DiscussMormonism.com

No one has to inform you how scien advances by leaps and bounds, look at the computer technology, astronomy; we know can detect asteroids less than 100M diameter fifty million miles away.
What does God do in turn?
Gives us Prophets/Popes like GBH, Ratzinger. At least the latter has intestinal fortitude to speak out against injustice,
stand by his doctrine. Somebody compiled GBH's interviews, which you can find online; His favored line is "We don't know"
"None of us know what lies ahead?" "I believe He's (God) all powerful, yes. I don't know his will, I don't know how he operates"

Excuse me? Who is supposed to know?
Me? As an average member who looks up to you for answers?

I don't expect you to know, dear Prophet, whether a Tsunami or an asteroid will destroy my Village tomorrow.
But have some courage to stand up for;
What you believe, what you know.

solomarineris wrote:No one has to inform you how scien advances by leaps and bounds, look at the computer technology, astronomy; we know can detect asteroids less than 100M diameter fifty million miles away.
What does God do in turn?
Gives us Prophets/Popes like GBH, Ratzinger. At least the latter has intestinal fortitude to speak out against injustice,
stand by his doctrine. Somebody compiled GBH's interviews, which you can find online; His favored line is "We don't know"
"None of us know what lies ahead?" "I believe He's (God) all powerful, yes. I don't know his will, I don't know how he operates"

You are so full of it. "Somebody" has it all wrong. Or else you just made that up. And that is a very dishonest thing to do.

solomarineris wrote:
Excuse me? Who is supposed to know?
Me? As an average member who looks up to you for answers?

You are supposed to find your own answer. That is the way it works. God can talk to you, too. The prophet isn't supposed to be your personal answer man.

If you want to stay a baby and let somebody else carry you around, you never learn to walk.

solomarineris wrote:
I don't expect you to know, dear Prophet, whether a Tsunami or an asteroid will destroy my Village tomorrow.
But have some courage to stand up for;
What you believe, what you know.

He does. Every conference. EVery Ensign. You should listen.

solomarineris wrote:What does God do in turn?

God gives comfort to many.

God gives many the sense that they are loved unconditionally.

God gives people the relief of knowing their loved ones live on.

God gives many the sense that they are forgiven and a chance at betterment.

Why bother with a prophet?

Prophets just speak their opinion, share their ideas, are guessing along with the rest of us.

You do not need a prophet, nor does anyone else. Listen to you own inspiration. Those who rely on a prophet for help and guidance are weak and immature. Those who follow a prophet are not taking responsibility for their own lives. Those who trust and have faith in prophets and leaders are naïve babies, unfamiliar with the process of inspiration.

Forget about those scriptures that tell you to follow a prophet ... you know, like the one, "whether by my voice or the voice of my servant it is the same."

All those talks on the need for a prophet, and the importance of following the prophet were just mistaken opinions of uninformed members of some committee somewhere.

Whatever God tells you is fine.

~dancer~

truth dancer wrote:Forget about those scriptures that tell you to follow a prophet ... you know, like the one, "whether by my voice or the voice of my servant it is the same."

Written by a man who claimed to be a prophet.

Yes, God has this great plan of salvation/exaltation for his children. At the center of it is his true "gospel," the knowledge and acceptance of which is necessary for his children to achieve their eternal reward.

So, what does he do?

For the first tens of thousands or so of years of earth's history, the gospel is nowhere to be found, if it exists, it is limited to a narrow strip of land around 100 miles long and 40 miles wide in an obscure part of the world. (Meanwhile, the people living on this narrow strip of land proceed to piss God off by not being slavishly obedient enough, so in a fit of rage, he kills not only all of them, save a handful, but every other living sole on the planet in a global flood.)

After tens of thousands of years, he finally gets around to sending his son to establish his gospel, and the administrative structure for it on the earth. After 30 some odd years, his son is murdered (part of the plan), but he leaves behind apostles to run the church that he has presumably established.

