Interplanetary Travel & The LDS's

[ksfisher]

On 8/12/2023 at 5:53 AM, Sara H said:

What is our God like if we think of the way he has changed over time as a military rank? Is he a private, a lieutenant, or maybe even a captain? I think it's likely that he's a Lieutenant. Which means that many Gods out rank him and that he still has to go through some pain and suffering as he learns.

If this is true then I could put for the case, to these gods, that being created by an inferior god that I have been cheated.  My problems are caused by this gods inexperience and are not my fault.  I'm sure that if I'd been created by a fully qualified god that my life would have turned out better.  Since he's learning and we're paying the price for his mistakes, this life isn't our fault.

[Sara H]

28 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

Uh, this has nothing to do with how many posts you make, it's about responding to questions asked of you relative to the things you say in your posts.  If you make ten thousand posts and never respond to the questions raised by your topics, then it completely supports the perception that you are not sincere in your questions and topics, and are merely trying to stir up controversy. 

Because of this, I tallied again, and if you count my posts from before Calm told me I'm being insincere and controversial, I made a total of 18 posts (not counting the initial post). Nine of my replies, out of the total 18, are directed toward Calm. That is to say, I have spent half my time on her as I have on the other four or five persons to whom I have answered. So could you kindly inform me how much of my time I need to devote to Calm on each thread in order for her to be content with the responses I provide her? Is a score of 60% adequate? 

[InCognitus]

2 minutes ago, Sara H said:

Because of this, I tallied again, and if you count my posts from before Calm told me I'm being insincere and controversial, I made a total of 18 posts (not counting the initial post). Nine of my replies, out of the total 18, are directed toward Calm. That is to say, I have spent half my time on her as I have on the other four or five persons to whom I have answered. So could you kindly inform me how much of my time I need to devote to Calm on each thread in order for her to be content with the responses I provide her? Is a score of 60% adequate? 

As I said, this is not about how many total posts you make, but whether or not you are responding to specific questions.  There are some questions you have totally ignored, like the ones I posted here.  You totally ignored that post and started a new thread, and never posted in that thread again.  I'm sure Calm has some specific posts in mind as well.

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Sara H said:

In terms of responding to each and every one of your questions. If you're going to complain that I didn't answer each and every one of your questions, maybe you shouldn't ask quite so many of them in the first place.

I have only asked one actual question.  Prior to that one, my questions in the four posts I had made in that original of yours were rhetorical or asking you to respond to my analysis of your theory, not actual questions about your theory.  Instead I saw gaping holes in your logic (jumping to the conclusion the issue with low lumens was on God’s end and not Joseph’s or that a high powered sun is better for creation than one like ours when a high powered one will likely burn out any chance of life or create too unstable of a planet with multiple planetary orbits impacting each other, again limiting opportunity for life) and was pointing them out.

All questions I asked of you in the interplanetary thread were in regards to the one question I asked.  I asked no questions in the polygamy thread, but gave my own answer to your question.

Here is where I started asking my one question:

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/75460-is-lumen-output-an-indicator-of-our-gods-power/?do=findComment&comment=1210156812

All of my actual questions were variations of trying to get you to answer the one thing what I wanted to know about your scenario of a less experienced God the Father…which was never about his lack of experience because I accepted that as your premise for your thought experiment even if I don’t personally agree with your conclusion/assumption, but only about what the Council of Gods was doing not providing more supervision or alternatively why God the Father didn’t follow a standard protocol/recipe (as I recall you stated he would for the last part of the exaltation process due to the requirements of the elder gods) rather than his own less developed approach to avoid unnecessary suffering for his children.

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Why assume the one (has to toe the line for resurrection or else it’s failure) and not the other (someone cares enough to oversee what he does to his mortal toys—as that seems to be how you think God views us since he is willing to experiment on us—since mortals are the ones who will become the celestial beings)?

