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CuSithBell comments on Theism, Wednesday, and Not Being Adopted - Less Wrong
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So I take it you're not willing to demonstrate this ability? Say, by predicting what I've written on an index card (or whatever similar sort of verifiable prediction you're able to access)?
If that's the case, then I could certainly try to do so. Could you help me figure out what precisely I have to do such that you will predict success? The language of the text seems a little opaque. For others' convenience, I'll repost them here:
Moroni 10 3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
So it sounds like what I have to do is simply ask honestly for a sign of some verifiable sort? Or do I ask for more specific knowledge?
Already covered this:
"Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.
18Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.
19And now, how much more cursed is he that knoweth the will of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into transgression?" Alma 32:17-19
Further, "An adulterous generation asks for a sign" which should itself be sign enough.
Yes. See also D&C 9:7-9 which gives a further example, though it is for translating sacred text so while the method of asking is the same the method of response may not be.
Also, you may want to define what you mean by honestly. Honestly being curious as to what will happen is not sufficient if it does not also include a real intention to follow God's commands if a response is received. You cannot fool God and He isn't a wish granting genie.
Essentially what I'm asking for is a reason to believe it. That could include accurate predictions about things regarding which I have no relevant knowledge. It does not include reports that such things are possible and have happened but cannot be produced right now, and it does not include the fact that I am asking for a reason.
I am willing to ask, in humility, for such a reason, from anything that can hear my inner thoughts directly so as to be able to respond. If there is a God that can do so, and belief is in my best interests, and that God has my best interests in mind, then it follows that I should be presented with something convincing to me. If I actually discovered that, say, there is an afterlife and an eternity of reward or punishments depends on one's mental state, I'd seriously consider proselytizing (though in a different manner from most proselytizers). If I discovered that some notion of objective good was not only coherent but obtained in our world, I'd probably alter my behavior drastically. Certainly, I think the prior probability of any specific organized religion being true is infinitesimal (and would in most cases I'd first have to be convinced that it's logically consistent), and a particular religious experience of nonspecific fuzzies would cause me to question my sanity first, but if I had a coherent religious experience that held up on future observation, and provided real reasons to alter my beliefs, I'd do it in an instant.
We do not disbelieve because we have seen even the slightest hint that it is true but we wish to rebel or disobey. We disbelieve because there is absolutely no reason to believe.
I have in fact actually tried this in a different context, and managed to produce an altered mental state, but saw no evidence of the supernatural, nor even a subjective 'experience of the divine'.
But it sounds like, when you imagine someone actually trying what you said would work for anyone, your mind jumps to reasons why it won't work, rather than expectations that it will.
Recent discussion brought up another one.
D&C 93:30
"All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it to act for itself, as all intelligence also; Otherwise there is no existence. 31. Behold, here is the agency of man"
No, I am just used to dealing with people that don't bother to actually try and understand the procedure and only try it partially. If you note I responded with scriptures on the subject, the same scriptures I started out with to define the procedure, so it is really just clarifying the procedure.
That is an extremely subjective statement. I will do the best I can, but from experience I know it is not likely to be sufficient, but I have been wrong about applying experience on here before so hopefully I am wrong.
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. " - Isaiah 35:1
I think that is enough for now.
So we're clear, these are intended to be reasons to believe in prophecy, not Mormonism, right?
These sound pretty vague and after-the-fact, and there's no info about specific predictions made beforehand or how often this source is wrong. More to the point - is this what convinced you? If not, what did?
How are they evidence against Mormonism? Considering that only one of those can be accepted as valid prophecy by anyone other then a Latter-Day Saint without theological complications, I think they are stronger evidence for Mormonism in particular then for prophecy in general.
The prophecies were given beforehand so I don't understand this part of your response. Are you asking for prophecies that haven't happened yet? If so, how would that be evidence of anything?
Please find a wrong example. I am unaware of any specific prophecies that meet the criterion to be prophecies that were not stated as being conditional on some action that have turned up false.
Convinced me of what?
