teddyaware

I’m wondering if President Oaks is considering younger, more physically capable members of the First Presidency who will be able to travel without difficulty and freely interact personally with the saints?

The scriptures of the Latter-Day Saints testify that no intelligent being can exist, no mater how simple and basic it might be, unless it has agency. This means that forever into the past and forever into the future each individual intelligence always has had and always will have agency. God is the author of freedom, and as such he has no reason nor interest in creating non-intelligent automations that have no reason to exist other than to merely take up space. Also, the notion that God is some sort of passionless cosmic supercomputer is erroneous. 30 All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. (Doctrine and Covenants 93)

The context of the verse in question indicates that the Lord is referring to the creation of men on earth. The knowledge he says he gave them from birth is the light of Christ, “the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

All the spirit sons and daughters of God who obtain tabernacles of flesh and blood when they are born on this earth are mercifully given the light of Christ — a portion of God’s own spiritual intelligence — that they might intuitively comprehend the difference between good and evil. The light of Christ is the illuminating spiritual light of conscience that gives spiritual understanding and insight to every man and woman who comes into the world.

Exactly! Even God himself is not exempt from the need to prove his own fidelity to the truth by being commanded to pass through unimaginably difficult tests of loyalty to the truth, trials of faith and courage that were infinitely and eternally more difficult and challenging than the tests of faith faced by any of the other spirit sons or daughters of God. As President Hollander testified in his last General Conference address, even Jesus Christ had to battle against extreme discouragement and doubt. THIS is why he is worthy of our worship — against the onslaught of the full weight and fury of the forces of spiritual darkness he emerged victorious against all odds as the greatest of all imaginable conquering heros. We worship and honor him not because he can’t help but be good, but because he mightily wrestled against very real human weaknesses and ultimately triumphed over them because in his great love for the Father and for us HE WANTED AND UNRESERVEDLY CHOSE TO BE GOOD! The atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is, by far, the greatest of all miracles because the struggle Christ willingly engaged in, and successfully fought, was immeasurably difficult — even an infinite and eternal struggle to bless us with the sacred freedom to choose.

I think this struggle for non Latter-Day Saint Christians to come to grips with the absolute necessity for all intelligent beings needing to have moral agency grows out of the mistaken idea that God is able to create ex nihilo intelligent beings that are perfectly good. without them having to be tried and proved by adversity. Of course, this brings up the inevitable question that if God actually is able to create perfectly good intelligent beings without them having to be tried, tested and thereby be refined, why did he make such a monumental mess out of things by unnecessarily bringing Lucifer and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil into the garden of Eden? Why did he not leave well enough alone? Meanwhile, the scriptures of the Latter-Day Saints testify that without all intelligent beings having the ability and inalienable right to choose between good and evil, it wouldn’t be possible for anything to exist! This can only mean the justice and mercy are immutable laws that cannot be ignored or overridden in any way, and without justice and mercy being the foundational laws of reality there would be no logical reason to even attempt to create anything. Without justice and mercy bearing sway and having the final say in all things, there is no reason to create anything. 30 All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. (Doctrine and Covenants 93)

In his classic sacred biography “Jesus the Christ,” Apostle James E Talmage asserts that Jesus was peccable, meaning that it was possible for the Lord to commit sin, and may have succumbed to the powers of darkness without being fully willing to surrender his will to of his Father in all things. Therefore the Lord’s faithful obedience in surrendering his will to the will of Father in all things was essential for his own salvation, for without faithfully overcoming every obstacle placed before him he wouldn’t have been fully worthy to atone for our sins through his sinless infinite and eternal sacrifice. His tremendous trial in Gethsemane amply demonstrates that his struggle to remain fully faithful, obedient and sinless before his Father was the most difficult trial in the war of good vs evil that ever took place. In the religion of the Latter-Day Saints, Christ is worthy of our adoration and worship because he is greatest of all conquering hero’s, for he single handedly won the victory of good over evil against seemingly impossible odds. To the Latter-Day Saints, Christ is good because he wants to be good; he’s not a cosmic automaton who has no choice but to be and do good. In other words, Christ’s victory over evil was a the greatest of all miracles that was only made possible by his indomitable faith and courage.

