Ep. 93: Conversion

[Emery]

Happy Easter everyone. Family obligations didn't allow an Easter show this year, but we did tape a show earlier this week that was inspired by Scott's encounters with a couple young Mormons that have been coming to his door. Spoiler alert: Scott did not convert. So why didn't he?

[mitchellmckain]

I guess I was quicker to listen to this podcast because it has special interest for me who lives in Salt Lake City.

First of all, I have to say that Scott's description of the basic LDS methodology does not match up with my own numerous experiences. So I think this is due to one of three things being the case:
1. I know that LDS outside of Utah are much more like other Christians that those inside of Utah. I have met Mormons who have commented on this same difference themselves.
2. Scott has simply picked up very different things as being the most significant features of what they did. It is only natural for any theistic group to tell people to ask God about what they are saying as so it should not be in the least bit surprising that another theistic group says that sort of thing.
3. The mission leadership either locally or globally have changed their way of doing things.

For me the most significant and consistent approach of every single group of LDS missionaries that I have talked to, was for them to make an argument about who has the authority from God to tell everyone else what the truth is. That is not an argument that works for me in any way at all. A God that cannot speak for Himself is not a God that I can believe in.


Much of the discussion was Emery's query about how we can differentiate between rejecting Mormonism and rejecting Christianity, all of which presumes this Gnostic idea that we are saved by believing the right things, and as Scott even mentions in the podcast, this is not something that I believe in at all. Scott mentions how I would consider that an example of salvation by works of the mind. In other words, however much Christianity may be defined by very specific beliefs, I do not believe that Christianity is preaching a gospel of salvation by believing the right things, and I very much disagree with Scott's claim that this is not Biblical. I think that Romans 10 makes it abundantly clear than whenever you make up rules about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell then you have crossed over into legalism and are preaching a gospel of being saved by works of some law or another, but a righteousness which is based on faith does not look for such rules. In fact, the wording very much implies that you have replaced God with these rules, because if you have rules and these rules can save you then you really don't need God at all -- so looking for such rules is looking for a way to dispense with God.

Scott brings up the parable of the rich man and Emery is indeed in the position of this man asking over and over again what he can do to have it made. It is a legalistic understanding of this parable to say it means we all have to sell everything we have, give it to the poor and live the life of a beggar monk who owns nothing. That may indeed be a good thing to do as are many of the things that people do, but I don't think that is the point of the passage at all. The point is that there is no such rules by which you can say you have done enough and have it made. This is made crystal clear at the end of the story when the disciples respond with, "who then can be saved?" and Jesus replies, "with men THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE, but with God all things are possible." Over and over again Paul makes it abundantly clear, salvation is by what God does and NOT by something that we do. It is all a matter of accepting a gift -- letting God do the work on you. For no, this isn't a matter of just getting some ticket He gives you but is a matter of transformation. It is more than obvious to me that heaven isn't really where you are but who you are. This idea of heaven as some kind of vacation resort or blissed out drug state is just grotestesque to me -- NO THANK YOU!

Emery asks what are we to say to the fact that people are not getting consistent answers when they pray to God about which doctrine is right? Well I think it is perfectly clear that it means that these just are not as important or uniformly right as some people are making them out to be. It IS the effect on our lives, as Scott says, that really signifies and not winning some theological debate and if some people make the right changes in their lives with different theological answers then that is exactly what God wants.

It is true what Scott says, that what we are judged for is sin, but I don't think it is a matter of punishment, but of consequences. It is because sin is destructive not because it is forbidden.

Emery asks what seperates people and asks what he has to do to be saved, and to this Scott replies "believe in Jesus". Emery sees this as coming down to a history test because he is the same as the rich man looking for rules so he can squeak by, when Christian message really isn't about such rules, for first and foremost it is saying that there are no such rules. But if you are looking for help then the Christian message is that you can find that help in Jesus.

