God and a fraud?

[_barrelomonkeys]

Exactly. But I get the distinct impression that many religious people see hedonism as a 'selfish' attitude. (I.e. it's all about MY pleasure...)

Well I think (and have NO idea why I think this?!) that religious people somehow equate hedonism to steamy, wet, wild, kinky, monkey sex of some sort! I just get that impression when they sneer about the term. I have NO idea why....

It has nothing to do with morals.

Well, I think it can do, just because it could conflict with other moral systems. For example, if the most good is to do with pleasure, is it 'good' to force pleasure on somebody who doesn't want pleasure? Is that the point where the hedonist would say "Well, what is 'pleasure' for them is different than for others"

Well obviously if you're attempting to force someone else to do something, and they are resistant to that force, does that not in turn create a struggle that would not maximize pleasure?

It also obviously conflicts with many other moral systems - quite often the ones that want you to feel bad about enjoying certain aspects of life...

Well I need specifics Ren. Please remember I didn't grow up in any Church. Was never indoctrinated with any religious belief system. What moral systems does hedonism conflict with?

They probably mean it the same way you do. They just see it differently. They see consequences (mainly spiritual) where others don't...

But what spiritual consequences are there for those in life that pursue the most pleasurable course? I don't understand...

Also please don't bring up Libertarianism! LALALALALALAAAA *hands over ears* LALALALALALAAAAALAAAA

[_beastie]

Well I think (and have NO idea why I think this?!) that religious people somehow equate hedonism to steamy, wet, wild, kinky, monkey sex of some sort! I just get that impression when they sneer about the term. I have NO idea why....

I think you are correct.

I also suspect the reason for this reasoning has to do with sexual repression, which then results in sexual obsession.

[_huckelberry]

I read, ninety percent of immoral behavior would not be immoral if there was not God. I was puzzled that mentalgymnist agreed though maybe I shouldn't be.

I have yet to be able to get my mind around it. It sounds bizarre to my ears. isn't cheating bad even if you don't believe in God?. Are you all welcoming theaves into your home, charming guys, as they take your whatever? Usually skeptics remind us that they have moral pricipals as well as believing folks. Why, sometimes skeptics claim more moral clarity.

But then I live in a universe where waring a black shirt to church on Sunday is ok

I am not sure if this is the center of what the opening post sees as the valuable contribution the Book of Mormon provides us. I do not know what that would, and in fact feel quite clueless. Is it that 90 percent of immoral acts I seem to be unaware of?

I am hoping that my comment can be seen as a question. What is this valuable contribution?

I hope for a bit of explanation because I am in possession of zero sense that the Mormon picture of Jesus is better or truer than that found in the Bible. I see it exactly opposite but we all are attached to our own views.

[_truth dancer]

Hey MG...

The Book of Mormon messes things up for the wicked and/or unbelievers because it teaches correct principles and doctrine concerning Christ. One will be accountable for what one decides concerning this book and how one either conforms their lives to its teachings or not.

If it's true, that is.

Big, BIG 'if'. :-)

If you have given up on the Book of Mormon for what you consider to be extremely good reasons, that is between you and your maker. If there is no God, it won't matter. If there is a God and he doesn't really give a crap...it won't matter either.

The thing is...

For some of us, like me, (smile), I think many of the teachings of the LDS church are "immoral." Now that is not the word I would use... I would say, unhealthy, harmful, hurtful, or cruel still, the point is that YOU think the teachings are good others may disagree. YOU think the LDS church is in line with the teachings of Jesus, others do not. You may think the Old Testament is a great guideline for moral behavior, others may see it differently. You may think there is reason to believe the Book of Mormon (or the church), is true, others do not see a remote possibility at all.

My point being... you approach the argument with so many "ifs" that it becomes almost nonsensical.

For example... IF God is a leprechaun, and IF there are fairies who magically grant wishes, and IF there are bugs that sting you and make you naughty, then it is important to follow the rules given to sillyhead the prophetess who has the true knowledge of leprechauns, fairies and naughty bugs. If you don't you will end up on a uninhabited world near Kolob. (smile) And you will be accountable and suffer the consequences for your disbelief.

My questions would be something more like:

Why would God set up a church that inhibits spiritual growth, creates rules that are unhealthy, asks people to do horrible things to each other? Why would God set up a church that makes truth seem like lies, and lies seem like truth? Why would God set up a church that only a handful of humans would possibly believe? Why would God set up a plan that seems so horrible and unfair? Why would God set up a system that feels in opposition to life, existence, and goodness? Etc. etc. etc.

As you know, I hold that any church may be the true one, and God could be any of the thousands of Gods that folks claim to be the one and only. I do not see a possibility of anyone actually figuring out the mysteries of life and I think the Mystery/God is about a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 squared times more incredible, amazing, and unknowable to the human than any church or man could imagine. :-)

in my opinion, the LDS church turns the Mystery/Source/Divine into a run of the mill, not so nice, pretty icky guy from four millennia ago! Maybe this is the one and only God of the universe... it just doesn't seem like it to me!

