Mars and the Problem of Pain

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JohnW
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

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dastardly stem wrote:
Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:52 pm
It appears God has prepared for them a place of eternal punishment, or as termed in the D&C God's punishment. To me I get the impression he delights in punishing those who dare question HIs ways, or push against Him. I suppose it would be much nicer if there wasn't a torturous place where people go to be punished as if they are burning forever in fire. But that is what he teaches.

Anyway, I would say, if one believes in God, Mormonism and all of that, it'd be really really good to ignore most of scripture, ignore most of what the prophets say and imagine a much better God, a much better religion. I don't think you're alone among Mormons who do that (nor, to broaden the scope, alone among Christians who do that). Others do as well and it's encouraging. Hopefully that view spreads among the other believers and leaks into the hearts of the leaders, so they too can preach a new and improved religion. Of course, I'd still suggest it's much better to drop it all, completely. But, I also accept religion is here to stay. Take what you can and make the most of it.
Yeah, I'm definitely not saying God never punishes people. The scriptures, as you mention, are pretty clear about that. I just think we sometimes make out God to be someone who delights in punishing people, almost as if whenever he gets a spare moment he likes to poke people with hot irons or something. I have a hard time believing that. Yes, there will be a time when people will suffer. The scriptures seem to say it will be worse than anything we can imagine. But that suffering will end. Sins can be "paid" for by either Christ or by ourselves. When that "payment" is done, we end up in one of two categories: outer darkness or the Telestial Kingdom. I think the final state of people in outer darkness was what I was trying to describe. At some point people will just be left alone. Outer darkness seems to even give a mental picture of that state. Any further punishment is doled out by ourselves at that point.

Of course, some people have a hard time with God punishing anyone, even people who will eventually go to the Telestial Kingdom. I personally think I've made peace with why God would have to punish people, sometimes rather harshly, but I can understand why others may have a hard time with that.
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

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canpakes wrote:
Tue Sep 27, 2022 6:27 am
JohnW wrote:
Tue Sep 27, 2022 5:33 am
I've always considered the "punishment" reserved for the 1/3 of the spirits before this life and the people going to outer darkness as nothing more or less than giving them exactly what they want. They want God to leave them alone, so he leaves them alone. Any punishment comes from that extreme distance from God. When we are left on our own, we often punish ourselves. That could be considered eternal suffering. Yes, that is non-standard way to think about those going to outer darkness, but it seems like a reasonable position to take. It also makes God's character a whole lot more palatable.
In this interpretation, does ‘leave them alone’ mean alone as a singular spirit without chance for contact with others (a solitary banishment of sorts), or alone within a community of like-minded spirits that wish to eschew God?
Good question. I've thought a little bit about this, but not much. Does God actively isolate people when he leaves them alone? I don't know. You could argue that is active punishment. If God leaves people alone with others in a potential community, do they work together to challenge God? I think you could argue there are some scriptures which might allude to that state. Some people might also argue that people in that state are "evil", meaning they tend to lash out at others. If there were a community of people who always lashed out at each other, it is unlikely to stay a community for long. I have even mused that may be the primary difference between God and Satan. One tends to build community; the other tends to destroy community.
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

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JohnW wrote:
Sat Oct 01, 2022 1:34 am

Yeah, I'm definitely not saying God never punishes people. The scriptures, as you mention, are pretty clear about that. I just think we sometimes make out God to be someone who delights in punishing people, almost as if whenever he gets a spare moment he likes to poke people with hot irons or something. I have a hard time believing that. Yes, there will be a time when people will suffer. The scriptures seem to say it will be worse than anything we can imagine. But that suffering will end.
Is suffering “forever and ever” meant to suggest temporarily? I do think it much better for believers to ignore much of scripture or church teaching as that can make things much better to swallow. I also realize Mormonism has god wishing to send pain to people, so they suffer as Jesus did, if they don’t repent but also do well enough to achieve lesser than those whom he loves or favors. But my focus has more to do with god preparing a place for the devil and those who chose to come here and yet will join these devils. God requires they suffer for ever and ever as if they are burning in fire forever. Ah well…it’s a question that can’t be satisfied I’m sure. But its also the main issue I’ve had with religious ideas.
Sins can be "paid" for by either Christ or by ourselves. When that "payment" is done, we end up in one of two categories: outer darkness or the Telestial Kingdom. I think the final state of people in outer darkness was what I was trying to describe. At some point people will just be left alone. Outer darkness seems to even give a mental picture of that state. Any further punishment is doled out by ourselves at that point.
Along with those I just described I recall many Mormons suggesting the lower kingdoms would be hell as well, meaning a place of suffering or not free from suffering, because they know they never got what they could have. I can see how it would mean these lower people would be left alone to suffer. But again I don’t see how burning forever and ever would be god leaving them alone. Ah well. Hopefully that’s been hit on enough.

