Posted by:
Tom Padley
(
)
Date: July 28, 2014 01:01AM
An earlier post talked about a doubting member who visits historical church sites and gets a witness of the "truth" via the Holy Ghost. That made me think back to a psychology class and a scientist named Pavlov. He experimented with a group of dogs by ringing a bell whenever the dogs were fed. After a period of time the dogs would automatically start salivating whenever the bell was rung, whether there was food or not. The response was created by their conditioning, not by the real food. My theory is that the person mentioned above received a witness of the HG through a conditioned response learned by longterm activity in the church. A person hears testimonies and thinks they need to have the same emotional response that members of the congregation exhibit. Then the individual begins to actually feel that same emotional response. After years of this conditioning any mention of a church related topic, or in this case visiting a historical site, an emotional response is triggered. Voila, there is an automatic connection to what we are told is the witness of the HG, when in reality this is not an actual witness via the spirit, it's only a response engrained into our psyche. Visiting the Sacred Grove triggers an emotional response. Visiting Nauvoo triggers an emotional response. That’s why the bearing of testimonies is so important in TSCC because it validates that longterm conditioning. Any thoughts about this theory?