Turn it off

[_SteelHead]

Exu says you Christians debating whose teachings are truer is funny. He says he created Christianity on a whim to sow discord.

Exu is funny that way.

[_Albion]

It is less about debating whose teachings are truer in this case and more about understanding Biblical scripture in continuity. Tobin posts a scripture recounting a story where it is indicated some "saw" God. In another book talking of the same incident the writer indicates that they did, in fact, not see God. How do you reconcile the apparent difference? My view is that you take the verses within the context of the principle of "seeing" God contained in the whole narrative. That perspective clearly demonstrates as John declared: No man has seen God.

[_SteelHead]

My view of using any biblical or prophetic source as basis for showing it is superior to another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RijB8wnJCN0

[_Albion]

Franktalk, it is totally unclear to me what you are finding fault with in your post above. Are you saying that I don't believe that one day I will see God and be clothed in a righteousness borrowed from the one who redeemed me? What exactly? If you fault such a teaching, which is clearly Biblical despite your peculiar take on scripture, perhaps you can provide the appropriate references to refute it.

[_Tobin]

Albion,

I don't think you are going to convince Mormons that the Bible does not clearly state that man has seen and experienced God in this life. It is a very fundamental disagreement between us and you. We view God as real and very approachable and this is how one comes to a knowledge of God through having experiences with God. We do not believe God is unseeable and unknowable. It is the principle aim of the Book of Mormon and Bible in the Mormon view - that is that one should seek and speak with God as previous generations have done and recounted in the scriptures to come to a knoweldge of the truth.

I wish you well in your journey, but as others have said - you are stuck. Unless and until you are willing to acknowledge God and seek and speak with him, you can not progress. As they have pointed out, you are blinded and stopped by your own misinterpretation of scripture.

[_Franktalk]

Franktalk, it is totally unclear to me what you are finding fault with in your post above. Are you saying that I don't believe that one day I will see God and be clothed in a righteousness borrowed from the one who redeemed me? What exactly? If you fault such a teaching, which is clearly Biblical despite your peculiar take on scripture, perhaps you can provide the appropriate references to refute it.

What you find clearly in scripture matters little to me. Now if you said that you have received revelation from God then that would matter to me. If you are being led by the Holy Ghost then you would not be reading scripture in error. For you see scripture contains many messages. Some don't even match the words. But this is the way it is and always has been. When you use the logic of man to read an interpretation of the words you are sure to not get the message of God. The wisdom of man is a false platform to obtain a message from a living God. Seek the living God and the message falls in your lap.

What is not clear to you is I come from a completely different mindset in my approach to God. Where I have spent years in study of the Bible only to find I was blocking my own access to the message. You remain in this blocked stage of your seeking. Where you lean on scholars I now laugh at them.

When I read scripture I ask God to give me spiritual discernment to obtain the message that He has for me. Sometimes the message concerns what I read but most times the message is for me and what is happening in my life. He gives me what I need. And if He chooses to hide a message from me then there must be a good reason. I trust Him. Many things in scripture have opened for me but many parts of scripture are still closed. I am sure that when more is revealed I will have to modify what I think I know. But I must be open to it or I will not hear His voice.

This is the truth but I not sure you will understand it.

[_Albion]

Tobin, I think there is no dispute between us on the issue you outline. I have absolutely no problem with the idea of viewing God as "real and very approachable and that is how once comes to a knowledge of God through having experiences with God." I am not sure where you get the idea that Christians do not believe this way. I do not believe "God is unseeable and unknowable."....only in the way you use the word "see". As Romans clearly states God can be seen through the things he has made "so that man is without excuse". Christians speak with God...Christians see God everywhere in all creation. And yet, because mankind is in sin he cannot gaze upon God as he is in all his holy glory because that glory would destroy him. I understand, too, that for a Mormon to accept this would flat out destroy the claim of Joseph Smith, This is one of the reasons why Christians reject those claims. The full and complete revelation of God is in his Son and he who has seen the son has seen the father. I believe that scripture, taken as a whole, clearly teaches that man cannot gaze upon the person of God... God in all his glory and holiness, and live...which is why God presented himself to mankind in various other ways...as a burning bush to Moses, for instance. Please do not think me "stuck". I have complete and utter trust in where I am headed and by whose grace that is assured. Can you honestly say the same...have you done enough good works...have you kept all the commandments so that you don't slip backwards...do you sustain all your leaders....do you etc. and etc...I think you know the drill. Can you honestly say you have done enough and that you know where you are going if you were to die today? I do and have rejected where you are. There is power and their is unbounded hope when the sinner rests only in Christ as his hope rather than in works and his own strivings. That is his truth that makes us free. He is the light of the world and personal works and law keeping will never outshine it. Read John 9 and in particular Jesus healing the blind man. Those who are really "stuck" are those like the Pharisees who fail to see the light and so stuck in the law that they fail to see that God is about grace above the law.

[_Albion]

Franktalk, please don't take this the wrong way but there is no hidden meaning in scripture for those knocking at Christ's door. It is clear and simple for those seeking him and is adapted to the learned and the unlearned. The message you appear to offer is one of an eclectic nature like something out of the flower generation. The only real response I can give to your post is that whatever it is that you are preaching, I don't want it. You can interpret that anyway that you wish...that I am "blocked"...that I am closed...that I don't have your "spiritual discernment". Quite frankly if what you are telling me is the result of that "discernment" I am glad that I don't have it. I have made my spiritual choice in life and that is to follow my savior and allow him to live through me....that's what his word teaches, pure and simple...no hidden meanings...no hoops to jump through...no laws to keep. A simple life goal that will lead to sanctification, a full indwelling of the spirit. That is open to all mankind through faith and by God's infinite grace. The main things that causes anyone to lose the way is self pride and trust in false ideologies and and those who proclaim them.

[_Jutta]

I've explored and delved and found the Church still to be true and most criticisms to be unfounded at best.

I have made the experience; that we criticize this least; what is to our hearts at the next one. How legitimate a criticism may always relevantly be, too.
I would like to tell you a story. It is a true story, which took place into the Wasatsch mountains many years ago:

A member of the church was excluded because of transsexualism. She had been born as a man. After the excommunication and the divorce she was not allowed to see her children any more. Her own parents and brothers and sisters also did not want to have contact to her. She changed the sex from male to female with everything which is part of it (including the sex-change surgery). A happy life as a woman lived she, was in a lesbian relation and active at Afirmation. She then committed suicide.
Her lover was not allowed her friends to take part, just as little during the burial service. She was buried by her family who refused to accept her legally legal female first name and her new sex/gender. Her male first name stands on the gravestone.

Another example of: TURN IT OFF?

[_Jutta]

I personally know there is a God. So, if someone wants to come in and tell me that there is no God, they are simply wrong as far as I'm concerned. And I believe in Mormonism because God tells me it is true. Now what is necessarily true about it is something I'm fully up to discuss. However, I'm not going to put up with critics that are going to attack me and what I believe though. What I've experienced clearly tells me there is truth here. If they want to do that, I'm perfectly happy to ignore them in person or otherwise.

There are essentially three kinds of criticism:

Criticism who is unauthorized.
Criticism who is legitimate.
Criticism who is legitimate or unauthorized from the respective viewpoint.

An example:

If I criticize that Obama increases the taxes because I am afraid of it as an employer; this criticism is legitimate from my viewpoint. Not however out of the viewpoint of the unemployed.
Do you understand what I try to tell you?