(apologies. When I started writing this a few days ago I figured "1 hour, 1000 words." Just a heads up, it ended up being 3200+ words. --Holy T)

Moroni 10:3-5:

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.


Believers in the Book of Mormon read the above passage at the end of the final chapter of the book, and interpret it to mean that it is possible for the reader to pray about the Book in order to find out, directly from the Holy Ghost, whether the Book of Mormon is true.

As we already know, there are one or two issues with the passage referred to as Moroni’s Promise or Moroni’s Challenge, so I decided to compile all the ones I could think of in a single place. Consequently, this might (probably will) turn out rather long.

1. It is to the Lamanites only
In my ever so humble opinion, this consideration alone invalidates Moroni’s Promise. In Verse 1, Moroni informs the reader that he is not addressing the general readership, and starts the Chapter by saying “[n]ow I, Moroni, write somewhat as seemeth me good; and I write unto my brethren, the Lamanites..."

In verse 23 he is still speaking solely to the Lamanites ("And Christ truly said unto our fathers…") and does not return to the general audience until verse 24 when he “speak[s] unto all the ends of the earth..."

When speaking to the general readership, the author doesn’t seem to require the same high standard as laid out for the Lamanites, because for the general readership (verse 28) “…God shall show unto you, that that which I have written is true.”

When read in context, we discover that Moroni’s Promise is a promise only to Lamanites. And considering that, even if they once existed, they have essentially disappeared (especially from LDS publications and discourse).

If we “liken the scriptures unto ourselves” and presume that the promise applies to non-Lamanites we are interpolating something that is not warranted by the Book of Mormon, and simply reading a meaning that we’d like to be true into the passages.


2. There is no reason to accept the promise as legitimate unless you already accept the BoM as legit

If, upon reaching the final chapter of the final book of the Harry Potter series, you found a passage that claimed that if you prayed about the Harry Potter books, the spirit of Dumbledore would let you know that it’s true, would you do it? Of course not, but why not? Because you have no reason to believe that the Harry Potter series is true. Why would you accept a promise or a challenge from a character for whom you had no reason to think is anything other than fictional? You would not.

Yet upon reaching the final chapter of the Book of Mormon, many people do pray to find out if it is true. Why pray about Moroni’s Promise when you would not extend the same courtesy to Dubledore’s Promise? The reader must have already accepted the idea that Moroni is somehow less fictional than Dumbledore.
The very act of making that prayer requires that the person accept that the author is likely not fictional, and Book of Mormon is what it claims.

3. Takes advantage of Cognitive Dissonance
Leon Festinger’s theory of Cognitive Dissonance says, in a simplified nutshell, that we do not like it when our attitudes and beliefs contradict with (i) other attitudes and beliefs or (ii) behaviors, so we try to change an attitude/belief or an attitude so that they are in harmony (or consonance).

Interestingly, it turns out that when an attitude/belief is in conflict with a behavior, people are more likely to change the attitude/belief than behavior. So if, for example, I believe smoking is bad for me, and yet I smoke, I am more likely to downplay my belief in the harmful effects of smoking than I am to quit. Or if I believe that sex before marriage is a sin, and I can’t keep it in my pants? I am more likely to give up my attitude regarding the sinfulness of premarital sex than I am to stop foolin’ around.

A further example from Boyd K. Packer—A testimony is found in the bearing of it… You don’t have a testimony? Well bear your testimony anyway until you have one. Yeah…you better believe that as a professionally trained educator, Boyd K. was familiar with Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory…

Now apply this to Moroni’s Promise. You have the attitude that you desire the Book of Mormon to be true, you have the behavior of praying to know if the book is true, but you also have the belief that you don’t know if the book is true. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which is likely to change.

Consequently (and ever so frustratingly), even if the Book of Mormon is entirely a work of fiction, if one desires the book to be true, and prays to know if it is true, Cognitive Dissonance Theory suggests that that person’s belief will change in the affirmative.

4. Relies on subjective emotions
The evidence for the Book of Mormon is, by all accounts, a feeling—an internal, quantitative, subjective feeling. An emotion. In order to accept the legitimacy of Moroni’s Promise, we have to accept the existence of what I call Internal Truth Detectors (ITD’s). We have to assume that humans have an internal faculty for detecting supernatural or spiritual truth.
Don’t get me started!

a. Emotions don’t carry semantic content
Feelings don’t convey the right sort of information that would be required to judge truth. They might tell you “I love the book,” “I was frightened by the book,” or “the book is a painful bore” but will not tell you anything about its correspondence to external reality.

