Vanguard Posted July 3, 2013 Author Posted July 3, 2013 Scripture is viewed through the "lens" of personal religion. Any passages I offered as "justification" for my sentiments/views would be agreeable only to another pov that largely agreed with mine. JS's religion-making was essentially founded on Protestant assertions, and morphed into a unique blend of familiar Judeo-Christian themes. My original beef, even as a child, was with Jesus Christ. All of my life I have been unconvinced of the necessity for such a thing as the horror of the atonement: it always seemed to me that God could do all the saving if such was required, and not be compelled to put anyone through such a thing as the atonement. To have to do it that way makes "God" less than all powerful: and if "God" IS all powerful, and simply chooses to "save" where such is not required, to amuse himself, or just because, then I have a problem with that! I would never do it that way.But in the exchange with the forum atheist his point was merely a practical one - that being, in organized religion "truth" goes to those who have been given the authority to define the parameters of said religion. His contention was that it is nowhere stated in Mormondom that an individual will be judged within the context of his capacity to obey but rather judged as a result of particular, determined actions that the leadership decrees is the acceptable way of doing things. He took me to task for suggesting another way that seemed to run contrary to what the leadership teaches.I wonder whether or not the GAs actually do believe everyting they say or whether they would change their approach closer to what I am suggesting if given the opportunity in a private conversation.
jim_mason Posted July 9, 2013 Posted July 9, 2013 And so referring back to my OP, I essentially made the argument to the atheist poster that any mandate found in scripture or given from modern prophets must first go through the "prism" of each invidual's capacity to fulfill said mandate. In other words, all Gospel standards are ideals and our "realities" approximate those ideals but never completely hit the mark in this life including the principle of repentence. To turn things on its head a bit, the Gospel is not only from Christ alone but in its fullest sense is for Christ alone as he is the only one capable of hitting the mark on every point. Conversely, he is also the only one who literally would experience the eternal calamities for not hitting "all of the ideals".Any agreement? Disagreement? If you agree, is there any authoritative source that says as much? If you disagree, then we have more to talk about... Sounds like you are referring to accountability, those who know are held to higher standard than those who do not know.
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