Faith

[rodheadlee]

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

No they aren’t.

Yes, they are. There's not going to be any reward for not making it to the temple because I can't obey the word of wisdom. It IS difficult. The reward would be outstanding if I could overcome this difficulty. I fully expect to go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. 

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

What father or brother pays off your mortgage and then requires you to pay it off while sitting on trillions?

Did you not read Benjamin’s sermon?  We are unprofitable servants because we will never pay off our debt to God.  Even if we could repay his time and effort for organizing us into spirits, tolerating us through the preexistence, setting up all of creation to bring to pass our joyful eternal life, shepherding us through mortality and the afterlife into exaltation, by the time we paid off that debt we would have accrued just as much from all the blessings he gives us for our obedience.

Who would want to bear the obligation of billions of humans owing one what infinity can’t pay off?  Being a creditor likely isn’t all that great. So much micromanaging to be sure the scales are perfectly balanced. What if godly justice isn’t eternal indebtedness any more than eternal punishment?  God has already told us that doctrine of everlasting hell for us is wrong, even if highly motivating. Maybe the creditor theory id just as wrong.

Being the center of a massive loving family…now that is something I think even gods value. 

I know a lot people who "borrow" money from family with no hope of paying it back, yet both parties behave as if the debt will be repaid and token gestures. I don't know why the charades. Maybe God is Obsessive-Compulsive and pays too much attention to details, maybe a defense for each other's dignity or when their spouse grumbles about it. Perhaps it's so He can Lord it over them. "Which of them will love him more?”...'I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged." (Luke 7:41-43)

[MustardSeed]

34 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

The reward would be outstanding if I could overcome this difficulty. I fully expect to go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. 

I see you.  💕 But you may be surprised.  Whereever you land you’ll be happy, IMO 

[Tacenda]

36 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Yes, they are. There's not going to be any reward for not making it to the temple because I can't obey the word of wisdom. It IS difficult. The reward would be outstanding if I could overcome this difficulty. I fully expect to go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. 

That's my wish. I'm the ultimate middle wayer I guess. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Tacenda

[Pyreaux]

50 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Yes, they are. There's not going to be any reward for not making it to the temple because I can't obey the word of wisdom. It IS difficult. The reward would be outstanding if I could overcome this difficulty. I fully expect to go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. 

I see you. Note: baptism is the gate to the Celestial Kingdom, Temple attendance might be the second-tier Celestial Kingdom thing. Everyone will have enough time to prepare to meet God.

Thanks for sticking up for me, the bleeding hearts of LDS grace are all ganging up on me. Nothing like our checkered pasts to let us know in our heart there is a worthy prize in our struggles to overcome. “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.” (1 Corinthians 9:24).

Edited February 16, 2023 by Pyreaux

[Calm]

 

14 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Nothing like our checkered pasts to let us know in our heart there is a worthy prize in our struggles to overcome.

Not saying there isn’t a worthy prize. The prize is in fact worth far more than we could ever earn.

I am saying we don’t earn it by how hard our struggles are, but where our struggles take us.  There is nothing bleeding heart about it.  The path has to be traveled, whether one is capable of sprinting down it or one barely crawls carrying a ton of baggage they need to overcome to get there.  Should the person who can sprint be penalized because it is easier for them?

I am also not saying it all gets dropped on our laps through Grace.  I am saying it will never be a one to one correspondence, we don’t get our rewards by ticking off so many boxes on God’s checklist, we get our reward by how willing we are to be obedient, to become who he wants us to be, by our efforts whatever they may be to align our will with his.  Why would he give a greater mansion to one of two people who loved him the same, were equally obedient, and who both had made his will their will just because the one had struggled more to get to the point of fully accepting God’s redemption of his soul because he was rebellious while it came almost naturally to the other?

Is the person who doesn’t struggle with temptation and does not sin more worthy than the person who struggles with temptation, but wins against it?  Will the person who gives into temptation and sins, but then struggles back through the greater effort of repentance receive a greater mansion than the person not tempted or the one tempted, but who never sinned?

Edited February 16, 2023 by Calm

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

Yes, they are. There's not going to be any reward for not making it to the temple because I can't obey the word of wisdom. It IS difficult. The reward would be outstanding if I could overcome this difficulty. I fully expect to go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. 

I am probably somewhere in the lower Terrestrial to upper Telestial range.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

Thanks for sticking up for me, the bleeding hearts of LDS grace are all ganging up on me.

