Question About El As The God Of The Exodus

[volgadon]

No, I meant any angels like that? Fabulous enough to make someone seeing them assert that they had "seen the face of God"? Only glorified, heavenly beings, not mortals who have gone through some "rite of passage". Jacob would not mistake a mere mortal for "the face of God"....

If you look, it says ish, a man, in verse 24.

[Questing Beast]

Of course it was a "man". Angels are men, and women. Only after encountering the "man" for a considerable period of time did Jacob accept that his antagonist was other-worldly. That's where the "muddle" creeps in, for Mormon doctrine: a physical man is a mortal man, period, before the advent of Christ. A "translated" man is still a mortal man without "glory", but Mormon doctrine came up with that slant, as far as I know, for I never hear of other Christians referring to translated beings as still walking the earth, as we say that John and the three Nephites are doing. On the Mount of Transfiguration, we had Jesus, Moses and "Elijah" being seen in their glory together, yet Moses and Elijah were still mortal, as they had not "tasted of death", yet were "translated" (transfigured) beings who had been "taken up"....

[Nevo]

The question is, who is the God of the Exodus tradition? Were El and Yahweh worshiped as two distinct deities?

I have to admit that I find critical biblical scholarship to be a lot more challenging to my faith than anything in Church history. The now widely accepted hypothesis that Yahweh was originally a local Canaanite deity from Edom who eventually displaced El, and who took on many of his characteristics as well as those of the storm god Baal (and others?) during his transformation into Israel's national God, seems to me to be utterly incompatible with LDS teachings.

[Hamilton Porter]

I have to admit that I find critical biblical scholarship to be a lot more challenging to my faith than anything in Church history. The now widely accepted hypothesis that Yahweh was originally a local Canaanite deity from Edom who eventually displaced El, and who took on many of his characteristics as well as those of the storm god Baal (and others?) during his transformation into Israel's national God, seems to me to be utterly incompatible with LDS teachings.

How so?

[Nevo]

How so?

According to LDS teaching, the gospel was preached "from the beginning, being declared by holy angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice, and by the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Moses 1:39). Since the time of Adam, God has called prophets and they have testified of Jesus Christ and taught his gospel. Prophets "make known God's will and true character." Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc., all knew and worshipped the same God(head). Indeed, they apparently even received all the same gospel ordinances (baptism, confirmation, Melchizedek priesthood ordination). Jehovah, in the LDS view, is none other than the premortal Jesus Christ, Creator and Lord over the whole earth.

Contrast this with the dominant scholarly view, where Israel's God (Yahweh) starts out as a tribal deity, the patron god of a group of Edomite and Midianite nomads, and later goes on to assume the characteristics of other Canaanite deities, especially El. As Mark Smith puts it, "at various points and under different circumstances Israelite religious centers based in the central highlands identified Yahweh, the god of the southern region, with their local main god, El. In identifying Yahweh secondarily with El, the priesthood at cultic sites of El, such as Shiloh, Shechem, and Jerusalem, melded the religious lore of Yahweh with the indigenous traditions about El (s.v. "El," Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, 385). According to Karel van der Toorn, El was already in decline when Yahweh arrived on the scene: "at the beginning of the Iron Age, El's role had become largely nominal . . . the cult of El survived in some border zones of the Near East. In most regions, however, including Palestine, El's career as a living god (i.e., as a cultic reality and an object of actual devotion) had ended." Originally conceived as a storm-god, Yahweh eventually assimilated various traits from El, including his great age, his compassion, his wisdom, and his status as a creator. He also inherited El's consort, Asherah. Yahweh was also paired at times with the goddess Anat (see van der Toorn, "Yahweh," Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 917-18; cf. John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, 17-24, 142-44).

I just don't see how such syncretism at the heart of Israel's religion—with Yahweh essentially being a fusion of South Semitic and West Semitic deities—can be reconciled to an LDS worldview. But I'm open to suggestions.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Nevo

[Robert F. Smith]

I would stick with your Egyptian name roots for a minute. Seeing as how there is/are no physical refernces to the Exodus from Egypt, at all, then the Egyptian roots for the names given are a key factor.

"no physical references to the Exodus from Egypt at all"? Internal to the text, or of a purely archeological nature? You lose on both counts.

For example, while Exodus claims there were 600,000 soldiers and their families who left Egypt, Egypt at the supposed time of the Exodus shows no signs of having lost half of its population. A column of 600,000 soldiers, marching ten abreast, would have formed a column 150 miles long, and then you have to include all the wives and children following after them. You could have seen such a column from space.

