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Notes -
Christian Nationalism
Within my own circles this is rather a hot topic, but I've yet to see it discussed in this forum. Christian evangelicalism has had its own version of the culture war; to whit, how involved and in what manner should Christians (both individually and the Church) be engaged in society and politics. There are factions of "Big Eva" who seem to be moving more Left (see the recent "He gets us" commercial in the Super Bowl). There are those who think that the "third-way"ism of Tim Keller (taking a high road that transcends politics and culture war) is still relevant in these days (from my perspective, with echos of Martin Niemoller). And there are those who are actively seeking a more aggressive and explicitly Christian approach to governance and policy. For those interested, a useful taxonomy provided by the Gospel Coalition describes to a reasonable first approximation the different approaches that Christians have to our current moment.
I have had my own journey in the direction of Christian Nationalism (though I wouldn't...yet...apply that label to myself). While in college I was a pro-life Ron Paul libertarian, over the years I've become less individualistic as I've grown in my faith. I used to think of religion as a private exercise. I know recognize the centrality of community. I even have begun to entertain the idea that there may be salvific consequences for those who are under the authority of a Christian leader. If the unbelieving spouse can be sanctified by his or her believing counterpart, and an entire house can be baptized when the head of the house believes, could there not be salvation extended to a nation whose head of state is an orthodox Christian and whose government practices the precepts of the Word? (If you are interested in more of my ramblings on this topic, https://pyotrverkhovensky.substack.com/p/what-is-christianitys-role-in-culture and https://pyotrverkhovensky.substack.com/p/on-theocracy-and-redemption)
Christianity in America has enjoyed centuries of being a dominant culture. Many Christians, having grown up in a culture that was at least outwardly compatible with Christianity, have slipped into casual acceptance of cultural norms. They are in the world, and of the world. In many cases self-proclaimed Christians are functionally agnostic, with no significant lifestyle differences from Atheists. Do we really believe Christ is Lord or do we not? Do we not believe in divine judgement and divine mercy? Is Church a weekly therapeutic exercise or is it a place where we meet the transcendent and drink of the body and the blood? Christian Nationalism, at its core, recognizes the reality and consequence of a world in which Christ is Lord. There is no "third way", there is only God's way. (For a somewhat related essay on the reality of God, see https://pyotrverkhovensky.substack.com/p/christianity-and-culture-continued).
There is a common assumption among Christians that all sin is equally damning. Man can never follow the Law, and Jesus even makes it clear that the Law didn't go far enough (the Law allows divorce, and does not explicitly proscribe lust). At the individual level, this assumption is correct. Outside the atonement found in Jesus, we all stand condemned. Yet at the societal level, there are varying levels of alignment with God's will. Every single person in Nazi Germany was a sinner. Every single person in 1941 USA was a sinner. Yet it would be an unusual Christian who would argue that 1941 USA was not more aligned with God's will than Nazi Germany. Not all societies are created equal, and there are varying degrees of misalignment. If I look at a woman in lust, I am clearly sinning and am condemned; but at least my desires are in alignment with God's ideal. It is only the object of my desires that is inappropriate, as being attracted to my wife is not only not a sin, but is a key part of a relationship that is a representation of Christ's love for the Church. Same-sex attraction is more disordered as both the object and the desire itself are misaligned. Transgenderism is completely disordered: the object, desire, and self are all misaligned. Societies that venerate increasingly disordered behavior will inevitably sink into corruption and decay. Christian Nationalism, perhaps alone among contemporary strands of Christian thought, fully acknowledges these implications.
Nope, Christian nationalism won't amount to much. At most it could get a seat at the table at the evangelical coalition, but evangelicals are far, far less culturally relevant than they were 20 years ago. It'll be nothing more than a fringe position.
There are 3 main issues:
The Christian part. It's clear a lot of people want some form of "cultural Christianity" without the actual religious superstitions, but all attempts to create something like that have been failures. A lot of Christians do genuinely believe much of what's written in Bible either literally or semi-literally. But this places them at odds with younger generations that demand some actual evidence. Despite tons of trying, nobody on this forum or anywhere else on the Internet has been able to come up with a compelling argument for a deity. At best they ramble on about goofy metaphysics that’s either unfalsifiable, or merely haranguing about definitions. None of it’s particularly persuasive.
