JLHPROF wrote:Is atheism an inability to believe in God then? A lack of something within that other's have naturally.
Is atheism an ability to see belief in God for what it really is then? Something within that others don’t have naturally?
Shades said atheism was to religion what infertility was to parenthood.
So an inability, not an ability.
Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity—thou must commune with God. - Joseph Smith
JLHPROF wrote:Shades said atheism was to religion what infertility was to parenthood.
So an inability, not an ability.
I'm sure there are many ways to frame it.
Do you want to understand?
Oliver Sacks described a man with a neuropsychological condition that caused him to confuse his wife with a hat. An interesting "ability" and equally deserving of praise.
kjones wrote:Is Pres. Oaks advocating ignoring study and reason in favor of a wholly faith-based approach? And my answer, or my take, based not only on what he said in the talk in question but based on what he has said and written for the last 40 years, or even longer . . . my take is that no, he is not saying this.
Rather, he is saying we learn "by study and faith". One without the other is incomplete. Research alone, without the faith that should go with it, is insufficient.
Could you elaborate? The problem I have is the statement by study and faith doesn't really tell us much without defining some of the words and terms. How are you defining faith, and how would it's lack be insufficient in studying or research. When I finally decided to research some of these issues surrounding the LDS church's truth claims, it was not just to learn, but to answer some important questions and gain some knowledge on how the world really was.
Some of those initial questions was about whether the church was God's one true church. Was Joseph Smith telling us the truth about seeing and being called by God to be his prophet, and did he really bring us a record of a real people. Did he really bring us the record of a real Abraham. One other important question was about the spiritual experience and if it was a reliable way to learn truth/facts. So how is faith supposed to help one answer these questions accurately?
Fence Sitter wrote:it wasn't me asking the wrong questions that was the problem, it was other people who didn't have the right answers so they tried to shift the blame to me for their ignorance.
Mormonism is this big beautiful shallow lake that looks great until you try diving into it.
Those other people were all Mormon operatives.
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." Isaac Asimov
Consiglieri, I listened to this in the car today. I was struck by your letter from JFMc, where he said something along the lines of nobody in Church being interested in new views or new thinking etc. I think you understood that to mean him talking about the members of the Church, but I thought about the kinds of Church circles he would be mixing in at the time, who his father was, and I see his comment to you to be alluding to a much bigger statement about the mindset of Apostles of the day. What do you think?
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
kjones wrote:However ... I do believe that atheism has its own set of conventions, absurdities and improbabilities, just the same as any religion. You have to accept a lot on faith.
Really? What are the conventions, absurdities, and improbabilities of atheism, and what are the conventions, absurdities, and improbabilities of your own religion?
In the end, it is a choice. Just like belief in God, belief in atheism is about choice. One is making a choice.
Can you choose to go back to believing in Santa Claus if you want to?
P.S. - I'm going to bow out now. It's been fun. Thanks.
Not so fast.
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"