Not So Fast There Darth J

[_Darth J]

I truly was molested by my most beloved sibling, waking up to the act, the resolution of it and an early life of outrageous parental abuse was turned to grace by my faith in ponderous distillations and being drawn to Christ I obtained grace of God that has caused me to abound.

Did you miss the part when I said I understand this perfectly?

What you do not know is that after all the evil to receive the gifts of God is worth 70 times 70 as much evil going in. There is healing and consolations and a new creature that you cannot become of your own accord. The old man is dead in Christ. You rise up born of God. This is no slight conception. It is all in all and only a beginning to it.

Nightlion, here is a song by Amy Grant that is about surviving sexual abuse. It describes exactly what you are talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuscFAQWL2k

Amy Grant is not a Mormon. Yet she arrived at the same conclusion you did.

I appreciate your experience, but it is not unique to Mormonism.

[_Nightlion]

Well, alrighty then. Give me a moment to piece together your explosive snit.

But first off God did not create us his enemy. That was so from the beginning. In the organization of intelligences Satan rebelled. God had only given his native light and truth the ability to be independent. He came out of the Light of Truth an enemy to God. Probably for the umpteenth time.

Yes, we were carnal and sensuous even before we had bodies or physical senses and corporeal desires. Truly insidious, that natural evil is.

If God did not make us his enemy, but only gave us the potential to inevitably become his enemy, then it really amounts to the same thing. So did God not foresee this would happen----meaning He is not omniscient? Or did he deliberately give us the power to realize our innate enmity to Him and fault us for it---meaning He is not just/omnibenevloent?

Unfortunately, though, you are going off script. The issue I raised, and on which you started this thread, is what, if any, unique insight Mormonism has to the problem of evil. The Book of Mormon defines the natural man as man existing in this mortal coil, not as a pre-mortal spirit.

Mosiah 3:19

19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

Notice the "when you're slapped, you'll take it and like it!" aspect of God that King Benjamin here imparts to us.

And you're not refuting me with any of this, anyway. The idea that "the natural man is an enemy to God" is not unique to Mormonism. E.g., http://www.christianarmor.net/oldman.htm

I got to parse this out. If you contrast oneness of light and truth with independent organized intelligence you see the enmity created by that act. God did not create us evil. US independent IS evil and everything along the way is set to prove this. For some like Satan all it took was the first sacrifice. For us today we refuse to forsake the world and seek every which way to guard and defend it with the same fierceness that fought the first war in heaven.

Yes you descend into the depths of humility precisely willing to take whatever hit God puts upon you. As crappy as my life was as a child, it is not to compare with the crap I got back from EVERY damn Mormon I opened my mouth to. Who would like that? But I endure to the end because the Lord first loved me and saved me from the first wasting.

Umm. I think you were the one to first go off script with this "God created us evil business".

[_Nightlion]

All the suffering that never makes it to the synthesis of repentance and results in a spiritual upgrade is still profitable. Evil is food for the intellect to exercise against to grow as the demand for a resolution will draw out until it does. This is a crucible where faith is forged out of necessity.

Well, you've got me there. I'm sure that that three year-old boy contemplated the metaphysical nature of his suffering and grew intellectually as that washing machine churned him to death.

He will and that of necessity, he will. Excuse my projected beyond your beliefs.

[_Buffalo]

I must be tangled up in nonsensicality because I don't understand.

Why is faith more important to God than living a moral life?

A moral life is to abide. Faith is to abound.

Faith as a requirement for salvation is nonsensical, until you realize that faith is very important to a religious group with a lot of grand claims that can't be backed up.

[_Darth J]

Well, alrighty then. Give me a moment to piece together your explosive snit.

But first off God did not create us his enemy. That was so from the beginning. In the organization of intelligences Satan rebelled. God had only given his native light and truth the ability to be independent. He came out of the Light of Truth an enemy to God. Probably for the umpteenth time.

Yes, we were carnal and sensuous even before we had bodies or physical senses and corporeal desires. Truly insidious, that natural evil is.

If God did not make us his enemy, but only gave us the potential to inevitably become his enemy, then it really amounts to the same thing. So did God not foresee this would happen----meaning He is not omniscient? Or did he deliberately give us the power to realize our innate enmity to Him and fault us for it---meaning He is not just/omnibenevloent?

Unfortunately, though, you are going off script. The issue I raised, and on which you started this thread, is what, if any, unique insight Mormonism has to the problem of evil. The Book of Mormon defines the natural man as man existing in this mortal coil, not as a pre-mortal spirit.

Mosiah 3:19

19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

Notice the "when you're slapped, you'll take it and like it!" aspect of God that King Benjamin here imparts to us.

And you're not refuting me with any of this, anyway. The idea that "the natural man is an enemy to God" is not unique to Mormonism. E.g., http://www.christianarmor.net/oldman.htm

I got to parse this out. If you contrast oneness of light and truth with independent organized intelligence you see the enmity created by that act. God did not create us evil. US independent IS evil and everything along the way is set to prove this.

Doesn't seem very just or omnibenevolent for God to fault us for that, then, does it?

For some like Satan all it took was the first sacrifice. For us today we refuse to forsake the world and seek every which way to guard and defend it with the same fierceness that fought the first war in heaven.

Not unique to Mormonism. See, e.g., Paradise Lost.

Yes you descend into the depths of humility precisely willing to take whatever hit God puts upon you. As s****y as my life was as a child, it is not to compare with the crap I got back from EVERY damn Mormon I opened my mouth to. Who would like that? But I endure to the end because the Lord first loved me and saved me from the first wasting.