If I say “I love my son,” that feeling tells me about my feelings about my son, but tells me nothing about my son himself. Feelings tell you about your subjective perception of something, but not objective information about the thing itself.

b. There is no reason to believe in ITD’s.
Well maybe your faith has told you that you have a spiritual truth detector, but then, you would not accept that proposition unless you have already accepted the set of propositions that contains it. In other words, one would not believe in an internal truth detector, unless one is already disposed to believe religious propositions.

c. The feelings are left undefined, therefore anything counts as an answer.
The feelings that one might experience upon accepting Moroni’s Challenge are subjective, qualitative, internal, and ineffable

(ineffable—imagine that I have never tasted pineapple. Could you taste it and describe it to me in such a way that I would know what pineapple tastes like. No? Because of its internal subjective nature, it cannot be conveyed using words. It is ineffable.)

Because of the above characteristics, it is impossible to define just what the feeling in question ought to be. So in practice, when someone prays about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, whatever sensation they experience (whether it is peace, excitement, sadness (at not learning it earlier), warmth, a tingle, virtually anything), it can be interpreted (especially with the guidance of a helpful missionary) as the witness of the Holy Ghost.

d. No test to distinguish ordinary emotions from ITD’s
As believers and non-believers alike have noted, the feelings associated with the ostensive witness of the Holy Ghost, are indistinguishable from feelings experienced while looking at a majestic waterfall, holding your child, watching a Disney movie, hearing a moving choir, etc, etc. Discouragingly, the Lord has seen fit to judge you and I according to whether we believe and act upon the right set of propositions, even though He has offered no reliable guideline for adjudicating between real supernatural feelings and ordinary natural feelings.

e. No way to compare with those of others.
Our brothers and sisters in different faiths also believe that they have reliable internal truth detectors. They believe with a certainty equal to that of the LDS that their cherished set of propositions is in fact the correct one.

For the true believer, the only reasonable inference is that only the ITD’s of the LDS are accurate, everybody else’s must be faulty, or they must be mistaking ordinary emotions for the witness of the spirit.

The problem with this inference is that when one considers that the experiences in question are subjective, qualitative, internal, and ineffable, it is literally impossible to do a comparison between the experiences of any two individuals to see if once feels more valid, feels more truthish. If it impossible to do a comparison between such feelings, it is impossible to say that my feelings are better truth detectors than are your feelings.

5. Only supposed to try it on BoM

Let’s say, hypothetically, that I have never tried drinking a soda pop, and I decide to try it to find out which is my favorite. The first one you hand me is a root beer and I love it. If I were to exclaim “This is the one! I don’t need to try any others, this is my favorite!” how would you react? Would I be silly for thinking I like it better than all the ones I have never tasted?

I try Moroni’s Promise, and I get an emotion that I interpret as the witness of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true. That fact alone is no indication that I won’t get exactly the same feeling if I were to pray about the Quran, or the writings of Mary Baker Eddy or Ellen White, or the Vedas, or Dianetics, or the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or the Bhagavad Gita, etc., etc.
The only reason to try it on the Book of Mormon and then stop the search, is that you are already predisposed to believe the Book of Mormon. In which case, Moroni’s Promise hardly constitutes a legitimate test. It amounts to “I’m going to pray about it, and whatever I feel means that it’s true. Then I’ll never try it on another text.

6. Why would it even occur to Moroni to suggest praying to find out if it’s true?

This seems fishy to me. Moroni, like his father Mormon, is, amongst things, a historian. As a historian, he would presume that the record he is providing would itself be the evidence of the history of his people. If he has dedicated a large portion of his life to preserving the evidence of the Book of Mormon people, why would he include an odd instruction to pray, essentially for evidence of what he has just provided evidence for?

You might counter that the Book provides a history of the people, but the purpose of the Book of Mormon is to bring people to Christ. That might very well be a stated purpose of the book, but Moroni’s Promise doesn’t ask the reader to pray about whether Jesus is real, or if Jesus is the savior. It only asks the reader to pray about whether the book is true.


