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ws – Quote:Viewing human bodies as not ideal, and then believing that a less than perfect being created us is a big leap. How did this less than perfect being create everything? What powers/character traits does this flawed God have?
Just an idea, of course, but that being would only have to have the requisite scientific knowledge (priesthood?) and/or have internal capabilities of generating this (e.g. procreative powers) that are inherent and not fully understood. If we believe God is a “perfected” man, one of the obvious next questions is “how perfected?” and “when did he cross the line from imperfect human to God?” I suppose we could say that one becomes a God after becoming a Bodhisattva (like Christ), but what exactly does that mean? Does that connote physical perfection and a perfect knowledge of all things?
hawkgrrrl wrote:ws –
Quote:Viewing human bodies as not ideal, and then believing that a less than perfect being created us is a big leap. How did this less than perfect being create everything? What powers/character traits does this flawed God have?
Just an idea, of course, but that being would only have to have the requisite scientific knowledge (priesthood?) and/or have internal capabilities of generating this (e.g. procreative powers) that are inherent and not fully understood. If we believe God is a “perfected” man, one of the obvious next questions is “how perfected?” and “when did he cross the line from imperfect human to God?” I suppose we could say that one becomes a God after becoming a Bodhisattva (like Christ), but what exactly does that mean? Does that connote physical perfection and a perfect knowledge of all things?
In this light, what if we interpreted “perfected” to mean “fulfilling the measure of creation”? That is, rather than having “perfected” represent a state that one arrives at, what if it represented a process? This follows along the lines of “line upon line” and gaining a little here and there. If we continue this logic we might arrive at the conclusion that we are all “gods” because we are progressing, and becoming.wordsleuth23 » 04 Aug 2009, 10:37 jmb275 wrote:
@wordsleuth23
Sorry, I’m really confused here. You start out with concepts about free will and evil (even in the title of the post), and then ask a question about the church’s position on the nature of God. Can you clarify a little for me?
The problem of evil and free will tie very much into the nature of God. That’s the entire debate. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent, then can he stop the evil in this world?
Not having read your forty page paper I can only guess at your belief on the subject. It appears God seems very much interested in keeping evil as an option simply as an outgrowth of choice. The preexistence shows that choice was an option, as does life on this planet. To stop evil in this world would be to except Lucifer’s plan in the preexistence.
jeriboy wrote:wordsleuth23 » 04 Aug 2009, 10:37
Not having read your forty page paper I can only guess at your belief on the subject. It appears God seems very much interested in keeping evil as an option simply as an outgrowth of choice. The preexistence shows that choice was an option, as does life on this planet. To stop evil in this world would be to except Lucifer’s plan in the preexistence.
You can choose a position of acceptance, based on faith, that can refute the best logical arguments. But ultimately, this is a logical argument. Why can we stop evil but God can’t? When we stop evil, are we taking away someones free will, or someones opportunity for growth? And if you use free-will as an argument, do we really have free will? If God created us, then ultimately he is the cause of everything we do, because we wouldn’t exist without him. The Church teaches that God is omniscient; if God knows exactly what we are going to do, doesn’t that imply that we don’t have free will? When factoring in environmental, biological, and genetic factors, do we really have free will? People with brain disorders are literally incapable of certain things; people with frontal lobe often times repeat the same mistake over and over–repeat prisoners for example; people with this problem are really unable to learn from mistakes. Do they really have free will?
If God is interested in keeping evil around as an outgrowth of choice, then why do little babies starve to death? Do they have a choice there? Do their starving parents have a choice? Do people that get murdered have a choice? Did holocaust victims have a choice? The list can go on and on. That is simply looking at moral evil; natural evil–hurricanes, tsunami’s–doesn’t seem to give people a choice? How do anything of things help peoples free will? People often say its the free will of the perpetrator that matters; really, a murderers free will is more important than an innocent person? That is a weak, morally unsustainable argument. If you have a family member that gets kidnapped or murdered, are you going to feel okay because it mattered that that evil person had the right to exercise free will?
My ultimate point is that the problems of free will and evil mean the current Mormon definition of God doesn’t work. That may not bother a lot of people; they just argue that we created the definition of God, so if our definition is wrong so what. For me, that doesn’t work. I don’t believe that a God capable of creating us would be incapable of stopping evil, or be unable to allow certain levels of free will but reduce the amount of evil in this world. This leads me to believe that if there is a God, he probably isn’t remotely similar to the God Mormons believe in.
@wordsleuth23 Loved the arguments. This is why I don’t find these kinds of questions interesting. You know my position on God, so I tend to think that we superimpose our view on Him/Her/Them (or whatever). Ultimately, I have no definition of God so there is no contradiction.
wordsleuth23 wrote:My ultimate point is that the problems of free will and evil mean the current Mormon definition of God doesn’t work. That may not bother a lot of people; they just argue that we created the definition of God, so if our definition is wrong so what. For me, that doesn’t work. I don’t believe that a God capable of creating us would be incapable of stopping evil, or be unable to allow certain levels of free will but reduce the amount of evil in this world. This leads me to believe that if there is a God, he probably isn’t remotely similar to the God Mormons believe in.
I’m not sure if you meant to, but you answered your own question in this last paragraph. Like I said in a previous post, I think you’re preaching to the choir. I doubt many of us here as staylds actually have a belief in “God” that remotely resembles what the church “teaches”, at least as revealed by JS’ claims of what the godhead is, in a literal sense.
so, what jmb said…
swimordie wrote:wordsleuth23 wrote:My ultimate point is that the problems of free will and evil mean the current Mormon definition of God doesn’t work. That may not bother a lot of people; they just argue that we created the definition of God, so if our definition is wrong so what. For me, that doesn’t work. I don’t believe that a God capable of creating us would be incapable of stopping evil, or be unable to allow certain levels of free will but reduce the amount of evil in this world. This leads me to believe that if there is a God, he probably isn’t remotely similar to the God Mormons believe in.