At the end, Emery suggests that if God truly explains things to people then everyone would be saved, but Scott and I are 100% on the same page in response to this, saying that the evidence just doesn't back this up. And yes this can be a person's own fault. Circumstances can explain why a person does the things that he does but that is not the same thing as saying that it determines what they do. People do things that they know are wrong and even things that they know are bad for them. There is no doubt that circumstances do make a huge difference in what people do, but that is just why a system of rules are not capable of achieving any kind of real justice.

The difference is not something that we can measure but only God can see, and I don't think that it is found in something that is singularly expressable in only one way. Christians may call it "believing in Jesus", but the way in which God put it in the old Testament was this, "I put before you life and death, therefore choose life." So I certainly think there is a difference but that it can be expressed in many ways, such as, those who choose life, those who want to change and become a good person, or those who are willing to accept the help of God. And these are not a matter of accepting a belief system, for one may see no rational reason to believe that there is a God, but would be perfectly willing to accept His help if He really does exist because they do in fact want to change and become the best person that they can be and to live life to the fullest.

[GT3]

Emery asks what are we to say to the fact that people are not getting consistent answers when they pray to God about which doctrine is right? Well I think it is perfectly clear that it means that these just are not as important or uniformly right as some people are making them out to be. It IS the effect on our lives, as Scott says, that really signifies and not winning some theological debate and if some people make the right changes in their lives with different theological answers then that is exactly what God wants.

I take your comment to mean that it is the utility of the belief, and not the validity of that belief that truly matters. I would agree that people can and do receive great pragmatic benefits from beliefs independent of the validity of those beliefs; however, we should be careful to weight the benefits and harms of belief systems carefully. I am an atheist (and a Mormon who lives just north of Salt Lake City; I attend for the sake of family). I can see the clear benefits of the beliefs of my family and friends in their lives, but I can also see the harms. They generally lead good moral lives, enjoy a strong community, enjoy strong families, good health, etc. They also generally waste significant amounts of time and money on things that do not benefit themselves or others, experience guilt for not living up the the lofty standard they feel they should meet, annoy friends and neighbors who are not members by trying to convert them (harming those potential or real relationships), and suffer emotionally when anyone close to them comes to a theological disagreement with them (i.e. my atheism).

Is it possible to enjoy all of the benefits found in the belief system (morality, community, family, health, etc) without the baggage that also harms (wasted time/money, unnecessary guilt, harm to relationships, emotional distress)? If so shouldn't that be the goal?

I think that Emery and Scott both brought up and emphasized different points pertinent to the whole conversion conversation, with Emery emphasizing how we establish what is true, and Scott emphasizing the benefits and utility of belief and conversion. I respect the view that the utility of belief or world-view matters most, even if that means being potentially wrong; however, I would argue that utility and truth can both be achieved... but not by accepting unsupported claims. If we are to convert (or deconvert) it should be based on the strength or weakness of the pertinent evidence. But even if we dismiss the truth claims of a belief system we don't find tenable, we can still examine and perhaps selectively adopt the philosophies of living that might be of value or provide utility.

Me: Agnostic, Atheist, Humanist, Cultural Mormon

[mitchellmckain]

Me: Agnostic, Atheist, Humanist, Cultural Mormon

I am an atheist (and a Mormon who lives just north of Salt Lake City; I attend for the sake of family).

Cultural Mormon? LOL only in Utah. Anyway greetings to my fellow Utahn. I love Utah and would not like to live anywhere else. That is a reason, at least, for me to appreciate the Mormons, because I have to give some credit where credit is due.

Emery asks what are we to say to the fact that people are not getting consistent answers when they pray to God about which doctrine is right? Well I think it is perfectly clear that it means that these just are not as important or uniformly right as some people are making them out to be. It IS the effect on our lives, as Scott says, that really signifies and not winning some theological debate and if some people make the right changes in their lives with different theological answers then that is exactly what God wants.

I take your comment to mean that it is the utility of the belief, and not the validity of that belief that truly matters.