I appreciate that, but people from all kinds of denominations (and non-denominational Christians) say the same thing about turning to God. Mormonism does not have a corner on this market.

Nor does any of this explain why God allowed the bad things to happen in the first place. Somehow, the SWAT team standing there watching the woman get raped and tortured, but then giving her first aid afterwards, just doesn't seem like a very satisfying explanation for their inaction.

Umm. I think you were the one to first go off script with this "God created us evil business".

God is the one who created me as a natural man and then blames me for what He did.

[_Nightlion]

Astoundingly ingenious means of creating faith where none existed before. Cool. Nobody likes work. The drudgery of it all. But that is how things get done and built. Perhaps ten or a hundred bouts of such eternities before enough faith crystallizes to access the upgrade. How else is a diamond made?

A diamond is an inanimate object that is incapable of self-reflection, a sense of morality, or suffering. That's not a particularly compelling analogy to a human being.
.

I was not asking the diamond to reflect. The analogy is in the eye of the analyzer.

[_Darth J]

All the suffering that never makes it to the synthesis of repentance and results in a spiritual upgrade is still profitable. Evil is food for the intellect to exercise against to grow as the demand for a resolution will draw out until it does. This is a crucible where faith is forged out of necessity.

Well, you've got me there. I'm sure that that three year-old boy contemplated the metaphysical nature of his suffering and grew intellectually as that washing machine churned him to death.

He will and that of necessity, he will. Excuse my projected beyond your beliefs.

This is a standard response to the problem of evil, and is not unique to Mormonism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil#Afterlife

Another response is the afterlife theodicy. Christian theologian Randy Alcorn argues that the joys of heaven will compensate for the sufferings on earth. He writes:

"Without this eternal perspective, we assume that people who die young, who have handicaps, who suffer poor health, who don't get married or have children, or who don't do this or that will miss out on the best life has to offer. But the theology underlying these assumptions have a fatal flaw. It presumes that our present Earth, bodies, culture, relationships and lives are all there is."

This also fails to explain why, if we were all happy and lived with God already, but then this little kid comes here to Earth and suffers pointlessly and is murdered, only to die so he can go back to God and be happy, we need that middle step.

Why did Jesus heal people and feed them, Nightlion, since it is evil and suffering that teach us and make us contemplate? Why is it a miracle for God to fix a problem that He caused or allowed to happen?

Should I be praised for burning down a house but then giving a tent to the family that lost their house?

[_Nightlion]

Like, what are you guys going to do for the next eternity after you realize how wrong you were? You are going to have to find a way to self-resolve. Christ will not save you. You will stew in your pottage until it is consumed. All good. Some progress will accrue.

The other day, I decided to beat the crap out of my kids and see if that taught them to trust in me and love me. It didn't, because they didn't understand why I was doing it. So you know what I did? I beat them even more.

I believe it was the great philosopher and theologian Mike Tyson who said, "I'll f*** you 'til you love me."

Going back to this;
so that the higher purpose can be fulfilled of leaving a spiritual state to come to a physical state where we are supposed to overcome the physical state to understand the state we were already in so that we can return to where we started?

You were a better Mormon than to believe this. There must needs be an purposeful intervention of God to raise us up to a higher state. To justify his intervention as not just willy nilly, we must have sufficient faith to trip the wire. Few there be that find it. So?

Now we see the beautiful mercy of God's love. If we don't have enough faith, he will just let us suffer. But then even if we do have faith, he will sometimes let us suffer. So suffering without faith teaches us to have faith, and suffering with faith teaches us that the faith we learned to have from suffering the first time is futile.

D&C 105: 6
6 And my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience, if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer.

We are suppose to learn from our experience. When you are committed to solving a problem you do not give up after the first attempt. You try everything until you discover what works.
Or you end up proving how very little you cared from the outset.

[_Darth J]

Astoundingly ingenious means of creating faith where none existed before. Cool. Nobody likes work. The drudgery of it all. But that is how things get done and built. Perhaps ten or a hundred bouts of such eternities before enough faith crystallizes to access the upgrade. How else is a diamond made?

A diamond is an inanimate object that is incapable of self-reflection, a sense of morality, or suffering. That's not a particularly compelling analogy to a human being.
.

I was not asking the diamond to reflect. The analogy is in the eye of the analyzer.

Your explanation of why we need to suffer is so that we can reflect and learn. A piece of mineral cannot do either.

But since an analogy is in the eye of the analyzer:

When I was in high school, I wanted to learn to play the piano. So I thought about burritos. Burritos are filled with rice, or beans, or meat, or cheese, and then rolled into a cylinder kind of shape. They are very good if you like Mexican food.

So if you want to learn to play the piano, you should be like a burrito.

[_Darth J]

Now we see the beautiful mercy of God's love. If we don't have enough faith, he will just let us suffer. But then even if we do have faith, he will sometimes let us suffer. So suffering without faith teaches us to have faith, and suffering with faith teaches us that the faith we learned to have from suffering the first time is futile.

D&C 105: 6
6 And my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience, if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer.

We are suppose to learn from our experience. When you are committed to solving a problem you do not give up after the first attempt. You try everything until you discover what works.
Or you end up proving how very little you cared from the outset.

See?

Sometimes, we are suffering because it is just how life is and we need to learn from it. We didn't do anything wrong, but we need to learn to have faith.

Other times, we already have faith, but that faith is being tested, even though the reason we have faith is that we have already been tested.

And then there are times when bad things happen to us because it's like God is spanking us, and he needs to teach us obedience.

And God gives us no way to tell the difference.