Sorry, I am mad at the Universe right now so sorry if that came through in my response.

[Pyreaux]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Sorry, I am mad at the Universe right now so sorry if that came through in my response.

It's okay I'm not truly upset. I don't actually do drama. So if you see me do something that looks like it, I may just be getting a bit on the defensive when better people than me think better thoughts than I have.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Pyreaux

[Teancum]

On 2/14/2023 at 2:14 PM, Pyreaux said:

If Job knew if and when his trials would end and life restored two-fold, a complete foreknowledge means less temptation which means less agency is exorcized and the rewards are less. Though some do know, like prophets, which means their trials might end up being greater than some, and equally great rewards.

Is it not generally accepted that Job and the story are a mythical telling?  Job was not a real person.

[MustardSeed]

52 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Is it not generally accepted that Job and the story are a mythical telling?  Job was not a real person.

Are you sure?  Maybe Job was a real person who had insane trials and the story was embellished to make a point.  I don’t think it matters. 

[manol]

13 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

There's not going to be any reward for not making it to the temple because I can't obey the word of wisdom. It IS difficult.

Jesus didn't obey the word of wisdom either, even though he could have.  So it cannot possibly matter in the long run. 

What if God doesn't hold you in condemnation the way the Church does? 

I realize that may be an unacceptable idea because it calls into question something about your religion, but Section 89 specifically says that it's "not by way of commandment", almost like the Lord knew in advance what was going to happen and wanted it to be legitimately questionable.  Maybe "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of it."  Maybe Heber J. Grant made a policy error which has yet to be corrected. 

And, maybe "ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells within you."  Maybe the Celestial Room in the temple is a teaching device which is symbolic of a spiritual level that actually needs no earthly ceremony or edifice.

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I am probably somewhere in the lower Terrestrial to upper Telestial range.

And maybe God is vastly more open-minded about his creations than they are about one another:

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind"  - Jesus Christ

 

[Pyreaux]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

Is it not generally accepted that Job and the story are a mythical telling?  Job was not a real person.

Well, Job himself is real, simply The Book of Job is thought to be a late retelling of his more ancient story, penned to paper after the Exile, to explain to Exiled Israelites why God allows bad things to happen to good people. Qumran scribed the book in Paleo-Hebrew indicating Job was, or they believe Job was, from the Patriarchal era. All other historic accounts on Job identify him as Jobab, the second king of Edom after Esau, and became tied to the Patriarchs when he married to Dinah, Jacob and Leah's daughter, after she had been defiled by Shechem the Hivite. The Books of the Prophets mention him, which indicates Job himself is an anciently known figure predating the Book of Job, they seem to know the story of Job as about how God saved Job from a calamity and his great patience for the fulfillment of a promise.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Pyreaux

[bsjkki]

I think trust in God and faith is important in the sense we stay with him even when the road is difficult or hard. We trust God will deliver us or help us and staying close to him will help us through our trials. I do trust God. I don’t trust man. Sometimes it takes a long time to feel Gods love and intervention after trials. I do trust the gospel path is the better way even if at the moment it is the harder way. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by bsjkki

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

Well, Job himself is real, simply The Book of Job is thought to be a late retelling of his more ancient story, penned to paper after the Exile, to explain to Exiled Israelite why God allows bad things to happen to good people.

It is a terrible theodicy as the answer is God bragged about a good guy to Satan, Satan called him out on it, and God handed Job over to Satan to be his plaything to prove Job’s devotion. In other words Job suffered for the same reason the pagans gave in that the gods are capricious and play games with our lives.

To throw salt in the wound God in the end tries to overawe Job into accepting no answer for why Job had to suffer with a display of God’s power and wisdom as if the reasons are so incomprehensible Job couldn’t grasp them. At this point I am inclined to comment: “Really God? Get over yourself. We know why you turned Job over to Satan and it was for an incredibly petty reason.”

The Book of Job has a lot of good stuff in it but an explanation for evil isn’t in there.

[Tacenda]

13 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

It's okay I'm not truly upset. I don't actually do drama. So if you see me do something that looks like it, I may just be getting a bit on the defensive when better people than me think better thoughts than I have.

In 5th grade we sang this in a program for school. Don't know if it would be allowed anymore.

[pogi]

16 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

There's not going to be any reward for not making it to the temple because I can't obey the word of wisdom. It IS difficult. The reward would be outstanding if I could overcome this difficulty. I fully expect to go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. 

I don't think addictions necessarily make one unworthy of celestial glory.  