This church, as it were, operates for a few decades but is reasonably quickly snuffed out of existence in its place of origin. But, luckily, one of its leaders is a good missionary who takes the gospel to foreign lands, one which happens to be Rome--the dominant political and military power in the world.

In the meantime, unfortunately, the entire Church falls into an apostasy after only a few decades of existence. God waited tens of thousands of years to establish his true gospel/church (that which is necessary for salvation/exaltation) only to yank it away after a few short decades in a "great apostasy." This too is part of the wonderful plan.

Meanwhile, the remnant of God's Church in Rome grows in power and strength and is co-opted by a pagan dictator for political purposes that make it the official state church. This launches over 1,000 years of the "dark ages" in which the Church is in open apostasy, is co-opted by corrupt, greedy, murderous thugs, and is made a state instrument of oppression that crushes literally tens of millions of lives in its maw for well over 1,000 years. This too is part of the great plan.

After 1,800 years of apostasy, God finally gets around to restoring his gospel/church on the earth again. He does it through a man of dubious character. This man goes on to establish the church as well as lost eternal doctrines, one of which compels him, at flaming sword point, to seduce and have conjugal relationships with multiple women behind his wife's back, including adolescent girls and women already married to his close confederates. This man finds and translate ancient records of a massive lost civilization for which absolutely no evidence whatsoever exists in a book that coincidentally reflects the theological debates of the day, incorporates themes from contemporary writers, and describes a civilization possessing technologies, planets, animals, languages, religious customs, as to fore, and still, unknown in the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere.

This man later translates an ancient papyrus which he claims to have been written by a mythological figure named Abraham. Nobody at the time can translate the language in which the ancient texts are written. Sadly, the ancient texts are lost. Happily the ancient texts are found, and more happily still, people have developed the ability to read and translate the language in which the tests are written. When translated by known experts, it is found that they have nothing to do with Abraham but are ordinary funerary texts of known Egyptian funeral rituals.

This man is later killed because he destroyed a printing press that published a paper chronicling his extra-marital sexual escapades. His mantel is assumed by a domineering man who, among his other accomplishments, manages to enshrine as the single most important doctrine for exaltation the requirement that man take on multiple wives. This too is part of God's plan.

This Church grows and grows and grows to reach an enormous size to encompas .01% of the world’s population. Today only around 1 in 1,000 people on the planet even know of this church and its saving gospel, far less care. Of those who belong to this church, around 75% never bother attending, and around 50% of them don’t even consider themselves members of this church. This too is, apparently, part of God’s wonderful plan.

This church today remains totally obscure and irrelevant in the grand scope of human affairs. Its current leaders refrain from speaking out on the great moral debates of the time, save for those that have something to do with human sexuality, jewelry, and personal adornment. And where the leaders do take “moral” stands, they inevitably find themselves behind the moral curve of human society. Nobody, aside from the faithful, listen to or care what they have to say. This too is, apparently, part of God’s plan.

Isn’t it marvelous?

God does not speak through his prophets. The prophets are just guys with opinions. This has been well established by both the apologists and the critics. We are on common ground here. Since churches are run by prophets and all scriptures were written by prophets, it logically follows that ALL doctrine is just opinions of men.

guy sajer wrote:Yes, God has this great plan of salvation/exaltation for his children. At the center of it is his true "gospel," the knowledge and acceptance of which is necessary for his children to achieve their eternal reward.

So, what does he do?

For the first tens of thousands or so of years of earth's history, the gospel is nowhere to be found, if it exists, it is limited to a narrow strip of land around 100 miles long and 40 miles wide in an obscure part of the world. (Meanwhile, the people living on this narrow strip of land proceed to piss God off by not being slavishly obedient enough, so in a fit of rage, he kills not only all of them, save a handful, but every other living sole on the planet in a global flood.)

After tens of thousands of years, he finally gets around to sending his son to establish his gospel, and the administrative structure for it on the earth. After 30 some odd years, his son is murdered (part of the plan), but he leaves behind apostles to run the church that he has presumably established.

This church, as it were, operates for a few decades but is reasonably quickly snuffed out of existence in its place of origin. But, luckily, one of its leaders is a good missionary who takes the gospel to foreign lands, one which happens to be Rome--the dominant political and military power in the world.

