KevinSim wrote:... None of us know where to put the goalposts. I certainly don't. The possibility exists that what's good for our eternal souls may not appear to be good for us in the short term. So do we try to do what's good for us in the short term and risk disaster in the long term, or do we trust God to know what's right for us in the long term?...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Chap wrote:Look, if you want to believe in an ineffable and completely unknowable deity, be my guest. Anything that floats your boat. So long as, having made that commitment, you stop affirming any propositions about him, her, it or them.
But don't go defending a religion that teaches Moroni's Promise in its scriptures, its public utterances and its missionary programs, and then tell me that any verbal statement made by its deity could in fact mean exactly the opposite of what any honest and sincere human being making that statement would be understood to mean, and then tell us that we don't get to say there is some cheating going on here.
Not if you don't want people to laugh, or worse.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
just me wrote:First you show me how being tortured and gang raped can have a net positive effect on a persons life.
You are the one that brought it up.
I never said that "being tortured and gang raped can have a net positive effect on a" person's life. I said that Nietzche said what doesn't kill him makes him stronger, I asked if Nietzche was totally wrong, and I asked how we tell whether an experience is good or bad for someone in the eternal scheme of things. There's a big difference between asking those two questions and asserting that torture and gang rape "can have a net positive effect."
Chap wrote:Look, if you want to believe in an ineffable and completely unknowable deity, be my guest.
I don't think the God I believe in is any more ineffable or unknowable than the God people typically believe in; I'm just saying that the way to identify God is not to expect Him to be more consistent in Her/His statements (spoken in natural languages) than we are ourselves. God is completely knowable in other ways.
Chap wrote:But don't go defending a religion that teaches Moroni's Promise in its scriptures, its public utterances and its missionary programs, and then tell me that any verbal statement made by its deity could in fact mean exactly the opposite of what any honest and sincere human being making that statement would be understood to mean, and then tell us that we don't get to say there is some cheating going on here.
In such a situation there's only one relevant "honest and sincere human being" involved, and that's the person applying Moroni's Promise trying to get an answer from God. God will answer in such a way that what that honest and sincere human being takes the statement to mean is exactly what God meant it to say.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Chap wrote:Does this deity have any commitment to telling the truth to people who trust him, and ask for his guidance on important matters concerning their eternal destiny, I wonder?
If not, he is ... well, not very nice, shall we say?
Tell the truth to people who trust him in what language?
Chap, there is a time when I would have agreed with you. When I was significantly more naïve than I am now, I would have clamored that of course God would tell those people the truth. Now, I'm not so sure.
Think Star Wars for a moment. If Obi-wan tells you that Darth Vader killed your father, and you later find out independently that Vader is your father, do you conclude that Obi-wan is not nice, and never talk to him again? Or do you give Obi-wan a chance to explain himself? Do you try to get to a point where you can see that in a sense Vader did in fact kill your father?
English is a funny language. All natural languages are funny languages. Something being either true or false is well defined in mathematical formal languages that are rigidly defined, like Number Theory, for example. Every statement in Number Theory is either true or false; there is no room for grey. Not so in natural languages; there is a lot of room for grey. And more than once I see a statement attributed to God that people swoop in on, declaring that the statement is false and therefore the person uttering it cannot be God. I'm not convinced. I think the fact that a language is not rigorously defined is no reason to keep God from using it to make a point.
KevinSim wrote:
Chap wrote:Look, if you want to believe in an ineffable and completely unknowable deity, be my guest.
I don't think the God I believe in is any more ineffable or unknowable than the God people typically believe in; I'm just saying that the way to identify God is not to expect Him to be more consistent in Her/His statements (spoken in natural languages) than we are ourselves. God is completely knowable in other ways.
Chap wrote:But don't go defending a religion that teaches Moroni's Promise in its scriptures, its public utterances and its missionary programs, and then tell me that any verbal statement made by its deity could in fact mean exactly the opposite of what any honest and sincere human being making that statement would be understood to mean, and then tell us that we don't get to say there is some cheating going on here.
In such a situation there's only one relevant "honest and sincere human being" involved, and that's the person applying Moroni's Promise trying to get an answer from God. God will answer in such a way that what that honest and sincere human being takes the statement to mean is exactly what God meant it to say.
Can anyone help me to extract a consistent position from KevinSim's posts?
He just seems to make it up as he goes along.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
just me wrote:Tell me if I'm wrong, but don't the scriptures say that if God lies he ceases to be god?
That has been my experience. *poof*
There's a big difference between lying and technical inconsistency.
As I explained in another post, for someone to answer a mathematical question with "yes and no" would be inconsistent; each mathematical question of necessity requires either a yes or no answer, and not both. But in natural usage, sometimes people do say, "Yes and no." That's not necessarily a lie. What it means is that our terms are not defined rigorously enough; in one sense the answer is yes, and in another sense the answer is no.
KevinSim wrote:God will answer in such a way that what that honest and sincere human being takes the statement to mean is exactly what God meant it to say.
Except, when that honest and sincere human hears "no, the Church isn't true" then you don't believe God was speaking...right?
“We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” Keith McMullin - Counsellor in Presiding Bishopric
"One, two, three...let's go shopping!" Thomas S Monson - Prophet, Seer, Revelator
Chap wrote: Can anyone help me to extract a consistent position from KevinSim's posts?
He just seems to make it up as he goes along.
Congratulations on answering your own question....
“We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” Keith McMullin - Counsellor in Presiding Bishopric
"One, two, three...let's go shopping!" Thomas S Monson - Prophet, Seer, Revelator
Themis wrote:No I am saying the LDS God has much more evidence against it then the God's of other religions.
What about the God of orthodox Christianity? God as described by Roman Catholics, Evangelicals, Methodists, etc.? Is there "much more evidence against" the LDS God than there is against that God?