#6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Discussions about holding onto your faith and beliefs, whether by staying LDS or by exploring and participating in other churches or faiths. The belief in any higher power (including God, Christ, Buddha, or Jedi) is true in this forum. Be kind to others.
User avatar
deacon blues
Posts: 1933
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:37 am

#6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by deacon blues » Fri Feb 03, 2017 9:35 am

This lesson is what it all comes down to essentially-- how do we know what is true? Epistemology being the method(s) of determining truth, my whole life I've been told in church about Moroni's Promise, and D&C sections 6,8, and 9 as the ONE never-failing method of determining truth. I tried Moroni's promise, and it never worked for me, so I resorted to Henry B. Eyring's promise, and went on a mission anyway. There I had many experiences, some faith promoting, some not. But nothing really specific about the BOM. Has anyone had an experience with Moroni's Promise, or Oliver's burning in the bosom?
God is Love. God is Truth. The greatest problem with organized religion is that the organization becomes god, rather than a means of serving God.

User avatar
Enoch Witty
Posts: 297
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:14 am

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by Enoch Witty » Fri Feb 03, 2017 11:21 am

No, and it was a huge shelf item for me. More than a decade later, I remember asking my mom if maybe my dad wasn't living the gospel fully at the time of my confirmation, and if that had anything to do with the fact that I had never had a spiritual confirmation or any kind of HG experience whatsoever. She said, "No, it's all about the faith of the person receiving the HG, not the person giving it." So why does the priesthood matter at all, Mom?

I used to lean heavily on D&C 46:14: " 13 To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world. 14 To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful."

I was like, "Oh, I'm these 'others.' I believe the words of you special elect!" And that worked fine, until I didn't believe their words anymore.

Now I can't look at those verses as anything other than manipulation aimed at people who JS couldn't convince that their emotional experiences equaled visitations from a divine being.

User avatar
deacon blues
Posts: 1933
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:37 am

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by deacon blues » Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:19 pm

The LDS understanding of faith is that you have to Really WANT it before you can get it. I wonder (skeptic that I am) if Joseph picked up a few tricks during his treasure seeking days, and used them on early followers like Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery. The trick of manipulating faith is evident throughout the history of religion. To me it seems Joseph had a genius for it.
Last edited by deacon blues on Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
God is Love. God is Truth. The greatest problem with organized religion is that the organization becomes god, rather than a means of serving God.

User avatar
deacon blues
Posts: 1933
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:37 am

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by deacon blues » Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:21 pm

deacon blues wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:19 pm
The LDS understanding of faith is that you have to Really WANT it before you can get it. I wonder (skeptic that I am) if Joseph picked up a few tricks during his treasure seeking days, and used them on early followers like Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery. The trick of manipulating faith ( using confirmation bias) is evident throughout the history of religion. To me it seems Joseph had a genius for it.
God is Love. God is Truth. The greatest problem with organized religion is that the organization becomes god, rather than a means of serving God.

User avatar
MerrieMiss
Posts: 580
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 9:03 pm

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by MerrieMiss » Fri Feb 03, 2017 4:09 pm

I'm with Enoch Witty on this. I think this was my first shelf item at age eleven or so - I know it was when I was still in Primary.

I never, as a child, youth, young adult, married adult, absolutely never, had this experience. It weighed me down a lot. As a youth I was told that if it bothered me when people said bad things about the church then it meant I had a testimony. I took that and went with it for many, many years. Now that just seems stupid.

I did determine that I felt the spirit by attributing my ah ha! moments to getting spiritual confirmation. Burnings and Moroni's promise just weren't my spiritual language. I had ah ha! moments instead.

This being said, I did believe the church was true on some level, but I never had confirmation that the Book of Mormon was. I always thought I was the only mormon in the world who had trouble that book. If only I had the internet back then....

