I think I understand your two points Lot's Wife. But am I to understand them together? Is the use of the word God for you just a semantically appealing use of the word?

"First, as I stated when I first provided the link to that clip, I did not cite it as evidence against intelligent design. I do not buy ID since it requires an independent judgment that there is a God, a proposition for which I find inadequate evidence. But in the present context, the ID debate is irrelevant."


"Second, while I don't know your beliefs I am comfortable with the use of the word "God" to indicate the majesty of the universe."

I think some people while afraid of falling back in believing something like God look to "making water." And here it can become a pissing contest.
https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2366797,2367088#msg-2367088

"The only thing I can do is to suspend disbelief in the extraordinary claim that I’ll be reunited with my loved ones, and try to establish some degree of plausibility for natural resurrection (finding water) or technological resurrection (making water)."
https://turingchurch.net/prisoner-of-bad-philosophy-carl-sagan-couldnt-allow-himself-to-hope-a037ba0705e6

And I guess I should clarify my beliefs here if I want full participation in the conversation. I know some people's beliefs here more than I care to even if I find them a bit disconnected from my reality. Scientists and thinkers in a blender makes frogs water.

So what do I believe?

I believe God is a poor word for "the majesty of the universe." I don't believe that I understand the word God. To me, the many people who use it and the deep thinkers who invoke it both stretch it and play with it to the point of incoherence.

I believe that the human experience is as varied as the combinatorial powers of our genetics. For me, this means my life is excruciatingly individual. So much so that I don't know much even about myself. I believe my brain has to construct something for myself to use in habituating to my environments as well. I've constructed many things over many years. Presently, this is all about my body keeping score, my different "sides" of my brain, and how a deep connection to my "self" involves less understanding it conceptually and more physically. I'm getting in-tune with "myself" as a creature instead of a construction of beliefs.

And so I come to the gist of the author of the post at turingchurch.net. Hope.

Hope is a huge driving factor in human lives as I see them. It is so powerful that we at RfM could actually fall "back into beliefs." Mormonism isn't going away and some of us have loving Mormons who have naïve eternal hopes. This is a powerful force.

If I were to become a Taoist in face of the absurdity of existence I guess Mormonism would be another option. IT is more about taste and style. Mormon style I find lacking. And I believe that beliefs are all about individual tastes. What resonates with your "Self" you can find ample evidence to support. Our brains, I believe, are great narrators of our experience and justifiers of our behaviors and blaming them on belief. The placebo effect is just the evidence for this at the subconscious level in my opinion.

So, I guess I didn't really address what I believe but I did reply. It is my hope that it was enough for myself to feel like a productive participant in RfM.

But words for me fail. God, the majesty of a pale blue dot in an ocean of emptiness, knows I give myself an "A" for effort even if it might mean A$$. Putting my money where the mouths I feed are and they are all Mormon.

Edit: adding link to your reply Lot's Wife.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2021 11:47AM by Elder Berry.

Amazing!

Myself, I knew as a mormon that my beliefs were unique only to me and I think that is how it JUST IS. Each of us unique, but the church expected us to all see things the same.

I have sometimes thought about what about going back? I actually thought about it recently because my younger brother, who really needed an ally at work has found 2 and they are in bishoprics. He says he has never met mormons like them and he is IMPRESSED. He is rethinking the church (as he smokes and drinks and he will never quit smoking). And I told him, "Yes, I worked with some men like these guys at Thiokol in my 20s. I still love them and they love me. If I were to model my life after anyone, it would be these men."

I can't begin to explain how much these men impacted my life for good in terms of giving me a good self-esteem, their love and acceptance made me strong enough to get through the hell of my life. They still love me, they still talk to me to make sure I'm okay. They accept me as I am.

But my reality is different than theirs. No matter how much I love these men, it all comes back to what my life experience has been. If they had experienced the same thing, what would they have done. I don't know. They didn't experience it. And they are men. And they aren't gay and, as far as I know, none of them have gay children or grandchildren (but I suspect they do).

