Is your theology and your faith a target?

[Questing Beast]

It seems the key component of the argument is if you believe in nothing or only in things vaguely you cannot be held to account. Frankly such swamp gas smells, and produces very little beyond a noxious vapor that any breeze can blow away.

Double speak. How can you "believe" in nothing? Where do you get that from anything I have said? The rest is rhetorically dismissive. The LAST thing I do is try and limit my knowledge to something "vague" so that I can get away with actions that I will not be held to account for.

And yes, it is standard "how I became an apostate narrative" in which you have chosen subjectively to interpret facts one way, while many others with greater faith have interpreted facts another way.

This itself is a subjective broadbrushing assertion. You cannot possibly know all "apostates"; and clearly you are lumping/interpreting all that have crossed paths with you into one cleanly, dismissed category. People are never that simple. Nobody else ever came out of a "cookie cutter".

So you call your subjective interpretation "intellectualizing faith" when in fact you are simply creating a subjectivity and bending faith to what you wish, rather than seeking faith in what is.

Backwards. I took everything on faith the best I knew how; at the same time I was taught to "seek knowledge from the best books" - which was explained as "we seek truth wherever it may be found": implicit in this is education in the sciences, philosophies of men, all human experience, etc., not just the scriptures. In other words, "intellectual" pursuits alongside spiritual ones.

When you do this you do not "intellectualize faith", you degrade it.

This does not make sense. "What is" remains to be determined by each and every sapient "soul": and that is not accomplished by supinely opening your "mouth" and letting someone else feed you. Existence is not so simple a thing as to be a singular "what is".

Make believe is more along the lines of vagueness, you "make believe" there are no real articles of faith or commandments perhaps, you simply consider them very good suggestions that hold no benefit to faith, or at least the faith you have "intellectualized.

Whose "articles of faith" are "what is"? You have fallen for one of the classic blunders (in addition to Vecini's): Reality is, "Us and Them".

If you believe God is "too small" in Mormonism, then you really don't understand Mormonism very well, and have therefore chosen a less expansive "make believe" vagueness which does not reflect the reality of faith and its growth. I partially agree that you are... but I do not believe "you think" very clearly on the subject.

I assert that your theology is far more than Mormonism dogmatically disseminates for "mass consumption". Most Mormons, in my experience, have a much larger theology than the Church teaches. Even the scriptures reveal glimpses of a much larger infinity about "God" than "God was once a mortal man like we are and has attained celestial glory", and the (comparatively) little that that implies (which, incidentally, is NOT anywhere taught in the scriptures and is not doctrine for the Church, though many repeat it - but not the late Gordon B. Hinckley)....

[Jeff K.]

So there is no dichotomy vis-a-vis free will, when we say "God is all things". The free will as enormous and real as Existence in the First Place. It is just broken down into infinitely small bits: each one of us, with a body so finite that it has no measurement in the infinite scale of things: yet each possessing a sapience-imagination so huge that it is only exceeded by "God In Total".

There are many things that exceed the imagination, however they are still useful to us and we use them within specific guidelines to be of service to us. Numbers are infinite and yet broken down in small bits they serve a purpose in helping us understand the infinite, so to is it with the gospel. It appears to me that your position is more akin to wanting to know it all now and thus rejecting the numbers broken down for us for a more "imaginative" position while overlooking exactly why the tools are provided, line upon line and precept upon precept. You haven't learned to walk but you think you can run?

[Pahoran]

Not for everyone, Pahoran. True for you and many others, yes, I understand that, but everyone is different, and all understanding, faith and knowledge are not equal.

You know what?

You're right.

In fact, I think that was my point.

Don't you think this is a bit arrogant? This can be turned around to suggest that those who stay, with the claim that they stay because they are "stronger", are only trying to make themselves "look good".