User avatar
wtfluff
Posts: 3626
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 3:20 pm
Location: Worshiping Gravity / Pulling Taffy

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by wtfluff » Fri Feb 03, 2017 5:48 pm

deacon blues wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2017 9:35 am
Has anyone had an experience with Moroni's Promise, or Oliver's burning in the bosom?
I had numerous emotional experiences as a believer. I don't remember any of them being specific to the Book of Mormon, and I'm not positive I've had the "burning" but I've had the "feels" in my bosom many a time... HeartSell™ was forced down my throat from the instant I was born, and it works extremely well for me. I don't know if I was born with it, or if it was "trained" into every fiber of my being by my family.

Here's the thing though: HeartSell™ is nothing more than emotion. Emotion is an absolutely terrible way to find truth. The church (and religion in general as far as I can tell) hijacks specific emotions and turns them into "spiritual witnesses". And I'll mention again, those "witnesses" are nothing more than emotion, and emotion can be easily manipulated. We pay for Hollywood to do it for us every time we view a movie.

Funny thing is: I can recreate these same emotions at the drop of a hat... Music is the easiest way for me to do it now. When I see it happening in a religious situation now, it turns my stomach. (Does that count as a "spiritual witness"?)

EVERYONE needs to see this video:

YouTube: Spiritual Witnesses


Edited To Add: The moment of clarity, when I realized that the church was not what it claimed to be was one of the biggest HeartSell™ moments of my life, if not the biggest as far as "spiritual experiences" are concerned. What exactly was Holy the (friendly?) Ghost telling me at that moment?
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

IDKSAF -RubinHighlander

You can surrender without a prayer...

User avatar
Emower
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 10:35 pm
Location: Carson City

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by Emower » Sat Feb 04, 2017 8:42 pm

Yeah, I never had moroni's promise come true for me either. I have had some emotional attachments to God and maybe Jesus, but never to the bom, Joseph, the current prophet or anything else. This hadn't ever even occurred to me until I started to doubt.

So what do we do when it fails? I would submit that we ought to follow our conscience, wherever that leads. And conscience is never the same for everyone. This is what I plan to bring up anyway.

DrTxn
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 9:02 pm

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by DrTxn » Sun Feb 05, 2017 8:22 am

This lesson has prophetic infallibility.

The First Presidency said: “When … inspiration conveys something out of harmony with the accepted revelations of the Church or contrary to the decisions of its constituted authorities, Latter-day Saints may know that it is not of God, no matter how plausible it may appear. … Anything at discord with that which comes from God through the head of the Church is not to be received as authoritative or reliable”

Lowry Nelson told the First Presidency he felt all races were equal before God and thought that skin color had nothing to do with how we were in the preexistence. He got this in response from them.

The basic element of your ideas and concepts seems to be that all God's children stand in equal positions before Him in all things.

Your knowledge of the Gospel will indicate to you that this is contrary to the very fundamentals of God*s dealings with Israel dating from the time of His promise to Abraham regarding Abraham's seed and their position vis-a~vis God Himself. Indeed, some of God's children were assigned to superior positions before the world was formed. We are aware that some Higher Critics do not accept this, but the Church does.

Your position seems to lose sight of the revelations of the Lord touching the preexistence of our spirits, the rebellion in heaven, and the doctrines that our birth into this life and the advantages under which we my be born, have a relationship in the life heretofore.

From the days of the Prophet Joseph even until now, it has been the doctrine of the Church, never questioned by any of the Church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel.

Furthermore, your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and White races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now God's rule for Israel, His Chosen People,, has been endogenous . Modern Israel has been similarly directed.

We are not unmindful of the fact that there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this area, toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.


Now the church position is this from the essay, "Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form."

So I ask, who was more reliable? Lowry or the First Presidency? If you went back in time, would you follow Lowry or the First Presidency on this? The big problem with Mormonism is the more absolutes, authority and detail you give, the easier it becomes to prove it false.

