A Couple of Questions

[Calm]

46 minutes ago, Teancum said:

is a poor comparison to the topic at hand.

Math is always a perfect comparison.  😛 

[Teancum]

12 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

Actually, several prominent Christian leaders have expressed agreement with the doctrine of felix culpa ("happy fault") - the idea that the Fall brought about net positive consequences and the Edenic state was not God's planned endgame before Adam and Eve mucked it all up. St. Ambrose back in the 4th century argued that the Fall brought man to a better condition than if it had never occurred. Even St. Augustine, generally regarded as the foremost expositor of the doctrine of original sin, held that "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist," a principle which St. Thomas Aquinas later built on. John Wycliffe taught that the Fall was fortunate and made the world better. 

Look at it this way. If all you've ever experienced is bliss - and I mean ever, you have never had a negative experience - how can you really call it "good", as opposed to just "how things are?" And if you were enjoying yourself, would you even know that you were enjoying yourself since you've never not enjoyed yourself? A world with no variation is truly value-neutral, having neither good nor evil. Therefore, evil must exist for good to exist, or else your reality is just an undifferentiated mass of experience with nothing to call good or evil. You could only call such a world "good" by comparing it to what we have here, which is cheating since you would be using the evil of this world as a referent.

Without experience, you might have knowledge of what those things would do to a forensic-jelly effigy of your body, but the value of that - the cognizance you feel in your gut, that pulls on your chest, the muscle memory, the "knowledge-how" - it wouldn't be there. However, if you need that "knowledge-how", then it follows that God has to let you fall to *some* degree.

Which then raises the question - how far is God allowed to let you fall? 15 feet? 20? Is He allowed to let the fall break bones, or only bruise? And if He restrained the world to bone breaking so that you couldn't die from fall damage, *would anything stop somebody in that hypothetical universe from complaining that that was too much?* After all, that would be the worst outcome available to them, the worst they could think of. Why wouldn't somebody make that argument? Would they be wrong to do so? If they would be wrong to do so, then are we somehow right in doing the same thing in our world? Where is the transcendent authority telling us that our world is impermissible for God but Broken Bones World is fine? I don't know, and I don't know how we could even know in principle. As a matter of evidence I think the problem of evil is moot.

But of course, nobody in real life thinks like this. Instead, we look at specific horrors and think, "I wouldn't allow this. How could any good person allow this? How could God possibly allow this?" As you have done: 

This is fundamentally a pastoral problem, not an evidential problem imo. It's more about people relating to God than His existence. There's actually a school of thought called antitheodicy which holds that theodical reasoning (trying to justify God's actions in the world) is itself evil, and I tend to agree with this: we don't have God's knowledge and consequently our reasoning is certain to be warped in some way and may even be used to justify evils. It is a fool's errand to try and replicate the thoughts of a superintelligence like God, so we should stick with our moral senses while acknowledging that God's literally multidimensional perspective might make Him aware of ultimate outcomes and tradeoffs we cannot see. Included in all of this is the doctrine of the Redeemer, who thinks that the world to come is so worth it that He decided to suffer everything He permits Himself. 

The scriptures don't talk much about theodicy but I find the Book of Job really interesting in this regard. My signature includes a quote from Job - it's one of my favorite books of scripture and one of the most profoundly wise texts that I have ever read. I love Job, among the shining jewels of Hebrew poetic thought. I would recommend the following essay from Interpreter to all: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/job-an-lds-reading-2/. 

Job is presented as an undeserving sufferer. His friends want to explain his misfortune and do so by deciding that Job must have sinned, he must have done wrong - it's inconcievable that God would allow the undeserving to suffer. Surely Job must have sinned. Job protests this, and in asserting his righteousness challenges God to conform to Job's understanding of Him and bless Him. Elihu barges in and declares that they're ALL wrong, they're all too fatalistic about God, God is clearly good and all of this borders essentially on treason (it's more complicated but this is how I read him.) Then God Himself speaks - and He doesn't explain Himself. He asks Job why Job thinks he is wise enough to discern God's purposes and then shows Job His face, and it is enough for Job. Job has spoken of things he could not understand, things too wonderful for him, things which he could not grok sufficiently to speak, a motif again and again in scripture. It is not surprising to me that a superintelligence is aware of realities that we cannot comprehend. Joseph Smith did say that you could learn more from staring into heaven for five minutes than from reading everything ever written on the subject, a sentiment expressed by just about every mystic ever. Like Job, I seek that communion myself, and believe it will be more satisfying than any half-baked justification I could concoct.