My beliefs are my own. They change daily depending on what has happened in my life. I don't put a lot of effort into figuring it all out. I let it happen.

My life has gone along a lot better since I left the church than it ever did before.

cl2notloggedin Wrote:
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> My beliefs are my own. They change daily
> depending on what has happened in my life. I
> don't put a lot of effort into figuring it all
> out. I let it happen.

Nicely put. You now realize you own them and Intellectual Reserve doesn't.

Religious after-effects. However much one thinks he has lost the habit of religion, he has not lost it to the degree that he would not enjoy encountering religious feelings and moods without any conceptual content as, for example, in music. And if a philosophy shows us the justification of metaphysical hopes, of a deep peace of the soul to be attained therefrom, and, for example, speaks of the “whole, certain gospel in the glance of Raphael’s madonnas,” then we approach such statements and explanations with an especially warm disposition. Here it is easier for the philosopher to make his proofs; what he wants to give accords with a heart that gladly takes. We notice here how less careful free thinkers actually object only to the dogmas, but know very well the magic of religious feeling; it hurts them to let the latter go, for the sake of the former.

Scientific philosophy has to be very careful about smuggling in errors on the basis of that need (an acquired and, consequently, also transitory need). Even logicians speak of “intuitions” of truth in morality and art (for example, the intuition “that the essence of things is one”), which should be forbidden them.

—Human, All Too Human—
—Friedrich Nietzsche—

Smuggling errors.

"Perhaps one should concede a similar merit to the religion that made men see the sinfulness of every single individual through a magnifying glass, turning the sinner into a great, immortal criminal. By surrounding him with eternal perspectives, it taught man to see himself from a distance and as something
past and whole." Page 78
The Gay Science. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, Inc., 1974.

Divorced of individuals, Science can be immortal. Just ask a frequent poster here.

Elder Berry Wrote:
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> Divorced of individuals, Science can be immortal.
> Just ask a frequent poster here.

Oh my!

This is a fantastic thread. After banging our heads against a wall that is impervious to even the greatest field guns, it's refreshing to see some people focus on a new and more fruitful approach.

EB, I do not believe in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, loving God. To me such a being is impossible given the prevalence of pain and suffering in what is ostensibly His creation. I believe EOD's statistical approach to reality, or alternatively your intuitive reliance on genetics (and perhaps determinism) has more explanatory power than the notion of any personal, interventionist God.

I am willing to use the word God to describe the numinous in life not because I see a divine entity but because the word, for better or worse, is a powerful way of conveying profound emotion. People who know that I am an agnostic are used to my looking at a piece of art or hearing a piece of music and saying "there is God." I hesitate to speak that way among people whom I don't know because it invites discussion of a S-Cat nature, which are futile.

In that regard, I think Human has it right. One can dispense with God but that need not, and should not, prevent us from experiencing the numinous (a better word, perhaps, than the divine or the religious) in all its power and purity. God is the bathwater, numinous ecstasy the bathwater.

Of course there are religions that let you focus on the numinous without either God or dogma. Those are the a-cognitive ones, the ones that focus on praxis; they are Taoism and Buddhism (I separate out Hinduism because of its caste structure) and the Vedic faiths. Those teach that religion is the cultivation of a sense of awe, the numinous experience, of peace and joy and even love. That is why I invested so much of my time studying and learning those traditions as well as practicing them.

They are atheistic and offer no purported explanations for the suffering in the world and hence no hypocrisy, no raised and dashed hopes. And they don't recognize an us/them dichotomy that invites parochialism and hatred.

Does that make sense?

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> Does that make sense?

This did - ecstasy the bathwater.

I find we often let our self concepts take us out of our bodies and fling us to the furthest parts of the cosmos in a search for its validation.

But the body is where the validation is.

I think is impossible without the experience of pain and suffering to know much, let alone if there is a being supreme to self and the creator of our body.

Our minds fly like angels and our bodies die like devils. Rage, rage against the dying of the mind and curse God because there we can find someone besides our situation, our creation, to blame.