User avatar
deacon blues
Posts: 1933
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:37 am

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by deacon blues » Sun Feb 05, 2017 11:44 am

Thanks Dr. Txn. This is what's wrong with LDS Sunday school. It's indoctrination not education. :roll: At any rate, your post above inspired me to return to day to the gospel doctrine class. The lesson proceeded, as most lessons do. There were testimonies, and a video produced in the 1990's showing Joseph reading off the plates, then uncovering the plates for Oliver, who couldn't read them and put himself down down because of it. I went up to talk to the teacher, a very intelligent man, afterward and asked him when the video was produced. He replied, "it was produced in the 1990's under the direction of Bro. Johnson" --an area seventy that we both know who used to live in our neighborhood. I said, "are you aware that there are some historical inaccuracies in the video?" He said, "yes." I ended with the comment, "I am concerned that we are being indoctrinated more than educated." We exchanged smiles and parted. I felt good about what I did, and wish the church would take a more rounded approach to it's history. Incidently it was probably this same lesson four years ago, when I brought up seer stones, and another teacher got ticked off. My goal is not to make people mad, but the church certainly needs somebody to be a gadfly; to use the metaphor as Socrates did at his trial. Hopefully nobody will be either offended, or executed. :)
God is Love. God is Truth. The greatest problem with organized religion is that the organization becomes god, rather than a means of serving God.

User avatar
Emower
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 10:35 pm
Location: Carson City

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by Emower » Sun Feb 05, 2017 8:43 pm

I have been trying to be a force for progressiveness in SS this year. Today I brought up the difficulty that is encountered when revelation has been received that is contrary to what the church teaches. The instructor paddled the lesson away from that as fast as humanly possible. I don't know how to be that force when you get shut down in such a big way. It is frustrating to say the least.

User avatar
nibbler
Posts: 903
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:12 pm

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by nibbler » Mon Feb 06, 2017 5:32 am

Enoch Witty wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2017 11:21 am
I used to lean heavily on D&C 46:14: " 13 To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world. 14 To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful."
I used to look at those verses as being either or, you could either have a personal spiritual witness or you could rely on someone else's spiritual witness. Now when I parse the language I see that there's room for people that have neither gift (or people that have both gifts). The conversation we never have at church is what do the people with neither of those gifts do? I don't believe they can do very much because so much of what is said at church is either a profession of belief in the restoration or persuasion to believe in the restoration. If that doesn't float your boat then church is going to be very hard to sit through each Sunday.

We spend all our time at church on indoctrination and little to no time on practical advice. If you are already indoctrinated maybe you feel good being around other people that believe similarly or maybe you get to show off your knowledge but mostly it's a waste of time. Do life-long members really need to hear the restoration narrative presented the same way you'd present it to someone that has never been exposed to it... for the umpteenth time... each and every Sunday? I guess we've got to maintain a steady stream to make sure people remain indoctrinated. For people that won't be indoctrinated it's a waste of time. There's nothing relevant to people's lives in our lessons. The lessons don't teach you how to become a better person, they teach you how to become a better Mormon.

In true church fashion we had this lesson in SS and had an extremely similar lesson in PH. Sometimes I believe church is purposely correlated this way, other times I think it's the person giving the 3rd hour lesson relying heavily on what they heard during the 2nd hour. Having the same lesson back-to-back makes it that much harder not to be bored... but that's church for you.
deacon blues wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2017 9:35 am
Has anyone had an experience with Moroni's Promise, or Oliver's burning in the bosom?
Yes. It came maybe 6 months to a year after being baptized (I joined the church at 18).
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
– Anais Nin

User avatar
wtfluff
Posts: 3626
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 3:20 pm
Location: Worshiping Gravity / Pulling Taffy

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by wtfluff » Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:27 am

nibbler wrote:
Mon Feb 06, 2017 5:32 am
We spend all our time at church on indoctrination and little to no time on practical advice. If you are already indoctrinated maybe you feel good being around other people that believe similarly or maybe you get to show off your knowledge but mostly it's a waste of time. Do life-long members really need to hear the restoration narrative presented the same way you'd present it to someone that has never been exposed to it... for the umpteenth time... each and every Sunday? I guess we've got to maintain a steady stream to make sure people remain indoctrinated. For people that won't be indoctrinated it's a waste of time. There's nothing relevant to people's lives in our lessons. The lessons don't teach you how to become a better person, they teach you how to become a better Mormon.
I've read things similar to this a few times in the last while somewhere on the DAMU. Amazing how you can be "in" for over 40 years and NEVER realize that the church literally teaches NOTHING practical that can help folks "in their daily lives".