Not quite. It is not the only thing that is important only what is most important. The search for truth is another important aspect of our humanity and one that is of particular importance for me. I can very appreciate the priorities of those who feel that they have to choose between God and science and thus choose God, BUT that just isn't a choice that I am capable of. You have to understand that I am a scientist and not only that but that I am a scientist before I ever was a Christian of any kind, and science is part of the way in which I see the world. Thus I don't think that I could EVER put God and my eternal welfare before truth. That may not be the right priorities but it is the way that I am made, so to speak. I say that even though I also don't think that I can put my faith in the answers I have found for my salvation. There is too much uncertainty for that to be anything but standing on quicksand. Yet too much of my passion and instinct is for the truth to sacrifice any part of that for some promise regarding my eternal well being. On the other hand, it is part of the truth that I have found that our best hope is to put our faith in God and His understanding rather than our own.

I can see the clear benefits of the beliefs of my family and friends in their lives, but I can also see the harms.

I can also see some of the harms both in the Mormonism of Utah and in many practices of Christianity too, BUT I think that it is very foolish to blame religion rather than the weaknesses and errors of human beings that are the real source of these problems. One thing more than any other in this question of religion that must be dispensed with is the incredible naivety of the twin claims that either a belief in God or a disbelief in God is the solution to human problems. It is just plain nonsense either way.

They generally lead good moral lives, enjoy a strong community, enjoy strong families, good health, etc. They also generally waste significant amounts of time and money on things that do not benefit themselves or others, experience guilt for not living up the the lofty standard they feel they should meet, annoy friends and neighbors who are not members by trying to convert them (harming those potential or real relationships), and suffer emotionally when anyone close to them comes to a theological disagreement with them (i.e. my atheism).

Is it possible to enjoy all of the benefits found in the belief system (morality, community, family, health, etc) without the baggage that also harms (wasted time/money, unnecessary guilt, harm to relationships, emotional distress)? If so shouldn't that be the goal?

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES it is most certainly possible! And YES it definitely SHOULD be the goal.

It is the direction that religion has slowly and inevitably been going in the long term since the middle ages and we certainly want to resist and fight against those reactionary elements that try to turn back the clock! The principles of a free society has to recognize the difference between that which is objectively demonstrable (by which secular society can be governed) and that which depends upon the subjective perceptions of people and thus which is naturally diverse. We most definitely have to accept and embrace the diversity of human thought as one of humanity's most valuable assets, which I believe is even essential to our survival.

I think that Emery and Scott both brought up and emphasized different points pertinent to the whole conversion conversation, with Emery emphasizing how we establish what is true, and Scott emphasizing the benefits and utility of belief and conversion. I respect the view that the utility of belief or world-view matters most, even if that means being potentially wrong; however, I would argue that utility and truth can both be achieved... but not by accepting unsupported claims.

Yet it is easily demonstrable that one can know things to be true even though there is absolutely no way in which you can prove them to be true. So to say that you can only accept things as true if you can prove them is absurd. Rather we can ONLY say that we cannot expect OTHERS to believe these things when we cannot prove them. In other words, when there is no objective evidence one way or another then we just have to accept a diversity of thought and opinions as not only natural but also good. As my professor put it once, "there is more than one way to skin a cat", and so it is not only reasonable to let people find their own way to do things, but it is scientifically observable that this is part of the way that life works in the natural world. Imposing our own order on the world is part of what life is, and so I firmly believe that restricting ourselves to only what is objectively provable is a step towards the extinction of our own species.

If we are to convert (or deconvert) it should be based on the strength or weakness of the pertinent evidence. But even if we dismiss the truth claims of a belief system we don't find tenable, we can still examine and perhaps selectively adopt the philosophies of living that might be of value or provide utility.