Of course, some people have a hard time with God punishing anyone, even people who will eventually go to the Telestial Kingdom. I personally think I've made peace with why God would have to punish people, sometimes rather harshly, but I can understand why others may have a hard time with that.
Can’t remember if I already said this but as a believer I had a secret for plan, I intended to tell god I’d much rather go to telestial than be “exalted” above others, hoping I could convince the dingbat to send someone else in my place to heaven.

Once I started realizing on Mormonism there were people, and billions of them, who god held such little love or care for that they would suffer eternally in the metaphorical fire, I realized I was stuck, or what felt like stuck, in an eternal hell already. As far as I could tell choosing god or satan before the world was was as much the crap shoot as craps. Luckily for me there’s no good reason to believe in Mormonism or Christianity for that matter at all. I remain exceedingly perplexed how people happily accept silly sounding “blessings” on such beliefs. “God loves me and blesses me”, Is too much for me anymore, considering so many have already been consigned to eternal torture, by this supposedly loving father in heaven. Of course on scripture he decided already which believers he’d put on ignore and which he’d try to help, according to the last lines of his sermon on the mt. It seems to me as he preached, it’s as if he looks forward to telling believers he never knew them and “depart from me, ye that work iniquity”. Such a perspective may fit well with religious thinking a couple millennia ago. I just don’t think it’s good, or useful considering what we’ve learned since then.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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JohnW
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

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dastardly stem wrote:
Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:48 am

Is suffering “forever and ever” meant to suggest temporarily?
Yeah, we may be at a bit of an impasse here. I will say in parting that this sort of concept is not only found in religion. Something similar is used in science fairly often. In college physics classes we assume an infinite plane all the time in problems where it would be too complex to deal with the actual situation. I could easily see God using a simpler concept of "forever and ever" to describe a very long punishment for a particular people or context. I don't expect that will be convincing to you. It wouldn't be convincing to me if I weren't already a believer.

I do think it much better for believers to ignore much of scripture or church teaching as that can make things much better to swallow. I also realize Mormonism has god wishing to send pain to people, so they suffer as Jesus did, if they don’t repent but also do well enough to achieve lesser than those whom he loves or favors. But my focus has more to do with god preparing a place for the devil and those who chose to come here and yet will join these devils. God requires they suffer for ever and ever as if they are burning in fire forever. Ah well…it’s a question that can’t be satisfied I’m sure. But its also the main issue I’ve had with religious ideas.

. . .

Once I started realizing on Mormonism there were people, and billions of them, who god held such little love or care for that they would suffer eternally in the metaphorical fire, I realized I was stuck, or what felt like stuck, in an eternal hell already. As far as I could tell choosing god or satan before the world was was as much the crap shoot as craps. Luckily for me there’s no good reason to believe in Mormonism or Christianity for that matter at all. I remain exceedingly perplexed how people happily accept silly sounding “blessings” on such beliefs. “God loves me and blesses me”, Is too much for me anymore, considering so many have already been consigned to eternal torture, by this supposedly loving father in heaven. Of course on scripture he decided already which believers he’d put on ignore and which he’d try to help, according to the last lines of his sermon on the mt. It seems to me as he preached, it’s as if he looks forward to telling believers he never knew them and “depart from me, ye that work iniquity”. Such a perspective may fit well with religious thinking a couple millennia ago. I just don’t think it’s good, or useful considering what we’ve learned since then.
Again, probably an impasse. I think I've been describing my own speculation (as a believer) on how I can come to grips with a loving God that sometimes sounds terribly harsh in the scriptures. If I weren't a believer, I wouldn't have as much conflict on that topic and would probably take a similar position as you.
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

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John W. wrote: This means a successful outcome of the simulation is not baptism or conversion. The closest thing I can come up with is that at a fundamental level, this life is testing whether we can be trusted with power. Will we use the power we have to help others or to step on people as we try to better our position. Do we manipulate people to get our way?
I guess the more direct point is that by figuring out it's a simulation, it ruins the point of the simulation. And in this case, the central message of the Gospel is to convince you that you are in a simulation.
The only problem with these simulators is that every person in the simulator knows it isn't real. They know that in most cases rescue is just minutes away. I know this is taking a couple steps into science fiction, but what if their memories were altered so they actually thought they were on Mars? That would make for an extremely realistic test.
The parallel to the pre-existence is solid, until you get to the part where prophets and scriptures come to be for the sole purpose of convincing people that it's a simulation, which is what people aren't supposed to know about in order to make the simulation effective. In fact, if people resist believing they are in a simulation, then they lack faith etc., and supposedly that stunts their progress.

