What Do People Here Believe?

[honorentheos]

What if it's not true but still praise worthy? Or just lovely? Don't forget being of good report.

Nah, that's overrated.

You're probably right. It was only #13 anyway, and plagiarized, too.

[MG 2.0]

Think about this if it is true.

Exactly. As an exalted couple, your primary task is to create spirits (why?) and insert them into a flawed, sloppy and oftentimes cruel ‘life’ scenario where they’ll stand a much better than even chance of suffering and dying unnecessarily. This is done so that your spirit kids can repeat the same process, under the same flawed and sloppy plan. Rinse and repeat through countless generations, and then live your heavenly life apart from most of those spirits anyway after their death, and never stop rerunning the process until the end of time.

I can see why this plan doesn’t elicit a lot of enthusiasm from most folks.

Definitely not all sunshine and lollipops.

Comes back to whether one believes that opposition results in growth and whether or not the elements of intelligence/sentience, by nature, are set towards a natural path of goodness and light.

Humans seem to demonstrate, by nature, that this isn’t so in all cases.

You ought to come up with a better plan by which the ‘natural man’ can progress through individual choice and action in superseding the natural frailties of mankind.

God didn’t create evil. It simply exists.

He did provide a plan by which it can be defeated though.

That there is an eternity filled with good/evil and triumph over evil is not an unreasonable assumption. Think Star Wars.

I suppose it comes down to whether or not you believe in such a thing as good and evil in the universe or if it is a man made construct just like everything else.

My the Force be with you.

Regards,
MG

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

What were the manmade fabrications?

[canpakes]

Exactly. As an exalted couple, your primary task is to create spirits (why?) and insert them into a flawed, sloppy and oftentimes cruel ‘life’ scenario where they’ll stand a much better than even chance of suffering and dying unnecessarily. This is done so that your spirit kids can repeat the same process, under the same flawed and sloppy plan. Rinse and repeat through countless generations, and then live your heavenly life apart from most of those spirits anyway after their death, and never stop rerunning the process until the end of time.

I can see why this plan doesn’t elicit a lot of enthusiasm from most folks.

Definitely not all sunshine and lollipops.

Comes back to whether one believes that opposition results in growth and whether or not the elements of intelligence/sentience, by nature, are set towards a natural path of goodness and light.

This holds water only so much as there needs to be a requirement of teaching spirits what ‘goodness and light’ is solely via an experience within a flesh-and-blood shell. And perhaps that’s the argument, but if it is, then the setup is sloppy. Countless generations could not ever be able to be aware of whatever the truth supposedly is, as demonstrated by the existence of every person who lived and died prior to the invention of Mormonism. And even today, with Mormonism unable to reach every living person, millions still die in a rigged scenario where their lesson of truth could never have been administered to them, or accessed by them - either by sloppy design of the plan, or by a purposeful design of it, which wouldn’t bode too well for ‘truth’.

You ought to come up with a better plan by which the ‘natural man’ can progress through individual choice and action in superseding the natural frailties of mankind.

Perhaps the better plan is to teach spirits directly, rather than wipe their memory and send them into a strange fleshy capsule within a rigged playing field, where the supposed truth is hidden away to nearly all of them throughout their full lifespan?

God didn’t create evil. It simply exists.

He did provide a plan by which it can be defeated though.

If it ‘simply exists’, it can never be ‘defeated’. Not only that, but nothing about our mortal lesson teaches such a thing … and spirits - if the LDS narrative is to be believed - are still prone to it. Lest, would there ever have been a ‘war in heaven’?

That there is an eternity filled with good/evil and triumph over evil is not an unreasonable assumption. Think Star Wars.

Some of what is labeled evil will always be relative to your perspective. Evil can never be erased without removing free will, and will oftentimes be justifiable through the perspective of the person exercising it, as is plainly shown by Biblical example (e.g. the Canaanites). Perhaps the ultimate reward for practicing selectively interpreted evil will be the loss of free will, which is provided by a spiritual eternity within the afterlife of heaven? At which point we’ll just become baby-making machines ..?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

It’s almost as if MG is just larping some buffet version of his inherited religion. Anyway. What manmade fabrications, MG?

- Doc

[Rivendale]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

It’s almost as if MG is just larping some buffet version of his inherited religion. Anyway. What manmade fabrications, MG?

- Doc

I am sure that part was not translated/revealed/ correctly. Just like, Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword, or If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

[MG 2.0]

Definitely not all sunshine and lollipops.

