The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

always gets me.

edited 19th Feb '17 6:42:20 PM by majoraoftime

What's that referencing? Did the Church of Latter Day Saints refuses to admit black people into it until 1978?

From the mid-1800s until 1978, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) had a policy which prevented most men of black African descent from being ordained to the church's lay priesthood.[1]:213 Black members were also not permitted to participate in most temple ordinances.[2]:198 These beliefs influenced views on civil rights.[3]:75 During the mid-1800s, president of the church Brigham Young held the position that slavery was a "divine institution, and not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham shall have been removed from his descendants,"[3]:40 (though abuse was condemned).[4]:268 Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, during his 1844 campaign for president of the United States had advocated for the immediate abolition of slavery through compensation from money earned by the sale of public lands.[5][6]

After Smith's death, Young taught that black suffrage went against church doctrine, that God had taken away the rights for blacks to hold public office, and that God would curse whites who married blacks.[3]:39 These views were criticized by abolitionists of the day.[7] Though the church had an open membership policy for all races, relatively few black people who joined the church retained active membership.[8] Young did teach that the ban on blacks would one day be lifted. He also stated that that black church members would one day receive the priesthood and its blessings, but only after this life when the other saints would receive similar blessings.[3]:

Joseph Smith ran for President?!

JOSEPH SMITH, AMERICAN MOSES!

But, yeah, it's not that "God changed his mind" but that "God's plan called for blacks not to be priests for a while". Keikaku doori.

edited 20th Feb '17 12:49:52 AM by TheHandle

I would obviously describe it as a bit more than just a "hypothetical possibility", but the short answer is - with all due respect - yes. I could go on a long rant about my reasoning, but I doubt there's anything there that you wouldn't already have heard.

I've already had the notion that Mormonism was a stupid as fuck religion, this just made it worse.

I GOT THE GOLDEN PLATES!

How's it worse than banning women from the priesthood, like most religions do?

edited 20th Feb '17 6:45:03 AM by Antiteilchen

Things add up. That is already stupid but Mormonism claiming that the native americans were the devil's spawn and black people being destined to be slaves and god cursing interracial couples is the stupid cherry on the top of the dumbfuck sundae.

But at least it isn't as stupid as scientology.

@Corvidae: Maybe, but you have always seemed to be one of the most rational ones around here, and I find myself agreeing with your conclusions more often than not, so I'm curious. Lets say I'm looking at an object moving across my field of vision. It looks like a duck, it sounds like a duck, it walks like a duck. I conclude I'm seeing a duck. But there is a very nice man in a white jacket standing next to me saying, "There is no duck here. You are suffering from a delusion."

Now, who do I believe?

You get a second opinion. If everyone else can see the duck, you're talking to an asshole or someone who is themselves delusional. But if no one else can see the duck... then yes you are delusional, or at the very least mistaken about what you're seeing.

And thus lies the problem with purely subjective experiences such as "feeling God's presence" and the like. You can't get that second opinion/corroborating evidence because that was a purely internal experience. And as such there's no way to tell that you're not mistaken about what you experienced either.

Hell even if you could get a second opinion the other opinions are to divided. Some people see no duck, some can't tell and don't care if there's a duck, some believe that something similar to a duck was there once and should be learnt from, some believe that the duck is real but only because we believe we see it, so many people that do see it argue over the type of duck that it is and that's before you get into the people who think it's another kind of animal or not even an animal at all.

Meanwhile, someone like me would just grab the duck while everyone else is arguing so I can have myself a nice duck dinner.

Like when resurrected Jesus went on to have some roast fish with his followers by the campfire?

Also, how do you know it's a duck? Nobody has ever shown you a duck. You've just seen a thing and gone "yep, that's totally a duck."

Or here's a thought: What if everyone has got a god-radar, except it's not supposed to be going off all the time? It's just supposed to ping if a god actually appears in front of us so we can take one look at them and go "yep, you're definitely a god", and that constant presence you feel is actually the god-radar equivalent of Tinnitus.

edited 21st Feb '17 3:53:16 AM by Elfive

Nondualism proposes that there's no such thing as not-God. God is everything from the poop out your bum to the darkest space void.