(an unrelated point: in Ender's Game, Ender was so effective because he believed it was fake.)
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

Post by dastardly stem »

JohnW wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 1:51 am
dastardly stem wrote:
Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:48 am

Is suffering “forever and ever” meant to suggest temporarily?
Yeah, we may be at a bit of an impasse here. I will say in parting that this sort of concept is not only found in religion. Something similar is used in science fairly often. In college physics classes we assume an infinite plane all the time in problems where it would be too complex to deal with the actual situation. I could easily see God using a simpler concept of "forever and ever" to describe a very long punishment for a particular people or context. I don't expect that will be convincing to you. It wouldn't be convincing to me if I weren't already a believer.

I do think it much better for believers to ignore much of scripture or church teaching as that can make things much better to swallow. I also realize Mormonism has god wishing to send pain to people, so they suffer as Jesus did, if they don’t repent but also do well enough to achieve lesser than those whom he loves or favors. But my focus has more to do with god preparing a place for the devil and those who chose to come here and yet will join these devils. God requires they suffer for ever and ever as if they are burning in fire forever. Ah well…it’s a question that can’t be satisfied I’m sure. But its also the main issue I’ve had with religious ideas.

. . .

Once I started realizing on Mormonism there were people, and billions of them, who god held such little love or care for that they would suffer eternally in the metaphorical fire, I realized I was stuck, or what felt like stuck, in an eternal hell already. As far as I could tell choosing god or satan before the world was was as much the crap shoot as craps. Luckily for me there’s no good reason to believe in Mormonism or Christianity for that matter at all. I remain exceedingly perplexed how people happily accept silly sounding “blessings” on such beliefs. “God loves me and blesses me”, Is too much for me anymore, considering so many have already been consigned to eternal torture, by this supposedly loving father in heaven. Of course on scripture he decided already which believers he’d put on ignore and which he’d try to help, according to the last lines of his sermon on the mt. It seems to me as he preached, it’s as if he looks forward to telling believers he never knew them and “depart from me, ye that work iniquity”. Such a perspective may fit well with religious thinking a couple millennia ago. I just don’t think it’s good, or useful considering what we’ve learned since then.
Again, probably an impasse. I think I've been describing my own speculation (as a believer) on how I can come to grips with a loving God that sometimes sounds terribly harsh in the scriptures. If I weren't a believer, I wouldn't have as much conflict on that topic and would probably take a similar position as you.
I suppose what remains an interesting part of this to me, while accepting we run into impasse when trying to discuss these seemingly important matters, is if the “terribly harsh” god found it n scriptures isn’t real, then we’re left with nothing more than figments of believers’ imaginations. That believers accept a punishing god, who may not really be as bad as Revelation, or Joseph Smith make him out to be, then he’s something else imagined by individual believers, or as they communicate with each other and downplay his apparent hatred for others they decide upon new language, new metaphors and new descriptions for him. Again that makes him more palatable particularly in this modern day, and that’s perhaps somewhat encouraging at least. But in the end he still seems monstrous to some extent since he wishes or intends to punish others, and likely is in the midst of punishing many already, and yet believers still believe since doing so works for them on some other level.

As I said I started your book. Thanks for sharing and I’m glad to hear you are feeling clear of cancer.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

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Gadianton wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:30 am
John W. wrote: This means a successful outcome of the simulation is not baptism or conversion. The closest thing I can come up with is that at a fundamental level, this life is testing whether we can be trusted with power. Will we use the power we have to help others or to step on people as we try to better our position. Do we manipulate people to get our way?
I guess the more direct point is that by figuring out it's a simulation, it ruins the point of the simulation. And in this case, the central message of the Gospel is to convince you that you are in a simulation.
The only problem with these simulators is that every person in the simulator knows it isn't real. They know that in most cases rescue is just minutes away. I know this is taking a couple steps into science fiction, but what if their memories were altered so they actually thought they were on Mars? That would make for an extremely realistic test.
The parallel to the pre-existence is solid, until you get to the part where prophets and scriptures come to be for the sole purpose of convincing people that it's a simulation, which is what people aren't supposed to know about in order to make the simulation effective. In fact, if people resist believing they are in a simulation, then they lack faith etc., and supposedly that stunts their progress.

