No, my response isn't merely a way of "saying I don't have answers." No, it's not a matter of "general and specific". If anything, you understand the words "general" and "specific" backwards: finding ultimate answers would be more like learning our purpose generally, while "awfully specific" answers are answers such as yours, where mortal life is explained by mundane facts we currently don't know about, such as the war in heaven. This is no different, as I explained, then winding up at Walmart with amnesia, and not knowing why you are there.
No, it doesn't innately "make sense" that we existed with God in some fashion before earth. It makes sense to you only because that's what you grew up believing. There is nothing about understanding a "creator God" that intuitively links us to eternally pre-existing with God. In fact, it's the exact opposite: If the primary function of God is found in the predicate of "creator", then nothing could make less sense than asserting we are co-eternal with God. What would make sense is that God, er, created us.
Wow, you sure have a knack at being 100% wrong about things, don't you?
If you’re right. Big if.
If not, we’re on a level playing field. I have as much chance of being right as the next guy. And I have scriptures and the prophets on my side.
You seem to think you’re a power player as you run up and down the field.
MG, interesting that we don't need the LDS answers to these questions to be a valiant person.
I agree. With the caveat that to be valiant within the LDS paradigm of belief you’d have to be a baptized/endowed and believing/practicing member of the church.
Regards,
MG
Inasmuch as valiant only means having a testimony of the church. Yet there are billions and billions without it and many of them very good on every measurable level. The only thing making LDS possibly more valiant is its own special definition of valiant. In other words God would be doing just as good helping people be like Him without its baptism, endowments, and church activity, even without requiring people to believe in God to be good.
The overall picture, then, doesn't fit. What makes more sense is that the church is much more about the church than about an expertise at being good, or in other words the LDS church is much more about itself than being like God.
I agree. With the caveat that to be valiant within the LDS paradigm of belief you’d have to be a baptized/endowed and believing/practicing member of the church.
Regards,
MG
Inasmuch as valiant only means having a testimony of the church. Yet there are billions and billions without it and many of them very good on every measurable level. The only thing making LDS possibly more valiant is its own special definition of valiant. In other words God would be doing just as good helping people be like Him without its baptism, endowments, and church activity, even without requiring people to believe in God to be good.
The overall picture, then, doesn't fit. What makes more sense is that the church is much more about the church than about an expertise at being good, or in other words the LDS church is much more about itself than being like God.
I don’t think so. The church is a means to an end. A vehicle. A laboratory. With all of the tools necessary. Not that there aren’t a lot of institutional tools...and non-institutional tools available in the world to help people reach greater potential. I’m not arguing that. Unfortunately there are some tools/institutions that may do more more harm than good. I think we may agree on that point. The claim of the CoJCoLDS is that all the tools for full and complete actualization are in the LDS toolbox.
The fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, knowledge of God’s true character, and ordinances of salvation. A ‘more excellent’ way.
Not to diss, at all, the millions upon millions of people that are moving in the direction of self-actualization.
You mean, what if I'm "100% wrong" and a "creator God" didn't really create us? You mean, What if I'm 100% wrong, and the word "general" really means "specific" and "specific" really means "general?"
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
Inasmuch as valiant only means having a testimony of the church. Yet there are billions and billions without it and many of them very good on every measurable level. The only thing making LDS possibly more valiant is its own special definition of valiant. In other words God would be doing just as good helping people be like Him without its baptism, endowments, and church activity, even without requiring people to believe in God to be good.
The overall picture, then, doesn't fit. What makes more sense is that the church is much more about the church than about an expertise at being good, or in other words the LDS church is much more about itself than being like God.
I don’t think so. The church is a means to an end. A vehicle. A laboratory. With all of the tools necessary. Not that there aren’t a lot of institutional tools...and non-institutional tools available in the world to help people reach greater potential. I’m not arguing that. Unfortunately there are some tools/institutions that may do more more harm than good. I think we may agree on that point. The claim of the CoJCoLDS is that all the tools for full and complete actualization are in the LDS toolbox.
The fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, knowledge of God’s true character, and ordinances of salvation. A ‘more excellent’ way.
Not to diss, at all, the millions upon millions of people that are moving in the direction of self-actualization.
Regards,
MG
I think of Gordon B Hinckley saying that the gospel makes a bad man good and a good man better. Sometimes it might help in either case, sure, just by virtue of being a social environment that incentivises some improvements.
However, I think that every time the church insists it has special power and authority, it damages people and their relationships.
I think of Gordon B Hinckley saying that the gospel makes a bad man good and a good man better. Sometimes it might help in either case, sure, just by virtue of being a social environment that incentivises some improvements.
However, I think that every time the church insists it has special power and authority, it damages people and their relationships.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Mormons want to better themselves, generally, from my experience. Being in a group that wants to succeed does have its benefits and tends to motivate people. MLM's are a downside to this, but still, the social environment, the emphasis on education and good families is really important. If the meddling leaders could just let the people govern themselves, not hide the money and spend it doing good, and not believe they must create some raison d'etre like opposition to same sex marriage, etc., then maybe belief in fantasy would be more tolerable?
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen
You mean, what if I'm "100% wrong" and a "creator God" didn't really create us? You mean, What if I'm 100% wrong, and the word "general" really means "specific" and "specific" really means "general?"
Ahhhhhh, I see the Mopologists can no longer trick you with their word games and tricks.......
Dr CamNC4Me
"Dr. Peterson and his Callithumpian cabal of BYU idiots have been marginalized by their own inevitable irrelevancy defending a fraud."
I think that every time the church insists it has special power and authority, it damages people and their relationships.
I’m interested in why you think this.
Regards,
MG
Look at our conversation here. I talk about righteous "valiant" people outside the church, and you point out that the truly valiant according to the LDS church can only be those in the LDS church.
The problem is, essentially, assigning righteousness to association with the church more than association to principles. Thus people and their relationships are governed less by principles and more by their relationship to the LDS church.
Look at our conversation here. I talk about righteous "valiant" people outside the church, and you point out that the truly valiant according to the LDS church can only be those in the LDS church.
The problem is, essentially, assigning righteousness to association with the church more than association to principles. Thus people and their relationships are governed less by principles and more by their relationship to the LDS church.
Well, in order to receive the saving/exalting ordinances one does have to be a member of Christ’s church. There is precedent for submitting to ordinances in the New Testament. Ordinances are more or less mile markers showing where we’re meeting up with God and following in the footsteps of Christ. We covenant to follow ‘in the way’ walking in obedience to God’s law. In other words, living the principles of truth and righteousness.
That’s not something to be dissed, in my opinion. I don’t think you’ll see members of the LDS church dissing those of other faiths or those of no faith at all for their righteous desires and actions.
Now what other folks outside of the church are doing to demonstrate their valiance, that’s between them and their God. Or between them and their own code of ethics if they are a non-believer.