I could never cancel God with pain and suffering. I've not experienced near enough of it. But I neither can believe in God because I've no experience like Joseph Smith claimed to justify it.

A poor wayfaring man of grief I am but not enough to rage against anything or anyone but my own creation. I'm done with creating selves to either accommodate God or dismiss God.

The rage may come with age.

I think, but am not sure, that you and I are in basic agreement.

To debate a topic, we need a definition. I'll provisionally define God as an omniscient, omnipotent, and loving supreme being. I do not believe such a God exists. I see inadequate objective evidence of such; and I see compelling countervailing logic in the fact that an abusive childhood sometimes produces psychopaths (Gary Gilmore) who lack conscience and cannot repent and yet impose harm on others, some of whom are also permanently and dangerously harmed and will continue spreading the dysfunction. The suffering of the psychopaths and those they hurt is enough for me to conclude that the hypothesized deity does not exist. There may be some other God, but I'm not sure s/he deserves to be worshiped.

So I'm skeptical. But the feelings of ecstasy, the emotional bliss that comes from nature or music or art or love, should not be confused with religious sentiment. In fact, ecstasy should be liberated from the trammels of religion. We cannot reject the positive things that were once unnecessarily associated with religion simply because that religion claimed that all bliss stems from religious truth. Some people choose to call that bliss "God," which is fine with me except insofar as they then use that equivocation as reason to adopt some dogmatic religion.

As for the body/heart being the source of "validation" or even "truth," you are close to Taoism with that and to Buddhism as well. If you are striving for progress and encounter Dogma on the road, kill it.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> I think, but am not sure, that you and I are in
> basic agreement.

Never 100 percent as this is impossible in my belief. When people think that they are in perfect agreement then they are deluding and diluting them self.

> To debate a topic, we need a definition. I'll
> provisionally define God as an omniscient,
> omnipotent, and loving supreme being.

Okay. This narrows it down to something intelligible for me. I don't know if it was what Mormonism taught me to believe. I doubt it but the sweeping connection with what people want to worship is in high demand with this definition. And it isn't the majesty of The Universe.

> So I'm skeptical. But the feelings of ecstasy,
> the emotional bliss that comes from nature or
> music or art or love, should not be confused with
> religious sentiment.

I would say "should not be confused with religious" dogmas.

Religious feelings are so human. We can call them different things but the mystical experience is real as in feelings. Eastern religion does a better job in not ascribing the experience to too much dogma. Pascal's Wager is lost in dogma but beautiful in belief generated from his mystical experience.

> As for the body/heart being the source of
> "validation" or even "truth," you are close to
> Taoism with that and to Buddhism as well. If you
> are striving for progress and encounter Dogma on
> the road, kill it.

I don't know what I'm striving for more than more of a connection with my body. The lies of the mind are multifaceted, sublime, and seductive.

Elder Berry Wrote:
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> Never 100 percent as this is impossible in my
> belief. When people think that they are in perfect
> agreement then they are deluding and diluting them
> self.

I agree with you 100%.

Seriously, I like what you wrote. Yes, In Notes from Underground Dostoevsky wrote about people who become so intellectualized that they are cut off from their own emotions and effectively function as quasi-humans. Nietzsche so liked that analysis that he wrote that Dostoevksy was "the only psychologist from whom I ever learned anything" or words to that effect. He then adopted D's use of the term The Idiot as a title for Jesus, meaning a man who acted from his heart without rationalization.

So you are striking at an important point. And you are spot on regarding the Asian religions and their focus on the internal, the emotional and emotive, in humanity. That is exactly what the Taoists taught and why they (I differ here, obviously, since you can't understand Taoism without studying it) rejected education and science as driving a wedge between the "self" and sincere action. Buddhism, shorn of institutional baggage like one sometimes finds in the religion's organized forms, conveys the same message. That they are right is indicated by the physical and psychological benefits that stem from meditation.

