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Darth J wrote:

mentalgymnast wrote: The four fold mission of the church then puts rubber to the road in making the answers to these questions applicable and practical to everyday life.

Darth J wrote:And they certainly do make the answers to these questions applicable and practical to your everyday life, don't they?

As usual you are taking what I'm saying and twisting it around in such a fashion so as to have me saying something other than what I actually said. We could go round and round in a rhetorical merry go round trying to parse and/or decipher what I'm really...or not...saying, but I'd rather not play that game again. Go back an simply read what I said and take it at face value.

Always the lawyer.

Regards,
MG

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Regardless, they don't answer those questions satisfactorily.

All we really need to know, or have faith in, is that we existed before birth, there is purpose to life, and that we live after we die.

This is where it begins. Speculation from this point onward is interesting and leads one either in a direction of faith in the eternal nature/destiny of man...or in another direction. It's pretty simple when all the fluff is stripped away.

Regards,
MG

mentalgymnast wrote:

What you said, at face value, is that the purpose of LDS leaders is to take the mission statement of the church and make it applicable and practical to your daily life.

This was after you acknowledged in another thread, at face value, that current LDS leaders have nothing to say that is applicable and practical to your daily life. That's what it means when you say you can't think of anything Thomas Monson has said whereby your life would be different than if he never said it.

The exact words you said, at face value, do not mean something other than that. When someone points out the logical conclusion of what you said, at face value, that isn't twisting your words.

I think it's special that you accept the fantasy of being Alma versus Korihor, but that is simply an LDS persecution trope to avoid thinking through the merits of what you actually said.

mentalgymnast wrote:All we really need to know, or have faith in, is that we existed before birth, there is purpose to life, and that we live after we die.

Regards,
MG

Why is that the benchmark?

Again, what is the point of it all, aside from apparently working against a universal law that God may or may not have instituted in the first place?

V/R
Doc

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:

mentalgymnast wrote:All we really need to know, or have faith in, is that we existed before birth, there is purpose to life, and that we live after we die.

Regards,
MG

Why is that the benchmark?

Again, what is the point of it all, aside from apparently working against a universal law that God may or may not have instituted in the first place?

V/R
Doc

Not only does this assertion provide no demarcation, it begs the question. Who says this is all we really need to know? Why would this be all we really need to know? How do we "know" this in the first place?

See, you have to accept the truth claims of the LDS Church in order to accept that we "know" this at all. But at the same time, we accept the truth claims of the LDS Church because we "know" this.

Darth J wrote:I think it's special that you accept the fantasy of being Alma versus Korihor...

Oh yeah. That's me. You're equating yourself with Korihor? Nice.

You give yourself too much credit. And me, an Alma wannabee? Right.

Thanks for another unproductive and "twisted" conversation.

Regards,
MG

mentalgymnast wrote:

Darth J wrote:I think it's special that you accept the fantasy of being Alma versus Korihor...

Oh yeah. That's me. You're equating yourself with Korihor? Nice.

You give yourself too much credit. And me, an Alma wannabee? Right.

Thanks for another unproductive and "twisted" conversation.

Regards,
MG

For 10 bonus points, name the person in this thread who responded to the substance of a statement with, "always the lawyer."

I'll give you a hint: it's the same person who said, in another thread, "You do have a kind of methodology in your madness. Legal Eagle. Depositions. Briefs. Comes through. "

This is precisely the trope in LDS culture that when you can't think of a substantive response, it is because, like the fictional straw man character Korihor, your interlocutor is twisting your words and using rhetoric. It cannot be the case that your statements about your cherished beliefs are wrong and/or incoherent. The person who invariably goes to ad hominem when your own illogic is pointed out is you, and that ad hominem is invariably that it's some lawyer thing, which you know nothing about, whereby just like Korihor someone is twisting your words and using manipulative rhetoric. It is a standard Mormon thought stopper to avoid the ramifications of what you actually said.

Concomitant with that trope is resorting to ad hominem while claiming the moral high ground.

P.S. The problem with ad hominem is not that it's rude, but that it's irrelevant, and betrays an inability to respond substantively.

Darth J wrote:I think it's special that you accept the fantasy of being Alma versus Korihor, but that is simply an LDS persecution trope to avoid thinking through the merits of what you actually said.

Note how Korihor is now trying to trick us with slick changing of his avatar!

Sure ... he's a nice guy now ... he's your friend!

mentalgymnast wrote:Thanks for another unproductive and "twisted" conversation.

You can't say I didn't warn you.

mentalgymnast wrote:All we really need to know, or have faith in, is that we existed before birth, there is purpose to life, and that we live after we die.

Why do we need to know, or have faith in those things?

In what material ways is a Mormon better off for believing they have the answers to those questions, than an atheist or agnostic who isn't even asking those questions in the first place?

In what specific way (or ways) was the world improved by the lest session of General Conference?
How, specifically are the members of the Church blessed by having a divinely appointed living Prophet, over and above how Catholics are blessed by having a Pope?