Psychologists have demonstrated that belief plays a role in perception and thus our access to reality is fundamentally and unavoidably subjective. It is the objective which is the abstraction that we construct communally particularly with the technique of science. The value of science is enormous of that there is doubt, but science is not life. Life is fundamentally subjective by its very nature. In science we seek the truth where what we want to be the case is of no relevance. But what we want can never be taken out of the process of living itself. What we want and desire and hope for is a crucial ingredient in the living of our lives.

Of course I think it would be enormously helpful for the religious to acknowledge their limitations with regards to objectivity, but I also think that it would be enormously helpful for the non-religious to acknowledge the limitations of science with regards to living ones life.

[GT3]

Me: Agnostic, Atheist, Humanist, Cultural Mormon

I am an atheist (and a Mormon who lives just north of Salt Lake City; I attend for the sake of family). I can see the clear benefits of the beliefs of my family and friends in their lives, but I can also see the harms.

Cultural Mormon? LOL only in Utah. Anyway greetings to my fellow Utahn. I love Utah and would not like to live anywhere else. That is a reason, at least, for me to appreciate the Mormons, because I have to give credit where credit is due.

It makes me laugh, too. I wish I didn't have to remain so tied up in Mormonism, but I have to navigate a minefield of potential disasters with my family and personal relationships while they slowly grows to appreciate that I can be and am in fact good without god... and that they don't have to feel that my atheism damages or risks their families (now or in the eternities; though it's odd to argue from their own theology why it isn't something that they should have to worry about). For now I push on slowly and methodically, finding and disabling mines, suppressing the temptation to detonate them all.

Conversions and deconversions can be very tricky.

[mitchellmckain]

Oops you replied so quickly... I didn't have to go after all. So I continued my response by editing the first one.

[tonyenglish7]

Conversion,

Christianity is not what is called a Fideistic faith. (Faith without evidence). Mormonism is based upon the same basis that a snake oil salesman works. They tell you to pray for a warm burning bosom. If it doesn't happen, you need to pray harder. If that doesn't work, something is wrong with you. But once you have the experience, you are now accepted into the community. See my letter to the LDS church back in 1995 when I exchanged a few ideas with the secretary to the prophet... http://www.englishrealty.com/custom7.aspx

Matt 7, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Knowing God is the key, or rather, being known of God via perfection, only available through the cross of Jesus.

The discussion was interesting because it revealed the modern emphasis on the subjective point of view. It seems that the undercurrent of the discussion is, people should be free from responsibility since they believed a lie with full confidence. I agree that God will judge each person perfectly. But is that what we want? The good news of the gospel message is that Jesus, as God, provided a way to God, the knowledge of God and his knowledge of us, in order to transform us into a Glorified being to reside with God forever in perfection. This is an amazing opportunity.

The message of Jesus was not about what good things to do to be saved. It was not about going out and making a social utopia or fair community. It was about Jesus Himself, who he is and what he did on our behalf. It is not that people rejected Jesus, they were already dead in their sins, with, or without the message. Yes, Jesus said to go make disciples, to teach them about Him. But it is not based upon blind Fideistic faith, it is based upon all the evidence, along with the first hand testimony of the Holy Spirit.

But remember, there is an objective real world out there. There are spiritual counterfeits and false gospels. It is not about good deeds. But when someone does encounter the real objectively true God, their life is changed. They love the things of God as part of their new nature. The Holy Spirit teaches them directly as well. The social gospel lacks this offensive feature, that you must be born again to enter into the relationship with the Father. It is easy to go out and do what is considered good works without preaching the foundations of the Christian message, which is offensive to the philosophers and a stumbling block to the religious.

John 4:23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” So there is the subjective first hand experience of knowing God, and the confirmation of the actual evidence based upon history, science, logic and philosophy. Joseph Smith can easily shown to have been a fraud. (Very interesting subject). But the historicity and evidence for the Christian faith stands the test.

It is important to find the real, objective, actual true God. Good intentions are not enough, the offer of grace and mercy is really there. Don't cling to the subjective point of view in the hope of mitigating your fair judgment. Seek the truth....