Celestial glory is not a reward for works.  It is not something we earn.  "It is by grace that we are saved after all that we can do."  Elder Uchtdorf reminded us that "after" does not mean "because".   We are not saved because of all that we can do.  

I wonder if we sometimes give far more emphasis to the latter part of that phrase and don’t give the first part the attention and gravity that it deserves.  I also think we need to be very careful in how we interpret that second part, as Elder Uchdorf points out, because in the path towards perfection, all we can do seems to be ever out of our grasp.  As Elder Uchtdorf states, “have any of us ever done all that we can do?” 

It is not about perfection.  Don't think of addiction in perfectionistic terms of sobriety.  Make it about the path of recovery.  It is a long and bumpy road.  Don't expect perfection.  And don't expect God's grace to be any less applicable to you because you don't have perfect sobriety.  You are worthy of his saving grace whenever you step on the path of recovery - despite your human limitations and fallibility, despite your relapses, and despite the fact that maybe there is more you could have done, but didn't.  Elder Uchtdorf asks - "Does God wait until we’ve expended every effort before He will intervene in our lives with His saving grace?”   God's grace is there waiting for us whenever we turn to Him, even if we didn't make every effort we could possibly exert previously.  

Recovery is a journey of healing and learning to embrace God's grace, self-compassion/grace/love, patience, it is not about self-control and external perfectionistic works. Judgmentally beating oneself up because they slip up, or condemning oneself ("I fully expect to go to the Terrestrial Kingdom) for not being perfect on the path to recovery can serve to prolong the recovery process rather than shorten it.  Shame is typically at the core of addiction - it is those self-limiting beliefs that hold us down and chain us up.  (Healing the Same that Binds You - highly recommended for anyone in the recovery process).   

Imperfection doesn't make you unworthy of his grace.  On the contrary, it qualifies you for it because there is no grace in perfection.  It doesn't need it.  It is about turning to him and tearing down the walls that we have built up to keep his light out through self-limiting beliefs.

Anyone who has practiced meditation knows about wandering.  The mind is prone to wander, just like our soul ("prone to wander, Lord, I feel it").   Mindfulness meditation can teach us a lot about how we should approach wandering in general and addiction specifically.  It is not about perfection, it is about non-judgmentally and gently refocusing our attention with a dose of self-grace every time we notice that we are wandering or relapse - always remembering that "acting-out" is merely a symptom and not the disease itself.  Getting stuck on the treadmill of perfectionism and never-enoughness due to false interpretations of "after all that we can do" is the worst thing an addict can do.   Because none of us are perfect, all we can do is re-center and redirect every time we catch ourselves wandering - just like in meditation.  That's all we can do, and thus his grace is sufficient even for the addict in recovery who keeps slipping up but is committed to the path and practice of redirecting when they notice themselves wander.  It gets better, and better, and better, but needs to be more about recovery of the disease rather than superficial control of the symptoms. 

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by pogi

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, manol said:

Jesus didn't obey the word of wisdom either, even though he could have.  So it cannot possibly matter in the long run. 

What if God doesn't hold you in condemnation the way the Church does? 

I realize that may be an unacceptable idea because it calls into question something about your religion, but Section 89 specifically says that it's "not by way of commandment", almost like the Lord knew in advance what was going to happen and wanted it to be legitimately questionable.  Maybe "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of it."  Maybe Heber J. Grant made a policy error which has yet to be corrected. 

And, maybe "ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells within you."  Maybe the Celestial Room in the temple is a teaching device which is symbolic of a spiritual level that actually needs no earthly ceremony or edifice.

And maybe God is vastly more open-minded about his creations than they are about one another:

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind"  - Jesus Christ

 

Definitely policy, IMO.

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

It is a terrible theodicy as the answer is God bragged about a good guy to Satan, Satan called him out on it, and God handed Job over to Satan to be his plaything to prove Job’s devotion. In other words Job suffered for the same reason the pagans gave in that the gods are capricious and play games with our lives.

To throw salt in the wound God in the end tries to overawe Job into accepting no answer for why Job had to suffer with a display of God’s power and wisdom as if the reasons are so incomprehensible Job couldn’t grasp them. At this point I am inclined to comment: “Really God? Get over yourself. We know why you turned Job over to Satan and it was for an incredibly petty reason.”

The Book of Job has a lot of good stuff in it but an explanation for evil isn’t in there.