You are apparently unfamiliar with hyperbole as a rhetorical device found everywhere in ancient literature, even describing real events, e.g., every Pharaoh who had a battle described his conquest in formulaic and glorious terms -- even if he had won the battle and taken limited booty. We should be very surprised if we did not find exaggeration for effect in any such accounts.

There is the accompanying notion you seem to have that there was no Exodus, and no evidence to support it. I deal with that mistaken assumption in my “Moses Our Teacher (Moshe Rabbenu),” 2010, version 3, online at http://www.scribd.com/lighthorseharry/d/51104640-Moses-Our-Teacher-Moshe-Rabbenu .

So whether the God name is El or JHWH doesn't matter. The whole story is a myth.

Do you mean "myth" as pure fiction, or "myth" as received epic tradition? Scholars use the second definition.

[Robert F. Smith]

Share some of this clarity you assert about my understanding, or rather lack of it, of Mormon doctrine. I've lived my entire life in the Salt Lake valley, was BIC and raised by 100% active parents. I never "sinned" grievously or went through a teenage rebellion phase. I never missed a Sunday meeting except that I'd sometimes skip my SS class, and I positively loathed MIA, but never "sluffed" seminary (yeppers, we're all yokels around these here parts). You are almost in a category of One, in my life's experience, who repeatedly asserts that I know almost nothing about the doctrines of the LDS faith, or the scriptures, and that I "speak from a position of ignorance".

I quote you: "I am very consistent within my framework of mostly ignorance."

One important problem you have is that you speak without knowledge, and then immediately forget what blunder you have made.

I can't be "in thrall to the god of the philosophers" because I have never studied any philosophy. Nor am I ignorant of what the Bible "says". Perhaps you need to point to what I said that the Bible "says" that is incorrect instead of simply repeating that assertion without calling me on it specifically.

I have repeatedly falsified your sometime rigid and sometimes ridiculous claims about what the Bible says. You choose to ignore or forget that.

Most recently, I listed in a systematic way the claims you yourself were making and they are exactly the types of statements made by the Hellenistic philosophers and theologians who redefined God so as to be respectable within Platonism and Neo-Platonism. Your words declare your fealty to them, even though you don't realize it. And you don't realize it due to your lack of training in logic, critical thinking, and theology. LDS seminary doesn't prepare you for that, although you could certainly get the advanced training you need now -- if you wish.

Is it fair to call for a "CFR", to point to specific things that I have said that you find to be examples of this vast ignorance I am in the grip of? Just pick one, quote it verbatim and in context, then go to the scriptures, the prophets, the teachings otherwise of the Church's curriculum and show how mistaken I am.

You told me that I was not your teacher (even though I assigned an F for incoherence), and it has been clear on each occasion that you are not teachable on the content of the Bible or on proper exegesis. I thought that you simply enjoyed being ornery and anarchic, so gave up bothering to correct those errors -- because you make them only for effect -- and have thought that you are bedeviled mostly by shallow and erroneous assumptions about the biblical text which you have no intention of improving. A good example is your very narrow and rigid notion that Scripture is not an anthology by disparate authors doing their best to express God's will, but instead a unitary legal code with no exceptions. That is why you would automatically assume that there can be no embodied angels before the resurrection of Jesus. To me, such an assumption is just silly. And not from a Mormon point of view, but because if flies in the face of the Scriptural text, which I take to be normative.

In this specific context, of this thread, I have made several examples of how the doctrine of the LDS faith is "muddled" by what JS taught, subsequent to the BoM (and I'd add the 1832 First Vision account); the point being, by me, that the ensuing muddle requires that even presidents of the Church speculate in order to answer the muddle. Whereas the venerable religions of the Middle East do not have to do anything of the sort, since they never limited "God" to always being physically tabernacled, asserted that spirit beings cannot physically touch mortals, or divided "El" and "YHWH" into two separate people, etc....

Of course they speculate, and that recognition should be the beginning of wisdom for you: Rigid absolutes are not your friends. Get rid of your copy of Mormon Doctrine. Read more widely. Take courses at your local university (if you are still in SLC, take a course or two at the UofU from David Bokovoy, or from Robert Goldberg). Once you broaden your purview a bit, you'll realize just how narrow and rigid you have been.

My direct experience has been that Joseph Smith's teachings and the Scripture he promulgated are more coherent with the Bible than the Platonic and Neo-Platonic notions used by normative religion to interpret the Bible. Non-Momorn scholars reject the ridiculous consequences of believing such claptrap. Joe Smith takes us back to the original anthropomorphic context and meaning. Is he infallible and perfect in that endeavor. Of course not. Why would we assume such? You need to get real, Beast!

