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Cadence, Do you think wealthy people did nothing to earn their reward?
Do you think ALL people who are wealthy earned it?
SilentDawning wrote:Some blessings ARE earned though, as we obey natural laws. Even the tyrants of history were blessed for their hard work, for a time. You are blessed when you look after your body through exercise and good eating habits and rest. So, you CAN earn blessings, but I find this is most evident only when you are earning them through application of natural laws that are well understood.
Yet even here there are exceptions: the Olympic swimmer that dies of cancer, the 5 year old boy with a mouth full of rotted teeth, the person that gets hit with a 2 ton falling space satellite even though the odds of getting hit were 1/14,000,000,000. Sometimes good decisions just aren’t enough.
Somewhat related to this thought is how connected we all are. When the economy started to go south I thought, “Must suck to be someone who bought more house than they could afford, or entered into a ‘liar loan’ or ARM without reading the fine print, or jumped into house flipping speculation, or carried too much CC debt. – I have always been conservative, living without consumer debt in a modest home at a fixed rate. I will weather this storm just fine.”
Then I lost my job and couldn’t sell my house!
We were able to pull out of the tailspin – but my lesson was twofold, “No man is an island” and “Luck affects us both individually and collectively.”
Heber13 wrote:Do you think wealthy people did nothing to earn their reward?
Do you think ALL people who are wealthy earned it?
I found the discussion several months back about the differences between patterns and formulas to be very helpful on this topic. If I were to draw a bell curve of the expected outcome of playing a slot machine, the pattern would be that you would lose the median amount of money. With the standard deviation to the left or the right of the median, you could reasonably expect to win a little more than the median or lose a little more than the median. But that only covers reasonable expectations, there are the “corners” of the bell curve that either win BIG or lose everything.
Hard work and good choices lead to prosperity most of the time…except when it doesn’t.
SilentDawning wrote:Some blessings ARE earned though, as we obey natural laws. Even the tyrants of history were blessed for their hard work, for a time. You are blessed when you look after your body through exercise and good eating habits and rest. So, you CAN earn blessings, but I find this is most evident only when you are earning them through application of natural laws that are well understood.
I think we all agree that you can benefit from certain behaviors. All of that may have nothing to do with divine intervention. I am questioning whether God directly intercedes when we obey a certain commandment. Sure I get a benefit if I eat right and exercise, but do we actually have God pushing a button or pulling a lever when we live more abstract things like praying constantly or paying tithing or living celibate. Things that would not be done other than if you were religious. Do these things elicit blessings above and beyond natural benefits. Am I saved from a terrible accident because I have pure thoughts. Do I win the lottery because I paid tithing. Is there direct intervention from heaven in my life because of my behavior. The church certainly teaches this. I have heard many stories of how lives were saved because of righteous living,Quote:I think we all agree that you can benefit from certain behaviors. All of that may have nothing to do with divine intervention. I am questioning whether God directly intercedes when we obey a certain commandment. Sure I get a benefit if I eat right and exercise, but do we actually have God pushing a button or pulling a lever when we live more abstract things like praying constantly or paying tithing or living celibate. Things that would not be done other than if you were religious. Do these things elicit blessings above and beyond natural benefits. Am I saved from a terrible accident because I have pure thoughts. Do I win the lottery because I paid tithing. Is there direct intervention from heaven in my life because of my behavior. The church certainly teaches this. I have heard many stories of how lives were saved because of righteous living,
I think people can be famous for embellishing stories to make them sound miraculous. Paul H. Dunn is a case in point.
On the other hand, a growing belief I have is that when the causes of events are unclear, there are benefits to our inner peace from choosing to believe it may have been God intervening in your life. This leads to a feeling that we are supported, that the world is just, and that God loves us. All these things are good for our self-esteem and our inner peace.
When we choose to believe it was just random, the effects are not as positive. We can grow cynical. We can feel life is a random venture in which we have no control. This has negative health and peace benefits (studies have shown this on learned helplessness and control). So, if given a choice about what to believe, opting to attribute positive events to God can be good for our happiness.
Perhaps that’s why the scriptures say that God is not pleased when we fail to acknowledge his hand in all things….
Roy wrote:SamBee wrote:If we live really horribly, and expect blessings, we’re not going to get them. Living horribly includes being a church member, but a Pharisee along with it.
I have a dissenting opinion here. I’m pretty sure that the Pharisees did have blessings, counted them often, and probably felt that they were signs from God that they were favored above others.
I think they THOUGHT they had blessings. That’s not the same as having them.
Interesting though that both Israel/Zions (Mormons and Jews) have suffered a lot from violence, and perpetrated some of it too (LDS far less than Jews of course). Is persecution, murder, imprisonment and religious discrimination a “blessing”? Considering the amount of effort both lots have put in, it’s questionable.
SamBee wrote:Roy wrote:SamBee wrote:If we live really horribly, and expect blessings, we’re not going to get them. Living horribly includes being a church member, but a Pharisee along with it.
I have a dissenting opinion here. I’m pretty sure that the Pharisees did have blessings, counted them often, and probably felt that they were signs from God that they were favored above others.
I think they THOUGHT they had blessings. That’s not the same as having them.