Yippeeeee! I lived literal lifetime of completely useless advice...
Last edited by wtfluff on Tue Feb 07, 2017 9:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

IDKSAF -RubinHighlander

You can surrender without a prayer...

User avatar
Anti-Mormon-Moroni
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2017 7:58 am

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by Anti-Mormon-Moroni » Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:14 pm

deacon blues wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2017 9:35 am
how do we know what is true? Epistemology being the method(s) of determining truth, my whole life I've been told in church about Moroni's Promise…
You point out epistemology, and one aspect of that is contextualism.

I’ll hijack some quick words from Wikipedia: Epistemic contextualists argue that the word 'know' is context sensitive, expressing different relations in some different contexts. That is, when we attribute knowledge to someone, the context in which we use the term 'knowledge' determines the standards relative to which "knowledge" is being attributed (or denied). What contextualism entails is that in one context an utterance of a knowledge attribution can be true, and in a context with higher standards for knowledge, the same statement can be false.

So when philosophy decides to get silly and set extreme standards for knowledge, you can get into some hippy stuff. Some people will argue that you don’t KNOW that you have two hands, or you can’t KNOW you exist (Solipsism). O’ course back here in the real world we all generally accept empirical standards for what is observable and testable – but even then there’s science (Chemistry) and then there’s ‘soft science’ (Psychology). And past that, there’s the religious context (Spirituality).

A thing epistemology does is try to define an agreed standard for ‘know’, to set the terms of the discussion. Street epistemology is in the BoM. Korihor uses it on the priests in Alma 30, “How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ". Then comes Alma, and he ends up giving a big sermon based on the standard/context set by Korihor (Alma 32: 17,18,21,26,29,34).

Just thought you might find it interesting to think of Korihor as a street epistemologist and Alma as a spiritual contextualist. Of course he basically condemns Korihor to death in the process, but nothing drives home a point like the total destruction of your opponent, so I'm sure it was for the best. :|
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, nothing much changed.

User avatar
Corsair
Posts: 3080
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2016 9:58 am
Location: Phoenix

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by Corsair » Tue Feb 07, 2017 8:32 am

Anti-Mormon-Moroni wrote:
Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:14 pm
A thing epistemology does is try to define an agreed standard for ‘know’, to set the terms of the discussion. Street epistemology is in the BoM. Korihor uses it on the priests in Alma 30, “How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ". Then comes Alma, and he ends up giving a big sermon based on the standard/context set by Korihor (Alma 32: 17,18,21,26,29,34).
The Anti-Christs in the Book of Mormon each ask some pretty good questions and then totally fumble their argument with a confession that an angel of darkness told them to preach false doctrine to the people. These exchanges ruin any chance of using logical arguments with a believer. They are heavily resistant to any argument that does not start and end with "the Book of Mormon is true" or "Joseph Smith was totally a prophet".

User avatar
Anti-Mormon-Moroni
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2017 7:58 am

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by Anti-Mormon-Moroni » Tue Feb 07, 2017 9:37 am

Corsair wrote:
Tue Feb 07, 2017 8:32 am
then totally fumble their argument with a confession that an angel of darkness told them to preach false doctrine
That’s hilarious to me because I imagine it in the context of like a normal debate. Just imagine how much more interesting the presidential election debates would have been if, at the end, Donald Trump thanked the angel of darkness that helped him prep his arguments.

Anyway, I just imagine the BoM like church history. You’ve got what happened, and then the people that wrote it glorified themselves in their version, and then some church historians stretched some reports into even more glorious versions, and then the correlation committee chose the stuff that went in the manuals, prioritizing rousing stories over any attempt to vet historical accuracy. And bam, at the end what you have maybe isn’t all that accurate, but it serves its purpose.

