Personal religious experiences
 

I have a FB friend who primarily shares spiritual experiences on FB.

They are personal experiences. And most of them are related to him receiving some kind of personal revelation where he does some service or shares the gospel. But like, they are not the "garden variety." They are more along the lines of "I felt inspired to go to this place, but had no idea..." and then they come upon someone who needed that service or was looking for a religious answer or something like that. It's Monson level stuff.

And it happens to him quite often.

So often that I wonder if it's actually true. Then I feel bad for doubting.

The phenomenon of making up spiritual stories is well known. But it's kind of hard to pick out. Because we like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

The fact he is sharing on FB makes it look as if he is seeking praise. It is easier to doubt somebody seeking praise. Paul H. Dunn comes to mind.

True novel experiences happen for the giver and the recipient, not for social media. He has his reward.

I think it's the rare person who makes things up. There was a guy in my mission who did. He became AP. He was a fraud. But those guys are rare.

Some people are the exact opposite of deists. They think God is literally just around the corner all the time. Sitting on their shoulder all the time. It's like they are jedis, and the rest of us are just regular dudes.

If what you are implying is that people see God where God isn't, then with that we are in agreement.

I had the opportunity many years ago to translate
 

a fellow members journals into English and the idea was to actually write a book of his experiences. I tentatively took the assignment and told the brother that I would review his journals and would get back to him to see if it is something I would be able to do.

At first I thought what a great opportunity. He wanted to share his experiences while he was a missionary in South America. He was inspired to do this because of someone he knew State side had recently written a book on a gospel subject and it spurred him to want to share.

As I began reading through his journals I was stunned at some of the spiritual experiences he had. As I continued to read though I began to feel uneasy about the whole idea of translating these and sharing them for the world to see. The stories began to become fantastical in nature with an aire of the prophets of old. I was torn between working on the book with him and just leaving it be.

The decision was made easy for me when I came upon a peculiar passage in his journal about an area he served in where he was near the ocean and the spirit revealed to him that the place he was standing on was the same place Nephi and his family had stood on when they landed on the beach.

I prayed hard about what I was going to say to this brother. I cared about him, but I didn't want to lie and make up an excuse. I didn't want to be brazen in my doubt about these things. After some time I felt inspired to hand the journals to the brother and tell him that it was a privilege to have shared such personal experiences. I told him that I would not be doing the book project. When he asked me why, I told him that I would not be able to translate his personal experience in a way that would accurately depict what had actually happened. To capture something so personal and intimate would require having gone through similar experiences. Since I had never had such I would not understand.

He was disappointed, but he understood. I felt that much of what he had written was his way of dealing with his emotions about serving the Lord as a missionary, and it's connection to having served in what we often refer to as the Book of Mormon Lands.

I think some people have difficulty separating a truly spiritual experience and their own emotional need to feel spiritual. It can be difficult to separate the two.

The flip side of this is if no one shares their spiritual experiences, we are also left poorer.

Some are given the gift of faith. Some are given to believe those with that gift.

Are we? Until we have our own, if ever, those of others are useless.

I don't agree with that.

Well you claim to have your own and therefore can't go to a point where you don't have one or some. As a result, you can't know what it feels like to not have one to see how useless they are.

how useless what are?