I think the others have more or less covered it already. It's possible that you're the Only Sane Man who can see and interact with the duck, or that the world is full of all kinds of different invisible animals that only show themselves to certain people, but at some point you'll have to ask yourself what the most likely explanation is.

Sure, you might conclude that there's no way to know for sure and that you might as well continue to pet the duck or whatever, but at the very least I think that the great diversity of invisible animal-based experiences around the world should inspire a healthy amount of doubt.

All this talk of ducks and whether or not they exist reminds me a lot of that one Discworld character. Is he crazy for not noticing the duck on his head? Or is everyone else nuts because they see a duck where none exists?

"Meanwhile, someone like me would just grab the duck while everyone else is arguing so I can have myself a nice duck dinner."

Honestly, it's what I would do. See if I can grab the duck and eat its meat. If not, it's probably not real, or at least not real enough to bother me.

Am I the only one here confused as to how ducks of all things became the go-to metaphor for the belief in God in this thread?

That was my fault. I used it as an analogy for sensing the presence of God in one's life. It's an imperfect one at best, obviously.

re "Second Opinion" and the like: Well, be careful here. If we are going by consensus, something like 80%+ of the world's population shares my experience. Its not true that you cant get a second opinion on a subjective experience, or art appreciation would be impossible. Or, to put it in terms of my bad analogy, 8 out of 10 people agree there's a duck (we may not agree on the duck's personality, but we all sense it's presence).

@M84:

@Elfive: How do you know that a real "duck" is a duck? It's just a name.

"...that constant presence you feel is actually the god-radar equivalent of Tinnitus." That's not substantially different from my experiencing a hallucination, so you're just restating the issue.

But you may have hit something inadvertently: "What if everyone has got a god-radar, except it's not supposed to be going off all the time?" Actually, that is what I believe. Given my beliefs, I am forced to conclude that God doesn't actually intend for everyone to sense him. Which therefore must imply that this is ok.

@Corvidae: "Sure, you might conclude that there's no way to know for sure and that you might as well continue to pet the duck or whatever, but at the very least I think that the great diversity of invisible animal-based experiences around the world should inspire a healthy amount of doubt."

I cultivate a very great amount of doubt and skepticism regarding my own beliefs. If one never doubts one's beliefs, they can never develop or improve. Why else would I bother having this conversation with you guys (going on 6 years now). Obviously I am soliciting critical feedback.

But to clarify my own position- when there is no possible empirical test, we are forced to believe our intuition.

To continue the analogy, 8 out of 10 people agree that there's an animal. (Or at least claim to. You kind of have to in some places. Would be nice to get some statistics on that.) Species, appearance, personality traits, and where in the area it's actually standing vary wildly, but seem oddly connected to the culture you live in, or what your parents believe in. The animal in question never leaves any footprints or other visible impacts on the physical world, and if someone goes over to touch it, other people will just see a person who's waving their hands in the air, possibly a few meters away from the "real" animal.

Nothing is forcing you to do anything, except you. You could look at all the contradictory beliefs in the world, including many old ones for which there are empirical tests that weren't available at first, conclude that human "intuition" is horribly unreliable, and choose not to act on it until you can come up with an empirical test.

"I don't know" is a seriously underrated answer, imho.

Alternatively, you might have strong, independent reasons for thinking that a particular person or institution is a rightful authority on matters duck-related. You might even have gone through a logical chain that concludes, on grounds independent of the current duck situation, that he or they is downright infallible on the subject.

So if (a big "IF," I grant) you've come to such a conclusion ... you're bound on those independent grounds to trust that authority's ruling on the matter. It's duck dogma now. Now, you could always revisit your original reasons for considering that source authoritative ... but if those continue to hold water, then you have compelling reasons to ascribe some other explanation to that quacking sound and gait. Time to write that Summa Contra Mallardes treatise.

It's taken my entire life to come to these conclusions, so... And obviously I'm able to entertain doubts, or I wouldn't be welcoming this conversation. But there will never be an empirical test, because of the nature of the belief itself. The duck is just an analogy.

And as for dogma, forget it. I've never be bound by any particular dogma and never will.

In Terminal Dogma, God is bound and crucified, oozing a lake of Her own blood.

Wasn't that Lilith?