gender an eternal concept and reality?

[_Gadianton]

No gender isn't eternal, but for different reasons than you think, Seth.

Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be - neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection. -- Joseph Fielding Smith

LOL!

Gender is mutable, by the authority of the Mormons' own Profit!

[_Sethbag]

It seems that to make it work a more liberal, non literal outlook like Seven talks about above is what is needed. Certainly for me the idea of one true church or even one true religious system is shaky at best. I know this is not a popular view with the hard core believers and disbelievers here.

Part of the problem is that it lacks both consistency, and any sort of rational basis. They no longer believe in the claims everyone else is making about God, yet can't, or won't recognize that their own beliefs are just as without any foundation as everyone else's.

God still hasn't appeared to the world and verified his existence, and the scriptures are full of fairy tales, and the self-proclaimed Prophets have been shown not to have any special access to Truth after all, and 7 billion people are running around believing 6.9 billion different things, all based on nothing more than speculation and wishful thinking, and yet somehow this person will feel like they've got God sorted out in their minds, and, what do you know, it's all some big vague hand-waving exercise devoid of much if any substance.

"More liberal and non-literal" belief in God is just license one gives to oneself to believe any old nonsense one wishes to, without having to account for anything, and without requiring any sort of proof or justification.

One doesn't take nonsense and convert it to truth simply by redefining away the most obvious lines of attack.

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[_harmony]

Until you can explain every single aspect of life via science, including creating miracles doctors can't explain, you're going to have to deal with the God issue. And you'd better get it right the first time, because after that, your credibility is gone.

[_Seven]

I believe Jesus is God, so it does matter to me if He was real.

Can you clarify that one please?

My personal beliefs on the nature of God differ from current LDS teachings and focus. (but not necessarily the doctrine)
Jesus is the creator and God of this earth [making Him our Father] and the scriptures are clear that there is only one God we worship. I won't list all the scriptures because I'm sure you've seen them.
If Jesus has a Father/God that He is commanded to worship/obey and that Father has a Father God & so on, it is not relevant to us on earth.
(going on the belief of multiple Gods)
We would be children of Christ, not His God.

Growing up LDS, I always felt confused about my relationship with Christ because my worship was to a Heavenly Father as a separate being. We preached and taught of Christ, but it was the Father who I prayed to. I was also confused [even as an adult] who was doing the talking as "God" in the scriptures when it could be Christ or Heavenly Father. Fellow LDS would tell me it was Heavenly Father in one place and Christ in the next. Not sure how exactly they knew.

There is a heavy focus in LDS teachings/doctrine on "the only begotten Son" and Heavenly Father sacrificing Him for us. Why should it matter that Heavenly Father sacrificed His only begotten Son if we are all His children? What is the significance of that really?

But if God, Christ, & the Holy Ghost are the same being, but have different roles, just as I have different roles as a mother, wife, daughter, etc. it is more consistent with scriptures and my personal feelings on the Godhead. If God the Father became Christ to save us, isn't that what any parent would do for their own child? I wouldn't command my son to sacrifice himself to save my other children from the Fall.

Here is another question I had as a TBM no LDS could answer. If Jesus created the earth He would have to be a God already. If He was out there creating planets [whether it was under the direction of his father is not relevant] wouldn't Jesus be the one populating them with spirit children under the LDS doctrine of exaltation?

The more I studied this issue, the more it led me away from LDS beliefs on the nature of God.

[_Sethbag]

Until you can explain every single aspect of life via science, including creating miracles doctors can't explain, you're going to have to deal with the God issue. And you'd better get it right the first time, because after that, your credibility is gone.

Sorry, this just doesn't cut it. A bad epistemology is a bad epistemology, and that means it won't converge on the truth, except perhaps, in simple cases, by accident. A good epistemology will converge on truth eventually. Science has a good track record of converging on the truth. It doesn't mean that every scientific hypothesis is correct the first time, but they trend toward truth.

Trying to say that one's own private, "personal" views on God, with a pick and choose approach to scripture, no requirement for any verifiable evidence than just a gut feeling, and a deity whose character and attributes are believed in precisely the same way as you by nobody else on the planet, is just fine as an epistemology just because science didn't get everything right the first time, is nonsensical.

[_Sethbag]

The more I studied this issue, the more it led me away from LDS beliefs on the nature of God.