:-)


~dancer~

[_mentalgymnast]

hat a God would allow a fraud of this proportion to thrive or even exist IN THE NAME OF HIS SON AND AS A WITNESS OF HIS SON is preposterous.

I think it's pretty preposterous that God allows millions of children to die neglected and abused, too. And how about all the genocide that's taken place on this earth? And horrible natural effects that slaughter millions.

What would you propose God do? Life and death and disease on the planet does tend towards a great degree of complexity both in numerical values and in its various manifestations/degrees. How would God stop it all, once the ball is rolling?

Again, if there is a God, there would need to be a mechanism of some sort to sort it all out, to make things right. Otherwise, God is not love. The Book of Mormon teaches the atonement (God's love in action) in much greater detail than the Bible does. It is one of the Book of Mormon's great strengths.

And you think it's preposterous God would allow a fraud to stand in the name of his son?

Yes. For the reasons expressed in my original post.

Regards,
MG

[Guest]

Also please don't bring up Libertarianism! LALALALALALAAAA *hands over ears* LALALALALALAAAAALAAAA

Oh oh! Flashbacks!! :D

Well obviously if you're attempting to force someone else to do something, and they are resistant to that force, does that not in turn create a struggle that would not maximize pleasure?

But what if a person is not maximizing their own pleasure?
Wouldn't a hedonist then be required - as part of their philosophy on life - to take some action and try and maximize that persons pleasure? Isn't it possible that forcing some onto them might be enough to counteract the negative effect of 'resistance' enough that the net result is a pleasure 'positive'?

If not, and pleasure is only ever what a person actively seeks, then I can't see how it can be distinguished from - ermm - [the philosophy that cannot be named]. I'm not sure how they can be distinguished from each-other...

Well I think (and have NO idea why I think this?!) that religious people somehow equate hedonism to steamy, wet, wild, kinky, monkey sex of some sort! I just get that impression when they sneer about the term.

That's probably the main one that comes to mind for most - sure.

Well I need specifics Ren. Please remember I didn't grow up in any Church. Was never indoctrinated with any religious belief system. What moral systems does hedonism conflict with?

Fair enough - sorry.
I guess - to use specifics - it's concepts like 'The natural man is an enemy to God'.
Just because it 'feels good' to do something -even if it doesn't make anyone else feel ANY worse, and might even make other people feel more pleasure - that doesn't mean you do it...
If a 'rule' from God says you can't (for whatever reason) then you don't do it. End of story.

But what spiritual consequences are there for those in life that pursue the most pleasurable course? I don't understand...

Losing the Holy Ghost - the spirit.
Breaking covenants with God.
Putting your eternal salvation in jeopardy.

...stuff like that...


Sorry - it probably is true that I don't consider the differences in background. I'm still not sure if I'm approaching it right...

And now I've really gotta get to bed ;)

[_beastie]

You seriously suggest God should intervene to prevent (one of many) frauds being perpetrated in his son's name, yet it's too much to suggest he intervene to prevent real suffering and death?

And you ask me HOW should he stop it? He's an omnipotent being, that's how.


So why hasn't God struck all those slimy televangelists dead yet?

[_mentalgymnast]

Rejection may result in a greater tendency towards alternate lifestyles, including hedonistic/immoral behaviors.

What immoral behaviors do you subscribe to hedonists?

Elder Neal Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had some things to say in this regard:

Jesus’ instructions concerning discipleship involve both substance and sequence: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23; emphasis added). Elsewhere, Moroni declared the need for us to deny ourselves “all ungodliness” (Moro. 10:32), thus including both large and small sins. While boulders surely block our way, loose gravel slows discipleship, too. Even a small stone can become a stumbling block.

King Benjamin and Paul both stressed the congenital weakness of the natural man who is turned away from God and who regards spiritual things as “foolishness” (see Mosiah 3:19; 1 Cor. 2:13–14; Col. 3:9). Thus, putting off the views and appetites of the natural man is such a large part of denying oneself, a process sometimes accompanied by scalding shame and the reflux of regret (see JST, Luke 14:28).

Even so, in today’s world, individual appetites, far from being denied, are actually celebrated! As one writer noted, this mantra has its own incessant “beat,” and it goes “Me … Me … Me … Me!” (Daivd Frum, Dead Right, New York: BasicBooks, 1994, p. 203, quoting Tom Wolfe, “The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening,” in Purple Decades, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1982, p. 293).

Yet sensory happiness is illusory happiness. Even legitimate pleasure is as transitory as the things which produce it, while joy is as lasting as the things which produce it!

Of all today’s malevolent “isms,” hedonism takes the greatest toll. It is naïve to say that hedonists merely march to the beat of a different drummer. So did the Gadarene swine!