7. So many qualifiers

A clever tactic used by the author of Moroni’s promise is to load it with quatifiers. When praying to find out if the Book of Mormon is true, the seeker has to

(i) remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men
(an odd criterion—keep in mind that God is merciful? Why not keep in mind that God can answer prayers? That would make more sense)

(ii) from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things,
(For serious? In order to get an answer, you need to keep in mind the entirety of human civilization. That’s a bit of a tall order)

(iii) and ponder it in your hearts.
(if you don’t get the right answer you might not have pondered enough, or the right aspects of all of human history)

(iv) I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ
(the ball is in your court. Do it correctly. Don’t pray to Jesus, only to the Father, in His name. If you do it wrong, it might not work).

(v) and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart,
(left undefined, you have to really really really want to know. If you didn’t get an answer, it doesn’t mean the book is not true, maybe you just were not sincere enough)

(vi) with real intent
(again, undefined. If you don’t get answer, it does not mean the book is not true, just maybe your intent was a bit wonky)

(vii) having faith in Christ
(Right. In order to know whether I should believe this one supernatural claim, I already have to have a prior supernatural claim preparing the way for it.)

Because of this long list of criteria, there is always room for doubt about any negative answer. If one does not get the affirmative, it is always possible that the seeker failed on one or more of the ambiguous criteria listed in the promise. So, the affirmative will always mean it is true, but the negative does not mean it is not true.

This allows the believer in the Book of Mormon to cherry pick the potential supporting evidence.

Hypothetical thought experiment:
Let’s say some intrepid researchers were able to survey every seeker who accepted Moroni’s Challenge and prayed about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Let’s further say that the results were 1 in 10. 10% of our hypothetical seekers believe they receive an affirmative answer to their prayer and accept the truth claims of the Book of Mormon. This leaves 90% feeling nothing, or feeling that the book is not what it claims.

If this hypothetical study were carried out, and the results handed to believers in the Book of Mormon, how would they interpret it? It wouldn’t matter. One of the reasons is that the list of qualifiers in the promise give a handy way of dismissing any counter evidence. So the believer is in the enviable position of being able to accept any confirming evidence as proof that the book is true, while dismissing the counter evidence as irrelevant.

8. Are they *not* true?
Just between you and me, internet, this seems to be a nod and a wink from the actual author of the Book or Moroni.

“I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true…”
Ask if they are NOT true.

(if anybody tries to argue that this is Popperian Falsifiability, I might have to track you down and punch you in the duodenum)

If you ask if these things are NOT true, and you get a “yes” answer, then the answer is “yes, they are not true.” If, on the other hand you get a “no” answer, then your answer is “no, they are not true.”

Nudge nudge, wink wink.


9. In what sense is it true?

a. The book is wrong on flora and fauna, silk, steel, etc

b. It’s ambiguous enough that its central claims can’t even be pinned down—where did it happen? Was the land empty? Are modern day Indians of the House of Israel?

c. The theological claims are basically biblical, or unrelated to Mormonism?

d. There are changes in the book. And some are significant. It initially taught a concept of God that was much closer to Trinitarian, before being changed to reflect the tripartite Godhead of later Mormonism. That is not a grammatical change, it is a change in bedrock doctrine.

So what? Mistranslations? Misinterpretations? In the most correct book in the world? If horses and elephants and silk and geography are so easily misunderstood, what’s to say the theology of the book is not equally misunderstood?

The book says some very straightforward things. It is extremely unambiguous that the Jaredites and Lehites were guided to a land with nobody else there. There are multiple passages that are clear on this matter. However, after evidence started to accumulate that this claim was untenable, apologists discovered that a “closer reading” “implied” that there were already inhabitants there. If very clear and straightforward claims of the Book of Mormon can be revised upon a “closer” reading, what’s to say that the theological claims are not equally ambiguous.

The “truth” of the BoM is a moving target, is vacuous, and amounts to nothing more than the warm fuzzies unrelated to anything in external reality.

10. Most people don’t even read it prior to praying about it.

This one comes from my own missionary experiences. The norm, at least in my mission, was to have the shortest space of time possible between first contact and baptism. The standard discussions we used tried to get us to commit the investigators (‘gators) to baptism on the second lesson. However, “if guided by the spirit” we were to try to commit them to baptism on the first discussion.

(aside: on my first night knocking on doors, we met a family, and I committed to baptism on the first discussion. I thought “Man, this mission thing is gonna be a breeze…")

Because we were trying make the conversion process happen in such a short time frame, it was standard practice to get our ‘gators to pray about the Book of Mormon after reading only a few chapters. Usually 3rd Nephi 11 (when Jesus visits the Nephites), or if we were feeling ambitious, 3rd Nephi 11-26 (the entire visit of Jesus to the Nephites), and of course Moroni 10: 3-5 (not the whole chapter, I see why now…).

So even if our ‘gators accepted Moroni’s challenge and received an affirmative response, they still had no clue what they were claiming to believe to be true. They said, in effect, “I don’t know what the content is, but I believe it to be true."

11. Innoculates against evidence.

The “proof” of the Book of Mormon is entirely independent of geography, geology, linguistics, population genetics, DNA, or even (as pointed out in point 10) the content of the Book of Mormon. It is instead dependent upon the supposition that you have better Internal Truth Detectors than everybody who disagrees with you.

As a result, counter-evidence has no effect on ones testimony of the book. Every time there is counter-evidence, the believer can simply fall back upon his or her “spiritual witness” and confidently dismiss any and all criticisms of the Book of Mormon.

Holy T.

I'm going to stash it in my files for future reference.

Absolutely brilliant!

May I post this on my website at packham.n4m.org (with attribution to you, of course)?

I would take it as a compliment.

RPackham wrote:

>Absolutely brilliant! May I post this on my website at packham.n4m.org (with attribution to you, of course)?

holytheghost Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would take it as a compliment.

Thanks! It will be up in the next couple of days!

Curious--did you post it? And if you did, is it in a place where readers leave comments?

If the Book of Mormon is the "most correct book on earth" as Joseph claimed, heaven help us. And contrary to what he further claimed, it is in no way the "keystone of [the Mormon] religion". TSCC doctrine and teaching are far removed from the simple Christian gospel found therein.

I fully agree with your posting. I guess I never asked "with real intent" since I never received the promised manifestation of the Holy Ghost. My naive 1960's "testimony of the truth of the BoM" was primarily based on the evidence presented by Milton R. Hunter and Thomas Stuart Ferguson whose writings I used on my mission to win dozens of converts. I later came to realize that my testimony was actually built on quicksand and I never really had a testimony of it at all.

GREAT thoughts here! (as well as wonderful, flowing writing style!) I bow down to you, Holy the Ghost, and will also save your words....

Excellent. But really the first point says it all. You have to believe that some bizarre fiction is actually real in order to "take the challenge" in the first place. So even the act of asking means you've already convinced yourself that it is real.

If any of us, knowing it is very poor fiction, took the challenge, it would be nada. In fact, it was nada for me even when I did think it was possibly true. The BOM is exactly as real as Harry Potter. And I'll guarantee you that if anyone really believes Harry Potter is real and sincerely prays for a confirmation, they will likely get it. It's a common psychological phenomenon called elevation. You learn about it in Psych 101.

<<6. Why would it even occur to Moroni to suggest praying to find out if it’s true?

This seems fishy to me.>>

Yeah, it's the con man saying "Trust me."

Stray Mutt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> <<6. Why would it even occur to Moroni to suggest
> praying to find out if it’s true?
>
> This seems fishy to me.>>
>
> Yeah, it's the con man saying "Trust me."


exactly!!

why oh why put that in there..unless the author knew it was made up

The author of this chapter uses this very tactic twice. In both verse 26 and 27 he says "I lie not."

I also thought that was odd. I did the promise on my own and got my answer... but years later I thought it was kinda fishy that he did that. Why didn't the bible have that in the end? If it was true, then why does Moroni even need you to pray about it being true?

It's a totally loaded question when you read verse 3. Just another one of JS's tricks.

There's also a circularity involved.

The BOM is supposed to be "a testament of Christ" etc. But, for
it to work, you already have to have "faith in Christ." In
other words it seems to be written to convince those who already
have faith in Christ that they should have faith in Christ.

I answered all these things long ago.

(Wow! If I was an apologist I'd feel great right now!)

But you're right; when I was in High School my history book didn't have a section at the end asking me to pray if was true--the guys who wrote it supposedly did their research to get it right in the first place; if there was any doubt of its veracity, then I *might* suspect they'd say: "Trust us, would we make this shit up?"

"I answered all these things long ago."

Before I got to the 2nd line I was chuckling at your faux apologetics.

I'm always impressed with what intelligent people are on RfM. This post is so well written!

I'm devastatingly handsome too!