The nationalism part. A lot of Christians see their religion as more of a passive thing, not something that demands extreme fervor that a pugnacious nationalist movement would require. Again, born-agains and evangelicals might be willing to go along with it, but there's a whole bunch of less committed Christians who take part as more of a habit or because it’s just a social gathering. They're not going to want to sign up to be Soldiers of Christ.
The combination of the two. Christianity is not a naturally aggressive religion. Sure, people will ignore tons of contradictions if politically convenient, e.g. the Crusades happened. That said, it comes at a cost of things being generally more difficult to be pushed in that direction. There will always be an undercurrent of people saying things like “hey the Bible tells us to Love Thy Neighbor, not Love Thy Neighbor Unless They Vote Against Trump”. There’s a reason white nationalists have long flirted with Paganism and Norse stuff, as it’s much more consistent to be aggressive when your god is Thor. On the other hand, much of Christian morality boils down to being servile, of always turning the other cheek. It’s not a natural fit to any degree.
yawn
Sure, the metaphysics is very silly. Arguments like the unmoved mover are, I think, essentially just word games. That said the world is replete with evidence. Ask in faith and ye shall receive. Apply a commandment in your own life and your life will improve. Miracles will not usually benefit those who are entirely unready for them, so until then the only evidence is more general (and easily explainable) statistical evidence to do with longevity, life satisfaction, marital/family stability, etc. among practicing Christians.
To be more clear, there are already some precepts you know to be true and yet do not live by. What makes you think that more such knowledge/evidence would be helpful? Some have gotten their lives in order when faced with literal miracles, but most continue to live as they did, inventing new reasons to doubt what they saw, and deeply wounding their own souls in the process.
None of this is proof of a Christian deity, nor that the claims of literalists or semi-literalists are true. At best, it's proof that the Bible can teach some helpful lessons about how to live your life, but that's hardly a high bar. A fairy tale about trolls and gremlins could do the same.
There is no evidence of supernatural miracles ever having occurred. If you have some evidence, then please share it, as this sounds like a fun avenue of debate.
Sure, it's not proof, at least not at the beginning, but it's evidence, however weak. In the beginning the evidence is more "the Bible teaches useful lessons" but I'm confident that as you actually apply that evidence you'll get more and more evidence actually pointing to the Bible being literally true. Eventually the heap of evidence, or a singularly impressive piece of evidence, will constitute proof.
Fairy tales do often teach good moral lessons, so in this sense as you follow the lessons better you'll see increasing evidence of both those moral principles and of God. I don't really see any issue with this. The bible will generally serve you better but it doesn't have a monopoly on truth.
If you truly do zealously follow some fairy tale about honesty or whatever, you'll cultivate other virtues alongside honesty, and those other virtues will tell you when it's time to look for moral truth elsewhere.
I think you mean no sufficient evidence. Evidence exists for essentially all hypotheses.
In my own life the strongest proof is the aforementioned mechanism of increasing moral intelligence. You have your own habits which you know to be sins; I claim that the way mortality has been designed, you have the power to conquer those habits, and doing so will improve your life. No belief in God required, but if you consistently do so I do think that you, like me, will begin to feel the hand of God helping you along and giving you strength to continue in your efforts. This is easy and undeniably worthwhile to test, and has quick results.
As far as physical proof, here are some miracles I've seen. I've essentially never earnestly prayed for something without either getting it, getting a clear response along the lines of "this isn't something you should ask for," or in one case both.
I have performed bayesian analysis on my own prayers in the past. Eventually the results were clear enough that it felt disrespectful and counterproductive to continue testing, rather than putting that effort into increased praying.
As far as tangible proof available to all, I've pontificated in the past about why we probably shouldn't expect to see that. In short, greater understanding leads to greater accountability, and you don't actually need greater understanding to tackle your current sins.
Why is greater accountability undesirable, assuming greater understanding?
Sin and evil are harmful to the soul and lead to less happiness in the long run. The greater one's understanding of a choice and the ramifications of that choice, the worse the "damage" i.e. negative consequences should the choice be the wrong one.
Greater understanding is good if we're ready for it--if we're using the understanding we have reasonably well.
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Wow!
"I've essentially never earnestly prayed for something without either getting it, getting a clear response along the lines of "this isn't something you should ask for," or in one case both."