(an unrelated point: in Ender's Game, Ender was so effective because he believed it was fake.)
Good point. I'll have to think about that some more. That may be a fundamental flaw in the analogy. The situation of the theology is that we have some form of memory loss here, but that becoming aware of the particulars of our situation is helpful but not required. Good catch. That isn't an exact match to the analogy.
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

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dastardly stem wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:38 am
JohnW wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 1:51 am


Yeah, we may be at a bit of an impasse here. I will say in parting that this sort of concept is not only found in religion. Something similar is used in science fairly often. In college physics classes we assume an infinite plane all the time in problems where it would be too complex to deal with the actual situation. I could easily see God using a simpler concept of "forever and ever" to describe a very long punishment for a particular people or context. I don't expect that will be convincing to you. It wouldn't be convincing to me if I weren't already a believer.



Again, probably an impasse. I think I've been describing my own speculation (as a believer) on how I can come to grips with a loving God that sometimes sounds terribly harsh in the scriptures. If I weren't a believer, I wouldn't have as much conflict on that topic and would probably take a similar position as you.
I suppose what remains an interesting part of this to me, while accepting we run into impasse when trying to discuss these seemingly important matters, is if the “terribly harsh” god found it n scriptures isn’t real, then we’re left with nothing more than figments of believers’ imaginations. That believers accept a punishing god, who may not really be as bad as Revelation, or Joseph Smith make him out to be, then he’s something else imagined by individual believers, or as they communicate with each other and downplay his apparent hatred for others they decide upon new language, new metaphors and new descriptions for him. Again that makes him more palatable particularly in this modern day, and that’s perhaps somewhat encouraging at least. But in the end he still seems monstrous to some extent since he wishes or intends to punish others, and likely is in the midst of punishing many already, and yet believers still believe since doing so works for them on some other level.

As I said I started your book. Thanks for sharing and I’m glad to hear you are feeling clear of cancer.
Not to get too existential here, but yes, at some point we run into the fact that God is a figment of everyone's imaginations, meaning we all have some concept of God (or lack thereof). If God were to exist, then there is an actual God that may or may not jive with our concept of him. Does this "terribly harsh" God jive with the real God, or was that how some ancient cultures viewed him? Is their concept of God based on a more violent culture? Some people will argue that point. I personally don't know. My modern lens may be clouding my view, but I like to think I have some wiggle room there.

I personally believe we will all meet the real God eventually. At that point, our concept of God we used to carry around will either be proven fairly wrong or dramatically wrong. Will our modern concept of God, which is more palatable to us, be "terrible" to ancient people? What does that Venn diagram look like? How much of it overlaps with the actual God? I personally think the real God will defend some of the positions held by atheists, but that may be my own biases coming in. Anyway, fun things to think about.
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Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain

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JohnW wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 5:19 am
Not to get too existential here, but yes, at some point we run into the fact that God is a figment of everyone's imaginations, meaning we all have some concept of God (or lack thereof). If God were to exist, then there is an actual God that may or may not jive with our concept of him. Does this "terribly harsh" God jive with the real God, or was that how some ancient cultures viewed him? Is their concept of God based on a more violent culture? Some people will argue that point. I personally don't know. My modern lens may be clouding my view, but I like to think I have some wiggle room there.
Sure, but again, all anyone has then is their imagination. There is no explanation of God outside of supposedly inspired writings and men, not so much women, who speak, or I'd say pretend to speak, for Him. When people start saying God is something opposite of what these men or writings suggest, then they can't really be doing much more than pretending God is something they imagine him to be. The point is if there is a God, no one could possibly know anything about him. If I'm wrong about that, I ask how could they possibly know anything about Him?

If there is no God then anything any one imagines about him is just plain them making crap up. It is nothing more than individuals elevating their hopes and desires to the level of God. And really if you pay attention to believers and as they talk about God they fill up books telling people what God really wants...what God really is. People kind of catch on to what others are saying, incorporate that into their own conception of God and ta-da...God works for them. Now I get believers want to say, "But God really is inside us." I don't know how they accept the burden of the claim and validate it. Normally, though, they try and flip the burden and say things like, "yeah God's in me. prove me wrong.". Its pretty lame, even the best of defenders have to resort to nothing more than that.
I personally believe we will all meet the real God eventually. At that point, our concept of God we used to carry around will either be proven fairly wrong or dramatically wrong. Will our modern concept of God, which is more palatable to us, be "terrible" to ancient people? What does that Venn diagram look like? How much of it overlaps with the actual God? I personally think the real God will defend some of the positions held by atheists, but that may be my own biases coming in. Anyway, fun things to think about.
Not that fun when it all appears to be nothing more than a mean hoax that the majority just accept for various odd reasons--mostly related to selfish desires it seems to me. I maintain we're better off going with a rational perspective in life. I think we each are better off the more people buy into embracing a rational perspective. But for most who believe in God...that's just not going to happen.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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