If plates then God

[Marcus]

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One ... rom_Omelas


"The city's constant state of serenity and splendor requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in perpetual filth, darkness, and misery.

Once citizens are old enough to know the truth, most, though initially shocked and disgusted, ultimately acquiesce to this one injustice that secures the happiness of the rest of the city. However, some citizens, young and old, walk away from the city after seeing the child. Each is alone, and no one knows where they go, but none come back. The story ends with "The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

Ha, I saw that Star Trek Dis. episode. At the risk of outing myself as a stupid hick like MG, would you mind explaining this?

-Doc

from wiki

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a 1973 short work of philosophical fiction by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child.[2]

You can dowload the short story as a pdf here

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... R_mgLWTR6G

[Rivendale]

Christ’s Atonement is Infinite and eternal. The sufferings of all of God’s children due to the wickedness of men will be compensated for and healed. One has to remember that this life is not all there is and that the sufferings and trials of this life are a small part of eternity. There will be a judgement. Those that are guilty of heinous crimes against humanity will also be compensated with appropriate consequences for their actions.

Your appeal to the atonement is a non-sequitur. Take any of the significant number of children before the age of accountability who literally cannot sin who are beaten or raped to death. The atonement does nothing for them. They are sinless and get a ticket straight to the CK. So, the atonement is not any sort of compensation for them. Yet, your loving God intentionally sent them to earth and chose to place them in a time and place in which he knew that they would be beaten, raped, and tortured to death.

And, unless you are willing to claim that there is a single soul who would live a perfect life if they could not beat, rape, or torture children, there is no need for the innocent to suffer at all. Those who would engage in this conduct will still sin, they will still need to be redeemed, and the atonement will still be necessary. Yet, your God deliberately places these innocent souls into times and places where he knows they will be beaten, raped, tortured and killed.

Your answer, though you lack the courage to face the consequences of what you say you choose to believe, is for some reason that you don't even attempt to articulate, this deliberate infliction of pain and suffering on innocents is somehow moral because of a future reward that the innocents don't need.

If you believe that this life is all there is, then yes, things appear…and are…a real mess when it comes to the atrocities committed by free agents upon the innocent.

War and mayhem and cruel disease and sickness have been and will always be a part of this natural world.

Hold on there. I'm the guy who believes in a "natural world." You believe in an intentionally created world by a being so powerful that he can twiddle the knobs of the fundamental variables that make the world -- in fact the entire universe -- possible. It's a world created specifically as part of the plan that includes your God knowingly subjecting innocents to rape, beatings, torture, and death.

Your God created it all. Anthrax, guinea worm, yersinia pestis, etc. And he created them all knowing the consequences. He deliberately created ever single disease knowing when it did it what the consequences would be to his children. Because otherwise it would be too easy to believe in God, right? Each and every source of torment and suffering was necessary for this good, kind, and loving parent.

The power of Jesus’s atonement is the only mitigating factor that can make everything right in the long run.

So you say. But your statement is false in the case of those who die before the age of accountability.

Secularism does not give any hope to the powerless and innocent in the face of evil.

I never claimed it did. You're off on a tangent now. Mormonism gives no hope to the young innocents who spend their short lives being beaten, raped and tortured, largely by the people who are supposed to love and protect them. "I'm really sorry that you have to be beaten to death as a child but, trust me, it's a comparatively short period of time and it's necessary that we give your tormentor the chance to commit this specific sin -- otherwise he'll have nothing to repent of and some other adult's suffering and torment will have been a complete waste." You think that's a source of hope and comfort to the six year old whose father violates her with a broomstick handle every few days?

Oh, wait. You mean it gives hope to you. Well, that makes it okay.

As I think I’ve already said, God knows full well that this is a fallen world. A natural world where there are real world consequences for the actions that people make…both the good and the bad.

Your God knows this is a "fallen world" because he created it. Jesus our brother, kind and good, devised a plan that required a fallen world. There was nothing "natural" about it. God started with a plan that you voted for and went to war to make sure it was implemented. The creation if the world as it exists was according to the plan. The fall was according to the plan. Your God isn't some helpless bystander. It is all his plan. He created it all.

