Why Can'T We Talk About This Topic?

[TAO]

Seriously, though, I'm not sure about "could". Seems like if we "could" we "would". But, I could be wrong. I think we sin out of ignorance, which is why I called perfection "perfect knowledge". I think, if we had perfect knowledge of the way things work and what sin really is and does in our lives, we wouldn't sin.. Somehow Jesus gained that perfect knowledge, before he even came here. Whether it was in the pre-existence or past lives, I really don't know, but he did somehow gain that perfect knowledge.

My friend... Satan sinned under perfect knowledge... we do not sin out of ignorance completely (though it does make a percentage of it)... we also sin out of choice... and that is a dangerous form of sin. If you sin out of choice, knowing the consequences and reasons of why God views something that way, it is a much greater punishment... if the ignorant even get punished at all (not so sure, perhaps on some things like murder).

It is important for us, though, when we know the right, to do the right, that way righteous consequences will follow. Do what is right, in spirit and might =D.

Best Wishes,

TAO

[Ron Beron]

Some further thoughts...

To ask if God was acting morally in the OT is to question how ancient man saw God. Rather than defining God by inward thinking of good and evil he saw the gods or God in a exterior relationship with man. In fact, early man had little interest in knowing how God thought only how God acted in his benefit. J.Bottero states In “Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia”., “...our insistence on isolated propositions somewhat deadens, in fact deforms, the thought of those people who had neither the need for logic nor our demands for clarity.”

Therefore, the question was not whether God acted justly, but did he administer justice for those on Earth? In other words what has God done for me? In Job we are confronted with this conundrum. Job is a good man, but God agrees to the adversary to his torture. What was God’s motivation? Job didn’t consider it. He only saw the exterior results around him. Had he sinned? Disobeyed God in some way? It didn’t matter: ““Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return there. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. May the name of the Lord be blessed!” In all this Job did not sin, nor did he charge God with moral impropriety.”

And finally he acknowledges God with “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,

and that as the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God”

Did God act in anger or was he unjust? Job never answer this, but to admit that life is unfair, but in the end we will know that God lives, He is our redeemer and we will see Him face to face.

God or the gods were praised for their power and strength, I Chronicles 16, but not for their goodness. Except for a few scriptures such as 2 Chronicles 30:18:

“The majority of the many people from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun were ceremonially unclean, yet they ate the Passover in violation of what is prescribed in the law. For Hezekiah prayed for them, saying: “May the Lord, who is good, forgive.”

and Psalms 136:1 :

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his loyal love endures.”

God was seen as possessing strength, power and majesty.

In 1 Chronicles 16:4-7 Asaph is chosen to give thanks to God in which he sees God initially in Psalms 72 where good is simply the absence of pin and suffering, but in the end he can delare that , “Certainly God is good to Israel, and to those whose motives are pure!” God is good to those who serve Him: Verse 28 , “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Thy works.”

Man wasn’t interested in God’s inner motivation only his outward demonstrations.

“For Yahweh the standard is the Yahweh own character, therefore making it impossible for him to do evil_good is defined by what he does.”

Finally evil itself was not the purview of God, but of demons. God himself was interested only that human act towards each other in a just manner as long as they maintained their cultic devotions to God and maintained a social order. Amongst themselves the Heavenly Council could act in any manner they felt justified.

.

[LeSellers]

I think we sin out of ignorance, which is why I called perfection "perfect knowledge".

When we break a law through (or while in) ignorance, it is not "sin". It is a transgression. Sin is, by defintion, the wilfull breaking of the law. The effect might be the same, as when a child kills his brother by pulling the trigger on the rifle their father had left unattended, but this is not murder, and it's not a sin. If their still older brother purposefully seeks out the rifle, loads it, and then kills the brother, that is a sin: he knows better.

If I, fully believing it, tell you that the moon is made of green cheese or the sun is a ball of literal fire, one hundred miles across, it is not a lie. Both are absolutely incorrect, but I have not lied, nor have I sinned. Were I a modern astronomer and told you these things, they would be lies, and I would be sinning (absent some mitigating factor).