I suppose anything could be "turned around." However, it is not my experience that faithful Church members introduce themselves by announcing things like "I used to be a wavering member until I Discovered the real TRVTH that has always been swept under the rug, and now I know too much," etc. etc. My point, however, is that if you step back and think about it for a moment, you will realise that the "main stream" of the larger culture flows pretty relentlessly, and it is not especially easy to resist. When LDS teenagers go astray -- and there are those in every family who do -- watch what happens: in about seven minutes or so, they are dressing exactly like their non-LDS peers; dancing the same dances to the same music; swearing the same swear words; and smoking the same weed.

Does this wholesale surrender to the world and mindless following of the crowd really look like a manifestation of Extraordinary Strength and Unflinching Moral Courage to you?

And their adult counterparts -- the ones who swagger in here, announcing that they've "studied their way out of the Church" and are showing Truly Heroic Strength of Character by merely going with the flow -- are exactly the same.

And, just BTW: the contemptuous sneers that accompany the triumphant gloating about how they've upset their "TBM" families demonstrate just how little they really care about the feelings of those despised "loved" ones.

Ah, I see. You really have those apostates nailed, doncha? lol

I think I've managed to work out what are the mere slogans, and what they actually do.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Pahoran]

I feel "stronger" than before, in my religious faith, in my widening concept of "God".

"Widening" to the point where it vaguely dissipates, like fog on a sunny morning.

So far, you've told us that your concept of "God" -- even you have to put it in scare quotes:

• Doesn't require you to do anything;
  
• Doesn't require you to believe anything you can't feel absolutely safe about;
  
• Doesn't require you to do anything;
  
• Doesn't assert anything at all that can be tested or falsified;
  
• Doesn't require you to do anything.
  

Is there anything I've missed out?

The crucial determining factor for each of us is our personal religion; it will trump any dogma "in the end". Facts don't have any weight when held beside personal religion. You should understand this intimately well. When you go looking for facts to make empirical (confirmation) sense out of your religious faith, you are opening a quest of a different sort from the blind faith variety. Facts have a way of intruding on your thoughts. And facts are always personal: no roomful of students are going to get the same "message" from the facts held in evidence. There will always be those who say (like the Catholic theologian - blanking on his name, again), "Thou shalt not intellectualize thy faith". But that just separates your sapience into "on and off" categories: because to not intellectualize faith puts it into the ultimate make-believe realm. I could never do that. So I have taken the empirical approach to faith: faith should be backed up by empirical facts held in evidence.

The Church leaders have always known this:

Always known what? That you are right? Speaking of arrogance.

I realise that, like small-minded people everywhere, you assume that whatever you believe "must be" self-evidently obvious to everyone else.

But it is not.

Accepting that fact -- not merely at an intellectual level, but actually -- is the beginning of wisdom.

In reality, "the Church leaders have always known" that the founding events of the restoration really happened -- when Joseph said they did -- and that the Church is true. And if you object to the word "known" in that sentence, then you can at least make the supreme effort to muster the common decency to admit the rather obvious fact that they believe what they profess.

Accusing the leaders of the Church, without any evidence whatsoever, of having "always known" whatever the accuser happens to believe that is contrary to what they actually teach and practice, is the ultimate in anti-Mormon dirty trickery. However loudly you profess to despise your fellow anti-Mormons, when you resort to this ploy, you show yourself to be operating at the Ed Decker level.

that's why, in this age of exploding instantaneous information, they are even more adamant on restricting the history to "faith-promoting" only: it won't do to have a membership all over the spectrum of metaphysical exploration. Dogmatic orgs cannot survive or function with their membership espousing all manner of speculative doctrines and exegesis. This is the "age" of the death of blind faith in a singular dogma. Religion in the near future will be organized for cooperative purposes, for society's sake: but it will be almost universally accepted that "true religion" to the individual will originate with each person, accountable only to "God" in whatever form. "Seeing eye to eye" means allowing everyone the freedom to believe as they choose; while behaving justly toward everyone. My theology includes the imprimitur of "God" in every sapient being: such that the purpose of each is to seek Joy in Existence: ergo, every "soul" knows these truths self-evidently and recognizes when others are on "the right track" in their religious thinking. Because that state of mind allows total freedom to everyone else to seek and find without restraint, proscription, censorship or fear-mongering. That is what "seeing eye to eye" means: not some dogmatic age where every "chosen one" believes exactly the same kind of religious exclusivity that has reduced the world into the ultimate prison of "us and them" mentality.

