The Experience of God

[Gadianton]

Systemized models are instituted and maintained by followers. Thus, the great and not so great religions and other systems of belief throughout history. The question for me has always been whether or not the LDS Church stands out from the rest.

But you don't know anything about these other religions. How many minutes have you spent studying Hinduism or Buddhism or Sikhism, let alone Calvinism, Judaism, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity?

At first you claim the authority of (presumably) your own scriptures (in a badly abused citation about the Lord being 'in all things') to assert that all religions of the world have good in them that God has given. Now you say it's not so much the authority of your own scripture, but common sense. It's neither though, is it? It's a talking point you've heard as a Mormon your entire life. You're just regurgitating what you believe as a Mormon. And that is, that all these thousands of other religions have a portion of the truth. This is first discussion material, MG. Actually, the first discussion has softened over the years, accounting for Earl Nightingale's sales tactics that emphasizes common ground rather than immediately laying down the Great Apostasy hatchet.

So here you are, having a pretended dialogue based on your own religion's sales pitch that we've all heard ten thousand times. "I think all of these religions of the world have good in them!" -- this, without ever studying the religions of the world or walking in the shoes of a believer in anything else but what you were born into in Centerville Utah. And then the next step, that your church's sales pitch prompts: "Is there one that stands out?"

Lo and behold, after asserting all these other religions you haven't spent any meaningful time studying or living as a part of have some truth, the Church you were born into that has crafted a sales pitch about many good religions but one religion having the complete picture, just happens to have the complete picture, upon closer examination.

And what do you cite as evidence of the complete picture? Specific doctrines that only a person growing up Mormon would accept as making any sense at all let alone having any kind of empirical or philosophical sway to them in contrast to the teachings of other religions.

You were brought up eating mom's apple pie, and thus you think mom's apple pie is just the best there could ever be. Sure, other people might have made some good pies, and though you haven't ever tasted any others, it seems logical that somebody has to make the very best pie. And given just how much you can't get enough of just that right amount of cinnamon mom uses, you conclude it really must be mom's!

Really, MG.

[huckelberry]

Sure, if God does care, and if caring seems to mean what humans say it means, then I agree it's hard to see why God would care about humans above other life forms and impossible to imagine caring about one tribe of human religion more than another. In that gulf of mental power, it's hard to imagine how God would be offended by disbelief, or glorified by praise and worship. If there's a sick bird in my backyard, and let's say I want to help it, the bird might go along with it or might try to fight me. If I like birds, I don't take it personal either way. I might even find the fighter more endearing.

Gadianton, when thinking of God as first cause or ground of being it is reasonable to wonder if a word like caring has any application. If this ground of being has a purpose or goals in mind in creation then caring would rather naturally be involved. I do not see any difficulty in thinking of God as glimpsed in the Bible as having care for all sorts of things. Jesus opined that Gad cared about sparrows. I think some thought could be given to considering the kind of caring God would have would reflect the kind of thing in question and what sort of potential things could have.

I admit that the important step to a Christian view of God is not as simple. If God places a high value on the relationships of community then the potential for community will be part of a different caring than might be there for the structure of water molecules (though that structure is of a large utilitarian value and reasonably cared for in kind) People have believed that Gods actual nature is like community,(phrase God is love) so it is a strong link to God caring about the human capacity to love.(and a revulsion towards humans destroying love)

Evidence for God caring about community could be seen in observing that creation has resulted in a variety of community formations and the strength of community has expanded. People find within themselves a recognition that love links strength of self and community and they may experience this link as spiritual and possibly as a reflection of Gods presence.
//
Gadianton , I sympathize with your comment about the injured bird. I suspect God is not so all fired upset with people uncertain about belief. ( unless unbelief becomes a part of destructive indifference to others)

[Rivendale]

Systemized models are instituted and maintained by followers. Thus, the great and not so great religions and other systems of belief throughout history. The question for me has always been whether or not the LDS Church stands out from the rest.

You were brought up eating mom's apple pie, and thus you think mom's apple pie is just the best there could ever be. Sure, other people might have made some good pies, and though you haven't ever tasted any others, it seems logical that somebody has to make the very best pie. And given just how much you can't get enough of just that right amount of cinnamon mom uses, you conclude it really must be mom's!

Really, MG.

The Rush 2112 paradox. Growing up siblings proclaimed that the Rush 2112 album was the best album ever produced. The 4 year old at fast and testimony meeting having words whispered in their ear loads the caravan that soon the dogs will bark at.