If there has been established a perfected, highly efficient process to develop perfect resurrected beings, seems likely there has been plenty of chances to develop the best and most efficient system for creating mortal bodies since they come first in the overall process and that only those gods capable of such levels of creation are let out of the sandbox to go play on their own, at least for when it comes to sentient beings capable of suffering.  Otherwise this glorified council of supreme beings who ensure eternal perfection for its spiritual children has intentionally allowed horrendous levels of unnecessary suffering by not providing aid where needed to a less developed god creator.

You going off on tangents of suffering on the interplanetary thread whether by Christ or in general being necessary for progression (which I agree with) was not answering my question since I was only referring to unnecessary suffering, which would be the difference in suffering for our world vs worlds created by more advanced creator Gods, since their created humans would be as eligible for exaltation as we are and yet suffer much less than we would any hardships due to less well organized bodies (just to be clear, they would still be suffering due to the mistakes and wickedness of its people and any hardships in the natural environment of the world, only they wouldn’t have as many illnesses and physical disorders causing the pain and extreme suffering that we experience here due to bodies breaking down or messing up with stuff like cancer and birth defects and genetic disorders).

In the interplanetary thread, I reiterated my same question in my first post to you here:

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/75466-interplanetary-travel-the-ldss/?do=findComment&comment=1210157064

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Assuming there is a progression of power, it doesn’t make sense that compassionate beings would send out creators without making sure they were capable enough to care for their creatures well, especially if they are insistent on ensuring resurrected beings meet their standards.  

Why would they allow such a messed up world when it would screw up so many of its inhabitants, leaving them with mental, emotional, and spiritual baggage that probably will take eons to resolve, especially with a God who is still wet behind the ears being the one in charge of their healing process.

That you wasted effort responding to things I did not ask is on you.  I don’t know why you felt the need to respond to somethings I didn’t ask.  I kept trying to get you to focus on the major issue I saw with your premise (stated above) and that is the one I still want you to address.  If you have, please ignore this request; if not, my request is still open.

PS:  as to my post count, after the post I linked to here I was not responding to you in the lumen thread except for once when you asked a question of me (which method was used) about a respond I provided for MN I believe, which I promptly answered (both), so those posts don’t need to be included in the count of requiring any effort from you distracting from your ability to focus on the one question I asked of you in that thread

PPS: in the interplanetary thread, I made comments about alcohol and arthritis and the possibility of you checking out medical cannabis as an alternative treatment that led to a side discussion that may have been distracting, but did not request any input from you.  I also observed Adam being God did not help your theory of how our bodies/DNA is messed up (any more than the sun being on the smaller side did) due to his superior DNA.  I also made several comments to others that should not be included in your post count of my requests (implied or direct) for a response from you.

PPPS:  I bolded that section so it is easy for you to tell my one question still is open.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

9 hours ago, Sara H said:

So could you kindly inform me how much of my time I need to devote to Calm on each thread in order for her to be content with the responses I provide her? Is a score of 60% adequate? 

Just use one post to answer the question I actually asked (see above) and I will be content.

added:  whether this theory of yours is a just for fun thought experiment (love those), a less than sincere attempt to present LDS beliefs as weird and/or blasphemous (presenting our God as a less advanced and therefore not trustworthy to not blow it for us is a common antimormon trope in my experience), or a sincere attempt to explore the nature of God based on man’s experience with him that for some reason is ignoring a multitude of scriptural descriptions of his awesomeness or something else, I am undecided.  However, if this is a sincere attempt to understand the nature of God, I would assume if someone is considering judging God as not that great, they would be eager to be proven wrong given the implications of what this means for us as well as how God might view attempts to diminish his abilities (I think he might be laughing fondly about it as he adds a few steps on your ladder of progression to help you learn what being truly in awe of God is supposed to mean) and would therefore be eagerly engaging with and responding to criticisms of their ideas.

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Exodus 15:11

New International Version

11 Who among the gods
    is like you, Lord?
Who is like you—
    majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
    working wonders?

