Longest Thread Ever

[babe]

My cousin, who like me worked for Henry E. Eyring for a while, spoke of his relationship and recollections of that time. . . . . How when Henry E. Eyring, who is the father of the current counselor to the President of the LDS Church, Henry B. Eyring, spent a short time in the room where his wife Mildred Bennion had just died, and who had prayed in front of the family that someone of his family would come to take her home. . . .

When he emerged from that room, he told his family directly that his mother had come for his wife.

This struck a chord with me because of a similar thing that happened when my brother died. I speak just as matter of factly that Henry E. Eyring came with my grandfather to take my brother home.

My cousin calls this sort of thing "Gnosticism". . . . the direct experiential "knowing" of God and of spiritual truth. It makes us pretty refractory to the arguments of know-nothings who mock religion, to say the least.

I won't call this kind of "knowing" "Science". I've had this thing about science since I was kid. Science is the kind of thing you can demonstrate. With science you can construct an experiment with rigorously-defined equipment, methods, and principles and lay out a procedure that anyone can duplicate anywhere on earth, any time they want. . . . or at least under specified circumstances. . . . and other people will be able to get the same results you report. Science is thus different from religion, a thing apart, as far apart from other ways of knowing as, for example, "Art".

When I was interviewed for my mission years ago, the bishop asked if I "knew" the Church was true. A pretty good example of a gnostic influence in Mormon language. . . . the question was whether I could serve as an expert witness to spiritual truth. I misunderstood the question because I was thinking more in terms of science. So I said "No".

The Bishop, who knew me pretty well, sat back in his chair and then asked why I wanted to be a missionary, noting that I would need to be telling people the Church is true. . . . I said "Of course I can't prove it to them, but it's the best thing I know, and it's worth telling other people about it. It's their job to decide for themselves if they want to believe it." The poor Bishop signed the recommend.

But the fact of the matter was that I "knew" the spiritual truth of Mormonism before I even realized that it was what the Church had ever embraced. . . . I considered the LDS Church problematic in the fact that its members didn't understand it very well, even before I was eight years old. I have always believed what I know, preferentially to what anyone else has ever tried to lay out as doctrine. I know it like I know the back of my hand, like God knows me.

The fact that God exists, and is involved in our lives if we don't force Him out with our self-will and our sin, is beyond rational disbelief for anyone who has known God.

 

[babe]

When I read history, I run across other people who knew "God" as I do, not infrequently as a matter of fact.

A lot of people involved in the American Revolution, the leaders and soldiers who were in the fight, came out with experiences beyond denial as claims of knowing God had done something for them in the woods, in the lines of battle, and in the affairs of nations. I speak factually, as a direct descendant of King George, the tyrant we rebelled against, as someone related to an English spy for the Crown during the Revolution who thereafter fled to Canada, and as a descendant of at least twenty of the Revolutionary War soldiers. . . .

When a British officer describes training his rifle sights on an American officer, and being distracted by a thought, an impression, of what a fine gentleman the man seemed to be, to the extent of deciding just not to shoot that one man. . . . and later realizes that it was George Washington himself he could have shot, but didn't. . . . oh, yah, an isolated instance maybe pure coincidence. . . but thousands of coincidences like that, adding up to even the native Americans calling Washington the man who couldn't be shot. . . .

Nah, I know God played a hand in helping us win our Independence. A lot of Americans came home from that war knowing that.

 

[babe]

I've heard of similar things in other wars. . . .

my brother-in-law was in the Korean War. He has told the story in my hearing a number of times, of how his life was saved over and over again. I know what he's talking about. My wife knows what he's talking about. The experience he describes is like our own experience in times when life was on the line. My father told, and put to writing, over thirty of his experiences of a like kind. My father was never particularly religious in any outward fashion. . . . but he told of falling under a team of horses as a child, and how a voice told him exactly what to do, and how it saved him from being trampled. He spent his life being a scientist, and considered things religious to be undemonstrable and would not discuss them, but he still "knew" some person from another side of existence had spoken to him.

Once in a mine in Park City, as a young man just starting college, when he was tending a chute for loading ore, he was "told" to step back, just a moment before a ton of ore fell where he had been. . .