I had experiences with the Spirit that would be applicable for almost any religion on the planet before I had experiences that were specifically about my religion. So knowledge that there was a God came before knowledge of which Church was correct. Going back to Moroni 10:3-5, I eventually decided that I needed to know for myself if the Book of Mormon was true. So I read it as directed and prayed about it as directed and relieved the answer that it was indeed true.
It was only afterwards that experience that I actually read the D&C, The Pearl of Great Price, The Old Testament, and everything other then the Gospels in the New Testament. I likewise repeated the procedure for all of them, and due to the insistence of evangelicals I have dealt with repeated the procedure multiple times on the entire Bible, the New Testament, and the Gospels. This was under the hope that when they said they would do the procedure on the Book of Mormon if I did on whatever it was they said (their idea not mine (and no, none of them ever cracked the Book of Mormon that I can tell )).
Does that answer your question?
Speaking of the read-the-book-of-Mormon-and-pray-about-it-and-get-a-straight-answer experiment, I've actually told a couple of my friends that I will eventually do this in the name of empiricism, but it's such a profoundly boring book that I haven't gotten very far yet. Is there a way to read it that makes it more interesting? Why isn't scripture better-crafted?
It is hands down the most boring religious text I have ever read; I would be surprised if there was a more interesting way to read it. The Koran confused me more, and Dianetics annoyed me more, but the Book of Mormon wins on boring.
Yeah, but I didn't tell any of my friends that I would read the Koran or Dianetics.
I did find some entertainment value in the fact that when I opened the Book of Mormon for the first time, I discovered that Orson Scott Card ripped off its plot for the Memory of Earth series, but... he's a much better writer.
Yeah; I got the same amusement in the other direction, though it makes Card seem to be reaching harder.
Liveblog it. Chapter by chapter.
Would you read that?
No clue, see Ether 12:23-29 where Moroni the last prophet in the Book of Mormon pretty much appears to ask that very question of the Lord.
I looked it up, and it does seem that the question is asked, but it does not appear to be properly answered. Can you interpret God's reply there for me in some answer-ish way? It's pretty hazy.
If you are going to do this, make sure that you set aside in advance what you are going to test. And make sure that it is a) easily verifiable and b) not something that could be in your subconscious memory. The most obvious thing to do would be to have now a computer pick a random number, store that in a file somewhere and then when you are done, check if the number (if any) that comes from inspiration matches the number in question.
Mark Twain had some comments about that.
Would you like to generate and hold onto a random number for me that I can request as proof, or should I just do this myself?
I've generated a random number. To verify, there's a relevant SHA-1 string. I will send the string to any trusted user. I'm not going to put the SHA-1 hash here to eliminate the possibility that someone will claim that Alicorn inverted the hash, either deliberately or subconsciously. I would consider such subconscious inversion to be unlikely, but it is nice to control for as many variables as possible.
That's not what I meant - I was just trying to clarify my understanding of your chain of thought.
Anyway. My problem with these predictions was that they generally sounded like what they predicted was determined after those things happened, e.g. the second law of thermodynamics was not formalized by a Mormon.
If you really haven't considered this, then suppose: if I write down a thousand very specific predictions, and one of them comes true, would you call me a prophet? If you would, your standards are insufficient for your beliefs to correlate well with the truth.
Wikipedia lists a number of supposedly failed predictions - the hour of Jesus's return was nigh (within a generation) in 1830 but he hasn't arrived, the temple of Zion in Missouri was supposed to be built within a generation, the Civil War didn't end all nations.
What about these experiences convinced you of the truth of prophecy and / or Mormonism?
Other people have had vague spiritual experiences that convinced them of other, mutually contradictory religions. No one group is in the majority. Thus, no matter what, this is a method that is more likely to convince you of false things.
Why were your experiences different?
The Civil War prophecy needs to be read closely to actually understand what is being said, it isn't saying what you think it is.