Sin is well beyond a simple break-the-law issue.

Lehi

[Loran Blood]

The challenge, again, is why God shouldn't have challenged it. The consequence before death entered the world are described in the chapter in a manner that would have minimized a lot of suffering. So why not do it? Because God would cease to be God? Why is this the right reason to not stop the plan as presented in the chapter?

1. Upon what basis should the minimization of x amount of suffering be the central, overriding principle of existence and of God's relationship to his children?

2. Upon what basis should God utilize his omnipotent power to override, negate, or circumvent the suffering inherent in the mortal experience necessary to the growth and progression of his children (and especially the suffering caused primarily by sin, or the unnecessary, but cause and effect based (and hence, meaning based) suffering attendant to transgression of God's commandments and counsel)?

3. Logically, for God to "break the cycle" of preexistence-mortality-post-mortality, the answer would clearly be for God to have never initiated the cycle, which could mean either having removed the Fall from the plan of salvation entirely, or to have not created human beings at all, thus obviating the need for a "plan of salvation" at the outset, and of thus preventing all suffering by preventing the existence of sentient, self aware beings capable of experiencing such suffering.

Again, as to the position I've taken elsewhere on this issue, so long as the sole focus is on God's omnipotence, and not on the requirements of the plan of salvation for us (which involves the lawful use of God's power in relation to his children), the philosophical problem of evil and suffering can continue to pose as a severe philosophical problem relating to God's existence.

For LDS theology, however, since the mortal experience is, in point of fact, designed to provide those experiences that, successfully negotiated, will provide the basis for our becoming like God himself is (omnipotent, omniscient etc.) the plan of salvation itself, not God's omnipotence, becomes the focus of the "problem" of evil and suffering, which, with a working understanding of the doctrines of the restored gospel, becomes, not the problem of evil, but our problem with evil as an inherent aspect of this particular phase of our eternal progression.

Opposition to the process of becoming like God, as the Book of Mormon makes clear, is itself an inherent aspect of that process, the absence of which would negate the process, and hence obviate the the entire plan itself. Obviation of the plan would prevent countless instances of moral suffering, to be sure, but would also render the purpose of mortality and God's overall desire in allowing and ordaining it ("to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man") inoperative. Without a plan of salvation, in other words, there can be no salvation at all. A lawful, systemic, ordered plan of salvation (which God's arbitrary use of his power to negate would also, by that very fact, negate the possibility of salvation proper) is required for such a process to go forward. As Brigham Young mentioned:

He is a God of system, order, law, , science, and art; a God of knowledge and of power.

Notice that he is a God of power, but also of system, order, and law.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Loran Blood]

DaddyG has posited that God can not break the law that you speak of - he is perfect and somehow is immune. He implied in his comment that it simply isn't possible for God to act in another way. I would argue this violates the very premise that Alma 42 presents. Verse 22 - "But there is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance, mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature and executeth the law, and the law inflicteth the punishment; if not so, the works of justice would be destroyed, and God would cease to be God."

In other words, the idea that DaddyG presented should also cause God to cease to be God. If there is no law without a punishment affixed for God, then ultimately following through we still end up with God ceasing to be God.

I contend that Alma 42 shows that God the Father could have broken a bad cycle Himself. I'm not saying this is reality, given my own beliefs on the matter. But if one is to take the BoM seriously, one should really consider the logic of this chapter.

What you had to say, while consistent TAO, still does not explain why God could not have broken the cycle by allowing mercy to rob justice or why death was really necessary. The chapter merely tells us it was expedient for the plan of happiness.

I think perhaps you are confusing the question of what the natural and inherent consequences of God's breaking of eternal laws would be, were he to break them (the necessary consequences of such action) with the percentage chance of his actuallly breaking any one of them, which, according to the revelations, is precisely zero.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

In another thread, a poster was banned from the thread for stating a common philosophical problem - if God commits genocide, should we classify him as evil and reject him? His answer was yes, we should reject God for doing so.

Is this a topic that MDD does not allow?

H.