You’re ignoring the fact that Latter-Day Saint theology Christ existed as a Divine intelligence before taking upon himself an organized spirt body in heaven; and in a similar manner to what he experienced in the pre-earth life, it was by his obedience and devotion to the truth in this fallen world that he attained perfection, but only after learning how to be obedient by the things which he suffered while tabernacled in an earthly body of flesh, bone and blood. Do you believe Christ’s eternal divinity is diminished in any way because he was required to pass through great of trials of faith in this fallen world in order to learn how to be obedient to God by the things which he suffered? And why is it only after proving himself to be worthy in this life was he able to become perfect? From the Latter-Day Saint perspective, although Christ truly is a Divine Being from all eternity to all eternity, he nevertheless had to prove himself worthy through trials of faith in the pre-earth life as well as on this earth. In reality, the only difference between what you believe and what I believe is that I believe Christ had to prove himself worthy through successfully overcoming great trials twice, whereas you believe he only had to be tried in the crucible of adversity on this earth. Another question: How could the perfect immaterial, immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, quiescent God be required to take upon himself a material body, capable of death, and then be commanded to pass through great trials of faith before he was be able to prove himself worthy, and thereby become the author and finisher of our faith, if he already was perfect and worthy in every way?

I recently viewed a random video that featured Dallin Oaks that popped up on my YouTube feed. As he began his remarks, he was wearing discernible amiable smile — rare for him — as he quipped that his wife was frustrated with him because she was always needing to remind him that he needed to “lighten up” and try harder to not appear so wooden and formal during his oratorical delivery. The audience actually laughed as he reservedly chuckled back in response. So at least President Oaks is aware of the perception that he’s “a stiff.” I’m also chuckling at the moment as I compare the warm and engaging delivery of our smiling, grandfatherly President Nelson with President Oaks’ “style,” if that’s what you can call it… When I consider the laugh riot that happened with Elder Oaks joked over my brother’s dinner table, it’s hard for me to square the two seemingly diametrically opposed personas. Nevertheless, I hereby predict that President Oaks will smile discernibly at least once during his Sunday morning conference session talk.

About 25 years ago, when my younger brother was a Stake President, then apostle Dallin Oaks was a visiting General Authority at one of the Stake Conferences. Elder Oaks had meals at my brother’s home and slept in the guest room one night. Right after this special weekend happened, my brother told me that Elder Oaks was so casual, self deprecating, and down right funny that they spent much of the evening engaged in uproarious laughter.

Of course. There’s a large gulf in attitude that exists between those whose primary motivation is to seek for the honors and rewards of men, and the meek and lowly saints of God who appreciate receiving sincere encouragement and positive reinforcement from their fellow saints to continue faithful while advancing forward on the strait and narrow path.

You put believing Latter-Day Saints into an impossible quandary: When the following most dire prophetic warnings of a destructive worldwide conspiracy in the last days comes to pass, according to you the members of the church will have to ignore the warnings of the existence of this very real conspiracy to destroy freedom throughout the world in order to avoid being mocked, cancelled and derided by the worldly wise who stand at the windows of the great and spacious who mistakenly think they possess greater wisdom and insight than do the prophets of God. But as for Yours Truly, their mockery has zero effect because I know for a surety that Moroni’s prophetic warning is being literally fulfilled as I write. I suppose that when Moroni’s prophetic warning that the murders of the Lord’s latter-day prophets is fulfilled, the mockers at the windows will boldly proclaim that it’s their own fault for peddling such fantastic and baseless garbage. Nevertheless, there are other prophetic warnings that attest to the fact that the day will come when those who once arrogantly ignored and mocked the prophets will feel humbly constrained to confess to the whole world that the prophets were right and that they were wrong, all because they allowed their foolish pride to lure them into the devil’s webs of deception. 23 Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be. 24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up. 25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning. (Ether chapter eight)

I guess you didn’t stop to think that in this particular instance President Nelson took into serious consideration his very advanced and vulnerable age, concluding that it would be a wise move to give the next most senior apostle the chance to “learn the ropes” of the First Presidency in preparation for the very likely event that he, President Oaks, would soon become the next Church President. Even more significantly, in the not terribly unlikely event that he could end up being incapacitated like Presidents Kimball and Benson, President Nelson came to the sound conclusion that it would be a very good thing to have the next most senior apostle placed in the key position to lead the church in the event of a medical leave of absence due to physical and/or mental incapacitation caused by a stroke or some other catastrophic medical event. Makes perfect sense to me that in this specific case President Nelson made the most wise and prudent move. Yes?

