Is god a mormon?

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

Everything that is important in life happens within you. 

No one can fully understand the scriptures or the truth Robert, that's why Jesus spoke in parables isn't it? The truth of God is to be understood spiritually. If you think about it, isn't our own individual reality a parable?

What would Pogo Possum say?

[mfbukowski]

14 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

I hold those values regardless, without belief in such a Being.

I tried that too.

Trying that, I learned that it is easier to get confused. While people do find comfort and collective power when they anthropomorphize those values, I think the cost is too great. The cost can be those values, in full or in part.

Better to focus on those values directly.

Good point unless you discover there really IS a Being there who answers back.

Those conversations can be pretty enlightening 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by mfbukowski

[Chum]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

If God is a mormon, then which version is He?  The 1830 version?  The 1890 version?  The 1920 version?  The 1950 version?  The 2015 version?  The 2021 version?

Heavenly Mother can be all of them because She can do more than one thing at a time.

[JLHPROF]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

If God is a mormon, then which version is He?  The 1830 version?  The 1890 version?  The 1920 version?  The 1950 version?  The 2015 version?  The 2021 version?  

Well if he was obedient to all laws and ordinances to become God we can eliminate several of those time periods.

[mfbukowski]

MEADOWCHIK SAID

"While people do find comfort and collective power when they anthropomorphize those values, I think the cost is too great."

The values themselves cannot be anything BUT anthropomorphic, because they are human values!

Where else do they come from but a human mind?

The collective human mind IS the mind of God, since we believe that God is part of the human collective 

In church it's called the Body of Christ- Christ is human

Edited May 30, 2021 by mfbukowski

[Meadowchik]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Good point unless you discover there really IS a Being there who answers back.

Those conversations can be pretty enlightening 

My approach doesn't preclude that possibility. 

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

The values themselves cannot be anything BUT anthropomorphic, because they are human values!

Where else do they come from but a human mind?

Um, not quite. No. Love, Honesty, or Kindness are not humans. They are values humans describe, and they can characterize choices humans make.

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

The collective human mind IS the mind of God, since we believe that God is part of the human collective 

God being human does not mean all human minds are the mind of God.

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

In church it's called the Body of Christ- Christ is human

That doesn't quite work either. The Body of Christ is not all humans, but to put it simply it is all believers. And in that sense, it is not talking about a person, more like human beings united through belief and through the Holy Spirit.

In any case, you are free to anthropomorphize your beliefs however you wish, I simply don't think it is right to do so. I think that there is a humility important to growth when values are choices to be made, rather than associations to be given.

That is not to say that relationships are not important. In fact, I think that a wall of separation between making good choices and associating with people is vital to the healthy perpetuation of both, respectively. 

BTW you might want to edit the quote box.

[mfbukowski]

26 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

Um, not quite. No. Love, Honesty, or Kindness are not humans. They are values humans describe, and they can characterize choices humans make.

So these are things floating around out there in reality independent of the mind, that we describe like tables and chairs and ocelots?

I don't believe in such things.

See athiest Rorty's quote below -in my siggy

No, We (God and the Family) invented them.  All things as we know them are created by the Human Word.  

I will try to fix the quote box 

Very sorry, so far unsuccessful 

Edited May 30, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

What would Pogo Possum say?

I was thinking about changing my avatar to a picture of Popeye, but then I wondered how many of these kids today would even know who Popeye was!!??

So apparently Pogo publication ceased in 1975, 46 years ago and you had to be at least 20 years old to even be a fan (!!) so original Pogo fans probably have to be older than 60!

LOVE Pogo!

Edited May 30, 2021 by mfbukowski

[Teancum]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

If God is a mormon, then which version is He?  The 1830 version?  The 1890 version?  The 1920 version?  The 1950 version?  The 2015 version?  The 2021 version?

The church changes often, in how we view things and how we do things.  I don't see how the God of the universe can be a member of a church run by people who 'see through a glass darkly', even with His help.   

One wonders why this God does not figure out a better way to get his message across.  Seems fairly muddled. After all according to Joseph Smith the first principle of the gospel is to know who God is and what God's attributes are. Even the NT teaches that eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Mormonism seems to be fairly unsure about this. And you missed one. The BY Adam God version. Either prophets don't know what they are taking about or God is really bad about getting his message out.

[AtlanticMike]

2 minutes ago, Teancum said:

One wonders why this God does not figure out a better way to get his message across.  Seems fairly muddled. After all according to Joseph Smith the first principle of the gospel is to know who God is and what God's attributes are. Even the NT teaches that eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Mormonism seems to be fairly unsure about this. And you missed one. The BY Adam God version. Either prophets don't know what they are taking about or God is really bad about getting his message out.

Internet connection is really slow for the past 1900 years. That, or Heavenly mother probably forgot to pay the bill.

[mfbukowski]

10 minutes ago, Teancum said:

One wonders why this God does not figure out a better way to get his message across.  Seems fairly muddled. After all according to Joseph Smith the first principle of the gospel is to know who God is and what God's attributes are. Even the NT teaches that eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Mormonism seems to be fairly unsure about this. And you missed one. The BY Adam God version. Either prophets don't know what they are taking about or God is really bad about getting his message out.

Uh, no. Don't know where to start on this one

So Brigham's Adam-God theory proves that Joseph's revelations about God's human body, and the Bible saying that Jesus is a resurrected Human are inconsistent?

Uh, no.

Edited May 30, 2021 by mfbukowski

[bluebell]

30 minutes ago, Teancum said:

One wonders why this God does not figure out a better way to get his message across.  Seems fairly muddled. After all according to Joseph Smith the first principle of the gospel is to know who God is and what God's attributes are. Even the NT teaches that eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Mormonism seems to be fairly unsure about this. And you missed one. The BY Adam God version. Either prophets don't know what they are taking about or God is really bad about getting his message out.

