Belief in God

[Jersey Girl]

Sorry for taking so long to reply, huck. As I said, this thread was revving up during a very busy week for me.

The only answer to that I can think of or even imagine, canpakes, is that anything God creates outside of his holiness is destined or has the potential to become corrupted. Then I ask myself what about the angels, can angels become corrupted? And the answer to that, in my view, is yes they can.

(canpakes asked)
What made it perfect?

(Jersey Girl responded)

As reported, sin hadn't yet entered the creation and corrupted it. But here is the thing, if as I stated above that anything God creates out of his holiness is destined/has the potential to become corrupted then...was it already corrupted when he created it?

Don't know. Boggles the mind.

Jersey Girl, you noted previously that you vary your thoughts sometimes(not a bad thing) so if I propose a different reading that is not necessarily picking an argument with you.[/quote]
Yes, my thoughts do vary depending on what my focus is at any given moment.

I do not see a perfect world that God created. There have been animals living dying and eating each other for a very large number of years before the garden of eden. Is not a garden a special protected place? its safety is not the dangerous outside world to which Adam and Eve were expelled into. I have certainly heard the idea that the fall corrupted to world causing death and conflict everywhere. That just does not fit either real world evidence or the Biblical text. It is an easy out for a more difficult question.

Ouch. I don't have a good explanation for that. I could rely on the dating/time concepts that are often introduced into the discussion but I don't know enough about it to articulate it as a decent response.

Your worry about corruptible angels may well be more on target. If angels are free to think they might get spoiled in a very selfish sense. People certainly have that potential. Perhaps the danger is great enough that the experience of living in a world of objective dangers and responsibility is necessary for human creation.

I'm not worried about corruptible angels. I was thinking about Satan as Fallen Angel.

It might be kept in mind that there is no miracle involved in hurricanes earthquakes and disease. Each of these are natural events in the fabric of real world cause and effect.

And...in your view is a creator involved in those or not? If not, how do you see it?

[Jersey Girl]

Jersey Girl, I picked this out from Doc’s post above because it mentions something that I’ve always wondered about, with respect to the idea of a world designed by a supreme being.

Simply put, nearly all life on this globe - be it closely spaced in a biological sense (Doc’s kudu and lion), to being about as different as imaginable (a virus within a person) - succeeds only by consuming other life (plants sometimes excepted). And the life being consumed isn’t agreeable to the deal, nor does it revel in it. Rather, it’s usually painful, bloody, and ultimately destructive.

Why would either condition be necessary in a world designed by a loving god?

What made it perfect?

Any being that set the conditions for this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HardcoreNature ... _an_eland/

^ possible nsfw with regard to animal gore

is not a ‘loving god’. It’s a being that’s either completely indifferent to terror and pain, or it’s a being that revels in suffering. History is replete with horrors beyond our mind’s ability to comprehend (the Mongols exterminating entire hegemonies, for example) wherein the jewish god Jehovah passively observed his creations, from viruses liquidating organs to mankind absolutely brutalizing innocents without regard to their pain.

If a believer wants to take comfort in whatever notion they believe their god provides, then fine. It still doesn’t change a thing with regard to how this cruel, bloody, unholy world operates. The rules are in place, and if you want to believe your god is ‘loving’ by all means go for it. Stalin had a pet named Tishka, but does his love for an animal change who he was or what he did? Of course not - he was evil incarnate. Such is the duality of a ‘loving’ god.

- Doc

But Cam. If we as Christian believers develop the qualities described in the New Testament and if we follow the admonishments in the same, then WE would be the ones to relieve the garbage that goes on in the world. I believe that we are intended to be God's boots on the ground. I've said that many times over on this board. I see literally nothing in New Testament scripture that indicates otherwise.

Do not take that to mean that I think that non-believers aren't capable of the development of those qualities.

But Christianity, as I recall, is the largest world religion practiced on this very globe that we're screwing up so if Christians were doing what they were supposed to be doing in the first place, I think there would be change in the world.

This why I say to you don't blame the state of the world on the God of the Bible or Christianity (in terms of how you relate to me in this discussion), blame the state of the world on the multitude of people who identify as Christian believers who fail to do what is prescribed or what they are tasked with and taught to do.

It's not the religion, it's the people IN the religion. It's not Christianity and it's concepts. It's the Christians who give superficial lip service and fail to follow them.

It's like when I say that the only problem I have with organized religion are the people IN organized religion. Which is exactly why I stopped going to church so many years ago by now. I try to love people and I do to a certain extent, but I find it hard and distracting when people in churches start gossiping or arguing or looking down their noses at others while claiming they love them or vying for positions of authority and they DO. I find this distracting to the point that I left. I find myself being more of what I think God wants me to be outside of the church walls.

