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charity wrote:

amantha wrote:
On what basis do you claim to know that "God, the Person,[your] Heavenly Father" has flesh and bones, was once mortal and is now immortal?

The above post does not make an argument based in evidence, it merely makes a baseless claim--a testimony of sorts. What is the evidence of this claim?

Joseph Smith actually saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. Many other people actually saw Jesus. First person testimony. You know, the kind that stands up in a court of law.

If someone claimed such things as this today they would be in a psychiatric ward.

The kind of claims J. Smith made would be regarded as the ranting of a mad man today in court. Remember the woman who said God told me to kill my five children. She talked directly to God. Was she believed? Of course she was not.

And if J.Smith were to face radio and television reporters today with his claims, he would be exposed as a fraud.

150 years has made a significant difference on what passes for reliable claim, charity.

JAK

Coggins7 wrote:And yes, JAK, you should begin discussion the subject matter of the thread, as should Amantha. Even though I've responded to both, the we have already moved away from the OP.

So, you want to talk-talk avoiding any meaningful clarification of the terminology which you use and call it what? It’s a word-game with no meaning absent clarity of definitions for terms used.

JAK

If someone claimed such things as this today they would be in a psychiatric ward.

The kind of claims J. Smith made would be regarded as the ranting of a mad man today in court. Remember the woman who said God told me to kill my five children. She talked directly to God. Was she believed? Of course she was not.

And if J.Smith were to face radio and television reporters today with his claims, he would be exposed as a fraud.

150 years has made a significant difference on what passes for reliable claim, charity.

Discuss the subject with some degree of intellectual sophistication and philosophical rigor, or leave the thread. I thought it would probably be Scratch or someone of that persuasion who would try to derail and corrupt civil discussion first, but you have left the gate ahead of the pack this time.

So, you want to talk-talk avoiding any meaningful clarification of the terminology which you use and call it what? It’s a word-game with no meaning absent clarity of definitions for terms used.

If you want me to define terms, relative to the OP, then fine. We are not discussing the question of your brand of simplistic silly putty scientism vs. religion, but the King Follett Diccourse and its doctrines concerning the origin and fatherhood of God.

Get with the program, or start another thread in another room.

harmony wrote:I repeat: Good grief. Could you two simply argue the premise of the thread, and not turn every thread you participate on into you holding forth about the impossibility of determining if God exists? Don't you get it? We don't care if you think God doesn't exist. We do. Our basic cognitions start there. Yours don't. Big deal. We know that. So either discuss the premise of the thread as presented or don't get into the discussion.

In case you didn't get it from the OP, this thread is about the King Follett discourse. So comments about the existence or nonexistence of God are off topic. Loran actually posted a thread worth discussing, so take your off topic comments somewhere else, please!

But what if staying on track does not give us the fix we need? Couldn't we just jabber on post after post? Oh oops, that includes me. Sorry.

Coggins7 said:

Not quite. All I'm pointing out here is that if we take your position that infallibly is the central delimiting factor in the reliability of the LDS witness, then that factor must delimit all other claims to certain knowledge. Since you hold to the belief that the LDS assertion of a sure testimony of the truth cannot be valid because of this inherent, overarching fallibility, your own claim regarding human fallibility must be fallible, and hence, might be mistaken. There may be areas of human perception open to infallible knowledge, or the natural limitations can be suppressed to levels at which such knowledge as LDS claim to receive from God can be impressed upon us without impermissible levels of filtering.

What you are failing to see is that the very fallibility of my claim reinforces it. It is absolutely logically consistent. The fact that my fallibility claim is fallible proves my claim, it does not refute it. The fact that I cannot be certain due to my own innate fallibility is the very thing which justifies my belief in human fallibility and by extension the fallibility of all epistemelogical claims. Fallibility is central to the human experience. Your concept of agency could not work without it. You can’t take the Fall out of Fallibility.

My granting that my claim is fallible in no way liberates you from your inherent fallibility. You cannot therefore infallibly know that you have communed with an infallible being. You must therefore doubt the infallibility of your “spiritual witness.”

Without your spiritual witness, the nature of god is suspect and the stories of Joseph Smith and his colleagues are rendered indistinct from any other myth.

Coggins7 wrote:

JAK wrote:If someone claimed such things as this today they would be in a psychiatric ward.

The kind of claims J. Smith made would be regarded as the ranting of a mad man today in court. Remember the woman who said God told me to kill my five children. She talked directly to God. Was she believed? Of course she was not.

And if J.Smith were to face radio and television reporters today with his claims, he would be exposed as a fraud.

