A father cannot be a father without a woman. Perhaps you will tone down your customary disrespect of female posters after pondering that little truth.
A God who saves no one isn't the God Mormonism describes. If God is Love, as has been discussed, would not one think that this love is not love without the opportunity, in a cosmic sense, for that love to expand outward to billions of entities/intelligences/beings?
Especially in that God allowing children to be abused in order to protect the abusers right to have a choice and access to the oath of repentance, right? (At least, that’s been your argument in the past, which I accept is no guarantee that it will be your argument going forward).
Premise 1. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Premise 2. The best evidence for the Book of Mormon is eyewitness testimony.
Conclusion. Therefore, the best evidence for the Book of Mormon is notoriously unreliable.
A little more about what I think about God as a basic concept. God is not a clean fit at all with necessity. Doc Cam's God, for instance, is best approximated by Spinoza's God, which is impersonal necessity. Some people think about God as Gaia -- a universal blesser. When these kinds of ideas of God are put on the table, the tendency is to think "new age". But technically, these Gods satisfy monotheism's idea of singularity rather than plurality, so what's the problem? Gaia is a much better fit than the Christian God for "pure necessity" in my mind.
I think we're divided between the idea of the final source and a personal nature. In the way people have historically used the term God, to me its a tough sell not to have God as personal. Gods originated as the protectors of individual tribes. In fact, Monotheism, in a certain sense, is polytheism of a special kind. It's my God, the God of my tribe, who destroys the Gods of other tribes, the more other tribes destroyed, the greater my God; the more Gods the better. The destruction of other Gods to punctuate my God is what I think of as negative space. If I'm with my bros on horseback looking down into a valley and I see farmers of another village working peacefully, they understand the word "God" the same way I do, he brings the rain and the corn, the only difference is the people of the valley are mistaken about his friends and enemies list (or mistakenly worship a god rather than God). I empathize with their need to feed their families, but they bow to idols -- they must be killed for heresy. And that overrides the natural kinship I feel with others outside of my tribe who I recognize as otherwise having a great deal in common. God is the perfect excuse to pillage resources. The God of monotheism proper, that is.
Monotheism is really a story about polytheism and personal connection to God or gods, however you want to say it, and destroying the great many wicked to preserve the righteous few. God is a "man of war" as the Bible says. The great expanse of hell is one way to secure the personhood of God or the "negative space" required for a personal God. Mormons have more in common with modern notions of social stratification that allow God to be understood as personal. This is why Mormons are divided in their impulse -- on the one hand they're universalists, but on the other, elitists. A lot of people are going to heaven, but each individually has a patriarchal blessing indicating that a few, like them, have a special place that can only be understood at the exclusion of other Mormons.
It's not an uncommon arrangement. Think of a beehive. Each bee is like a religious zealot who's entire worldview is shaped by its job even if bees have various roles. Individual bees don't comprehend the hive directly nor the importance of other bees, just it's own mission. The F-S chain is, perhaps, the schemata of the eternities. It's an implication about God the same way the purpose of the hive is the implication of the roles of each bee individually.
Lost Gospel of Thomas 1:8 - And Jesus said, "what about the Pharisees? They did it too! Wherefore, we shall do it even more!"
Ah, just a little aside, I don’t believe in a god. Spinoza has no wiggle room - it’s all God to him. To me it’s more like emergent intelligence, but to what degree and to what totality, I dunno. In fact, I’m more interested in the nature of what reality is, rather than what exists in or outside of it. I was just trying to find a way to make Gad’s F-S equation work on some level. It’s a very thought provoking thread.
Gods originated as the protectors of individual tribes. In fact, Monotheism, in a certain sense, is polytheism of a special kind. It's my God, the God of my tribe, who destroys the Gods of other tribes, the more other tribes destroyed, the greater my God; the more Gods the better.
One can't get too carried away with interpreting concepts through their historical origin. It can be a kind of definitional version of the genetic fallacy, (which has nothing to do with DNA, but means inferring the truth of a proposition from its origin rather than from its content).
I mean, suppose that it were somehow an established fact of history that early humans first made fire by burning camphor tree branches in Nigeria. Getting carried away with this historical origin of fire would be discussing fire as a thing that happens in Nigeria, with camphor tree sticks.
The problem with that would not be that it was the objectively wrong definition of the term "fire". One can define terms however one wishes, and no doubt historians would like to have a technical term for those early Nigerian camphor wood rituals. The problem would be that talking about fire as a phenomenon of Nigerian camphor wood would be missing the big story. Camphor wood and Nigeria would be mere historical accidents, while combustion as self-sustaining exothermic oxidation would still be a powerful natural phenomenon that transcends Nigeria and the camphor tree. Fire happened to be discovered in a particular set of circumstances, but those circumstances do not define the thing that is most worth attention.
