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Coggins,

You never replied to a question I posed to you on a former thread.

If, after your death, you discover that the EVs are right, and God sends sincere Mormons to hell to burn for eternity for believing the wrong thing, would you worship, love, and respect that God?

Coggins,

You never replied to a question I posed to you on a former thread.

If, after your death, you discover that the EVs are right, and God sends sincere Mormons to hell to burn for eternity for believing the wrong thing, would you worship, love, and respect that God?

Is this a purely rhetorical question, or is it meant to seriously address the possibility you mention? This matters becaue if God is really as capricious, arbitrary, and merciless as the EV God is understood to be in these senses, then he probably does not exist at all. Either that, or the universe contains some very dark and dreary secrets it would be better for mortals not to know.

My understanding and experience with God indicates to me quite clearly that he is not the God of the EVs, and hence, I have no problem having faith in his ultimate goodness, mercy, and fairness. On the purely non-experiential, rhetorical side, if I were to die and find out that he was sending me and billions of other people to Hell for all eternity for being wrong on nuances of doctrine, then yes, I would probably have a falling out with him, which would at that point be moot, as it would be too late.

But that is nothing but a thought experiment. In reality, my serous religious faith and the revealed knowlege I have received during my life indicates a God very much different than the one you mention. "What if" questions of this kind are nice tactics for cornering someone with a rhetorical device but do not get to the substance of the matter, which is that the EV God is, in this sense, not congruent with the major attributes ascribed to God in the New Testament (God is love etc). The thought experiment is interesting, but one sided and parochial. Other questions must be asked as well, such as what if I find out that I was right, abandoned that course until it was too late, and then found out that I was wrong to have abandoned it? What if I find out that I"m in the matrix and the whole thing was a complex engineered dream? What if I find out that I myself am nothing but a part of Brahma's dreams? What if this and what if that.

I have no illusions that the EV version of Hell is incorrect, because I know the Restored Gospel to be true. The truth is inconsistent with EV doctrines, and hence, the EV doctrines are not true. The EVs have theology, while the Church has revelation and witnesses, or prophets. I'm not concerned with EV theology being any threat to revelation and the witness of the prophets.

I, for one, would be disappointed that God espoused such anemic doctrine.

Coggins and Gaz,

I'm assuming your answers mean you would NOT love, worship, and respect such a God.

Are you demonstrating pride in this attitude?

I may have forced coggins to take another break.* I actually first asked Coggins this question on another thread, wherein I had stated that:

Another possibility is that God does condemn people to some sort of punishment due to the simple fact that they believed the "wrong" thing in this life. In that case, perhaps God will punish me somehow, likely by forcibly divorcing me from my family and banning me from his presence. That would be a tragedy, but I cannot alter this scenario since, even if I knew this sort of God existed, I would refuse to respect, love, or worship him.

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... &start=168

To which Coggins crowed:

(drumroll...) This, ladies and gentlemen, is what is known as pride. It is also immersed deeply in the aromatic waters of hubris.

"Up yours God, I'm not going to worship anyone who is actually going to hold me accountable for the choices I made while on earth."

I couldn't have done this better myself.

Now Beastie, are you ready to discuss this at a deeper and more intellectually honest level?

Coggins,

If the EV (or rather, the God that many EVs believe in, some do not ascribe to this idea of a God sending sincere Mormons to hell) God is actually the real God, and he sends you to hell for believing the wrong thing, according to your paradigm, he is simply holding you accountable for the choices you made while on earth. To state that you would "fall out" with God ever it, under your paradigm, is pride and hubris.

So, Coggins, are you ready to discuss this at a deeper and more intellectually honest level?

beastie wrote:Coggins,

You never replied to a question I posed to you on a former thread.

If, after your death, you discover that the EVs are right, and God sends sincere Mormons to hell to burn for eternity for believing the wrong thing, would you worship, love, and respect that God?

If G-d does that sort of thing, I will send my missionaries out from Hell, have them knock on His pearly gate, and give Him a "Steussite Truth is now restored" tract. If He refused to convert, I would damn Him to heaven.

If G-d does that sort of thing, I will send my missionaries out from Hell, have them knock on His pearly gate, and give Him a "Steussite Truth is now restored" tract. If He refused to convert, I would damn Him to heaven.

OOooh, brutal, damning him to an eternity of witnessing the results of his own bad parenting!!!!

Don't you get it, beastie? Coggins here knows God intimately. He's not wavering in uncertainty and allowing the possibility that he might be wrong, like you are doing. Your faith wouldn't even measure up to a quark.

Oh, and if he doesn't respond, it doesn't mean that he feels defeated and runs off with his tail between his legs. It simply means that he has realized that talking to someone as obviously stuck in their anti-mormon ways and unable to grasp simple concepts that every Christian conservative is familiar with is not worth his effort.

That's why he took a break from the political ideology thread. Talking to us communists (a.k.a. fascists) would be a waste of his valuable time.

Coggins7 wrote:The EVs have theology, while the Church has revelation and witnesses, or prophets. I'm not concerned with EV theology being any threat to revelation and the witness of the prophets.

No, the EVs are no threat at all. That's something I'll grant you. What's the biggest threat to LDS revelation and prophets is that tomorrow, or next year, the prophets will change their mind and disavow what you formerly regarded as revealed truth, and it will be relegated to the status of "not official" opinion of a fallible man.

Sethbag wrote:

Coggins7 wrote:The EVs have theology, while the Church has revelation and witnesses, or prophets. I'm not concerned with EV theology being any threat to revelation and the witness of the prophets.

No, the EVs are no threat at all. That's something I'll grant you. What's the biggest threat to LDS revelation and prophets is that tomorrow, or next year, the prophets will change their mind and disavow what you formerly regarded as revealed truth, and it will be relegated to the status of "not official" opinion of a fallible man.

Yes, but he will be blessed all the same for following what he was told to follow...flawed as it might be.