Why does HF HAVE to have a body?

[Anonymous]

SamBee wrote:

You see, my problem is that although this makes God sympathetic (empathetic?), it makes him weak. And I don’t like that.

If being sympathetic helps God connect with His children, guide them and lift them, and accomplish great works through them reaching their potential, would He not be more powerful then a God who sits on a throne with all power to legislate obedience and punish the disobedient?

Seeing God with human qualities does not necessarily lessen His stature, if He is PERFECT in those qualities.

[Anonymous]

I guess God doesn’t HAVE to have a body, but on the other hand, I don’t thing that having a body “makes [God] weak.” I think there are some underlying assumptions here that don’t necessarily follow.

[Anonymous]

SamBee wrote:

Quote:

While most of the rest of Christendom posits a God who is mysterious, unknowable and outside the confines of our natural universe; Mormons have the audacity to claim God is like us, and lives somewhere in our same sphere of reality. We are of the same substance, and are co-eternal with God the creator.

You see, my problem is that although this makes God sympathetic (empathetic?), it makes him weak. And I don’t like that.

I can understand the sentiment, but from whence do we get the idea that god is simultaneously all powerful, all good, all knowledgable? Recognizing that it is not really possible to know all about god, do we know anything at all?

I know there is a standard set of beliefs in a god who is infinitely powerful and not limited. Does a creation have to be inferior in every way to the creator? Does not a parent rejoice in the child who excels and grows beyond the parent? Enlightened parents do.

Is the creator of a vehicle capable of running as fast as the creation?

The father of modern computing lived in a time when bigotry against homosexuals was state policy in Britain. Do we reject Alan M. Turing’s invention because a ‘sinful’ man created it?

Turing postulated that by 2005, computers would approach hman intelligence. Humans outsmart computers today only in the sense that humans are better at being human than computers. But by most other measures of intelligence computers can outcompute, out remember, outplay humans. They learn, they adapt, but of course, they don’t feel or emote except in the ways we have simulated emotion.

Likeqise, in creating Mormonism, Joseph smith created a creature far greater than himself. The testimony of Joseph smith is that the creator need not be sinless nor indeed greater than the creation.

The scariest thought is that mankind has created the means to entirely destroy life on the sacred planet in which we live. Why would a god ever allow such power to be held by mortals?

There are so many possibilities for what god is. Joseph Smith didn’t deviate far from the traditional mainstream Christian definition–god was still all powerful even if corporial. God still knew everything even if he once progressed. God was still all good. “I am the lord thy god, I am greater than they all.”. So to reject the “Mormon god” because it is inferior to the Christian god or JW god, is to mischaracterize what Lds teach.

For all intents and purposes, Mormons and Christians teach alike the platonic ideal of god: a perfect, ideal being, whose creations are all inferior to Him. He is the ideal, the form. We are but the shadow. That we lived before and will return home to god is simply to perfect the platonic ideal. The ideal of an essential god preceding existence and in Lds and Plato, that our souls so originated is to deny existence, “being” as being ontologically and existentially important.

Against this milieu of the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture, Jesus said “I AM”, and “ye are gods”. He wanted us to be one in the same way as he is with the father and he in us.

What did Jesus mean? Are his words meaningless? Must we accept Plato that god is forever the other from us? Ideal? Distinct? Does the word ‘atonement’ mean nothing at all? How can we be one with the impossible theodicy?

As a heretic, I am not constrained by orthodox belief.

Perhaps

[Anonymous]

I always thought the argument that God is all-powerful would be really limited if one claimed God can’t do something — like appear with a body when he feels like it. I’m not sure why we have to figure out the one-true-and-only manifestation of whatever the heck God is.

All-knowing? How can He know what existence is like without experiencing a body of some sort.

All-loving? Can someone truly experience all-encompassing love for a tangible creation without a connection to the tangible universe?

Saying God can’t be a certain way is a de facto limitation.

[Author]

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