Faithful TBM to doubter in 6 hours on ex-Mormon Reddit

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Earlier in this quoted material’s thread KS makes a comment about ‘defending the faith’ against Evangelicals and former Mormons:

Kevin,

I think your defending tools are not classical apologetic ones. You do not dress your arguments up in publications that look like they are serious scholarly, academic journals to give an air of having passed real peer-review scrutiny.

If you detach your god from the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, then what is left of god "as described by the LDS Church" that is not a confused being and otherwise run of the mill Christian dogma?

I don't detach my "god from the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham"; I've read both books several times, and fully believe both books give great descriptions of the nature of God.

The Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham are laughable in light of what they and the LDS Church proclaim them to be.

Laugh at those two books all you want; I see no reason why such laughter should keep me from believing they're divinely inspired.

The god "as described by the LDS Church" as evidenced, say, by the D&C seems to be very, very confused entity.

Perhaps you're familiar with parts of the Do&Co that I'm not, but in my opinion parts of the Do&Co like Section 93 teach of a radically different type of deity than traditional Christianity does. Why do you call that deity a "very, very confused entity"?

^ highlighting mine

Are there callings for Mormon retirees to serve Internet missions? Clearly KS is proselytizing since he has no coherent philosophy, so he’s dependent on canon to define what a god is and why it do what it do.

- Doc

[doubtingthomas]

Clearly KS is proselytizing .

There you go!

[kairos]

I’m lost- can someone tell me within a decade of when primary children or anyone else began to say
“I know the church is “to rue”?
Thanx
k

[IHAQ]

I don't detach my "god from the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham"; I've read both books several times, and fully believe both books give great descriptions of the nature of God.

Laugh at those two books all you want; I see no reason why such laughter should keep me from believing they're divinely inspired.

Kevin, here’s what the Book of Mormon says:

21 And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.
22 And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities.
23 And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... 5?lang=eng

Are you a racist Kevin? Because your God is - you said the Book of Mormon gives a great description of God’s nature.
Is Racism one of those good things you’d like to see preserved forever by your God?

[KevinSim]

Wow. This is amazing—on so many levels

i agree. this set of assumptions is really something:

...I think we owe it to them to make sure that last generation doesn't happen, and that means preserving the human race forever, and that means God.

Marcus, what exactly have I assumed here? What is there in what I've said that isn't rather a logical conclusion from known facts for people who have consciences?

[KevinSim]

Wow. This is amazing—on so many levels.

If there is a God trying to preserve good things forever, this paragraph won't be one of them.

Fence Sitter, why do you think so?

[Marcus]

Wow. This is amazing—on so many levels.

Meadowchik, are you planning on dying young, or do you think there's a good chance that you'll live to be old enough to take advantage of society's provision of special resources for the elderly? Resources provided by younger people for older people? Resources that last generation won't have? If you do live long enough to take advantage of those services, can you live with yourself by using those services knowing that future generation won't have access to them? Society is sort of a pyramid scheme. With most pyramid schemes a small group's wealth is built on the back of a lot of people who get screwed. With the society I speak of there isn't quite the imbalance, but the people at then still get screwed. I think we owe it to them to make sure that last generation doesn't happen, and that means preserving the human race forever, and that means God.

i agree. this set of assumptions is really something:

...I think we owe it to them to make sure that last generation doesn't happen, and that means preserving the human race forever, and that means God.

Marcus, what exactly have I assumed here? What is there in what I've said that isn't rather a logical conclusion from known facts for people who have consciences?

KevinSims, we are on page forty of this thread, multiple people, including you, have been responding about this very assumption, asking you to explain and even giving their own thoughts trying to understand what you meant (kudos to Res ipsa), and yet you went all the way back to page thirty to get my comment above.