I believe you are referring to D&C 84:5? "which temple shall be reared in this generation" is a command which they didn't do and are chastised later for it. Then continuing vs 6 "For verily this generation shall not all pass away until an house shall be built unto the Lord..." and so forth which is not a command but a promise. Please see the Kirtland Temple which was built after this revelation was given and did have the promised things happen if the records are to be believed.
The hour of Jesus's return is nigh is the history of the Church one on the list of prophecies correct? It is not given as a prophecy in the history of the Church but is an extrapolation by Joseph of being told that if he lived until he was 85 then he would see Christ, which he wasn't sure was a prediction of the Second Coming but he believed it might have been. Clearly, he didn't live until he was 85 so his second possible interpretation of the statement turned out to be true and his extrapolation of the prophecy turned out to be false.
Vague? No, they were pretty specific just not specific to only the LDS Church.
I am not sure what you are asking given the above, please explain further.
Almost all prophesies do. (But 'understand' deserves quotation marks.)
Generally, I agree with you having dealt with various other groups that also have specific prophecies and trying to understand how something so obviously false is explained away.
In any case here is where the debate is:
"and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and then war shall be poured out upon all nations." D&C 87:3 (well not all of three just from the middle to the end)
The debate is if immediately after the South called on Great Britain to help break the Northern Navel blockade that Great Britain would then be attacked by yet other nations or if some time after this call for help that Great Britain would call for help in the case of the World Wars with the Civil War being the start of the Modern Warfare employed during those wars.
Take from it what you will.
This is a claim I haven't encountered before. I'm curious incidentally what you have to say about the claimed scientific knowledge in the Koran.
oops, sort of miswrote, it is the first law not second. Well, the second is sort of there too but not nearly in the same way, sorry.
I am not familiar with the claims of scientific knowledge in the Koran, I would be interested in seeing the references to that.
The LDS position on the Koran is interesting. We do not know if Mohammad was a prophet but generally it appears the authorities in the Church think it is likely that he was, not a presiding Apostle but still having received revelation that was of a general nature for the area he was in. This puts the Koran on the level of Apocrypha which does contain true bits but also contains lots of not true bits so can be inspirational but does not count as scripture.
It is my understanding the the Muslims hold the Koran to be perfect so our position is contrary to theirs. Also it is my understanding that not only did Mohammad not write down what revelations he actually received when he received them but they were not written down at all until his death. I, personally, think there is too many layers of filtration over top of whatever was received by revelation to know what was revelation and what was not.
Ok. So where is it? Can you point to the specific scripture?
Regarding such knowledge in the Koran, I think you may have missed my point. I'm sorry, since that's clearly my fault since this is the second time I've used an example of an Abrahamic religion that has accidental complicating factors by being connected to LDS theology. So, let's ask the same question instead about say the Vedic texts. (The point by the way if it isn't clear, is that almost every religion has apologists who make this sort of claim about advanced knowledge in their holy texts. Just as each religion has people dedicated to saying why apparent contradictions aren't contradictions, why the archaeological evidence that doesn't fit their claims really does (although Islam is actually one that has much less of this problem than others), and how they have prophesies of subsequent events.)
Having been on an archaeological dig in Belize and having a wife that is a trained Mayan epigrapher, I am familiar with how archaeology is conducted and what is actually known about the subject, at least when it comes to central America. The answer is almost nothing, and my wife will hurt anyone except her grandparents that tries to claim that the Book of Mormon is referring to the Mayans. There is certainly enough evidence to say that it wasn't the classic or pre-classic Mayan (to begin with the dates are wrong, and the geography)
In case you didn't know claiming the Mayan were the Nephites is a decently common one among apologetics and it is the stupidest claim I have ever heard from them. It is much more accurate to say that we have no idea where the Nephites were, but that shouldn't be surprising if one actually goes through the Book of Mormon and tries to estimate how big the civilization was and where they lived. The answer is they were small and somewhere in southern Central America. Sorry, this is totally tangent to the discussion but you have my answer to the archeology objection now. It is not the standard one which I don't know what that is anymore. This, because they make things up instead of saying we don't know because apparently saying we don't know doesn't get rich donors to give you money.
um. I think I should clue you in on a basic doctrine of the LDS Church. There is no major religion on the planet that does not have complicating factors by being connected to LDS theology (excluding other christian restoration movements such as Jehovah's Witness or Scientology). God has revealed to every nation that portion of the truth that they were willing to receive and they subsequently fell into apostasy. I wasn't trying to hide that, it is taught in the first lesson given to investigators into the church by the missionaries.