That’s VERY difficult for some people to accept especially if they have no hope of God’s love and and Christ’s mercy in the eternal scheme of things.

You don't have the faintest idea why people find "that" very hard to accept. I don't accept your religious claims because they are, at bottom, both irrational and morally bankrupt.

God is not at fault for the actions and choices that evil people make. But he will judge them accordingly and all will be made right.

So you say. Your God is just as responsible for his intentional placing of innocent souls into specific circumstances where he knew they would be raped and beaten as Bin Laden was responsible for adopting and implementing a plan that took down the towers. It's his plan, and he executed that plan with full knowledge of the consequences. That the child abuser didn't know in advance that he would beat and rape the child and so has the experience of free will, does not lessen the responsibility of your God, who exercised his own agency to send the innocent into harm's way, knowing the specific harm that would result. If you leave your child with a babysitter with absolute knowledge that your babysitter will rape, beat, and kill your child, you don't get off the hook for your decision to leave the child with the babysitter in the first place.

There is a matter of trust involved. Do we and can we trust in God’s plan which involves free agency and that all will be made right through Christ’s Infinite Atonement?

I don't trust anyone who would deliberately subject innocent children to beatings, rape and torture and then disclaim all responsibility for the resulting harm. And I don't trust anyone who tries to convince me that this is all morally acceptable because reasons.

As it is, you have failed to come up with a plan/schema for a better world in which there is no evil. You are essentially left in a position of no hope. You cannot stop the evil. It will always exist in the hearts of some men/women.

This is where your reasoning goes completely off the rails. It's a 100% non-sequitur. My entire argument is counterargument to yours. I have no obligation to help you improve your argument. It's you who is making claims about your God's plan of salvation. I don't believe that your God, let alone your plan of salvation, is real. I see no reason at all to believe that there is a plan. So it's completely off the rails for you to demand that I present you with a plan that I don't believe exists for a God that I don't believe exists. The question itself is a risable attempt to change the subject and avoid taking about the horrific aspects of what you, as you put it, choose to believe.

Does it suck to believe that there's no plan -- no one driving this bus? Sometimes. What sucks worse is to believe there is a plan that necessarily causes children to be raped, beaten and tortured. Morally bankrupt.

God and his Son are the only one’s that have planned for and created a plan by which all we compensated and rewarded according to their works in the flesh. Some are blessed with the faith to know and/or believe that this is so. That faith cannot be forced. It is a choice.

As is the belief in the plates and the angel that are part of the restoration narrative.

Regards,
MG

Thanks for that. It was one of the best summaries I have ever read.

[MG 2.0]

Christ’s Atonement is Infinite and eternal. The sufferings of all of God’s children due to the wickedness of men will be compensated for and healed. One has to remember that this life is not all there is and that the sufferings and trials of this life are a small part of eternity. There will be a judgement. Those that are guilty of heinous crimes against humanity will also be compensated with appropriate consequences for their actions.

Your appeal to the atonement is a non-sequitur. Take any of the significant number of children before the age of accountability who literally cannot sin who are beaten or raped to death. The atonement does nothing for them. They are sinless and get a ticket straight to the CK. So, the atonement is not any sort of compensation for them. Yet, your loving God intentionally sent them to earth and chose to place them in a time and place in which he knew that they would be beaten, raped, and tortured to death.

And, unless you are willing to claim that there is a single soul who would live a perfect life if they could not beat, rape, or torture children, there is no need for the innocent to suffer at all. Those who would engage in this conduct will still sin, they will still need to be redeemed, and the atonement will still be necessary. Yet, your God deliberately places these innocent souls into times and places where he knows they will be beaten, raped, tortured and killed.

Your answer, though you lack the courage to face the consequences of what you say you choose to believe, is for some reason that you don't even attempt to articulate, this deliberate infliction of pain and suffering on innocents is somehow moral because of a future reward that the innocents don't need.

If you believe that this life is all there is, then yes, things appear…and are…a real mess when it comes to the atrocities committed by free agents upon the innocent.

War and mayhem and cruel disease and sickness have been and will always be a part of this natural world.

Hold on there. I'm the guy who believes in a "natural world." You believe in an intentionally created world by a being so powerful that he can twiddle the knobs of the fundamental variables that make the world -- in fact the entire universe -- possible. It's a world created specifically as part of the plan that includes your God knowingly subjecting innocents to rape, beatings, torture, and death.