That Biblical non-explanation is the explanation, it was for no reason. Ezra seems to be telling the Jews they are as Job, good people exiled to Babylon for no reason, as Deuteronomic Scribes' deflect their personal responsibility. Why did righteous King Josiah get killed and Jerusalem fall shortly after the scribes implemented their reform? They wrote the history and it blames a dead King, Manasseh, as he was so wicked. Really? The Book of Enoch and Quran says the reform itself was the reason, those who returned from Babylon were apostates, Ezra altered the scriptures. That's not church teaching, it's a working theory if you believe King Josiah's reformers and Ezra the scribe are secretly the villains within the Biblical narrative they authored. I like it, it explains the church claims better about altering books and ancient non-Levitical priesthoods.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Pyreaux

[MustardSeed]

35 minutes ago, pogi said:

I don't think addictions necessarily make one unworthy of celestial glory.  

Celestial glory is not a reward for works.  It is not something we earn.  "It is by grace that we are saved after all that we can do."  Elder Uchtdorf reminded us that "after" does not mean "because".   We are not saved because of all that we can do.  

I wonder if we sometimes give far more emphasis to the latter part of that phrase and don’t give the first part the attention and gravity that it deserves.  I also think we need to be very careful in how we interpret that second part, as Elder Uchdorf points out, because in the path towards perfection, all we can do seems to be ever out of our grasp.  As Elder Uchtdorf states, “have any of us ever done all that we can do?” 

It is not about perfection.  Don't think of addiction in perfectionistic terms of sobriety.  Make it about the path of recovery.  It is a long and bumpy road.  Don't expect perfection.  And don't expect God's grace to be any less applicable to you because you don't have perfect sobriety.  You are worthy of his saving grace whenever you step on the path of recovery - despite your human limitations and fallibility, despite your relapses, and despite the fact that maybe there is more you could have done, but didn't.  Elder Uchtdorf asks - "Does God wait until we’ve expended every effort before He will intervene in our lives with His saving grace?”   God's grace is there waiting for us whenever we turn to Him, even if we didn't make every effort we could possibly exert previously.  

Recovery is a journey of healing and learning to embrace God's grace, self-compassion/grace/love, patience, it is not about self-control and external perfectionistic works. Judgmentally beating oneself up because they slip up, or condemning oneself ("I fully expect to go to the Terrestrial Kingdom) for not being perfect on the path to recovery can serve to prolong the recovery process rather than shorten it.  Shame is typically at the core of addiction - it is those self-limiting beliefs that hold us down and chain us up.  (Healing the Same that Binds You - highly recommended for anyone in the recovery process).   

Imperfection doesn't make you unworthy of his grace.  On the contrary, it qualifies you for it because there is no grace in perfection.  It doesn't need it.  It is about turning to him and tearing down the walls that we have built up to keep his light out through self-limiting beliefs.

Anyone who has practiced meditation knows about wandering.  The mind is prone to wander, just like our soul ("prone to wander, Lord, I feel it").   Mindfulness meditation can teach us a lot about how we should approach wandering in general and addiction specifically.  It is not about perfection, it is about non-judgmentally and gently refocusing our attention with a dose of self-grace every time we notice that we are wandering or relapse - always remembering that "acting-out" is merely a symptom and not the disease itself.  Getting stuck on the treadmill of perfectionism and never-enoughness due to false interpretations of "after all that we can do" is the worst thing an addict can do.   Because none of us are perfect, all we can do is re-center and redirect every time we catch ourselves wandering - just like in meditation.  That's all we can do, and thus his grace is sufficient even for the addict in recovery who keeps slipping up but is committed to the path and practice of redirecting when they notice themselves wander.  It gets better, and better, and better, but needs to be more about recovery of the disease rather than superficial control of the symptoms. 

 

A much more hopeful message than B/W punishment / reward narrative.  

[Pyreaux]

15 hours ago, Calm said:

 

Not saying there isn’t a worthy prize. The prize is in fact worth far more than we could ever earn.

I am saying we don’t earn it by how hard our struggles are, but where our struggles take us.  There is nothing bleeding heart about it.  The path has to be traveled, whether one is capable of sprinting down it or one barely crawls carrying a ton of baggage they need to overcome to get there.  Should the person who can sprint be penalized because it is easier for them?

I am also not saying it all gets dropped on our laps through Grace.  I am saying it will never be a one to one correspondence, we don’t get our rewards by ticking off so many boxes on God’s checklist, we get our reward by how willing we are to be obedient, to become who he wants us to be, by our efforts whatever they may be to align our will with his.  Why would he give a greater mansion to one of two people who loved him the same, were equally obedient, and who both had made his will their will just because the one had struggled more to get to the point of fully accepting God’s redemption of his soul because he was rebellious while it came almost naturally to the other?