D&C 93:33 is the main one. See also 93:29 and 131:7-8 for further information on the cosmology being talked about.
I love that word. I never thought I'd grow up to be an apostate but now that I have it has such a good ring to it. Even better than heretic.
She will also hurt you if you try and say the world will end in 2012 because the Mayans said it would. They didn't, their Calendar Round just increments to the next large cycle then. Even if they had, their idea of the world ending is nothing like our idea of the world ending as for them the world ending was a cyclical event that preceded a new creation and has happened multiple times in the past.
The problem with rhetorical questions is they can be answered in ways that don't support your argument:
"18 Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.
19 And now, how much more cursed is he that knoweth the will of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into transgression?" Alma 32:18-19
I put my keys down when I came into the house - in a sense I know they're with the gun and the wallet and if I turn my head slightly to one side I'll see them. Of course someone may have crept up on me and moved them. I do not - in the strongest possible sense of the concept 'know' that my keys are there.
Everything beneath that strongest possible sense of knowledge, however, is simply talking about degrees of more or less well justified belief. So what's being asked in Alma 32:18 produces a positive answer: Of course I believe that which I know. My well justified beliefs are held much more strongly than less well justified beliefs.
Which makes of 32:19 something almost completely meaningless. Believing, having cause to believe, is simply what knowledge is. You're essentially asking how much greater X is than X. To which the answer is, 'Not at all. X is the same as X.'
In all honesty a god, or someone operating under divine revelation, would know how these things evaluated. He would have expressed himself properly.
Your argument only makes sense if you are a Bayesian that denies the whole idea of knowledge built off of axioms. Which is funny because Bayes theorem is built off of a set of well defined axioms. How do you know Bayes theorem is true outside of the axioms that it is built off of?
Anyways, change it to degrees of confidence such that knowledge is something like 90% and faith is anything below that. Or whatever critical values you wish to use.
Alright. I'm happy enough being a Mormon with proof that only makes you right somewhere around 90% of the time. Cough up.
Resetting confidence levels is a dangerous game for any person to play with their beliefs. You've said I can set it wherever I like. Fine, I choose to set it such that greater than or equal to fifty one percent confidence will be knowledge of some degree, rather than faith.
Do you see the consequences here? I've just reduced the chance that any aspect of your canon and testimony is actually correct to the odds of a coin flip. If you accept those boundaries, then you can't use the book of Mormon or divine testimony or anything like that as something any more substantial than a coin flip to guide your decisions or beliefs. It's essentially admitting that you'd be just as well off using a gambler's dice to guide your life.
There's a tension in fiddling with confidence levels like this. Between meaning and proof. If you want an empty faith – then that's very easy to have without obligating yourself to any sort of evidence, but it's not clear there's anything there to believe in. However, if you want to preserve that sort of meaning then you've got to select confidence levels in excess of fifty percent and retain those as faith and that obligates you to some sort of proof.
And, by the by: this all works whether or not you're a pure Bayesian. Axioms are true simply by virtue of the rules of the system. They are true in every possible world where the system in which they're constructed can be made to apply. To the truth state of an axiom it doesn't matter whether god will provide testimony or not.
If you think knowledge only comes from axioms - (or is built purely on axioms) - then in offering some prediction as being fulfilled you're not being asked for anything that would qualify as knowledge. It's not even clear under such a construction that you're being asked for anything that would qualify as evidence of a particular axiom.
Of course the minute you start saying that the evidence does matter to the truth states it ceases to be an axiom; for all that the formula may itself contain or wrest on axioms.