It is still well worth considering the historical origins of things, because it can be just as much a fallacy to assume that something is universal, transcending its original context, when in fact it is nothing but a historical accident. The fire-versus-camphor-wood analogy can apply both ways: maybe "God" or "democracy" or whatever is not like fire, but like camphor wood in ancient Nigeria, and the real story is something else.
Original historical contexts are well worth examining. They just don't offer the straight and easy royal road to identifying what things really mean or should mean.
I agree with all of that, and I'm happy if Spinoza's definition of God is the real def., and I won't rule out the term "monotheism" from including Spinoza's God if that's how society comes to define it. But Christian theologians seem intent on God as personal. Even Isaac Newton, though he elevated the idea of an engineer, or "clockmaker", retained God as a political ruler of his subjects, just as the Mormon Father rules over intelligences. The interventionist aspect of a ruler was important enough apparently, that the machine needed to break so that angels could swoop in and fix - anthropomorphism on steroids.
If I'm forbidden from viewing "monotheism" as polytheism on steroids due to the term coming to mean something else, I can make the same point with a modern example of what a "personal" God seems to entail. In college, everyone took their tests in one huge open room of this big building. This was a religious school. Anytime you look around, somebody has their head down praying. But what's the point? Grades are based on a curve. In fact, it's hard to imagine what "grading" even means when teachers stray from a curve idea. Most Mormons aren't so out to lunch that they'll directly pray to get the A, or pray that one of their smarter peers gets sick to provide an opening. They'll request God help them do their best and remember what they studied, and try to find a way to be humble about it. But their competition is also praying to do their best, and none of this changes the number of A's available. If God helps everyone, then prayer was pointless. But he can't just help one prayerful Mormon kid but not the other, can he? Maybe some didn't pray, but are so self-critical that they didn't feel worthy to ask for it, or prayed for their sick, smarter peer to be healed and not miss the test -- will God leave the humble out in the cold and not bestow the same blessing of "help to do one's best" that he bestows on those who ask?
People are good at finding ways to keep themselves at the center of the narrative in a world constrained to massive zero-sum elements. But I don't think they are infinitely flexible. I don't think the typical person with intention of a relationship with God will believe the being who put them in hell is both all powerful and all just. I believe they think the idea of putting most people in hell is just and fair, and he should absolutely do it -- they just assume they're one of the spared insiders.
Lost Gospel of Thomas 1:8 - And Jesus said, "what about the Pharisees? They did it too! Wherefore, we shall do it even more!"
Gad, I find myself wondering what sort of nut case thinks God is putting most people in hell? Well I do realize there are people who do and believers who do not.
I found myself questioning your monotheism origin story. Parts of the Bible fit but not entirely. Monotheism has some origins in hellenistic culture which was much more inclined to combine Gods than to tell stories of one destroying the other. Unless I am missing something large Athena did not always get her way but was not destroyed or defeated.
I find myself considering that war or raiding or taking stuff from other tribes has occurred all over the world with people with all sorts of spiritual ideas. American natives fit your picture of tribal war without thinking one God was out to defeat another.
I am inclined to think the human pattern of war is influencing our ideas about god. I think the idea of hell is a rejection of some types of human behavior. Distinguishing between behavior is a personal thing if it happens with God. That is the idea you are looking at I think. It however is for many believers a step in a transformational process not a graded test where only a percentage succeed.
The idea of hell is largely a post Biblical idea but one that has been used to motivate people. Use of sharp rhetorical motivation was something Jonathan Edwards was well known for(for better or worse)so spoke of hell swallowing many as the foot of the careless steps on a slippery stone.
People are good at finding ways to keep themselves at the center of the narrative in a world constrained to massive zero-sum elements. But I don't think they are infinitely flexible. I don't think the typical person with intention of a relationship with God will believe the being who put them in hell is both all powerful and all just. I believe they think the idea of putting most people in hell is just and fair, and he should absolutely do it -- they just assume they're one of the spared insiders.
For my part a personal God is less about seeking advantage or a means to get things or power or what have you. It’s more about alignment with God’s will, accepting trials with patience, peace and grace, inner growth and forgiveness, and recognizing areas within myself that need work. And part of that is acknowledging I’m not perfect. But even that point isn’t condemnation, it’s transformation. I think about the transition from Romans 7 to 8 as an internal event. I’d contrast this view with the Mormon view of grace; it’s not about enabling progress toward a standard and more about resolving condemnation so transformation can begin.
Huck wrote:Gad, I find myself wondering what sort of nut case thinks God is putting most people in hell? Well I do realize there are people who do and believers who do not.
Seventy million plus of our God-fearing voters are precisely this type. But generally, the New Testament does say, "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way." I take that to mean far more people in hell than heaven.
Of course, I try to appreciate those that resist the basest urges of religious entitlement. But as I've said with Mormonism, they redefine hell completely, but still retain a framework where the elite few are understood against the negative space of the average many. I'm more concerned with the hierarchal intuition. I think it's a natural result of personally connecting with deity in a harsh world with a massive zero-sum element.