That is an amazing superpower!
Guess all those parents of millions of sick and dying kids just didn't measure up. They and their parents were undeserving of God's grace. You must be one of God's true Chosen!
I'm really happy to break this to you--all kids go to heaven. They all get God's grace, and in fact everyone does.
As far as superpowers, getting everything I asked for would be one thing, but all I claim is to know beforehand when one of my requests is inappropriate. This has more to do with a correct understanding of God than any spiritual sensitivity or righteousness on my part.
Lucky you, to know the true mind of God...This is really trending towards the absurd, even for religious nonsense.
Exactly what is your claim? I've been recording these things for years and have advance predictions written down.
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There are a whole bunch of Christians who disagree with you on this. Some have even posted here.
"Grace" is a broad term which refers to more than just salvation. I think pretty much all Christians would agree that everyone has access to God's grace.
But more importantly, it's not like I'm claiming that all Christians are correct about everything.
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I think your miracle evidence is confused, but in lieu of that I'll point somewhere else - many intelligent Muslims and members of other faiths have similarly seen personal miracles from their god(s) and used them as evidence for their faith. Their arguments are very similar to yours. Which is weird, right?
No. Why would God ignore their prayers? I'd expect people of other faiths to have somewhat fewer prayers answered because they have less understanding of what to ask for, but that's all--they're God's children too.
The other types of claims give me more pause. It's clear that some people believe (to some extent) that they've genuinely been visited by angels or dreamt of a message from their god, etc. When I hear the actual account though, it's generally fairly easy to dismiss it as a hallucination, a fabrication, or simply a normal dream.
Right, but then your miracles are evidence for 'any entity or process that intervenes in the world to help humans', not 'God specifically', because by that logic it isn't evidence for the Muslims when "Allah" appears to do it.
I think there are some rather sophisticated claims of Buddhist, Hindu, and Islam miracles, and many unsophisticated and obviously false Christian miracle claims. This means the distribution of miracle claims on plausibility is as far as I know similar for different religions, so if you're arguing that this is evidence for Christian God over others I don't think that's true, although I'm not sure if that's the argument you're making or not.
The thing is Christianity, I think, claims that a significant number of instances of angels visiting people / God speaking to people / observable divine intervention happened. It's weird that it just stopped, and all we get now isn't easily falsifiable.
Also, I think you're just getting lucky generally. You pray a lot, sometimes something like it happens, you count the few pieces of strong evidence that prayer works and discount the larger number of weak evidence that it doesn't.
Yes, I know this. Put another way, my miracles are evidence concerning the existence and nature of God. They're not sufficient to prove God's existence, let alone nature, but they are indications of both.
I think it's very weak evidence of the Christian God over others, and fairly strong evidence (at least for me) of some kind of God.
To be clear I am extremely skeptical in general, and entirely discount pretty much all claims of miracles both in and out of my own religion. This is just my natural impulse and if I hadn't seen such things as I describe myself I would also discount them as made-up or exaggerated. I think this impulse is essentially correct but I cannot deny my own experience.
It's not all that weird given what I was saying about agency and accountability. Given that, you'd expect such obvious miracles to grow much rarer. That said I'm also highly skeptical of essentially all such accounts.
I worried the same and conducted tests to try and determine whether this was happening. I wrote down a list of things I wanted, randomized which I prayed for, attempted to determine the likelihood of each happening on its own (e.g. without prayer) and then attempted to evaluate the results. It was the closest I could get to a randomized controlled trial.
This worked fine, and produced extremely strong evidence in God's favor, but I didn't really find it all that convincing, due to the possibility that my own bias seeped into the experiment. Since then I've conducted plenty of other tests. The most relevant to this discussion is that I always write down when I seriously pray for something. Since I started doing so no serious prayer has gone unanswered in one way or another.
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I had to break the news to maybe 200 people over the past 6 months that their cancer was fatal. Including maybe a dozen children.
I had to clean out the suppurating wound in a patient who had a mandibulectomy for a orofacial carcinoma. When I removed the bandages, coated in pus, he could have played a flute both ways. I suppose his incoherent prayers and moaning were of no avail because they ended up directed simultaneously to heaven and hell. Then again, that ward has poor cellular reception.
I have heard earnest praying and fevered pleas for divine aid. It was never forthcoming.