What is your confidence level that putting your hand into a campfire is will burn your hand?
edit As in I assumed you were intelligent enough to see everything you said and to assume that I was also intelligent enough to see such things.
Close enough to 100% that it makes no practical difference.
That doesn't seem to leave you any better off though. Which, yes, I assumed you'd seen. If the level of confidence you wish to select is to be high - perhaps even very high - before faith becomes knowledge, then the level of proof you can offer without destroying faith will be almost equally high. Even if we go all the way out to 100% you've just taken on a greater burden of proof.
This isn't some abstract thing. We should be able to sit you down in a room with a fair coin - or some other thing that can be relatively easily measured - and have you call it. See what statistic it approaches - how God does against blind chance. If knowledge is to be 70% confidence and god only calls it 69% of the time that 1% difference preserves your faith. The same for whatever level of confidence you select. The only way the objection offered in Alma makes any sort of sense is if there is no such difference with which to preserve faith.
If I were claiming to be psychic or something then maybe. You have pretty much the same opportunity to try this out using the given method as I do. However, what makes you think that God is willing to play such a game? He isn't a genie or oracle that grants every random wish. I could be wrong but I doubt He would be care to be treated so lightly.
Um, I think you have the wrong idea on the type of confidence we are talking about. If we did such a coin toss experiment and the person trying to communicate with God got it right 69% of the time that would give a much greater than 69% estimate to the existence of said God. That is getting 69% of all coin tosses right over a very large subset of coin tosses should lead one to first check to make sure that the coin is a fair coin, then lead one to use a different coin even if it is, and then lead one to try and eliminate all other possible explanations, and if it is still 69% of the time right then one should a) believe fairly highly in however the person is getting that information and b) take that person gambling or have that person pick stocks for you (or figure out how to do it yourself) before publishing any results of the study.
Providing solid evidence is the only way to reach people who don't believe things without evidence. Some sort of effort in that direction would be expected of someone benevolent towards these people who predicts that this belief would be valuable. That's the way it seems to me at least.
So a prophecy of something happening in the world at large does not count as evidence if it comes true but predicting a coin toss does?
I already know it doesn't work for me. Perhaps I wasn't taking it seriously enough – whatever that means.
You have a god that reveals his existence to guide his followers on matters of relatively minuscule importance but won't reveal his existence to save someone's immortal soul? He's already playing the game. His values may be very different to our own but he's playing. (Assuming of course he exists.)
I don't think it's treating him lightly either. Some kid tells you they're a god you just smile and nod, some adult say it you ask them demonstrate some suitably implausible power. When you take something seriously you test it. Generally the more seriously you take something the more you test it – resources allowing – not less.
Treating him lightly would be dancing off to believe in some random god because I got the warm fuzzies when I went to a church/mosque/whatever, or because of what I read in some book.
It's not like he's being asked to do it as a parlour trick. It's not random either – it's for a purpose. Someone's immortal soul may or may not be in jeopardy.
I think so too. Whatever calls would give you a 69% confidence then.
hmm.. looks like it will be multiple comments as it is too long.
Some of this I will have already covered in other responses, I hope it is okay if I cover it again.
I think the best place to begin is to explain what the purpose of life is and then go from there. That is, there are reasons God operates the way He does and they are directly related to why we are here on Earth. It will seem round about and I am sorry for that, I can't think of a shorter way to answer that would communicate the necessary information.
First, Gods goal for us is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man". That is we are here to gain a body (in case anyone is wondering, you have succeeded at that part) and to qualify to return to the presence of God which will allow us to become gods ourselves (Joint-Heirs with Christ). Therefore the goal is to have us obtain the same state of power and knowledge that God has and just as we do not wish to give god-like power to an AI that is then going to screw things up so too God does not wish to do the same to us.
