Posted by rpcman on March 05, 1999 at 11:12:53:
In Reply to: Feelings, wo wo wo, feelings... posted by Heisenberg on March 04, 1999 at 19:24:03:
At least you've thought this thing through!
I remember being told that the way to gain a 'testimony' was to recite what you wanted to believe as your beliefs over and over again. This worked for a while until I also wanted to follow the honesty portion of Article of Faith #13.
Regarding your statement that "I have had experiences, including specific answers to prayers and instances of inspiration, that to me have been so powerful and so clearly not coincidental as to constitute sufficient proof to say I “know” there is a God."...
In order to count these experiences as 'knowledge' do you also have to discount or otherwise forget all the instances when the answers and inspiration weren't there? Or perhaps do you ever wonder if your own desires may be causing the answers and/or inspiration?
If such is the case then I'd argue that you still can't count isolated experiences as 'knowledge' (per your definition) of God since they aren't your cumulative experiences--nor is there any repeatable or verifiable experiment that can be inacted that show that the feelings are coming from an external source.
I do appreciate your thoughtfulness on the matter.
You may find the end of the following message to be of interest: