Life’s Lessons

Fascinating quote. I’ll have to consider it more fully.

In this quote it’s obvious that True does not equal Factual. I think True takes on a personal meaning, something of significance to somebody. While all things are not true to all people – it’s more than likely true to someone somewhere. Again, this doesn’t mean that it’s factual – but if it’s meaningful it has a sort of bond, it’s an emotional/spiritual connection that I believe we enhance with our fellow men when we try to understand the meaning of their personal views and experience.

Just my thoughts on it anyway.

If you’re puzzled by the idea try going back to Elder Oaks talk on “Testimony” from a couple conferences back, and read it with this idea in mind:

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=8502558fcc599110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1

“What do we mean when we testify and say that we know the gospel is true? Contrast that kind of knowledge with “I know it is cold outside” or “I know I love my wife.” These are three different kinds of knowledge, each learned in a different way. Knowledge of outside temperature can be verified by scientific proof. Knowledge that we love our spouse is personal and subjective. While not capable of scientific proof, it is still important. The idea that all important knowledge is based on scientific evidence is simply untrue.”

(Oops, catch the paradox? The idea that important knowledge is based on scientific evidence is probably true to some people, but definitely not factual in all cases.)

Very good thoughts everyone.

I agree that all learning is of value even if it’s not factual. If nothing else it refines our abilities to distinguish “truth.” Truth has always been one of my heterodox views in Mormonism, even from an early age. Is it true that killing someone is wrong? What about Nephi? Those were the kinds of questions I often asked.

To me, some of the distinction is in reality. As Elder Oaks implied, some truth is true because it represents knowledge about a physical reality. Science is excellent at describing truth in this way. Internally, however, it’s not really capable of loving, caring, serving, or even describing these emotions. These are internal truths. They represent the metaphysical in our lives. It may be that someday science will map brain patterns (indeed this is beginning in current research) that correspond with these feelings, and it might even be able to predict, explain, and manipulate them. But it cannot account for the significance of them in our lives.

I believe that truth (and I mean spiritual, moral truth, not scientific external reality truth) is relatively relative. That is to say, truth depends on time, space, culture, environment, etc. The myriad of factors that shape human lives and conscience are, for all practical purposes, infinite. I believe we “tend toward the good.”

In the colloquial sense of the term, I believe that humans place a lot of emphasis on physical external realities when discussing what is and isn’t true. The church is not true, the BoM isn’t true, Joseph wasn’t a true prophet, or the church is true, etc. But is a spiritual experience “true”? Certainly the experience is true. Are dreams true? Certainly a dream occurred, and science can prove it. But it doesn’t mean that these represent a physical reality. Was Joseph a true prophet? Well what is meant by true? Did he reveal eternal truths that Mormonism is aware of but the myriad of other mystics from the beginning of time were not? And are these truths external realities that in the great cosmos God has decreed? I tend to doubt it. But they may resemble internal truths that help Mormons, people like me, who grew up in the church and has had the church shape his/her life, live better lives in accordance with “the good” as it were.

God exists, and is a real man with a body and lives in a real place called heaven. That, to me, is a universal truth.

You said this, and then

I think we live in a real world, and with limited spiritual vision, can only see or experience things through a mortal body that is imperfect.

How do you know that your view of God isn’t your “limited spiritual vision”? Is this based off of Joseph’s testimony, or have you yourself seen God (I wouldn’t belittle you if you have, in fact, I would be jealous)?

This leads us to try to explain the things we experience, and can’t do so perfectly.

This is my point exactly. Our views of God, salvation, the spirit, heaven, hell, etc. etc. are us trying to explain the things we experience and can’t do so perfectly. How is your view of God any different, and how do you then exclaim that, in spite of this admission, there really is a God who is a real man with a body and lives in a real place called heaven? Is this not Joseph trying to explain, imperfectly, the things he experienced?

Kind of like if I try to explain the grass, it is green, others may see it as spikey, or others may see it as waving in the wind. These truths are not exclusive, they can all be true and just seem to focus on a different characteristic of the external thing.

Yes we each, in our limited knowledge, and spiritual light, try to describe characteristics of absolute truth – or God, from an epistemological standpoint. From that standpoint, anything that transcends mortal comprehension can be defined as God. It is in this light that I think we are all agreeing on the same thing – something in the human conscience that transcends mortal thought. But this thing may or may not exist as a physical reality – or it might be only a spiritual reality. There is no way for you to prove, with any certainty, that your view of God is the “true” one. You may feel it, believe it, and accept it, but that doesn’t make it so. It is in this light, that I think truth is more a function of a person, time, space, culture, and environment.

Our truth as mormons is not false because others may have a slightly different truth about God or focus on a different aspect of God (like buddhism or Islam). God is still God, no matter how many ways different people want to describe him. And there are falsehoods. Someone who says God is Sun-God with a head of a dog, would be untrue.

What about the Hindu god – Vishnu, or Shiva, who has multiple arms? Why is this not a valid “truth” of God? I agree that our view as Mormons isn’t false, but that’s because I’m not convinced there is any “truth” in this regard – or at least not that is “knowable” by mortals. What about the traditional Christian view of God?

But God is there. Joseph Smith saw him and heard him external of his conscience, and then had to make sense of the experience and share it with others.

I just don’t believe this anymore. There is not enough credible evidence to persuade me to believe this, and my reading of the evidence suggests otherwise. Same with the Moroni visits, priesthood restoration, 3 witnesses, etc. I do not believe that Joseph was trying to deceive anyone, I think he really believed he saw something, just like the 3 witnesses, just like seeing treasure in the peepstone (although he confessed at one point that he didn’t see anything in the stone at all). The key phrase, in almost all of these vision accounts is, “the eyes of our understanding.” Grant Palmer emphasized this point. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that very few of our later prophets and apostles have had such experiences (or at least they don’t share them). Aside from this, what about the myriad of other spiritual leaders who have claimed to “see” God and Christ and have completely different instructions, views of God, commandments, etc.? Were they just delusional?

Because we don’t understand it or have the full story doesn’t mean there isn’t a truth out there, it just may mean we don’t know it yet.

I agree, and remain open to the possibility of these things. But it isn’t obvious to me which of all the many people claiming truth have the right one. And I just don’t think that spiritual confirmations are a reliable mechanism for determining those truths. They are just too intertwined with our psychological processes.

I am not trying to claim that there absolutely is no absolute truth. If there is, I don’t know how to know it. In the meantime, I think there is an alternate explanation that better fits the data, namely, that truth is more relative to each of us, and our situation. Hopefully, overall, we tend toward the “good.”

There is a difference between universal Truth and personal truth. It’s really easy to confuse the two.

jmb275, let’s see if can make a post even longer than yours!! 😆 Jk, bear with me here…

“I hope I’m not coming across as just arguing. I’m just presenting ideas for consideration. “

Hey, man…argue away. As long as its not personal attacks or hate-filled, but constructive, let’s work through the different opinions…that’s why I’m on this forum.

“You seem to have a bit of a black and white attitude here. Either God exists with universal truths, or we all can just do whatever we want? This ignores the entire branch of secular ethics, and the fact that many atheists are benevolent, kind, and charitable.”

Point well taken to make me clarify my point, because that wasn’t what I was trying to say. I was less thinking of black and white in terms of Faith in God or Athiesm as the two ends of the spectrum of universal truth, but more of the fact that there IS a universal truth that killing is wrong, benevolence is good. Whether one achieves bringing your life into compliance with those universal truths comes from athiesm or religion was not my point, only that there is truth out there and God can’t change those truths, He is God because He perfectly understands all of them and has the power to live by all of them perfectly.

“If God has to obey certain laws, does that not imply he is not omnipotent?”

No, not necessarily, but it might require us to establish our philosophical definition of omnipotence. Can God create a rock so heavy even He can not lift it? That exercise can seem to present either way you are saying He can’t do something, but most philosophers would agree omnipotence is not doing anything imaginable, but having power to do anything possible, which again establishes there are universal laws that define what is possible and what is not, and within those bounds, God can do all. There are also other factors to consider, like my view of His characteristics are that he is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent (to name the major ones off the top of my head). This means he may have power to do anything, but He would not choose to go against things that would then not make him Omnibenevolent, and I would never tempt Him to show me such. Christ’s crucifixioners tempted Him, that if He was the Son of God, come down off the cross. He didn’t. Not because he couldn’t, but He had a plan to follow through with which He needed to comply with for His purposes, not because He couldn’t have done it. I simply know there are universal truths that define what Omnibenevolent is, and have faith He would not violate those universal laws because He is God and I must have trust in Him.

“A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. (Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science”, New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930)”

Einstien is an idiot and doesn’t know what he is talking about. I mean, think about it, if I make a boneheaded mistake at work, my boss says, “Nice Job, Einstein” – that isn’t a compliment that I’m smart, is it? (Just joking, that is comedy material from Brian Regan, my favoriate comic).

In all seiousness, Einstien was smart. And if he figured a way to live ethically with sympathy, education and social ties and needs, then he has figured it out on how to bring his life into harmony with eternal universal principles. One does not have to be Mormon to live in harmony with truth, but Mormonism is one way to bring these truths to our awareness so we can live it. Parts of Buddhism also show “the way”, as well as other religions, societies, or secular learnings. Unfortunately, too much of my life I lived the truth that is out there out of fear of eternal punishment, whereas I think there is a better way to live peacefully. That doesn’t mean I create my own truth to fit my life, I find a way to discover the universal truth that applies to all of us, and live it because it is the right thing to do, not because people will see me living that way, or because I fear some vengeful God will smite me if I don’t, or because I selfishly want a totally pimped out mansion in heaven. 😈

“I submit that there are countless millions who don’t believe in “universal truth” and yet don’t feel that they do whatever they want.”

I would agree… but now you are taking the black and white role, suggesting you either believe in a universal truth and live by them, or they don’t exist. I suggest you can live those universal truths whether you believe they exist outside of you or not. That is establishing my very point, they exist independent of any of our thoughts, any of our civic laws, or any of our religions. Whether we are aware of them or not does not have anything to do with whether they eixst or not, and doesn’t require us to establish we can’t live them without knowing them. The bushman in Africa who teaches a child to grow up to provide for the family and have love in his heart is teaching truth whether he is aware or not. If we have a source of truth that makes us aware, we can have a better chance of living them, but many church members do not live by some truths that some athiests may have decided to live by. Similar to why you choose not to commit murder, you just know its wrong. If we can assume for argument’s sake that murder is “wrong”, you may choose to not commit murder. Not because you believe a universal truth exists that tells you not to, you are choosing not to do it because you don’t want to do it. Whatever your reasoning in your head you use, the point is, you are living by the universal truth. The Buddhist, Hinduist, Taoist, Chirstian, or Athiest may have different reasons for why they choose not to obey the universal law, but they may be living it. Or if the murderer in jail decides not to live it, that doesn’t impact wether the truth exists out there or not.

“Who defines “universal truth” and how can we know it?”

Ahhh…now the hard part. How do we know it and define it in concepts that make sense to us with limited mortal brains? That really is the question.

I think in defining it, I would love to hear more from Ray on his notion of “personal truth” vs “universal truth”. That sounds like there is a pearl of great price to be understood by those definitions.

I think I am trying to come to know truth by living, experiencing, and failing. Tomorrow I may have new ideas and discard old ideas, but over time, I come back to basic truths that I hold for myself which I still believe to be universally true…like God has 2 arms.

(my brain hurts. I need to go take a break…I’ll check in later to read responses).

I am open to other ideas since I do not believe I’m smart enough to know the answers to all these questions.

But I lean more towards a universal plan or path that is just the right way to do things rather than we tend to do the same things because humans have similar genetic makeups. The latter just sounds like animals with instincts just tend to do things a certain way and I think there is more intelligence involved. Probably because of my life long indoctrination of free will and free agency. Lucifer had an idea to introduce a proposal that was just against the universal laws and God knew it wouldn’t work…you know the story, I just think that is the basis of where I’m coming from.

Regarding the killing of Laban, I would suggest that all killing is not against universal laws. Killing of innocent blood would be. But self defense, or times of war, killing is involved that is not the same thing as innocent blood, or murder. With Laban specifically, assuming the account is accurate, I’d say it is a gray area, but that perhaps Laban had already threatened the Lehi boys’ lives, and refused to cooperate, so it may not be innocent blood (I’m ready for you to debate that one, clearly it seems drunken on the side of the road passed out is pretty innocent, but who knows really what happened prior to that?)

Regarding fornication, I’d say the reason marriage exists is because families need structure to properly raise children. Birth control doesn’t present any valid argument to me. Sex should be between man and wife only, largely because of procreation, but not solely. Its interesting marriage seems to exist in almost all cultures and throughout time, which makes me think people realize it is needed and serves society best. That’s kinda my feeling of universal laws, they just are best and we benefit when we bring our life into alignment with them.