Comes back to whether one believes that opposition results in growth and whether or not the elements of intelligence/sentience, by nature, are set towards a natural path of goodness and light.

This holds water only so much as there needs to be a requirement of teaching spirits what ‘goodness and light’ is solely via an experience within a flesh-and-blood shell. And perhaps that’s the argument, but if it is, then the setup is sloppy. Countless generations could not ever be able to be aware of whatever the truth supposedly is, as demonstrated by the existence of every person who lived and died prior to the invention of Mormonism. And even today, with Mormonism unable to reach every living person, millions still die in a rigged scenario where their lesson of truth could never have been administered to them, or accessed by them - either by sloppy design of the plan, or by a purposeful design of it, which wouldn’t bode too well for ‘truth’.

Mormonism’s way out of this dilemma is the doctrine of conditional salvation/exaltation and the work that happens in the temple to pick up the slack for the natural condition of humanity.

MG: You ought to come up with a better plan by which the ‘natural man’ can progress through individual choice and action in superseding the natural frailties of mankind.

Perhaps the better plan is to teach spirits directly, rather than wipe their memory and send them into a strange fleshy capsule within a rigged playing field, where the supposed truth is hidden away to nearly all of them throughout their full lifespan?

I think this is due to the fact that a God can only work with what the natural conditions of existence are and the evolutionary arrow of time. He is somewhat forced to fit within that framework so as to not interfere with the natural order.

MG: God didn’t create evil. It simply exists.

He did provide a plan by which it can be defeated though.

If it ‘simply exists’, it can never be ‘defeated’. Not only that, but nothing about our mortal lesson teaches such a thing … and spirits - if the LDS narrative is to be believed - are still prone to it. Lest, would there ever have been a ‘war in heaven’?

But it could theoretically be ‘boxed’ so that good and evil are made manifest and then separated from each other.

MG: That there is an eternity filled with good/evil and triumph over evil is not an unreasonable assumption. Think Star Wars.

Some of what is labeled evil will always be relative to your perspective. Evil can never be erased without removing free will, and will oftentimes be justifiable by the perspective of the person exercising it, as is plainly shown by Biblical example (e.g. the Canaanites). Perhaps the ultimate reward for practicing selectively interpreted evil will be the loss of free will, which is provided by a spiritual eternity within the afterlife of heaven? At which point we’ll just become baby-making machines ..?

At some point we then would have to lean on or depend on the ‘great arbitrator’ of evil and good in order to make those pronouncements/decisions.

My concern is that folks toss off the idea/possibility of a supreme being on the basis of not understanding how and why God would do such and such or operate in a way that seems contrary to what they believe a god ought do and/or act like.

By the way, I think that free will will never be exorcised from our being in time or eternity. If a person doesn’t want to ‘do’ one or the other thing here or hereafter I don’t think there will be any forces that direct otherwise.

God will force no man/woman to heaven, so to speak. There will be no ‘forced labor’…pun intended…to be a baby making machine.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

I suppose it comes down to whether or not you believe in such a thing as good and evil in the universe or if it is a man made construct just like everything else.

Good and evil are value judgements that do not exist objectively outside human experience. Among different humans there are different judgements made as to what is good and what is evil. It's not that good and evil doesn't exist in the universe. They do just as beauty exists...as long as there is someone around to make that judgement.

I'm of the opinion one of the great failings of Mormonism is it's reliance on obedience in place of cultivating moral judgment. Mormonism as a faith asks it's members to abdicate their capacity to judge to an institution and call that God's will. Thus a person would be challenged to find a ward house on any given Sunday where healthy discussion on morality occurs, nor find a sophisticated take on morality presented within a Mormon framework. The assumption that good is good and our responsibility is to bend to that concept of good via obedience leads to morally frail individuals. This, the irony that is Mormon belief they are being exalted by obedience to what the church leadership says. If the purpose of mortality is to learn to pursue and develop attributes of the divine - godliness - one should be alarmed if the processes evident in Mormonism are those that gave rise to the force and will that shaped the cosmos.

Mormonism is the best evidence against it's own claims about what God may be.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

What were the manmade fabrications?

Were calling tapirs horses the manmade fabrication that sent you into a tailspin, MG?

Was the ‘caractors’ actually being English the manmade fabrication that threw you into a tailspin, MG?

[MG 2.0]

I suppose it comes down to whether or not you believe in such a thing as good and evil in the universe or if it is a man made construct just like everything else.

Good and evil are value judgements that do not exist objectively outside human experience.

You lost me right there. That’s a presumptuous statement for a human to make.

Regards,
MG