> I don't subscribe to the philosophy of 1000 monkeys pounding on 1000 > keyboards to create MS Windows. Which is not unlike the big bang theory, > right?
Joel: I don't either, but I see some strong supporting evidence that this is the case :-) That is why I have not had Windows on any machine I control for over 16 years. Seriously, though, if God is not your source of moral authority, then what is? How do you know it is wrong to kill, for example? We tend to take that taking somebody's life in a non-combat and non-self-defense situation is morally wrong, but this is not the case for everyone. Let me share an experience I had back in 1993. I lived in Moscow, Russia at the time. One day I was talking to a security guard at a hotel. He observed that I was fluent in English and asked for some things he could do to improve his. I told him it really helps if you talk with native speakers. He asked me where he could find the ones that were friendly enough to talk to him. I invited him to attend the LDS church. He came. After listening to the talks he in full sincerity spoke with me. He said to me - "I cannot live like this. If a man stands in my way I kill him." This guard was not just a random man - he represented millions that grew up without the idea that there can be a firm source of moral authority outside of themselves and their own goals. I do not believe he was a "bad guy", although I strongly suspect he was connected - perhaps somewhat involuntarily - to some dark circles. You just did not get a job as a security guard at an American hotel at that time without some dark connections. But I do believe he was a good guy that was trying to get oriented, and he was struggling as you can see. Why? Because he lived in a society that as a whole has rejected the idea of God-given moral compass and tried to invent its own. So for those that reject God as their source of moral authority - yes, learning to feel the Holy Ghost, and learning to trust it requires a step of faith, maybe a step outside of a comfort zone. But what are the alternatives? If you reject God, how do you know that what you believe is right is really right? Is it possible that you live among the people that are deceived into believing that wrong is right, and right is wrong? Is it possible that some evils are like a slow-acting poison, and thus will pass the test of causing no apparent harm in the short run? And how do you define "harm" anyway? If there is no good or evil, then no matter what happens - pain, hunger, addiction, or loss of life - is just another thing, neither good nor bad. You may think this train of thought is crazy, but I am speaking from the perspective of someone who actually has lived in a society that has suffered severe mass deception and who has had to question every value he's been taught from birth to figure out what was wrong and what was right. I know what it is like to be deceived. Yet, strange as it may sound to some, I have no concern about trusting the Holy Ghost. I know what it feels like. There is no mistake. It is a pure feeling of perfect truth - truth in every way - moral, spiritual, and scientific. If I cannot trust that, there is nothing I can trust. Now, my ability to feel it as clearly as I need to and when I need to is a different question, but it is the problem of me being an imperfect mortal, and not of the source. So if I hear something that does not make sense to me, I ask again to get a better understanding, and once I know, I follow it the best I can. -- Sasha Pachev Fast Running Blog. http://fastrunningblog.com Run. Blog. Improve. Repeat. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
