Universalism

[Calm]

7 hours ago, webbles said:

Personally, I expect the other two kingdoms to be extremely small.

Progression between the kingdoms could explain why the Telestial is seen as innumerable as the stars in scripture and yet for all the reasons you give, it makes more sense it’s the Celestial where the vast majority will go. 

Perhaps the use of stars is meant to be a parable for us in more than what was given. At first they appear insignificant as well as numerous in terms of light due to our distance from them, but each star is actually a sun and we would experience them in much the same way as our sun once we are close enough. 

Perhaps we are meant to realize all who partake in some way of God’s glory will be celestial once we come to understand and experience them and ourselves as who we truly are and not choose to stand apart from them, viewing their reality at a distance (and this applies to awareness of our own “true”, eternal selves as mortality creates a veil or distance between our current experiences of our self and the fullness that actually exists).

Edited May 30, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

5 hours ago, pogi said:

The Book of Mormon certainly speaks of the possibility of regression after final judgment.  God himself suggest that he could potentially cease to be God.  If God can regress from Godhood, even after exaltation, then there must be an equal and opposite alternative possibility of progression to exaltation and Godhood from a state of lower glory/damnation - as you state the one concept defines the other. 

But God’s regression is presented as something theoretical that will never happen in my view, not as a true possibility. 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

If there is eternal progression between kingdoms, it is logical to me that if our souls are purged of any unrighteousness as we are taught happens before judgment (nothing unclean can enter even the Telestial Kingdom), even hardened souls among us could eventually realize after living in the glory and wonder and ultimate comfort of either the Telestial or Terrestrial kingdoms for eons, that all that we have is given to us by God out of his love for us.  Wouldn’t that knowledge work on us over time (even if highly self centered still after losing all mortal physical and emotional disorders that interfere with connecting with others like narcissism and sociopathy), even if initially it works for us because we are still so self centered (as in “how can I get more?”).  Thus even if once we didn’t care much about God, we might grow over the eternities in appreciation for what God has done for us and our hearts could become softened and we could stop being so self centered and instead become more Christ centered.  

Good points

We also know that Knowing the future doesn't mean we cause it.

I hold my pen at arm's length and open my fingers, the pen falls.

I did not CAUSE it to fall, gravity was the cause.

You put a plate of cookies in front of a 3 year old, and tell them not to eat any until you are in the room,  as a test.  You leave the room.

A good human parent would know with some certainty what the child would do.  God would know with absolute certainty what the child would do!  Yet neither the child nor the parent/God would be CAUSING the choice the child to eat or not eat the cookies.

Pre-knowledge of what will happen does not make the knower a cause

If you have a credit rating of 800 and make $250 k per year and suddenly need a loan for $100. because you lost your wallet, I think I would have total certainty that I would be paid back, but I cannot read your heart as God can!

I think that God knows us even better than credit monitoring organizations .

 

[manol]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I also believe that part of Judgment will be seeing ourselves for who we are in a very intense, down to atomic level awareness…

... what is stopping him from putting off judgment as long as necessary for change to happen?

I think it more likely that eternal progression and being in the presence of God means something closer to the Final Judgement being an ongoing, never ending process in the sense we become aware of who we are and our destiny and that itself shapes us for the eternities to come…in each eternal moment that awareness and engagement with all that we are and could be will act upon us, adding to the process of eternal progression. 

Wow. 

It almost sounds as if you do not fear the Final Judgment.  What do you know that hasn't found its way into the Sunday School manual? (<- No need to reply to that; it's more of an observation than a question.)

 

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Perhaps the use of stars is meant to be a parable for us in more than what was given. At first they appear insignificant as well as numerous in terms of light due to our distance from them, but each star is actually a sun and we would experience them in much the same way as our sun once we are close enough.

Perhaps we are meant to realize all who partake in some way of God’s glory will be celestial once we come to understand and experience them and ourselves as who we truly are and not choose to stand apart from them, viewing their reality at a distance (and this applies to awareness of our own “true”, eternal selves as mortality creates a veil or distance between our current experiences of our self and the fullness that actually exists).

Imo this is radiant.  No pun intended.

(With apologies to Joseph Smith:)  If you could tell us who we are, we would call it blasphemy, and would want to take your life. 

[Calm]

12 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

A good human parent would know with some certainty what the child would do.  God would know with absolute certainty what the child would do!  Yet neither the child nor the parent/God would be CAUSING the choice the child to eat or not eat the cookies.

If you create the situation where a certain choice will be made, in one sense I can understand why some will say you caused the choice.

