2 Ne 2:13 last sentence

[Morley]

Alas, for the most part, you are not. I try to respond to you anyway.

Oh well. See ya' round.

Indeed.

[I Have Questions]

Another thread MG has successfully derailed.

[Dr. Shades]

I'm still waiting for clarification as to whether it is OK to refer someone over to the AI megathread for further information on anyone topic as long as absolutely no cut and pasting is going on from here to there or from there to any one thread.

[MODERATOR NOTE: ONLY if you refer them there via private message, and **NOT** in any visible thread itself.]

All voices/context/information are welcome, right?

[MODERATOR NOTE: Yes, but ONLY if they/it come/comes from a human being, **NOT** from a machine or a computer program.]

My experience has been that when the dust settles after presentation of "smoking guns" many if not most of the so-called problems dissapate and/or go away when more context or information is given. That's why I'm such a proponent of "more information is better".

How would you respond to a Jehovah's Witness who said that very same sentence to you?

As it is, most critics tend to focus on one thing at a time intending...wanting(?)... that thing to be the ONE thing that proves that the [Scientology] narrative has been cooked up as a fraud by self serving power hungry individuals seeking fame, fortune, and power. It really doesn't look that way to me.

What would you say to a Scientologist who uttered the above sentence to you?

[Shulem]

All voices/context/information are welcome, right?

[MODERATOR NOTE: Yes, but ONLY if they/it come/comes from a human being, **NOT** from a machine or a computer program.]

Which preserves this forum from becoming a dumping ground for prewritten material not configured by human thinking.

PS. I love using the pink ink! I like it better than the red.

[Shulem]

Another thread MG has successfully derailed.

That's what he does best. He's a pro.

I'd like him to take a break and study A.I. material that analyzes this thread and then come back and explain in his own words how Smith was justified in using the word "vanished" in the context of 2 Nephi 2:13.

I got a new fly swatter!

[Shulem]

See ya' round.

The context of 2 Ne 2:13 suggests that if there never was a God and nothing was ever created, then neither is there space or time, hence the universe doesn't exist but is an endless vacuum having no intelligence whatsoever. Not even a spark exists! Nothing can ever happen! Therefore, there is nothing to "see" and nothing is "round" about in a vacuum wherein energy does not exist. Thus we are able to understand that under those conditions, there is zero possibility of things vanishing away because nothing could appear/materialize, let alone vanish away.

I'm glad we can agree on that, MG. I "think" you are making progress.

[Gabriel]

Good morning!

In 2 Nephi chapter two, Smith was building up a kind of doctrinal theses in which he wanted to demonstrate how there is opposition in everything and having understanding of both sides helps people make the right choices. He pointed out that without opposition everything would "be a compound in one" (verse 11) in which if there were no opposition then what could discriminate the difference between life and death, corruption vs. incorruption, or happiness vs. misery? The end result would be purposeless existence void of the need for a God of justice and mercy. And, above all, it would deny Smith's belief for the need of a Religious God who manages the affairs of his creations by a strict rule of law.

Shulem,

Joseph quoted explicitly from Isaiah in the B of M. Nevertheless, he omitted quoting from Isaiah Chapter 45. However, I am wondering if he may still have engaged with it through the back door via Adam Clarke. Here is Nephi:

11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

The following is Adam Clarke’s commentary on Isaiah 45:7:

Verse Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness — It was the great principle of the Magian religion, which prevailed in Persia in the time of Cyrus, and in which probably he was educated, that there are two supreme, co-eternal, and independent causes always acting in opposition one to the other; one the author of all good, the other of all evil. The good being they called LIGHT; the evil being, DARKNESS. That when LIGHT had the ascendant, then good and happiness prevailed among men; when DARKNESS had the superiority, then evil and misery abounded.

Isaiah, Clarke, and (presumably Joseph Smith), acknowledge the opposition, but reject that this opposition is product of the war between the gods Ahriman and Ormozhd as preached by the prophet Zoroaster/Zarathustra/Zartosht.

Adam Clarke continues:

An opinion that contradicts the clearest evidence of our reason, which plainly leads us to the acknowledgment of one only Supreme Being, infinitely good as well as powerful. With reference to this absurd opinion, held by the person to whom this prophecy is addressed, God, by his prophet, in the most significant terms, asserts his omnipotence and absolute supremacy:

[Isaiah 45:5-7]

5 I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else.

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

Source: https://www.studylight.org/commentaries ... ah-45.html

[Shulem]

Joseph quoted explicitly from Isaiah in the B of M. Nevertheless, he omitted quoting from Isaiah Chapter 45.

Smith was very familiar with EVERY chapter of Isaiah. About 1/3 of the book of Isaiah finds its way into the Book of Mormon in one form or another.

Smith stole from Isaiah to pay the Book of Mormon. It was pure thievery -- if not robbery.

I so testify.

Shulem