I think there was a misunderstanding that God was being compared to these men. BCSpace said it best. My comment would be to add; if life does not end, then God has taken no life…he has just changed the conditions of it. When we all wake from this dream or nightmare (depending on ones view), we shall all see clearly, as it stands right now to use the words of Paul; “we see through a glass darkly”.

Chris see injustice and it harms his soul…a good one.

[Chris Smith]

My comment would be to add; if life does not end, then God has taken no life…he has just changed the conditions of it.

So it's OK for me to murder someone, because they'll remain alive in the afterlife? After all, the afterlife is no less available to my victims than to God's. So why is killing OK for God, but not me?

[TAO]

So it's OK for me to murder someone, because they'll remain alive in the afterlife? After all, the afterlife is no less available to my victims than to God's. So why is killing OK for God, but not me?

Because we believe God can see what is best for them, whereas we cannot.

[asbestosman]

So it's OK for me to murder someone, because they'll remain alive in the afterlife? After all, the afterlife is no less available to my victims than to God's. So why is killing OK for God, but not me?

Here I think we get to the crux of the problem. I think most would be fine with bcspace's idea of God taking life if He does it Himself. Where we mortals have issues is when God commands others to do the killing for Him. Why is it an issue? For the simple reason that God's name is frequently misused to justify killing. Murder being the horrible thing it is, most of us would rather say that killing is not justified simply because you believe that God gave told you to do it. If we all knew with certainty that God really commanded people to kill, and we really knew that God was trustworthy, then we might not be as terrified about it--well, other than the fact that killing should be repugnant in and of itself. Even Nephi, man of faith that he was, was hesitant to kill Laban.

Some, of course, simply view killing other humans as always wrong. Others believe it is wrong unless there is a immediate danger of other innocent lives. In many of those views, God either would not command man to kill man, or such a god would be by definition evil and not worth obeying. In any case, if death is permitted, it is a matter requiring the utmost attention to details and consequences. Not too many of us would like to have our deaths decided by others.

[Deborah]

So it's OK for me to murder someone, because they'll remain alive in the afterlife? After all, the afterlife is no less available to my victims than to God's. So why is killing OK for God, but not me?

Because you don't know what is in a man's heart. Plus you then compromise your own position in the afterlife.

[KevinG]

I think perhaps you are confusing the question of what the natural and inherent consequences of God's breaking of eternal laws would be, were he to break them (the necessary consequences of such action) with the percentage chance of his actuallly breaking any one of them, which, according to the revelations, is precisely zero.

Thank you for stating this simply in a way I was struggling to express.

[Honorentheos]

The straight forward reading of this verse is the one I explained and I am a greater authority on my belief system than you could ever be. Given that the other posters and I have given you scriptural context and our own views of OUR OWN DOCTRINES.

The critical piece of your statement, DaddyG, is your shout out acknowledging it is your own doctrine.

You never did provide a scriptural refutal of the straight-forward reading of Alma 42. Justice is greater than God per that chapter. There is no equivocating in it's interpretation. You may not like what it has to say and can come up with plenty of opinion on why it is wrong. But it is taken directly from the most correct book. When the Book of DaddyG gets billed as the most correct book on earth, I'll take your opinion to be more authoritative. Until then, please be so kind as to clarify your point with scripture backing. The "somewhere in D&C 93" reference could use a specific verse if you please. Otherwise, I am seeing it as only applying from within the context that justice has a hold on the world and only through redemption can it's hold be broken. It says nothing about the state of things prior to.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Honorentheos

[Honorentheos]

A simple argument against Divine approval of genocide is - a people who are willing to accept that their God approves of genocide will, by defense of that same deity, accept genocide on some circumstance or other. And once one cracks the door to let the camel get his nose in the tent...well, you know the story.

Killing is killing. And last I checked, it's far worse than drinking a coffee or making out on a date.

When I see someone defending the God of the Old Testament, while I do not believe in that God myself, I believe absolutely in that person's belief in that God. And I don't see a divine soul in that person when they make that argument.