Thank you for that long sermon. And do you not see how that applies to yourself? Why, if your "personal religion" requires "allowing everyone the freedom to believe as they choose," do you not allow believing Latter-day Saints to believe as Latter-day Saints? Why do you proselyte so vigorously -- contrary to your alleged principles -- to convince us that the founding events of the restoration didn't happen? Why the spiteful pleasure when you announce that it was "impossible" for them to have done so? Why the sanctimonious judgementalism when you maliciously misrepresent plural marriage as "adultery?"

Or is it that your "personal religion" is all about "allowing everyone the freedom to believe as they choose," unless they choose to believe the restored Gospel? Don't you see that your anti-Mormon propagandising is itself a form of "censorship or fear-mongering?"

Bottom line, though, for me is: "God" is too small in Mormonism. I always had a problem with that final theology of Joseph Smith's. It answers nothing vis-a-vis "Why is there existence instead of nothing?" "My God" answers that ultimate terrible question:. Even though I know nothing at all about the details of HOW Existence can be in the first place. At least I know that the Cause of it is inarguable. "I AM, therefore I think up all of this"....

So your rather idle thoughts are nothing less than "the Cause of it." You've discovered solipsism, and think you're the first one.

I discovered it before I was twelve, myself.

Fortunately, I grew out of it.

Hopefully you will, too.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Jeff K.]

Jeff K., on 01 March 2011 - 09:57 AM, said:

It seems the key component of the argument is if you believe in nothing or only in things vaguely you cannot be held to account. Frankly such swamp gas smells, and produces very little beyond a noxious vapor that any breeze can blow away.

Double speak. How can you "believe" in nothing? Where do you get that from anything I have said? The rest is rhetorically dismissive. The LAST thing I do is try and limit my knowledge to something "vague" so that I can get away with actions that I will not be held to account for.

A vague opacity which provides nothing in nourishment, spiritual or otherwise. It isn't double speak. You can believe in nothing by stating something so vague that it becomes nothing of consequence. Which is what you have done. "God is everything" and therefore He becomes an it, and therefore really isn't worth mentioning since God cannot be comprehended.

Quote

And yes, it is standard "how I became an apostate narrative" in which you have chosen subjectively to interpret facts one way, while many others with greater faith have interpreted facts another way.

This itself is a subjective broadbrushing assertion. You cannot possibly know all "apostates"; and clearly you are lumping/interpreting all that have crossed paths with you into one cleanly, dismissed category. People are never that simple. Nobody else ever came out of a "cookie cutter".

I can see the pattern well enough to know. You presume that somehow a pattern or template is irrelevant to the path you are taking, but it is almost like a map, and it follows the same course it has for so many others leading to the same eventual conclusion. Not that one minds, after all apostates and sophistry among apostates are a dime a dozen. I note how apostates who have followed the map are telling you that you have not yet reached the end of the pattern you create for yourself. Someone who has been there would know the conclusion of your route.

Quote

So you call your subjective interpretation "intellectualizing faith" when in fact you are simply creating a subjectivity and bending faith to what you wish, rather than seeking faith in what is.

Backwards. I took everything on faith the best I knew how; at the same time I was taught to "seek knowledge from the best books" - which was explained as "we seek truth wherever it may be found": implicit in this is education in the sciences, philosophies of men, all human experience, etc., not just the scriptures. In other words, "intellectual" pursuits alongside spiritual ones.