I can see why you would see it that way, but from my perspective that's way too simplistic of a perspective.  I would say that getting the message out clearly is less important to God than developing the faith to follow an imperfect message, and deal with each other's imperfections along the way.  Because that is how we become Christ-like, which in my belief is what God is actually after.   

Just because something is important (a first principle, as you said) doesn't mean it won't be difficult or require a lot of us to achieve.  Certainty is a bit of a drug while uncertainty can be so uncomfortable.  It takes a lot of work, and a lot of introspection, and a constant willingness to change/adapt, and so much humility.  All things humans are generally bad at.   

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Well if he was obedient to all laws and ordinances to become God we can eliminate several of those time periods.

And that's the rub right? 

Who knows what mormonism will look like in even 50 years.  Maybe that's the kind of mormon God is, which would mean He's not the kind of mormon we are right now.  If God exists outside of this world and it's imperfections then He exists outside of Mormonism and it's imperfections too.  

[Scott Lloyd]

7 hours ago, Teancum said:

So was the I am a Mormon campaign a victory for Satan or not?  What is the difference is someone says "I am a Mormon" or "I am a Latter-day Saint?"   You can push away all you want but it was only an issue when what you label as prophetic wisdom more seems like an apostle who got to the head of the table and finally being able to do something about a pet peeve he clearly had for a long time.  Being called Mormon seemed quite fine with his two predecessors.  Why didn't they have this wonderous prophetic insight to make this nominal change?

Sometimes practices creep in that become entrenched and problematic over time, though that might not have been the intent initially. When that happens, it can at length take divine inspiration through a duly called prophet to gently but firmly set us on the proper course. 
 

I’m far more disgusted with current resistance among some of our people to President Nelson’s course correction than I am with past behavior he may have had in mind when he made that course correction. 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

One wonders why this God does not figure out a better way to get his message across.  Seems fairly muddled. After all according to Joseph Smith the first principle of the gospel is to know who God is and what God's attributes are. Even the NT teaches that eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Mormonism seems to be fairly unsure about this. And you missed one. The BY Adam God version. Either prophets don't know what they are taking about or God is really bad about getting his message out.

Nothing worth having comes easy.  No pain, no gain.  Teddy Roosevelt said:

Quote

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

II Nephi 2 Lehi's Law of Opposites, without which neither we nor God could exist (vs 13).

Edited May 31, 2021 by Robert F. Smith

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Nothing worth having comes easy.  No pain, no gain. 

I disagree.  I put very little effort into enjoying sunsets and dawns and get great benefits from them.

I think the idea that something has to be hard to achieve to be worthwhile diminishes the joy we can receive from little things, like the smile of a child or the affection of a pet or a patch of wildflowers in the back yard.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

I disagree.  I put very little effort into enjoying sunsets and dawns and get great benefits from them.

I think the idea that something has to be hard to achieve to be worthwhile diminishes the joy we can receive from little things, like the smile of a child or the affection of a pet or a patch of wildflowers in the back yard.

None of those moments of reverie come free.  They are nice and enjoyable only because we understand the underlying cost in sweat and tears.  We pour out affection and effort on our children because we recall the love and hard work our own parents lavished on us -- which was costly and hard for them, with plenty of sleepless nights when baby was squalling to be fed or have diapers changed.  It cannot have been easy for my mother to raise five of us, breastfeeding all of us in turn, always with a smile, a lullabye, and unconditional love.  Sure, she and Dad got a lot of laughs at our childish nonsense, and I'm sure recalled their own happy childhoods, but those were only brief respites from the hard work and suffering we put them through.  We never doubted their love, but we realized later that it was such hard work.

[Meadowchik]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

So these are things floating around out there in reality independent of the mind, that we describe like tables and chairs and ocelots?

Nope. We build chairs without calling them people. 😊

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

Nope. We build chairs without calling them people. 😊

Wagslombo. 

Gascono vooty!

[The Nehor]

15 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

" Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose" 

I have told my broken brain chemistry that many times. It seems to be ignoring me.

[The Nehor]

9 hours ago, Teancum said:

One wonders why this God does not figure out a better way to get his message across.  Seems fairly muddled. After all according to Joseph Smith the first principle of the gospel is to know who God is and what God's attributes are. Even the NT teaches that eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Mormonism seems to be fairly unsure about this. And you missed one. The BY Adam God version. Either prophets don't know what they are taking about or God is really bad about getting his message out.

Or God actually wants his children to have to get to know much of the nature of God through direct communications and not through textbooks.

[Bernard Gui]

9 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Wagslombo. 

Gascono vooty!

I haven’t heard “vootie” for 6 decades! Wockle!

Edited May 31, 2021 by Bernard Gui

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

Nope. We build chairs without calling them people. 😊

As a kid, I recall visiting with my buddy's little sister, with my dog, a basset hound, I had taken to his house. The little girl, maybe 5 years old, was fascinated with my dog's long ears.

She said, "If a lady had long ears like that, she'd be a queen!"

Just another instance of fascinating logic.

No, humans make chairs. Humans give chairs names, like "chair" or "The Golden Throne"

Chairs and people are different things.

[bluebell]

7 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Or God actually wants his children to have to get to know much of the nature of God through direct communications and not through textbooks.

I agree.  Considering that God could literally send an angel to every person telling them anything He wanted them to know, it seems obvious that the difficulty inherent in getting to know God and understand His will is somewhat by design.

[Meadowchik]

48 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Chairs and people are different things.

Yup. Glad we can agree on that.