[GT3]

Christianity is not what is called a Fideistic faith. (Faith without evidence). Mormonism is based upon the same basis that a snake oil salesman works. They tell you to pray for a warm burning bosom. If it doesn't happen, you need to pray harder. If that doesn't work, something is wrong with you. But once you have the experience, you are now accepted into the community...

[Faith in Jesus] ... is not based upon blind Fideistic faith, it is based upon all the evidence, along with the first hand testimony of the Holy Spirit.

But remember, there is an objective real world out there. There are spiritual counterfeits and false gospels. It is not about good deeds. But when someone does encounter the real objectively true God, their life is changed. They love the things of God as part of their new nature. The Holy Spirit teaches them directly as well. The social gospel lacks this offensive feature, that you must be born again to enter into the relationship with the Father. It is easy to go out and do what is considered good works without preaching the foundations of the Christian message, which is offensive to the philosophers and a stumbling block to the religious.

...Joseph Smith can easily shown to have been a fraud. (Very interesting subject). But the historicity and evidence for the Christian faith stands the test.

It is important to find the real, objective, actual true God. Good intentions are not enough, the offer of grace and mercy is really there. Don't cling to the subjective point of view in the hope of mitigating your fair judgment. Seek the truth....

Tony,

You say that Christianity is not a 'Fideistic faith', so what is the evidence that you hold up to support or justify faith? You failed to mention it in your post (more assuming than presenting). I agree that a subjective view is insufficient to justify faith for various reasons that have been fairly well covered in the podcast. If evidence is objective rather than subjective, then it should be something that can be demonstrated. You should be able to present it and achieve the conversion of this atheist (or at least the beginning of a conversion), if not then I would argue with your claims of objectivity.

Believing Mormons would argue with your claims about their faith. They would claim that it is objectively true in much the same way that you have stated that your brand of Christianity is true. Observing from the sidelines I see your "testifying" about your faith to be much the same as a Mormon "testifying" about his. Claims of objective, verifiable truth are worlds apart from demonstrations of objective verifiable truth. I would agree that the evidence for Mormonism doesn't stack up, but I would say the same about Christianity as a whole.

Please specify what you mean by objective, and what the nature of your evidence for the Christian faith is. Obviously we don't have enough time or room in this discussion to cover all individual claims of evidence, so it would probably be better to discuss at a higher level what types and degrees of evidence are necessary to justify belief and conversion. I would also ask if you favor belief or unbelief as the most appropriate default before examining the various claims.

[tonyenglish7]

GT3,

You say that Christianity is not a 'Fideistic faith', so what is the evidence that you hold up to support or justify faith? You failed to mention it in your post (more assuming than presenting). I agree that a subjective view is insufficient to justify faith for various reasons that have been fairly well covered in the podcast. If evidence is objective rather than subjective, then it should be something that can be demonstrated. You should be able to present it and achieve the conversion of this atheist (or at least the beginning of a conversion), if not then I would argue with your claims of objectivity.

Believing Mormons would argue with your claims about their faith. They would claim that it is objectively true in much the same way that you have stated that your brand of Christianity is true. Observing from the sidelines I see your "testifying" about your faith to be much the same as a Mormon "testifying" about his. Claims of objective, verifiable truth are worlds apart from demonstrations of objective verifiable truth. I would agree that the evidence for Mormonism doesn't stack up, but I would say the same about Christianity as a whole.

Please specify what you mean by objective, and what the nature of your evidence for the Christian faith is. Obviously we don't have enough time or room in this discussion to cover all individual claims of evidence, so it would probably be better to discuss at a higher level what types and degrees of evidence are necessary to justify belief and conversion. I would also ask if you favor belief or unbelief as the most appropriate default before examining the various claims.

Great question and I understand you are in that community so I really don't want to offend you or your loved ones so please excuse me if I do. The Christian faith is based upon real truth claims, not subjective feelings alone.
1 Cor 15:4 "And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied."