What facile excuses for miracles you recite. If that's the standard of evidence you deem acceptable for the sweeping claims of Christianity..
What sin did a two year old child with ALL commit, such that she wasn't worthy of a miracle while your remission from UC was? Wrong deity I presume? The post-office does a better job directing mislabeled mail. Do you think a "fast" done by your family outweighs the RCTs showing that prayer, both direct and directed, is useless?
Thankfully I have not had too many cases of people thanking the Lord/Allah/Ram for their cures, or I'd have gone to jail for strangling them. Most of them are far more genuinely grateful for the actual miracle that is modern medicine, and by
Godwe've got more to show for it.What sin did I commit, getting ulcerative colitis and spending months in agony? What sin did anyone commit to experience any amount of suffering at all?
You stand upon others' graves and claim that their suffering was for naught. I stand upon my own experience and disagree in the strongest terms possible. Each moment of life, even when experiencing some of the worst pain imaginable, is still better than even. In our very worst, most agonized moments, God has seen fit to grant us greater and more meaningful pleasures than the pain which we experience. It's simply a matter of being able to recognize it. I have spent hundreds of hours in physical agony, but relative safety and calm, so I've had time to think about this and know it better than most.
The true tragedy is not the dead children, who have been taken to heaven and will be reunited with their family eventually, but the parents and siblings forced to cope with their absence for decades afterwards, lacking any knowledge that their child is okay. I promise you that that kid is okay, though, and that all of this will eventually work out to everyone's benefit. There are greater joys meant for humanity which we must be prepared to receive.
To be clear, I have seen miracles far greater than the ones I've shared. The greatest, to me, is the miracle of my own conversion and moral growth, but there have been plenty of others. I'm glad I didn't share them--you would probably be calling me a liar directly, rather than just insinuating it. I've already told you that I don't think I deserved any cure for my UC, but that the timing of it does indicate its miraculous nature. And I've already told you that even such miracles don't outweigh RCTs for me, but that they did give me confidence enough to continue investigating, including by conducting my own trials.
Given that we've already discussed all of this, and that I've already addressed each of your points in detail, I'll choose to interpret the substance of your comment as a result of your anger at the problem of suffering rather than as deliberate bad faith argumentation. I understand--it's certainly a problem I grappled with as well. Next time you do experience serious pain, I encourage you to slow down and experience just one instant of the pain at a time. It soon becomes clear that no matter the severity of the pain, a single instant of it is really quite tolerable, easily outweighed by the simple joy of other sensory inputs. The real trouble comes when our brains run ahead and try to experience all of the suffering at once, both feeling the pain of the instant and dreading the countless instants to come.
The same is true of all suffering. It may feel unjust, it may feel like God has unjustly condemned us to suffer agony for nothing, but the pain teaches us, and God has also unjustly granted us countless joys to pad life out and outweigh even the worst of our pains.
Who is “us” here exactly?
Countless humans and sentient creatures have not been granted “countless joys” to outweigh their suffering. Your theology deals with this moral inequity by saying god will make up for it in the afterlife.
Only problem there is the lack of evidence for said afterlife.
As I said, the simple pleasures of existence, rational thought, and physical sensation outweigh physical pain.
There are plenty of other joys, but just one or two of those are sufficient to outweigh pain.
"us" is everyone and virtually everyone has been granted such gifts or has died very quickly after birth.
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The answer to this question becomes mu when you recognize that the Universe has no particular regard or disdain for you, it simply is.
You did not commit any "sin" in order to come down with ulcerative colitis. It boils down entirely to mechanistic interactions between your genes and the environment, and the way it moulded your body/immune system in a defective manner. While genes and environs are certainly components in what can be considered one's moral predilections, being Mother Teresa herself is no recourse from an agonizing death.
The only place where sin approaches a meaningful concept is when it comes to things that are the outcome of behaviors that are (nominally) amenable to intervention. A thief has sinned and loses his hand for it. A child with a Philadelphia chromosome has probably cried a little too often, but I wouldn't call that warranting a death sentence or the misery of chemotherapy.
All efforts to reconcile the stochastic distribution of boons and curses dished upon us with a belief in an Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnibenevolent Creator are, well, rather moot when you recognize that there's no reason (or grossly insufficient reason) to assume one exists.