I sorta suspect that people all over the world can tell true stories like this. I think the term "Gnosticism" is tainted by its association with cult-like practices and mysticism, but the true idea is simply that if we are open to it, we will know a lot of things that can't be "demonstrated" or "proven" about our existence, and our relationship to God and other persons who have some connection to us despite being in another department of existence.

 

[babe]

So, anyway, Mormonism can be defined by men, and has undergone a number of renditions of that kind, and in that light we can quibble about what it is, exactly. Henry E. Eyring dealt with this quite succinctly, and declared that "Mormonism is whatever the truth is". Some things he disagreed with other people on, even church authorities. He declared that "evolution" was Mormonism so far as it was true, and so far as it would ever be known to be true. He said "I don't know how God did it, but I know He did it."

I thought Henry E. Eyring was wrong about some things. I thought his declarations and statements of faith were technically faulty or off the mark here or there somehow. I think anything I could say is subject to the same critiques. . . .

I remember a month or so before he died, he met his son Henry B. Eyring at his office in the Chemistry building at the University of Utah. I was off a ways, and they were not aware of me being there. . . . They stood near the north doors to the old building at that time, and I was on my way back in, but when I saw them there, alone, I just sat down about forty feet away. . . . I watched them talk for several minutes. It was a singular moment in time. I know what sort of men they are. I just "know" them. That was thirty years ago, and I still know them. I stood off because if I made any move it would have changed the time they had, and it was their time, not mine.

My great-grandfather was a close friend in the 1860-1890 time span to their grandfather/great-grandfather. Some kind of connection that played down to my time somehow.

Comparable in my mind to my wife's great-grandfather being the best friend over a lifetime to a particular relative of mine in their era, translating down to her brother being named after my relative because her father honored the history. . . .

This is a time when these kinds of "connections" are going to prove important. . . .

 

[babe]

Mormonism is not Joseph Smith, or even just Jesus.

Mormonism is the family of God.

Mormonism is the faith of everyone who wants a place in the family of God. It is who we are, when we get past our blindness to the truth. It is who we always wanted to be. It is our living relationship with not only God, but one another. The part of us, and the part of our relationships, that is honorable. The rest of who we have been, or who we are, is just dust in the wind.

 

[babe]

So, anyway, most people hold notions like this about what is "real" but beyond practical demonstration and unfit for general information we can with any expectation of credibility discuss with anyone but those we know will "understand".

 

[babe]

So, anyway, most people hold notions like this about what is "real" but beyond practical demonstration and unfit for general information we can with any expectation of credibility discuss with anyone but those we know will "understand".

Personal experiences are not science, science if it regards them at all will label and dismiss them as 'anecdotal" much like a court will dismiss any "second-hand" evidence as "hearsay". If you call it "faith" you might get hounded by a set of secular "humanist" crusaders on a tear to dissuade you from such "irrational" belief. . . .

 

[babe]

Personal experiences are not science, science if it regards them at all will label and dismiss them as 'anecdotal" much like a court will dismiss any "second-hand" evidence as "hearsay". If you call it "faith" you might get hounded by a set of secular "humanist" crusaders on a tear to dissuade you from such "irrational" belief. . . .

But the fact is, it is first-hand testimony, and of the same status as any "witness" who can testify to anything.

 

[babe]

But it is curious because such testimony can never be told in full context. . . .. and depending on the mind of the witness, the same witnessed event can be seen in completely different ways. . .. like any reader in this little essay is going to draw conclusions entirely his or her own. . . . and you're entitled to do that because you are also on the same level of observation, a witness. If you believe my story, you might be classed as a "hearsayer" or "second-hand witness", but the equally true fact is that if you recognise what I've said as truth, you are in your own right, a believer, and you get equal credit with me for believing the truth, and according to the scriptures, you're holding an actually more blessed state of faith because you will believe the truth with less compelling evidence. . . ..

 

[babe]

I might disagree with my cousin about calling this kind of belief "gnosticism", though. Because while it could be based on whatever inclination a person may hold, in the doctrine of Jesus, if it's a sound basis for belief, it is an acceptance of Him on the testimony of the Holy Ghost. It is the only thing that can draw us to The Father in an acceptable condition.

 

[babe]

The Cosmology of Jesus

Jesus was all about the ability of people to "know" the truth directly, through their spirit essence, in theory at least. He didn't degrade any kind of method for learning anything. He respected teachers, he respected tradesmen, and farmers, and government officials. .. . all in their capacities. . . .and he was willing to teach them in their own ways of "knowing" with the use of parables based on their knowledge base. . . .

