Elder Gilbert Interview with Peggy Fletcher Stack

[malkie]

The world is full...well, at least there are a lot of them...of people that second guess God. Armchair quarterbacks are a dime a dozen.

Regards,
MG

And there are dozens if not thousands more who second guess Yeti, Sasquatch, and even area 51 Aliens, as I am sure all mentalgymnasts the internet over would agree.

(In deference to Malkie, I will not besmirch Nessie by adding her to this list, as no one can second guess her majesty.)

[Limnor]

Just following the logic: if Adam and Eve’s bodies were formed from dust, and dust as part of creation became subject to corruption after the Fall, then humans live in corrupted bodies. So even if the spirit itself isn’t fallen, the person as embodied still experiences some sort of fallenness.

I think the counter-argument is that corruption is merely physical and not ontological in the eternal intelligence. But if that’s the case, I’m trying to understand why the embodied condition requires corruption at all. Why would mortality need to be designed that way?

[I Have Questions]

God picks imperfect people to work through to be prophets? I therefor blame god for every damnation he conveys on everyone throughout history. Prophets get inside information like angelic visitations, special communications, seer abilities, the ladies, reveletory skills and so much more. He could make everyone prophets and run a Hilbert hotel for prophetic missions.

The world is full...well, at least there are a lot of them...of people that second guess God. Armchair quarterbacks are a dime a dozen.

Regards,
MG

Yes, 15 of them meet most Thursdays in downtown Salt Lake City…

[Equality]

God picks imperfect people to work through to be prophets? I therefor blame god for every damnation he conveys on everyone throughout history. Prophets get inside information like angelic visitations, special communications, seer abilities, the ladies, reveletory skills and so much more. He could make everyone prophets and run a Hilbert hotel for prophetic missions.

The world is full...well, at least there are a lot of them...of people that second guess God. Armchair quarterbacks are a dime a dozen.

Regards,
MG

I, for one, do not second-guess God. I only second-guess the great many lying fraudsters who claim to speak for God.

[huckelberry]

Just following the logic: if Adam and Eve’s bodies were formed from dust, and dust as part of creation became subject to corruption after the Fall, then humans live in corrupted bodies. So even if the spirit itself isn’t fallen, the person as embodied still experiences some sort of fallenness.

I think the counter-argument is that corruption is merely physical and not ontological in the eternal intelligence. But if that’s the case, I’m trying to understand why the embodied condition requires corruption at all. Why would mortality need to be designed that way?

Limnor to my understanding sin corrupted the human spirit primarily and body only as a derivative of that. I have always imagined dust being happily dusty now as before.

I think you are taking aim at the Mormon scenario in which sin is a choice we try to avoid by learning. If it ,sin, corrupted our spirit we are in a plight deeper than an examination or test to pass. ( as you have clearly pointed out with Paul in Romans)

Mormons happily say we are punished for our own sins and not Adam's transgression rejecting The traditional view that we inherit Adam's corruption because what we are comes through our family back to Adam.

BY, (the most Mormon of all Mormons,) letting the cat out of the bag, said Adam was actually our father God, clarifying the position that it is our surroundings not our spirit which presents the possibility of sin.

[huckelberry]

I think MG use of ends justifying means has a point, an awkward point. The phrase is usually used referring to attempts to justify truly bad actions pointing to some desirable end. Joe Stalins phrase " you have to break a few eggs to make an omlette " refers to mass murder to establish his power system. This has a very different moral sense than if the phrase refers to the misfortune of a three chicken eggs for the good ends of making breakfast.

Unfortunately my mind wandered further. I thought of the misfortune for the tree cut to make the lumber for the house in which I happily dwell. Unfortunately that reminded me of more difficult choices. For the civil war was keeping those states part of the union worth the butchers bill? Or more tricky was the Mexican American war worth the goal of establishing governmental order in the then fighting and fragmented area now Southwest United States?

As far as I can see the question of ends justifying means is a part of all moral decisions.

[malkie]

I think MG use of ends justifying means has a point, an awkward point. The phrase is usually used referring to attempts to justify truly bad actions pointing to some desirable end. Joe Stalins phrase " you have to break a few eggs to make an omlette " refers to mass murder to establish his power system. This has a very different moral sense than if the phrase refers to the misfortune of a three chicken eggs for the good ends of making breakfast.

Unfortunately my mind wandered further. I thought of the misfortune for the tree cut to make the lumber for the house in which I happily dwell. Unfortunately that reminded me of more difficult choices. For the civil war was keeping those states part of the union worth the butchers bill? Or more tricky was the Mexican American war worth the goal of establishing governmental order in the then fighting and fragmented area now Southwest United States?