Fast forward 20 years and you are perplexed why people did not find Rush appealing and on your mission ( probably motivated out of parent pleasing) critics are just anti Mormon. Mom's apple pie is god incarnate. That mysterious ephemeral feeling that is short lived but carries tremendous pursuasive powers.

[MG 2.0]

Systemized models are instituted and maintained by followers. Thus, the great and not so great religions and other systems of belief throughout history. The question for me has always been whether or not the LDS Church stands out from the rest.

But you don't know anything about these other religions. How many minutes have you spent studying Hinduism or Buddhism or Sikhism, let alone Calvinism, Judaism, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity?

At first you claim the authority of (presumably) your own scriptures (in a badly abused citation about the Lord being 'in all things') to assert that all religions of the world have good in them that God has given. Now you say it's not so much the authority of your own scripture, but common sense. It's neither though, is it? It's a talking point you've heard as a Mormon your entire life. You're just regurgitating what you believe as a Mormon. And that is, that all these thousands of other religions have a portion of the truth. This is first discussion material, MG. Actually, the first discussion has softened over the years, accounting for Earl Nightingale's sales tactics that emphasizes common ground rather than immediately laying down the Great Apostasy hatchet.

So here you are, having a pretended dialogue based on your own religion's sales pitch that we've all heard ten thousand times. "I think all of these religions of the world have good in them!" -- this, without ever studying the religions of the world or walking in the shoes of a believer in anything else but what you were born into in Centerville Utah. And then the next step, that your church's sales pitch prompts: "Is there one that stands out?"

Lo and behold, after asserting all these other religions you haven't spent any meaningful time studying or living as a part of have some truth, the Church you were born into that has crafted a sales pitch about many good religions but one religion having the complete picture, just happens to have the complete picture, upon closer examination.

And what do you cite as evidence of the complete picture? Specific doctrines that only a person growing up Mormon would accept as making any sense at all let alone having any kind of empirical or philosophical sway to them in contrast to the teachings of other religions.

You were brought up eating mom's apple pie, and thus you think mom's apple pie is just the best there could ever be. Sure, other people might have made some good pies, and though you haven't ever tasted any others, it seems logical that somebody has to make the very best pie. And given just how much you can't get enough of just that right amount of cinnamon mom uses, you conclude it really must be mom's!

Really, MG.

Choose one:

1. All roads lead to Heaven.
2. No roads lead to Heaven.
3. Some roads lead to Heaven.
4. There is no Heaven.

Each of these choices is of course packed/loaded with meaning and interpretive literal and/or figurative possibilities. Be that as it may, which ONE choice most closely aligns with your ‘truth’?

Regards,
MG

[Gadianton]

Gadianton, when thinking of God as first cause or ground of being it is reasonable to wonder if a word like caring has any application. If this ground of being has a purpose or goals in mind in creation then caring would rather naturally be involved. I do not see any difficulty in thinking of God as glimpsed in the Bible as having care for all sorts of things

Clearly, the God of the Bible cares about something. The God of the Bible is relatable, in the Old Testament, even a "man of war". Men of war care deeply about their tribe.

God as a first cause is much harder for me to think about. Let me ask you this: In Aristotle, the prime mover isn't "God", and prior to a prime mover, there were 9 stars that moved in a circular motion that caused everything else. In Aristotle's weird natural world, did those 9 stars care about anything that they caused? If so, then why didn't Aristotle not recognize trivially that he had been thinking about "God" the whole time? Why did it take the discovery of Aristotle by Islam and Christianity hundreds of years later to realize, "Aha! the first cause is the one true God of scripture!"

What I'm saying is, if I can think about a first cause sans personal attributes of a Christian deity, and it seems like such an exercise should be permissible since the guy who invented the idea wasn't thinking about a deity, then something like "caring" isn't essential to the model, and so therefore, if the first cause is God, it's possible to understand that model in its most simple form as one that doesn't possess human passions like "caring".

God as the "ground of being" is just so weird I don't even know where to begin. Hart is aping Martin Heidegger. In Heidegger, on the one hand, you have the ontic world. That's the unknown real reality that we have no access to. Kant had a similar world called the noumena. In that unknowable reality, was God. But "Being" or the "ground of being", in Heidegger, isn't in the ontic world. If we interrogate a being that is thrown-into-the-world (this world of the present), dasein, the presencing of that being tells us something about what it means to be, and therefore, what I gather is a general case called Being. And I think that Being is the "ground of being". So that is God? Caring most certainly is a part of being-in-the-world, but to say Being is God is like saying God is an idealized form of caring, which sounds poetic, but "caring" doesn't "care", if that makes sense. Beings care.