I found myself questioning your monotheism origin story. Parts of the Bible fit but not entirely. Monotheism has some origins in hellenistic culture which was much more inclined to combine Gods than to tell stories of one destroying the other. Unless I am missing something large Athena did not always get her way but was not destroyed or defeated.
I don't mean to provide a historically accurate account of monotheism. I provided the most extreme example just to capture the basic idea. If gods start to merge attributes, at a certain point, the only difference becomes who is the in-group and who is the out-group for that god.
I find myself considering that war or raiding or taking stuff from other tribes has occurred all over the world with people with all sorts of spiritual ideas. American natives fit your picture of tribal war without thinking one God was out to defeat another.
That's very possible. I'm not claiming monotheism is the cause of war, only that monotheism is best understood in the context of polytheism. The greatest conceivable food would be the dish that wins against a hundred other dishes, not just one or two.
Lost Gospel of Thomas 1:8 - And Jesus said, "what about the Pharisees? They did it too! Wherefore, we shall do it even more!"
Huck wrote:Gad, I find myself wondering what sort of nut case thinks God is putting most people in hell? Well I do realize there are people who do and believers who do not.
Seventy million plus of our God-fearing voters are precisely this type. But generally, the New Testament does say, "Straight is the gainte and narrow is the way." I take that to mean far more people in hell than heaven.
Gad, I appreciate your clarifying comments and can see what you are aiming at. I hold a somewhat different view of God but can see that you are considering things that figure large in people's ideas.
I am inclined to think those Seventy million are being lead towards hell by Trump but I do not by the picture of a black white division as the whole picture or the final picture. I share limnor view of possibilities of change being opened up.
Yes people like to think they are special and those others should be left out. Jesus was clear that that view had things backwards. He gathered followers because many people sensed he was right and that the self privileged are not to trusted.
To drain the angst from the picture, I'm really just saying that the greatest food is only the greatest by the exclusion of other foods a person has tried, and Anselm is right that everyone has a clear idea about what a "greatest food" would be, even if they deny there could be a greatest food in practice. Anselm, of course, is pulling a bait-and-switch. He appeals to the least common intuition of "the fool", but then once he's captured what he wants, seems to require something way more specialized out of the terms "greatest" "being" "conceivable" to do his job, otherwise he's easily taken down by reductio ad absurdumdoing exactly what I am, suggesting that there must be a greatest food.
The original version of the Euthyphro makes the common-sense notion of Anselm's first postulate clear, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
Having multiple deities makes it easy to visualize the problem of "private languages" and the dilemma of necessity. It's possible that there is a best food, for me that's lasagna, but I also understand taste is subjective. What do the gods say? Well, if the gods like different foods, I still understand the idea of what it means to be the best, yet as I assume, it doesn't apply here. But what if they agree? This is the path Socrates takes Euthyphro down -- Euthyphro suggests a best food if the gods unanimously agree on it. And that's when Socrates pulls out the BFG. Isn't that just groupthink?
The gods might be saved by suggesting they are in a holistic relationship, a "social polity" of sorts, where a unique aspect of each god combines such that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts, and the agreed upon food really is the greatest food when they agree. What if we're talking about taste, and they agree on eggplant?
- I'm lying, I really do like it. (even the devils believe)
- If I try it a few more times I'll like it. (conversion/repentance)
- My colloquial "best possible food" is a degenerate expression of the true words. (natural man doesn't understand)
- "best possible food" means the same as the gods mean, but our tastes are incommensurable. ?
That last one is what doesn't work because it solidifies the subjectivity. Milton's Satan can't remain defiant in hell. My suggestion is that the Supreme being must be universally acknowledged as supreme, including by the devils and the damned, and theologians will always work this out so that somehow, God is universally acknowledged as all powerful and all good, (or the needed attributes), even if it comes down to stipulating psychological states. My anthropological theology of Mormons goes the other route, I'm not ascribing to Mormons what I want them to believe (at least I'm trying to avoid that), I'm trying to discern what they really are apprehending as God.
addendum:
As a practical example of the problem of necessity revealed his very thread, take Shades' divine pronouncement as supreme board ruler that MG's quote was wrong because the forum participants don't want to read the same thing twice. Some forum participants such as myself and Marcus claimed that we didn't care about having to read it twice, his error was something else. Shades doubled down and repeated in red ink to MG that the problem was making forum participants read the same thing twice (God is unchanging, of course, and can never be wrong). As a necessitarian, what are Shades' options? Marcus and I could both be lying, we really do think that but won't admit it. If we continue to participate and if it happens again, we'll come to see that yes, posting the same thing twice really was the error, just as stated by the rule. It's also possible that we don't understand the ruling. It could be that everyone's reactions on the thread will one day be revealed as the very expression of having been burdened by reading the same thing twice. That would be like coming to realize Hesperus and Phosphorus refer to the same planet.
Lost Gospel of Thomas 1:8 - And Jesus said, "what about the Pharisees? They did it too! Wherefore, we shall do it even more!"