Put the cookies in front of an older child, but tell them the cookies are made with spinach (it’s really just green food dye) or other food they hate. Chances are they won’t eat the cookies. Without the belief they are spinach cookies they eat, with the belief they won’t. You decide whether to tell them they are spinach cookies or not. 

[Benjamin McGuire]

33 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Pre-knowledge of what will happen does not make the knower a cause

But, pre-knowledge combined with creating the context in which a choice is made does make the knower a cause. This is a problematic argument when we discuss God and the extent to which God doesn't just know the outcome but may have chosen the outcome from many possible outcomes.

[Calm]

50 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Good points

We also know that Knowing the future doesn't mean we cause it.

I hold my pen at arm's length and open my fingers, the pen falls.

I did not CAUSE it to fall, gravity was the cause.

You put a plate of cookies in front of a 3 year old, and tell them not to eat any until you are in the room,  as a test.  You leave the room.

A good human parent would know with some certainty what the child would do.  God would know with absolute certainty what the child would do!  Yet neither the child nor the parent/God would be CAUSING the choice the child to eat or not eat the cookies.

Pre-knowledge of what will happen does not make the knower a cause

If you have a credit rating of 800 and make $250 k per year and suddenly need a loan for $100. because you lost your wallet, I think I would have total certainty that I would be paid back, but I cannot read your heart as God can!

I think that God knows us even better than credit monitoring organizations .

 

My mortal brain has a hard time with determinism and true freedom. I rationalize all that by saying God will only ultimately judge us by what our eternal nature chooses, not by the choices of our mortal self, influenced by all sorts of biological needs and twisted emotional desires and understandings created by circumstances out of our control. For example, I had no say over being left in my crib alone for hours on end because I was a “happy baby willing to entertain myself” when my older siblings required and wanted more attention (they had been trained to expect it as Mom was originally a very, very hands on caregiver) nor did my younger siblings choose to get less up close and personal attention from Mom due to her last pregnancy setting her up with multiple problems. It is the personalities of my older and younger siblings and myself, all obviously impacted by this early level of maternal involvement, that are making our choices in mortality. How can we be said to be truly free agents at this time?  

How would it be just for God to judge any of us by the decisions we make here…unless he takes into account all the whys of those decisions and strips it all down to the part of the choice made that was not impacted by mortality…think of it as if we are a pinball (varying in density and thus bouncing around differently) bouncing around in a machine with millions of pins ‘choosing’ to eventually fall into four slots (OD and the three kingdoms…or 6 if you divide Celestial into three possibilities) vs how we would have fallen if there were no pins present.  Though then is the question who hit the flip switch, ourselves or someone else?  And did God change our fundamental selves by giving us spiritual bodies (changing the pin ball from plastic to metal and maybe adding self adjusting flaps so we can alter our fall ourselves a little) or did he speed up the process of progress and continues to remove obstacles (we were moving already but God used a flipper to add to our momentum as well as adding substance and mobility in mid flight) or place obstacles to bump us in a better direction, doing so through many blessings, but especially through Christ’s Atonement (or maybe this is just the illusion of what is happening)?

And the pins also get moved around by getting hit by other balls as well as just the machine is programmed that way and God does it here and there as well, so balls coming before, after and around us experience a different path.  And the pinballs  can hit each other impacting direction too.  And to really complicate things, mortality removes a significant part of the pinball.

Which takes me back to we were in premortal life (before we were bouncing around in the mortality section).  But that is impacted by being in the presence of God and others. So maybe it’s back to when I was an intelligence (just a pinball slowly rolling along in a generally straight line with little impacting me).  Could I make a choice then?  Was I aware enough of implications of my choices to be said to be a full agent?

***On a side note, this is why I have a hard time with the belief that intelligence refers to possible building blocks that God organized (God makes the pinball out of various plastics and/or metal) versus an awareness that was clothed in a spiritual body (the center of the pinball always existed, but God added some layers that allowed us to respond better and move faster); obviously the second makes more sense to me.  I believe intelligence is some sort of core programming or creature that always existed…but is not unchanging, especially with God’s help.  ***

True agency to me seems to be able to come only with godlike knowledge, of our selves and our environment (including all the beings influencing us).  Agency to me is being able to see the original pinball and to comprehend where and when it would drop (and keep dropping since the machine is infinite) and to comprehend the current state of the pinball me and my direction and timing and see a third pinball or even endless numbers of possible pinballs that God offers to turn me into and where each eternal destination would be and to choose the pinball I want to be.  But is the me that is making choice a pinball that has been in part at least changed by others and not the original pinball?  If so, am I not determined by others?