We had one family (okay it was the mother) who threw a royal fit about an Easter Egg Hunt for the children.

I had that one youth pastor whom I really loved and respected until he did a class on cults for the youth which I attended and made a comment about "Mormon missionaries on their little bikes"...I HAD to stand up and comment about that and try to bring HIM back to topic and why he was doing the classes to begin with to encourage outreach.

I had my senior pastor whom I also loved and remain on friendly terms with who told me that he didn't know how I could be friends with my Mormon lady friend and I had to tell him, I didn't know how I could NOT be friends with her. I'm not supposed to love someone who isn't a New Testament Christian? Why not? Doesn't Jesus love her?

The church library had those stupid books The Mormon Puzzle and The God Makers. Those were the first books I ever read because that is all I could find available until I found (don't quote me here) Mama, Mormonism, and Me by Granny Geer. The first two books didn't turn me off Mormonism,they turned me off my own church's library because they were outrageously biased, arrogant, and nasty.

On the upside, I did have the former youth pastor who took me seriously when I complained about a comment made by one of our adult teachers in front of my friend's little Mormon daughter. He heard me out and promised to speak to the teacher.

But on the whole, I don't think it's the religion that is the problem. I think it's the human beings who are lazy minded, prone to arrogance, whose self image relies on elevating themselves over others. Human nature without a road map. But the New Testament DOES supply the road map of a type of human development that can and does positively impact humanity on the whole if only all of the Christians in this world would wake up!

Okay...ranting. Sorry not sorry.

Is it impossible for a Christian to accept Christ as their Savior, follow his teachings as described in the New Testament, strive to develop the qualities therein? NO, it's not. Can we do it 100%, 100% of the time? NO. Can we do it overall and successfully most of the time to our own benefit and to the benefit of others?

YES.

I'm maybe losing the narrative here. I'm NOT deleting or modifying the off the beaten path part of this post either.

[Jersey Girl]

And that, my friends, is what happens when an Idealist goes off her nut in full public view. I'm not apologizing for it either.

[Jersey Girl]

canpakes I see that you made an additional reply to me. I'll get to it soon.

[Jersey Girl]

This post.

.
Jersey Girl -

Let me start with a disclaimer, of sorts.

When I ask you questions like these, I’m very interested in your perspective; I’m not looking to trap you into a particular response or to force a conclusion … these are more oriented towards a kind of thought experiment (as much as my walnut-sized brain can participate in, anyway), and I enjoy reading how other folks approach these subjects.

That said -

The only answer to that I can think of or even imagine, canpakes, is that anything God creates outside of his holiness is destined or has the potential to become corrupted. Then I ask myself what about the angels, can angels become corrupted? And the answer to that, in my view, is yes they can.

Putting aside angels at the moment … how does an entire world become corrupted by - or, more to the point, become victims of the ‘corruption’ from - the single action of two uninvolved individuals designed to be susceptible to suggestion?

When I read the Genesis account I see a God who created a perfect world (Garden) …

What made it perfect?

As reported, sin hadn't yet entered the creation and corrupted it. But here is the thing, if as I stated above that anything God creates out of his holiness is destined/has the potential to become corrupted then...was it already corrupted when he created it?

Don't know. Boggles the mind.

It would seem that anything that ‘corruption’ is, was included within the system from the start. If you propose an alternative ‘corrupted’ existence to an ‘uncorrupted’ existence, then you’re only stating that one of two options is in effect - but either option must have always been there.

Similarly, if you are going to assign the existence of suffering and death to corruption, then suffering and death are an inseparable part of this existence, when there’s no sure rationalization that either ever needed to be … if an existence is created by a god.

Which leads us back to the main question: Life must destroy other Life - often painfully so - in order to succeed. Why?

And it’s not so much that I’m asking why a supposed god would design an existence with those features; rather, why should I assume that a god existed to make that decision in the first place? The notion speaks to a dark intent if it is a designed reality, and assuming that a god designed this existence, then that dark intent is assigned to that god by default.

[Dr. Shades]

And that, my friends, is what happens when an Idealist goes off her nut in full public view. I'm not apologizing for it either.

Nobody asked you to.

[huckelberry]

I said,

Your worry about corruptible angels may well be more on target. If angels are free to think they might get spoiled in a very selfish sense. People certainly have that potential. Perhaps the danger is great enough that the experience of living in a world of objective dangers and responsibility is necessary for human creation.

I'm not worried about corruptible angels. I was thinking about Satan as Fallen Angel.
I said,

It might be kept in mind that there is no miracle involved in hurricanes earthquakes and disease. Each of these are natural events in the fabric of real world cause and effect.