Your God created it all. Anthrax, guinea worm, yersinia pestis, etc. And he created them all knowing the consequences. He deliberately created ever single disease knowing when it did it what the consequences would be to his children. Because otherwise it would be too easy to believe in God, right? Each and every source of torment and suffering was necessary for this good, kind, and loving parent.

The power of Jesus’s atonement is the only mitigating factor that can make everything right in the long run.

So you say. But your statement is false in the case of those who die before the age of accountability.

Secularism does not give any hope to the powerless and innocent in the face of evil.

I never claimed it did. You're off on a tangent now. Mormonism gives no hope to the young innocents who spend their short lives being beaten, raped and tortured, largely by the people who are supposed to love and protect them. "I'm really sorry that you have to be beaten to death as a child but, trust me, it's a comparatively short period of time and it's necessary that we give your tormentor the chance to commit this specific sin -- otherwise he'll have nothing to repent of and some other adult's suffering and torment will have been a complete waste." You think that's a source of hope and comfort to the six year old whose father violates her with a broomstick handle every few days?

Oh, wait. You mean it gives hope to you. Well, that makes it okay.

As I think I’ve already said, God knows full well that this is a fallen world. A natural world where there are real world consequences for the actions that people make…both the good and the bad.

Your God knows this is a "fallen world" because he created it. Jesus our brother, kind and good, devised a plan that required a fallen world. There was nothing "natural" about it. God started with a plan that you voted for and went to war to make sure it was implemented. The creation if the world as it exists was according to the plan. The fall was according to the plan. Your God isn't some helpless bystander. It is all his plan. He created it all.

That’s VERY difficult for some people to accept especially if they have no hope of God’s love and and Christ’s mercy in the eternal scheme of things.

You don't have the faintest idea why people find "that" very hard to accept. I don't accept your religious claims because they are, at bottom, both irrational and morally bankrupt.

God is not at fault for the actions and choices that evil people make. But he will judge them accordingly and all will be made right.

So you say. Your God is just as responsible for his intentional placing of innocent souls into specific circumstances where he knew they would be raped and beaten as Bin Laden was responsible for adopting and implementing a plan that took down the towers. It's his plan, and he executed that plan with full knowledge of the consequences. That the child abuser didn't know in advance that he would beat and rape the child and so has the experience of free will, does not lessen the responsibility of your God, who exercised his own agency to send the innocent into harm's way, knowing the specific harm that would result. If you leave your child with a babysitter with absolute knowledge that your babysitter will rape, beat, and kill your child, you don't get off the hook for your decision to leave the child with the babysitter in the first place.

There is a matter of trust involved. Do we and can we trust in God’s plan which involves free agency and that all will be made right through Christ’s Infinite Atonement?

I don't trust anyone who would deliberately subject innocent children to beatings, rape and torture and then disclaim all responsibility for the resulting harm. And I don't trust anyone who tries to convince me that this is all morally acceptable because reasons.

As it is, you have failed to come up with a plan/schema for a better world in which there is no evil. You are essentially left in a position of no hope. You cannot stop the evil. It will always exist in the hearts of some men/women.

This is where your reasoning goes completely off the rails. It's a 100% non-sequitur. My entire argument is counterargument to yours. I have no obligation to help you improve your argument. It's you who is making claims about your God's plan of salvation. I don't believe that your God, let alone your plan of salvation, is real. I see no reason at all to believe that there is a plan. So it's completely off the rails for you to demand that I present you with a plan that I don't believe exists for a God that I don't believe exists. The question itself is a risable attempt to change the subject and avoid taking about the horrific aspects of what you, as you put it, choose to believe.

Does it suck to believe that there's no plan -- no one driving this bus? Sometimes. What sucks worse is to believe there is a plan that necessarily causes children to be raped, beaten and tortured. Morally bankrupt.

God and his Son are the only one’s that have planned for and created a plan by which all we compensated and rewarded according to their works in the flesh. Some are blessed with the faith to know and/or believe that this is so. That faith cannot be forced. It is a choice.

As is the belief in the plates and the angel that are part of the restoration narrative.

