That’s an important point. Becoming a Mormon actually alienated me from my otherwise close family to some degree. For some people it’s very alienating (imagine telling your mother, sorry, you can’t come to my wedding, for instance). Since I’ve left the church one of the many blessings I’ve had is that I’ve grown even closer to my parents and siblings.
Bzzt! God, in His essence, is pure spirit and does not exist in time or space.
Your god could not have created time. This is simply because in Mormon cosmology matter and energy pre-date your god. Your god arose from within the universe of matter and energy that has always existed according to Mormonism. Wherever there is matter and energy, there is time. So time existed during all of Elohim’s progression from intelligence to spirit to human to god.
Wow thats a blatant strawman argument. I never said those saints had psychological problems. The miracles experienced in the Catholic Church are very real extraordinary events. What I was saying about psychological events is that the warm fuzzy feeling mormon testimony is a psychological phenomenon produced by the power of suggestion. Go back and read post #292. Please.
A warm feeling can be brought about through the power of suggestion. How do i know that the Mormon “testimonies” aren’t just another one of those warm feelings that are brought about by suggestion? They certainly fit the criteria.
“Warm feeling” is your creation and invention. We and the scriptures talk about the testimony of the Holy Ghost. Creating your own straw man and then knocking it down is not a very intelligent way to debate.
Is the “testimony of the Holy Ghost” a physical feeling?
The testimony of the Holy Ghost is the testimony of the Holy Ghost. Neither Jesus nor His Apostles ever attempted to describe just how the Holy Ghost witnesses to someone. But they declare that He does. If it is possible, necessary, or desirable to describe precisely how the Holy Ghost witnesses to someone, why do you think it is that Jesus and His Apostles never told us how?
You are making sense, however that’s not what Mormonism teaches. They teach that the Holy Spirit provides its testimony throught feelings. See this quote from Mormon.org
So what gives you the idea that the Holy Spirit doesn’t reveal itself through physical feelings? Does that teaching contradict the Standard Works? Is Mormon.org teaching Mormon heresies again?
mormons describe it as “a burning in the bosom”." I call it heartburn. Or something else.
The impressions of the Holy Ghost is something that cannot be described in human terms. But humans like to be able to describe things in human terms, so they create terms that in their view comes closest to describing it. But that is a human need, not a spiritual necessity. The human terms have included desctiptive terms such as a “feeling,” an “enlightening,” or, as the two disciples of Jesus on their way to Emmaus expressed it, a “burning in the heart” (Luk 24:34). But the truth is that it is none of those things. Those are just human attempts at coming as close to it as possible, because humans require some kind of an explanation. The LDS website describing it as a “feeling” counts as one of those human attempts. But in reality it is an indescribable experience. You will know it when you have experienced it.
Right, that’s why missionaries teach you how to ‘discern’ the spirit first thing. If you feel anything peaceful or nice while they present their message, it’s the spirit. If it’s anything negative, it might be the devil (yup, heard that one). Warm fuzzies IS appropriate to describe that end of it.
In my experience these are UN-usual problems. In reading at MAAD, NOM, FLAK and FE I’ve noticed that LDS seem to hold non members in rather low regard. I think your statement reflects this attitude toward non members.
That’s one of the devices that cults use to hold onto their members. They convince them that all non-members are so evil that the only way to avoid ending up dead in the gutter is to remain in the cult.
Alright, so its not just a mere physical feeling because of course are non-supernatural and they can be induced in secular situations.
I"ve noticed that too. There’s an attitude that all non Mormons and especially non Mormon families are really not happy. I was raised in a non religious household and was very happy-- all of us siblings turned out well, went to college, none of us went to jail, none of us had pregnancy out of wedlock, none of us got into drugs and we all are close and hold each other in high regard. That innoculated me against the Mormon claims that true family happiness could only be found within Mormonism. I didn’t (and don’t) find Mormon families to be on average any more happy than any other random family with similar socio-economic backgrounds. It got to the point when I had to start to express my distaste for those sentiments as they were directly insulting to my parents who did such a fantastic job without the magic of Mormonism.
My mother couldn’t come to my sealing.
maa.org/devlin/devlin_11_03.html