Previous to this life we lived in the presence God being His sons and daughters and we knew, as we could see him, saw the power he had, and had sufficient understanding to know, that He was God and what was right. Even in this state of knowledge 1/3 of all of God's children fell, they rebelled against God and were cast out into Hell (for simplicities sake I will use the term Hell, it isn't entirely accurate to do so but the purpose isn't to give you a complete understanding of all the details), forever. Those of us who get born on Earth did not fall but followed what was right when we knew for a surety that it was right.
Due to the fact that we did not fall we receive bodies and even after we die will again receive our bodies to no more part from them in the resurrection. This is what is meant by immortality and it is a free gift to all.
As to eternal life it is up to us on earth to live according to what we know to be right. Not what we wish was right but what we actually know to be right. This is primarily what we will be judged on. However, with the exception of Christ no one has perfectly lived according to what they know the right things to do are. We all fail and we all know that we fail, many when they so fail try to redefine what is right so that it appears to them that they have not failed but God knows their hearts and they can not fool him, or in the end themselves. Due to this state of failure, or sin, to follow what we know to be right we become unworthy of entering back into the presence of God.
This is where Christ comes in, He is our savior and able to wipe away our sins such that we can again be clean. For this to happen requires one to be baptized in the correct manner by the correct authority. After baptism one receives the companionship of the Holy Spirit to assist in making correct decisions, however one is still mortal and fallen and thus will still err regularly and so must regularly repent and renew the covenants made to obtain forgiveness again.
To obtain eternal life one must accept baptism while still alive, or at the first available opportunity when dead. That is, it does matter when one is baptized if one has heard the gospel sufficiently to have a high degree of confidence in its validity while still alive, if not then after death is fine. Refusing to hear more with the sole purpose so as to not have a that high degree of confidence (and thus not be required to change ones behaviors) is an action that demonstrates a sufficient degree of confidence for the penalty to apply
. After baptism following the commandments is required to maintain the state of grace. Everyone will have a chance to be baptized (and the other saving ordinances) whether in life or after death, this is what most of the work in the temples is.
In the final state we can end up in a variety of places, if we obtain a perfect knowledge and then reject everything then we end up cast out with those that rebelled at the beginning. Contrary to popular opinion, this is a state that will eventually be available to everyone to choose as we will all be brought back into a state of perfect knowledge and thus will again have the opportunity to reject it. If we never even tried to do what we knew to be right but accepted and reveled in our sins then we end up in the Telestial Kingdom, which is comparable to life on Earth but perfected so as to be a heaven. If we attempted to do what was right but for a variety of reasons did not accept baptism when we had the chance then we will end up in Terrestrial Kingdom, which is pretty much what is described when people are commonly describing the christian view of heaven (being no family units but a state of great happiness). The Celestial Kingdom is where God dwells and those that obtain it have eternal life, those that obtain it and are in a married family unit obtain the state of godhood called exaltation.
From all of this it should be clear that your immortal soul, while at stake, is not in any particular danger from God not revealing Himself to you. If you are trying to do what you know to be right then you have lost nothing. If you aren't trying to do what you know to be right then revealing himself to you could very well get you cast out, which is not what God is in the business of doing. He has provided sufficient evidence to suggest His existence while not casting out those that choose to not believe in the evidence provided. More evidence will be provided in the future as things get worse in the world, but until near the end it will continue to be such that many honest people that are trying to do what is right will not have to know the truth.
Warm fuzzies may or may not be a manifestation of the Spirit. It is often described as a still small voice or a burning sensation within (not a bad burning sensation, that is probably heart burn or something). It should be in both your mind and in your heart, being thoughts and feelings. This is the primary way with which God communicates with us as it testifies of the truth and lets us know what is right. It is also easily drowned out by other emotions and feelings and easily confused with other things (uncontrollable crying, a sense of community, trances, babelling incoherently, a sense of confusion are common things mistaken for the spirit) . There are a variety of other means of communication but all of them should be accompanied by this feeling of the Spirit (angels, visions, burning bush, talking donkey, dreams are some examples from the Bible of other means of communication (if I ever have a donkey or pretty much any other animal talk to me my first reaction will be to assume I had eaten something really bad or that I was crazy and either way need to seek medical attention, but it is there))
Ok, agreed.