[Hamilton Porter]

According to LDS teaching, the gospel was preached "from the beginning, being declared by holy angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice, and by the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Moses 1:39). Since the time of Adam, God has called prophets and they have testified of Jesus Christ and taught his gospel. Prophets "make known God's will and true character." Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc., all knew and worshipped the same God(head). Indeed, they apparently even received all the same gospel ordinances (baptism, confirmation, Melchizedek priesthood ordination). Jehovah, in the LDS view, is none other than the premortal Jesus Christ, Creator and Lord over the whole earth.

Contrast this with the dominant scholarly view, where Israel's God (Yahweh) starts out as a tribal deity, the patron god of a group of Edomite and Midianite nomads, and later goes on to assume the characteristics of other Canaanite deities, especially El. As Mark Smith puts it, "at various points and under different circumstances Israelite religious centers based in the central highlands identified Yahweh, the god of the southern region, with their local main god, El. In identifying Yahweh secondarily with El, the priesthood at cultic sites of El, such as Shiloh, Shechem, and Jerusalem, melded the religious lore of Yahweh with the indigenous traditions about El (s.v. "El," Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, 385). According to Karel van der Toorn, El was already in decline when Yahweh arrived on the scene: "at the beginning of the Iron Age, El's role had become largely nominal . . . the cult of El survived in some border zones of the Near East. In most regions, however, including Palestine, El's career as a living god (i.e., as a cultic reality and an object of actual devotion) had ended." Originally conceived as a storm-god, Yahweh eventually assimilated various traits from El, including his great age, his compassion, his wisdom, and his status as a creator. He also inherited El's consort, Asherah. Yahweh was also paired at times with the goddess Anat (see van der Toorn, "Yahweh," Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 917-18; cf. John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, 17-24, 142-44).

I just don't see how such syncretism at the heart of Israel's religion—with Yahweh essentially being a fusion of South Semitic and West Semitic deities—can be reconciled to an LDS worldview. But I'm open to suggestions.

There is tension there, but I think the evolution of Biblical religion helps the LDS position more than it hurts. It cracked the stranglehold perceived monotheism and God as "wholly other" had on the Bible. We need to be humble as to what it means that Christianity was known known from the beginning.

[Vance]

Not possible, if by that you mean angels who are still aging naturally, yet somehow go back and forth between earth and "heaven". A translated being could do that, but the angel Jacob wrestled was amazing to Jacob, enough so that he declared he had "seen the face of God". Any mortals like that? Not that I know of....

And yet, the scriptures call John the Baptist an angel.

[Questing Beast]

I quote you: "I am very consistent within my framework of mostly ignorance."

I see a possible problem here. You are too literal. Perhaps you missed my assertion about myself (which I always also assert applies to every mortal on this planet): "I know practically nothing about almost everything."

One important problem you have is that you speak without knowledge, and then immediately forget what blunder you have made.

Malarkey. You did it again. Made a general criticism without citing a specific instance.

I have repeatedly falsified your sometime rigid and sometimes ridiculous claims about what the Bible says. You choose to ignore or forget that.

Most recently, I listed in a systematic way the claims you yourself were making and they are exactly the types of statements made by the Hellenistic philosophers and theologians who redefined God so as to be respectable within Platonism and Neo-Platonism.

Amazing. You are saying that I make "...exactly the types of statements made by the Hellenistic philosophers" et al. ancient religion makers. Fascinating and amazing, since this is truly one of those areas where I know practically nothing. If you are right, then I am "reinventing the wheel" of philosophy. Perhaps I have picked up more than I appreciate through some form of osmosis?

Your words declare your fealty to them, even though you don't realize it. And you don't realize it due to your lack of training in logic, critical thinking, and theology. LDS seminary doesn't prepare you for that, although you could certainly get the advanced training you need now -- if you wish.

My religious training was all, solely, LDS. As an adult I have extended religious studies to touch on the other religions, but mainly I have continued to focus on LDS studies. Of course I see divergences with other denominational interpretations with the Bible; what missionary missed that? And so it continues. I have no desire to study "the philosophers", any more than I have a desire or feel a need to study other religions. What I pick up "along the way" will signify further need for study, if there is anything there of value, i.e. necessary to my metaphysical knowledge or understanding.

You told me that I was not your teacher (even though I assigned an F for incoherence), and it has been clear on each occasion that you are not teachable on the content of the Bible or on proper exegesis. I thought that you simply enjoyed being ornery and anarchic, so gave up bothering to correct those errors -- because you make them only for effect -- and have thought that you are bedeviled mostly by shallow and erroneous assumptions about the biblical text which you have no intention of improving. A good example is your very narrow and rigid notion that Scripture is not an anthology by disparate authors doing their best to express God's will, but instead a unitary legal code with no exceptions.