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus 15&version=NIV

Edited August 15, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

To clarify in order to show you (Sara) exactly what I want you to explain…

Your premises as I see them plus two that are givens as I see them (everyone probably agrees to them already)

A)  Our God creator is not a rebel, but simply a less experienced God creating a mortal experience for his spirit children to progress in.  He is not a rebel in your scenario because he is willing and (most important to my analysis) able to follow instruction when necessary (Sara:  “Therefore, there is a fair likelihood that when our God was building our celestial bodies, he was working from an everlasting "recipe" that he had to follow to the letter if he wanted us to be able to enter heaven once we had completed our time on earth as mortals.”

B) we have diseases and disorders in this life in part due to God’s inexperience (Sara:  “Other signs that our God is a new God include the imperfections that are present in our mortal bodies, such as cancer, male pattern baldness, arthritis, and a great deal of other diseases and conditions. If you give it some serious consideration, there is a good chance that there is another earth out there somewhere in the cosmos that is governed by a more experienced God that has way more knowledge than our God. This would mean that he is better at constructing mortal bodies than our God, which would mean that there is a good chance that the mortal bodies he creates on that earth are far more advanced than the mortal bodies that our spirits inhabit while they are on this earth.”).

C) there is a council of very highly capable gods who teach and oversee at least some of the work of the less advanced gods (Sara:  “I believe it is more likely that a council of God's established the limitations on what a celestial body has to be or not be….It's likely that there are numerous gods and their offspring residing in a heaven together. There's probably multiple heavens. Therefore, there is a fair likelihood that when our God was building our celestial bodies, he was working from an everlasting "recipe" that he had to follow to the letter…I believe that he is now free to be able to build mortal bodies on his own…”)

D)  bodies created by more advanced Gods could live to 2000 years due to being better working, healthier (Sara:  “there is a really good chance that we will discover that many of the people mentioned in the Bible who lived to be between 600 and 1000 years old were probably the spirit children of another God who came to earth to assist our God in establishing his everlasting gospel” and “What I mean to say is that there may be planets in space where the average lifespan of that God's spiritual progeny may be 2,000 years. This is because the mental and physical perfection of that God is greater than that of our God.”)

E).  diseases and disorders cause extreme (at least from the mortal perception and that is relevant to our current experience) pain and suffering, both physical, but also emotional from those who have to watch loved ones suffer or who lose loved ones to an early death (I hope this is obvious enough I don’t have to provide references for it)

F) Gods are beings of immense godly love and compassion, far in advance of mortal love and compassion (given by the definition of God in our faith)

One can conclude from these premises that

1) both the more advanced creator Gods’ humans and our God’s humans’ mortal experiences are sufficient for progressing to exaltation

2) that the difference between our mortal bodies and more advanced ones is therefore unnecessary as part of our eternal experience 

3) thus any difference in physical and emotional suffering between our worlds is unnecessary for eternal progression

Conclusion:  we mortals in this world suffer unnecessary extreme pain and suffering because our God won’t follow a standard receipt and the elder Gods won’t step in to insist he does as they could since they do for exaltation

My assumption: we on this world for the most part with our less than advanced compassion believe allowing your children to suffer unnecessary extreme pain and suffering is not loving, not compassionate and is cruel and therefore Gods who are much better at loving and compassion than we mortals are will at a minimum feel the same way, but probably more so.

This all leads to…

My question:  why are the gods of the council and our God not acting compassionately to remove the unnecessary suffering of this world?

PS:  someone kindly made sure I had seen your partial answer 

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I think a more advanced God, say an Admiral, doesn't need to use as much pain and suffering to teach his children because his children start out on a higher rung of the endless progression ladder than we do. Because his children are smarter than we are, his understanding makes it easier for him to teach them. What I mean is that we're not as refined as the mortals who worship a more refined God. So how our God teaches us is nothing like what a more advanced God might teach his children. 