The evidence for the resurrection is strong. It explains the sudden explosion of a new religion whereas all its followers died for what they claimed was true, the resurrection. But in Mormonism, it is either a complete fraud or a true religion, there is no middle ground. The evidence is overwhelming that Joseph Smith was a gifted con man. He translated Egyptian funeral texts from the 2 nd century claiming they were the writings of Abraham as he was in Egypt some 2000 years earlier. He mistranslated the entire document. He plagiarized the KJV of the bible and put Peters words into the mouth of a Mormon character who supposedly preached hundreds of years prior. He even plagiarized some KJV errors into the BOM in the process. The history is full of complete evidence of fraud that would take the entire post to list. Suffice it to say that to any neutral third party who looks at the evidence, will see it was a fraud.

Even the top leaders of the church know it is a fraud as they buy up and hide any embarrassing documents that are discovered.

But the evidence for Christianity is founded first on the evidence for the existence of God which we have not even scratched the surface here as of yet. But we talk about the issue here on the forum.

It is a rational position to hold that knowledge and belief in God is properly basic similar to the belief that there are other minds and an external world. There is no way to prove those ideas but it is rational to hold them. In the same way, the knowledge and belief in God is rational given the contingent existence of yourself in the contingent existing world. It takes the study of materialism to teach this away in reality.

I have relatives who are Mormon and I have watched as they converted others and tried to convert me. What I noticed is they call any arguments against the facts of the church as from the enemy or of the "arm of the flesh". But if they think they have some positive evidence they tout it as true and supportive. They are taught to believe in spite of the evidence, yet to also cling to evidence for the church. It is sort of like the way cults trap a weak minded person. They tell them that because they are of God, their family members will attempt to talk them out of the cult, so when it happens it is evidence for the cult. But when someone agrees with them, it is also evidence for the cult. It is a no lose proposition.

So, God expects each person to check out what is really true. This is both subjective and objective with the knowledge that there is truth out there in the real world.

Mormonism started as a project to sell a book. But as Joseph Smith learned more about human nature, he became a prophet and built his enterprise. In doing so he ended up denying the true nature of Jesus, of God and of the universe. (Panentheism). I knwo you don't need to have me prove that but Christianity is different. It started with a resurrection of a person who claimed to be God. It too is all or nothing...

[GT3]

I can also see some of the harms both in the Mormonism of Utah and in many practices of Christianity too, BUT I think that it is very foolish to blame religion rather than the weaknesses and errors of human beings that are the real source of these problems. One thing more than any other in this question of religion that must be dispensed with is the incredible naivety of the twin claims that either a belief in God or a disbelief in God is the solution to human problems. It is just plain nonsense either way.

Certainly it is complicated, but that doesn't mean we give religion a free pass either. I don't try to deconvert my wife, even though I would love her to share my world-view; however, I will do what I can to eliminate harmful actions or thinking that are a product or by-product of religious belief (and not just her belief in Mormonism). And I expect her to similarly critique me if my actions or thinking is proving harmful (whatever the source). I don't agree with her faith, but I acknowledge that it is a source of much good as well as some bad in her and my lives. But complexity isn't reason to move for a summary judgement on the questions of religion (for or against). I would want to weigh on the individual components, including belief, and whether it is supportable.

Yet it is easily demonstrable that one can know things to be true even though there is absolutely no way in which you can prove them to be true. So to say that you can only accept things as true if you can prove them is absurd. Rather we can ONLY say that we cannot expect OTHERS to believe these things when we cannot prove them. In other words, when there is no objective evidence one way or another then we just have to accept a diversity of thought and opinions as not only natural but also good. As my professor put it once, "there is more than one way to skin a cat", and so it is not only reasonable to let people find their own way to do things, but it is scientifically observable that this is part of the way that life works in the natural world. Imposing our own order on the world is part of what life is, and so I firmly believe that restricting ourselves to only what is objectively provable is a step towards the extinction of our own species.