Ah! a specific offered, at last. Hold that thought right there: WHERE have I ever said what you just asserted? To whit: that I hold an assumption that the biblical text is some kind of "unitary legal code" without multiple authors? Impossible for you to find, even if you go looking, because I have never held such a view of the Bible since childhood. The singlemost weakness of Bible literalists is asserting it to be "the complete and perfect word of God". Very few believers hold that rigid notion today, or I am very much mistaken. I have always accepted the multiple authorship over extended, even disconnected periods of time. In fact, so much do I hold this view that I promote reading of Finklestein and Silberman's book "The Bible Unearthed"

That is why you would automatically assume that there can be no embodied angels before the resurrection of Jesus. To me, such an assumption is just silly. And not from a Mormon point of view, but because if flies in the face of the Scriptural text, which I take to be normative.

This is odd. How can you, an LDS scholar, discount what the Bible says? The Bible must fit LDS doctrine/revelation or we have a huge problem with JS's claims. I don't, in fact, believe in "angels" at all. I believe in immortals, we are all immortals, some with temporary mortal bodies our minds are connected with, and many more (off world) with perfect bodies. So of course embodied "angels" (taken as such by the ignorance of the people seeing them) are always with us.

I point(ed) out JS's problematic assertions, that "angels" are not a separate kind of heavenly being but rather spirit children of GtF exactly like ourselves, that there was no resurrection before Christ, that preexistence did not include physical bodies, that only those who live on this earth minister to it, that unembodied angels will not reach to take an offered handshake because they will not deceive, ergo a physical angel wrestling with Jacob was impossible. It doesn't matter what the Bible says to the contrary, Mormon doctrine does not suit the ancient views of "God" and angels. That was the whole reason for my comments: "muddle" is what we must speculate to remove/address when interpreting what the Bible says using the "LDS system".

It now appears to be you who don't know or accept the doctrine and assertions of JS, because you take the biblical text to be "normative". Perhaps you'd do better in a different denomination than LDS?

Of course they speculate, and that recognition should be the beginning of wisdom for you: Rigid absolutes are not your friends. Get rid of your copy of Mormon Doctrine. Read more widely. Take courses at your local university (if you are still in SLC, take a course or two at the UofU from David Bokovoy, or from Robert Goldberg). Once you broaden your purview a bit, you'll realize just how narrow and rigid you have been.

Again, any "rigidity" you have perceived in me is mistaken. I am the polar opposite of "rigid" in my religious pov. "Mormon Doctrine" is an all but worthless book where I am right now, and I don't see myself getting any insight for my personal religion from it; although it is useful, and always will be, to refresh what Mormons have been taught to believe by their leaders, especially the more pedantic, dogmatic and "rigid" ones like McConkie.

My direct experience has been that Joseph Smith's teachings and the Scripture he promulgated are more coherent with the Bible than the Platonic and Neo-Platonic notions used by normative religion to interpret the Bible.

I can't argue that. But I am not a "Platonist" or the follower of any other philosophy that I know of (little enough though my knowledge is). If my "philosophy" seems to be "exactly" alike to you, a much more educated person than I am, it causes me to wonder about the consistency of such concepts, arising from extensive thought and meditation, after being raised in a dogmatic, exclusive religious environment. If I depart naturally from that inculcation of childhood, perhaps the similarities of what I come up with, compared to the "ancients", is not mere coincidence? If such beliefs grow my soul toward "God", which is and always has been my soul's sole desire, or core desire to be more accurate, and if my inner peace increases apace with what I believe, how is this "fruit" some form of falsehood?

Non-Momorn scholars reject the ridiculous consequences of believing such claptrap. Joe Smith takes us back to the original anthropomorphic context and meaning. Is he infallible and perfect in that endeavor. Of course not. Why would we assume such? You need to get real, Beast!

I have never held that JS was perfect, since he repeatedly said he was not, and the evidence of his life clearly shows that he was far from perfect. "Infallibility" is a false doctrine, both for scripture and oracles.

Joseph Smith did not "take us back" to anything, he "reinvented the wheel" for himself and his followers. In doing so he created some apparent problems with the "original anthropomorphic context and meaning", by asserting that physical bodies did not exist in the preexistence, that there were no resurrected beings before Christ's resurrection, that unembodied angels do not accept physical contact, because to try to do so would be deceptive, that "EL" and YHWH" are two separate beings (they are, or are not, it doesn't matter to me either way; but if evidence, both biblical text and outside evidence, points to the ancients believing that both names referred to ONE God, then Mormonism outside the BoM has a problem; the God of the BoM fits with the belief that God is One, and is both "Father and the Son"), that "translated" beings remain on the earth, (the Bible says they are "taken up").