In the meantime, unfortunately, the entire Church falls into an apostasy after only a few decades of existence. God waited tens of thousands of years to establish his true gospel/church (that which is necessary for salvation/exaltation) only to yank it away after a few short decades in a "great apostasy." This too is part of the wonderful plan.

Meanwhile, the remnant of God's Church in Rome grows in power and strength and is co-opted by a pagan dictator for political purposes that make it the official state church. This launches over 1,000 years of the "dark ages" in which the Church is in open apostasy, is co-opted by corrupt, greedy, murderous thugs, and is made a state instrument of oppression that crushes literally tens of millions of lives in its maw for well over 1,000 years. This too is part of the great plan.

After 1,800 years of apostasy, God finally gets around to restoring his gospel/church on the earth again. He does it through a man of dubious character. This man goes on to establish the church as well as lost eternal doctrines, one of which compels him, at flaming sword point, to seduce and have conjugal relationships with multiple women behind his wife's back, including adolescent girls and women already married to his close confederates. This man finds and translate ancient records of a massive lost civilization for which absolutely no evidence whatsoever exists in a book that coincidentally reflects the theological debates of the day, incorporates themes from contemporary writers, and describes a civilization possessing technologies, planets, animals, languages, religious customs, as to fore, and still, unknown in the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere.

This man later translates an ancient papyrus which he claims to have been written by a mythological figure named Abraham. Nobody at the time can translate the language in which the ancient texts are written. Sadly, the ancient texts are lost. Happily the ancient texts are found, and more happily still, people have developed the ability to read and translate the language in which the tests are written. When translated by known experts, it is found that they have nothing to do with Abraham but are ordinary funerary texts of known Egyptian funeral rituals.

This man is later killed because he destroyed a printing press that published a paper chronicling his extra-marital sexual escapades. His mantel is assumed by a domineering man who, among his other accomplishments, manages to enshrine as the single most important doctrine for exaltation the requirement that man take on multiple wives. This too is part of God's plan.

This Church grows and grows and grows to reach an enormous size to encompas .01% of the world’s population. Today only around 1 in 1,000 people on the planet even know of this church and its saving gospel, far less care. Of those who belong to this church, around 75% never bother attending, and around 50% of them don’t even consider themselves members of this church. This too is, apparently, part of God’s wonderful plan.

This church today remains totally obscure and irrelevant in the grand scope of human affairs. Its current leaders refrain from speaking out on the great moral debates of the time, save for those that have something to do with human sexuality, jewelry, and personal adornment. And where the leaders do take “moral” stands, they inevitably find themselves behind the moral curve of human society. Nobody, aside from the faithful, listen to or care what they have to say. This too is, apparently, part of God’s plan.

Isn’t it marvelous?

I wil give you a miniscule example. College educations are not even on the radar for most of the world's population. And for those who do get to go to college, many of them will fail. Very few will excel. So, lets just get rid of college educations altogether. Let's put the money we would spend on colleges and universities to better use. Let's go around building amusement parks. More people will have more fun.

SatanWasSetUp wrote:God does not speak through his prophets. The prophets are just guys with opinions. This has been well established by both the apologists and the critics. We are on common ground here. Since churches are run by prophets and all scriptures were written by prophets, it logically follows that ALL doctrine is just opinions of men.

I'll be the voice in the wilderness. Apologists who say that are wrong.

SatanWasSetUp wrote:God does not speak through his prophets. The prophets are just guys with opinions. This has been well established by both the apologists and the critics. We are on common ground here. Since churches are run by prophets and all scriptures were written by prophets, it logically follows that ALL doctrine is just opinions of men.

You have misrepresented the position of apologists. There is no common ground.

1. Prophets, when moved by the Spirit, speak directly at the instruction of God,giving God's word to His children on earth. (Whether they listen or not is up to them.)

2. Prophets are fallibile men, like everyone else, and entitled to their own personal opinions.

#2 does not negate #1.