[Loran Blood]

A simple argument against Divine approval of genocide is - a people who are willing to accept that their God approves of genocide will, by defense of that same deity, accept genocide on some circumstance or other. And once one cracks the door to let the camel get his nose in the tent...well, you know the story.

Yes, but the most egregious killing in all of human history never occurred under the auspices of religion, but under the sway of the great secularist counter-religious ideologies of the 20th century. But besides this, your argument, logically speaking, is not particularly compelling. There is no particular reason to believe that a person who accepts the taking of life by God, who is understood to have both the authority and foresight to do so righteously, would then be necessarily lead to accept genocide by and through purely human agencies and for reasons covered neither by God's omniscience nor his authority to give and take life as "God."

Killing is killing.

Why is this a meaningful statement? Is all killing "murder?" Is all killing of the same moral quality? If God exists, does not his omniscience and knowledge of the beginning from the end, as well as of each individual's innermost desires, motives, and intentions, place his taking of human life countless orders of magnitude above human being's taking life with infinitely less comprehension of the consequences and effects?

Edited July 12, 2011 by Loran Blood

[bluebell]

So it's OK for me to murder someone, because they'll remain alive in the afterlife? After all, the afterlife is no less available to my victims than to God's. So why is killing OK for God, but not me?

God has the authority to do what He wants with His creation. You don't have the authority to do what you want with His creation. If life comes from God, then it's God's to control. Someone who murders usurps authority that isn't theirs to weild.

I think that's a pretty significant difference which makes it impossible to compare a mortal's choice to end someone's life with God's choice to end someone's life.

[Honorentheos]

Yes, but the most egregious killing in all of human history never occurred under the auspices of religion, but under the sway of the great secularist counter-religious ideologies of the 20th century.

I find this to be an interesting argument. To be sure, the genocide of the Jews in the mid-20th century for example, was initiated by what can be called a secular nationalist ideology. But anti-religious? That is not so clear. In point of fact, the issue is one of ideology and if, under any guise, one's ideology allows for genocide then there is a crack that allows it to happen. Whether Hitler could have vilified the Jews without the Christian vilification or the church-inspired pogroms of the centuries before that fed it is another question that could be brought up.

One could also argue that the genocides that ended the last century had a veneer of religious motivation, as in the Serb genocide of the Bosnian Muslims. One of my most shameful moments while serving a missions was sitting in the home of a woman who had escaped. She told us of only being able to get past the soldiers because she knew the words to the Lord's prayer. It was hard to look a woman in the eye who had been through that and tell her we were there to share a message about Christ that countered this when her experience of Christianity was at the end of a bayonet. She refused to meet with us after reading the first chapters of the BoM. I believe she probably read about Laban.

So, the point my friend, is again how one's ideology creates the rationalizations that can lead to these actions. Notice how you start to differentiate between killing in your post? Like there is a line? Yet your own prophets tell you to avoid making out because the line between appropriate sexual exploration and sin is easily crossed.

Drawing a line is part of the problem. Plain and simple.

Killing is killing, Loran Blood. It may at times be justified. But it's never right.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Honorentheos

[bluebell]

It may at times be justified. But it's never right.

Why is it 'never right'?

[Honorentheos]

Why is it 'never right'?

If you have a chance to talk with a military vet who has killed someone in combat, I'd suggest taking the time to find out how they feel about killing. Honestly feel, deep in their souls. The only soldiers I ever knew who were ok with killing were...lost? It's hard to describe.

I stand by my statement on those grounds. It may be justified and necessary at times. But never right in the sense of being good.

[bluebell]

It may be justified and necessary at times. But never right in the sense of being good.

Something being 'good' and something being 'right' are two very different things.

Your statement makes more sense when you say it's 'never good' but doesn't make any sense when you say it's 'never right'.

If something is justified then it seems by definition that it is 'right'.

[Loran Blood]

I find this to be an interesting argument. To be sure, the genocide of the Jews in the mid-20th century for example, was initiated by what can be called a secular nationalist ideology. But anti-religious? That is not so clear.

