Sethbag wrote:Abman, people killing other people because the voices in their heads said so is really bad human policy. This is what crazy people do. Your God seems to operate in ways that are impossible to distinguish from the way people with schizophrenia, or hallunications, or whatever, operate.
Doesn't that put up any red flags in your mind? At all?
No, because I reject your premise.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
Inconceivable wrote:God did not kill Jesus. Jesus committed suicide.
When a man dies by taking a bullet to protect someone else, I don't call that suicide. I call it heroic.
I consider the atonement of Jesus Christ to be along similar lines.
Yours is the only valid conclusion, abman. You are absolutely right. Whatever else we could technically label it, his was a selfless and heroic act for those he loved - an ultimate sacrifice. If we could all be so courageous and selfless as he is said to have been.
Thanks for screwing my head back on.
Yet still, it was his choice. If he decided not to die, God would have had no power to take it from him - unlike all those sacrificed in similitude.
Inconceivable wrote:Yet still, it was his choice. If he decided not to die, God would have had no power to take it from him - unlike all those sacrificed in similitude.
While my understanding of the atonement is by no means complete, I'm pretty sure that indeed it would only work if Jesus was a willing participant just as the atonement won't work in us if we aren't willing.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
God's blessings, including those associated with consecration, come by unforced obedience to the laws upon which they are predicated (see D&C 130:20-21). Thus our deepest desires determine our degree of "obedience to the unenforceable".
Ahead in eternity there may be "narrow passages" yet to be navigated, passages which are unknown to us now. Strict obedience will still be essential. Otherwise we would not really be equipped to live in such a universe, which, for all we know, will require not only our obedience but also spiritual daring in order for us to come safely through.
The glory of God is intelligence, which implies adherence to existing laws. His request for our obedience is merely his trying to educate us on eternal principles that we may better be able to cope with the trials of eternity.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato
Sethbag wrote:Abman, people killing other people because the voices in their heads said so is really bad human policy. This is what crazy people do. Your God seems to operate in ways that are impossible to distinguish from the way people with schizophrenia, or hallunications, or whatever, operate.
Doesn't that put up any red flags in your mind? At all?
No, because I reject your premise.
Would you mind explaining yourself a little more?
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
If God orders you to do something monstrously unethical, at least according to the best moral reasoning you have available to you, that constitutes profound evidence that God cannot be trusted to give you the right advice. What you cannot do is argue that God is trustworthy because all God's good orders are good and all the ostensibly bad ones are not because God knows more than you do. That's just special pleading. That's like saying your rain dances please the gods and cause it to rain. You know this because when you dance, it rains. But when it doesn't rain, that just mean the gods are displeased or are fulfilling your dance on their own timetable as you are ready for it. Evidence doesn't work like that.
Nobody had to kill anyone if Nephi and co. didn't need the plates.
Nobody had to kill anyone if Nephi and co. did need the plates. There are any number of arrangements God, using his Godlike powers, could've made to secure the plates without requesting anyone murder anyone. The way to read that story, if you take it to have literally happened, is that God wanted Laban murdered by Nephi because there was something valuable in that act in of itself. This is more akin to loyalty tests that the mafia gives people. And even that is problematic because the text gives a weak utilitarian justification for the act, ("It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.") I read that as the author trying to excuse the narrative he is creating, but regardless, it ends up in a literal reading as a bit of superfluous sugar to help the medicine go down. Such are the perils of writing about a God who can do (just about) anything.
Nobody had to kill anyone if Nephi and co. didn't need the plates.
Nobody had to kill anyone if Nephi and co. did need the plates. There are any number of arrangements God, using his Godlike powers, could've made to secure the plates without requesting anyone murder anyone.
Amen.
The entire Book of Mormon was ficticious, however, if the Lehites did exist, how would this one violent act of Nephi have effected the culture of the Nephites?