Is the person who doesn’t struggle with temptation and does not sin more worthy than the person who struggles with temptation, but wins against it?  Will the person who gives into temptation and sins, but then struggles back through the greater effort of repentance receive a greater mansion than the person not tempted or the one tempted, but who never sinned?

I'm coming back to this, I'm trying to find my paper on the Prodigal Son.

Basically, I break it down and make a case that the prodigal son might have become the more ideal son than the elder brother who never left home. The Father is God, then his house is the temple or heaven, the sons are either priests raised in the temple or typical premortal angelic sons of God. The prodigal is a typical human leaving the heaven or the temple for the first time, the brother is a priest or a pre-mortal heavenly son of God. Angel characters are often depicted as more intolerant and overly judgmental of humans, having never left God's presence and don't understand temptation or why God allows tainted people to return to him. To God, purification can be as simple as a change of clothes, but one's attitude is something he can't change, it often so hard requires that he hit the rock bottom. But then God gains a more humble and more grateful son, more than even hisy unfallen elder son. God is a God of sinners. He has more joy over the 1 that returns than for the 99 who never left.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

That Biblical non-explanation is the explanation, it was for no reason. Ezra seems to be telling the Jews they are as Job, good people exiled to Babylon for no reason, as Deuteronomic Scribes' deflect their personal responsibility. Why did righteous King Josiah get killed and Jerusalem fall shortly after the scribes implemented their reform? They wrote the history and it blames a dead King, Manasseh, as he was so wicked. Really? The Book of Enoch and Quran says the reform itself was the reason, those who returned from Babylon were apostates, Ezra altered the scriptures. That's not church teaching, it's a working theory if you believe King Josiah's reformers and Ezra the scribe are secretly the villains within the Biblical narrative they authored. I like it, it explains the church claims better about altering books and ancient non-Levitical priesthoods.

It wasn’t for no reason. It was because God wanted to win what amounts to a heavenly bar bet with Satan.

Ezra is telling them the exile was meaningless? Poor Lehi was wrong? And Jeremiah? And Ezekiel? Whoops.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

He has more joy over the 1 that returns than for the 99 who never left.

Wow.  Didn’t think you were going to go that far.

It is better to sin than not in your view?  Because then you get the chance to repent and be rewarded?  Does this mean one should really go down in the depths of depravity so as to be able to rise up all that much higher?  What sins would you suggest are best to indulge in for the greater reward?

You are creating a caste system of righteousness here, based on how much suffering we experience, whether self inflicted by sinning or not.  Do you find self flogging and other self inflicted pain as a useful tool to get into heaven as well struggles that are the result of sin?

This line of logic is implying all our leaders teaching us to stay far from the edge so we avoid temptation to sin and even Christ himself who warned us it is better to pluck out our eye than sin are sabotaging us by preventing us from reaching the highest heavens because we are saved from temptation and do not sin.

I really hope I am misunderstanding you.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Calm

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

I'm coming back to this, I'm trying to find my paper on the Prodigal Son.

Basically, I break it down and make a case that the prodigal son might have become the more ideal son than the elder brother who never left home. The Father is God, then his house is the temple or heaven, the sons are either priests raised in the temple or typical premortal angelic sons of God. The prodigal is a typical human leaving the heaven or the temple for the first time, the brother is a priest or a pre-mortal heavenly son of God. Angel characters are often depicted as more intolerant and overly judgmental of humans, having never left God's presence and don't understand temptation or why God allows tainted people to return to him. To God, purification can be as simple as a change of clothes, but one's attitude is something he can't change, it often so hard requires that he hit the rock bottom. But then God gains a more humble and more grateful son, more than even hisy unfallen elder son. God is a God of sinners. He has more joy over the 1 that returns than for the 99 who never left.

So if I go to an orgy this weekend I am potentially going to be even holier when I am redeemed.

Well, I didn’t want to do it but if it is really the only way I can completely fulfill my duty to God I guess I have to. Wish me luck.

[bsjkki]

Just now, The Nehor said:

So if I go to an orgy this weekend I am potentially going to be even holier when I am redeemed.

Well, I didn’t want to do it but if it is really the only way I can completely fulfill my duty to God I guess I have to. Wish me luck.

This is a quick way to refute a ridiculous argument.