I agree, your view is backwards since knowledge comes after faith, however you want knowledge before faith and "intellectualize" your faith, as if you believe that somehow having proofs or not is sufficient for faith. You do indeed have it backwards.

You seek the truth, but you do so to the rejection of faith, which is in itself unsupportable since faith exists on truth. You seek to make God vague, or some stange manner of man without a body when you say he is "everything". I would respond to you as John does

[Libs]

I suppose anything could be "turned around." However, it is not my experience that faithful Church members introduce themselves by announcing things like "I used to be a wavering member until I Discovered the real TRVTH that has always been swept under the rug, and now I know too much," etc. etc. My point, however, is that if you step back and think about it for a moment, you will realise that the "main stream" of the larger culture flows pretty relentlessly, and it is not especially easy to resist. When LDS teenagers go astray -- and there are those in every family who do -- watch what happens: in about seven minutes or so, they are dressing exactly like their non-LDS peers; dancing the same dances to the same music; swearing the same swear words; and smoking the same weed.

Does this wholesale surrender to the world and mindless following of the crowd really look like a manifestation of Extraordinary Strength and Unflinching Moral Courage to you?

And their adult counterparts -- the ones who swagger in here, announcing that they've "studied their way out of the Church" and are showing Truly Heroic Strength of Character by merely going with the flow -- are exactly the same.

And, just BTW: the contemptuous sneers that accompany the triumphant gloating about how they've upset their "TBM" families demonstrate just how little they really care about the feelings of those despised "loved" ones.

I think I've managed to work out what are the mere slogans, and what they actually do.

Regards,

Pahoran

Okay. I do understand what you're saying, and I don't even disagree with you, that it's true for some or even many, perhaps. It is still not true for all, IMHO.

Do you think it's impossible to leave the LDS Church for principled reasons? Or is that just completely out of the realm of possibility (in your opinion)?

[volgadon]

This thread can probably be summed up by the slogan "bigger is better."

[Palerider]

Okay. I do understand what you're saying, and I don't even disagree with you, that it's true for some or even many, perhaps. It is still not true for all, IMHO.

Do you think it's impossible to leave the LDS Church for principled reasons? Or is that just completely out of the realm of possibility (in your opinion)?

Excellent question Libs

[Jeff K.]

Okay. I do understand what you're saying, and I don't even disagree with you, that it's true for some or even many, perhaps. It is still not true for all, IMHO.

Do you think it's impossible to leave the LDS Church for principled reasons? Or is that just completely out of the realm of possibility (in your opinion)?

A failure of testimony or the adoption of a different or distinct church because they felt it offered more for their salvation, those to me are principled reasons to leave. They are not egocentric and fall into a different level of understanding and perspective. But those who have left the church for such reasons rarely have harsh words for the church they once belonged to. I note this because of how I left my previous faith and converted to becoming LDS. I hold no ill will, no grudge, no anger towards the church I once belonged to. Nor would I disdain the church or its good works. I celebrate their victories in helping people overcome the adversary and understand they are doing the best they can. I don't go and challenge their legitimacy in their apologetics forums. If I did those things, one would and should question my principles in leaving that other church. I would hold the same standard for those who claim prinicpled reasons when leaving this church.

[Questing Beast]

There are many things that exceed the imagination, however they are still useful to us and we use them within specific guidelines to be of service to us. Numbers are infinite and yet broken down in small bits they serve a purpose in helping us understand the infinite, so to is it with the gospel. It appears to me that your position is more akin to wanting to know it all now and thus rejecting the numbers broken down for us for a more "imaginative" position while overlooking exactly why the tools are provided, line upon line and precept upon precept. You haven't learned to walk but you think you can run?

"Run Forest! Run!" And he did, and the leg braces came apart and flew off.

I don't have a problem with being finite and "stuck" in the moment. I do have a problem with "study it out in your mind", and finding all manner of conflicting facts held in evidence, and no way to separate the "truth" from it all. And on the one hand the Church tells me to contain myself to what "the Brethren" teach, and on the other hand I find that limiting in the extreme and frankly less than completely honest as an approach to gaining a "testimony"....

