DiscussMormonism.com

DrW wrote:

huckelberry wrote:Sethbag, those are a good set of criticism to my mind. I am aware that each has been promoted by people. As a believer in God I see these suppositions to be about God not of God.

Once one comes to the realization that God - any god - is a pure product of the human mind, and nothing more, the suppositions listed by Sethbag's human mind do indeed become the suppositions of God.

Why is this clearly self evident reality so hard for adults (especially reasonably educated adults) to grasp?

Because they're too busy imagining their fantasy as reality to be distracted by the fact that it's only a fantasy.

Just like it's really easy to solve other people's problems, it's much easier to see other people's mental defects than our own.

ETA: I've started thinking that god belief is a defense mechanism, kind of like a child who checks out when being intensely abused. When under the duress that is every day living, I see god belief as a vital need some people have to cope, reality notwithstanding.

fetchface wrote:

Bazooka wrote:If one wants to take this to an extreme, the fact that Jesus has already paid for our sins by suffering in agony means it would be a wasted sacrifice if we don't do our part of the bargain by going out committing those sins.

Well, Bazooka, I've had my morning coffee, have you?

You know I have....thank you Jesus!

SteelHead wrote:If I were to make the argument that the Bible is true, because it makes sense for the Bible to be true.... what kind of argument would that be?

It doesn't make sense for the Bible to be true, so that would be no kind of argument at all. It the case could be made that everything that the Bible said made sense, that would be a different matter.

SteelHead wrote:Makes sense in what context? The context of a christian who believes there is a god, and that he has a book?

I explained the context. I said, "If one has faith in a good God who loves us each individually and wants each of us individually to know that God's will"; that's the context.

SteelHead wrote:Does it make sense when approached from other contexts?

Similarly does Moroni's promise make sense if approached from say a Daoist context?

Don't know. I'm not familiar with Daoism.

SteelHead wrote:It makes sense to you Kevin as you were raised thinking it makes sense. With out that context, it makes little to no sense.

What other context would be adequate for drawing conclusions about God? Does Daoism address the question of whether there's a God or not, and what God's attributes might be? Quite frankly, I have trouble seeing the point in beliefs about a God we can never know anything about.

SteelHead wrote:It still is begging the question, but now just a different one. It makes the assumption that there is a god, and that he hears and answers prayers.

I took a look at "https://www.google.com/search?q=begging+the+question&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=nts", and it says that begging the question "means 'assuming the conclusion (of an argument)', a type of circular reasoning. This is an informal fallacy where the conclusion that one is attempting to prove is included in the initial premises of an argument." What I posted isn't circular reasoning (as much as Bazooka would have you believe it is), so what I posted isn't begging the question. There's nothing circular in starting out with the assumption that a good God exists, that that God wants us to know Her/His will, and that that God can answer prayer, and then going on to conclude that if that God exists, that God must have certain attributes. There's nothing circular about starting with axioms (that one cannot prove), and then going on to conclude theorems from those axioms. It isn't circular unless some of those theorems are the axioms themselves. Euclid did precisely the same thing with his axioms, and nobody in her/his right mind would accuse Euclid of using circular reasoning.

SteelHead wrote:The omnipotent supernatural god is so bad at transmitting his message that only the smallest bit of humanity gets the privilege of hearing it (the true right gospel of god).

Only "the smallest bit of humanity gets the privilege of hearing" the true gospel of God in this life, perhaps, but Latter-day Saints believe there are plenty of missionaries in the Spirit World that will take the message of the Gospel to all the people who don't hear about it during their lifetimes.

SteelHead wrote:The just being only appears to the smallest subset of folks who then mangle the message.

SteelHead, why do you think they mangled the message?

DrW wrote:

huckelberry wrote:Sethbag, those are a good set of criticism to my mind. I am aware that each has been promoted by people. As a believer in God I see these suppositions to be about God not of God.

Once one comes to the realization that God - any god - is a pure product of the human mind, and nothing more, the suppositions listed by Sethbag's human mind do indeed become the suppositions of God.