And...in your view is a creator involved in those or not? If not, how do you see it?

Jersey Girl, we are thinking much along the same line I think. When I mentioned corruptible angels that referred to satan etc who became corrupted. It makes a parallel to humans as well who all are also corruptible and potentially Satanic.

I think God created a universe that works on regular interrelating process such as those studied in physics and Chemistry. Hurricanes are a result of heat, evaporation, the turning of the earth and the winds that result. I think it is possible for God to miraculously influence them. I doubt that God does that. They continue part of the flow of natural cause and effect. So do earthquakes and disease.

[KevinSim]

I'm here for like two seconds because that's really all the time I have at the moment. You wanna know why I think you're a waste of time?

Yes, I do.

When you write an opening post like you did whenever you started that thread in Terrestrial in which you named myself and msnobody, and when those posters reply to you, I expect you to reply to their posts. Last I looked up there which was last night or the night before, you had skipped right over my post.

Jersey Girl, you started this post off by declaring you have significantly limited time. In all honesty I wasn't aware that I had skipped anybody, but if I did skip right over your post it was because I also have significantly limited time. Right now my wife has a full-time job so I'm a full-time caregiver for our ten-year-old grandson, and I need to keep the house taken care of. On top of that I'm taking a demanding class at Utah Valley University. I read and post to this forum when I'm unable to put any work in on those other three tasks, and that doesn't happen very often.
I was involved in one thread that generated a huge amount of responses. I started with the oldest and attempted to work my way through the backlog. And I got dinged for doing that; some posters said answering old posts was troll-like behavior! The implication was that I should concentrate on more recent posts, and forget about older posts, so I tried to take that advice, and now I'm getting dinged for that! I can't win no matter what I do! I guess I could drop my UVU class and I could abandon my grandson, but for some reason I don't think those are good options. So what do you want me to do, Jersey Girl?

What part of Biblical Gospel don't you understand?

The whole thing. I have seen no reason to believe different people don't think the Bible means different things. If there's some systematic way to tell precisely what the Bible means on any one particular subject, I certainly don't know what that systematic way is. Jersey Girl, is it impossible to imagine that someone like me would have trouble understanding that there's some way of interpreting the Bible that's guaranteed to get me to that one biblical gospel?

I mean you actually asked me if my comment about belief in Jesus was relevant to this thread you (and LDS believer) made about God. Again, are you joking?

I was not joking. This thread was about the concept of God in general, God that many people believe in, and many of those people don't believe Jesus is that God. Jersey Girl, you were the first person in this thread to mention Jesus. Although I've got to point out that after I expressed my opinion that Jesus was off topic, I did go on to express my opinion about Jesus. I have no problem talking about Jesus; I just didn't want anyone to accuse me of going off topic myself.

[KevinSim]

I haven't believed God is all powerful for a very long time.

In that case, you do not believe in the deity worshipped by the great majority of religious Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Chap, you are absolutely right. I have no desire to worship the "deity worshipped by the great majority of religious Jews, Christians and Muslims."

But those other people's deities are omnipotent, and cannot therefore make use of that cop-out.

What cop-out are you talking about?

What sets the limits of your deity's powers?

The physical Universe.

[KevinSim]

I did a Google search on "the ones who walk away from omelas ursula law enforcement guin", and I got a blurb that included: "'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas' is a 1973 work of short philosophical fiction by American writer Ursula K. law enforcement Guin.
…
It's never worth it. But our society seems to be saying yes, as long as the small child is so far in the future that it doesn't have to think about her/him a lot. Think about it a little bit. A lot of people ignore predictions of catastrophes caused by global warming ultimately because they're sure those catastrophes won't happen in their lifetimes. Who will pay for the convenience fossil fuel consumption provides them? Future generations! Their children and their grandchildren! Who will pay for congress' liberal use of deficit spending? Future generations. All of society is built on the assumption that when one generation is in its declining years, the next couple of generations will run senior care centers to take care of it. That's fine if those future generations are always guaranteed to exist. Are they?
All of this is just Omelas in another form. The small child who must suffer so that we can enjoy life is always so far in the future that we don't care what happens to her/him. My whole point is that we need to care. Our consciences should require us to care. That small child is a real person, with hopes and dreams like all of us, and we can't conscientiously afford to ignore that s/he exists.

KevinSim, what is it about LDS doctrine that supports this thinking, or enables it to be realized?

Canpakes, I'm not aware that there's anything in LDS doctrine that supports this thinking. Do you think there should be? Realizing it is God's principal function; God uses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to accomplish it. I don't know how God is doing it, but I believe He is.