Unfortunately, you're basing your beliefs on what deity actually exists in the universe, and his/her/its attributes, on the basis of gut feeling and your own peculiar interpretation of the writings of ancient shaman and witch doctors who had no more access to "Truth" than anyone else, and were making it up as they went along.

As an epistemology, this makes about as much sense as teats on a boar hog.

[_Seven]

Jason Bourne

Well this certainly may work for taking a spiritual view about God and heaven and life. But it poses great problems for Christianity being God's truth to the world and be connection, the LDS Church being the one true church.

I agree that it poses problems for Christianity but not as much for Mormons. in my opinion, LDS have an easier time with it because of our beliefs on the purpose of the Fall & becoming like God. God/Christ used parables throughout his teachings and scriptures. Why does the story of Adam and Eve have to be literal if the others are not? I don't believe Noah's ark was a real event or many of the other simple "Fairy Tale" like stories of the Bible, but their moral message is true and has deep meaning.

(On the problems facing Christianity)

But Adam and Eve rebelled, sin and fell from grace and paradise. They messed it up and now sin is in the world, we all sin and we have all been cut off from God cause if you sin, for some odd reason God demands death and blood as the punishment.

They didn't mess it up. We chose it and had to learn by tasting it. Yeah, I believe Christianity has that part wrong.

So, because he loves his imperfect sinful creation he will now send his Son to pay the blood his holy ways demand. All we have to do is accept that Son and His gift, and follow him and we can be made perfect and be with God (return in LDS ideas).

I believe God sacrificed himself to save us because it's only through the atonement WE become like Him. In other words, we learn charity, the perfect love of Christ, when we forgive. That is how we are healed from the sins of others, through the atonement. We see this pure love when a victim of abuse or murder forgives and feels pain for the attacker who committed the crime. They don't want this person in hell but wish for them to repent and come unto Christ as they have. The victim knows that they themselves are a sinner and require forgiveness from Christ. That is how we heal through the atonement and it's only because of our tasting the fruit that we learn this pure love and understand how much God loves us.
Any person who hopes, judges, or desires for another to be in hell or lower kingdoms for their sins, does not have charity within them.

In Mormonism Adam and Eve had to fall and we have to be born into a fallen world to experience opposition and be tried in order to test our faithfulness and to develop Christ like attributes.

I agree the Fall [tasting sin] had to happen to become like Christ.
I don't see it as a test, but more of a progression. Thinking of in the temple when you pass through the different Kingdoms before entering God's presence. Maybe we get sent back to earth until we've learned right from wrong.

[_Seven]

"Sethbag"]

Until you can explain every single aspect of life via science, including creating miracles doctors can't explain, you're going to have to deal with the God issue. And you'd better get it right the first time, because after that, your credibility is gone.

Sorry, this just doesn't cut it. A bad epistemology is a bad epistemology, and that means it won't converge on the truth, except perhaps, in simple cases, by accident. A good epistemology will converge on truth eventually. Science has a good track record of converging on the truth. It doesn't mean that every scientific hypothesis is correct the first time, but they trend toward truth.

I believe there are truths to be found in other faiths that if converged with LDS beliefs could lead to greater understanding on the nature of God, the afterlife, and our purpose here.

Trying to say that one's own private, "personal" views on God, with a pick and choose approach to scripture, no requirement for any verifiable evidence than just a gut feeling, and a deity whose character and attributes are believed in precisely the same way as you by nobody else on the planet, is just fine as an epistemology just because science didn't get everything right the first time, is nonsensical.

I don't believe the Bible fell out of the sky from God so I have to use my personal feelings, logic, and knowledge of science to make sense of these stories and witnesses. Science is always changing and evolving. There are mysteries they can't solve within the human body, let alone the universe. It's actually much easier for me to believe in a God who used evolution to create man.

[_Sethbag]

But you have no good reason to believe that your beliefs are in fact true. There's nothing there to give you verification of the type that can reasonably be trusted. You're making some pretty far-reaching and astounding claims, basically that you have figured out what 7 billion others on Earth haven't, and not only those, but also the billions who have gone before, and that simply must require some astoundingly good and reliable method of confirmation - and you haven't got one.

There seems to be no good, reliable reason why you believe what you do except that you happen to believe it, and you are biased towards your own beliefs. Your arguments could never pass Diax's Rake, as it was called in my current favorite book, Anathem.

Most importantly, there isn't really anything to distinguish your personal epistemology from that of billions of other people currently living on Earth - and we all know what mishmash of nonsense that has turned out.