As far as I can see the question of ends justifying means is a part of all moral decisions.

I agree that we are always in a position of using the ends to justify the means - it's a continuum that ranges from the trivial to the truly horrible means. In the same way, I believe we are always - consciously or not - conducting our lives and making our decisions based on cost/benefit analyses.

In my post-grad studies - Operations Research - I was impressed with the mimimax regret criterion as a decision calculation. The idea is to minimize the worst-case regret of your decisions. I cannot say that I apply this methodology carefully or even deliberately in my decision making, but can say that I often have it in the back of my mind when making serious decisions.

[I Have Questions]

I think MG use of ends justifying means has a point, an awkward point. The phrase is usually used referring to attempts to justify truly bad actions pointing to some desirable end. Joe Stalins phrase " you have to break a few eggs to make an omlette " refers to mass murder to establish his power system. This has a very different moral sense than if the phrase refers to the misfortune of a three chicken eggs for the good ends of making breakfast.

Unfortunately my mind wandered further. I thought of the misfortune for the tree cut to make the lumber for the house in which I happily dwell. Unfortunately that reminded me of more difficult choices. For the civil war was keeping those states part of the union worth the butchers bill? Or more tricky was the Mexican American war worth the goal of establishing governmental order in the then fighting and fragmented area now Southwest United States?

As far as I can see the question of ends justifying means is a part of all moral decisions.

Only if all those moral decisions end up where MG wants them to end up. For instance, MG justifies child abuse as a means to achieve the end of the abusers being able to maintain their ability to choose and gain access to the repentance process.

Another example. The Church used a decades long nefarious shell company scheme in order to achieve the end of keeping the members in the dark about how much money the Church had and ensure tithing kept rolling in. MG will take the position that the Church was justified in such an action because the end - continued levels of tithing, is a good thing as far as he’s concerned, which outweighs the deceit and duplicity that was deployed to keep the financial data away from the SEC.

There isn’t an abuse perpetrated by a Church Leader that MG won’t justify using a version of “the end justifies the means”.

[Limnor]

Just following the logic: if Adam and Eve’s bodies were formed from dust, and dust as part of creation became subject to corruption after the Fall, then humans live in corrupted bodies. So even if the spirit itself isn’t fallen, the person as embodied still experiences some sort of fallenness.

I think the counter-argument is that corruption is merely physical and not ontological in the eternal intelligence. But if that’s the case, I’m trying to understand why the embodied condition requires corruption at all. Why would mortality need to be designed that way?

Limnor to my understanding sin corrupted the human spirit primarily and body only as a derivative of that. I have always imagined dust being happily dusty now as before.

I think you are taking aim at the Mormon scenario in which sin is a choice we try to avoid by learning. If it ,sin, corrupted our spirit we are in a plight deeper than an examination or test to pass. ( as you have clearly pointed out with Paul in Romans)

Mormons happily say we are punished for our own sins and not Adam's transgression rejecting The traditional view that we inherit Adam's corruption because what we are comes through our family back to Adam.

BY, (the most Mormon of all Mormons,) letting the cat out of the bag, said Adam was actually our father God, clarifying the position that it is our surroundings not our spirit which presents the possibility of sin.

Thanks Huck. I’m not entirely sure where I was going with this thought, but did want to understand better how the thinking works—it really wasn’t intended as a shot. The idea formed in my head when thinking about the plant in the Jonah story.

If your eternal intelligence is uncreated and co-eternal, and not inherently corrupt (as I understand it—it sounds like you are saying the spirit is corrupt?) then what exactly is the body doing?

Is the body necessary as a means to introduce weakness? Why would it be necessary to include death?

If corruption belongs only to the body, then the “real you” (intelligence) is clean, but if corruption belongs to intelligence, what would that mean?

[Rivendale]

God picks imperfect people to work through to be prophets? I therefor blame god for every damnation he conveys on everyone throughout history. Prophets get inside information like angelic visitations, special communications, seer abilities, the ladies, reveletory skills and so much more. He could make everyone prophets and run a Hilbert hotel for prophetic missions.

The world is full...well, at least there are a lot of them...of people that second guess God. Armchair quarterbacks are a dime a dozen.

Regards,
MG

God second guessed himself when he regretted creating man. He is open for criticism. Losing 1/3 right out of the gate also suggests that the reanimated supreme kolobian primate has more than a dozen adversaries.