There is really only ONE commandment

[_zeezrom]

Why does everyone always assume you can trust God? In case you might be thinking, "Zee must be angry at God." I assure you, I am not. I feel it might be appropriate to trust God on many things but not everything. To me, this makes God all the more interesting.

[_Runtu]

This great commandment makes the Light of Christ completely pointless. If the Light of Christ tells everyone right from wrong, but the only wrong is disobeying Elohim...

For example: Nephi's conscience (LoC?) told him that decapitating the drunken, passed out Laban was wrong. The voice in his head (god/HG) told him to do it anyway.

I've been told by a number of church members that the greatest test in life is to be able to overcome your conscience (the Light of Christ) and obey anyway, no matter how wrong you think the commandment or "special revelation" is. As you said, if this is the greatest test, why did God give us the Light of Christ in the first place?

I asked an LDS poster here to name the moral absolutes that Mormonism teaches (well aside from the generic "love God" and "love your neighbor"). The only absolute he could come up with that has never, to our knowledge, been countermanded is that homosexual behavior is always wrong. Lying is OK when God commands. Cheating on your wife is OK when God commands. Killing is OK when God commands. And so on. But not homosexual behavior.

In a way, this is worse than moral relativism because you've abdicated your moral responsibility and given the ability to make moral choices to someone else (and you'd better hope that person is moral and good). It's certainly easy to accept and do what you're told, but it's much more "moral" to think through your own values and ethics without deferring to authority.

[_Buffalo]

Spot on. I can't abide the moral relativism of theism. I'm infinitely more moral than this "god" character.

That's because they are stuck with a "god" that was contrived of men that lived in more brutal times (2000 BC to 300 AD). By committing what they thought a powerful "god" would do to writing, they fixed him in that period of time.

JSJr, at just 24 years of age, regurgitated the New Testament "god", and then over the next 14 years realized it was better for his efforts to consolidate his power over his followers, the Saints, if he remade his god to be much more of an Old Testament one.

All religionists get into trouble when they tie themselves to the ideas of a certain era. See: priesthood ban.

[_Buffalo]

This great commandment makes the Light of Christ completely pointless. If the Light of Christ tells everyone right from wrong, but the only wrong is disobeying Elohim...

For example: Nephi's conscience (LoC?) told him that decapitating the drunken, passed out Laban was wrong. The voice in his head (god/HG) told him to do it anyway.

I've been told by a number of church members that the greatest test in life is to be able to overcome your conscience (the Light of Christ) and obey anyway, no matter how wrong you think the commandment or "special revelation" is. As you said, if this is the greatest test, why did God give us the Light of Christ in the first place?

I asked an LDS poster here to name the moral absolutes that Mormonism teaches (well aside from the generic "love God" and "love your neighbor"). The only absolute he could come up with that has never, to our knowledge, been countermanded is that homosexual behavior is always wrong. Lying is OK when God commands. Cheating on your wife is OK when God commands. Killing is OK when God commands. And so on. But not homosexual behavior.

In a way, this is worse than moral relativism because you've abdicated your moral responsibility and given the ability to make moral choices to someone else (and you'd better hope that person is moral and good). It's certainly easy to accept and do what you're told, but it's much more "moral" to think through your own values and ethics without deferring to authority.

Overcoming one's conscience seems to have been THE test in 19th century Mormonism. Anyway, great observations!

[_just me]

I've been told by a number of church members that the greatest test in life is to be able to overcome your conscience (the Light of Christ) and obey anyway, no matter how wrong you think the commandment or "special revelation" is.

I don't think I can articulate exactly how terrifying this is.

[_DarkHelmet]

You are correct. This is the only real commandment. The problem is everyone gets conflicting commandments. I might get a commandment to kill my neighbor today, and my neighbor might get a commandment to bone my wife tomorrow. If I kill him today, how can he bone my wife tomorrow? This is why we know the church is true. The church has a prophet who speak directly to god and passes down his commandments to us. No more worrying about following conflicting revelations. Just follow the prophet, and you will be all good. There's even a song called follow the prophet. So the command to do whatever god tells you to do can be summed up as Follow the Prophet.

[_Themis]

I've been told by a number of church members that the greatest test in life is to be able to overcome your conscience (the Light of Christ) and obey anyway, no matter how wrong you think the commandment or "special revelation" is. As you said, if this is the greatest test, why did God give us the Light of Christ in the first place?

People don't realize that Abraham and Nephi failed their tests. God wanted them to say no, and they were to embarrassed about it that they wrote down a different story so they would look good to those who read it afterwords.

[_Runtu]

People don't realize that Abraham and Nephi failed their tests. God wanted them to say no, and they were to embarrassed about it that they wrote down a different story so they would look good to those who read it afterwords.

It's weird that Nephi is lauded for passing the test, but the Laffertys are condemned for doing exactly the same thing.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

No. It's:

Paypaypaypaypaypaypaypay...

We NEED MONEY.

That's it.

- VRDRC

[_sock puppet]

People don't realize that Abraham and Nephi failed their tests. God wanted them to say no, and they were to embarrassed about it that they wrote down a different story so they would look good to those who read it afterwords.

It's weird that Nephi is lauded for passing the test, but the Laffertys are condemned for doing exactly the same thing.

There you go again, Runtu, drawing a false analogy.

Only, there's nothing false about it.