National Socialism was, of course, deeply anti-Christian, just as it was deeply antisemitic, and its god was both the state and the "fuhrer." National Socialism has been understood as a militant pagan religion hostile to the Judeo-Christian tradition, but not to the religious impulse in human beings per se. The 25 point Nazi party platform of 1920 mentions religious denominations as being acceptable to the Nazi state so long as " they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race." So yes, I would say this was a secular religion that was at the same time a counter-religion to those of the traditional Judeo-Christian form.

My larger point, however, was the effects of internationalist socialism, not Nazism per se, who's killing of the politically incorrect is historically dwarfed by the virtually unfathomable record of murder and democide now attached to socialism/communism.

Mao alone now accounts for upwards of 70 million of those sacrificed to the militant secular gnosis of socialism, a religion to be sure, and a religious experience for many of its more fanatical adherents, but also at the same time clearly and unequivocally atheistic in core assumption.

The point is that the crimes of political fanaticism, and the means-justifies-the-ends philosophy that lies at the root of its utterly secularized and moral relativist metaphysical view of the universe and the nature of the human condition are a yawning chasm containing the bodies of well over 100,000,000 human beings, dwarfing all the previous wars and killings of known human history.

The point is that the epistemic and moral core of such conduct is precisely the flight from God in the 20th century, in which man takes upon himself the imperatives and authority formerly ascribed to God (the right to give and take life; to decide who lives and who must be sacrificed, and in what numbers), whereas, within the gospel, only God has the intelligence and innate authority to make such decisions. In this view, he can delegate that authority, in a limited capacity, to humans on earth, both in formal (prophet/warriors leading a people in just war) or informal (justifiable, self defense grounded homicide; the justifiable use of violence for the defense of one's body, life, the bodies and lives of others, and one's property) capacities. But he must delegate in some sense; in some way bring violence, either on an individual or organized scale, within the moral/ethical sphere of gospel law and its concept of "justice."

Moral presumption of the kind that says "if God can do it, I (we) can do it too) is not a part of this gospel oriented view, as what God can legitimately do as God offers no necessary or clear justification for a simplistic presumptive imitation of God's activities in giving, taking, or determining the course of life for an individual or a people. That is out of our preview. When man deifies himself (the great totalitarian collectivist ideologies), that purview is transferred from God to man, who now takes God's place as ultimate judge of each human soul, or a number of them as classes.

In point of fact, the issue is one of ideology and if, under any guise, one's ideology allows for genocide then there is a crack that allows it to happen.

Fortunately, the Church has no ideology, and is not an ideological system. Equally fortunate, is the fact that, in either an OT or general gospel sense, the gospel allows God to eliminate entire people's he considers "ripe" from the mortal scene, but in no way allows us to conduct ourselves in like manner, simply because this is understood to be something that God does as God.

We, on the other hand, as mortal humans, have no "crack" to crawl through here, and certainly no logically necessary one. That apostate versions of the gospel at times made this leap is no crack in the legitimacy of the restored gospel, or the OT, within which God makes such decisions involving life and/or death among his children here on earth, the only variation being whether he carries out the removing of a people himself, or allows/requires mortal intermediaries to do so as a matter of their own efforts.

Whether Hitler could have vilified the Jews without the Christian vilification or the church-inspired pogroms of the centuries before that fed it is another question that could be brought up.

Marx, Lenin, Stalin, et al, Mao, Ho, Pot, Castro etc all vilified their own "politically incorrect" out-groups and class enemies based on ideological criteria quite independent of any such sociocultural dynamics that may or may not have affected the Nazi mentality. The well documented Nazi hostility to traditional Christianity, however, would seem to militate against this interpretation.

One could also argue that the genocides that ended the last century had a veneer of religious motivation, as in the Serb genocide of the Bosnian Muslims.

Yes, a veneer, like the religious veneer of the Northern Ireland horrors of the last half of the 20th century. This is much more related, in my view, to in-group/out-group animosities that are primarily ethnic/nationalist/ideological/kinship based and which transcend religion, but inherently deploy already existing religious commitments on each respective side.

