Teancum

If he had children would his children not have the power of a god?

Well if you go by the book The DaVinci Code that plot has Jesus producing and, spoiler alert, one of the main characters is a descendent.

My how special you are and must feel. I am happy for you. And I do not call believers deluded fools so don't pin that on me. Though some believers are certainly self righteous. arrogant, smug and overly pious.

Yes it is interesting and really wrong that it is always the women the get the short end of the stick on this one.

Modesty is really a cultural construct don't you think?

Wow! Why the scarcity? And why so sad?

Well Teddy, I was as much of a believer as you are for most my life. So I understand what you describe quite well actually, despite your attempt to smear us awful apostates and cast us in the worst light possible. Your approach is really a defense mechanism for your own cognitive dissonance I think.

I appreciate your summary and explanation, I do not think you are arrogant at all.

No that is not my intent. I am simply trying to illustrate that most people who are religious will often say they and nobody really knows the mind of God. But then they make arguments that can only be made by asserting to know the mind of God to at least some extent. Now I understand that you and other believers are simply saying things that you have a knowledge about from written Canon you believe is from God as well as from things you learn from religious leaders, scholars, authors, church manuals, seminary, institute and so on. So when you say God this or God that your language is couched in what you have learned from a variety of sources. These sources actually to claim to know the mind of God. But humans from all walks of various religious beliefs have their texts and teachers that expound about God, or gods or spiritual things that are unseen and they all conflict to varying degrees. But all claim to know something about what some god being or higher power thinks. And for theistic religions that believe this god being reveals itself to some extent to humans, there are those self professed or proclaimed prophets that actually tell us what they teach is the mind of God and that the God they represent speaks directly to them. I wonder if there is a God being why that being just doesn't make it mind and will known to all of us directly. But of course the counter and convenient argument is then we do not have to have faith and so on, which I think is an excuse, a crutch and a convenient cop out. I know that sounds harsh but look it from a skeptic's view. Take Joseph Smith. One has to trust the Joseph it telling us the truth, that he really did see God, have angelic visions and so on. Of course we have his life and what he produced to judge whether we can trust him and take it on faith. And yes I know there is asking God ourselves and the witness of the spirit but that is fraught with problems as well. But this theistic God that you talk about seems to be well hidden. And in addition to that this God sure didn't shy away from big miracles that allegedly were witnessed by many thousands of years ago but today similar miracles are painfully absent, Why is this God hiding so well? Hope this makes sense to you, whether you agree or not.

It is accurate IMO.

Ok fair enough. I will consider your well explained remarks and modify my simplistic conclusions about apologetics.

Why is it LDS persons have to say "I know." What is wrong with saying one has a very strong and heartfelt faith. Because you really do not know in the way most people understand someone when they say "I know." I don't hate God if there is a God. I am skeptical that such a being that you believe in exists and the fact that we live with such awful evil and suffering is strong evince that an theistic God of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, that reveals himself to humans, exists. If there is such a being I think the awful God of Calvinism matches the biblical description of God. My take, if there is a higher power, it is likley a god like the Deists imagine.

No. You keep saying you do not know the mind of God and then you tell us things that you could only know by knowing the mind of God.

Well how do you know this since you say you do not know the mind of god but now you are telling us about the mind of god.

Well that is the entire point. The argument to defend man caused evil and inflicted suffering by saying God won't interfere in the agency man fails miserably because it ignores the agency of the victim. It also is one leads one to say there is one less bad theodicy argument. And that leads to less reason to have to try to justify evil and suffering with the God of the theistic religions because the problem of evil and suffering speaks out against such a being existing. So what exactly is the crutch?

The lack of decent answers to the why's ought not to be one to lead you to take it on faith. Rather it should lead you to question whether you should have faith when you cannot answer reasonable questions that deserve answers. After all, a religion that requires much of the adherent that has to lean on faith for most the most important questions is not worthy of devotion IMO.

In other words you have no good answer so just have faith. The biggest crutch and scam of religion from the dawn of human intelligence.

Sure is was a generalization. But when you have a key defender of the BoA for example, stating that he starts with the premise that the BoA is true and then seeks to find support for that, well that is a pretty flawed methodology. And do you dispute that BoM apologists don't do the exact same thing?

Surely a being as powerful as God allegedly is could come up with a way that spirit child that had progressed so far they only needed a body to get that body is some other less atrocious way.

CFR. What a horrible idea. So five year old is kidnapped, raped and murdered and your god is a ok with that because all they needed was a body and five years or mortal existence. What a crock of horsepucky.

Ah that is always the true believer's defense when they have no answer for difficult issues and it is a lousy one and means you really are not able to answer or explain the ideas that are pretty good reasons to reject such a being existing.

Such a grand and wonderful plan....😕

So with man made evil, say those who murdered Jews during the Holocaust, when the victim is murdered they lose their agency. So if agency in regards to human afflicted atrocities, whose agency wins out? The perpetrator's or the victim's?

Exactly.

Your entire post and theories actually seem to show that you think yo do know the mind of God.