Flip Side of the Coin

[_Themis]

[
There's no despair involved, I assure you.

Desperate, not despair. Desperate does not necessarily mean made up recently.

If God giving an answer (either yes or no) will accomplish permanent good, God will give an answer. If the asker isn't ready for either a yes or a no answer, then God answering it will do no permanent good, so why should God answer it?

This is more made up crap no one is buying including LDS. God needs to be consistent and cannot be trusted if he is going to lie. You definitely don't mind the lying for the lord doctrine.

[_KevinSim]

This is telling. There is a difference between trying to make something a reality that is possible and something that is not possible. Nothing will make the Book of Mormon a story of a real people. Nothing will change the reality of the church being man-made. It will do no good to want to think it should be true.

I wasn't talking about the Book of Mormon or even the LDS Church. I was talking about God, and preserving forever some good things. How can we as conscientious people say, "Okay, we'll work for the good of future generations of humanity for the next one hundred years," or one thousand, or ten thousand, and then declare that we don't care what happens to people who live after that? The people who live after that are people too, and I think if one really has a conscience that one will realize that that one owes some thought to those people too.

Observing that it's not realistic to think that anything one does might have do permanent good for humanity, and therefore turning one's mind completely to doing short term good, is in my opinion nothing more than stabbing members of that future generation in the back. There's nothing wrong with devoting large fractions of our time doing short term good. All I say is that while we do it, we should spend some time on a regular basis trying to figure out how we can extend that short term good to the generations it will currently miss.

[_KevinSim]

What should be and what could be is fine, but I see no reason to bother with what cannot be.

The problem with that is that sometimes there are things that cannot be that later turn out to be possible after all. It's always dangerous to conclude with certainty that something cannot be. We might be surprised.

[_Drifting]

God does need to be consistent to be your good God.

Why do you think that?

From the Book of Mormon teacher manual...

Mormon 9:9–11, 19. God Is an All-Knowing, Unchangeable Being
Have students read Mormon 9:9–10 and 2 Nephi 9:20 silently.

• Why is it important for you to know that God is all-knowing and unchangeable?
Explain to students that in order to “exercise faith in God unto life and salvation,” we must have “a correct idea of his character, perfections, and attributes” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 38; italics in original). Direct students’ attention to Moroni’s warning that some people “have imagined … a god who doth vary” (Mormon 9:10).

Kevin, do you not know what the Church teaches?

Bump

Kevin, why have you ignored this post which shows that the God of Mormonism HAS to be consistent for the Church to be true?

[_Themis]

Kevin, why have you ignored this post which shows that the God of Mormonism HAS to be consistent for the Church to be true?

He does it with most of what has been brought up here. Sometimes he just shots off in some other direction like his last post to me

[_Themis]

This is telling. There is a difference between trying to make something a reality that is possible and something that is not possible. Nothing will make the Book of Mormon a story of a real people. Nothing will change the reality of the church being man-made. It will do no good to want to think it should be true.

I wasn't talking about the Book of Mormon or even the LDS Church. I was talking about God, and preserving forever some good things. How can we as conscientious people say, "Okay, we'll work for the good of future generations of humanity for the next one hundred years," or one thousand, or ten thousand, and then declare that we don't care what happens to people who live after that? The people who live after that are people too, and I think if one really has a conscience that one will realize that that one owes some thought to those people too.

Observing that it's not realistic to think that anything one does might have do permanent good for humanity, and therefore turning one's mind completely to doing short term good, is in my opinion nothing more than stabbing members of that future generation in the back. There's nothing wrong with devoting large fractions of our time doing short term good. All I say is that while we do it, we should spend some time on a regular basis trying to figure out how we can extend that short term good to the generations it will currently miss.

Please. They are both an important part of it for you. They are not true so nothing about them can bring forth short or long term benefit for humans that is unique to term. If they had been true then they would have, and we know this is the core of why you want tom post here. Your post above also assumes a certain type of God exists which we have already shown doesn't by your criteria for a good God. Any long term possible benefits for humans will have to be done by humans.

[_KevinSim]

Can anyone help me to extract a consistent position from KevinSim's posts?

He just seems to make it up as he goes along.

Chap, you're saying you're not sure I'm being consistent in my discussion of consistency?

I will admit I'm not being careful with my posts; I'm not checking what I post today to make sure it aligns with what I posted yesterday. But no, I'm not making it up as I go along. I've got general ideas in my head, and I try to put those ideas into my posts.

What I'm trying to say may be hard to understand, but it's pretty simple, if you look at it the right way. Inconsistency is defined as saying X at one point and then saying not X at another point. Isn't that right? (If it's not, please let me know what inconsistency does mean to you.) The question is, how does one react to consistency? One approach is to say, hey, this guy is being inconsistent, so this guy's lying and I'll never take her/him seriously again, or maybe never listen to her/him again. Another approach is to say, hey, this guy originally said X and now s/he is saying not X. What does s/he mean by that?

My question is, which approach is more productive when it comes to evaluating words that some people claim come from God?

[_KevinSim]

Except, when that honest and sincere human hears "no, the Church isn't true" then you don't believe God was speaking...right?

Not at all. I'm nowhere near being in a position to tell people what God has or has not told them. That's strictly between the person asking God a question and God.

If I had a friend who has asked God if the LDS Church was true, and that friend told me God had told her/him, "No, the Church isn't true," then I would commend my friend for taking such an important step, and urge her/him to start asking God about other faith groups, in an attempt to find out which group God did want her/him to be a part of.

But all that's pretty hypothetical; I've never had someone tell me s/he asked God about the LDS Church and got the answer that it isn't true.

[_Tobin]

Kevin's posts aren't that hard to follow. As far as I can tell, he has no direct evidence that God exists. But, that does not stop him from believing in God and that one day he will have that evidence. Now, many of you might suggest that is self-delusion, but believing in something that is true without having direct evidence of it does not imply that at all.

[_KevinSim]

However, you should keep in mind that non-believers do not have the burden of the entire world on one of their shoulders, either. It is a shared burden (regardless of belief).

In my opinion the work of God is to make sure that what permanent can be done, actually is done, to coordinate the efforts of all those that are willing to help. I say the work of God has to be carried out, whether an actual deity exists to carry it out or not. So granted, even in the absence of God a large group of people could make the work done by any individual person less, by sharing it out as you say. But someone still needs to coordinate it, in order to be sure that all that can be done is in fact done. That is the job that I say is beyond me. So even if a large group of people agree to work together, the job of coordinating that large group so that it does the most good, is a job that I don't see how I can take on. And yet it's a necessary piece of the puzzle.

I guess what I'm saying is that although I recognize the necessity of the job of coordinator, I'm really not in a position to take it on, and I doubt that any human being will be in a position to take it on either. Since my conscience requires that someone take it on, I choose to believe that God will take it on, will fill that essential role.