LDS Leaders: Irrelevant to Their Supposed Followers

[_EAllusion]

Actually, the Euthyphro dlimemma had nothing to do with Abrahamic God - but the Greek gods and morality.

That's not correct. The Euthyphro dilemma is a name given to a modern argument that takes its inspiration from Plato's dialogue, but is distinct from it.

The argument is applicable to divine command, no matter the type of god.

[_Darth J]

Me: "Name a specific thing a modern church leader has said that has made any difference in your life."

mentalgymnast: "You should go debate Terryl Givens." viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36824&p=864147#p864147

I didn't say this in response to your question.

I am aware of that. You said that instead of a response to my question. That's what the "Squirrel!" GIF is referring to.

Back to what I said earlier. Manufacturing. Creative mix and matching. You're good at it...but it is often quite stark in all its gory.

It is quite unpleasant and disagreeable. (one of the definitions of "gory").

You do have a kind of methodology in your madness. Legal Eagle. Depositions. Briefs. Comes through.

Regards,
MG

Right, I'm just manufacturing and being disingenuous. It's my fault that you cannot name a single relevant thing ever said by these men whom you sustain as oracles of the Creator of the Universe. Do you ever ask yourself what faith there even is for the Mopologists to save?

[_Amore]

But committing genocide in no way promotes well-being of anybody. Not for the people doing it and not for the people getting it done to them. That's why I say it is objectively morally wrong. Some may disagree but I think you have to be a real moral outlier to not be able to see that genocide is wrong, but maybe I am wrong. Do you think that the Canaanite genocide was morally right?

Genocide is wrong.
It is wrong to discriminate based on age, then kill that person.
Yet, just TODAY, in just the US - there have been about 38,000 genocidal killings based on a child (developing human) being too young to justify allowing the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Since 1980, there have been over 1,300,000,000 genocidal killings through abortion.
It blows my mind that some see nothing wrong with this, even when the children are killed in such gruesome ways...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq27UYHdxn8

In the end, I'm comfortable mixing objectivity and subjectivity together a bit because that's what we all do anyway. I get the feeling that you are not, that you have a need to draw very sharp lines around the word 'objective'.

I think that for a civil society, there needs to be some objectively clear lines of law.
Moses set some basic ones, and this is why he is honored by having a Portrait Plaque of him in the DC Capitol Chamber, as one of this countries significant law-makers.
Yet, when it comes to doing what is morally right and getting to truth based on each unique circumstances, there are rare occasions where the law is morally inferior to an action... (ie Martin Luther King Jr. opposing laws of segregation).

[_harmony]

What does this mean? What 'things' are being moved along expeditiously, and what 'program and practice adjustments' are pushing that?

The four fold mission of the church.

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Four-fold_Mis ... the_Church

Program and practice adjustments are being made each and every day...wouldn't you think? With an international church in many varied cultures with unique needs, etc., the church can't just run along by itself in a static fashion and hope to survive. It is dynamic. It changes/morphs/bends according to the conditions and variables that are a result of modern culture, technology, societal conditions, etc.

The welfare program, for example, is ahead of the curve...and ahead of the game...when it comes to taking care of the needs of real people on the ground. Here is an article I read just this morning:

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/c ... 0ef70.html

The four fold mission of the church cannot run itself without a hierarchy. An authoritative body. Hopefully (and many indicators seem to show this to be the case in the lives of members and others served by the church and its programs) inspired to take care of and nurture a portion of God's children in their needs/wants.

Regards,
MG

And yet too many decisions are made OUTSIDE of the mission of the church. And too many tithes are spent financing projects OUTSIDE the mission of the church. And the vast amount of money/the tithes spent OUTSIDE the mission is where the hierarchy goes off the rails.

That, of course, could all be solved by publishing an open and accurate account of the tithes. Which won't happen.

[_EAllusion]

LDS who think that God simply chooses to be moral and if God made different choices then the being we call God wouldn't be one, believe this.

It's worth noting that the text in Alma that gives inspiration to this notion almost certainly was just expressing the common Protestant argument that God is necessarily good, and therefore a non all-good being is by definition not God. The argument that follows, that God is bound to do X, because X is good, fails on the Euthyphro dilemma, but you wouldn't expect the author of the Book of Mormon to appreciate that.

It's later theological developments in Mormonism that produce the wonky reading of it.

[_EAllusion]

The argument is applicable to divine command, no matter the type of god.

Including the god of "self"

That sounded clever to you when you said it, yeah?

Yes, the Euthyphro dilemma would sink the notion that the truth of moral propositions is dependent on the will or nature of you. In fact, one of the things the dilemma is able to show is grounding moral truth in God is no better from a knowledge stand-point than grounding it in you. They are equally poor ways to think about morality. You might be tempted to say, "But God is perfectly good! I'm not!" Well, if you're defined as perfectly good, then by definition you are and to the extent God differs from you, God is not.

[_Amore]

It's my fault that you cannot name a single relevant thing ever said by these men whom you sustain as oracles of the Creator of the Universe.

I wouldn't expect any words - the words come by people.
I consider the Creator's creations to speak for themselves.

Do you ever ask yourself what faith there even is for the Mopologists to save?

I'm not sure what you mean by Mopologists?
Still, I'm interested in the idea of faith.
Paraphrasing: "Everyone has faith, but not all are conscious of having faith."
If you think you somehow objectively know anything - you are fooled.
Everything you think is taken on faith - because you cannot help but think in subjectively limited ways.
The key is directing your faith in overall positive, productive and healthy ways.

[_Darth J]

The assertion is also demonstrably false, and has been demonstrated false in this thread. At no point in the Book of Mormon is a natural man, who is without God, said to be morally good. Invariably the natural man is said to be evil.

If LDS actually believed that morality is logically (and possibly even temporally) prior to the existence of God, then the Euthyphro dilemma is avoided. LDS who think that God simply chooses to be moral and if God made different choices then the being we call God wouldn't be one, believe this. It's just that LDS thinking is so infused with boilerplate conservative protestant thinking that almost none of them actually think this. At least not consistently.

Mormon dogma explicitly holds that it is not possible to know morality without communication from God. In addition to the Book of Mormon saying that, the Doctrine and Covenants says that it is the Light of Christ that gives everyone a sense of right and wrong.

As you commented a while ago about one of Daniel Peterson's Deseret News columns asserting that morality is dependent on belief in God, one would have to have an independent concept of morality in order to determine whether God is moral.

[_EAllusion]

Yes, the Euthyphro dilemma would sink the notion that the truth of moral propositions is dependent on the will or nature of you. In fact, one of the things the dilemma is able to show is grounding moral truth in God is no better from a knowledge stand-point than grounding it in you. They are equally poor ways to think about morality. You might be tempted to say, "But God is perfectly good! I'm not!" Well, if you're defined as perfectly good, then by definition you are and to the extent God differs from you, God is not.

This is what I've been saying the whole time...

If you think that the alternative to divine command is simply defining morality in terms of every individual person's will/nature, then you are badly misinformed.

[_EAllusion]

Mormon dogma explicitly holds that it is not possible to know morality without communication from God.

That fails on a slightly reworked epistemic version of Euthyphro. I view Mormon dogma as a somewhat schizophrenic mess and prefer to talk about what specific groups of LDS think. I think we can confidently say Euthyphro refutes what most LDS think about the nature of morality and God.