Regards,
MG

So after all that we are left with that according to you we live in a sh**storm world where there is no hope for the child who is raped and/or molested in any way. Multiply that times all the other never ending crap that you alluded to and, well, to bad so sad.

No thanks.

You literally (from your perspective) live in a world in which there is absolutely no hope or redemption for the innocent.

It simply is what it is. Period. Ouch.

How sick of a world is that?

Fine. Live in that world.

I choose hope for a better.

Why? Because I think there is greater purpose and possibility than this sh**storm that we find ourselves in now because of the choices that evil people make.

Again, it is rather clear why you can’t believe in even the possibility of plates delivered from an angel.

You don’t believe in a creator God.

That seems to be the long and short of it. One thing we do have in common and that is the sadness we feel as we see children abused and neglected. I spent thirty years of my life working with and teaching children. To know that many of these precious souls are damaged goods because of the actions of evil and sick people makes my heart sick.

The thing we don’t have in common is that I have hope that all will ultimately be made aright through the Atonement.

You, on the other hand seemingly live in a godless world of mayhem with little or no hope for the children, women, and others that are raped or abused. A world where disease and the forces and workings of nature are all there is. No hope for redemption and/or endless possibilities.

And that’s the world we live in. Secularists and religionists doing their best to coexist.

As I expressed earlier to you, as a person, I’m sure you, Marcus, Doc, drumdude, Scratch, tgriffy, and others that have have participated on this thread are awesome people and good parents to your children and outstanding members of your own communities.

The bumper sticker, COEXiST is worth the effort even though we may strongly disagree on those matters of importance to all of us. This medium allows folks to deride and poke fun at each other without real consequences. If I’ve, again, personally offended anyone I’m sorry. It’s ideas and worldviews that I personally see as unreasonable that I poke at here and there. People happen to be attached to those worldviews and positions. If we were to sit down and eat a meal together it would be different.

The nature of the beast we call social media.

Back to the plates. I’m open to the plates as having been real and even delivered by an otherworldly being we call an angel. I can do that because I’ve chosen to believe in a God who knows all and I trust because He is the Father of all. The wicked and the righteous and everyone in between. He and his Son will make it all aright. I don’t hold them responsible for the mayhem created by free agents living within a mortal probation.

We differ on that. Cool.

Time for a walk. Beautiful day here in Utah. A run yesterday. I feel blessed to be able to get out and enjoy nature.

Do the same!

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Thanks for that. It was one of the best summaries I have ever read.

You probably will not really appreciate my response.

Regards,
MG

[Rivendale]

Thanks for that. It was one of the best summaries I have ever read.

You probably will not really appreciate my response.

Regards,
MG

You seem to think hope is a guarantee. Hope is trying to change something that doesn't exist in the now to something that will exist in the future. There is no guarantee of how that hope will manifest itself and furthermore not all hope is good. You claim that you are grounded in the divine assurance that all will be made equal at some point. This seems to paralyze any type of constructive steps forward. As this thread demonstrates.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Ha, I saw that Star Trek Dis. episode. At the risk of outing myself as a stupid hick like MG, would you mind explaining this?

-Doc

from wiki

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a 1973 short work of philosophical fiction by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child.[2]

You can dowload the short story as a pdf here

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... R_mgLWTR6G

Sorry, I meant explain why you posted it in relation to the thread.

- Doc

[Marcus]

...One thing we do have in common and that is the sadness we feel as we see children abused and neglected. I spent thirty years of my life working with and teaching children. To know that many of these precious souls are damaged goods because of the actions of evil and sick people makes my heart sick.

Is that a new opinion on your part? Because your comments are on record are that you are okay with your god allowing abusers to be calld as church leaders where they have the opportunity to continue abusing, just so they can be caught, repent, and be forgiven. It's a disgusting take.

As I expressed earlier to you, as a person, I’m sure you, Marcus, Doc, drumdude, Scratch, tgriffy, and others that have have participated on this thread are awesome people and good parents to your children and outstanding members of your own communities.

Lol. No, you have not expressed that at all. You've said many extremely mean-spirited things.