And taken at face value, a Creator who knows with omniscience everything a conscious being will go through, including that it will inevitably sin and be punished for it (infinitely so, depending on which doctrine of Hell you adhere to), is prima facie disgusting to me. It certainly conflicts with any reasonable definition of benevolence, though attempts to torture them into reconciliation have been a pastime for theologists for aeons.
It would be akin to me "torturing" a sorting algorithm for putting 1 before 3 in an array, when I know with ~100% confidence it will make that decision every single time.
That is the relationship between a 3-O God and every poor bastard down here.
I would call you deluded, rather than a liar. It is a common enough delusion, but there is no more polite way of phrasing it.
You do not recognize the sheer magnitude of the empirical, physical, metaphysical and ontological claims you make if you think any amount of "moral growth" should sway your opinion one jot.
I have suffered plenty of pain. I put more stock in painkillers than your approach, not that I am calling it useless. Meditation and other techniques do help. They just don't help as much as fentanyl when you've broken your hip or are choking on your own secretions.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. I can't ding it too much on those grounds, I prescribe plenty of opioids myself. But what it also happens to be is a sheer refusal to take the universe as it is and a distraction from efforts at making it better.
No deity has pulled Mankind out of Malthusian Hell, we've dug up the rendered corpeses of our primordial ancestors and burned them, smelted steel and split atoms till we are in spitting distance of a Heaven on Earth, of our own making. Or we could all die after we build a Molochian monstrosity trained, in part, on this very conversation. But we live and die by our own, human hands, and God certainly hasn't been swiping in often enough for me to give him any credit.
Taken to its logical conclusion, any attempts at alleviating it is cheating God and his ward out of a valuable life lesson, though what that might entail to a child with appendicitis is questionable.
Not all suffering is bad. But I have seen far too much needless suffering to remotely privilege that claim. And when it has come to mitigating it, I assure you that even Jesuit clinics will hand out medication instead of just thoughts and prayers. When a child with ichthyosis vulgaris comes out of the womb and lives a short, yet excruciatingly painful existence before inevitable death (which can only be drawn out for a while, not remedied till the normal age at which we're supposed to die), I struggle to think of any mitigating factors that might make their short time on this Earth a net positive.
You do not know pain. Pray that you never have to.
Please talk to me directly, or create a blog somewhere rather than pretending you're actually responding to me.
I wasn't actually asking you, and you know this. You have no privileged position as a doctor and the bearer of bad news to accuse others of ignoring people's suffering. The problem of suffering is the same no matter the degree of suffering.
My approach isn't a way to deal with pain, it's a way to understand it. It's a test you can perform yourself which will grant you evidence one way or another regarding the veracity of the rest of my claims. If you think I'm right or wrong, say so, but don't pretend that I was giving you pain management tips.
I don't have anything against painkillers, but the fact that God didn't grant us the ability to dull our own pain at a whim means that pain-without-painkillers is a problem which must be addressed.
We've already been over this, but, like you, I suppose I'll have to pretend to be talking about this for the first time and pretend to have never heard any counterarguments from you.
Agency is extremely important. If one cannot choose then they lack agency. If one's choices lack consequences, then they cannot choose. I prefer being free to choose, even when that means making harmful mistakes, to being locked in to a life of unwilling righteousness. I prefer being created, even if that means occasionally being punished for sin, to not being created.
Whether sin should be punished at all is its own question. I find punishments for sin to be quite merciful so it's easy for me to understand them as corrective rather than punitive. They provide immediate consequences to actions which might otherwise become habit and lead to a greatly diminished capacity for joy in the long run.
Only if you're also assuming that no other principles exist. "Pain teaches us lessons" doesn't preclude things like "helping others teaches us lessons," "pain-lessons have diminishing returns," etc.
Taken to its logical conclusion, I don't think it's ethical to prevent literally all of the suffering of any single person--at least unless some other method is discovered for teaching the same lessons. That's all.
lol
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Damn dude. If you want to move to the US I'll make it happen for you.
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Isn't that very much disputed within Christianity? In addition the kids he speaks of are almost certainly Hindu and/or Muslim. I am guessing almost none of them are baptized. And then even if the kids get in because they were too young to actively choose, will the parents who are also most likely Hindu and Muslim be reunited with them?