So yes, the sublime arises as much from the heart as the mind. Bach speaks through both media, as do the great artists. And the human capacity for joy should not be quelled either by the rejection of formal religion or the excessive elevation of the mind--for example, it doesn't make sense to choose a romantic partner by their resume because love is a matter of the heart. So too life.

In other words, I believe you and I are on the same page.

Or neighboring pages.

100%.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I agree with you 100%.

> 100%.

Say it twice and it might just work! ;)

My beliefs are mine. We are going to express our behaviors the way we will and it will confuse others for whom conforming is a priority. And part of our behaviors are the creation and maintenance of beliefs.

We like to put the horse before the cart. We like to think apriority in beliefs when they are learned behaviors based upon a brain which evolved biologically and not psychologically. When I forget my place in existence as a biologically being then I can fly mentally all over the place and theorize about anything and everything. Super powers I don't want anymore.

That strikes me as 100% correct.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lot's Wife Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > I agree with you 100%.
>
> >When I
> forget my place in existence as a biologically
> being then I can fly mentally all over the place
> and theorize about anything and everything.


How lovely is that !!

........... “High above the chimney tops is where you’ll find me.”

It is all about the view when you live in yourself.

"That is exactly what the Taoists taught and why they (I differ here, obviously, since you can't understand Taoism without studying it) rejected education and science as driving a wedge between the "self" and sincere action. Buddhism, shorn of institutional baggage like one sometimes finds in the religion's organized forms, conveys the same message. That they are right is indicated by the physical and psychological benefits that stem from meditation."

Well, then, Mormonism can also be deemed "right" by the physical and psychological benefits that stem from Mormon practice. Psychology of itself cannot either dictate or support metaphysical truth, or confirm metaphysical claims. You need facts, reason and logic for that! Didn't your experience of Mormonism teach us that? Apparently not!
_____________________________________________

"So yes, the sublime arises as much from the heart as the mind. Bach speaks through both media, as do the great artists. And the human capacity for joy should not be quelled either by the rejection of formal religion or the excessive elevation of the mind--for example, it doesn't make sense to choose a romantic partner by their resume because love is a matter of the heart. So too life."

I am O.K. with all of this--because you dropped all of the Taoist metaphysical baggage (i.e. nonsense) What does ANY Eastern philosophy add to this? Nothing! And remember, what is left to be explained here is the nature of human beings such that they have such transcendent experiences. What is consciousness? What is the Self? You do not either answer or respect such questions through a metaphysic that dismisses the ego-centric self in favor of some mystical metaphysical "oneness."

I'm not afraid of falling back into belief, because I finally came to realize that I was not drawn to belief in the first place. It was the "friendshipping" that attracted me during a very vulnerable time, after 17 years in an abusive marriage and flailing to stay afloat in a job I was never meant to do.

I met the nicest people, was invited to any number of fun (and yet, booze and cigarette-free!!) get-togethers. Over the years, I have come to realize why at least part of this beginning was so: It took place in the deep South. In that whole group, there was ONE member from SLC, and she was a delightful person. Most were converts. There was a breezy, inclusive feeling about the group that I had never experienced.

It was like one big, extended family, where everybody knew everybody else's business. One family I felt very close to had 7 children. The 3-year-old, a dark-eyed charmer named Adam, was my particular buddy. One Friday night, fairly late, I got a phone call from the RS President, telling me that while the mother was still in the hospital after the birth of #7, the father was involved in a terrible car accident and had to be hospitalized himself. One of the grandmothers would be there in a day or two, but could I spend a night or two with the kids until she arrived?

Sure I could. I knew all of the kids by name. They knew that I was very fond of them. We had pizza for dinner and watched a rented video (an appropriate one, of course) and had a great time. We also shared some spiritual time. We went around in a circle and said prayers for the recoveries of Mom and Dad, as well as for the new baby.

One of the grandmas arrived by mid-day on Saturday and was very appreciative of my help.

It wasn't the religion. It was the down-to-earth decency of those people. I have often wondered whether I would still be in the church if I hadn't had to move, with my job, to New Mexico, so much closer to the Zion Curtain.