[Questing Beast]

"Widening" to the point where it vaguely dissipates, like fog on a sunny morning.

So far, you've told us that your concept of "God" -- even you have to put it in scare quotes:

• Doesn't require you to do anything;
• Doesn't require you to believe anything you can't feel absolutely safe about;
• Doesn't require you to do anything;
• Doesn't assert anything at all that can be tested or falsified;
• Doesn't require you to do anything.

Is there anything I've missed out?

Yes. My religion doesn't permit rhetorical quips to put another person down.

I realise that, like small-minded people everywhere, you assume that whatever you believe "must be" self-evidently obvious to everyone else.

But it is not.

Accepting that fact -- not merely at an intellectual level, but actually -- is the beginning of wisdom.

Real wisdom speaks to the issue or topic, and never makes a judgment of what is unknown about the other person.

...However loudly you profess to despise your fellow anti-Mormons, when you resort to this ploy, you show yourself to be operating at the Ed Decker level.

Who in the *bleep* is Ed Decker? (and no I have not done a Web search)

... Why, if your "personal religion" requires "allowing everyone the freedom to believe as they choose," do you not allow believing Latter-day Saints to believe as Latter-day Saints? Why do you proselyte so vigorously -- contrary to your alleged principles -- to convince us that the founding events of the restoration didn't happen? Why the spiteful pleasure when you announce that it was "impossible" for them to have done so?

You perceive spite where there is none. And it is my "pleasure" to raise theological ideas, nothing more. I have never "not allowed" LDS people to believe what they want. "Impossible" is an assertion within a framework of facts held in evidence; many or most of which the "Brethren" either never speak to, or disparage as "not faith-promoting". I have found the additional study of such to be beneficial. All information is beneficial. Keeping information hidden away, out of some fear that it might unravel the carefully contrived construct, is fear-mongering.

Why the sanctimonious judgementalism when you maliciously misrepresent plural marriage as "adultery?"

Because that is what polyandry IS. Polygany (sic) is difficult enough to justify. Talking other men's wives into his bed was Joseph Smith's unjustifiable coercion.

Or is it that your "personal religion" is all about "allowing everyone the freedom to believe as they choose," unless they choose to believe the restored Gospel? Don't you see that your anti-Mormon propagandising is itself a form of "censorship or fear-mongering?"

You are using those descriptive terms inaccurately. Open discussion is the opposite of censorship. And debating facts and issues is also the exact opposite of "fear-mongering". "Propaganda" is a cheapened word, because many throw it at the opposition as part of the "anti" rhetorical salvo. Calling anyone who disagrees with your testimony an "anti-Mormon" is a form of bigotry and resorting to dismissal by broad-brushing. It is designed to control or even shut down open discussion. You attempt to drive this kind of openness away by resorting to scorn, ridicule and mockery: a blatant form of fear-mongering, hoping that fear of being made to look the fool will make it (me) go away.

So your rather idle thoughts are nothing less than "the Cause of it." You've discovered solipsism, and think you're the first one.

...

You've shown that you can't possibly know what another person thinks, yet you judge as if you do....

[mfbukowski]

Any faith founded on fixed (dogmatic) concepts - especially those dependent on an empirical component, e.g. "the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion" - is vulnerable to attack from new information. Anything that asserts to be fixed in place - because "God is an unchangeable being" - is up against current scientific knowledge and future discoveries. When the dogma is shown clearly to be in error: to be asserted upon a false paradigm: then how can faith continue when belief is no longer there?

To me, this is a very childish view of religion.

It's like saying because there is no Santa Claus, we should no longer celebrate giving and generosity or allow the principle to enrich our lives and give them meaning. Yet somehow we ignore that annually and continue to give presents at Christmas.