I don’t get the difference. If you have good things happen in your life, are those not blessings? Is it just dumb luck when sinners get rewarded, but it’s God when it happens to the righteous?
I’ve had many raises throughout my life, but one happened the day after I began paying tithing again. It is easy to call that one a blessing because it was so close to living a commandment, but what about all those other raises when I was drinking and having sex outside of marriage? I certainly felt blessed to receive them. Were they from God? Was it because my Mom is living right? I honestly don’t know, it just gets hard to determine when it is luck, hard work, or God that is rewarding you.
FWIW, I feel very undeservedly blessed in nearly all aspects of my life. I have above average income, a fairly nice home and job, a wonderful wife and kids and no health problems worth complaining about. I thank God for those all the time, but I don’t know if I am doing anything directly to deserve or not deserve them. I guarantee you that the average American is not a better person overall than the average Ethiopian, despite being at the opposite ends of the blessings spectrum.
Regardless of anything else, I think it is good to approach life, especially abundance we receive, from an attitude of humility and thanks. It just seems to be a good way of living. Quote:I don’t get the difference. If you have good things happen in your life, are those not blessings? Is it just dumb luck when sinners get rewarded, but it’s God when it happens to the righteous?
Spiritual pride can make you feel warm and even good inside. But it is not a blessing. False assurance is not a blessing.
” Is it just dumb luck when sinners get rewarded, but it’s God when it happens to the righteous?”
I think life is more complicated than that…
Separating the sinners from the righteous is not completely simple.
Things happen to people through people’s free will (agency), through long term processes (e.g. natural disasters) that are not directly related to the individual and so on, so we can’t lay everything at the feet of God.
If I steal someone’s bag, empty the contents out, and someone else gets some of the money which has fallen out and blown away… then that’s largely to do with me. I am hurting one person, and inadvertently giving someone else a bit more money. But that’s my free will, even if it’s part of God’ plan in part. The person who gets robbed, and the person who gets the money happen to be where they are through a complex mesh of habits, outside causes and their own free will.
Quote:Regardless of anything else, I think it is good to approach life, especially abundance we receive, from an attitude of humility and thanks. It just seems to be a good way of living.
Amen. I’d much rather try to feel “blessed unworthily” than feel like I earned blessings because I deserve them. Semantics or not, I don’t know; I just know I care more about my attitude than my actual circumstances.
SamBee wrote:If I steal someone’s bag, empty the contents out, and someone else gets some of the money which has fallen out and blown away… then that’s largely to do with me. I am hurting one person, and inadvertently giving someone else a bit more money. But that’s my free will, even if it’s part of God’ plan in part. The person who gets robbed, and the person who gets the money happen to be where they are through a complex mesh of habits, outside causes and their own free will.
I think I get your point Sambee. You seem to be saying that true blessings come from God and psuedo-blessings do not. I think it would be very difficult to know what good things come from God and what good things are just coincidences, or natural processes, or an expression of agency.
For those persons that believe that every good thing comes from God, then every good thing would meet your definition of a true blessing.
I just looked up the definition of the word “Blessing”
Quote:1. The formal act of approving (see also, acceptance)
he gave the project his blessing2. A desirable state (see also mercy)
enjoy the blessings of peace3. A short prayer of thanks before a meal or a ceremonial prayer invoking protection (see also benediction)
their youngest said the blessing4. The act of praying for divine protection
I think most of our conversation has focused around the meaning in #3 and #4, wanting the protection and wanting the reward.But maybe we don’t think about #1 and #2 enough.
If I pay tithing, God may accept my sacrifice. Abel’s sacrifice was blessed by the Lord. But that didn’t protect Abel from Cain. The blessing of tithing isn’t Fire Insurance, but the desired state of feeling good about detaching from material belongings, and that I feel good about myself when I feel I’m doing something God approves of.
…which leads back to:
Brian Johnston wrote:Regardless of anything else, I think it is good to approach life, especially abundance we receive, from an attitude of humility and thanks. It just seems to be a good way of living.
I can’t earn that blessing if I just think about it but never do it. But I can earn the desired state in my heart and approval of God by doing things He has asked me to do, regardless of the random consequences of free agency Sambee suggests.
If you believe that God is good and everything good is created by him, then yes, all “blessings” are from him. However, there are many things in life we find pleasurable and “good”, which aren’t necessarily. However, some of our blessings come from other people perhaps. Maybe when we feel good about doing someone else a good turn, somebody is thanking us for doing the right thing.
Verging into heresy here, but I think this is a positive way to look at it.
SamBee wrote:Verging into heresy here, but I think this is a positive way to look at it.
Verg on, with your Bad heretical-yeti self!
Just been reading CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters… not quite what I was expecting (I’ve read a lot of Lewis’ Narnia books, science fiction and non-fiction) I don’t know if people are familiar with the book (it appears in one of U2’s videos of all places!)… but a young demon is getting advice from an older demon on how to lead a Christian astray… and one of the things he says to the young demon is “keep on impressing on him how humble he is”. The whole joke is that the more humble you think you are, the less you are… very Zen. So thanks, but I guess I must not realise I’m vergin’ while I’m doing it…
Sambee, that’s been a running joke in our family for years. We claim we’re the most humble family in the ward. If anyone else claims they are more humble…that proves they’re not…so we still win 
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