Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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MG 2.0
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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jlamothe wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:17 pm
MG 2.0 wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 7:51 pm
Concerned about making Allah angry? You may have misplaced your concern.
Not particularly. I have no more reason to believe in Allah than I do to believe in the god of Abraham.

That really wasn't my point though. I was just staying that the Pascal's wager argument works equally well for both.
Hmm…Well, I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree on this point. I suppose one thing to consider is whether or not Islam was essentially a heretical outgrowth of the Judaeo Christian tradition or not.

I’ve repeatedly said on this board that a number of years ago I made a choice, Pascal’s wager, to believe in God. A creator God. A God who loves and supports His creations. And at that point I looked at which of the world's mythologies gave the best narrative of this God. Christianity and the teachings/doctrine of a Father in Heaven and His Son sent to earth as an Exemplar, Savior, and Redeemer made the most sense. To me.

I realize that your mileage may vary. Along with all those Muslims out there. 🙂

Not to say that many of those millions of God’s children praying to Allah aren’t doing so with full purpose of righteous hearts and that in some form or fashion the God and Father of us all blesses and recognizes them for their efforts and faith. Key factor…righteous hearts. Just as within any religious system hearts can be led astray after worldly lusts, power and glory, temptations of the flesh, etc.

Regards,
MG
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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jlamothe wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:28 pm
In regards to the assertion that the most rational proposition is to operate from the assumption that God exists, I have to ask: which God?
I think most of us who grow up in western civilizations really take that question for granted.

With Mormonism, we generally start with God (of the Bible) existing as a given, and that Jesus was his son as a given. The steps to Joseph was a prophet of God are quite a ways off from those first two givens, but they have at least started to pave the way.

Yet, reaching just that first thing (i.e. the God of the Bible exists) takes an innumerable amount of steps and assumptions to reach. Just reaching any kind of theistic cornerstone requires a myriad of support structures beneath that we rarely even realize are there. Support structures where social conditioning, cultural familiarity, etc., have had hundreds of years to integrate into how we generally think and see things.

It was really interesting to me, listening to my two brothers talk about their missions with each other when the second brother returned home. One served in Bolivia, and the other served in Japan. In Bolivia, you had a fairly well-established Christianization of much of the country. The steps to Mormonism were a bit easier to traverse. In Japan though, it was a different ballgame.

We can take something as simple as the Sacrament of the Last Supper with Christianity, for example. To most westerners, there's nothing particularly weird about it. But when you peal back the layers, and try to view it from the perspective of outsiders, and incorporate language that isn't generally associated with it, you start to get a very different image. A group of men gathered with the son of their God (who was also their God), and they ritualistically symbolically cannibalized him. Each Sunday, LDS wards around the world gather to symbolically cannibalize their God. We generally don't see that as anything "weird" because the worlds in which we have grown in have normalized it.

There are so many steps to even reach Theism, but here we are asked to accept an assumption that leaps past it and a million other things.
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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MG 2.0 wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:40 pm
Pascal’s wager
The original terms of Pascal's wager were infinite suffering in hell, or eternal peace with God in heaven.

Joseph Smith threw a wrench in the wager when he said almost no one will be in hell, and everyone would kill themselves right now just to get to the lowest level of heaven.

So in Joseph Smith's Wager, you have nothing to gain and nothing to lose.
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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Doctor Steuss wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 9:09 pm
jlamothe wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:28 pm
In regards to the assertion that the most rational proposition is to operate from the assumption that God exists, I have to ask: which God?
I think most of us who grow up in western civilizations really take that question for granted.

With Mormonism, we generally start with God (of the Bible) existing as a given, and that Jesus was his son as a given. The steps to Joseph was a prophet of God are quite a ways off from those first two givens, but they have at least started to pave the way.

Yet, reaching just that first thing (i.e. the God of the Bible exists) takes an innumerable amount of steps and assumptions to reach. Just reaching any kind of theistic cornerstone requires a myriad of support structures beneath that we rarely even realize are there. Support structures where social conditioning, cultural familiarity, etc., have had hundreds of years to integrate into how we generally think and see things.

It was really interesting to me, listening to my two brothers talk about their missions with each other when the second brother returned home. One served in Bolivia, and the other served in Japan. In Bolivia, you had a fairly well-established Christianization of much of the country. The steps to Mormonism were a bit easier to traverse. In Japan though, it was a different ballgame.

We can take something as simple as the Sacrament of the Last Supper with Christianity, for example. To most westerners, there's nothing particularly weird about it. But when you peal back the layers, and try to view it from the perspective of outsiders, and incorporate language that isn't generally associated with it, you start to get a very different image. A group of men gathered with the son of their God (who was also their God), and they ritualistically symbolically cannibalized him. Each Sunday, LDS wards around the world gather to symbolically cannibalize their God. We generally don't see that as anything "weird" because the worlds in which we have grown in have normalized it.

There are so many steps to even reach Theism, but here we are asked to accept an assumption that leaps past it and a million other things.
And you’d think that by this point we would have answered the question of whether God’s barber uses scissors or clippers to give Him a haircut. And how in the heck do/would eternal beings have hair anyway?

I enjoyed your post. This is the kind of stuff I like to read and mull over.

Evolution and God…never the twain shall meet. Or have they? In more ways than we might imagine, maybe? Societies have stories to tell, but as Paul Harvey was always searching for…what’s the rest of the story? Sorry. Rambling thoughts. Anyway, thanks for your ramblings.

Good stuff. You would add a bit of spice to our Elder’s quorum. I’d be more likely to stay fully alert rather than looking for things on my phone to occupy my mind while sitting through another lesson. 🙂

Regards,
MG
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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drumdude wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 11:40 pm


So in Joseph Smith's Wager, you have nothing to gain and nothing to lose.
Man, that’s a whole other discussion.

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MG
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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So I take Pascal's wager and I decide to believe in God. Now I must find the right church or religious institution? Why do I need a middleman? Does this God not speak directly to me?

I find it's the middleman that causes all the problems. It's the middleman that makes up or interprets new rules, laws and oddities. Then those must be enforced through fear, shame and guilt. The middleman demands payment through time and money. The funny thing is, all this devotion goes to the middleman, not to the God being worshiped.
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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Hades wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 3:41 am
So I take Pascal's wager and I decide to believe in God. Now I must find the right church or religious institution? Why do I need a middleman? Does this God not speak directly to me?

I find it's the middleman that causes all the problems. It's the middleman that makes up or interprets new rules, laws and oddities. Then those must be enforced through fear, shame and guilt. The middleman demands payment through time and money. The funny thing is, all this devotion goes to the middleman, not to the God being worshiped.
This is a really great post, thanx.
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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MG 2.0 wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:40 pm
Pascal’s wager
An infinite God with finite love. Obey the Brethren in Salt Lake City and give them 10% of your earnings or else.
Cry Heaven and let loose the Penguins of Peace
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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MG 2.0 wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:37 am
[...]Evolution and God…never the twain shall meet. Or have they? [...]
If you haven't already read it, you might enjoy Cardinal Schönborn's book, Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution and a Rational Faith.
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Re: Dan Peterson can't understand apostates!

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Next to entropy, evolution is probably the most powerful tool in God's arsenal. Hiding dinosaur bones in newly unearthed strata falls on that list somewhere.
Cry Heaven and let loose the Penguins of Peace
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