So, the point my friend, is again how one's ideology creates the rationalizations that can lead to these actions. Notice how you start to differentiate between killing in your post? Like there is a line?

First, I think you need to philosophically justify a claim that all killing is, by definition, morally equivalent.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Chris Smith]

Here I think we get to the crux of the problem. I think most would be fine with bcspace's idea of God taking life if He does it Himself. Where we mortals have issues is when God commands others to do the killing for Him. Why is it an issue? For the simple reason that God's name is frequently misused to justify killing. Murder being the horrible thing it is, most of us would rather say that killing is not justified simply because you believe that God gave told you to do it. If we all knew with certainty that God really commanded people to kill, and we really knew that God was trustworthy, then we might not be as terrified about it--well, other than the fact that killing should be repugnant in and of itself. Even Nephi, man of faith that he was, was hesitant to kill Laban.

Some, of course, simply view killing other humans as always wrong. Others believe it is wrong unless there is a immediate danger of other innocent lives. In many of those views, God either would not command man to kill man, or such a god would be by definition evil and not worth obeying. In any case, if death is permitted, it is a matter requiring the utmost attention to details and consequences. Not too many of us would like to have our deaths decided by others.

Well said.

Because you don't know what is in a man's heart. Plus you then compromise your own position in the afterlife.

So it's okay to mass-murder men, women, and children as long as there are bad things in their hearts and no one has the power to punish you for your actions?

God has the authority to do what He wants with His creation. You don't have the authority to do what you want with His creation. If life comes from God, then it's God's to control. Someone who murders usurps authority that isn't theirs to weild.

There are so many problems with this, it's hard to know where to begin. First, it is not Mormon doctrine that we were created by God. Ergo, he does not own us, to do with us as he pleases. Second, God supposedly respects our free will. God is so conscientious about non-interference with free will that he won't even stop natural disasters, but not conscientious enough to stop him from committing mass murder whenever he feels like it? Third, either this life matters, or it doesn't. Either human life on earth is something sacred to be protected, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways. It can't be one thing for one group of people, but the opposite for those who have power. That's called unrighteous dominion and a double standard.

[asbestosman]

God has the authority to do what He wants with His creation. You don't have the authority to do what you want with His creation. If life comes from God, then it's God's to control. Someone who murders usurps authority that isn't theirs to weild.

I think that's a pretty significant difference which makes it impossible to compare a mortal's choice to end someone's life with God's choice to end someone's life.

I sort of agree, but I don't think that's the whole picture. God may have created us, but did He create our will? Warning: that is a tricky question.

Furthermore honestly I'm not sure I believe that creating something gives one the right to cause it to suffer--at least needlessly. In other words, I'm not so sure that God derives His moral authority over us simply because He created us. I think God's moral authority comes from the fact that He is God. Mormonism teaches that God organized the world, but did not create the raw materials. Yet He still has authority over those raw materials even without having initially created them.

On the other hand, Paul does speak about God as the potter and us as the potter's clay with God making different vessels including vessels of wrath fit for destruction. That indeed does seem to indicate that God's moral authority over us is derived from His role as creator. But again, that runs into some problems when one considers in just what manner God created us or other things or indeed what we define as us? Perhaps at our core, it's about our will--our exercise of agency?

[Libs]

Here I think we get to the crux of the problem. I think most would be fine with bcspace's idea of God taking life if He does it Himself. Where we mortals have issues is when God commands others to do the killing for Him. Why is it an issue? For the simple reason that God's name is frequently misused to justify killing.

Exactly.

[Chris Smith]

Furthermore honestly I'm not sure I believe that creating something gives one the right to cause it to suffer--at least needlessly. In other words, I'm not so sure that God derives His moral authority over us simply because He created us.

Exactly. Suppose we create a sentient robot. Does that give us the right to kill it or make it suffer? Of course not. How a sentient being came into existence is irrelevant to the question of one's moral obligation toward it.

[TAO]

Exactly.

The problem with this is sometimes God does ask people to do such. Example being Nephi.

Thus, II worry less about who God ordered, more about defending myself, knowing that I will be let know if I am supposed to be doing anything different, no?