For the agnostics

[Anonymous]

Hello you agnostic LDS people. I have a question specifically for you, and because I am moving toward the agnostic position, your perspective is of interest to me.

Years ago my grandfather died. I have a single memory of him only, before he passed. During a special event this dead grandfather (my mother’s father) appeared to my father. It scared the living $H!T out of my dad,…but it happened. The description was exactly as I would expect, knowing about my grandfather from things I have read and how he influenced my father (they were VERY close).

My dad has told me about this story more than once. I believe him. I know he is not lying, and I know he was and is in his right mind. He is not deceiving me, nor is he trying to persuade me in any way one way or another–the story is told as a fact that it happened, and that is all.

I have 3 other friends who have had NDE, 2 were prolonged and they have the scars to prove they were really on the metal slab pronounced dead. A third friend is a very close personal friend. As a little boy he saw his father siphon gasoline out of a tank with a rubber hose, and did the same thing while sucking the gasoline into his lungs. It melted his lungs and he died from it….and came back with quite an experience.

I believe these people. I believe my own father. I believe there is a soul in us somehow–there is something else going on.

You agnostic people?…can you share your feelings about this topic…about the soul of mankind?

[Anonymous]

Rob, help me to understand: what to you mean by: agnostic?

I know I could look it up in the dictionary.

I would like to understand your definition.

[Anonymous]

Agnostic,…well, I think I mean it in a loose manner as someone who believes there is a higher power of something, but doesn’t want to qualify it as “God” necessarily, or “Heavenly Father”.

In context of my FC, my entire belief in God has been colored by LDS theology and teachings. As my FC has unfolded, my very foundation of “high power” has itself been shook. I struggle to believe there is a god as has been described,…but I believe there is something. I’m unsure.

So, that is my position on agnostic–there is something but unsure.

[Anonymous]

I think you summed it up well:

Quote:

I believe these people. I believe my own father. I believe there is a soul in us somehow–there is something else going on.

I also believe that the spiritual experiences you described are for the ones receiving them & not those of us looking from the

sidelines.

I believe that anyone experiencing a FC is rarely the same as before. Your idea of who God is & how he (or she) may express themselves has to be different. For example, if you were raised to believe in a personal God who answers your prayers & is

concerned with you as an individual, then you have a FC where your prayers are not answered in the way you expect, will

inevitably be changed by the experience. Suddenly you feel more alone, frustrated & angry. Or, you alter the way you believe to

fit your situation or not believe at all.

[Anonymous]

Ive given up trying to explain other people’s spiritual experiences. I’m agnostic most days but I’ve spoken with numerous people who sincerely believe they had incredible visions, dreams, visits, etc. I don’t try to explain away or doubt their experiences. I just know they will never happen to me and that they dont apply to me.

[Anonymous]

Everyone is saying “Those experiences belong to them,…not you”.

So, are you all saying you have nothing to go on at all? Since God never gives you any experiences, you don’t believe in anything because to do so you have to listen to and accept some of the things others have had?

WOW! this is unexpected. Its like concluding things from lack of evidence, which is a serious false logical conclusion. Some hilarious yet accurate examples:

I have never seen your brain, therefore you have none.

I have never seen the dark side of the moon. Others have, but that experience is for them alone. Therefore, I can neither conclude one way or another if there is a dark side to the moon.

This type of logic is paralyzing. This is not quite what I expected from this thread, but it is what is happening….

[Anonymous]

Rob4Hope wrote:

Everyone is saying “Those experiences belong to them,…not you”.

So, are you all saying you have nothing to go on at all? Since God never gives you any experiences, you don’t believe in anything because to do so you have to listen to and accept some of the things others have had?

WOW! this is unexpected. Its like concluding things from lack of evidence, which is a serious false logical conclusion. Some hilarious yet accurate examples:

I have never seen your brain, therefore you have none.

Last year a woman told me she was visited by Jesus. Many people claim to have died, had amazing experiences, and then come back. Last month, the day after someone in my ward died of cancer, someone else bore their testimony that God cured their son from cancer miraculously and suddenly. I can choose to disbelieve them or give them the benefit of the doubt, which strikes me as more open minded and more charitable. I generally give people with spiritual experiences the benefit of the doubt.

I see a vast difference between commonly accepted scientific principles and spiritual experiences. Astrophysicists can show me proof, even if it’s mathematical and abstract. Biologists can show me a cadaver and a brain. I’ve never seen Jesus or any real proof that he exists but what little faith I have remaining tells me to hope in Him. Part of my faith transition included understanding that I have to apply my own spiritual understanding, not other’s experiences.

[Anonymous]

Rob4Hope wrote:

WOW! this is unexpected. Its like concluding things from lack of evidence, which is a serious false logical conclusion. Some hilarious yet accurate examples:I have never seen your brain, therefore you have none.I have never seen the dark side of the moon. Others have, but that experience is for them alone. Therefore, I can neither conclude one way or another if there is a dark side to the moon.

I think agnosticism is reserving final judgment on something that simply cannot be fully known with the available evidence. I am agnostic about some scientific studies. They are interesting and worthy of my consideration but until they are repeated and verified we simply do not know 100%. I therefore do not make large direction changes with every new scientific study. In some ways this is the nature of scientific discovery. We are always on the fringe of known information, exploring tentative discoveries with an awareness that what we do not know is probably bigger than what we know.

Likewise I am probably agnostic to a fair degree on many religious topics. The visions and NDE that are reported are not generally repeatable (meaning that if you recreate the same conditions you will get the same result). They are by nature subjective and open to personal interpretation. There is also the problem of conflicting evidence. Not everyone has a vision or NDE but even among those that do there is not a clear meaning. Some will see Jesus, others will see Mohammad, Moses, or Buddha. What are we to do with these conflicting accounts?

Even when we cannot draw hard and fast conclusions about what all those experiences mean, for the individual experiencing it they can be lifechangingly (not a real word) meaningful.

Therefore an agnostic does not deny that there might be more going on than meets the eye, but they also do not claim to know exactly what that is.

[Anonymous]

Ditto to what Roy said.

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