to take place to the level of detail described, but rather to be figuratively descriptive of the cosmic scope and importance of the events being described.
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I accidentally hit the "post" button before I was done.
To answer the second part of the question, which is what aspects of my faith depend on this, I would say almost all aspects of my faith depend on this.
If I found out that the above description of how to interpret the Bible was invalid and none of the events actually occurred, then I would conclude that God as I knew him does not exist, and if there is a "God", it is impersonal. I would reject the Bible as being useless, because it could then only be a medium with which to control my actions, and I would question why I should accept its moral or spiritual "lessons" at all. I would briefly flit with Hinduism in its most ancient form I could find and see if there is any way of reconciling that with what I see of reality, and if not I would probably live a brief hedonistic life and end in suicide.
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No, the description Avin gave is, to me, that of a person stuck in an immature life and moral structure. The growth that he could have is stunted by his belief system that explictly says that it's not possible and implicitly influences him away from it. From my perspective, he will likely never become an adult in a moral or spiritual/religious sense.
Those who reject the idea of God but still live in pretty much the same mythological structure have most of the same problems. They continue to define that area in the same ways as that which they have rejected and are unaware of the wider variety that is possible. The person who thinks (in a paraphrase of The Brothers Karamazov "Without God, anything is permissible." means that people should or are necessarily going to fall into hedonism is sorely mistaken.
I realize that many people won't agree with this, but that's my perspective, and it makes me very sad.
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LDSers, do you believe your personal witnesses/revelations are different in form from those of other religions, or merely content?Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Avin's motivations do seem strange to me. I mean, if his only reason to make morally good choices and value his own life is because of his very specific beliefs about the Bible ... I think he may have missed the point of the Bible
Personally, I don't think that I would be too shaken by some incontrovertible discovery that rendered it impossible to believe my scripture to be literally true. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to incorporating new information. My whole world wouldn't suddenly come crashing down. My faith is based mostly on an innate feeling of moral purpose, personal experience with the divine, etc, none of which depend completely on scripture to survive.
That said, my beliefs would need to change a LOT if I did find the scriptures to be false. I'm not expecting it to happen anytime soon.
Foust, can you explain your question in more detail?
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To be honest, I believe that the idea that "Revelation" was even an acceptable form of religious expression is a rather new thing. Therefore, you don't hear much about it outside of Mormonism. When you do hear about it, the subect is often rejected as other than acceptable and often considered idiotic or threatning. Notice, for instance, how much the Catholic representative tries to avoid the issue of definition. Notice, as well, how only Mormons are even picking up the subject.
My point in the above is this. The reason us Mormons can't answer the question about others recieving revelations is that it is a religious experience that other religions have rejected as legitimate forms of knowing the Truth. For them, at least in just about every discussion I personally have had and known by other religious people who aren't LDS, absolute truths cannot be determined outside of a religious proof text. They would never, for instance, define "finding God" or "Getting saved" as a revelation from God. For them it isn't a sign of Truth as much as a sign of a vague idea that they are Saved. Certainly they wouldn't go so far as to say it was a concrete message from God about a subject.
Let me define, for clarity, what Mormons mean by "Personal Revelation" in order to properly comapare and contrast other religious expressions. For Mormons, Revelation is (despite the quick and easy "feelings" useage here) a personal conversation with God. It may not be voices in our heads, but can come close. The nearest secular example I can give is when you first realized what a complicated mathematical formula means to the practical world. Before that realization the computations might have been mere curiosities or vague assignments in a classroom. It has often been described as an "ah ha" moment, although much stronger and memorable.
In other words, for Mormons true Revelation is more than a heartfelt recognition of something. Rather, it is a deep realization of relavancies to our own lives of things we are learning. Sadly, many Mormons seem to also not understand that revelation in LDS understanding is more than crying at a theater because of the emotional impact of a story. It is REAL exchange of information, with very strong emotional reactions.
Therefore, if a Mormon was to answer the question about others recieving Revelations, there is no "yes" or "no" or "on" or "off" explanation. That is why its called Personal Revelation! Our reaction to someone who claimed personal revelation completely opposite our own? First and foremost, has it brought positive or negative consiquences? Has it made that person love or hate more? What a person DOES with that revelation is as important to Mormonism as what it SAYS about truth.
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It's worth noting that Mormons are hardly the only religion out there that believes in personal revelation.
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For a good discussion of this very subject of Mormon revelation and other Christian reactions, I would suggest reading Terry L. Givens "By the Hand of Mormon." He writes about how Mormonism's understanding of Revelation is dialogic rather than only emotional.
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"It's worth noting that Mormons are hardly the only religion out there that believes in personal revelation."
I would argue otherwise. In fact, I think I just did. Perhaps in a vague transindental sort of way, but hardly with the complicated meaning Mormons associate with the word.
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quote:Originally posted by Avin: Iif not I would probably live a brief hedonistic life and end in suicide.
Why though? There's still a lot of meaning to life even without a God. There's so much beauty. Opera and the night sky come to mind.
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There are actually a number of religions which believe that it's possible to directly commune with God in one form or another, even receiving answers to common questions.
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It's worth remembering that people lived for thousands of years before the modern mystery religions made their appearance. The old pagan afterlives are not exactly places of hope; yet people somehow managed not to despair. The Håvamål has some stanzas relevant to this :
All wretched is no man, though never so sick; Some from their sons have joy, Some win it from kinsmen, and some from their wealth, And some from worthy works.
It is better to live than to lie a corpse, The live man catches the cow; I saw flames rise for the rich man's pyre, And before his door he lay dead.
The lame rides a horse, the handless is herdsman, The deaf in battle is bold; The blind man is better than one that is burned, No good can come of a corpse.
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