But there was, in the final truth, no substitute for prayer, or for a committed relationship to the person of our Father. And with all Jesus said about who he is, and who His Father is. . . there is actually no latitude given for thinking anything but that God is in fact our Father, and that he, Jesus, was His Son and our brother.

But it is such a personal, overwhelming truth we just can't process it, or accept it, in an offhand manner, as perhaps our CommonCore texts would render it to a student as "informational" material. It can only be processed and understood after we put ourselves in a committed pattern of searching and enquiring, seeking understanding. And then it can only come in bits and pieces, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little. It is just "undigestible" in whole to any mortal person.

Still, Jesus said those who do seek will find. . . . and that those who live by His teachings will find more, and understand better, and gain a higher knowledge. . . . and that those who follow Him may one day be "like Him" and "like His Father".

In short, nobody in mortality is there yet.

It follows that all of us here are insufficient as points upon which to "believe" or place faith. Even Jesus denied that he was that point exactly, denying that his teachings were his own, and that the program was his, always pointing to His Father.

Jesus did say He was the Way, the Truth, and the Light. . . . but he was the Way to the Father, and he taught the Truth that came from His Father, and he was the Light, or example, to show us the path towards the Father.

Hence, my statement at the outset. . . . that neither Joseph Smith nor even Jesus is the basis of my faith. And certainly no lesser light. . . . nor I myself in my comparative darkness and confusion. . .. can be a sufficient point for placement of faith. It is no one short of our Father in Heaven. That is the One God, the only relevant God to us, and the one person referred to in the Ten Commandments as our God. Jesus was sent from our Father to make a way for us to come home again. To come back to our Father.

No, indeed, you credulous modern LDS folks. Jesus in not the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and old man Talmadge got that point wrong in his wrong-headed purpose to make the Mormons conform to other Christians who didn't understand it either. The only thing I can say in defense of the modern LDS image-shapers is that God might put up with us for a while, until we want to actually know the truth, no matter how ignorant we are, as long as we fundamentally still love Him.

But that doesn't change the fact that we owe our existence here, and our total allegiance, to the God who chose Abraham, and sent Moses, and Jesus, and others who have in some way served us on His behalf. . . . and that He is indeed our very Father in Heaven.

and, yeah, we get to choose what we will do about all that, if we will do anything at all. . . . but we do not get to set up our own vain notions as "right", and we do not slip in any way around the consequences for our choices, our beliefs and actions, here.

The choice we make against seeking God, and against being willing to be subject to God, is fundamentally an eternal choice. Every day of our lives is an eternal choice, a final choice.. . . . perhaps made incrementally but day by day we lose the day we might have had, living in the Light.

 

[LogGrad98]

Are you arguing with yourself?

 

[babe]

Are you arguing with yourself?

arguing with one's own self is more edifying than arguing with anyone else, including you.

but no, I will always try to juxtapose different aspects of a subject. Sometimes, hopefully, someone else will help. But in fact, this essay has been responsive to a series of questions someone asked.

you will miss things like that in the mass of my comments if you don't pay attention.

 

[PearlWatson]

There is always something so uniquely beautiful about your way of expressing yourself and interacting with others.

I enjoyed your responses with certain current topics masterfully woven in.

 

[PearlWatson]

This is a true assessment.

I happened to be one the 600 who were polled, and I took some statistical classes in college and learned about bias in the way polls can be done. It was pretty clear to me that this poll was biased. Yes, the polling personnel identified their association with, their employer, the Salt Lake Tribune. They also asked if you wanted to discuss it with them later on, offering in essence to help you feel better about their position.

Every question was constructed with no doubt about what they thought was the "right" answer,and they clearly had the notion out there that they were doing you service to let you know what you should say.

I invited them to come talk to me, with the intention of grilling them for being such malevolent crusaders for their political agenda, but guess what, after listening to my responses they decided they didn't want to listen to me, after all. The same way they ran me out of their Tribtalk propaganda division. I bet I'm now on their "do not call" list. And I was polite and respectful while positively responding 'wrongly'. I bet they even discarded my contribution to their data.

That's just the kind of lying folks they are. What else can I say.

Thanks for sharing. That is pretty funny you were part of the poll.