Catholics:
"Likewise, whosoever says that those children who depart out of this life without partaking of that sacrament shall be made alive in Christ, certainly contradicts the apostolic declaration, and condemns the universal Church, in which it is the practice to lose no time and run in haste to administer baptism to infant children, because it is believed, as an indubitable truth, that otherwise they cannot be made alive in Christ. Now he that is not made alive in Christ must necessarily remain under the condemnation, of which the apostle says, that "by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation." That infants are born under the guilt of this offense is believed by the whole Church."
"The Roman Catholic view is that baptism is necessary for salvation and that it frees the recipient from original sin. Roman Catholic tradition teaches that unbaptized infants, not being freed from original sin, go to Limbo (Latin: limbus infantium), which is an afterlife condition distinct from Hell. This is not, however, official church dogma."
The Orthodox:
"And forasmuch as infants are men, and as such need salvation; needing salvation, they need also Baptism. And those that are not regenerated, since they have not received the remission of hereditary sin, are, of necessity, subject to eternal punishment, and consequently cannot without Baptism be saved; so that even infants ought, of necessity, to be baptised."
or the Protestants:
"Since we must make judgments about God’s will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy. "
The Baptists would back you up however:
"We do believe, that all little Children dying in their Infancy, before they are capable to choose either Good or Evil, whether born of Believing Parents, or Unbelieving Parents, shall be saved by the Grace of God, and Merit of Christ their Redeemer, and Work of the Holy Ghost, and so being made Members of the Invisible Church, shall enjoy Life everlasting; for our Lord Jesus saith, of such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven. Ergo, We conclude, that that opinion is false, which saith, That those little Infants dying before Baptism, are damned."
In other words aren't you assuming the best possible case for your argument here? What if you are right about God existing, but that those kids will never be reunited with their families, either because they will go to Limbo/Heaven as they were too young to choose Christ and their parents are Damned, through not being Christian? Would you still maintain that pain is worth it? Or that you are correct but that they will be reunited with their parents in Gehenna being as neither was saved, and suffer even more torment?
Your argument could be true for Christian baptized kids born to Christian parents and false for everyone else.
I'm just making a claim without arguing every single one of my positions from first principles. Of course if I'm wrong about my religion then I'm wrong about my religion, that goes without saying, and therefore my claim that kids go to heaven wouldn't be correct. If I were wrong I'd have to rethink essentially every belief I have.
Given the quality and good faith (or lack thereof) of the comment I was responding to, spending hours crafting a full dissertation on all of my beliefs would just be a waste of time.
edit: to answer your question, though, my own experience was that very great pain was very tolerable. This doesn't make it good or mean there are endless lessons to be learned from it, or even that any amount of pain is "worth it." SOME amount is useful to learn certain lessons though.
I think I should have been more careful with how I worded my original comment, given how people seem to be interpreting it.
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What sin did Job commit?
Going for herbal and dietary remedies for pancreatic cancer, especially a variant that was amenable to evidence-based medicine.
(I'm aware.)
He's referring to Job from the Bible, not Steve Jobs.
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Please speak plainly and explain what you're aware of.
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Having read your linked thread, it seems you are a Mormon.
Tl;dr: Proper epistemology can save you 10% of your lifetime earnings (and more!) if you let it.
BLUF: Independently researching and leaving Mormonism was the hardest intellectual/emotional thing I’ve ever done. Trapped priors, anchor beliefs, upbringing and social pressure all make it very challenging, because you have been emotionally conditioned to perform confirmation bias to develop a testimony since before you could talk, and to avoid “antimormon” sources and evidence (the very opposite of an isolated demand for rigor). Try pretending you were born a Muslim or a Buddhist and consider how this version of you would be, religiously. Would you end up leaving your childhood faith and somehow finding Mormonism?
I gotta say, even by Mormon standards, those “answered prayer” stories are weak sauce.
“I was dealing with a problem, I prayed real hard for help, and so the omnipotent creator of the universe stretched forth his finger to help me find my keys” is a classic in the genre, but brings up the issue of why the power of prayer is seemingly so limited to things like not getting lost in the woods, healing from an illness, or encountering your ex, instead of solving larger-scale problems. God is so powerful, but his preference to work in mysterious ways really gets in the way of effectiveness.