It also implicitly assumes that religious ideas somehow can conflict with science, when they have nothing to do with science. Religion gives our life meaning; scientific data, though interesting, does not.

I cannot conceive that anyone's life changed one iota when Pluto was declared no longer a planet, but Joseph Smith's revelations have altered the lives of millions.

Apples and oranges!

[mfbukowski]

What remained is what I hold: a theology that cannot be attacked by anything; science, religion, philosophies of men or other people's logic. What I hold is a one-on-one connection to "God", the Necessary Cause of all Existence; in fact "God = Existence in the First Place" (a clumsy string of words for an infinite concept, I know).

You need to read some Hume. He is critical of that view. His discussion is only about 400 years old.

This is as good a source as any.

This guy has his own bizzaro theory, but he explains Hume very well imo.

[thesometimesaint]

mfbukowski:

"I cannot conceive that anyone's life changed one iota when Pluto was declared no longer a planet, but Joseph Smith's revelations have altered the lives of millions.".

As a real live honest to goodness scientist, and trying to be Saint. I wholeheartedly agree.

[mfbukowski]

Rivers:

Not necessarily. There is no way to falsify feelings of someone else. IE. You tell me that your mother loves you. I can only accept your statement as true.

I agree with the first part, but I would phrase it differently. Statements about another's subjective internal states are non-falsifiable in most cases. For example if someone was telling you that his leg was in terrible pain while he was dancing the jig without flinching, it would be a good bet he was lying.

And I think that the statement "My mother loves me" is definitely falsifiable, if you also know that she ultimately murdered the person who said that.

But I think that it is true that statements about our personal, subjective, internal states are generally non-falsifiable, if that is what you meant!

It would be difficult to falsify "I love my mother" unless you were also displaying behaviors which indicated otherwise.

[mfbukowski]

You really must stop proselyting for the standard RfM apostasy narrative.

Interesting. What's RfM?

[Questing Beast]

A vague opacity which provides nothing in nourishment, spiritual or otherwise. It isn't double speak. You can believe in nothing by stating something so vague that it becomes nothing of consequence. Which is what you have done. "God is everything" and therefore He becomes an it, and therefore really isn't worth mentioning since God cannot be comprehended.

"He" is an anthropomorphic concept. It is finite and therefore FAR short of "that of which no greater can possibly be conceived". How is that "vague opacity"? It opens the mind to everything being possible. How is everything "nothing of consequence"?

And the scriptures clearly state (at least the Bible does) that God is incomprehensible; his ways and thoughts are not man's way and thoughts; and are in fact as far above our perceptive gifts as the heavens (infinity) are above the earth, etc.

I can see the pattern well enough to know. You presume that somehow a pattern or template is irrelevant to the path you are taking, but it is almost like a map, and it follows the same course it has for so many others leading to the same eventual conclusion. Not that one minds, after all apostates and sophistry among apostates are a dime a dozen. I note how apostates who have followed the map are telling you that you have not yet reached the end of the pattern you create for yourself. Someone who has been there would know the conclusion of your route.

Your blunder continues to manifest: you relegate human behavior to a template, or map or route. And this definition is entirely of your personal devising. I don't listen to apostates AS such.

...your view is backwards since knowledge comes after faith, however you want knowledge before faith and "intellectualize" your faith, as if you believe that somehow having proofs or not is sufficient for faith. You do indeed have it backwards.

As a child just beginning to observe the world surrounding you, which came first, the concept of faith, or knowledge? Which did you use first, faith or intellect? I never yet heard of a baby that had to have faith in order to begin learning. To turn this bassendackwards is evidence of a high degree of indoctrination: you'll accept "on faith" what you are told is the truth, facts be damned, evidence be swept aside, before you'll exercise your own intellect to possibly arrive at a different conclusion. Faith in an incorrect interpretation of facts isn't a benefit it is a dangerous thing.