This medium allows folks to deride and poke fun at each other without real consequences. If I’ve, again, personally offended anyone I’m sorry. It’s ideas and worldviews that I personally see as unreasonable that I poke at here and there. People happen to be attached to those worldviews and positions. If we were to sit down and eat a meal together it would be different.

why can't you be that way online? You have been viciously judgmental and unkind for many, many years. Your 'apology' rings hollow.

Back to the plates. I’m open to the plates as having been real and even delivered by an otherworldly being we call an angel. I can do that because I’ve chosen to believe in a God....

Yes. When you assume uour conclusion before you even begin to think, it's no surprise that you conclude...gasp!! Your conclusion!

[Res Ipsa]

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One ... rom_Omelas


"The city's constant state of serenity and splendor requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in perpetual filth, darkness, and misery.

Once citizens are old enough to know the truth, most, though initially shocked and disgusted, ultimately acquiesce to this one injustice that secures the happiness of the rest of the city. However, some citizens, young and old, walk away from the city after seeing the child. Each is alone, and no one knows where they go, but none come back. The story ends with "The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

Indeed. That story has never been far from my mind throughout this exchange.

[Marcus]

from wiki


You can dowload the short story as a pdf here

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... R_mgLWTR6G

Sorry, I meant explain why you posted it in relation to the thread.

- Doc

Oh, i see. I posted it because of Res ipsa's comment here:

Beaten and raped children do not need the atonement to be saved from being victims of beatings and rape. Being a victim is not a sin.

What you seem to be dancing around but unwilling to admit is that Christ’s suffering and sacrifice is not sufficient for the redemption of sins. Innocent children also must be beaten and raped for salvation to occur. Beating, rape, torture, and murder of children are all necessary parts of the plan that Jesus Christ himself presented at the council in heaven, and you voted for that plan. Because mortals cannot be free agents if God does not send innocent children to earth knowing that they will be beaten, tortured, raped and murdered. Because unless children are beaten, tortured raped, and murdered, it’s so easy not to sin that you call it being handed salvation on a silver platter.

Take your own advice upthread and grow a pair: own up to the logical consequences of your own religious claims. Have the courage to admit that you sat in the council of heaven and knowingly voted for a plan that included beating, raping, torturing and murdering children. Then argue that the atonement somehow requires and makes all that peachy keen.

The short story premise is that an innocent child is allowed to be tortured to ensure the wellbeing of the city. It smacked a little too close to the complacency exhibited here by one poster, when he said that god allows Mormons to call child abusers to positions of authority that allow them access to children, in order to give the abuser a chance to be caught and repent. And thereby saved. By sacrificing his child victims.

The idea of voting in heaven for a plan like this is very close to the story's concept.

[Res Ipsa]

Sorry, I meant explain why you posted it in relation to the thread.

- Doc

Oh, i see. I posted it because of Res ipsa's comment here:

Beaten and raped children do not need the atonement to be saved from being victims of beatings and rape. Being a victim is not a sin.

What you seem to be dancing around but unwilling to admit is that Christ’s suffering and sacrifice is not sufficient for the redemption of sins. Innocent children also must be beaten and raped for salvation to occur. Beating, rape, torture, and murder of children are all necessary parts of the plan that Jesus Christ himself presented at the council in heaven, and you voted for that plan. Because mortals cannot be free agents if God does not send innocent children to earth knowing that they will be beaten, tortured, raped and murdered. Because unless children are beaten, tortured raped, and murdered, it’s so easy not to sin that you call it being handed salvation on a silver platter.

Take your own advice upthread and grow a pair: own up to the logical consequences of your own religious claims. Have the courage to admit that you sat in the council of heaven and knowingly voted for a plan that included beating, raping, torturing and murdering children. Then argue that the atonement somehow requires and makes all that peachy keen.

The short story premise is that an innocent child is allowed to be tortured to ensure the wellbeing of the city. It smacked a little too close to the complacency exhibited here by one poster, when he said that god allows Mormons to call child abusers to positions of authority that allow them access to children, in order to give the abuser a chance to be caught and repent. And thereby saved. By sacrificing his child victims.

The idea of voting in heaven for a plan like this is very close to the story's concept.

Or, the TL/DR for Doc: If the price of my salvation is even one beaten child, FTN. I choose to walk away.