As a final point, I don't find anything noble or honorable in defiantly passing judgment on God. There might be a sense of catharsis that comes from declaring that God is a monster (implying of course that you are morally superior) but I cannot find such catharsis honorable for its own sake, and as previously expressed I do not think it is dispositive. Furthermore, it is a known fact that those in suffering often resort to God for comfort. Even if I couldn't relate to God's choices, I would rather allow them the consolation that their suffering is deeper and not simply an absurdity, rather than push my glasses up like a Redditor, confident that my propositional legibility is the most important thing, before telling them it was really all for nothing. If I wouldn't do it to their face - if I wouldn't stand outside a funeral chapel passing out flyers saying "IT WAS ALL ABSURD AND YOU HAVE NO HOPE" - then I wouldn't do it anywhere.

When I was growing up I went to early morning seminary. I enjoyed being the class know-it-all, and at one point I was discoursing (in the middle of class) on how a wind obviously did not part the Red Sea without bowling over the Israelites. Clearly it must have been some kind of gravitational manipulation or something. A dear friend of mine got frustrated and just shouted "GOD KNOWS MORE THAN YOU, [OGHoosier]!" Nobody's ever needed that lesson as much as I, and it's one of my cardinal principles.

These are all interesting things to ponder.  But it presupposes that there is a God. My take is the problem of evil and suffering is strong indications that there is not a god, or at least a theistic god.  And while you talk above about humans not being able to understand the thinking and intelligence of a supernatural god being that proposal assumes there is a god and that you/we theologian etc have a lot of ideas about the god, what this god thinks, what this god does and so on.  I have don't find the argument that God's ways and thoughts are above ours so suck it up. Same with the Job  myth. After all was said and done, by God allowing Lucifer to harm Job, God just tells job to suck it up and not question God. As for judging God a monster, all we have is our morals to go on so sure. But the comment is really not judging some God being. It is more an argument that such a being does not exist.

[Dario_M]

21 minutes ago, Teancum said:

These are all interesting things to ponder.  But it presupposes that there is a God. My take is the problem of evil and suffering is strong indications that there is not a god.

I find that you have no proof that there isn't a God. God meight be well existing. And that's what i believe. 

21 minutes ago, Teancum said:

or at least a theistic god.  And while you talk above about humans not being able to understand the thinking and intelligence of a supernatural god being that proposal assumes there is a god and that you/we theologian etc have a lot of ideas about the god, what this god thinks, what this god does and so on.  I have don't find the argument that God's ways and thoughts are above ours so suck it up.

In case God excist for real it is a certainty that his ideas, ways and thoughts are above ours. 

21 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Same with the Job  myth. After all was said and done, by God allowing Lucifer to harm Job, God just tells job to suck it up and not question God. As for judging God a monster, all we have is our morals to go on so sure. But the comment is really not judging some God being. It is more an argument that such a being does not exist.

But why are you so sure about the fact that God doesn't exist. Where is the proof that he is all made up? Why was Jesus here then all those (2024) years ago? Why did Jesus teached humanity the gospel then? And why did Jesus claimt that our heavenly father really existed? In the end Jesus was nailed to the cross by monsters in human form. And Jesus last words where "forgive them who turture me, they don't know what they're doing"

That is probably what Jesus said on that horible moment. No human can be so mercyfull. So...if Jesus really exicted...why doesn't God exist? 

