Working your way to the CK

[_harmony]

Reality according to whom? You? Might I remind you you just served grace up for dinner? (and without a spoon, no less)

It's the reality I accept and am sure is correct.

that's what the EV's think too. Only their reality is dismetrically opposed to yours.

[_Trinity]

Hi Runtu,

Can I tell you that I was just like Charity when I was a believer? Holy cow, I just loved the empowerment that came with believing that it was my energy, my skill that could propel me above all of the other yellow-bellied humans in the universe. I soaked it up. I have pictures in my journal from when I was in sixth grade that showed my world that I was going to get because I worked so hard in this life. I deliberately, DELIBERATELY, chose an academic path with maths and sciences because I felt this was the most practical knowledge I would need to create a world. I lived and breathed from my dayplanner, my to-do lists a mile long, and I always went to bed every night with the dastardly reminder (from those remaining, unchecked items) that I was lacking and ever so far from perfection.

Being a Mormon for me was exhausting beyond belief. I pushed and pushed myself, and got virtually no emotional or spiritual comfort from it. The goal was always just out of reach. And by any standard I was accomplishing far more than the average Mormon in my daily activities.

I will, to this day, tell you that putting a perfectionist-oriented person in a religion that teaches you that you can indeed become perfect (and your level of exaltation is dependent upon how close you get to perfection) is the most mentally and emotionally debilitating system with which to function. There is just no end to the self-flagellation because the perfectionist will always keep their eye on what needs to be done rather than to be comforted by what has already been done.

[_The Nehor]

And don't forget that God apparently already knows what you will do during your time on Earth before you get here, so it's really an exercise in futility anyway. So you may as well enjoy it while you can.

God does it for the same reason we send people we know will one day be great surgeons to medical school before giving them a scalpel.

Super bad analogy, for so many reasons.

I agree but what analogy would you use to describe a being outside of time interacting with people within it?

[_The Nehor]

Reality according to whom? You? Might I remind you you just served grace up for dinner? (and without a spoon, no less)

It's the reality I accept and am sure is correct.

that's what the EV's think too. Only their reality is dismetrically opposed to yours.

I still think I'm right though no doubt I can be accused of bias :)

[_skippy the dead]

And don't forget that God apparently already knows what you will do during your time on Earth before you get here, so it's really an exercise in futility anyway. So you may as well enjoy it while you can.

God does it for the same reason we send people we know will one day be great surgeons to medical school before giving them a scalpel.

Super bad analogy, for so many reasons.

I agree but what analogy would you use to describe a being outside of time interacting with people within it?

Mythology?

[_Runtu]

Hi Runtu,

Can I tell you that I was just like Charity when I was a believer? Holy cow, I just loved the empowerment that came with believing that it was my energy, my skill that could propel me above all of the other yellow-bellied humans in the universe. I soaked it up. I have pictures in my journal from when I was in sixth grade that showed my world that I was going to get because I worked so hard in this life. I deliberately, DELIBERATELY, chose an academic path with maths and sciences because I felt this was the most practical knowledge I would need to create a world. I lived and breathed from my dayplanner, my to-do lists a mile long, and I always went to bed every night with the dastardly reminder (from those remaining, unchecked items) that I was lacking and ever so far from perfection.

Being a Mormon for me was exhausting beyond belief. I pushed and pushed myself, and got virtually no emotional or spiritual comfort from it. The goal was always just out of reach. And by any standard I was accomplishing far more than the average Mormon in my daily activities.

I will, to this day, tell you that putting a perfectionist-oriented person in a religion that teaches you that you can indeed become perfect (and your level of exaltation is dependent upon how close you get to perfection) is the most mentally and emotionally debilitating system with which to function. There is just no end to the self-flagellation because the perfectionist will always keep their eye on what needs to be done rather than to be comforted by what has already been done.

That's a shame, but for some reason, a whole lot of Mormons (apparently charity included) think this way. We "prove ourselves worthy" and then we get the grace to make up the difference. That is not the gospel as taught in the scriptures. A Gospel Doctrine teacher once passed out a chart showing what you had to do to be exalted. It was a pyramid, with faith, repentance, baptism, and the holy ghost on the bottom, then getting the priesthood, going to the temple, getting sealed, enduring the end, and at the very top was a tiny triangle labeled "Atonement." This is the religion charity is describing, and apparently the one you lived. I'm grateful I never bought that kind of belief.

Of course, saying that charity's theology is wrong does not make Mormonism true. :)

[_skippy the dead]

A Gospel Doctrine teacher once passed out a chart showing what you had to do to be exalted. It was a pyramid, with faith, repentance, baptism, and the holy ghost on the bottom, then getting the priesthood, going to the temple, getting sealed, enduring the end, and at the very top was a tiny triangle labeled "Atonement."

So, Atonement is the equivalent of chocolate in the food pyramid?

[_ozemc]

I have always been mystified at the disconnect between the "grace only" group and the scriptures.

Follow me.
Keep my commandments.
Love one anotrher.
Do good.
Serve your fellowman.
Be baptized.

Aren't these things "something?"

I am not a "grace only" Christian. I don't know where you get that idea. But salvation in the celestial kingdom is not a product of our works. According to the Bible Dictionary, grace enables the works; you have it as our works making grace possible. That is, frankly, blasphemy.

Edit to add this to runtu, who said, "Well, according to charity, you have to make the bowl and then painstakingly prepare the food, and then God will let you eat if you did it right."

That isn't what I said at all. I like Nehor's comment. It just takes a lot of work to keep your bowl right side up. Satan is always tipping your bowl over. And those who don't bother to try to get the bowl upright again, miss out.

You said we have to prove ourselves worthy, and then Jesus makes up the difference. That's completely backwards.

You might want to check out James 2.

And then there is 2 Ne. 25: 23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

So in your scheme, Jesus choses us (for reasons of His own) to receive His grace. Then we do good works, not of our own will, but because of this grace. So the wicked aren't accountable because they could have done good if only Jesus had chosen them?

I would also read this from Ephesians 2:

4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

[_Trinity]

A Gospel Doctrine teacher once passed out a chart showing what you had to do to be exalted. It was a pyramid, with faith, repentance, baptism, and the holy ghost on the bottom, then getting the priesthood, going to the temple, getting sealed, enduring the end, and at the very top was a tiny triangle labeled "Atonement."

So, Atonement is the equivalent of chocolate in the food pyramid?

That analogy works for me! All dripping and gooey and every aspect of life soaked in it.

[_The Nehor]

And don't forget that God apparently already knows what you will do during your time on Earth before you get here, so it's really an exercise in futility anyway. So you may as well enjoy it while you can.

God does it for the same reason we send people we know will one day be great surgeons to medical school before giving them a scalpel.

Super bad analogy, for so many reasons.

I agree but what analogy would you use to describe a being outside of time interacting with people within it?

Mythology?

I don't know of any mythology that describes this well....any ideas?