“You are the easiest person to fool” and so “Bayesian” “analysis” of your prayer outcomes is just so remarkably divorced from a worldview based on keeping beliefs proportional to evidence (the antithesis of “faith”). Try running an experiment at scale on say prayer/faith healing at hospitals and then we can talk about Bayesian analysis. Or provide concrete evidence of a soul/The Spirit.
My favorite thing is that Joseph Smith claimed he possessed gold plates and other ancient artifacts, like a sword from the old world, and couldn’t just produce them as evidence. He had them, just take his word for it. He even had “witnesses” make formal claims they saw them (with their “spiritual eyes” as it turns out), and yet he wouldn’t let say outside experts examine them.
Strange way to go about establishing credibility. “I’ll let you see the relics but only if you already believe me.” It’s a level of credulity most children won’t demonstrate—Santa at least does provide presents.
Mormonism has no way to reconcile evolution, the archeology and genetics of the Americas, and the conspicuous lack of evidence of living prophetic power with its claims and doctrine—to a unique or stronger degree than trad Christianity, due to literal claims made by the Book of Mormon and early prophets. The apologists try to fit various camels through needles here, but it usually means contradicting claims and doctrine set forth by older prophets, which isn’t exactly good for establishing credibility. Early Mormon sausage making is just too well-documented for most moderns to accept, and Mormonism’s plunging conversion rate shows it.
Of course, the modem LDS church can’t settle the issue and make me look foolish because the plates and certain other artifacts were turned over to an angel. Tellingly, the one sacred relic the church does possess is a regular old seer stone, which was mostly ignored until recent times and is a point of controversy regarding exactly how it was the “translation” was done by Smith (it mostly did not involve looking at the plates, though most pictures depict it that way).
It’s a preposterous situation that would not survive scrutiny today (at any real scale), but people today—many of them very intelligent—can pretend it was a reasonable thing for a prophet of god to do in 1830 or so because they were raised believing it.
This is precisely why I took so long to eventually determine that Mormonism was true.
I never accepted anything along the lines of "you should avoid antimormon sources" and actively sought them out from a young age. Anytime someone would say something like that my respect for them would drop precipitously. Now, having read all the literature I could get my hands on, I find myself agreeing that there were better, more edifying uses of my time than deliberately studying such a vast quantity of opposing viewpoints.
I was raised by rationalists online more than by Mormons--I certainly understood rationalist doctrine better than Mormon doctrine, knew more details of rationalist doctrine, paid more attention to it, like it better, etc.
They're not the only ones I have, as I've mentioned elsewhere, but they're the only ones I think should be shared.
This is pretty easy, and has to do with accountability, as I was saying. The amount of evidence we receive is pretty much exactly the amount we're morally ready for. That said, "I prayed and found my keys" was pretty much always a laughable "miracle" lol.
I disagree, I think that keeping beliefs proportional to evidence is essentially the definition of faith--not the commonly-used, mangled "faith" that's been warped by centuries of apostasy, but the one described in the scriptures. There are many things I know to be true and yet do not live by because I lack the faith--my emotional strength of belief has not caught up to the evidence. This is true for all of us on a moral level, and is described by rationalists as "akrasia."
I'll provide concrete evidence of a soul when you provide a concrete alternative explanation for consciousness. I don't even need evidence, just any kind of materialist explanation at all which even vaguely makes sense. I'd love to run my own prayer/faith healing RCT, and may do so if/when I get the resources, but honestly I think given how convinced I already am that money is probably better spent on healthcare for the patients in those hospitals.
Martin Harris was the only one who said anything about spiritual eyes, and he also explicitly said that he saw them with his natural eyes.
Meanwhile we have direct statements like this one from David Whitmer:
as well as the plainly written language of the Testimony of Three Witnesses and the Testimony of Eight Witnesses, and the lifelong testimonies of the men involved, all of which directly contradict one maximally uncharitable interpretation of a single witness's words.
You should know as well as I do that there are fairly reasonable explanations for these things. I understand why one wouldn't give such explanations much attention--certainly, the null hypothesis should not be that Mormonism is true--but my own view is that the decades have steadily confirmed more and more of what were originally seen as anachronisms and other flaws.
If you want to discuss in more detail I'm happy to, but it will have to be another day, as I've been on this site way too long today already.
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