Something additional about the "Lamanite" portion of the "promise": why would the Lamanites need to pray about whether this story was true?

A. They're the frikkin' Lamanites! They should know (at least most) of their own history, especially if it involved several major genocidal battles and the appearance of a space alien...errrr...the Son of God.

B. If they are so Dark and Loathsome, and have turned away from the Light of Christ, why does he even bother to spend half of Chapter 10 lecturing them on Jesus and God. OK, I guess it makes sense to take one last shot at proselytizing them, but that leads me to...

C. If they are so Dark and Loathsome, and are a bunch of warlike/layabout manner of -ites (take your pick) haven't they probably lost the ability to read reformed Egyptian??

I'm sure apologists and TBM's would say that for a while they were co-mixed Christians until things fell apart that one last time but now you know the things I think about out in the garden.....

They're not praying to find out if it's true. They're praying to find out if it's not true. That's the tricky verbiage that makes all the difference.

4. Relies on subjective emotions.

The evidence for the Book of Mormon is, by all accounts, a feeling—an internal, quantitative, subjective feeling. An emotion.

COMMENT: No. It is cognitive impression, not an emotion. It is typically characterized as "pure knowledge," which is quite different from the standard emotions.
________________________________________

In order to accept the legitimacy of Moroni’s Promise, we have to accept the existence of what I call Internal Truth Detectors (ITD’s). We have to assume that humans have an internal faculty for detecting supernatural or spiritual truth.

COMMENT: This does not work. First, as indicated, an ITD is distinct from an emotion. We know this because presumably human beings have a faculty for "detecting" truth, which is nothing more than a mental impression that some fact is true. This is not the same as an emotion, such as anger, love, etc. The "revelation" referenced in the BoM could be characterized as just such a cognitive impression not involving emotion.
__________________________________________________

b. There is no reason to believe in ITD’s.
Well maybe your faith has told you that you have a spiritual truth detector, but then, you would not accept that proposition unless you have already accepted the set of propositions that contains it. In other words, one would not believe in an internal truth detector, unless one is already disposed to believe religious propositions.

COMMENT: A (smart) religious person would not differentiate between a "spiritual truth detector" and a "human truth detector." It is simply a human capacity to ascertain truth; i.e. to have a cognitive impression (fallible of course) that some fact is true. Where the distinction comes is not in the nature of the impression, but its source. A religious person might claim God as the source. But even scientists have repeatedly noted spontaneous "revelations" that a given idea or theory was true, without identifying a "supernatural" source.
____________________________________________________

c. The feelings are left undefined, therefore anything counts as an answer.
The feelings that one might experience upon accepting Moroni’s Challenge are subjective, qualitative, internal, and ineffable.

COMMENT: No. The cognitive impression associated with "revelation" is not left undefined. The meaning is that the Book of Mormon is true; that is the assigned meaning. The problem is that such impressions are notoriously subject to error and external influences. But, the impression is there, and at the time, the meaning is clear. Most exMormons can recall such "revelations." In rejecting Mormonism, it is not because we came to the conclusion that we did not have such impressions, but rather that the impressions we had did not stand up to scrutiny as an indicator of "truth."
___________________________________________

(ineffable—imagine that I have never tasted pineapple. Could you taste it and describe it to me in such a way that I would know what pineapple tastes like. No? Because of its internal subjective nature, it cannot be conveyed using words. It is ineffable.)

COMMENT: Does that mean that the pineapple has no taste after all? Of course not. Similarly, the fact that a person's "revelation" experience was subjective, does not belie the fact that the impression was real. Moreover, it does not necessarily mean that the impression was false.
___________________________________

Because of the above characteristics, it is impossible to define just what the feeling in question ought to be. So in practice, when someone prays about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, whatever sensation they experience (whether it is peace, excitement, sadness (at not learning it earlier), warmth, a tingle, virtually anything), it can be interpreted (especially with the guidance of a helpful missionary) as the witness of the Holy Ghost.

COMMENT: Not the feeling, but the impression. And it is easy to define. The impression to be expected is that the Book of Mormon is true. If some emotion comes with it, that is subsidiary to the impression.
____________________________________

d. No test to distinguish ordinary emotions from ITD’s
As believers and non-believers alike have noted, the feelings associated with the ostensive witness of the Holy Ghost, are indistinguishable from feelings experienced while looking at a majestic waterfall, holding your child, watching a Disney movie, hearing a moving choir, etc, etc.

