A Bunch Of Talk

[DBMormon]

Gee, who wrote "the Word"? yup, Prophets.

So why are dead Prophets better than living Prophets to you?

Every man who writes is responsible, not the Church, for what he writes. If Joseph Fielding Smith writes something which is out of harmony with the revelations, then every member of the Church is duty bound to reject it. If he writes that which is in perfect harmony with the revealed word of the Lord, then it should be accepted. - Joseph Fielding Smith

[Mars]

stemelbow this is gonna sound really rude but i promise it's not intentional:

 

i don't understand your point.

 

are you lamenting and frustrated that it can be difficult to find certainty in the complexity of life?  like, you accept the difficulty as reality and are pressing forward with faith anyway, but darnit if it weren't easier?

 

or are you suggesting that the complexity of life is an indication that God is not behind it all?  like, it shouldn't be this way?  people shouldn't get confused and go astray and since they do that means something's inherently wrong with the system of the church and its gospel?

 

or something else altogether?

[stemelbow]

stemelbow this is gonna sound really rude but i promise it's not intentional:

 

i don't understand your point.

 

are you lamenting and frustrated that it can be difficult to find certainty in the complexity of life?  like, you accept the difficulty as reality and are pressing forward with faith anyway, but darnit if it weren't easier?

 

or are you suggesting that the complexity of life is an indication that God is not behind it all?  like, it shouldn't be this way?  people shouldn't get confused and go astray and since they do that means something's inherently wrong with the system of the church and its gospel?

 

or something else altogether?

That's not rude at all. The opposite in fact.

I'm thinking more in line with the former rather than the latter.

I'm wondering what we're left with, if say, due to the complexities and difficulties of life the Church is lead astray without the Church realizing it. I tend to agree with MFbukowski in that we're left with personal inspiration that can help direct. But, then if it's possible that any individual can be more in line with God's will than say the prophets and apostles, the rest of us might never be able to know in that we may never give ear to another because of the way we are currently constituted.

[Mars]

people certainly have predispositions to listen to sources they like over sources they don't like.  there's this awesome short story by philip k d!ck called I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon- first published in playboy of all places.  (i swear, i only read it for the articles!!!  )

 

the story is about a man named Victor who is supposed to be in cryosleep during a 10 year voyage to a new planet.  he regains consciousness but is still asleep - unable to move but aware of his surroundings.  fearing he'll go insane, the artificial intelligence computer which was programmed to monitor people on the voyage decides to replay memories from his youth to keep his mind occupied.  but Victor's inclination to see the bad in everything made it so he lived nightmare after nightmare.  when he finally arrives on his planet, awake, he no longer believes anything will last.  his predisposition to poison his own good memories and make them into something negative made him insane after all.

 

that we would find, say as a wild example, Elder Bednar to be hardnosed and austere and therefore less likely to influence a guy's thinking than Elder Uchtdorf, is par for the course of human existence.

 

i don't think we have to "fix" it, per se.  we just need to be aware of it and move forward.  not that you need to hear this, but any God that will punish us, or count it against us when we make decisions based on incomplete information, isn't a God that i want to worship.  mostly because i wouldn't be able to have faith in a God who punishes me for being wrong in the way i think.  i only want to worship a God who punishes for rebellion.

 

on a related note, i believe that being wrong doesn't mean God is totally cool and thumbs up and it's ok man just slide in to heaven through the backdoor, either.  when we're wrong, we just need to be corrected if we wish to progress.  that correction can come through gentle nudgings of the Spirit or full on compulsion to be humble.  i believe He would not be pleased if He sends us a witness to solidify our faith, but then we turn against it and convince ourselves it's not from Him.  so barring dishonest behavior and thought patterns that are attempts to squelch what we at first believe to be from God, i'm pretty sure that every attempt to follow our conscience will be met with support from God.  and all of this is in the context of reasonings and "what do i have faith in?  is a prophet going to lead me astray?  what happens when two of them disagree, how do i figure it out?" rather than more clear questions of how we treat other human beings.

 

i agree that it is frustrating.  it'd be nice if we could do away with the confusion and delay of trying to make sense of all the noise, and have a higher degree of confidence in our obedience - after all, that is the endgame.  but i suppose there's something to be said for the pain and the learning of the journey.

 

ps - i've edited this twice now.  hope it's clear.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Mars

[mfbukowski]

I can't remember (if it was in one of his books or in an interview or both) and no doubt I took some liberties with what I do remember. I'd have to find the quote which may take some time.

 

And if that's what we're left with then so be it. But as I said, if a single person or very few people out there have received spiritual information from God that the Prophets and apostles have no received then they most likely won't be heard. The rest of us may be still lost.

 

Not only converts know that. Surely both converts and "lifers" pray, seek the Spirit, seek personal inspiration.

 

Not from what I've seen. Most life-long members who I interact with don't worry a bit about being lead astray SOme do, but so do some converts. You've got a weird dichotomy in your head, it seems to me, a tad bit pessimistic it seems like.

 

If a prophet is wrong about something and in his error leads people to think that say, black people are cursed as to the priesthood because of their behavior in the pre-mortal world, and followers are checking in with God regularly, and these followers never know the prophet was wrong, then it seems your conclusion here is faulty. Members then would be lead to think, in error, that black people were less valiant in pre-mortal world when that was not the case.

 

What kind of poll are you going with? CFR please. I get nearly the opposite impression--members tend to venerate the wisdom of prophets to something more than it seems to actually be, it seems to me.  

 

Odd. I never heard members worry about when to move to Missouri, these days, and Kolob is only mentioned in passing, for jokes, and rarely someone pretends to understand something cosmologically and comments about it. That's the sum of it on my end. You must have a very different Mormon experience than me.

 

I have a feeling something is askew. But I may just be delusional. This is our problem it seems to me. You seem to think it not an issue at all.

This whole thing seems to be based on the assumption that humans can KNOW God's will in some magic way that the prophets are not using, and so "we might go astray".

 

I think the only mechanism we have to know God's will FOR US is by the spirit.

And if that's what we're left with then so be it. But as I said, if a single person or very few people out there have received spiritual information from God that the Prophets and apostles have no received then they most likely won't be heard. The rest of us may be still lost.

I have no clue how that is even possible.  We each receive our own revelations from God.

 

Prophets, BY DEFINITION receive inspiration for the church.  If there is any truth whatsoever to the idea of "authority of the Priesthood" then this is a contradiction.

 

Based on that assumption- that the prophets get inspiration for the church and we do not-  it is not possible for "a single person or very few people out there have received spiritual information from God that the Prophets and apostles have no received then they most likely won't be heard. The rest of us may be still lost."

 

Not possible by definition IF you believe in priesthood authority

 

On the other hand, if we want to abandon that principle- priesthood authority of our prophets, then leave the church.

 

If you or anyone else- are getting messages from God that the prophets have missed something- perfectly fine with me!  Maybe you are right.  Go start your own church.  Please do so.

 

I mean those are the choices ultimately.  Either they alone get inspiration for the church or they do not.  No they are not infallible.  But if someone is getting inspiration from God on how to run the church, then THEY should be the prophet.

 

And would we know that?  By the spirit.  Denver Snuffer here we come.  But this namby pamby "maybe they are right or maybe they are wrong and someone else is right and they might be wrong" is just silliness.

 

Stand up, get your own inspiration either way and move on.  Have the guts to vote with your feet if you think the way you think, don't just complain about it,  There is no answer to your question- there is no half way.  If they are right and YOU define them as "always right" until they are proven wrong in your own mind, then that is the way it is- for you.

 

If you decide they are wrong- then walk.  It is one or the other as far as I see it.  If they are wrong the church is not "true" and YOU are your own prophet.

 

No problem with that-  just realize the truth of that for you and act on it.

[mfbukowski]

That's not rude at all. The opposite in fact.

I'm thinking more in line with the former rather than the latter.

I'm wondering what we're left with, if say, due to the complexities and difficulties of life the Church is lead astray without the Church realizing it. I tend to agree with MFbukowski in that we're left with personal inspiration that can help direct. But, then if it's possible that any individual can be more in line with God's will than say the prophets and apostles, the rest of us might never be able to know in that we may never give ear to another because of the way we are currently constituted.

We are not "left" with personal inspiration

 

THAT is the whole point here- I think we have found the problem.  Personal inspiration is all we have ever had from the beginning.  Either YOU agree overall with the direction of the church or you don't.

 

If you don't you walk.

 

Yes your family will be ticked off, but heck I have been through it when I left the Catholic church.  You gotta do what God tells you by personal inspiration or you are a spiritual wimp.

 

Stand up for the right.  Stay in the boat by affirmative decision or jump ship.  Do what God wants you to do and forget that whiny feeling inside that we all have had as if thinking "But this is going to be haaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrdddddddddd.  I don't waaaaaannnnnt to go to schooollllllll".

 

It's a tough decision to make but if we don't do it we can never be square with God.  We will always be living a lie.  Follow your own conscience or you have nothing.

[Mars]

yeah, you gotta do what you think is right no matter what.  i would be crestfallen and heartbroken if my kids left the church, but if they did it because they felt like God wanted them elsewhere - or that there was no God and they couldn't live a lie - then i would have to respect that decision.

[mfbukowski]

ps - i've edited this twice now.  hope it's clear.

Crystal.

As always!

[mfbukowski]

yeah, you gotta do what you think is right no matter what.  i would be crestfallen and heartbroken if my kids left the church, but if they did it because they felt like God wanted them elsewhere - or that there was no God and they couldn't live a lie - then i would have to respect that decision.

Absolutely.

 

If they leave, I hope they leave for a well defined reason, whether or not  I consider it "right".   The idea of them just becoming inactive lumps without knowing where they stand on this issue is kind of bothersome to me.

[stemelbow]

This whole thing seems to be based on the assumption that humans can KNOW God's will in some magic way that the prophets are not using, and so "we might go astray".

 

I think the only mechanism we have to know God's will FOR US is by the spirit.

Sure. I think it unwise to say God can't disseminate good, useful, and true things to humanity outside of using some officially called prophet. Accept truth and goodness no matter where it comes from, I say.

I have no clue how that is even possible.  We each receive our own revelations from God.

 

Prophets, BY DEFINITION receive inspiration for the church.  If there is any truth whatsoever to the idea of "authority of the Priesthood" then this is a contradiction.

there's already a specific example on the table, mentioned by me. Prophets were wrong when they preached, as if from God, that black people were less valiant in the pre-existent. We know individual members did not accept the prophet's teaching, or perhaps just member, but most just accepted the wrong teaching even though, presumably, at least, many of these individuals were praying to God. You say it's not possible. but that conflicts with reality. It's possible and did happen.

 

Based on that assumption- that the prophets get inspiration for the church and we do not-  it is not possible for "a single person or very few people out there have received spiritual information from God that the Prophets and apostles have no received then they most likely won't be heard. The rest of us may be still lost."

 

Not possible by definition IF you believe in priesthood authority

 

On the other hand, if we want to abandon that principle- priesthood authority of our prophets, then leave the church.

Silly dichomoty--"if you don't see it my way, then you should leave the Church". No thanks.

 

If you or anyone else- are getting messages from God that the prophets have missed something- perfectly fine with me!  Maybe you are right.  Go start your own church.  Please do so.

Weird. God tells someone something. Someone else says, "Hey great...dont' do what God wants you to do, do what I want you to do." That's not helpful.

 

I mean those are the choices ultimately.

I'd argue the options are far more than you've listed.

 

Either they alone get inspiration for the church or they do not.  No they are not infallible.  But if someone is getting inspiration from God on how to run the church, then THEY should be the prophet.

 

And would we know that?  By the spirit.  Denver Snuffer here we come.  But this namby pamby "maybe they are right or maybe they are wrong and someone else is right and they might be wrong" is just silliness.

Thanks for responding to silliness then.

 

Stand up, get your own inspiration either way and move on.  Have the guts to vote with your feet if you think the way you think, don't just complain about it,  There is no answer to your question- there is no half way.  If they are right and YOU define them as "always right" until they are proven wrong in your own mind, then that is the way it is- for you.

 

If you decide they are wrong- then walk.  It is one or the other as far as I see it.  If they are wrong the church is not "true" and YOU are your own prophet.

 

No problem with that-  just realize the truth of that for you and act on it.

I really see no reason to see it so black and white. No one is right about everything. Why assume we have to separate ourselves in someone is wrong about something? That's about as backwards as one can get. Prophets are likely both wrong about something and right about something. I assume we all are. And we're all in this together, as I see it.

[stemelbow]

yeah, you gotta do what you think is right no matter what.  i would be crestfallen and heartbroken if my kids left the church, but if they did it because they felt like God wanted them elsewhere - or that there was no God and they couldn't live a lie - then i would have to respect that decision.

No doubt God wants some people out of the Church. He can use people in many places to accomplish His designs. The Church, of course, isn't everything and hardly reaches the ends of the earth.

[mfbukowski]

Sure. I think it unwise to say God can't disseminate good, useful, and true things to humanity outside of using some officially called prophet. Accept truth and goodness no matter where it comes from, I say.

there's already a specific example on the table, mentioned by me. Prophets were wrong when they preached, as if from God, that black people were less valiant in the pre-existent. We know individual members did not accept the prophet's teaching, or perhaps just member, but most just accepted the wrong teaching even though, presumably, at least, many of these individuals were praying to God. You say it's not possible. but that conflicts with reality. It's possible and did happen.

 

Silly dichomoty--"if you don't see it my way, then you should leave the Church". No thanks.

 

Weird. God tells someone something. Someone else says, "Hey great...dont' do what God wants you to do, do what I want you to do." That's not helpful.

 

I'd argue the options are far more than you've listed.

 

Thanks for responding to silliness then.

 

I really see no reason to see it so black and white. No one is right about everything. Why assume we have to separate ourselves in someone is wrong about something? That's about as backwards as one can get. Prophets are likely both wrong about something and right about something. I assume we all are. And we're all in this together, as I see it.

Okie dokie.

No communication here.

 

I'm out.

[Mars]

No doubt God wants some people out of the Church. He can use people in many places to accomplish His designs. The Church, of course, isn't everything and hardly reaches the ends of the earth.

 

 

i've typed up and deleted and typed up about 4 responses now, haha.  i can't quite decide how to respond to this.

 

a few scattered thoughts:

 

1. per the bold above, i'm loath to get behind that with any degree of enthusiasm.  believing what I do about the church and its gospel, i think it's more correct to say that God wants people to stay in the Church and work out their salvation with fear and trembling.  it may be true that in temporary settings, someone might need to learn a lesson by leaving.  but there's no one unique way to learn a lesson, and i'm pretty sure leaving the church to learn something to come back to it can be filed under 'extreme measures'

 

2. i think the direction of all our personal journeys should be the same destination.  the church would be pretty useless if it were so inept that some high threshold of number of people were no longer served by it and it drove more people from God than drew people to Him.  believing what i do about the church and its gospel, i'm slow to think that we drive more people from Him than draw people to Him.

 

3. prior to gaining a testimony of the restored Gospel - which entails a physical place to be for a follower of God as well as a metaphysical one - it is absolutely true that God uses a broad and diverse swath of people and places to accomplish His designs.  at the risk of repeating myself the third time: believing what I do about the Church and its Gospel, it is conceivable to me that preparatory steps to accepting the Gospel - THE REAL ONE - will include spiritual experiences in other faiths so that someone can learn to listen to the Spirit and be prepared to hear its whisperings when they finally come into contact with the restored gospel.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Mars

[stemelbow]

Okie dokie.

No communication here.

 

I'm out.

Chicken!

Just kidding. Thanks for your thoughts. I realize we both talked past each other a little. It happens.

[CV75]

Church is amounting to, more and more, people concluding well, God's in charge and He'll figure out how to make things right, as people can't quite connect with current and past leaders words.

I think remembering the words of the covenants we make and the words of the set-prayer ordinances we have received put a lot of potential confusion into perspective so that people still have plenty of basis to recognize it as the Lord's Church and where they belong. This does require an element of faith and testimony. Then, according to the companionship of the Holy Ghost which we enjoy, the words of priesthood blessings, patriarchal blessings, conference talks and the like carry into our hearts the meaning the Lord wants us to receive for our particular need and circumstance.

Edited July 15, 2015 by CV75

[ksfisher]

No doubt God wants some people out of the Church. He can use people in many places to accomplish His designs. The Church, of course, isn't everything and hardly reaches the ends of the earth.

 

Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day.

3 Nephi 27:20

 

There are a number of other verses in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants that would seem to conflict with your statement.  The scriptures seem to teach that God wants all to come to him and that baptism is an important part of that.

[Mars]

ah - there was something i wanted to say

 

i don't think all vessels of truth from God are equal, so to speak.

 

as an example which will be imperfect and will easily have holes poked in it, let's consider humanity's understanding of elements that make up everything we see around us.  at first, we thought it was fire, air, water, and earth.  then we refined our ability to see, and we began to discover hard elements.  it took a long time to build up the periodic table, but even in 1871, dmitri mendeleev was able to have a pretty darn good sense of what things were made up a few years prior to the discovery of the electron.  he even accurately predicted that some elements would exist!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev#Periodic_table

 

then we discovered protons, neutrons, electrons, quakrs, gluons, bosons, and all kinds of subatomic particles.  we kept refining our ability to see and perceive and we went from "gun powder is made of rock and fire" to "get some potassium, some oxygen, some sulfur, here you know what?  just do this: 2 KNO₃ + S + 3 C → K₂S + N₂ + 3 CO₂"  (pardon the hyperlinks, they're probably wikipedia links)

 

pardon another imperfect example:

 

i first meet Mrs Mars and i'm smitten.  i "love" her.  13 years later, i love her, but in more refined ways that's more mature than the younger me did.  i imagine (sincerely hope!) it'll grow and mature and be different.  in short, it'll be refined and more correct than it was when i first started.

 

so i see us as iterating toward more correct understandings of things when it comes to God.  God's Prophet today, leading the 12, is the best source of God's messages but that doesn't mean the Pope is gonna send you to Hell.  or some awesome rabbi you like.  or the musings of a good man who is an atheist.  take what's good from where it comes from, but i think it's essential to realize the limit and use of the truth you get.  the fastest pace for the the human race is set by the prophet.  at least, that's my story and i'm sticking to it. 

[stemelbow]

i've typed up and deleted and typed up about 4 responses now, haha.  i can't quite decide how to respond to this.

 

a few scattered thoughts:

 

1. per the bold above, i'm loath to get behind that with any degree of enthusiasm.  believing what I do about the church and its gospel, i think it's more correct to say that God wants people to stay in the Church and work out their salvation with fear and trembling.  it may be true that in temporary settings, someone might need to learn a lesson by leaving.  but there's no one unique way to learn a lesson, and i'm pretty sure leaving the church to learn something to come back to it can be filed under 'extreme measures'

Ok. I disagree. I'm with Orson Whitney:

Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of his Church, to help it along. They are among its auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else...some are drawn into the fold and receive a testimony of the Truth; while others remain unconverted...the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view…

God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of his great and marvelous work. The Latter-day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous, for any one people.

2. i think the direction of all our personal journeys should be the same destination.  the church would be pretty useless if it were so inept that some high threshold of number of people were no longer served by it and it drove more people from God than drew people to Him.  believing what i do about the church and its gospel, i'm slow to think that we drive more people from Him than draw people to Him.

one thing often pointed out to me is often when people leave the Church they go atheist (suggesting the church is driving people away from God). I don't necessarily think atheism is away from God though. just a thought.

 

3. prior to gaining a testimony of the restored Gospel - which entails a physical place to be for a follower of God as well as a metaphysical one - it is absolutely true that God uses a broad and diverse swath of people and places to accomplish His designs.  at the risk of repeating myself the third time: believing what I do about the Church and its Gospel, it is conceivable to me that preparatory steps to accepting the Gospel - THE REAL ONE - will include spiritual experiences in other faiths so that someone can learn to listen to the Spirit and be prepared to hear its whisperings when they finally come into contact with the restored gospel.

And most won't ever find themselves in the Church at all. Perhaps we'll find many more people, living today, who aren't, weren't and never will be LDS will be in the Celestial Kingdom when compared to the number of LDS who will inherit it. We may never know.

[Mars]

stemelbow, if you think i'm saying God ignores the vast numbers of His nonMormon children then i haven't communicated properly.  in fact i said that they - the children of God who aren't Mormon - WILL have spiritual experiences.

 

what did you disagree with?  i said that i didn't think God led people out of the church once they came in to it.  as far as i can tell from Orson Whitney's quote, he wasn't commenting on people who left.  just the people who are already outside of it - people who haven't yet received a witness that it's true.  i don't think it's correct to assume that "outside the church" means "hey i once was in the Church but now I left because i no longer believe it and that'll help spur the church along"

 

on the whole, it's better to stay and keep those covenants.  there are perhaps a few cases here and there where it's better to leave, but those are the exception rather than the rule.  again, all this is under the auspice of what i think the church is and what i think about its purpose and aims.

[stemelbow]

stemelbow, if you think i'm saying God ignores the vast numbers of His nonMormon children then i haven't communicated properly.  in fact i said that they - the children of God who aren't Mormon - WILL have spiritual experiences.

 

what did you disagree with?  i said that i didn't think God led people out of the church once they came in to it.  as far as i can tell from Orson Whitney's quote, he wasn't commenting on people who left.  just the people who are already outside of it - people who haven't yet received a witness that it's true.  i don't think it's correct to assume that "outside the church" means "hey i once was in the Church but now I left because i no longer believe it and that'll help spur the church along"

I guess I take the thinking a bit further by thinking God also needs people who were once in the Church out of it, in order to accomplish what He needs to. Hey with a less than one percent population in the Church I'm thinking it's only logical that He keeps people out of it and that would include sending people out of it

 

on the whole, it's better to stay and keep those covenants.  there are perhaps a few cases here and there where it's better to leave, but those are the exception rather than the rule.  again, all this is under the auspice of what i think the church is and what i think about its purpose and aims.

Could be right. It could be that God needs more people to leave than to stay for Him to accomplish what He needs to. But we'll have to wait and see.

[Mars]

fair enough.

[ksfisher]

I guess I take the thinking a bit further by thinking God also needs people who were once in the Church out of it, in order to accomplish what He needs to. Hey with a less than one percent population in the Church I'm thinking it's only logical that He keeps people out of it and that would include sending people out of it

 

Could be right. It could be that God needs more people to leave than to stay for Him to accomplish what He needs to. But we'll have to wait and see.

 

When we enter the church we enter into a covenant relationship with God.  I'm not sure why God would want some of his children not to be part of that covenant relationship, or why he would tell some who have made those covenants that he wants to break that covenant with them.

 

And I'm not sure why God would send prophets and apostles and missionaries out to bring people into the church while he is, at the same time, actively engaged in keeping people out of the church (according to you).

 

Am I misunderstanding?

[stemelbow]

When we enter the church we enter into a covenant relationship with God.  I'm not sure why God would want some of his children not to be part of that covenant relationship, or why he would tell some who have made those covenants that he wants to break that covenant with them.

 

And I'm not sure why God would send prophets and apostles and missionaries out to bring people into the church while he is, at the same time, actively engaged in keeping people out of the church (according to you).

 

Am I misunderstanding?

I don't think so. But God does many things that we could question, I suppose.

As I see it, God uses all tools at His disposal--that would include everyone and anyone, every org, and religion according to His desires and needs. I truly do think God may lead someone out of the Church. the Church is not everything. It is merely a tool for us to get closer to Him. if it ain't working too well (as in not reaching many around the world) it might be best to influence people in other ways.

[mfbukowski]

ah - there was something i wanted to say

 

i don't think all vessels of truth from God are equal, so to speak.

 

as an example which will be imperfect and will easily have holes poked in it, let's consider humanity's understanding of elements that make up everything we see around us.  at first, we thought it was fire, air, water, and earth.  then we refined our ability to see, and we began to discover hard elements.  it took a long time to build up the periodic table, but even in 1871, dmitri mendeleev was able to have a pretty darn good sense of what things were made up a few years prior to the discovery of the electron.  he even accurately predicted that some elements would exist!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev#Periodic_table

 

then we discovered protons, neutrons, electrons, quakrs, gluons, bosons, and all kinds of subatomic particles.  we kept refining our ability to see and perceive and we went from "gun powder is made of rock and fire" to "get some potassium, some oxygen, some sulfur, here you know what?  just do this: 2 KNO₃ + S + 3 C → K₂S + N₂ + 3 CO₂"  (pardon the hyperlinks, they're probably wikipedia links)

 

pardon another imperfect example:

 

i first meet Mrs Mars and i'm smitten.  i "love" her.  13 years later, i love her, but in more refined ways that's more mature than the younger me did.  i imagine (sincerely hope!) it'll grow and mature and be different.  in short, it'll be refined and more correct than it was when i first started.

 

so i see us as iterating toward more correct understandings of things when it comes to God.  God's Prophet today, leading the 12, is the best source of God's messages but that doesn't mean the Pope is gonna send you to Hell.  or some awesome rabbi you like.  or the musings of a good man who is an atheist.  take what's good from where it comes from, but i think it's essential to realize the limit and use of the truth you get.  the fastest pace for the the human race is set by the prophet.  at least, that's my story and i'm sticking to it. 

Me too.  I see it as defining the problems more clearly and resolving them.

 

For me, discovery is always defining what was undefined- organizing matter unorganized.  We don't "discover" what is already there, we organize perceptions/data/experience/observations it into language.

 

As we have more experiences showing what we interpret as "evidence" regarding what we define as "the behavior of chemicals", we define and classify that "data" into a better "explanation" that works better than the old one.  We now have something we can communicate to others because we have defined it in math and linguistically.  If we can define a theory which causes predictable experiences, we have made an extremely valuable tool.

 

It is a shift in speaking about the way we think about things that puts us in better alignment with how we speak about how God himself "creates things".  Seeing it this way is more philosophically strong I think and also puts us closer to thinking about ourselves as gods in embryo.  It puts Mormon  belief on strong philosophical grounds and strengthens our testimonies every time we think this way.

Edited July 15, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Guest]

I had a friend who always did quote mining so that he was always at the ready to quote someone (and only those) who gave voice to his opinion. He is very much stuck in the past, no matter the issue...polygamy (the hope that it will return) Afician Americians (any Black for that matter) and the Priesthood, end of world prophecy, he committed to memory Roger K Young's book filled. With quotes about last days, tent cities, food storage. He is one of Roger's biggest costumers. Instead of one year supply he has five. He does not give as much heed to current leadership as to past. While he was our Bishop, he taught every fifth Sunday and unless told otherwise what to teach, he taught every class and every class was on the end of the world. The Ward became so small with move-outs and defections that it was dissolved and rolled into another Ward. Then many began returning, now each week looks like a Stake Conference. I am in another Ward now, but occasion brings me back from time to time, when something is happening in the lives of friends I had in the Ward. I served and attended the Ward for 30 years. Soon after it's dissolvement I had to move to take car of my Mother. I am now back in the Stake. So long story short, I know what you mean...but we all do it to some degree, but it can indeed become a real problem and downer.