This is an insufficient answer because it neglects to deal with the council of the gods’ ability to step in and help and apparent refusal to do so, so we still need a reason why they aren’t when they could show more godly compassion to humanity by doing so nor does it deal with our creator God’s apparent unwillingness to use a “recipe” for our mortality portion of progression to spare us as is claimed he does for the exaltation part of our progression according to Sara’s theory (quoted in premise A).  If the above answer is realistic, that we need more suffering to penetrate our thick skulls (I consider that a solid possibility), there needs to be an explanation of why we have such thick skulls when our creator God could have avoided that problem by receiving help from the council of Gods as he avoids us losing out on exaltation because of his weaknesses in godhood skills.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Calm

[Sara H]

Holy cow! These are some extremely lengthy posts, and they kind of prove my argument, which is that you're asking me to devote more time to you than I am now able to or even want to. I'm sorry, Calm, but I just can't find a way to prioritize your needs over those of the other board members. You just linked together three pretty long posts, and I'm not going to try to break them down for you and give you who knows how many replies because I don't have the time or energy to do that.

 

The following is what I propose we do moving forward. Put an end to my public shaming by stopping to think of me as someone who seeks to stir up trouble. It's possible that you don't find the subjects of my posts interesting, but I do. Every single thread that I have posted can be debated in a way that is favorable to the church. If you want a question answered, then act like an adult and send me a private message asking if I will please respond on the board so that we can continue the conversation. Do not insult me in public so that you may win points from your squad. It's not just you; there are a few other board members I haven't gotten back to yet since I simply don't have the time right now. 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Sara H

[Calm]

4 hours ago, Sara H said:

The following is what I propose we do moving forward. Put an end to my public shaming by stopping to think of me as someone who seeks to stir up trouble. It's possible that you don't find the subjects of my posts interesting, but I do. Every single thread that I have posted can be debated in a way that is favorable to the church. If you want a question answered, then act like an adult and send me a private message asking if I will please respond on the board so that we can continue the conversation. Do not insult me in public so that you may win points from your squad. It's not just you; there are a few other board members I haven't gotten back to yet since I simply don't have the time right now. 

 

Did you even read my posts?  If you had, it would have taken just a few minutes to answer the one question I have always asked you as I made my reasoning quite explicit and made the topic extremely narrow for you to respond to, just so you wouldn’t have to make much effort to respond.

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just can't find a way to prioritize your needs 

You put up a thought experiment and wanted people to take it seriously.  And that is exactly what I did (once I figured out you weren’t just being flippant suggesting God couldn’t light up a rock).  I most certainly do not need to take it seriously, it is more natural in fact for me to take them less serious because of your choice of topics.  In responding to me, it was not about prioritizing my needs, but clarification of your theory for anyone trying to see if it was logical and thought out at least.

I wrote long posts explaining in detail because you didn’t answer the question when I posted shorter posts.

Instead of clarifying your theory, I get a post about why you can’t answer.  Along with conclusions about my motivation that had nothing to do with my comments.  Why would I send you a private message about you clarifying your theory when you put your ideas out in public?

I am fine with not continuing this conversation because you have no time.  But starting more threads to spend even more time answering people on other subjects suggests not that you don’t have enough time, but that you don’t want to, whether you are bored, don’t have an answer or the answr is too complicated to explain in this context.  So just say that instead of presenting yourself as some sort of victim of a shaming when all that I have been doing was trying to get you to complete your thoughts on your theory so it would make sense and to give context to the conversation.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Calm

[InCognitus]

On 8/15/2023 at 4:29 AM, Sara H said:

The following is what I propose we do moving forward. Put an end to my public shaming by stopping to think of me as someone who seeks to stir up trouble. It's possible that you don't find the subjects of my posts interesting, but I do.

I propose that when you make assertions about the church and its teachings and someone asks you to provide sources or evidence of such assertions and teachings (like I did here) that you respond to the post and provide the evidence instead of ignoring the requests and running off to start a new thread as if the prior thread and assertions were never made in the first place.

