unixknight

I suppose the question then, is whether or not that will cross over. I think it will, for his ego if nothing else.

Citation needed. I'm not too concerned about that. Countries will make deals based on their own interests. They're not going to pass up trade opportunities over simple insults. Say what you will about Donald Trump, but the man knows business, he knows how to negotiate and he knows how to make good deals. I trust him in this regard.

That may not be what it was called, but that's what it was.

Citation needed. Agreed, they shouldn't... But what's been happening lately goes way beyond open bias. Bias is when you shift your emphasis to favor your point of view. What's been happening in the last few years has been outright lies, coverups and distortions. Because most Americans know only what the MSM tells them. It isn't obvious to me why I should care what people in other countries think of our President. You say that Obama improved relations... well yeah, of course other countries will like us better if we take a weaker, more passive stance and give them room to advance their interests. Duh. If Trump is pushing for more favorable terms with trade, defense and so on then of course other countries will get ruffled. They've benefitted from a very imbalanced set of agreements for a very, very long time. It's long past time for that to end. "Hey, we need better trade terms with the EU. Let's renegotiate while we're in a position of strength." "OH NOEZ! BUT THE EU WILL GET MAD AT US!" "Ah, of course. Can't have that." Israel likes us? GOOD! They've been a fantastic ally and a strong friend that Obama absolutely threw right under the bus at every opportunity.. The Philippines like us? GOOD. We need a strategic ally in the region and they've been a good friend to us. Oh, we're making the EU mad? The EU, which is rapidly marching toward totalitarianism? Aw, darn. Making Russia mad? Gee, I guess that flies in the face of the narrative that Putin pulls Trump's strings. The middle east doesn't like us? Spoiler alert: That ain't news. Sorry for coming across as grumpy. Long meetings today.

Yah I know you weren't asking to be convinced. I just used 'you' in my reply to illustrate what I was getting at. If you were to experience something like that, in whatever form it takes, I imagine how you interpret that experience is entirely up to you. The key to all of this is agency... We have to be 100% free to determine how we interpret, react and act on these things. For instance... If somehow I could show the world some form of absolute, irrefutable evidence of God's existence and of my belief system in particular, then on some level people would feel sort of obligated to accept it. That isn't agency. Further, it would require absolutely no faith. What I mean is, it takes no faith at all to know that cats exist, that the Earth is round, or that 1+1=2. We know these things to be true and require no 'faith' per se. We just accept them because they're right in front of us. Could God provide such evidence of His own existence? Absolutely. Some may argue that He already has. I don't think He has, because we need at least a tiny bit of faith to find Him. Why? Because faith takes courage. Faith takes a certain humility that says "I accept that this is true, even though it hasn't gone out of its way to convince me." Humility is the most basic component of Christianity. To believe in God at all is to have enough humility to understand who we are and who He is. We demonstrate that humility through faith, and that faith is then rewarded with certainty of Him.

For me personally, when it comes to understanding what the Scriptures say about the nature of God, I feel like the simplest explanation is generally the best. Now, everybody will naturally say that the explanation they believe in is the simplest, and cite passages that, to them, appear to very simply and directly state what they believe. So what I try to do is to look at the scripture, imagining I'm coming from a totally different belief system that is seeing the Bible for the very first time, with no preconceived notions of any kind, whatsoever on their meaning. Maybe I'm from the Far East. Maybe I'm from the Middle East. Maybe I'm from a lovely little island on Tau Ceti IV. I might see a passage like "I and my Father are One." and perhaps interpret that to mean they're one in essence... But I'd also read passages like the ones I mentioned before... when Jesus prayed to the Father in the garden, or when He was on the cross, or when He was baptized. I think I'd then say to myself "Oh, ok, so these are separate people talking to and about each other. Gotcha. Then I'd regard passages like "I and my Father are one" as being poetic or metaphorical, since that's another easy way to look at it without contradicting the narrative at the 3 events mentioned above. It's Occam's Razor, essentially. Which is the simpler and therefore more likely interpretation to me, as someone who never saw this before? That Jesus, Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit are shown to be separate Beings doing separate things at the same time, with other passages metaphorically talking about their oneness, or They're all a single divine being manifesting in three different ways such that they're the same God and yet talk to one another separately, in a manner so difficult to conceptualize and understand that arguments and disagreements on the specifics have endured for 2,000 years; with no direct support for that idea in Scripture other than a very nonintuitive interpretation of a few isolated lines? Again, I say this not to attack anyone's view. Just sharing my thought process. Anyway, I won't beat this dead horse any further.