After the warmth and closeness of my first ward, I was shocked by the caste system and cliquishness in the new one. They were a lot more rigid in their classes, too. There were no questions; there was always only One Right Answer.

It didn't take long to find the EXIT sign.

Let's take the last question first:

"Does that make sense?"

Answer: No! But then, is it supposed to?
__________________________________________

"Of course there are religions that let you focus on the numinous without either God or dogma. Those are the a-cognitive ones, the ones that focus on praxis; they are Taoism and Buddhism."

What is "the numinous" as a concept divorced from religious-type metaphysical connotations? In these traditions, it is the metaphysics of "oneness" (as applied to the universe as a whole); and the "praxis" is mediation that leads to a transcendent experience of this oneness and the dissolution of the ego; and a more passive attitude about suffering. (I will leave it to you to provide the mystical concepts and details.)

So, it is true that there is no personal God here; but there most certainly is dogma! It is just a dogma that is indefinable in ordinary language and is mystical in character. In short, metaphysical 'mysticism' is the dogma!
_________________________________________

"They are atheistic and offer no purported explanations for the suffering in the world and hence no hypocrisy, no raised and dashed hopes. And they don't recognize an us/them dichotomy that invites parochialism and hatred."

Well, they offer no explanations period! It is just a simple, "Do it and you'll understand" philosophy. And, of course, if you do it and yet don't understand, you didn't do it right, or didn't do it enough. Once you add "institutionalization"--through popular books, gurus, medication groups and retreats, etc. you have got yourself a full-blown cult--just like with any other "dogmatic" religion. Except now, you have dismissed all systematic, quasi-rational explanation in favor of incoherent mysticism. Talk about throwing the baby (rationalism) out with the bath water (Mormonism)!
________________________________________________

Finally, I have read all sorts of accounts of popular efforts to "explain" Eastern religion generally, and Taoism and Buddhism particularly; with logical, rational, language. But, all of these efforts--by their own admission--fail to capture the essence of this "system of thought." More importantly, none of them provide any insight as to the nature of reality, or the nature of human beings within that reality--except presumably as ego-driven machines. The fact that a practicing meditator can 'transcend' his or her ego, and experience an egoless universal 'center' says absolutely nothing about any corresponding reality. After all, according to James Austin, it remains just a personal, subjective, experience of the brain. (See, Austin, J., *Zen and the Brain*) But it *does* say quite a bit about the *essential* nature of the human self; one that can voluntarily (free will) direct such an ego-driven effort. To then abandon the ontological self that made the effort in the first place in favor of some holistic metaphysics, strikes me as absurd.

(Sorry to disrupt your discussion with EB)

G. Salviati Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> (Sorry to disrupt your discussion with EB)

You didn't.

I’m not afraid of falling back into Mormonism. But I miss my belief in Jesus as regular guy yet an exemplar of kindness and humanity that hadn’t been recorded to such an extent before or since.

This morning I saw a painting of Him that brought those feelings back to me.

Well, then my evil plan to make you believe in Mormonism failed then. :(

It failed hard, EB. :D

We all have to ‘believe’ in something, in a universe that’s 96% ‘dark matter/energy’ (for lack of a better description). We might as well think of them as The ‘cosmological constant’ (What Einstein called his greatest blunder, which turned out to be his greatest scientific revelation.)

This sounds like an add for a dark matter/energy supplement.

I’m not a scientist so I have to ‘believe’ what scientists I trust to tell me what the evidence they discover means.
How is that any different from ‘belief’ when they can’t account for 96% of the universe without throwing in a 96% fudge factor into their equations?

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How is that any different from ‘belief’ when
> they can’t account for 96% of the universe
> without throwing in a 96% fudge factor into their
> equations?

Just because a lot is known and quantified doesn't mean inquiry is like beliefs of which little is proven true. That is why they are beliefs. It is the starting point. Curiosity and inquiry are both part of religions and science but are nothing like each other in these different realms.

One needs to be very comfortable with not knowing in science. It is a requirement.