COMMENT: No. There is indeed a clear distinction. Your insistence that a "revelation" is indistinguishable from an emotion is just not true by most accounts of such revelations. Again, it is a cognitive impression that some proposed fact is true. This has nothing whatever to do with your examples, which do not involve a claimed impression that information has been received.
_________________________________________

The problem with this inference is that when one considers that the experiences in question are subjective, qualitative, internal, and ineffable, it is literally impossible to do a comparison between the experiences of any two individuals to see if once feels more valid, feels more truthish. If it impossible to do a comparison between such feelings, it is impossible to say that my feelings are better truth detectors than are your feelings.

COMMENT: No. You subject such claims and impressions to logical and empirical analysis, and make a judgment as to their validity. At one time I had impressions that Mormonism was "true." Later, upon subjecting such impressions to rational scrutiny I determined that they did not reflect truth after all. Notwithstanding, the impressions themselves were not emotions, they simply encompassed information that turned out to be false, just like many of our ordinary impressions, religious or otherwise. And since such impressions turned out to be false, then we might doubt whether any such impressions come from God. But it makes no sense to deny the impressions, or deny they have content; or insist that it was all just emotion. They were just false impressions of truth. A cognitive mistake. It is as simple as that.

"No. It is cognitive impression"

- I think we are going to disagree on this point. The seeker will likely attribute cognitive significance or semantic content to the feeling, but the typical description from the true believer still amounts to an internal qualitative subjective sensation.

"COMMENT: A (smart) religious person would not differentiate between a "spiritual truth detector" and a "human truth detector." It is simply a human capacity to ascertain truth; i.e. to have a cognitive impression (fallible of course) that some fact is true. Where the distinction comes is not in the nature of the impression, but its source. A religious person might claim God as the source. But even scientists have repeatedly noted spontaneous "revelations" that a given idea or theory was true, without identifying a "supernatural" source."

--I think we agree on this point. However, scientists, artists, philosophers often have aha moments. However, I'd suggest that a supernatural attribution is an unwarranted interpolation.

"COMMENT: No. The cognitive impression associated with "revelation" is not left undefined. The meaning is that the Book of Mormon is true; that is the assigned meaning. The problem is that such impressions are notoriously subject to error and external influences. But, the impression is there, and at the time, the meaning is clear. Most exMormons can recall such "revelations." In rejecting Mormonism, it is not because we came to the conclusion that we did not have such impressions, but rather that the impressions we had did not stand up to scrutiny as an indicator of "truth."

--the sensation is left undefined. The cognitive significance attributed to is not. With that proviso, I think we are in agreement regarding the rest of your comment.

"COMMENT: Does that mean that the pineapple has no taste after all? Of course not. Similarly, the fact that a person's "revelation" experience was subjective, does not belie the fact that the impression was real. Moreover, it does not necessarily mean that the impression was false."

--I was not making a point here other than to give a quick example of the meaning of ineffability. I agree that the ineffability of experiences has no relationship with the reality of those experiences.

"COMMENT: No. There is indeed a clear distinction. Your insistence that a "revelation" is indistinguishable from an emotion is just not true by most accounts of such revelations. Again, it is a cognitive impression that some proposed fact is true. This has nothing whatever to do with your examples, which do not involve a claimed impression that information has been received.

--like I said above, we'll just disagree on this. I think that someone who claims cognitive or semantic content is simply imposing that content onto a subjective experience.

"No. You subject such claims and impressions to logical and empirical analysis."

--I'm not quite sure what you mean here, so I might agree with you. If you are talking about the claims derived from the experience--for example, the Book or Mormon is historically accurate--then absolutely, those claims ought to be subjected to empirical and logical scrutiny. That wasn't quite the point I was making though. My point was that the experience of using ones ITD's cannot be compared with that of another person. I stand by that claim.


BTW Henry, I'll be busy again for the next week so if you make any further comments I likely won't reply. If that is the case I'll leave you with the last word.

There is a distinction to be made when considering Mormon "spiritual experiences." There is a conversion experience, such that the person receives "information" that the Church is true. In this experience, the person clearly does have a cognitive impression having content, as I described above. The impression is simply that Mormonism (meaning its theological claims) is true. In Moroni's challenge, this is the promised experience, "He will manifest the truth of it unto you."