You seek the truth, but you do so to the rejection of faith, which is in itself unsupportable since faith exists on truth. You seek to make God vague, or some stange manner of man without a body when you say he is "everything". I would respond to you as John does

[thesometimesaint]

QB:

My Bible has it as

John 17:3

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent".

[Questing Beast]

Questing Beast, on 27 February 2011 - 01:53 PM, said: Any faith founded on fixed (dogmatic) concepts - especially those dependent on an empirical component, e.g. "the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion" - is vulnerable to attack from new information. Anything that asserts to be fixed in place - because "God is an unchangeable being" - is up against current scientific knowledge and future discoveries. When the dogma is shown clearly to be in error: to be asserted upon a false paradigm: then how can faith continue when belief is no longer there?

To me, this is a very childish view of religion.

It's like saying because there is no Santa Claus, we should no longer celebrate giving and generosity or allow the principle to enrich our lives and give them meaning. Yet somehow we ignore that annually and continue to give presents at Christmas.

It also implicitly assumes that religious ideas somehow can conflict with science, when they have nothing to do with science. Religion gives our life meaning; scientific data, though interesting, does not.

I cannot conceive that anyone's life changed one iota when Pluto was declared no longer a planet, but Joseph Smith's revelations have altered the lives of millions.

Apples and oranges!

And you mix them very vigorously yourself. I cal the result "appleange juice". We continue to practice playing Santa Claus after belief in him is dead. In fact, I always told my children, "I don't know", when they asked if there is a Santa Claus. I still do. Because I DON'T KNOW, and neither do you.

But some things transcend the concept of Santa Claus. And the prime concept is our concept for "God".

Mormonism, as clearly stated in that Midgley article I read that Pahoran linked to, is singularly dependent on historicity. Other religions, not nearly so much. Mormonism is therefore empirically founded, not just metaphysically. It is this special feature of the religion that tempts me to indiscretions such as discussing the facts held in evidence on this forum.

Science is the means by which we explore the meaning of our existence empirically. Religion explores it metaphysically. But Mormonism intermingles the two in a way that other religions do not.

And finally, in response to your first assertion: I have it on good authority, that children inherit the kingdom of God. Only childlike people go there. (you may now expound on the so-called differences between "childish" and "childlike"....)

[Questing Beast]

Interesting. What's RfM?

"Recovery from Mormonism" forum, iirc. I think I was banned from that one several years ago, when, under this same moniker, I argued for the Mountain Meadows Massacre being "understandable": it degenerated into a counterattack that I was a mopologist and just as evil as the perps of the MMM because I was justifying their mass murder. No matter how hard I tried to show that cause and effect led up to the MMM - i.e. blame on both sides - the antis waxed ever more shrill and incoherent. Then I returned to the fray one morning and found myself locked out. Contacting the forum "boss" elicited some sympathy and the assertion that "I don't want you banned". But I was never allowed to rejoin. Interesting forum, with Tal Bachman and Steve Benson as resident "celebrities" among others....

[Questing Beast]

QB:

My Bible has it as

John 17:3

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent".

That is of course a strictly Christian dogmatic statement. Taken alone it excludes EVERY OTHER person on the planet; which I simply cannot accept, as my experience and observation tells me that non religious persons are quite as reliable, honest and moral as religious ones, of any stripe whatsoever....

[Jeff K.]

"Run Forest! Run!" And he did, and the leg braces came apart and flew off.

I don't have a problem with being finite and "stuck" in the moment. I do have a problem with "study it out in your mind", and finding all manner of conflicting facts held in evidence, and no way to separate the "truth" from it all. And on the one hand the Church tells me to contain myself to what "the Brethren" teach, and on the other hand I find that limiting in the extreme and frankly less than completely honest as an approach to gaining a "testimony"....

The trouble is you havent' found conflicting facts, what you have are conflicting interpretations which you choose to call facts. It is somewhat comical that you pull on the Forrest Gump analogy since you can't see the trees because you are too busy attempting to build a forest.

