Hope, belief, faith, knowledge

[Anonymous]

Below are some pretty simple, common definitions of hope, belief, faith, and knowledge. I think most people would agree with these definitions without thinking much about it.

Hope – wanting something to be true, but not necessarily believing that it is true

Belief – accepting something as true, regardless of whether it is actually true

Faith – accepting something unprovable as true, and expecting it to be justified at some point

Knowledge – believing something is true, and that thing is actually true, and you can justify why it’s true

My definition of knowledge might not be all that common, since I’ve included all three of the classic conditions for knowledge from philosophy. Your everyday person might not think that justification is necessary, although they might be persuaded after seeing a few good examples.

Your everyday Mormon “knows” lots of things that are actually just beliefs, because they can’t be justified. I think a lot of LDS folks use the word “know” because it implies a stronger conviction than mere belief, and there’s a lot of pressure to appear more devout than maybe they are. How many Mormons do you think truly believe they know, and how many would quickly agree that they actually believe instead of know, once you give them the chance? Do you agree or disagree with my definitions?

[Anonymous]

I agree with your definitions and your assessment of Mormons and the use of “know.” I think many of them actually use the word out of tradition, actually. However, I don’t think most of the fully orthodox would cave to the idea of not “knowing” and capitulate to just believing – that might mean they’re wrong and most orthodox Mormons I know simply can’t admit that they, or the church or the prophet, might be wrong. I realize some of that is just syntax and definition, but I don’t think you or I can convince them that their definition of know might be off center. It’s actually interesting to listen to the GAs, especially the Q15, and recognize how little they actually use the word know, though.

[Anonymous]

I remember talking to a member of the SP after the class. He had used that old saying about the church being perfect but the people not. I asked him in what way is the church perfect. One of the ways that he said was that the church is perfect in organization with all the offices of the priesthood. I wondered about the office of Church Patriach and how in the last 30 years it has all but been disolved. It is hard for me to imagine using the word “perfect” when we are still making changes. He wondered about my level of faith and I reassured him that this was simply an accademic word definition.

In the end he said that He is just a simple farmer with a simple faith and I accepted his answer and thanked him for the excercise.

I share this because he never did acknowledge that maybe the word perfect was a bad fit for what he was trying to say. I can’t even imagine trying to define “know” in a religious sense.

[Anonymous]

We all define some things differently than others do, and every group has common terms they define in a unique way. It’s just part of life.

The key, I think, is not to let ourselves get pissed off when others use words in a way we don’t. Being able to translate internally to other words is fine, but getting upset when others use words differently than we do . . . It’s a waste of time and energy and constitutes what I view as “making someone an offender for a word”.

[Anonymous]

When it comes to the church I am not sure LDS folks can differentiate between belief and knowledge anymore. They are so entertwined in the culture as to be indistinguishable. It feels perfectly normal for a TBM to so I know even though they do not. It is a cultural hazard we have acquired over the past 50 years of pushing everyone to bear testimony.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Anonymous]

“Most” might, but I don’t agree with the definition of knowledge. I would say that something only has to be true as a person perceives it, for them to have knowledge.

Consider this:

“Do you know what time Jimmy gets home?” “Ten, as far as I know”. Even asking the question shows that there is no expectation of immutable truth in the term ‘know’. Answering it carries the expectation of both the speaker and the listener that it is “all I really know, as far as I’ve been told.”

In other words, to me, knowing something is a state of mind of the subject, not an aspect of the object.

As Ray pointed out. Don’t let the terms that others use to express their faith let you get worked up. It is their faith. Celebrate with them that they can have it.

[Anonymous]

Interestingly, when I brought up this topic with my wife, she did quickly agree that most of the things people say they “know” from the pulpit are actually beliefs to her, not knowledge.

I hadn’t really thought about how often we use the word “know” in other contexts where we don’t really expect a rigorous version of the truth. However, I would call that just a matter of context and formality. The person who asks if you know what time Jimmy gets home isn’t in a formal, life-and-death, or eternal-salvation type of situation, so it doesn’t matter if they fudge things a bit. But I would definitely call it fudging, in an understood context of informality. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that knowledge is just a state of mind. That’s too relativistic for me. As skeptical as I get sometimes, I still like to believe that there is an objective truth. And when you’re in a setting where statements are specifically being claimed as objective truth, I don’t feel right fudging. I think it’s important to be able to justify beliefs in order to consider them knowledge, and claiming knowledge when there is none is a good way to set up others for painful disillusionment and/or mistrust. So it does bother me to some degree. But I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way I do. It’s not like I’m not sitting there seething during every fast and testimony meeting.

The talk by Richard Rorty that mackay11 linked to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjhVk-0Vhmk) gave me some interesting perspective on this, however. There’s the idea that the idea of intellectual rigor doesn’t have to matter as much in religious contexts, as long as it’s not doing anyone harm. What matters more in those contexts is personal happiness.

[Anonymous]

Daeruin, if you want a fascinating experience sometime, try reading the Book of Mormon in the context of how “true” is defined in it – especially in Nephi’s writings – and how people can “know” things. They’re not defined like we moderns tend to define them.

Just as a sample, the following is part of his introduction to the record itself, in Chapter 1, verse 3:

Quote:

I know that the record which I make is true; and I make it with mine own hand; and I make it according to my knowledge.

Notice, Nephi offers two evidences that his record is “true”:

1) He made it personally;

2) He was honest.

That’s all he required to claim to KNOW it was true. He made the physical record himself, and he wrote what he understood. Period.

Most people who testify using the word “know” simply are doing so from the same framework – the one that is common to the VAST majority of people throughout history, including still today. They are saying:

Quote:

It’s my own, honest understanding.

I get that, so I accept it as such and don’t let it ruffle me in the slightest – even if I personally would define “know” differently in a vacuum, outside the religious context. In fact, with some things, in that type of communal setting, I don’t even have a problem using “I know” about some things, even if I wouldn’t say it that way here or in a more scientific setting. I use other words like “believe” or “testify” or “love the idea that” or whatever quite often, but I have no problem using “know” about some things.

[Anonymous]

I had an interesting conversation with my husband the other day about Hope.

He mentioned he had been struggling and had been losing hope (which made his struggles worse). His struggles resonated with me, because I lost hope in a lot of things too over the last year – but I was able to push forward.

In examining how I could push forward and minimize my pain while my husband was struggling in pushing forward, I think I reached an epiphany.

Hope = Resilience + Vision

Resilience = the ability to “bounce back” or refuse to give up in the face of adversity. It’s implementing “Plan B”.

Vision = Perception of the path to take. It is the ability to take the 2nd look and re-calibrate.

Even though I lost a lot of Hope, I am able to “bounce back” (or at least stop the free-fall) because I am resilient. I believe that this state of free-fall due to a faith transition is temporary and expected (under the circumstances) – and that I am through the worst of it. My vision or perception has re-calibrated to be thoughtful in what I perceive (instead of just blinding accepting everything I was given to perceive) and I am able to change my expectations for personal “success” and examine what really matters in the here-and-now.

Hope becomes a catalyst (and a sustaining force) for “repentance” or change. Mormon’s take on the fall of the Nephites was that because they lost Hope in Jesus Christ (would not repent), they got slaughtered by the Lamanites. I don’t know what the root cause was (besides being outnumbered and having a poorer morale) – but it seems that once the Nephite armies lost all hope, the war ended much quicker.

When you have hope, you believe that specific changes are possible, and that you can complete the actions to implement that change/those changes (including course corrections) that are the vision/goal.

Thoughts?

[Author]

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