Again, a philosopher proposes a model of the world, a Christian comes along, likes the model, and proclaims the model to be God. Somehow, Martin Heidegger wrote that entire intractable thought storm without ever realizing he was talking about the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the whole time, even though he knew what Christianity was and what the Bible was. If there needed to be a connection, seems like he would have made it.

[dastardly stem]

dasterdly stem, I find the phrase demanding worship a bit odd. I checked the ten commandments and did not find this demand. I checked the sermon on the mount and somehow this demand is missing.In terms of common speech about church services, worship services are about communion and thankfulness.

Does god require one to worship him as god? Or can one not worship him as god and be saved? I certainly don’t want to misspeak. I’m just not sure why the messages I’ve gotten over the years tend to sound like god demands it.

[Rivendale]

That's the unknown real reality that we have no access to

I agree about the grounding. For years this idea of a reality we have no access to bothered me. But I can set up an experiment that shows it is possible to have something we know exists but is forever out of our access . But that isn't what is meant when we talk about the supernatural realm or grounding truths.

[MG 2.0]

But you don't know anything about these other religions. How many minutes have you spent studying Hinduism or Buddhism or Sikhism, let alone Calvinism, Judaism, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity?

At first you claim the authority of (presumably) your own scriptures (in a badly abused citation about the Lord being 'in all things') to assert that all religions of the world have good in them that God has given. Now you say it's not so much the authority of your own scripture, but common sense. It's neither though, is it? It's a talking point you've heard as a Mormon your entire life. You're just regurgitating what you believe as a Mormon. And that is, that all these thousands of other religions have a portion of the truth. This is first discussion material, MG. Actually, the first discussion has softened over the years, accounting for Earl Nightingale's sales tactics that emphasizes common ground rather than immediately laying down the Great Apostasy hatchet.

So here you are, having a pretended dialogue based on your own religion's sales pitch that we've all heard ten thousand times. "I think all of these religions of the world have good in them!" -- this, without ever studying the religions of the world or walking in the shoes of a believer in anything else but what you were born into in Centerville Utah. And then the next step, that your church's sales pitch prompts: "Is there one that stands out?"

Lo and behold, after asserting all these other religions you haven't spent any meaningful time studying or living as a part of have some truth, the Church you were born into that has crafted a sales pitch about many good religions but one religion having the complete picture, just happens to have the complete picture, upon closer examination.

And what do you cite as evidence of the complete picture? Specific doctrines that only a person growing up Mormon would accept as making any sense at all let alone having any kind of empirical or philosophical sway to them in contrast to the teachings of other religions.

You were brought up eating mom's apple pie, and thus you think mom's apple pie is just the best there could ever be. Sure, other people might have made some good pies, and though you haven't ever tasted any others, it seems logical that somebody has to make the very best pie. And given just how much you can't get enough of just that right amount of cinnamon mom uses, you conclude it really must be mom's!

Really, MG.

Choose one:

1. All roads lead to Heaven.
2. No roads lead to Heaven.
3. Some roads lead to Heaven.
4. There is no Heaven.

Each of these choices is of course packed/loaded with meaning and interpretive literal and/or figurative possibilities. Be that as it may, which ONE choice most closely aligns with your ‘truth’?

Regards,
MG

Just pick one. Ten seconds of your time. I think my response to you by asking you simple questions (well, maybe not so simple) do have some merit insofar as responding to your post.

Regards,
MG

[Morley]

Choose one:

1. All roads lead to Heaven.
2. No roads lead to Heaven.
3. Some roads lead to Heaven.
4. There is no Heaven.

Each of these choices is of course packed/loaded with meaning and interpretive literal and/or figurative possibilities. Be that as it may, which ONE choice most closely aligns with your ‘truth’?

Goody. Can I play?

1. There is no place like home.
2. Home is where the heart is.
3. Home, home, on the range.
4. I think he just hit a homer.

Each of these choices is literally and/or figuratively something like MG is saying.

And of course, like MG’s, they obviously have nothing to do with Gad’s comments.

[Gadianton]

Didn't you forget Jesus's option, MG? One road leads to heaven?

Obviously, I don't believe there is a heaven. Just like I don't believe there is a particle with spin 7/2.