Jeff K., on 01 March 2011 - 01:10 PM, said:

A vague opacity which provides nothing in nourishment, spiritual or otherwise. It isn't double speak. You can believe in nothing by stating something so vague that it becomes nothing of consequence. Which is what you have done. "God is everything" and therefore He becomes an it, and therefore really isn't worth mentioning since God cannot be comprehended.

"He" is an anthropomorphic concept. It is finite and therefore FAR short of "that of which no greater can possibly be conceived". How is that "vague opacity"? It opens the mind to everything being possible. How is everything "nothing of consequence"?

And the scriptures clearly state (at least the Bible does) that God is incomprehensible; his ways and thoughts are not man's way and thoughts; and are in fact as far above our perceptive gifts as the heavens (infinity) are above the earth, etc

.

No, the more accurate statement you should have used is that "YOU" call him an anthropomorphic concept, not that by virtue of the facts He is one. But then reality may indeed also be merely a antropomorphic concept in your vague "intellectualized" world. You open your mind enough and you can fill it with all kinds of garbage. In your case we can use it as another concept, "garbage in and garbage out". You presume that what you think you know and judge to be finite must by definition be finite since you cannot concieve of being wrong when you judge something to be finite. The arrogance is reflective of your continued "intellectualized" situation. You haven't intellectualied anything since intellect is not involved in your case, merely the hubris of ego judging something to be limited when you cannot prove or know God to be such in the LDS concept. Your judgement is more a condemnation upon you than the theology of the Mormon church.

[Jeff K.]

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I can see the pattern well enough to know. You presume that somehow a pattern or template is irrelevant to the path you are taking, but it is almost like a map, and it follows the same course it has for so many others leading to the same eventual conclusion. Not that one minds, after all apostates and sophistry among apostates are a dime a dozen. I note how apostates who have followed the map are telling you that you have not yet reached the end of the pattern you create for yourself. Someone who has been there would know the conclusion of your route.

Your blunder continues to manifest: you relegate human behavior to a template, or map or route. And this definition is entirely of your personal devising. I don't listen to apostates AS such.

You fall back on insults presuming I have blundered because you have fallen? How comical. The fact is that apostates (those who have left the church) recognized your pattern and encouraged you down its little rabbit hole. And you say others have blundered?!? You apparently are overlooking the obvious. Did or did not someone who has left the church claim they followed your same path and encouraged you to go further in preparation to leaving the church?

The answer will be telling.

[Jeff K.]

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...your view is backwards since knowledge comes after faith, however you want knowledge before faith and "intellectualize" your faith, as if you believe that somehow having proofs or not is sufficient for faith. You do indeed have it backwards

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As a child just beginning to observe the world surrounding you, which came first, the concept of faith, or knowledge? Which did you use first, faith or intellect? I never yet heard of a baby that had to have faith in order to begin learning. To turn this bassendackwards is evidence of a high degree of indoctrination: you'll accept "on faith" what you are told is the truth, facts be damned, evidence be swept aside, before you'll exercise your own intellect to possibly arrive at a different conclusion. Faith in an incorrect interpretation of facts isn't a benefit it is a dangerous thing.

Children have great faith, they can neither see nor hear but derive the greatest comforts in what they cannot see or hear, but instinctively a mothers touch and voice will calm the child and give it reassurance. To be held and kept warm gives the child rest. I presume you believe those attributes to be intellectual when in fact they are supreme acts of faith in something they cannot intellectually explain to themselves, something they cannot articulate and yet find comfort in.

You have so talked yourself into such a corner that you reject the very faith that defines our humanity. It is a shame really. You seem utterly lost to what is important.

[Jeff K.]

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You seek the truth, but you do so to the rejection of faith, which is in itself unsupportable since faith exists on truth. You seek to make God vague, or some stange manner of man without a body when you say he is "everything". I would respond to you as John does