 

[PearlWatson]

This is not an original comment on Joseph Smith or Mormonism at all, I heard it years ago. The question of whether Mormonism could have sprung up in any other country than America. . . . whether our Constitution provided essential rights for people to seek God on their own, or whether any other nation would have let a religion like Mormonism grow at all, or whether there would have been any people at all who would have found it acceptable enough to believe the teachings. . . .

Mormonism could not have happened anywhere else, but on the American frontier of the early nineteenth century.

Well, it sounds like the "American Frontier" tried its hardest to prevent it from happening.

 

[PearlWatson]

My cousin, who like me worked for Henry E. Eyring for a while, spoke of his relationship and recollections of that time. . . . . How when Henry E. Eyring, who is the father of the current counselor to the President of the LDS Church, Henry B. Eyring, spent a short time in the room where his wife Mildred Bennion had just died, and who had prayed in front of the family that someone of his family would come to take her home. . . .

When he emerged from that room, he told his family directly that his mother had come for his wife.

This struck a chord with me because of a similar thing that happened when my brother died. I speak just as matter of factly that Henry E. Eyring came with my grandfather to take my brother home.

My cousin calls this sort of thing "Gnosticism". . . . the direct experiential "knowing" of God and of spiritual truth. It makes us pretty refractory to the arguments of know-nothings who mock religion, to say the least.

It is comforting to think that someone will meet you when you die, or that someone will be there for your babies or loved ones when they go before you.

I always wonder if those who die harsh deaths, like murder, will be instantly at peace about the way they die or if they will have to get "counseling" or be comforted about it.

 

[PearlWatson]

So I'm still looking for the PDF file that is my cousin's book. . . . the gnostic doctor delving into quantum mechanics and finding consciousness is part of the universal wave equation of all existence. . . .

spiritual matter?

intelligence?

 

[PearlWatson]

I won't call this kind of "knowing" "Science". I've had this thing about science since I was kid. Science is the kind of thing you can demonstrate. With science you can construct an experiment with rigorously-defined equipment, methods, and principles and lay out a procedure that anyone can duplicate anywhere on earth, any time they want. . . . or at least under specified circumstances. . . . and other people will be able to get the same results you report. Science is thus different from religion, a thing apart, as far apart from other ways of knowing as, for example, "Art".

When I was interviewed for my mission years ago, the bishop asked if I "knew" the Church was true. A pretty good example of a gnostic influence in Mormon language. . . . the question was whether I could serve as an expert witness to spiritual truth. I misunderstood the question because I was thinking more in terms of science. So I said "No".

The Bishop, who knew me pretty well, sat back in his chair and then asked why I wanted to be a missionary, noting that I would need to be telling people the Church is true. . . . I said "Of course I can't prove it to them, but it's the best thing I know, and it's worth telling other people about it. It's their job to decide for themselves if they want to believe it." The poor Bishop signed the recommend.

But the fact of the matter was that I "knew" the spiritual truth of Mormonism before I even realized that it was what the Church had ever embraced. . . . I considered the LDS Church problematic in the fact that its members didn't understand it very well, even before I was eight years old. I have always believed what I know, preferentially to what anyone else has ever tried to lay out as doctrine. I know it like I know the back of my hand, like God knows me.

The fact that God exists, and is involved in our lives if we don't force Him out with our self-will and our sin, is beyond rational disbelief for anyone who has known God.

I've had one specific irrational thing occur that I can't deny the existence of things not seen...God...angels...spirits...something that listens and responds.
When doubts creep up I always go back to this one thing...and other less obvious things.

Does anyone truly understand all the ideology they choose to embrace...don't people fall along a spectrum of understanding. Even with science...you can't be an expert in all fields...people in different fields come to different conclusions...interpretation of data is different...there are different motives behind accepting or rejecting truth.

The thing I've noticed is people giving up everything when one aspect doesn't make sense at a certain point....

 

[PearlWatson]

Personal experiences are not science, science if it regards them at all will label and dismiss them as 'anecdotal" much like a court will dismiss any "second-hand" evidence as "hearsay". If you call it "faith" you might get hounded by a set of secular "humanist" crusaders on a tear to dissuade you from such "irrational" belief. . . .

It is kinda worrisome that they rely on first hand accounts as much as they do seeing as how our mind works with filling in voids of recall, and how much people just straight up lie.