Edited August 29, 2024 by Dario_M

[Teancum]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Math is always a perfect comparison.  😛 

I don't think it was in this case. But you disagree with my positions as is evidenced by your down vote.😏

 

[Calm]

49 minutes ago, Teancum said:

I don't think it was in this case. But you disagree with my positions as is evidenced by your down vote.😏

 

No one dishes on math in my presence.  
 

(just in case not obvious, it was a joke down vote for me)

Edited August 29, 2024 by Calm

[Teancum]

3 hours ago, Dario_M said:

I find that you have no proof that there isn't a God. God meight be well existing. And that's what i believe. 

One cannot prove a negative proposition. 

 

3 hours ago, Dario_M said:

In case God excist for real it is a certainty that his ideas, ways and thoughts are above ours. 

Sure. If there is a God like the theistic religions of the world the being would have thoughts and ways above us mere mortals.

 

3 hours ago, Dario_M said:

But why are you so sure about the fact that God doesn't exist. Where is the proof that he is all made up?

I am not sure. I don't know. I find the evidence for such a being lacking. It seems to me the burden of proof is on those who make the claim of such a supernatural being. 

 

3 hours ago, Dario_M said:

 

Why was Jesus here then all those (2024) years ago? Why did Jesus teached humanity the gospel then? And why did Jesus claimt that our heavenly father really existed? In the end Jesus was nailed to the cross by monsters in human form. And Jesus last words where "forgive them who turture me, they don't know what they're doing"

Based on my studies I an skeptical that Jesus claimed for himself what his followers later claimed for him.

 

3 hours ago, Dario_M said:

That is probably what Jesus said on that horible moment. No human can be so mercyfull. So...if Jesus really exicted...why doesn't God exist? 

I don't know whether god exists or does not exist.

[Stargazer]

56 minutes ago, Calm said:

No one dishes on math in my presence.  
 

(just in case not obvious, it was a joke down vote for me)

It kinda seemed uncharacteristic of you...  

[Calm]

55 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

It kinda seemed uncharacteristic of you...  

My family would have totally understood.  I was playing math games with my son before he went to kindergarten. He even understood the principle behind squares and negative numbers.  OTOH, he hated doing math facts in class!!!!  Too boring.  My favorite thing in school was doing proofs for algebra on up.  So restful and exciting at the same time.

[Mfbnew]

6 hours ago, Teancum said:

Yes. So? 

I did not specifically design suffering for them to experience opposition.  Suffering simply exists in the world we live in. IMO, the problem of evil and suffering is the strongest argument against a theistic God.

Appealing to other religions does not help you.  So what if EVERY religion uses these principles?  I would expect most religions try to answer the problem of evil and suffering.  Whether the answers religion provides are good answers is really up for debate is it not?

 

I am not clear on your point.

Suffering is a symbol?

Math is simply a law of the Universe.  It is a poor comparison to the topic at hand.

You don't read a lot of poetry, do you?  It is important to know that symbols (words) are not scientifically objective.  

"Simply X in the world"  What does that mean? In what sense does suffering "exist in the world? Can you see it?  Where is it?  All you can go by is a subjective statement from the sufferer who may value the level he is EXPERIENCING on an imaginary scale of 1 to ten.

That's all I will answer now.

[Nofear]

Addressing the OP:

I don't think it is either/or. I do believe that our Heavenly Parents and other exalted beings experience an absolute fullness of felicity and joy*.  They are happy. At the same time, they also experience great grief and sorrow for things that their children do (especially in mortality, but I seriously doubt it is limited to that). Though it doesn't make a lot of sense, the two emotional states can coexist at the same time without damaging the other. I can say that from my own lesser experience of the two (e.g. Gospel gives me great joy, but there is sorrow when my loved ones choose variant paths). Again, I don't think it is either/or.

While Moses 1:39 gives us some information about what God is doing, it doesn't explain fully why God is doing it. Obviously, because God loves us but I personally suspect there is more to the story**. Also, I don't think Moses 1:39 is God's only purpose and work.
 

 

* This is something that transcends biology or other things (else, why wouldn't such beings just keep themselves in a blissful stupor the entire time?
** That would require speculation way beyond what we know. When Moses asked about such things (e.g. other worlds) God explicitly said, nope, not going to tell you.