DrW, how have you come to the conclusion that any God is such a product? I can see how you might come to the conclusion that most deities are, but saying that any deity is is saying that the idea of God itself has inherent problems, and I don't think that's been demonstrated yet. In fact, I'm not entirely sure anybody's defined God yet; how can a concept have inherent problems when nobody's defined what it means?

DrW wrote:Why is this clearly self evident reality so hard for adults (especially reasonably educated adults) to grasp?

The fact of the matter is that there are some people who look at God in an entirely different way from how critics like you look at God, who have thoroughly thought through their beliefs, and have found resolutions to all the criticisms raised.

KevinSim wrote:And in fact the Book of Mormon never says that we should accept it because the Book of Mormon says it's reliable. One should accept that it's reliable because it makes sense, not because the book authorizes it. If one has faith in a good God who loves us each individually and wants each of us individually to know that God's will, then it simply makes sense that that God will answer a question asked Her/Him, as long as the asker is fully prepared to change her/his life based on God's answer to her/his question. When someone has a desperate need that only God can fill, God steps in to fill it. And if that desperate need is to discover the will of God in one's life, so that that one can change that one's life in accordance with God's will, it's pretty clear to me that only God can fill that need.

KevinSim, how do you explain the fact that people in many other religions pray and ask God which religion is the most correct and receive different answers? Is it your position that none of those people are willing to change their life based on God's answer? Only Mormons are?

For example, see the results of this survey - http://mostcorrectreligionsurvey.weebly.com/ - which asked people what answer they received when they prayed and asked God which religion was the most correct. 82% of the respondents reported receiving an answer and God identified 22 different religions as the most correct religion:

1. Anglican
2. Baptist
3. Catholicism
4. Christianity
5. Christian Charismatic
6. Christian Reformed Church
7. Christ’s Church
8. Hinduism
9. Islam
10. Jehovah’s Witnesses
11. Judaism
12. Lutheranism
13. Methodism
14. Mormonism
15. Orthodox Christianity
16. Paganism
17. Pastafarianism
18. Presbyterianism
19. Quaker
20. Satanism
21. Scientology
22. Seventh-Day Adventist

LookingLooking wrote:God identified 22 different religions as the most correct religion:
1.
...

The 22 religions that respondents believed God had identified to them as the single most correct religion are as follows (the number of respondents identifying the particular religion are in parenthesis):
1. Anglican (1)
2. Baptist (3)
3. Catholicism (19)
4. Christianity (4)
5. Christian Charismatic (1)
6. Christian Reformed Church (1)
7. Christ’s Church (1)
8. Hinduism (1)
9. Islam (5)
10. Jehovah’s Witnesses (2)
11. Judaism (5)
12. Lutheranism (1)
13. Methodism (1)
14. Mormonism (22)
15. Orthodox Christianity (3)
16. Paganism (1)
17. Pastafarianism (1)
18. Presbyterianism (1)
19. Quaker (1)
20. Satanism (2)
21. Scientology (1)
22. Seventh-Day Adventist (4)


******************************
1. 1/4 of the responders said Mormonism... seems to be a cogent data
2. You committed the sin of lying by omission
3. There is no such thing as correct religion --- my opinion, and this is the only which counts...

ludwigm wrote:The 22 religions that respondents believed God had identified to them as the single most correct religion are as follows (the number of respondents identifying the particular religion are in parenthesis):
14. Mormonism (22)

What are you pointing out?

You committed the sin of lying by omission.

In this case, the numbers are sounding.

ludwigm wrote:You committed the sin of lying by omission.

In this case, the numbers are sounding.

What do the numbers mean to you? I don't view it as a vote, if that's what you're implying. The fact is that people in many different religions pray to find which religion is the most correct and many people get many different answers. Are you implying that because the most identified religion was Mormonism, then that must be the right answer? What do you make of the other answers? Are they all wrong? And how do you know?