Actually, as I recall it, you were the one saying that God doesn't love everyone equally. With this example, it seems as if you're on track resolving the problem? What I said was that a Chapel Mormon has two routes to take. I haven't said anything about what I think would count or not as God's love. I have two ideas about how Mormons handle problems with God's love. In my first example, God is situated as putting his hand out while the sinner rejects the hand, therefore it's the sinner's choice not to be with God. God has to respect that decision. And the Mormon weeps over the lost sheep rejecting the hand.Ajax wrote:I would agree with Mormon's argument that a wicked person would be more comfortable further away from God than in his presence. So God gives Him only the amount of light and truth that he can stand. But I'm assuming that one like Gad would counter that this is proof that the LDS God doesn't love everyone equally.
While it's possible that a "wicked" person in the Telestial kingdom is given a great material existence, and is happy not to be around that stick-in-the-mud called God, that person is also prevented from ever visiting any family again who made it to the Celestial Kingdom. The only way to spin this situation is to say that a Telestial person doesn't want to ever visit his family again. But there's a slippery slope from here: Look at a recent DCP post, where his own personal enemies online, atheists, are more likely to go to Outer Darkness than Hitler because they are so angry against God, that they will reject any situation that requires them to acknowledge or benefit from God's hand so there is literally nowhere else to put them, and God then must respect their wishes.
Sure, it's *possible*, but given very high likelihood that the Mormon believer is fudging the situation in order to make their enemies suffer in some way, I'd call BS, and insist in order to at least make in conceivable that God loves everyone equally, that the resulting situation goes contrary to the personal wishes of the Mormon who is quite likely looking for revenge or just being passive aggressive.
Yes, it's conceivable that I adopt a dog from the shelter that isn't a good fit for me, and it's much happier being in another situation. The fact that I gave it up doesn't mean I didn't love it or want it. I may even subsidize its food if necessary while living elsewhere and hope to see a picture from time to time of how well its doing at its new home. This is a conceivable analogy, but it's going to be very difficult for a Mormon to accept. Suppose Dan were to allow Richard Dawkins the Telestial Kingdom. The problem is that Richard believed in the false idea of evolution, and so even though Richard wants to learn more than anything, he's not able to learn much at Telestial Universities because of his choosing to chase after the vanity of men rather than the real truth. So here is Dan, learning the mysteries of God in the Celestial realm, while Richard may find some books he can stomach, and have a degree of happiness, he will never be able to experience the great joy of Dan learning the heavy stuff.
I guess if you can say if Richard Dawkins' material needs will be met, and there are no barriers to him learning just as much about the mysteries of the universe from whatever kingdom he ends up in as Dan is able to, then I'd put that scenario at least on the table as one where it's believable that God loves Richard as much as Dan.