What is it I need to "get real" about, again?...

Edited May 14, 2013 by Questing Beast

[USU78]

And yet, the scriptures call John the Baptist an angel.

QB argues both sides of the question: he wants mortal human angels when he wants them . . . and to holler at people who make the same claim. It's cornfusing.

[Questing Beast]

QB argues both sides of the question: he wants mortal human angels when he wants them . . . and to holler at people who make the same claim. It's cornfusing.

I point out as many sides of the question as I can see. That's the trouble with religious dogma that insists that it is correct and other concepts are mistaken, there are always at least two "sides" to any question, and there is no way to break the deadlock over differing opinions vis-a-vis metaphysical beliefs. That's why JS's teachings are good for Mormons, but don't have any hold over the beliefs of others....

[Robert F. Smith]

Robert F. Smith, on 12 May 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

Once again, you have put God in a box and created your self-made muddle (God created in your limited image).

Our elder brother, the Son of God, had no physical body. Thus, you conclude that he must have tried to shake hands with someone (CFR), or that some disembodied angels tried to shake hands with us (CFR), ignoring the possibility that embodied angels actually had physical contact, or that God the Father (aka LORD) actually had physical contact with humans, thus bursting your absurd bubble. You just haven't thought this through, Beast.

]Beast said:

Of course I have thought it through. See above: you have mistakenly accepted the notion that God the Father had direct contact with mortal men. Never. At most he was visible and audible but never physically connected with anyone (other than Mary, who BY asserted was one of GtF's wives). I stated only that IF Christ without a body had tried to shake hands he would not have been felt, being without a physical body; and if angels without bodies will not attempt to shake hands neither would Christ without a physical body, i.e. at any time in OT history. You mention that angels had actual physical contact before the resurrection; but although I cannot think at the moment of an example of such, it remains impossible for angels without physical bodies, according to the stated doctrines, so speculation is the answer, e.g. translated beings.

Utter hogwash. I notice that you did not provide specific examples from Scripture to prove your case, aside from ignoring my CFRs.

Your rigid and narrow views here once again remind one of nothing so much as the empty assertions of a poorly prepared evangelical "Christian." Sorry Beast, but assertion is not evidence.

Well, yes, there are a legion of religions and that does pose a muddle for some. The key to winnowing out the dross is to examine them by class for internal consistency, which none but the LDS will be found to have.

] Beast said:

That's a laugh. I have been pointing out inconsistencies left and right, answerable only by further speculation.

And in every instance your pretended inconsistencies were empty assertion or special pleading -- the pot calling the kettle black.

You can verify that for yourself via your own careful, logical study and scrutiny, or even via the experimental method (Alma 32), or the Holy Spirit (Moroni 10:4-7, James 1:5- -- whichever epistemology you prefer.

]Beast said:

Been there and done that and I am apparently unsatisfied by the "experiment", over half a century of it by now.

False. I have read not one example from you of "your own careful, logical study and scrutiny," as I suggested. Furthermore, you cite no scholarly sources to back up your illicit rantings and ravings.

Saying that God is infinite is a copout and tells us nothing.

]Beast said:

You are calling the Necessary Cause a copout. Wow. Of course Infinity tells us nothing, since our minds are finite, while Infinity continues (that's an incorrect or inaccurate word, but we have no better) to increase forever (another inaccurate word, since there is no such thing as "forever" outside of space-time; everything is simply NOW, no matter how much of it there Is). All concepts of before and after and cause and effect are only in the world created by "God". "God" relates to us in the infinite ways we can comprehend, after first apprehending. Those of us who have not even reached apprehension don't believe in "God" at all: but I have to wonder if there even are such beings....

You even appear unable to read a simple English sentence in which I take you to task for a copout for accepting the phony God of the philosophers, and you then claim that that God (rather than you) is a "copout." More, anyone with any doubt about your belief in the dead god of the philosophers can find proof of your loyalty to that god right here.

All of your irrational statements here about God have in common the mainstream philosophico-theological base of Hellenistic philosophy which you did not learn in LDS seminary. Even if Sterling McMurrin had been your teacher, you would only have learnt that long dead approach to god and religion when he contrasted such nonsense with LDS philosophy and theology (his books are still available for you to read, so as to clarify your abysmal lack of understanding of LDS belief). Indeed, your understanding of LDS beliefs is so far off the beam that it is likely that you are merely posing as a one-time LDS seminary student. Will the real Beast please stand up?!

Necessary Cause , indeed!!