[Sara H]

23 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

I propose that when you make assertions about the church and its teachings and someone asks you to provide sources or evidence of such assertions and teachings (like I did here) that you respond to the post and provide the evidence instead of ignoring the requests and running off to start a new thread as if the prior thread and assertions were never made in the first place.

I express my gratitude for the sensible counsel provided by my esteemed priesthood leader. I will now engage in a contemplative act of prayer, seeking forgiveness and reflecting upon the actions I have taken that have caused you distress.

[ksfisher]

40 minutes ago, Sara H said:

I will now engage in a contemplative act of prayer, seeking forgiveness and reflecting upon the actions I have taken that have caused you distress.

...or you could just answer people's questions. 

You've proposed a number of unique ideas.  It seems only natural that people would desire to further understand your thought process on those idea.  People have also raised a number of concerns about those ideas. I've made a couple of posts where I've brought up potential problems that I see in your thinking.  You answered one of my questions with a question (which didn't answer my question) and haven't responded to the other. 

I think everyone realizes that none of us have unlimited time to respond to everything on the board.  I'm not able to respond to everything I post.  But a good faith effort to engage in discussion goes a long way.  I think this is especially true for the OP and even more so when unique theories or beliefs are expressed.

 

[InCognitus]

45 minutes ago, Sara H said:

I express my gratitude for the sensible counsel provided by my esteemed priesthood leader. I will now engage in a contemplative act of prayer, seeking forgiveness and reflecting upon the actions I have taken that have caused you distress.

Make sure you also contemplate your projecting of emotions and sarcasm and ask for repentance on those behaviors too while you're at it.  

Since you are changing your ways, I look forward to your response to my request for sources, as well as a response to Calm's post.

[Stargazer]

On 8/11/2023 at 2:15 PM, Calm said:

The issue was that you said God couldn’t create decent bodies for us where other Gods could, which means we are experiencing unnecessary extreme suffering because our God insists on stumbling around instead of asking for help when there are plenty of examples out there where it was done better

This made me think of something my wife said the other day when complaining about her arthritis. It was that when she became a Mother in Heaven she was going to make sure those bodies were better constructed. 

She accepted with some grumpiness my explanation that Father's goal was not make life a bed of roses, but to present to each of us problems that had to be either overcome or endured. And that her arthritis was foreordained for a reason.

But I understand where she's coming from. Because I have things I wish I didn't have to deal with -- and I know that you have much to deal with, too.

[Stargazer]

On 8/11/2023 at 5:23 PM, rodheadlee said:

What was that theory by a Hilton about our planet traveling from a different solar system to get to this solar system? Also the theory was that our God was the God of our galaxy and that each of His relatives was a God of the other Galaxies. One galaxy per God.

The problem with that idea is that our galaxy will be merging with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4.5 billion years (actually, the first effects of that merger are already occurring). And our galaxy is now in the process of merging with others, two of which are known as the Greater and Lesser Megallanic Clouds (visible only in the southern hemisphere). A remnant of an earlier merger with yet another galaxy is the Virgo Star Stream, and several dwarf galaxies such as the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy are currently colliding with the Milky Way and being merged into it. Besides Andromeda, the Triangulum galaxy is close enough to both Milky Way and Andromeda that it will also merge with the MW+Andromeda supergalaxy in the even farther future.

Such collisions are relatively common, considering galaxies' long lifespans. Andromeda, for example, is believed to have collided with at least one other galaxy in the past.

It's amazing, actually! The Hubble and now James Webb telescopes have demonstrated that these mergers are happening all over the visible universe. 

Here's a photo of the Mice galaxies merging:

[Stargazer]

On 8/11/2023 at 5:24 PM, Tacenda said:

I'm sorry that happened Calm, and here I thought cannabis was 100% safe, good to know! I'm glad you reacted as you did, I don't think I could live knowing I was probably instrumental on you giving it a try. Or partly. 

It has its uses. When my late wife was dealing with her cancer, there was a point when the less-strong pain meds weren't quite doing it for her, and a little medical cannabis helped bridge the gap until she was granted the stronger meds.

