For the Atheists-What kind of God would you accept?

[_ludwigm]

That's not what the LDS mean when they talk about faith. Since there is no word in the English language to use instead we're stuck with what we've got. I'm using the definition Joseph Smith used. Since this is a discussion of Morrmonism I think the Mormon definition should be considered the default use.

- That's not what the LDS mean when they talk about faith.
It always mean something different when it talk about anything.

... need to understand that certain words in the Mormon vocabulary have slightly different meanings and connotations than those same words have in other religions ...

(for example the word "slightly")

- Since there is no word in the English language to use instead we're stuck with what we've got.
Curelom, cumom, ziff, neas, sheum.

- I'm using the definition Joseph Smith used.
You know, the uneducated farmboy.
According to my knowledge today, I could not accept Joseph Smith's definition for "warm water".

- Since this is a discussion of Morrmonism I think the Mormon definition should be considered the default use.
Sacrament, gospel, prophet, salvation.
Jehovah, Elohim, Adam.
God.
And please don't forget, horse.



I'm sorry again.

[_Tarski]

Okay, God sucks because people choose misery? .

People are not choosing misery dude! They are choosing religions or intellectual systems that make the most sense to them using all that nature (or God) has given them.
Mormonism is a weird fringe religion which has existed for 150 years during which time it has had only an insignificant membership. Meanwhile human beings have existed for at least 100,000 years.

Dude, yes they are. Have you looked outside lately?

They are what? Choosing misery? Experiencing misery and choosing it aren't the same thing (duh!).
I know plenty of miserable Mormons.

[_James Clifford Miller]

It's God's fault because His instruction is warped, His delivery is awful, His grammar is poor, His will is fickle, His principles are inconsistent, His pedagogy is questionable, His morals are low, His temper is uneven and He needs a fact checker.

Besides all of that, his word is indistinguishable from common lunacy. His "peers" are palm readers, goat entrails and chicken bones.

It's amazing how many LDS have had an easy time figuring out what he wants and who he is with some study and prayer. Maybe God is not the problem here.

(spewing diet Mug Root Beer out my nose) What? Are you kidding?! The LDS have had a spectacularly HARD time figuring out what God wants. Joseph Smith made some of the more monumental mistakes, but Brigham Young had his share and contemporary prophets have inhereted the founders' abject confusion and stumbling.

Even TBMs will admit that Smith's forray into God-mandated polygamy was fraught with shameless deceit, dalliances with other mens' wives, and ultimately Smith's own murder at the hands of a mob partly motivated by his attempt to silence a printing press which revealed his sexual predations. Whatever God's intentions were, Smith clearly was clueless.

Brigham Young preached the Adam-God theory despite its glaring internal inconsistencies, promulgated the Blood Atonement doctrine, and deliberately set the stage for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I seriously doubt that any real God wanted the MMM to happen, and I doubt He had anything to do with the Adam-God theory.

Contemporary LDS prophets were warned even by critics that Hoffman's forgeries were very likely forgeries, but completely misread God's instructions and ended up not only buying the forgeries (or, more accurately, got LDS dupes to buy them for the Church), but getting three people killed. I really doubt what what God wanted in this instance was anything remotely resembling what happened.

And today, while genocide rages in Africa and global warming is about to wipe out the North Pole icecap for the first time in thousands of years, the 1st Presidency's completely divorced from reality focus is revealed by its letters and pronouncements about the number of earrings in females' ears and the use of props during talks in church and by its spending of billions of dollars of Jesus' money for a shopping mall in SLC while cutting missionaries' food money and firing church janitors to save money. I rather doubt these LDS leaders are picking up on what God wants about any of these situations. You really have to wonder what imaginary world they live in.

And as far as individual LDS members' ability to know what God wants is concerned, the explosion of break-off Mormon groups, particularly since the 1980s, has been dramatic. I really doubt any of the contemporary Mormon fundamentalist groups, particularly the FLDS, have any clue what God wants because they're so obsessed with sex with underaged girls. As far as I can tell neither LDS leaders nor lay members have a clue.

The statement "It's amazing how many LDS have had an easy time figuring out what he wants and who he is with some study and prayer is so far out of touch with reality, it's genuinely breathtaking.

James Clifford Miller

[_Angus McAwesome]

What kind of God would I be willing to accept....

One that holds itself accountable to the same standards of conduct as it demands of me.

One that doesn't give conflicting and contradictory edicts in its holy books and expects me to figure out what it was trying to get at.

But the biggest selling point would be that it can prove its existence. I'd accept nothing less then winning James Randi's Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, by the way.

[_Moniker]

Mish-mash.

For the sake of this discussion please establish a definition of faith.

Sure, faith is first hope and then knowledge carried through to it's logical conclusions. It is the moving cause of every proactive decision we make. I'm at work right now because I have faith I'll be paid. I went to class last night because I have faith in my ability to learn. I lifted weights this morning because I have faith it will make me stronger. I said my prayers this morning because I have Faith God listened and would answer (and he did). I try to live my life in conformity with the gospel of Jesus Christ because I have faith in Jesus Christ's atonement and want it to wash me clean so that I can return clean to the presence of God.

I should add that there is such a thing as false faith. If I have faith that I can jump off my balcony and fly it will not make it so. This is why the first principle of the gospel is Faith in Jesus Christ, not Faith in a general sense.

You're confusing faith with beliefs with evidence supporting them. Faith is a belief without evidence. You have evidence that lifting weights makes you stronger. You do not have evidence in anything of God -- or if you say you do then actually you do not have faith, at all -- you have belief with evidence. And God doesn't like those that rely on evidence, right? He wants people to rely on faith. So, which is it, Nehor? Do you have faith, or evidence of God? If you have evidence of God you don't rely on faith, at all. If you rely on faith you can NEVER provide evidence and so, why do you attempt to do so?

[_Some Schmo]

I'd accept a god that wasn't such a sadistic f***er. If he wants to be acknowledged, he should just have the decency to make himself known.

It's like the telephone; when I answer it, if nobody says anything within a second of my answering it, I hang up. I don't sit there and say, "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Hello? Who is it, please? Hello...?" I don't have time for that crap.

And I'm certainly not going to worship that kind of individual, let alone accept, or even acknowledge it. That's just stupid.