Edited May 15, 2013 by Robert F. Smith

[Questing Beast]

And in every instance your pretended inconsistencies were empty assertion or special pleading -- the pot calling the kettle black.

... Will the real Beast please stand up?!

Necessary Cause , indeed!!

I think I see the trouble here, and it is a version of "if you're a hammer everything starts to look like a nail". You have a serious mad-on about "the philosophers". Yes, I have adopted a few terms along the way, "Necessary Cause" is very appropriate, because for two simple words a profound question is addressed: which Is, "why do we exist at all?" God the Father of JS does not begin to answer that question, because intelligences that always existed and were never created make the existence of matter and space-time phenomena uncaused, with GtF merely arising from the chaos of always existing matter/intelligences to become the supreme being, not any different from the rest of "us" in any way other than ranked intelligence. That is anthropomorphism. That is the most shallow kind of philosophy masquerading as revealed religion....

[volgadon]

That is anthropomorphism. That is the most shallow kind of philosophy masquerading as revealed religion....

What rot. Why pretend that you are any less dogmatic in your views than those you lambast in post #62?

[volgadon]

Of course it was a "man". Angels are men, and women. Only after encountering the "man" for a considerable period of time did Jacob accept that his antagonist was other-worldly. That's where the "muddle" creeps in, for Mormon doctrine: a physical man is a mortal man, period, before the advent of Christ. A "translated" man is still a mortal man without "glory", but Mormon doctrine came up with that slant, as far as I know, for I never hear of other Christians referring to translated beings as still walking the earth, as we say that John and the three Nephites are doing. On the Mount of Transfiguration, we had Jesus, Moses and "Elijah" being seen in their glory together, yet Moses and Elijah were still mortal, as they had not "tasted of death", yet were "translated" (transfigured) beings who had been "taken up"....

If you look at the account in Judges of Samson's parents and the angels, although the term man is used, it is also qualified by other terms indicating that this is an angel. When Jacob wrestles, however, the text shows that he did not know that this was an angel.

[Questing Beast]

What rot. Why pretend that you are any less dogmatic in your views than those you lambast in post #62?

Do you know the meaning of "dogmatic"? How can someone who is continuing to search for truth to explain the world be dogmatic? I can see how someone who decides they have found the "truth" becomes dogmatic, but that isn't where I am at all. If I can point out inconsistencies in the dogma of any religion that doesn't mean that I am also dogmatic in my religious beliefs. However, it would be impossible for any non believer to tell the difference between someone who pushed incorrect dogma or someone who advanced revealed truth. Ignorance would make detection of revealed truth impossible. But it is also impossible to look at evidence of inconsistency and wave it away, once the mind is troubled by the inconsistency. You can study in an effort to reconcile all the inconsistencies, and come up with answers to the "difficult questions", to a point that is. If a core belief topples, it is probably not going to happen, that the religious world view can be "repaired" back to what it was....

[Questing Beast]

If you look at the account in Judges of Samson's parents and the angels, although the term man is used, it is also qualified by other terms indicating that this is an angel. When Jacob wrestles, however, the text shows that he did not know that this was an angel.

Right, physical contact with a man of flesh. What gives, if JS is correct? It can only be a translated being, or God himself, embodied, so according to Mormon theology as JS left it, "Elohim"....

[Robert F. Smith]

I think I see the trouble here, and it is a version of "if you're a hammer everything starts to look like a nail". You have a serious mad-on about "the philosophers". Yes, I have adopted a few terms along the way, "Necessary Cause" is very appropriate, because for two simple words a profound question is addressed: which Is, "why do we exist at all?" God the Father of JS does not begin to answer that question, because intelligences that always existed and were never created make the existence of matter and space-time phenomena uncaused, with GtF merely arising from the chaos of always existing matter/intelligences to become the supreme being, not any different from the rest of "us" in any way other than ranked intelligence. That is anthropomorphism. That is the most shallow kind of philosophy masquerading as revealed religion....

You got most of this right, and I don't mind at all your declaring openly your love for the God of the philosophers. Own it, Beast. Revel in it. It's all you have, and all you're ever gonna have. Unless you begin studying this stuff with some seriousness. McMurrin was an apostate, but at least he was serious and consistent. Did you read and understand his two most important books?

The Philosophical Foundations of Mormon Theology (SLC: Univ. of Utah, 1959/ reprint 1979).

Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion (SLC: Univ. of Utah, 1965).

--both are combined as The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion: And, the Philosophical Foundations of Mormon Theology, Signature Mormon Classics (SLC: Signature Books, 2000).

[Questing Beast]

You got most of this right, and I don't mind at all your declaring openly your love for the God of the philosophers. Own it, Beast. Revel in it. It's all you have, and all you're ever gonna have. Unless you begin studying this stuff with some seriousness. McMurrin was an apostate, but at least he was serious and consistent. Did you read and understand his two most important books?

The Philosophical Foundations of Mormon Theology (SLC: Univ. of Utah, 1959/ reprint 1979).

Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion (SLC: Univ. of Utah, 1965).

--both are combined as The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion: And, the Philosophical Foundations of Mormon Theology, Signature Mormon Classics (SLC: Signature Books, 2000).

I already told you, I have not studied philosophy. The sole philosophical book I read was over half a decade ago, "How to Think About God", by Mortimer J. Adler. It was recommended reading because of discussion on another forum, and I decided to give it a whirl. Aside from massive agreement already on the so-called Necessary Cause, my own metaphysical pondering seemed to transcend anything he had to offer. I wasn't disappointed, as I went into the book without any expectations. It firmed up my prior notion that books are not where answers are going to come from, for me.

"This stuff", are you referring to "apostate" or faith-promoting? Unclear. I do not study, and never have studied, "apostate" or anti-Mormon literature. I have spent a fair portion of my life, however, studying all the words of JS I could find. I studied BY less, simply because I never put him on the same level as JS prophetically, besides which, JS is "the prophet of the restoration", and I figured that he would be a man after the Lord's own heart, ergo, I could perhaps learn more about the character of Jesus Christ by studying JS than by the study of any other man. I went at it for years.

So your rather priggish, and imho uncharitable as well as judgmental denouncement - "It's all you have, and all you're ever gonna have. Unless you begin studying this stuff with some seriousness" - is unjustified....

[Robert F. Smith]

I already told you, I have not studied philosophy. The sole philosophical book I read was over half a decade ago, "How to Think About God", by Mortimer J. Adler. It was recommended reading because of discussion on another forum, and I decided to give it a whirl. Aside from massive agreement already on the so-called Necessary Cause, my own metaphysical pondering seemed to transcend anything he had to offer. I wasn't disappointed, as I went into the book without any expectations. It firmed up my prior notion that books are not where answers are going to come from, for me.

Adler is good. So now I understand where you got the God of normative Judeo-Christian-Muslim dogma. I knew that you didn't get it from LDS seminary. You should not have stopped there, however, since you don't yet understand the crucial difference between that God and the LDS God.

"This stuff", are you referring to "apostate" or faith-promoting? Unclear. I do not study, and never have studied, "apostate" or anti-Mormon literature.

You need to lose those categories of "apostate" and "faith-promoting" literature from your mind. You need to study serious stuff -- such as Adler -- and I can highly recommend Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), which was the best-selling book on philosophy in the 20th century. Russell was a fine writer and the most important British philosopher of the 20th century. It is a wonderful introduction to the subject.

I have spent a fair portion of my life, however, studying all the words of JS I could find. I studied BY less, simply because I never put him on the same level as JS prophetically, besides which, JS is "the prophet of the restoration", and I figured that he would be a man after the Lord's own heart, ergo, I could perhaps learn more about the character of Jesus Christ by studying JS than by the study of any other man. I went at it for years.

Excellent.

So your rather priggish, and imho uncharitable as well as judgmental denouncement - "It's all you have, and all you're ever gonna have. Unless you begin studying this stuff with some seriousness" - is unjustified...

Sorry to offend you, Beast. I was trying to be cute, as I urged you to get off the dime.

You also seem to misunderstand my statement that Prof. McMurrin was an apostate. That does not mean that his study of LDS philosophy and religion is apostate literature. In fact McMurrin admired LDS society and even the religion as social betterment. He simply did not believe in the Restoration as divinely inspired. His books are easily understood, and even rather enjoyable. I think that would put things in context for you. Something you desperately need.

[Questing Beast]

Adler is good. So now I understand where you got the God of normative Judeo-Christian-Muslim dogma. I knew that you didn't get it from LDS seminary. You should not have stopped there, however, since you don't yet understand the crucial difference between that God and the LDS God.

...

No, you don't understand where I got anything. I already told you that Adler did not have anything new or insightful to add to my already existing paradigm of "God Is Infinite and Necessary". Adler's inclusion of philosophic history and content did not increase my concepts a whit, because I was not, and am not, interested in what "the philosophers" have come up with or why. To my mind each person individually needs to find God, and that cannot be provided by another's philosophy. The dead end is always shown by putting title and definition to this or that kind of thinking, categorizing philosophy into groups of thought based on the famous "authors" of those groups. Often, perhaps most of the time, philosophers are aghast at where their students/fans take their teachings, in a similar way that religious "gurus" must be aghast at having whole religions spin off from their teachings, a phenomenon never intended by the teachers/gurus. I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was in that frame of mind. He was a reformer, not a religion builder. All of that was interpreted and interpolated much later.

I am not in need, nor desire, of any "introductions" into the study of 20th century philosophy or its predecessors. Thank you. My interest is not in philosophy, but in "God" alone. And I trust that "God" will show me how best to spend my limited energy and attention. And so far, it isn't in seeking for wisdom, insight or education from the thinking that others have done for whatever plethora of motivational causes that drove them.

I really do believe that each one of us is supposed to "reinvent the wheel" for him/herself, where personal religion is concerned. Talking about that quest is not only interesting to those communicating about the quest, it can also be useful if questions are being sought that reasonably can be expected to have answers. My questions long ago transcended considerations of "which church/religion is right?" This includes "which philosophy?", no duh.

I do not expect any answers to my remaining questions, here, on earth. I do not expect answers to them at any time in all eternity. I do expect to go on forever discovering more about "God" continually. That is what we do. By freeing my mind from dogmatic restraints I open my thinking to swifter development of concepts vis-a-vis "God as Infinite". My mind is the choke point. I want to open that restriction up as swiftly and widely as I can on my own, and trust that "God" will augment my capacities according to the Inscrutable Will....

[Robert F. Smith]

No, you don't understand where I got anything. I already told you that Adler did not have anything new or insightful to add to my already existing paradigm of "God Is Infinite and Necessary". Adler's inclusion of philosophic history and content did not increase my concepts a whit, because I was not, and am not, interested in what "the philosophers" have come up with or why. To my mind each person individually needs to find God, and that cannot be provided by another's philosophy. The dead end is always shown by putting title and definition to this or that kind of thinking, categorizing philosophy into groups of thought based on the famous "authors" of those groups. Often, perhaps most of the time, philosophers are aghast at where their students/fans take their teachings, in a similar way that religious "gurus" must be aghast at having whole religions spin off from their teachings, a phenomenon never intended by the teachers/gurus. I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was in that frame of mind. He was a reformer, not a religion builder. All of that was interpreted and interpolated much later.

I am not in need, nor desire, of any "introductions" into the study of 20th century philosophy or its predecessors. Thank you. My interest is not in philosophy, but in "God" alone. And I trust that "God" will show me how best to spend my limited energy and attention. And so far, it isn't in seeking for wisdom, insight or education from the thinking that others have done for whatever plethora of motivational causes that drove them.

I really do believe that each one of us is supposed to "reinvent the wheel" for him/herself, where personal religion is concerned. Talking about that quest is not only interesting to those communicating about the quest, it can also be useful if questions are being sought that reasonably can be expected to have answers. My questions long ago transcended considerations of "which church/religion is right?" This includes "which philosophy?", no duh.

I do not expect any answers to my remaining questions, here, on earth. I do not expect answers to them at any time in all eternity. I do expect to go on forever discovering more about "God" continually. That is what we do. By freeing my mind from dogmatic restraints I open my thinking to swifter development of concepts vis-a-vis "God as Infinite". My mind is the choke point. I want to open that restriction up as swiftly and widely as I can on my own, and trust that "God" will augment my capacities according to the Inscrutable Will....

O.K. Good luck on your lone wolf quest. You'll need it.

The only question is, though, why bother to blog on this board? If your mind is the choke point, and you really want to open up as swiftly and widely as possible, then why do it only on your own, and why not accept good advice?

Your own insistence on the school of hard knocks instead of a communal effort indicates to me a real diffidence about the swift and accurate acquisition of knowledge. I say this only due to your frank and repeated false statements, your confusion, and your lack of basic knowledge. I'd recommend that you spend a few years sitting zazen, but you'd probably take that as an insult. Hey, you named yourself the Questing Beast.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Robert F. Smith

[Questing Beast]

Isolation is a poor alternative to mixing with human beings. Sharing ideas is what life is all about. Otherwise you might as well be a hermit. Sure, "God" is in every person, so we are never alone in that respect. But if "God" intended that I find out all there is know about existence on my own then I'd be the Only One, not one of an innumerable host of unique beings. The evidence clearly points to "God" being in everyone, so if I want to find out more about "God" I have to know lots of people and never say I know enough and can stop! This is actually an area of weakness in me: I am by nature easily put off by the weaknesses I perceive in others and want to withdraw and leave them to themselves, etc. I must fight this all the time. So religion is good for me. This forum is just an extension of that need. But I have to say that it is probably only a poor substitute for going out physically for most of the hours in each day and mixing it up in the presence of physical human beings. I'm getting there, hopefully.

I like the Twain quote in your signature....