[MustardSeed]

19 hours ago, Stargazer said:

but to present to each of us problems that had to be either overcome or endured. And that her arthritis was foreordained for a reason.

Is this church doctrine? 

[Rain]

17 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Is this church doctrine? 

I was thinking about this as well.  Earlier today I looked up foreordination.  The definition in the gospel library is "God’s premortal ordination of His valiant spirit children to fulfill certain missions during their mortal lives."

The trials we face while fulfilling the mission aren't the mission itself.  

[JAHS]

29 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

20 hours ago, Stargazer said:

but to present to each of us problems that had to be either overcome or endured. And that her arthritis was foreordained for a reason.

Is this church doctrine? 

Nope. Foreordination normally refers to future leaders of God's Church on earth

[MustardSeed]

One of the bigger misconceptions I find. 

[california boy]

20 hours ago, Stargazer said:

The problem with that idea is that our galaxy will be merging with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4.5 billion years (actually, the first effects of that merger are already occurring). And our galaxy is now in the process of merging with others, two of which are known as the Greater and Lesser Megallanic Clouds (visible only in the southern hemisphere). A remnant of an earlier merger with yet another galaxy is the Virgo Star Stream, and several dwarf galaxies such as the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy are currently colliding with the Milky Way and being merged into it. Besides Andromeda, the Triangulum galaxy is close enough to both Milky Way and Andromeda that it will also merge with the MW+Andromeda supergalaxy in the even farther future.

Such collisions are relatively common, considering galaxies' long lifespans. Andromeda, for example, is believed to have collided with at least one other galaxy in the past.

It's amazing, actually! The Hubble and now James Webb telescopes have demonstrated that these mergers are happening all over the visible universe. 

Here's a photo of the Mice galaxies merging:

Corporate merger possibly to consolidate things?  Hopefully not a hostile take over.  That could get ugly.

[Amulek]

38 minutes ago, california boy said:

Corporate merger possibly to consolidate things?  Hopefully not a hostile take over.  That could get ugly.

Kirton McConkie are going to have their hands full... 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

One of the bigger misconceptions I find. 

Which one?  Foreordained to suffering? If so, I would agree.

Foreordained for anything that causes harm, especially intentional, does not happen.  I think God is well aware he doesn’t need to ensure pain comes our way so we can struggle and overcome and by that progress, the world and its people are more than generous enough to have all that covered….and then some.  Even with Christ, he was foreordained to bear our sins for us, but I suspect the suffering that he underwent as Jesus because of the hatred and fear of mankind, foreordaining to suffer such suggest that the evil done to him is somehow sacred imo.  He was foreordained to fill a role and because he filled it, because he was the Messiah, the Anointed One, he was attacked and they tried to destroy him.  He was not the Messiah because they tried to destroy him.

 I know some speak of Judas being foreordained because someone had to do it, but how can someone be foreordained to commit evil and it be just for him to be punished for it or even feel guilty?

The idea that Judas (or anyone who commits evil acts) was predestined and had no choice but to betray Christ and then to burn in hell forever for it as is taught in some Christian faiths is so very wrong, imo.  

[MustardSeed]

24 minutes ago, Calm said:

Which one?  Foreordained to suffering? If so, I would agree.

Yes that’s what I meant.  You hear sentiments around this belief a lot and it agitates me because it’s not truth. 

[Calm]

11 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Yes that’s what I meant.  You hear sentiments around this belief a lot and it agitates me because it’s not truth. 

If it helps people endure it to think that, I am okay with them thinking that even if I doubt that is the way it happens as long as they don’t give up looking and doing stuff to fix it if they can and help relieve their suffering when they can’t.

Anyone telling me I took on RLS or my daughter diabetes as some sort of calling might not get a slap up the side of their head, but I will probably be imagining that as I smile and thank them for their concern.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Calm

[Bassil]

That's a fascinating and open-minded stand.