Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

Post by huckelberry »

Jersey Girl wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:02 pm
Jersey Girl wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:55 pm
Keeping in mind that there are, I think, three different views of The Revelation that one has available for interpretation.
Well I mess that up right quick. Apparently there are 4 available views from which to interpret The Revelation.

Idealist, preterist, historicist, and futurist. I think that if you ask the average Christian what view they take their answer would be something like..."What it says".

I wouldn't mind seeing a thread on the topic of these 4 views though I don't think I'm fit to facilitate it.
looking for some specifics on these four views I consulted google,found":
http://exegeticaltools.com/2020/07/30/f ... evelation/

I view it through the idealist lens. I see fantasy imagery describing principals and patterns that happen in the world. It is to be a warning . There are repetitions in the book (cycles). Trying to see the future with it is a pointles effort resulting in cycles of confusion leading nowhere.
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

Post by Jersey Girl »

malkie wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:49 pm
Wait a goldarn minute!

Are you gals and guys saying that Dante Alighieri is not the last word on Christian theology?

I'm at least as often wrong as right in matters of theology, but I have assumed (!) for a long time that the view of hell of the average Christian-in-the-street is as likely as not informed by Dante's divine poetry. My view, though, is probably very limited, and perhaps not to be taken seriously.

However, I'm pretty sure that, although I didn't know about him when I was growing up in Scotland, the hellfire and damnation that seemed so prevalent in Scottish Protestant thought was the result of preachers reading Dante - or, at least, reading about Dante's work.
What book of the Bible is attributed to him?
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

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Jersey Girl wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:08 am
malkie wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:49 pm
Wait a goldarn minute!

Are you gals and guys saying that Dante Alighieri is not the last word on Christian theology?

I'm at least as often wrong as right in matters of theology, but I have assumed (!) for a long time that the view of hell of the average Christian-in-the-street is as likely as not informed by Dante's divine poetry. My view, though, is probably very limited, and perhaps not to be taken seriously.

However, I'm pretty sure that, although I didn't know about him when I was growing up in Scotland, the hellfire and damnation that seemed so prevalent in Scottish Protestant thought was the result of preachers reading Dante - or, at least, reading about Dante's work.
What book of the Bible is attributed to him?
None - but if we are talking about the "theology" of someone who is relatively ignorant about the Bible, and hears hellfire and damnation preached every Sunday, I'm not sure that that matters.

I don't know if I knew anyone in Scotland, apart from ministers/preachers, who actually read the Bible - well, perhaps one of my aunts, and her husband. On the other hand we all knew what was coming to us if we didn't behave "properly".

As far as I know (and I believe it, because it would represent an anachronism) no book in the Bible teaches hatred of Catholics. But lots of preachers in Scotland taught it; and their congregations ate it up, and accepted it as part of their religion. My dad used to say that there were few real Protestants in our home town, but there were lots of rabid anti-Catholics who wouldn't recognize Jesus' teachings if they met them in their soup.
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

Post by Kishkumen »

Jersey Girl wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:55 pm
So with the hell doctrine issue, I admittedly didn't read every word of every post. Just throwing in here as best I can.

I think that Christians who go back into the Old Testament and read about Tophet and the fires of Molech automatically attach that to Hell doctrine. I could be wrong and maybe I'm just judging based on what I used to think about it myself. (Oh, I just got an idea in real time, let me see if I can work that in. :shock: )

So I think msnobody might have been thinking about indications in Biblical scripture which is why she confined her question to that in order to illicit a response from Kish (don't come for me, I didn't read everything) within the text of the Bible. He wasn't about doing that so it seems there was an impasse of some sort.

Anyway...well let's cut to the chase and go directly to The Revelation of John because I think that's what the Christian mind and study lead to though I can't speak for everyone. by the way, I have a strong aversion to pulling scripture out of context but for the sake of brevity here... KJV because it's what we generally have in common.

Chapter 20

10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Chapter 21 now...

8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death


So...I don't get how death and hell could be cast into the lake of fire if, as some Christians read it, the lake of fire IS hell.

Keeping in mind that there are, I think, three different views of The Revelation that one has available for interpretation.

Is The Revelation all metaphor? Is the lake of fire a reference to Tophet/Molech as John might have understood it?

I'll take it one step further, is John understanding this to mean that God is sacrificing his own children and if so, why is God doing what followers of Baal did?

I'm just throwing out my thoughts on this. Double spacing is always a sign of me thinking in real time trying to sort something out.
Thanks, Jersey. Revelation is a very difficult book, so much so, in fact, that even the Early Church Fathers did not agree on its fitness for the canon. Honestly, I have no idea what it means for death an hell to be cast into the lake of fire. If that is the second death, does this mean that everything cast into the lake of fire ceases to exist? Does hell then cease to exist? But the devil, the beast, and the false prophet are there for ever and ever?

And we have not even gotten to the Greek here. Maybe that would help.

But I will throw my hands in the air and admit that I simply do not read apocalyptic literature in a literal sense. Apocalyptic literature is very powerful, so I don’t see the need to throw it out, but it also causes a helluva lot of trouble, it seems to me. Almost makes me think Revelation should not have been included in the Bible after all. For many years I have seen this literature as having a very powerful personal impact that relates to things we do experience in our own small way as individual beings. There are times when reality seems thrown into chaos and the end of an age or a world is staring us in the face. Where does a person turn in the midst of these wrenching trials?