The only way the changed me is a free agent is that I accepted each fundamental change before it happened, understanding the consequences or God in his love and power made the choice for me based on my innate desires, knowing what I would choose if I could and not his own.

So complicated….eventually I am always saying God’s mind can handle all the implications and therefore I trust the ‘end’ is truly my choice and not a choice forced on me, even by love.

———

It ends up being a question for me is the natural man that part of us which is mortal or is it that part of our original intelligence that prevents us from achieving full godhood?  Or something else?

Edited May 31, 2023 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, Tacenda said:

This is why I think it's all make believe, the religion part, not the maker part. 

Faith is HOPE for things unseen, upon which we act, like say world peace, or the USA paying off its debt.

That doesn't mean it is therefore "make believe".

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Faith is HOPE for things unseen, upon which we act, like say world peace, or the USA paying off its debt.

That doesn't mean it is therefore "make believe".

Okay, and boy do we need HOPE more now than ever. 

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Faith is HOPE for things unseen, upon which we act, like say world peace, or the USA paying off its debt.

That doesn't mean it is therefore "make believe".

Faith is the substance (assurance) of things hoped for, the evidence (proof) of things unseen.

Faith isn't just hope (a mental attitude).  It's actually being able to see the substance and evidence behind the scenes.

As I learned from The Santa Clause "seeing isn't believing, believing is being able to see".

[Meadowchik]

I like the Book of Mormon definition, faith is belief in things unseen which are true. 

Once you know (it's true or not true) it's no longer faith. 

Edited June 1, 2023 by Meadowchik

[pogi]

18 hours ago, Calm said:

But God’s regression is presented as something theoretical that will never happen in my view, not as a true possibility. 

  It is presented as an if/then scenario.  If God does this, then this will happen...  I don't think the consequences of violating the law is being presented as theoretical.  God would cease to be God if he violated the law.  He would fall from glory.  I don't think that is being presented as a question or theoretical.   The theoretical question in the verse is could or would God violate the law?  While I agree that the likelihood of this happening is near zero, I hesitate to say that it can't happen - because that would strip God of agency.  In other words, I think the possibility for him to regress is there because of agency, but it just would be unimaginably more implausible than a trillionaire with great power and glory donating all of his money to charity and becoming an ascetic hermit in a desert cave.  It is possible because of agency, it just ain't likely happen. 

Over the scope of eternity, I think that eternal progression over time is the more likely flow because of the natural pragmatic benefits of progression through obedience to law.  It simply is more desirable, and eternity makes that obvious in time.   But I think the possibility needs to exist both ways for any progression to happen and to be possible. 

Edited May 31, 2023 by pogi

[mfbukowski]

On 5/30/2023 at 9:32 PM, JLHPROF said:

Faith isn't just hope (a mental attitude).  It's actually being able to see the substance and evidence behind the scenes.

... which are STILL also mental attitudes.  They cannot be otherwise. ANY mental attitude is still a mental state, even certainty.

And certainty is wrong all the time.

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, pogi said:

  It is presented as an if/then scenario.  If God does this, then this will happen...  I don't think the consequences of violating the law is being presented as theoretical.  God would cease to be God if he violated the law.  He would fall from glory.  I don't think that is being presented as a question or theoretical.   The theoretical question in the verse is could or would God violate the law?  While I agree that the likelihood of this happening is near zero, I hesitate to say that it can't happen - because that would strip God of agency.  In other words, I think the possibility for him to regress is there because of agency, but it just would be unimaginably more implausible than a trillionaire with great power and glory donating all of his money to charity and becoming an ascetic hermit in a desert cave.  It is possible because of agency, it just ain't likely happen. 

Over the scope of eternity, I think that eternal progression over time is the more likely flow because of the natural pragmatic benefits of progression through obedience to law.  It simply is more desirable, and eternity makes that obvious in time.   But I think the possibility needs to exist both ways for any progression to happen and to be possible. 

If God ceases to be God, there would be no Holy Ghost to tell us so.

This relatively stuff can get pretty tricky.

We'd need another God real quick.

Who knows? Nietzsche thinks it already HAS happened, the old "God" of immaterial material is dead, and a new Human God is to taking over.

I could be convinced that the "Ubermensch" - the "Over-God" is the Restored God.

Read "Thus spoke Zarathustra". Or at least Cliffs notes 🤔

https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/zarathustra/summary/

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by mfbukowski