The faithful version of the origin of the BoM isn’t really that different than the modern church’s correlated history. Then for the BoM (from a believer perspective, since that’s my perspective), you add translation by a guy who doesn’t understand the language but instead gets visionary interpretations of the point of it. Same for the Bible in essence.

It’s not hard to think that maybe it was stretched a bit, multiple times through its composition, and just maybe not ALL of the dissenters actually took a moment to publicly proclaim their unabashed love for evil. Just sayin’, even as a believer, I think there’s room to still consider it safe to ponder their points without attributing all such arguments to the direct tutelage of lord satan.

I mean I know you guys all hail lord satan and all, but as long as you don’t confess it I can pretend it’s safe to think about what you have to say.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, nothing much changed.

User avatar
deacon blues
Posts: 1933
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:37 am

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by deacon blues » Tue Feb 07, 2017 12:39 pm

One of the ironies of Korihor is he's an agnostic materialist who is inspired, indeed taught by Satan as an Angel of light. He should have been saying things like "my Angel/God says your god is the devil, but instead he says, I don't believe in your God because we don't see him." Just doesn't make sense to me.🙄
God is Love. God is Truth. The greatest problem with organized religion is that the organization becomes god, rather than a means of serving God.

User avatar
1smartdodog
Posts: 510
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2017 5:51 pm

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by 1smartdodog » Sat May 27, 2017 5:41 am

I had what I though were real burning bosom moments. Problem was following what I thought was clear instruction led to upheaval and bad things happening. People would tell me things like maybe you were not listening correctly, or god needed you to suffer. All sorts of dumb stuff. I just reply that if spiritual confirmations are so tricky to get right then what if any value do they have?
“Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”
― Thomas A. Edison

User avatar
nibbler
Posts: 903
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 7:12 pm

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by nibbler » Sat May 27, 2017 6:21 am

1smartdodog wrote:
Sat May 27, 2017 5:41 am
...if spiritual confirmations are so tricky to get right then what if any value do they have?
You get to brag to all your peers at church about feeling them?
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
– Anais Nin

User avatar
Angel
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 31, 2018 8:26 am

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by Angel » Thu Aug 09, 2018 6:28 pm

I have felt a/the spirit. I did not get confirmation that the BoM was true, do not have a testimony of anyone being a prophet. I don't know any details on how anything in the afterlife works out, but I have felt spirits.
“You have learned something...That always feels at first as if you have lost something.” George Bernard Shaw
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

User avatar
Dravin
Posts: 402
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2016 11:04 am
Location: Indiana

Re: #6 I Will Tell You ........By The Holy Ghost

Post by Dravin » Thu Aug 09, 2018 7:58 pm

I'm gonna quote myself from Reddit (in response to someone asking exmos to share their experience with praying and thinking God told you it was true):

I wasn't a convert, but when I sat down to get my own testimony by reading and praying there was a lot of pressure on the line. Each and every time I prayed and didn't get an answer I'd, as per Mormon culture and doctrine, blame myself rather than the process. So you have an immense pressure to get an answer and a worry that you are broken in some way preventing an answer (be it sin, distraction, or what have you). So when one night I'm laying in bed and the thought pops into my head, "The Book of Mormon is true." I of course felt an immediate sense of relief and peace (emotions I'd been taught to associate with the spirit giving his stamp of truthy approval on random thoughts). I wasn't forsaken by god or otherwise fundamentally broken, the stuff I'd been taught by my parents was correct, and I could look forward to the wave of positive emotions from my family when I confided that I too now knew it was true. It was a very powerful experience that kept me as believer on some level for a very long time.

In hindsight it isn't surprising that fitting in with my families beliefs and getting the expected result from the prescribed ritual would be associated with positive emotions. It meant I was snug and secure in the familial and extended tribal structure and could expect the tribal congratulations and status. I view it as psychology and emotion now, I don't deny I had that experience but my interpretation of it is very different. In a way it is like the presents marked "From: Santa" that were under my tree growing up, I don't deny the presents were there but my interpretation of them is very different today than when I was a kid.
Hindsight is all well and good... until you trip.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests