God's Playground

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, Atheist Mormon said:

The APOD picture you are linking is a supernova, there is no life around it at least for few light years. APOD is the first page I start my day. Unfortunately all those beautiful Supernovas are nothing but the destruction of stars and the hundreds of Exoplanets are too far to discover any life. Our best hope SETI is equally silent about extraterrestrial signals due to the size of Universe. 

I'm not discounting the Scriptures as another resource. The problem for me to ascertain anything depends on evidence....It is a burden for sure to be born with a overwhelmingly skeptical brain.

I'm an avid wannabe astronomer, too. APOD is one of my favorite hangouts. This destruction will become matter unorganized - part of the divine eternal round of creation. Stars and planets are celestialized or recycled...God is the ultimate conservationist!

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130714.html

Our theology allows for this...even expects it. The hope that I could ever play even a tiny part in this is overwhelming. I can't imagine anything greater.

 

[Bernard Gui]

25 minutes ago, Gray said:

Not all fires are refining. Some fires just destroy. 

And out of the ashes emerges the glorious phoenix.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Atheist Mormon said:

The APOD picture you are linking is a supernova, there is no life around it at least for few light years.

Unless we have actually been to this supernova there is no way of knowing there is no life around it.
We assume that based on scientific principles, mathematical theorems, and long distance observation.

But in the end we cannot know for certain there is no life of any kind.  In fact, we are taking it on faith.

[JLHPROF]

29 minutes ago, Gray said:

Not all fires are refining. Some fires just destroy.

And should we die before our journey's through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!

[mfbukowski]

54 minutes ago, Gray said:

God (personal exalted man who is God) isn't here, God doesn't take care of us. We have to take care of ourselves. 

I don't feel abandoned. But if I thought that God was really my father, I would feel that way. God doesn't behave like a father.  God behaves just as I envision God - that is to say, God is existence, God is not a being who interacts with us. 

LOL.  Rather ironic.

Let me fix it for you

Quote

 

God (personal exalted man who is God) isn't is here, God doesn't takes care of us. And We have to LEARN TO take care of ourselves.TO BECOME LIKE HIM. JUST LIKE GROWING UP TO ADULTHOOD.

I don't feel abandoned. But if I thought Since I think that God was really IS my father, I would feel that way. God doesn't behave behaves exactly like a father.  God behaves just as I envision God - that is to say, God is existence, God is not a being who interacts with us

 

. 

Like I say, it's all in your personal experience.  Absolute pronouncements about God in personal discussions don't get very far.

[Gray]

52 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

And out of the ashes emerges the glorious phoenix.

How has human life been improved by the Holocaust? 

[Gray]

9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

LOL.  Rather ironic.

Let me fix it for you

. 

Like I say, it's all in your personal experience.  Absolute pronouncements about God in personal discussions don't get very far.

I'm just saying, God doesn't behave like a father. I'm a father, I understand what fatherhood means. If God is our father, then it's a notion of fatherhood that is alien to human life. 

Edited February 16, 2017 by Gray

[JLHPROF]

11 minutes ago, Gray said:

How has human life been improved by the Holocaust?

We have learned from that most evil of mistakes (I hope).

[Gray]

33 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

We have learned from that most evil of mistakes (I hope).

I'm not sure we have learned, unfortunately. Certainly no lessons learned are more important than millions and millions of Jewish lives, and lives of other persecuted minorities. 

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

How has human life been improved by the Holocaust? 

One hopes that people are more prone to fight genocide. Sometimes we have, sometimes we haven't. It would be positive if anything even remotely resembling the Holocaust were forcefully nipped in the bud. It has resulted in the creation of Israel and the return of the Jews to their homeland as prophesied by ancient and modern prophets. It has made Israel one of our most powerful and valuable allies. It has given irrefutable evidence of the murderous intentions of totalitarian governments and philosophies - Nazi, Fascism, Fundamentalist Islamism, and communism - and has strengthened the resolve to resist them. It has allowed a Mormon presence in Jerusalem. 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

I'm just saying, God doesn't behave like a father. I'm a father, I understand what fatherhood means. If God is our father, then it's a notion of fatherhood that is alien to human life. 

And the usual others agree with you, and the usual others will agree with me.

I think you are not understanding the point.

[Gray]

26 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

One hopes that people are more prone to fight genocide. Sometimes we have, sometimes we haven't. It would be positive if anything even remotely resembling the Holocaust were forcefully nipped in the bud. It has resulted in the creation of Israel and the return of the Jews to their homeland as prophesied by ancient and modern prophets. It has made Israel one of our most powerful and valuable allies. It has given irrefutable evidence of the murderous intentions of totalitarian governments and philosophies - Nazi, Fascism, Fundamentalist Islamism, and communism - and has strengthened the resolve to resist them. It has allowed a Mormon presence in Jerusalem. 

And that's worth six million lives? 

[Gray]

17 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

And the usual others agree with you, and the usual others will agree with me.

I think you are not understanding the point.

I think I understand where you're coming from. I'm just saying the metaphor of fatherhood doesn't match the reality. Good human fathers don't behave in the ways we say that God behaves. We're more like baby sea turtles, left alone on the beach to struggle toward the water, many to be eaten by predators along the way. The sea turtle father doesn't stop the seagulls, and neither does God.  

You can say the cruelty of the process is necessary. Maybe it's how we evolve into Gods. But it doesn't look like fatherly behavior at all. Human families don't behave this way unless they are very dysfunctional. So I have to ask, in what way is God our father, and in what way are we a family, assuming the traditional Mormon models of the plan of salvation? The plan of salvation seems like natural selection, not family life. 

[Teancum]

On 2/15/2017 at 0:03 AM, JLHPROF said:

If by that you mean it will be fantastic, then I'd have to agree.  Wonderfully, delightfully, magnificently fantastic!

No I mean it is a fantasy that is not real.  Like the Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth.  Hate to burst your bubble. 😉

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

I think I understand where you're coming from. I'm just saying the metaphor of fatherhood doesn't match the reality. Good human fathers don't behave in the ways we say that God behaves. We're more like baby sea turtles, left alone on the beach to struggle toward the water, many to be eaten by predators along the way. The sea turtle father doesn't stop the seagulls, and neither does God.  

You can say the cruelty of the process is necessary. Maybe it's how we evolve into Gods. But it doesn't look like fatherly behavior at all. Human families don't behave this way unless they are very dysfunctional. So I have to ask, in what way is God our father, and in what way are we a family, assuming the traditional Mormon models of the plan of salvation? The plan of salvation seems like natural selection, not family life. 

My point is that YOUR perception of how God acts as a Father is based on YOUR experience not mine.  THE metaphor DOES match the reality for me.  I experience it daily when I talk to Him and He responds

Getting eaten by a seagull, metaphorically, may the best thing that could happen to us.  Going through trials could be the best thing that ever happened to us.

And your worship of the universe is as much a metaphor as God being our father- and I cannot imagine a less personal paradigm than worshiping a non-sentient glob of space dust which as evolved into all this, without any purpose.

You complain about my God not being a "Father"- I cannot imagine what believing that God is existence itself does for you.   Existence is existence.   There's not much to be said about existence.   This whole thing about why we exist at all is nonsense.

Either we have a myth/paradigm/belief that supplies us with teleology or we don't. I personally see no value at all in YOUR position- yet I honor it as YOUR position- you have SOME reason for believing what you do though I cannot possibly fathom it.

Perhaps you cannot fathom mine- but at least recognize that we pick our metaphors for personal reasons and that they ARE metaphors which work for us individually.

Besides I would never marry your wife, so there!!

No seriously- I see it in about the same way as picking a mate- thank God our parents no longer do that for us. 

I respect your opinions highly- it just was bugging me that you could not see this point as I do.

[mfbukowski]

5 minutes ago, Teancum said:

No I mean it is a fantasy that is not real.  Like the Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth.  Hate to burst your bubble. 😉

I see you have fallen behind in your reading on the definition of "reality"

Quote

 

 " To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

Perhaps the fantasy that it is wrong to murder people is not real either but I don't think so.

Paradigms are never real but always important.

[Teancum]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I see you have fallen behind in your reading on the definition of "reality"

Perhaps the fantasy that it is wrong to murder people is not real either but I don't think so.

Paradigms are never real but always important.

Oh Mark just ignore me. I am over burdened with work and in a very grumpy mood.   I should not post at such times. 

[Bernard Gui]

4 hours ago, Gray said:

And that's worth six million lives? 

That remains to be seen.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

Oh Mark just ignore me. I am over burdened with work and in a very grumpy mood.   I should not post at such times. 

Reminds me of me.

 

[ERayR]

On 2/15/2017 at 0:48 PM, Jeanne said:

The OP discussion on this is the very reason I don't want to be in the Celestial Kingdom..if there is one.  NO way!  Would I want to put my spirit children through this??  With little information with so much accountability to return to Mom???  No way...I love children unconditionally...Having a planet is just the last thing I want!

Edited to add:  This is even sadder when they don't know who their mother is...or talk to me!!

If you love them unconditionally why do you shrink at letting them find their way to being the best they can be?

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, ERayR said:

If you love them unconditionally why do you shrink at letting them find their way to being the best they can be?

Not to mention that saying you love your kids unconditionally and then saying you do not want to be with them forever doesn't make much sense.

I have no clue where people get such a distorted view of Mormonism that they would say they do not want to be in the Celestial Kingdom when it is defined as the best of everything which can be imagined.

[Gray]

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

My point is that YOUR perception of how God acts as a Father is based on YOUR experience not mine.  THE metaphor DOES match the reality for me.  I experience it daily when I talk to Him and He responds

 

 

Surely this is about more than your internal experiences. Observe the state of the world. God's children are being eaten by hungry seagulls every day. God does not intervene to stop it. 

 

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Getting eaten by a seagull, metaphorically, may the best thing that could happen to us.  Going through trials could be the best thing that ever happened to us.

Children do not benefit from being raped. The Jewish people weren't better off for having gone through the holocaust. Again, the refiner's fire stops refining and starts destroying when the temperature passes certain limits. But God doesn't intervene to stop the damage.  Human fathers don't behave this way.  

There is a reality beyond your experience.  You and I live relatively comfortable lives. We've experienced difficult trials, but they didn't destroy us. Maybe they made us stronger. But that is NOT the experience for millions and millions of people. That is where, I believe, the God as Father model breaks down. That's why I can't believe in a personal God. 

 

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

And your worship of the universe is as much a metaphor as God being our father- and I cannot imagine a less personal paradigm than worshiping a non-sentient glob of space dust which as evolved into all this, without any purpose.

The universe isn't a metaphor. But, yes, God is not personal. We want god to be personal because we are personal. We can connect with anything, even inanimate objects. But if God is personal he doesn't behave like a father. Look at the state of the world.

 

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

You complain about my God not being a "Father"- I cannot imagine what believing that God is existence itself does for you.   Existence is existence.   There's not much to be said about existence.   This whole thing about why we exist at all is nonsense.

There's not much to be said about existence? Everything we talk about is about existence. Existence is the ONLY thing there is, the only topic of conversation!

 

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Either we have a myth/paradigm/belief that supplies us with teleology or we don't. I personally see no value at all in YOUR position- yet I honor it as YOUR position- you have SOME reason for believing what you do though I cannot possibly fathom it.

Perhaps you cannot fathom mine- but at least recognize that we pick our metaphors for personal reasons and that they ARE metaphors which work for us individually.

Besides I would never marry your wife, so there!!

No seriously- I see it in about the same way as picking a mate- thank God our parents no longer do that for us. 

I respect your opinions highly- it just was bugging me that you could not see this point as I do.

I'm on board with everything you say here. The MODEL we choose for God is intensely personal. On the one hand I'll argue about it because your model does NOT work for me. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with your model if it makes your life better! Sorry, lots of whiplash in this conversation.

[Jeanne]

12 hours ago, ERayR said:

If you love them unconditionally why do you shrink at letting them find their way to being the best they can be?

Where do you get that idea?  If they can have correct and direct even unchangeable guidance to be what they want to be...and know their potential..they can talk to me.

[ERayR]

44 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

Where do you get that idea?  If they can have correct and direct even unchangeable guidance to be what they want to be...and know their potential..they can talk to me.

And you can talk to God.  Sometimes we ignore the answer.  Sometimes we don't hear the answer.  Sometimes the answer is for us to figure it out for ourselves.

[Jeanne]

1 minute ago, ERayR said:

And you can talk to God.  Sometimes we ignore the answer.  Sometimes we don't hear the answer.  Sometimes the answer is for us to figure it out for ourselves.

But you can't talk to your mother.  Which is one of the main reasons that I don't like the plan..the planet...nor sending spirit children on a journey that will hurt them..even for a short time.  Yeah..I can talk to God..but I want my Mother in Heaven.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Jeanne