Evidence and Belief
In science as well as scripture, we rely on a measure of faith.
Applying information begets knowledge. Agency and action lead to experience. By combining experience and knowledge we begin to acquire wisdom.
I strive for wisdom by acting on accumulated evidence from three sources (not always in this order): prophetic teachings, personal experience, and scientific consensus. My religion is central to my quest for wisdom.
Religion is just a set of stories people tell to make sense of where we come from and how things work.
Is that not what science does for physical things? Why do we believe researchers more than prophets?
Well researchers give us data, verifiable hypotheses, proofs.
Again, believers offer this too: eye-witness accounts of divinity, miracles, redemption. Invitations to see and know for ourselves by experimenting upon the word. Believers offer clear evidence -proof even- that their hearts and motives have changed. (E.g., Alma 36:26). And they attribute that change to the living Son of the living God.
Adherents of atheism or physicalism assert that there is no evidence of life after death. That no one has come back from the dead to tell us about an afterlife. The reality is that there are volumes of so-called near death experiences published, besides the compelling eye-witness accounts of thousands of people seeing the resurrected messiah in Jerusalem and in the Americas. Furthermore, there are countless unpublished examples of individuals reporting visitations from deceased loved ones.
But this is not accepted as valid or admissible evidence by non-believers. In order to be accepted, all evidence must be repeatedly and quantifiably verifiable; on demand, every time. An interesting dogma given there are more than 25,700 scientific publication retractions in the https://retractionwatch.com database, with 2,431 from the year 2020 alone. Besides that, there is an ongoing replicability crisis in several fields of study, with even reproducibility of results being a concern as well.
Part of the problem I see is that some scientists insist that all their evidence be accepted as fact, while discounting all the evidence believers bring to the table. It is also true that too many believers discount evidence from science that appears to contradict their interpretation of scripture.
We do this within groups too. Believers and scientists can be dogmatic about certain facts, standards, or practices, until they’re not. Both rely on evidence that is packaged into truths and Truths. Both ignore or disparage evidence that does not nearly fit in their present ideological structures.
Researchers routinely pick apart opposing theories and criticize the study design or the statistical methods used. They are not willing to accept alternative findings unless the data conform to their own standard. And ironically, the data we favor has a strong psychological/emotional basis to it (see “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman and “The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt for example). And no, researchers are not exempt from these influences.
On the other hand, fellow believers quietly wonder if brother so-and-so is off his rocker because he says he saw Jesus. If someone is capable and kind and they say they saw their deceased mother, we usually believe it. If someone is socially awkward or underemployed and they say they’ve seen an angel, we’re prone to discount it.
If a prophet says something we don’t like, we say it’s just a well-considered opinion. If they say they are “a witness” of Jesus Christ, we assume they mean they have a strong testimony, not that they have seen Him.
Too often we dilute truth even when it is spoken “as plain as word can be.” (2Ne 32:7).
I believe in God because I choose to believe that poignant and tender feelings when I have sought Him in prayer are divine and not a self-satisfying subconscious.
I believe in God because it would be a contradiction of faith, and contrary to divinity, if He answered all of my prayers all the time.
I believe in God because of the gentle voiceless tug and the clear words that direct me from time to time.
It makes far more sense that the Holy Ghost could be directing me, rather than that I have some unidentifiable connection with the universe or nature, or latent accumulated knowledge from prior generations, or an omniscient subconscious that only occasionally and semi-randomly decides to be useful.
I believe in God because at some point it defies probability to say that repeated insight, timely invisible comfort, healing, revelation, and prophecy fulfilled are all due to chance. It would be illogical for me not to believe.
Some say spiritual embraces, heavenly visitations, instructive voices, and near-death experiences can be discounted as electrical and neurochemical misfirings.
If so, what about those who have no signs of life at all, but report complex and lengthy multisensory experiences before being resuscitated?
If so, then what about right now? What is reality? What is truth? If all we are is an infinitely complex network of systems, prone to glitch from time to time, is there any real meaning at all?
And if so, how did that system come to be?
Well we started out 100s of billions of years ago as tiny single cell organisms…
I can’t accept that my faith is misplaced when it takes just as much faith for non-believers to claim coincidental evolution as the origin of modern man.
It would take a stunning number of chance, cumulative, non-adaptive mutations to arrive at the level of complexity seen in various components of the human body. And yet we believe evolution explains our heritage. We have no eye-witnesses, only evidence. And with that evidence we weave a narrative of meaning. We accept ancient fossil records, but not ancient scripture.
Of course degrees of evolution are a real thing. But does evolution explain the true origin and purpose of mankind- the sons and daughters of Divine Parents? A core issue is not just what the evidence is, but how we interpret it. Just because something can be explained doesn’t mean that it is fully explained. Even if one hypothesis is true it does not necessarily exclude another from also being true.
The evolution of the soul is not mastery of the spirit over the body, but a divine harmony of each. One way we are misguided is by letting our physical brain or intellect be master over our spiritual brain. That is, what we can see, verify, predict, and know without faith trumps everything else.
“Show unto us a sign and then we shall believe” is a recurring documented and verbal retort.
Thou hast had had signs enough. What is lacking is not evidence, but trust (faith); The willingness to act on a belief that is not fully verified or subject to quantifiable secular scrutiny.
Likewise we can cling so tightly to our current understanding of scripture and revelation that we do not give adequate space for intellectual expansion. We should “seek out the best books” and to “obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man,” and “study it out in our minds” during our quest for truth.
The path of wisdom is a full partnership of intellect and emotion, heart and mind, spirit and body. With this wisdom we can learn and apply divine laws to make the world better.
I believe God is a Holy Man of laws, order, and stunning compassion. All woven together in glorious sensibility. Researchers in all fields relentlessly push for greater knowledge of all things. Believers in Christ should labor doing the same, concurrently seeking deeper understanding of and loyalty to God the Father through His Christ. I believe true Christians are scientists of a spiritual sort: constantly striving to understand, to apply, to expand, and profess.
I believe when Christ comes again we will see the unfolding of a perfect union between technology and faith, hard drives and hearts, government and self-reliance. He will reign as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. At that day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.
We will all be eye-witnesses.
We will no longer have faith, but perfect knowledge.
