The Plan of Salvation: My Brief Overview

[_Trevor]

You must be exhausted.

No, amantha, you must be. And you deserve far more sympathy for wading through this dreck than he does for having written it.

[_Mister Scratch]

Such, however, cannot be achieved as pure spirits. There must be, for each, a trying, testing, and refining (as in scriptural symbolism, a crucible or furnace), through which we may, through the connection of our spirits with element, find our own level of light, knowledge, and intelligence that we are comfortable with and willing to receive. This, let's use the psychological term and just call it our spiritual "comfort zone" will be the determining factor upon which our eternal destiny, and the level of progression at which our full potential will be either realized or abridged, will be grounded.

Actually: No. As I pointed out on the other thread, the 2nd Anointing is a major-league hole in this argument. The ordinance completely does away with the "trying, testing, and refining."

No, it quite patently does not. Otherwise, the astonishingly rare number of adults who receive it would not have been here in the first place.

How do you figure? After all, it is the GAs who determine who gets to receive the 2nd Anointing---not Heavenly Father. It is an ordinance administered by the GAs for their friends and close allies. It literally has nothing to do with the sort of "testing" mentioned in the OP. The 2nd A. is entirely about nepotism, and about giving a free pass to Mormon elite. End of story.

Joseph said the following:

The other Comforter spoken of is a subject of great interest, and perhaps understood by few of this generation. After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost, (by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted.

[When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which the Lord hath promised the Saints, as is recorded in the testimony of St. John, in the 14th chapter, from the 12th to the 27th verses.

Having one's calling and election made sure is the end point of a process of development, testing, and refining.

Yes, but who determines the "end point"? Who determines what that is? Answer: the GAs do, and their standards appear to be based on nepotism and a sense of loyalty. It is really not about the Lord "proving" anybody; it is about the GAs doing it.

[_Trevor]

I do have to give Coggy points for a hilarious title. Brief? You slay me.

[_Coggins7]

I do have to give Coggy points for a hilarious title. Brief? You slay me.

Yes, Trevor, I'm accustomed to actually reading full length books. For me, that's extremely brief.

[_Coggins7]

This is just a sample, but notice how, throughout Coggin7's theological diatribe,

Well, and I thought my OP was a substantive, rational, and civil philosophical elucidation of my understanding of LDS theology. Sorry.

"All Power" doesn't mean "All Power," it means X.

Since your own intellectual capacities seem to yet be at Romper Room level, I will reiterate: God having all power means precisely that. But it does not mean God can do anything whatsoever. If that were the case, God would have the power to decree that I had never existed. He could create paradoxes, which, quite obviously (at least to the philosophically serious), is absurd.

God can have all knowledge yet there are things which he does not know because he only knows the things which can be known. Huh?

Did you even bother reading and comprehending my arguments?

And all this confusion is supposed to inspire us to get on our knees for decades so that we can shore up our struggling testimonies with continuous confirmation from what we hope is a supernatural being (that corresponds to the teachings of our elders of course) in order to maintain our belief in these tortured sentences.

Who said our testimonies (the average Mormon) are in a stage of struggle? We reaffirm them because the world and our own baser tendencies can create a fading of their immediacy and imminence.

You must be exhausted.

Yes, that's what happens to ants trapped marching around a sugar bowl.

[_Trevor]

Yes, Trevor, I'm accustomed to actually reading full length books. For me, that's extremely brief.

Now I can only wait for you to comprehend what you read, and also understand the important differences between different venues for writing (i.e., that is not brief for a post on a board like this one, doofus).

[_Coggins7]

How do you figure? After all, it is the GAs who determine who gets to receive the 2nd Anointing---not Heavenly Father. It is an ordinance administered by the GAs for their friends and close allies. It literally has nothing to do with the sort of "testing" mentioned in the OP. The 2nd A. is entirely about nepotism, and about giving a free pass to Mormon elite. End of story.

Sourc


I said:

Having one's calling and election made sure is the end point of a process of development, testing, and refining.

Yes, but who determines the "end point"? Who determines what that is? Answer: the GAs do, and their standards appear to be based on nepotism and a sense of loyalty. It is really not about the Lord "proving" anybody; it is about the GAs doing it.

In LDS doctrine, the Holy Ghost would so determine (ie., God).

[_amantha]

This is just a sample, but notice how, throughout Coggin7's theological diatribe,

Well, and I thought my OP was a substantive, rational, and civil philosophical elucidation of my understanding of LDS theology. Sorry.

"All Power" doesn't mean "All Power," it means X.

Since your own intellectual capacities seem to yet be at Romper Room level, I will reiterate: God having all power means precisely that. But it does not mean God can do anything whatsoever. If that were the case, God would have the power to decree that I had never existed. He could create paradoxes, which, quite obviously (at least to the philosophically serious), is absurd.

Thanks for the ad hom. Striking nerves again am I?

So having "all power" means god has "all power" but what does that mean exactly? Who knows? It just means that he can't do anything he wants. So why don't you just say that god has power to do what you say that your god does. Why does your god have to have ALL power? Isn't that superfluous? It really adds nothing to the equation. Your god is limited remember. He is only personally perfect, not perfect in the sense that most people would understand.

God can have all knowledge yet there are things which he does not know because he only knows the things which can be known. Huh?

Did you even bother reading and comprehending my arguments?

Yes, the parts that are comprehensible to us mere mortals who do not share the infallible nature of your true understanding. [/sarcasm]

And all this confusion is supposed to inspire us to get on our knees for decades so that we can shore up our struggling testimonies with continuous confirmation from what we hope is a supernatural being (that corresponds to the teachings of our elders of course) in order to maintain our belief in these tortured sentences.

Who said our testimonies (the average Mormon) are in a stage of struggle? We reaffirm them because the world and our own baser tendencies can create a fading of their immediacy and imminence.

Which is another saying that you are again reinventing the English language. Thus what you call certainty is not certainty it is a "fading of [the] immediacy and immanence" of your witness." Sound like uncertainty to me.

You must be exhausted.

Yes, that's what happens to ants trapped marching around a sugar bowl.

More ad hom. How revealing your behavior is.

[_Jason Bourne]

Goggins

A nice well thought our OP.

[_Jason Bourne]

Such, however, cannot be achieved as pure spirits. There must be, for each, a trying, testing, and refining (as in scriptural symbolism, a crucible or furnace), through which we may, through the connection of our spirits with element, find our own level of light, knowledge, and intelligence that we are comfortable with and willing to receive. This, let's use the psychological term and just call it our spiritual "comfort zone" will be the determining factor upon which our eternal destiny, and the level of progression at which our full potential will be either realized or abridged, will be grounded.

Actually: No. As I pointed out on the other thread, the 2nd Anointing is a major-league hole in this argument. The ordinance completely does away with the "trying, testing, and refining."

Personally I think this is more an aberration than anything else. Why are you hung up on this anyway? Keep in mind that while you view it as free ticket it really means that while the person will be exalted if they sin they have to pay for it themselves by being turned over to the "buffetings of Satan." That does not sound like that great a deal to me. Who won't sin some way or another even after a 2nd anointing?