A quarter of a century ago historian John Lukacs perceptively warned that sexual immorality was not merely a marginal development but, instead, was at the center of the moral crisis of our time (see John Lukacs, The Passing of the Modern Age, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1970, p. 169). Some thought Lukacs was overstating it, but consider the subsequent and sobering tragedy of children having children, of unwed mothers, of children without parents, of hundreds of thousands of fatherless children, and of rampant spousal infidelity. These and related consequences threaten to abort society’s future even before the future arrives! Yet carnalists are unwilling to deny themselves, even though all of society suffers from an awful avalanche of consequences!

Consider this sobering forecast: “About 40 percent of U.S. children will go to sleep in homes in which their fathers do not live” (David Blankenhorn, “Life without Father,” USA Weekend, 26 Feb. 1995, pp. 6–7).

Some estimate this will rise to 60 percent. This same commentator has written, “Fatherlessness is the engine driving our most urgent social problems, from crime to adolescent pregnancy to domestic violence” (ibid., p. 7). Such outcomes, brothers and sisters, unfortunately, constitute America’s grossest national product, produced in the slums of the spirit created by spreading secularism!

In Proverbs, we read, “For the commandment is a lamp” (Prov. 6:23). Once darkened, a society loses its capacity to distinguish between right and wrong and the will to declare that some things are wrong per se. Without the lamp, our world finds itself desperately building temporary defenses, drawing new lines, forever falling back, unwilling to confront. A society which permits anything will eventually lose everything!

Therefore, recognized or not, the public has an enormous stake in private morality! Yet today there is so much hedonism and shouted justification with so little quiet shame. Bad deeds are viewed as nobody’s fault and everything as excusable on one basis or another.

Amid such inversions, no wonder victims are often neglected and the guilty sometimes glorified. Likewise, in place of real confessions there are fluid variations of “I hope I can forgive myself.” In contrast, the inquiring Apostles knew the direction in which they faced; all anxiously asked Jesus of the impending betrayal, “Lord, is it I?” (Matt. 26:22.)

Gross sins arise ominously and steadily out of the swamp of self-indulgence and self-pity. But the smaller sins breed there, too, like insects in the mud, including the coarsening of language. But why should we expect those who “mind the things of the flesh” to mind their tongues? (Rom. 8:5.)

For some, their god “is their belly,” as are other forms of anatomical allegiance! (Philip. 3:19.) A few hedonists actually glory in their shame, and there is even a “greediness” in their “uncleanness” (Eph. 4:18–19). Sadly, too, a few envy the wicked. Still others complain that the wicked seem to get away with it! (See Prov. 23:17; Mal. 3:14–15.)

Ironically, in all their eagerness to experience certain things, hedonists, become desensitized. People who wrongly celebrate their capacity to feel finally reach a point where they lose much of their capacity to feel! In the words of three different prophets, such individuals become “past feeling” (see 1 Ne. 17:45; Eph. 4:19; Moro. 9:20).

When people proceed “without principle,” erelong they will be “without civilization,” “without mercy,” and “past feeling” (see Moro. 9:11–20). Such individuals do not experience real joy, such as being quietly and deeply grateful to a generous God, or of helping to restore those who “droop in sin” (2 Ne. 4:28), or of gladly forgoing praise and recognition so that it might flow, instead, to parched souls.

Thus, the great Restoration is also a refutation of our increasingly doubting and secular society. Our society has its jaded cynicism, humdrum hedonism, and pleasure seeking, and it is swamped in situational ethics. No wonder some, unaware, fulfill Peter’s great prophecy by saying, in effect: “Where is the promise of [Christ’s] coming? … All things must continue as they are, and have continued as they are from the beginning of the creation” (Joseph Smith Translation, 2 Pet. 3:4).

People have lost much of the capacity to believe. No wonder today’s permissiveness and immorality resemble symptoms of an earlier time: “And thus [Korihor] did preach unto them, leading away the hearts of many, causing them to lift up their heads in their wickedness, yea, leading away many women, and also men, to commit whoredoms—telling them that when a man was dead, that was the end thereof” (Alma 30:18).

Without the acceptance of the Restoration, it will become increasingly as it was in ancient Israel when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6; Judg. 21:25). Already in our time, as prophesied, “every man walketh in his own way, and after … the likeness of the world” (D&C 1:16).

If you're unsure of the LDS teachings concerning hedonism this should help somewhat. Going to some of the scriptural references may be helpful also.

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

Sorry! I just keep finding more and more! I wish I'd done this all in one post. My apologies! :)

Assumptions are to made as one evolves towards any kind of belief system or non-belief. You make certain assumptions about God as you evolve towards unbelief.

And you presume to know what assumptions are made?

No. Only that they are made.

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

I read, ninety percent of immoral behavior would not be immoral if there was not God.

If that is what one chose to believe. What's to stop them? If God doesn't exist, then what is to stop one from believing/rationalizing that ninety percent of immoral behavior would not be immoral?

Nothing.

If God does exist, then they're wrong. Plain and simple.

Regards,
MG