A Stak Attack, 2 missionaries, and suffering in God's plan

[_Simon Belmont]

Thank you for being nice to the missionaries.

I don't get it.

[_MrStakhanovite]

I don't get it.

You never contribute much of anything anymore, unless it’s about Scratch. You’ve been enjoying this Reagan-like slide into demented irrelevancy for months to the point that if we had a retirement home for cads , we’d have shipped you out way back when.

So, I’m shooing you away, like one shoos a toddler away from a light socket.

[_Nightlion]

My favorite line: “Sure you are not an English major? You sure do know a lot of authors.”

....

And thank you for reminding me of this from my reading, many years gone: "…I set down in my notebooks, not once or twice, but in a dozen places, the facts that I had seen. I knew that suffering did not ennoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, mean, petty, and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things. It did not make them more than men; it made them less than men; and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.”

I would have to say a lot to what suffering lends itself depends entirely upon whom it is having to suffer. Petty men suffer like petty men. Choosing to suffer for a purpose ennobles as every mother owns. Men can mother other purposes and come off refined to not lift up in pride before our Maker. True nobility knows its place and defers to were greater honor is due.

[_MrStakhanovite]

I would have to say a lot to what suffering lends itself depends entirely upon whom it is having to suffer. Petty men suffer like petty men. Choosing to suffer for a purpose ennobles as every mother owns. Men can mother other purposes and come off refined to not lift up in pride before our Maker. True nobility knows its place and defers to were greater honor is due.

What does noble suffering in concentration camp look like Nightlion?

[_xolotl]

sadly those missionaries responses and the general dialogue they had reminds me of the first two months of my mission. Fresh out of the MTC brain wash unit those are all typical responses. I laughed at most of their question fielders and responses and embarrassingly remembered those days. I suppose the only redeeming part of those early months as a missionary for me would be that I likely would have been more interested in your beliefs and your existential crisis. Sure I probably would have taken note of certain things and later brought them up in an attempt to bring the gospel into the center of discussion, but I genuinely would have been interested.

[_Morley]

My favorite line: “Sure you are not an English major? You sure do know a lot of authors.”

....

And thank you for reminding me of this from my reading, many years gone: "…I set down in my notebooks, not once or twice, but in a dozen places, the facts that I had seen. I knew that suffering did not ennoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, mean, petty, and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things. It did not make them more than men; it made them less than men; and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.”

I would have to say a lot to what suffering lends itself depends entirely upon whom it is having to suffer. Petty men suffer like petty men. Choosing to suffer for a purpose ennobles as every mother owns. Men can mother other purposes and come off refined to not lift up in pride before our Maker. True nobility knows its place and defers to were greater honor is due.

I don't think that suffering, in and of itself, ennobles. Ever. Let's take your example. Is a mother who suffers hunger for her children more noble than one who is able to find food for her children? Or is it sacrifice that you find to be noble?

I do think that there can be lessons learned from the circumstances leading to (or resulting from) the suffering. I'd be willing to entertain the concept that learning can be ennobling.

[_Simon Belmont]

You never contribute much of anything anymore, unless it’s about Scratch. You’ve been enjoying this Reagan-like slide into demented irrelevancy for months to the point that if we had a retirement home for cads , we’d have shipped you out way back when.

So, I’m shooing you away, like one shoos a toddler away from a light socket.

What do you contribute?

What gets me, is that you don’t get anything more from Mormon Apologists. Nothing from FAIR, FARMS Review, NAMIRS, Mormon Scholars Testify, or posts at Mormon Dialogue and Discussion ever get above the bar set by these two young gentlemen.

Well that's just plain wrong. Have you read anything from the Maxwell Institute?

[_Morley]

.... Have you read anything from the Maxwell Institute?

Are are you trying to invoke suffering so that we may become ennobled?

[_Nightlion]

I would have to say a lot to what suffering lends itself depends entirely upon whom it is having to suffer. Petty men suffer like petty men. Choosing to suffer for a purpose ennobles as every mother owns. Men can mother other purposes and come off refined to not lift up in pride before our Maker. True nobility knows its place and defers to were greater honor is due.

What does noble suffering in concentration camp look like Nightlion?

Was it Victor Frankle or some guy who wrote a book on that? Nobility is something that for the most part is apprised OF you by those who observe and respect and even worship. The suffering of Jesus Christ is ennobling of him in my eyes. As is the sacrifice and suffering of the other in any relationship ought to be so honored. Are we only talking about tragic suffering for no purpose other than the circumstance of suffering alone?

Suffering can add to the depth of your soul with compassion and patience and even love. Or it can be a bitch that you blame all your life's failure upon and dote with narcissistic abandon every minute of the day and night having it canker your soul. Like I said about petty men who suffer.

[_stemelbow]

What is so deep in the propisition that because there is so much suffering in the world there can not be a creator? I odn't know if that alone exhibits depth.

If there be an eternity, a world beyond our own, a life beyond this, then how are we to know what place suffering has for us? Perhaps there is some eternal growth there that we simply don't know or understand. And perhaps the growth is in humility.

The kind of attitude that prevails here is much akin to the naïve religionist who presumes such a black and white stance as to discount the ideas and thoughts of others. The religionist's conversation-stopping "you devil" exclamation is matched by the secularist (or whatever you would like to be called) every whit. It's a holier than thou. It's stifling. It's a shame. There is great potential to be had, but that potential is wisked away in a flurry of "I'm better than you" light bulbs.