I assume you mean there is a god?
Also agreed.
This is what I was assuming you were asking to have happen.
I am working on a longer response now that I have a better understanding of what it is you are requesting.
Put it this way, if you think that there is a 1% probability (e.g. you are convinced it is bogus) that I am right in stating that if taken seriously God will answer prayers as from the scriptures I provided and this is enough to get you to try out what they say then that was sufficient faith in that instance. Clearly at 1% probability you shouldn't be doing anything else that comes with believing in the Book of Mormon or being LDS (at least that doesn't already coincide with what you think of as being right).
If you follow through and get evidence to boost the Book of Mormon to say 70 or 80% level then that should likewise boost the level confidence of what the book says to do to high enough to test them out. Following what the book says and finding it to be right should then boost the level, eventually at least, to whatever you have preset as your critical value to say you know it to be true.
If however one waits until they have evidence to suggest something is true with ones preset critical value then one is not acting in faith. If one has evidence at that level and then doesn't follow the commands of God then one is worse off then someone that thinks it is bogus but has had someone tell them it isn't or someone that due to everything else thinks it has 51% chance to be right.
Does this make more sense to you?
That doesn't seem consistent with part of the earlier verse you posted.
Under the account you're offering faith and knowledge are just different degrees of belief – indeed under that account knowledge is the type of belief with the most cause behind it. Whereas under the account in the verse knowledge and belief seem to be completely different kinds of thing.
If you want to call different degrees of confidence faith and knowledge, I don't really mind – the probabilities are what they are regardless of the labels you hang off them - but it doesn't seem to be doing any work that gets you closer to the conclusion you've decided on. You haven't illustrated any difference beyond the claim that at some point of arbitrarily selected confidence it's going to become worse for us if we don't follow the relevant commandments.
Which is fine as far as it goes I suppose – why doesn't god provide whatever portion of the evidence doesn't quite tip me over that vital point yet preserves enough meaning to actually be evidence?
It strikes me the answer is going to have to be along the lines of 'The more sure you are the more liable you are.' But then the degree of confidence is a measure of degrees of knowledge and you've lost that sharp divide that seems to be required for you to make meaning and faith coexist (i.e. being more sure of the religion's groundings than of a fair coin flip). The objection that I couldn't know because then I wouldn't believe would become rather meaningless – all meaningful faith would be based primarily on some form of knowledge.
It is my understanding that He does.
yep.
Which it is. An experience once provided does give knowledge of the thing, however it is possible to doubt your experiences. Also, the experiences only provide knowledge of one thing and there will remain many things that are not known with the same surety, some of which may be difficult to understand, and these things must be taken on faith until they too become known.
I would think that it is a continuum such that someone totally unaware of anything about the subject is not liable for anything while those that have received knowledge of everything are liable for all of it.
Confidence in something not tested is faith. Anything not known with whatever level of confidence constitutes near enough to certainty to not matter for you is taken on faith. Knowledge is anything that is known with that level of confidence to constitute certainty. I am pretty sure that is a consistent translation of the terms into something understandable in this setting, I could be wrong.
If you're right in respect to the prophesies of Thomas S. Monson, I don't see how this could hold. They would be strong evidence.
In any case I think, we've got the chunks to start doing some building.
But.
Also known things are knowledge. You seem to be invoking, admittedly with some degree of displacement, the term in its own description.
To a degree – if you're going to build knowledge into the meaningfulness of faith then faith would be something like believing with a greater certainty than the evidence justifies. Since all faith would be tested to some extent, even if very weakly, in order to contain meaning.
The problem with that approach is that it never seems necessary for me to believe beyond the evidence. If I put, say, one percent confidence on the idea of god based upon things I see then that's not faith – and if I get more evidence from investigating based on that one percent and believe it to be slightly more likely – do some more investigation and get more... it never becomes faith; it's testing / knowledge all the way up.