How is it demonstrable that one can know things to be true even without means to prove them to be true? Are you simply claiming that learning something true is different from demonstrating it? I would agree, but how do we know that what one has learned is correct? If we can't, then is it actually "knowledge"? Can we, even as the learner, accept that what we learned is actually true if it cannot be demonstrated to be?

Psychologists have demonstrated that belief plays a role in perception and thus our access to reality is fundamentally and unavoidably subjective. It is the objective which is the abstraction that we construct communally particularly with the technique of science. The value of science is enormous of that there is doubt, but science is not life. Life is fundamentally subjective by its very nature. In science we seek the truth where what we want to be the case is of no relevance. But what we want can never be taken out of the process of living itself. What we want and desire and hope for is a crucial ingredient in the living of our lives.

Yes, life is subjective. Descartes had it right when he boiled things down to only one thing he can truly "know" with his proposition of "I think, therefore I am" (his second step of proving God has been thoroughly contested from the beginning). I exist in some form even is just as a brain in a jar, or a computer simulation. We generally assume that the world we experience is real, as a pragmatic leap from our own existence. But, given that we must assume that there is a "realness" to our observations, we also can and do draw a further distinction between objective and subjective. Between the two objective is preferred in the realm of establishing reality. I think we generally agree on these points. But how far can we really go on subjective when it comes to truth claims? Sure, our sense of value, our emotions and our experience is almost exclusively subjective, but do those things allow us to draw reasonable conclusions about the nature of our existence and God? Do they reflect truth or our own subjectivity?

Of course I think it would be enormously helpful for the religious to acknowledge their limitations with regards to objectivity, but I also think that it would be enormously helpful for the non-religious to acknowledge the limitations of science with regards to living ones life.

I'm with you on the limitations on each side (generally), but what does that really mean when it comes to "religious truth" and conversion?

[scomsjw]

The evidence for the resurrection is strong. It explains the sudden explosion of a new religion whereas all its followers died for what they claimed was true, the resurrection.

Surely the evidence for the resurrection is no stronger than the evidence for the gold plates. Sincere eye witness accounts from honest people, a sudden explosion in the number of believers and evidence that the converts were devout enough to die for their faith.

[Emery]

Hey Mitch, I've been wanting to thank you for the thoughtful synopses and comments on our shows that you have done. I seem to notice yours the most, but I know others have contributed too. So thanks to you and everyone else for the feedback, it's really an honor putting up our musings and having you guys take the time.

[tonyenglish7]

Scomsjw,

Surely the evidence for the resurrection is no stronger than the evidence for the gold plates. Sincere eye witness accounts from honest people, a sudden explosion in the number of believers and evidence that the converts were devout enough to die for their faith.

None of the early Christians recanted or changed religions. This is not the case with Mormonism. Several of the top so called witness either were excommunicated or joined other religions and even accused Joseph Smith of fraud over the book of the commandments. (Because of the actual changes they tried to hide when they went back and added in the priesthood). There is no comparison to the early church fathers whatsoever.

[Mr. Sluagh]

Scomsjw,

Surely the evidence for the resurrection is no stronger than the evidence for the gold plates. Sincere eye witness accounts from honest people, a sudden explosion in the number of believers and evidence that the converts were devout enough to die for their faith.

None of the early Christians recanted or changed religions. This is not the case with Mormonism. Several of the top so called witness either were excommunicated or joined other religions and even accused Joseph Smith of fraud over the book of the commandments. (Because of the actual changes they tried to hide when they went back and added in the priesthood). There is no comparison to the early church fathers whatsoever.

Really? Our information about all of Jesus' disciples, much less all of his original followers, is that detailed?

[tonyenglish7]

Mr. Slaugh,

Really? Our information about all of Jesus' disciples, much less all of his original followers, is that detailed?

Yes, there are historical traditions that go back very close to the sources. There are no reports whatsoever of the early church fathers opting out of the executions they faced.