150 years has made a significant difference on what passes for reliable claim, charity.

... We are not discussing the question of your brand of simplistic silly putty scientism vs. religion, but the King Follett Diccourse and its doctrines concerning the origin and fatherhood of God. ...

When I read first the King Follett Discourse, I evaluated it as a typical kid-boasting: "I know more than you, my father know more than your father, my father is a 007 agent who knows all secret of the world (I'm sorry JBond!) and he told me so many astuteness you couldn't dream of."
God has a father who has a father who has a father... this leads nowhere. Even Charity has said it made no sense to think of more than the first level backward on this line.

In the early phase of Mormonism, every GA have spoken without limits, without control, without feedback. Especially Joseph Smith. Everything they (he) said was the ultimate truth. Unfortunately this is the same today, 150 years were not enough to grow up. 2000 wasn't, too.
See the Umberto Eco line below! It was in my signature long before this comment.

KFD and its doctrines? What doctrines? Please don't forget, we don't teach that. There is nothing to talking about.

Philosophy Dictionary: scientism
Pejorative term for the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other enquiry.
If the word weren't pejorative enough, it is simplistic silly putty for You.

I'm sorry, I call it SCIENCE and favour it over religion.

From this, it appears that your acceptance or nonacceptance of the Gospel's concept of God is entirely predicated upon your own perceptual embeddedness in the physical world and would therefore be conditioned by any perceptual limitations inherent in that reality.

No, the opposite is true. in my opinion, the idea that God is a man is based on the belief that we are somehow the end all species. I'm guessing that the human being in the 21st century is very limited, and just a tiny TINY fraction of what is possible in a God. I think there is much much more to existence than the human... or an advanced human. ;-)

Hence, you ask why God would need to look like us, while ignoring the possibility that it is we who must look like him because we are of the same species and kind. You seem to be assuming that God came from us, rather than the other way around, which is what the Gospel claims.

I find it difficult to believe that our human form as it is (sans blood) at this particular moment in the history of the universe is needed for anything other than this world, at this time. I'm not assuming God came from us at all. I'm saying that it seems odd to think that the God of the universe is another man albeit more "perfect."

Our species is quite new? How do you know this? On this world its new, but this says nothing about the cosmos as a whole. The Gospel deals with the whole, not just aspects of the whole.

Exactly. It doesn't make sense to me that the God of the entire universe is like our little species. I find the idea that God is a man entirely from the human (very limited), mind. I understand that believers think there are plenty of Earth like planets with humans who have evolved exactly like our planet. Again, I would say, why limit God to a human man appearing like us at this time. It just so doesn't make sense to me.

How we evolved here, and the extent to which we did, tells us nothing regarding the template or pattern upon which we are based, which is, according to LDS theology, an eternal template, God himself, and Jesus Christ, being the ultimate forms of that template.

Yes, I understand this model. Let me ask you this... do you think humans will continue to evolve? Do you think our VERY limited brain is all there could ever be? Do you think there is a possibility for more to come forth in this universe? Our human form is not what it was a hundred thousand years ago. It will not be as it is in another hundred thousand years. Why would the God of the universe need hair, fingernails, mitochondria, skin, ears, liver, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.?

Our form seems to be VERY particular to our Earth and our evolutionary past.

Again, I think the "God is man" idea, is very limiting in terms of what is possible in a god, and based on a very limited understanding of the universe.

Just the way I see it. ;-)

~dancer~

I only read the title and thought of a thought I had in Relief Society yesterday. Quite ironic really. The teacher person talked about God calling himself the father. (Lesson 2 in the JS-teachings of presidents of the church). I started thinking about feminism and how my mum talks about how the goddess Diana was the topdog and men took over and suppressed women. I then thought of what i believe God to be and I think God if more everything than anything, which then led to nature. We all call nature 'mother nature', which is the MOTHER and if we believe go to be the father then what is God was/is mother nature but men suppressed woman and made there to be a father god? I feel I am not expressing my thoughts very well here. I hope you all understand what I mean.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." -Marcello Truzzi

What's that hombre's name who claims to be Jesus returned? I think he lives in Miami? He has a HUGE following in the Latino community, and has made MILLIONS off their credulity. In other words, he gained more followers than Joseph Smith in a shorter time, and has made more money... And he's still alive!

So. Case in point, I'm not sure that our modern era with our technological advances and supposed skeptical sensibilities will stop the less discriminating from being bamboozled. This seems to me a human condition that spans the ages rather than humans simply not having access to the Internet and television. There are two or three Object Lessons right here on this board reference self-inflicted ignorance. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him quit believing in Jesus.