[Teancum]

17 hours ago, Mfbnew said:

You don't read a lot of poetry, do you? 

Nope. None.

17 hours ago, Mfbnew said:

It is important to know that symbols (words) are not scientifically objective.  

I never indicated that they were.

17 hours ago, Mfbnew said:

"Simply X in the world"  What does that mean? In what sense does suffering "exist in the world? Can you see it?  Where is it?  All you can go by is a subjective statement from the sufferer who may value the level he is EXPERIENCING on an imaginary scale of 1 to ten.

So nothing is real apparently? I understand our reality is subjective unto ourselves. Still, it seems to me that we have as humans a relative understanding of physical and emotional experiences and words we all accept to describe things. When you see a doc for some sort of physical pain you describe it and rate it. The words have meaning and communicate something to the doctor. This is not some esoteric symbol. The human species seems unique in all species on the planet to be able to communicate and understand such things and is likely one of the reasons we have advanced far beyond the other species we share the planet with.

17 hours ago, Mfbnew said:

That's all I will answer now.

Ok. Whatever you wish.

[Mfbnew]

5 hours ago, Teancum said:

So nothing is real apparently? I understand our reality is subjective unto ourselves. Still, it seems to me that we have as humans a relative understanding of physical and emotional experiences and words we all accept to describe things. When you see a doc for some sort of physical pain you describe it and rate it. The words have meaning and communicate something to the doctor. This is not some esoteric symbol.

Of course things are "real".  That is the old argument to the stone error.

I don't know how this statement has anything to do with the rest of this paragraph.  Yes reality is subjective- until you describe it.  But what you describe is not the "real" thing.   You can't sit on the word "chair" nor does that word tell us what kind of chair we are describing- or if it is painted in a color we find ugly.  At what point is a "chair" a chaise lounge?  If hiking can a rock be a functional "chair"?

And what of the "appeal to the stone" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone  - FALLACY?  Good job at giving an example.

All words and statements are "signs" which are open to interpretation and thereby are "symbolic".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

Every word you use is a symbol.  If you have every tried to translate a language into English you will find out that it is impossible to catch the exact nuances of nearly any word in language x to language y.

When one is seeking an advanced degree in philosophy, to get one's degree- one must take a test including translating foreign languages into English.   Usually the two languages are French and German.   I had a reading knowledge of both of those languages, but it has been so long that I have lost a lot of both.

In dictionaries- have you ever noticed that there are usually more than one "literal" definition of a word?

Communicating "something" to someone is always uncertain, or we would not be having this discussion.

[manol]

On 8/26/2024 at 3:16 PM, let’s roll said:

1. Which better describes your understanding of the principal purpose of mortality as it relates to the post mortal life of the righteous:

    a.  If we learn to navigate difficult and sorrowful situations in mortality, we enjoy an exalted life largely devoid of difficulty and sorrow, or 

    b.  We need to learn to navigate difficult and sorrowful situations in mortality because an exalted life requires managing an eternity of situations     more difficult and sorrowful than those we faced in mortality.

Neither really describes my understanding, but a) comes closer than b).

Ime there is a direct connection between our thoughts and our experience of life "down here", and I presume our power to choose our thoughts is far greater "up there". 

I think there is a perspective from which our myriad problems can be seen as different manifestations of the same problem, at which point the solution will become apparent.

 

On 8/26/2024 at 3:16 PM, let’s roll said:

2. Why is knowing God and Jesus Christ the most apt description of life eternal?

Imo “knowing” in this context does not mean “can write a really good essay about”. I think it means something more like, “to experience within, throughout, and as, one's very being”.

And the term “life eternal” might be more about interconnectedness than about duration.

[Nofear]

5 hours ago, manol said:

Imo “knowing” in this context does not mean “can write a really good essay about”. I think it means something more like, “to experience within, throughout, and as, one's very being”.

Indeed, as Jacob points out how knoweth the man the master whom he has not served. I agree “knowing” God means being like Him, “to experience within, throughout, and as, one's very being”.