I’m not sure if you meant to, but you answered your own question in this last paragraph. Like I said in a previous post, I think you’re preaching to the choir. I doubt many of us here as staylds actually have a belief in “God” that remotely resembles what the church “teaches”, at least as revealed by JS’ claims of what the godhead is, in a literal sense.
so, what jmb said…
Swimwordie, first of all, who isn’t preaching to the choir here? Just because people agree to a certain extent doesn’t mean something isn’t interesting to discuss. I have a question for you, and jmb as well–if you don’t believe we can define God, how can you believe in God? If you don’t have a concept of something–some sort of idea/definition–then where does your belief begin in the first place? Not only that, but if you use the term God, you are defining God in a sense simply by conceiving of him/it/her, so from there, some elaboration is necessary. What other words/labels do you use that have no definition/concept? I have responses to my questions, so in a sense I answered my own question, but the questions in my last post were posed for Jeriboy–not me.
I have no idea, really, if any particular description of God is Truth, but . . . I really like the Mormon construct for MANY reasons, so I accept it. I choose to believe it, knowing it falls into the category of faith and desire to believe. Seriously, I REALLY like the concept – and I have a deep belief in the existence of God.
wordsleuth23 wrote:I have a question for you, and jmb as well–if you don’t believe we can define God, how can you believe in God? If you don’t have a concept of something–some sort of idea/definition–then where does your belief begin in the first place? Not only that, but if you use the term God, you are defining God in a sense simply by conceiving of him/it/her, so from there, some elaboration is necessary. What other words/labels do you use that have no definition/concept?
Well….
This may need to be it’s own thread, unless there’s already one that’s dealt with this.
What is your definition of “God”?
In most of my posts, when I use the word “God” in a definitive statement, I try to use “quotes” so as to denote that I’m using the acceptable term for a concept that transcends definition, in most cases.
My belief begins and ends with the concept of “light”, as I define it. There is, in my limited understanding of science, some defining psychological differences between the human animal and all other species/organisms. These differences are what I refer to as “light”. A gift from “the universe”.
In my mind, I imagine these differences come in the form of “empathy”, and it’s accompanying negative, image consciousness, or being able to see how others see oneself.
Another, is abstract deduction/conceptualizing: being able to work out a solution in one’s mind, deducing the outcome without trial/error, “knowing” without experiencing. I believe this concept transcends instinct, as our species has been able to accomplish much with the same resources that all other species have access too.
Without question, in my mind, we evolved just as all other species did; hard to refute when our DNA is 98%+ equal that of chimpanzee’s. But, something happened to transform this evolution and make, what appears to be, a great leap forward, to our current species. Since one can “create” the idea of “God”, in this sense, “God” can and does exist, just as love, empathy and storytelling, “exist”.
This “light”, can be defined by me as “God”, iow, the transcendent power/force/consciousness that creates the ability in the human species the aforementioned attributes.
In this construct, the idea of evil and free will are critical to the definition: free will being the notion of complete and absolute evolutionary processes, bound completely by environmental, genetic, biological, etc. and evil being the darwinian concept of intra-species “competition” for “resources” for the continuation/survival of a defined (by the sub-group) “community”.
As a continuation of this “model”, I see the ability of the human species to ultimately “get along” or “overcome” “evil”, as being the next great leap forward in the evolutionary process. What this means, or how it looks, I have no idea. But, the spirit of Christ’s teachings (and other great spiritual leaders) can affect the transcendental move our species needs to reach that “utopia”.
I think many spiritual leaders throughout history have advocated for a similar process, as you can superimpose their constructs onto this “system” and see many similarities.
wordsleuth23 wrote:swimordie wrote:wordsleuth23 wrote:My ultimate point is that the problems of free will and evil mean the current Mormon definition of God doesn’t work. That may not bother a lot of people; they just argue that we created the definition of God, so if our definition is wrong so what. For me, that doesn’t work. I don’t believe that a God capable of creating us would be incapable of stopping evil, or be unable to allow certain levels of free will but reduce the amount of evil in this world. This leads me to believe that if there is a God, he probably isn’t remotely similar to the God Mormons believe in.
I’m not sure if you meant to, but you answered your own question in this last paragraph. Like I said in a previous post, I think you’re preaching to the choir. I doubt many of us here as staylds actually have a belief in “God” that remotely resembles what the church “teaches”, at least as revealed by JS’ claims of what the godhead is, in a literal sense.
so, what jmb said…
Swimwordie, first of all, who isn’t preaching to the choir here? Just because people agree to a certain extent doesn’t mean something isn’t interesting to discuss. I have a question for you, and jmb as well–if you don’t believe we can define God, how can you believe in God? If you don’t have a concept of something–some sort of idea/definition–then where does your belief begin in the first place? Not only that, but if you use the term God, you are defining God in a sense simply by conceiving of him/it/her, so from there, some elaboration is necessary. What other words/labels do you use that have no definition/concept? I have responses to my questions, so in a sense I answered my own question, but the questions in my last post were posed for Jeriboy–not me.
I think you could safely answer the question for yourself and that would likely be my answer. We’ve discussed before that we have similar views on “God.” But yes, I see your point that it is still worth talking about for some people. I guess I’m trying to say that I don’t find it very interesting to talk about as there is just way too much I’m uncertain about. Therefore, I pose myself the question, “why did I even respond on this post altogether.” And with that, I will stop responding! I understand it was meant for Jeriboy, so I’ll stop responding.
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