I imagine the author of the work going through that kind of trial and looking for divine comfort. On that level, I can relate.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

Post by Kishkumen »

looking for some specifics on these four views I consulted google,found":
http://exegeticaltools.com/2020/07/30/f ... evelation/

I view it through the idealist lens. I see fantasy imagery describing principals and patterns that happen in the world. It is to be a warning . There are repetitions in the book (cycles). Trying to see the future with it is a pointles effort resulting in cycles of confusion leading nowhere.
We may be very close to being on the same page here. Of course, most of what passes for my Christianity might be along the same lines. I seem to recall that you profess Christian faith, so you are probably more properly Christian than I am. I still have real problems with some teachings such as the incarnation of Christ. And that is a big one to have objections to.
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

Post by Marcus »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:40 pm
Kishkumen wrote:

Speaking for myself, I have not encountered Christians who thought God loved them better than me.
Same.
Me too. I have only encountered Mormons who thought that.
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

Post by Gadianton »

Well, it's a fine line when Christians teach on the one hand, God loves Mormons as much as anybody but on the other hand, they burn in hell forever along with the majority of humanity. To both love a person infinitely but to have one's hands completely tied to do anything about the person burning in a lake of fire forever is a kind of love normal people can do without.

There definitely are rhetorical differences in how Mormons talk about their relationship to deity, where Christians will often be self-abasing "look how bad I was! but God rescued me", Mormon culture obsesses over plans and people with special talents and the right genealogy.

I do think Mormons can be a little more cliquish but many of these pastors who give all the glory to God are just as haughty as their Mormon counterparts, it's just a different way of bragging.

Mormons believe everyone will be redeemed from eternity in hell, so that's something. I think on those grounds Mormons have as much right to say God loves everyone with more credibility as any traditional Christians who believe in a lake of fire.
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

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To be clear , I don’t think anyone thinks in some explicit sense that god loves them more than others. It’s far more subtle. It’d be more in a way that god is giving to them and blessing them while others suffer and miss out on god during their life.

The question from jersey asking me to point out a specific time when a traditional Christian would tell a Mormon that god loves one more than another misses the point I’m going for. Although as Gad points out many Christians explicitly claim Mormons are going to hell unless they repent. I don’t know how any believer would not take that to mean that the condemner is not trying to give the impression that god loves one more than others. After all, apparently they are both seeking god and working within the realm of their relationship with him and with their spiritual experience with him. Why would a Mormon be so lowly in gods eyes that he’d be going to hell in a hand basket but the Christian who basically has the same experience with god (an internal testimony) is to be eternally blessed?

With all of that said finding myself a nonbeliever in all of this god stuff and religious preference stuff all I can see is each believing person claiming god is inside them individually. And any description of god is personally adapted to that individual. Somehow or for some reason believers think god has blessed and loved them and unbelievers are missing whatever the hidden god is doing or is too bad for god to concern himself with. In this way it appears to me every believer sees god as loving them all because of the signs they’ve been given. The unbeliever hasn’t been given those signs. If not and gods love to believers is inherent in the signs god gives them individually then what should unbelievers think is going on inside believers heads? God loves believers but doesn’t love nonbelievers? I don’t see how it can be seen otherwise.

Of course as a nonbeliever all of this stuff happening inside believers is nothing more than believers elevating their hopes and desires, feelings and thoughts to the level of god. If there’s a god surely he’s not helping anyone. If believers are correct it seems to me, from my perspective, He has no desire but to play games on us. Maybe someday he’ll show me his ways and I’ll get the joke I guess.
Last edited by dastardly stem on Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

Post by dastardly stem »

Gadianton wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:43 am
Well, it's a fine line when Christians teach on the one hand, God loves Mormons as much as anybody but on the other hand, they burn in hell forever along with the majority of humanity. To both love a person infinitely but to have one's hands completely tied to do anything about the person burning in a lake of fire forever is a kind of love normal people can do without.

There definitely are rhetorical differences in how Mormons talk about their relationship to deity, where Christians will often be self-abasing "look how bad I was! but God rescued me", Mormon culture obsesses over plans and people with special talents and the right genealogy.

I do think Mormons can be a little more cliquish but many of these pastors who give all the glory to God are just as haughty as their Mormon counterparts, it's just a different way of bragging.

Mormons believe everyone will be redeemed from eternity in hell, so that's something. I think on those grounds Mormons have as much right to say God loves everyone with more credibility as any traditional Christians who believe in a lake of fire.
Yeah, gad, I think you’re on track getting what I’m trying to put down. Of course Mormons have a problem with god and this love stuff that other Christian’s don’t have. To Mormons a full one third of his children (we can sadly say 50 billion or so) are set to be tortured eternally in a place prepared for them, with no hope of god saving them. That seems pretty rough.
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Re: Nelson gives revelation that God loves Mormons more than others...

Post by Marcus »

i was raised in the lds church, as a Mormon, to believe Mormons mattered, and nonmormons...did not. This mindset was indoctrinated in me from birth, and even after i left the lds church, that training was incredibly difficult to dismiss. Think mentalgymnast, and his mindset. He holds the same opinions about "nonmembers" that i was raised with. It's clear that these are despicable assumptions, but they are bred into Mormons from birth. So of course Mormons believe their god loves them more. How could he not, when they are the only ones who are endowed by god with the truth? :roll:

of course, their version is a complete sham, but, those deeply imbedded in it find it incredibly difficult to leave. My heart goes out to them, in their seemingly impossible task.
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