A second type of spiritual experience is when in a given context someone "feels the spirit." I would agree that here the experience is akin to an emotion, and interpretation and content is often added to the experience. But this is not what Moroni is talking about.

My point is that in all fairness we should avoid characterizing and explaining away Mormon conversion experiences as simply emotion. Judging by reports of such experiences, the conversion experience is (again) a cognitive impression that a proposition (Mormonism) is true. Such an impression is no different that any other type of impression that some proposition is true. As such, assessing its validity is best accomplished not by challenging the experience itself (by insisting that it is merely emotion), but by challenging whether such an impression withstands rational scrutiny, and by pointing out the simple fact that sometimes such impressions are false.

Henry, are you suggesting that there is a qualitative difference in the cognitive impressions that your purported ITD identifies as true vs. those it identifies as false? Or is the difference between true and false "quantitative" (for lack of a better term), ie. merely in the force with which the impression strikes us?

1) You desire that it is true
2) You pray/meditate that it is true
3) You confine your research to the book itself, and to the missionaries. You don't look for external, unbiased sources to verify it.
4) Any external sources that deny the Book are deemed "anti-Mormon" or "Satan".
5) You dwell on it for a sufficient period of time to internalize it.

Using this formula, of wanting something to be true, dwelling on it enough, and cherry picking evidences, will result in you believing anything you set your heart and mind to.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2015 11:45AM by axeldc.

I wish I had read your post 35 years ago. It would have saved me about 20 years of struggle with unanswered prayers for a witness of the Book of Mormon.

I was a true believer, but didn't get an 'answer' or really any variation in my feelings when I prayed about it. But I thought about many of the questions you posed (though not so clearly). How could I tell if a feeling was just a feeling, or was it an answer? How could I know if I felt a certain way because I just WANTED it to be true?

Now, looking back, I think I sensed that the praying about the Book of Mormon was a subjective way of determining if it was true. Part of me wondered if I already knew it was true (one of the lines church people use on you when you don't get an answer). But I never felt confident enough about it to bear testimony of it. It would have felt like a lie. Ultimately, I decided that the promise that God would "manifest the truth of it unto you" would be a clear event.

If something is made manifest, it's obvious. It had NOT been made manifest to me, or I wouldn't be questioning whether it happened or not.

When I finally faced up to the fact that Moroni's promise had NOT been fulfilled, and stopped blaming myself for it, I started questioning the whole church.

Since leaving, I've found that many other people felt the same way I did. But we never shared those frustrations at church. Everyone feels like they are the only one, because Mormons don't talk about their doubts publicly.

Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones, not getting a 'testimony'. It would be even harder to leave if you felt like you were denying your testimony.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2015 12:02PM by imaworkinonit.

So concise and well-written. Thanks for sharing this thread.

You put into words the problems I had with Moroni's Promise and then some. The Promise always gave me a big migraine to be told that the BofM was THE GOLDEN BIBLE of truth for this day and age, that it was given directly by GOD to the blessed Saints to share with the whole wide world, AND THEN be told at the end of the book that I must follow certain rules to verify the importance and truthfulness of this book???

Seriously???????



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2015 09:50PM by presleynfactsrock.

Yes, reading, pondering it, trying hard enough, wanting it bad enough, believing it first, following all of the rules are all pre-conditions to get an answer. But no matter how hard they try, if someone doesn't get an answer, it's always THEIR fault.

But really, if God actually WANTED people to get a testimony it, why would he make it so hard to get an answer?

Basically, mid-30s, I realized that I had promised EVERYTHING to the church in the temple. I did anything I was asked, including a couple of callings that I should have turned down because they were NOT good for me. And. Yet. God couldn't be bothered to answer my prayers even ONE time about the B of M, and keep HIS promise of personal revelation so I would know the that path I was on, and what I was teaching my children was the correct path.

Moroni's promise is just double bind. They never say "if you don't get an answer, then I guess this isn't the church for you." If you believe it at all, you are caught whether you get an answer or not. If you do get an answer, you must remain faithful. If you don't get an answer, maybe you didn't ask just right, and you have to keep trying.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2015 12:23AM by imaworkinonit.

Fascinating... There are so many blatant statements by Joseph Smith that scream: fraudulent!

This should be a permanent document at RfM and elsewhere.

There is a new Infants on Thrones podcast, an interview with REAL scholars about the BoM. I'm listening now.

Thanks holytheghost, you rock! (in an invisible sort of way...)