Holy Ghost Contradiction

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_grayskull
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Holy Ghost Contradiction

Post by _grayskull »

The church teaches that the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit and it must be so for him to dwell in us. Obviously, a God with a physical body already couldn't posess our body as well.

The church also teaches that the holy ghost is the shape of a man. A spirit being in human form. It's creedal absurdity for a spirit to be so big as to fill the entire universe.

But this leads to the Santa Claus problem. How does the Holy Ghost hit every chimney to give promptings?

So the church came up with the solution that the Holy Ghost didn't actually have to be there, we could just feel his influence like we feel the influence of the sun's rays.

Which means, of course, that he doesn't need to be a spirit, since he no longer is literally dwelling in us. In fact, the church teaches that all men have the "light of christ" which somehow emanates from Jesus who has a physical body.

There is really no need for a Holy Ghost at all, and certainly not one who's literally a spirit. All the function could be taken over by God.
_asbestosman
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Post by _asbestosman »

The Holy Ghost testifies of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. In the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses shall every word be established.
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_Alter Idem
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Post by _Alter Idem »

Grayskull; The church also teaches that the holy ghost is the shape of a man. A spirit being in human form. It's creedal absurdity for a spirit to be so big as to fill the entire universe.

Alter Idem; The suggestion that the holy ghost is in the shape of a man is the same as the belief that our spirits are in the shape of our bodies. I'm not sure we teach that his spirit is so big it fills the universe; that sounds like a description of the "light of Christ" which you probably know is not the same thing as the Holy Ghost.

Trying to figure out how the Holy Ghost is able to influence all of us at the same time (all those requests for guidance at the same time) is probably something we cannot comprehend with our finite minds. One theory I have heard is that the Holy Ghost may do it's influencing through "divine investiture". This would mean that others are assigned to guide and act under the direction of the Holy Ghost, as if it were the Holy Ghost doing the influencing. There is scriptural support for this theory. Jesus Christ speaks and acts for God the Father. The Prophet speaks for the Lord, etc.
_grayskull
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Post by _grayskull »

Alter,

I wrote the "creedal nonsense", sarcastically, as from the perspective of the church. See my comments to Asb for the rest.

Asb,

It may be that there are other functions for a HG, but if..

It's a necessary condition of HG such that HG is a spirit so HG enters physical bodies to literally "dwell in" them,

and if it's true that we feel the effects of a finite HG indirectly, to solve the santa clause problem, as we feel the rays of the sun,

then we have a contradiction. Either it's not necessary for the Holy Ghost to be a spirit or the Holy Ghost must individually enter each person's body at those times of spiritual confirmation and we accept the santa clause problem and just say he's really fast. Like a Boson zipping through fermions to keep together.
_asbestosman
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Post by _asbestosman »

Fair enough grayskull.

The scriptures merely state that the Holy Ghost needs to be a spirit so He can dwell in us. It does not say why this is necessary or what it does. Specifically it does not state that having the Holy Ghost dwell in us has anything to do with feeling the spirit or exercising the gifts of the Spirit. Perhaps it only happens on very special occasions such as when prophets are carried away in the spirit onto high mountains (see 1 Nephi 11:1) or maybe as happened when Joseph Smith had the First Vision--apparently the Holy Ghost was necessary to shield Him from God's glory so he didn't die.

Other possibilities include that the Spirit could move very quickly from person to person--kind of like how modern computers simulate running multiple programs simultaneously by running each program one after another a little at a time but switching very quickly. Maybe the Holy Ghost doesn't need to come down chimneys. He might possibly use a wormhole or a wrinkle in time or something.

Who knows for sure?
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_Mercury
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Post by _Mercury »

asbestosman wrote:The Holy Ghost testifies of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. In the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses shall every word be established.


This bull leaves us in the predicament that if you get three people together to agree upon something then it MUST be true. This BS is at the waterhead of logical fallacy embedded deep within the church and other religions.
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_asbestosman
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Post by _asbestosman »

VegasRefugee wrote:
asbestosman wrote:The Holy Ghost testifies of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. In the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses shall every word be established.


This bull leaves us in the predicament that if you get three people together to agree upon something then it MUST be true. This BS is at the waterhead of logical fallacy embedded deep within the church and other religions.


Actually, as I recall it dates back to Jewish law for establishing the testimony of witnesses. Obviously we know that 2 or 3 people can collude to tell a lie. The Bible even gives an example in Acts 5 where Ananias and Sapphira lie to Peter about how much they sold some land for.
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_Mercury
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Post by _Mercury »

asbestosman wrote:
VegasRefugee wrote:
asbestosman wrote:The Holy Ghost testifies of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. In the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses shall every word be established.


This bull leaves us in the predicament that if you get three people together to agree upon something then it MUST be true. This BS is at the waterhead of logical fallacy embedded deep within the church and other religions.


Actually, as I recall it dates back to Jewish law for establishing the testimony of witnesses. Obviously we know that 2 or 3 people can collude to tell a lie. The Bible even gives an example in Acts 5 where Ananias and Sapphira lie to Peter about how much they sold some land for.


If its from teh Bible then it confirms that its not neccesarilly something reliable.
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_grampa75
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Re: Holy Ghost Contradiction

Post by _grampa75 »

grayskull wrote:The church teaches that the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit and it must be so for him to dwell in us. Obviously, a God with a physical body already couldn't posess our body as well.

The church also teaches that the holy ghost is the shape of a man. A spirit being in human form. It's creedal absurdity for a spirit to be so big as to fill the entire universe.

But this leads to the Santa Claus problem. How does the Holy Ghost hit every chimney to give promptings?

So the church came up with the solution that the Holy Ghost didn't actually have to be there, we could just feel his influence like we feel the influence of the sun's rays.

Which means, of course, that he doesn't need to be a spirit, since he no longer is literally dwelling in us. In fact, the church teaches that all men have the "light of christ" which somehow emanates from Jesus who has a physical body.

There is really no need for a Holy Ghost at all, and certainly not one who's literally a spirit. All the function could be taken over by God.

I don't think anyone could debate with your premise on the Holy Ghost not being needed. There really isn't any substiantial proof that God exists.
However, if you are LDS you can't be deceived by teachings like this because of the fact that we have to receive truth, any truth, in the mouth of two or more witness, and one of those witnesses has to be the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit.
I have personally been taught more than a man should actually know about religion through the influence of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, in the Telestial Kingdom of heaven, is the teacher that we have, and the only teacher of truth.
I know if we could sit down together that the Holy Ghost would bear witness to you so strong that you would never make the type of statement you did.
The Mormon scriptures teach us that God had a beginning
St. John 5: 19-21
The Mormon scriptures also teach us that a spirit has no beginning or any ending and cannot be made or created, including procreated.
The Mormon scriptures teach us that we all have the potential of becoming a God ourselves, but many don't seem to understand that the God they may have the right to become might just require us to suffer, bleed, and die on some distant Calvary yet to be created.
The Mormon scriptures teach us about the cataclysm that will be the cause of the next tribulation.
I could go on, but we just can't learn these things IF the Holy Ghost does not bear witness to our hearts what we have read or what we have been taught is true.
That why it was written
They are ever searching but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
also this one
Paul W. Burt
_grayskull
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Post by _grayskull »

Yo grampa,

did you read what I wrote? this isn't about proof or disproof, it's about a contradiction between two Mormon teachings. One that says the HG has to be a spirit in order to go inside your body, and another one that says the HG influences us from a distance, like the sun's rays, the sun not actually entering us.
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