Yeah, “not MG” is simply trolling. He’ll not answer something, wait until ten pages goes by, and then resurrect the issue with a question and claim/assertion that he did x or y, which is nonsense. He’s not a serious person, and he’s totally not MG even though he posts exactly like MG. I dunno. Maybe MG Jr. heard the call and is following in Dad’s digital footsteps. *shrugs*

- Doc

[KevinSim]

Well, that’s put together a little better. But I still don’t see an actual argument that starts with a premise I would accept and flows in a logically valid way that ends with “therefore, I, as an atheist, have a [moral] obligation to invent God [as defined by KevinSim.

Res Ipsa, when you're very old you will have people from a later generation to help you with your basic needs. You're linked to them, in a way. Those people, when they are very old, will have people in an even later generation to help them with their basic needs; they are linked to them. These links proceed into the future until they reach the last generation of humans before they go extinct. In a sense the service provided for older people by that last generation makes all the other service possible, all the way back to you yourself. And you're saying you don't feel a moral obligation to that last generation? Or are you just saying you don't feel an obligation to them to produce God? If you don't feel obligated to produce God for them, what are you obligated to do for them?

I think you’re intermingling two different ideas in a way that doesn’t make sense. One is accumulation of wealth. The other is the nature of moral obligations between generations.
The two aren’t necessarily related, and you haven’t explained how you think they are.

Sorry! I mangled the analogy. I never meant to say there was a relationship between accumulation of wealth and moral obligations between generations. What I meant to say was just like people at the end of a literal pyramid scheme get screwed wealth wise, so also does that final generation of humans get screwed personal health wise. That final generation presumably contribute to the personal health of people in previous generations, but there’s nobody left to contribute to their own personal health.

But there’s clearly a piece of your thinking you haven’t shared with us: what you called “the society I speak of.” I’m guessing you have a whole theory of how to construct a society that avoids the whole pyramid scheme/people getting screwed over by the rich.

Would that I did! Unfortunately I haven't thought it out further than my certainty that the status quo is flawed.

Maybe I missed where you laid that out. But, your system has a problem: The last generation, whenever that is, still gets screwed.

Not if we actually find a way to preserve humanity forever.

None of that says anything about whether there is a Gods you’ve defined it.

Whether there actually is a God as I've defined it is a whole different topic that I'd love to discuss with you on a different thread.

Or whether humans can create such a being. Or whether it is possible at all for the human race continue forever.

We won't know until we've tried it. And I mean really, all out tried it.

All it says is that you wish such a good existed so that your vision of society will work to type satisfaction.

Res Ipsa, it goes way beyond me wishing it. It must be done. We owe it to that future generation of humans to carry it out.

[KevinSim]

Meadowchik, are you planning on dying young, or do you think there's a good chance that you'll live to be old enough to take advantage of society's provision of special resources for the elderly? Resources provided by younger people for older people? Resources that last generation won't have? If you do live long enough to take advantage of those services, can you live with yourself by using those services knowing that future generation won't have access to them? Society is sort of a pyramid scheme. With most pyramid schemes a small group's wealth is built on the back of a lot of people who get screwed. With the society I speak of there isn't quite the imbalance, but the people at then still get screwed. I think we owe it to them to make sure that last generation doesn't happen, and that means preserving the human race forever, and that means God.

I'm not convinced by your conclusion that "that means God," which seems forced rather than reasonable.

Furthermore I think we can argue that creating God or relying on God is actually counterproductive to ensuring the survival of humanity.

Meadowchik, your objection seems to have at its base the meaning of the word "God." What does God mean to you? I may be wrong, but I think the two of us are looking at that word a different way.

[KevinSim]

I'm not convinced by your conclusion that "that means God," which seems forced rather than reasonable.

His "reasoning" can be stated like this:
"In order to preserve Barbie and Ken dolls forever, Santa Claus must exist".

Fence Sitter, why would anyone want to preserve Barbie and Ken dolls forever? And how do you conclude that in order for that to happen, Santa Claus must exist? I don't see any connection between Santa Claus and preservation, forever, of Barbie dolls.