Please provide one concrete example, taken from their own words, that exemplifies how Elder Uchtdorfs gospel philosophy differs President Nelson’s gospel philosophy? Rumors and surmisings won’t do. Isn’t it true that the most likely reason why Elder Uchtdorf was placed back into the Quorum of the Twelve by President Nelson is because Dallin H Oaks was the next in line to become the church President and the fact that Elder Eyring, who was First Counselor in the previous First Presidency, holds apostolic seniority over Elder Uchtdorf?

I wonder how many church members are aware of scripturally attested fact that we are not just eternal intelligences who had no beginning and will have no end, but that lying at the very root of our most elementary and fundamental nature is the spark of divinity itself? ‘Knowest thou not that thou art a spark of Diety, struck from the fire of his eternal blaze?” (President John Taylor) 23 Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth; (Doctrine and Covenants 93) and… 29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. (Doctrine and Covenants 93)

This is what perplexes me? They swallow like sweetest honey the idea the idea that the eternal, immaterial, immortal, quiescent, omniscient, unchangeable God, in the person of the Logos, could a) Be born a helpless child on a fallen world in a generation of time. b) Take upon himself a material body of flesh, blood and bone. C) This same material body being capacitated to experience the greatest extremes of human suffering and even death. d) This same immaterial God experiencing all the dramatic growth and changes that normally happen to human beings as they grow and progress through life in the material world. e) Even though he was the Eternal God, yet he had to learn how to be obedient by the things which he suffered, eventually learning how to become perfect by submitting his separate will to the will of his Father. f) And even though the Apostle Paul testifies that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells within the material body of Christ, yet somehow we’re supposed to believe that if God the Father also had a material body that it would necessarily diminish and detract from his divinity in some way. If he had the choice, why wouldn’t God the Father choose to have a body so that he could also have the wonderful experience of being able intimately interact with his physical creation and the same way his Son does? The bottom line? The New Testament make it perfectly reasonable to believe that materially doesn’t necessarily negate divinity. 9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2)

Remember, these same hateful, violent people even consider the inspired Founding Fathers of the United States to be Fascists, so there’s no way to win them over short of a miracle. Such people will smirk and sneer as they confidently tell you the Founding Fathers were evil men, and some of them will do it even though they know the God of heaven openly declared to the world that they were just and honorable men who proved their mettle by risking their lives and fortunes in order to establish a righteous system of government that boldly proclaims that freedom and the inalienable rights of man have their origin in a just and merciful God. The Lord has even gone so far as to declare that without their courageous onward press to successfully establish the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, while struggling against overwhelming odds, the gospel of Jesus Christ could not have been restored and the purposes of Gods would have been thwarted Sadly, it’s unlikely that even the greatest of informed and reasonable minds will ever be able to pacify and restore to reason minds so inflamed with toxic enmity and lust for revenge. And I must say there’s one thing of which I’m perfectly sure: if it were possible for these people to wipe all there enemies off the face of earth, instead of creating a Utopia they would generate a world so dark, evil and devoid of love that it would self destruct in paroxysms of self-destruction in a very short order. Even so, he who lives by the sword, answering hate for hate, will die by the sword and only serve to further intensify the toxicity. Zion will prevail only by a firm, steadfast reliance on the Prince of Peace.

Oh I get it now! The fact that they entered the country illegally, and then committed all kinds of proven serious crimes while here, are just flimsy but convenient pretexts to cover up for the real reason why they’re being deported — they have dark skin! (Sarcasm off) It’s most illuminating to see that you used the first “they” in your paragraph to engage in a deceptive attempt to falsely assert that all those being arrested and deported are here legally, but that some of these legal residents got caught up in the sad and unfair position of not being given enough time to prove their legal status before being unjustly expelled. This is a textbook example of the kind chicanery dishonest propagandists engage in when the plain, honest truth isn’t on their side.

And yet your unchangeable, immaterial God — who is the same yesterday, today and forever — took upon himself a material body in a fallen world. And this same unchangeable, omnipotent, omniscient, immaterial God became a helpless baby in a material world who was utterly incapable of taking care of himself. This same putatively omniscient God then had to learn, be instructed and mature in order to be able to grow in grace and knowledge until he eventually became perfect, learning how to be perfectly obedient through the things which he suffered. And then, of all crazy things, this same unchangeable and immaterial God experientially suffered all things, died, and then rose from the dead with a tangible, material body that will never again die! Ultimately, your problem with Latter-Day Saint theology is that you don’t understanding the nature of eternity, for eternity is a divine state of existence wherein all things past, present and future exist in one eternal NOW, which allows for God to experience dynamic changes firsthand while simultaneously also being unchangeable. And just because you can’t wrap your mind around the idea that it’s possible for all things past, present and future to exist in one eternal now doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.

You make a very good point. If the pre-mortal spirit world was and still is inhabited by both spirits and resurrected beings, there’s no reason to suppose that the post-mortal spirit world can’t also include ministering resurrected men and women. Kudos!

In 2 Nephi 2, the Prophet Lehi makes it abundantly clear that from all eternity to all eternity there always has been and always will be a God, an intelligent Supreme Being of infinite and eternal knowledge, wisdom and power who rules and reigns forever over all things that exist, and that nothing can exist independent of his existence. Because existence can only be affirmed upon the eternal framework of the eternal principle of opposition in all things, God has always had to exist because it’s impossible for nonexistence to create anything. 11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. 12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God. 13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away. (2 Nephi 2)

One of the things I find particularly frustrating about participating on this board is that the answers many participants are speaking are openly revealed in the scriptures, and even though they seem to be very interested in the teachings of the restored gospel they’re apparently not interested enough to do any investigating of their own, desiring instead to be spoon fed without the expenditure of any effort on their part. All marineland would have to do to answer his own questions is read Moses 1 (a focus of this thread and not a particularly long chapter) and he’d discover the answers he’s seeking are presented in black and white in very easy to understand language. When I was investigating the church many years ago, I searched the scriptures and indexes with diligence and passion. 35 (The Lord tells Moses) But only an account of THIS EARTH, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them. (Moses 1) and… 40 And now, Moses, my son, I will speak unto thee concerning THIS EARTH upon which thou standest; and thou shalt write things which I shall speak. (Moses 1)

Do you believe The Family, a Proclamation to the World is inspired of God? If not, there’s nothing left for us to discuss on this thread because there’s no common ground on which to construct worthwhile dialogue.

In the eternal scheme of things it most certainly is an illusion. How does one compare 75 to 80 years of life on earth with the infinite expanse of eternity? And just look at what the masses of women wanting to become interchangeable with men has produced in our world:. Motherhood is demeaned and mocked as traditional marriage is rapidly becoming passe. Instead of focusing on the vastly more important issues of faith in Christ, spiritual growth, personal moral development and the overriding importance of creating healthy marriages and families, there is an intense focus on making the roles of men and women exactly equivalent, a corrupt doctrine of a spiritually blind society that is going to lead to the destruction of a world that is already rapidly ripening in iniquity. Ultimately, this tragic phenomenon of a world gone off the rails is the consequence of foolish human pride, the loss of eternal perspective and the deceptions of the adversary that appeal to the carnal mind. Watch and see the consequences of this anti-family garbage as we now enter the years of great tribulation that will precede the Second Coming of Christ. What started as a movement to correct some inequities in the workplace has morphed into a powerful, sweeping tide of anti-life and anti-family destruction. We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets. (The Family, a Proclamation to the World)