At the end of the day, when I'm making a personal choice on where to place my faith and what I believe, I can only go by what I personally know. I don't know how to account for the Baptist, Catholic, Muslim or Jew who says he/she has had a personal experience from God that led them to where they are. I don't feel like I need to. It doesn't threaten or detract from my own experience at all. Why should it? There's room in my beliefs for all of that. What I know is that God spoke to me in a way uniquely effective in convincing me, and I listened. My testimony is not meant to convert anyone else. It was given to convert me, personally. As for anyone else in any other belief... I don't know what went on in their heart or mind. I don't know what God said to them. I wasn't there. I was there when God showed me what He wanted for me to do. Nothing else in my personal history quite compares to that experience, and so I trust it. Of course, as a software developer, I'm used to thinking about alternatives. "What if it wasn't what I thought it was?" I've had people try to tell me that. I've heard it form other Christians that it must have been from the Devil and not God, because surely God would have led me to be a Protestant/Catholic/whatever the person was. Well, if that's so, then that would have to mean that I do not have the ability to distinguish between the voice of the Devil and the voice of my Creator. That notion doesn't make sense to me at all. I've been told it was just some sort of hallucination by people who weren't there and who have precisely -zero- knowledge of the state of my psyche, my brain or my physiology. Well, I don't find that to be likely either since I wasn't on any mind altering chemicals, have no medical history of such things, have no family history of such things, and it would have to mean I had a very specific hallucination at a very specific time that just happened to coincide with the exact moment in my life where such a change would have drastically altered my trajectory as it would have at no other point in my personal history, and hasn't happened since. So that's what I know and I trust it. Other peoples' experiences are other peoples' experiences. I can reasonably say nothing more about them. How does that impact you? It isn't meant to convince you. You're right to ask those questions. If I were to tell you my story, you truly would have no reason to take my word for it over someone else's. I suppose it could be that you hear enough conversion stories that you feel inspired to ask of God yourself. James 1:5.

I didn't accuse you of manipulating her. I said the ultimatum 'tasted' that way Ok.

Fair enough, but it's hard for me to imagine a hard break over that. My first wife was LDS and I was Catholic*. I had -zero- expectations that she should convert for my sake, because even though we were of different religions, I would not have come between her and her sincere belief and worship of God. Nu-uh. Not a chance... because I loved her for who she was. Her religion is what made that woman who she was and it felt like pressuring her (either deliberately or not) to change for my sake just felt incredibly selfish. That said, I get why someone, especially LDS, might want to stay within their denomination so I don't mean to sound like I'd expect everybody to handle it the way I did, but at the same time it just seems weird to me that the third option-coexistence-doesn't even seem to be on the table. But yea, I do agree that these folks need to work on their communication in a big way. That really ought to be the takeaway from this discussion. (*for the curious, these days I'm the LDS and she's gone inactive/borderline hostile to the Church. I guess wine coolers and the new husbands were preferable.)

Maybe, and I hope that's how it is. My concern is that if she's really as willing to convert as he suggested, she may very well do so anyway. Maybe she's not that committed, or maybe she's prioritizing the prospect of marriage over her religion. Either way, we have folks right here who have demonstrated that there's a middle ground, where both parties can respect each other's beliefs and still be a couple. If that's still a deal breaker for him, well ok fair enough, and maybe she gets the lion's share of the blame for not having been more open sooner. But I can't help but wonder... Our friend here seems very, very specific on what his expectations are in terms of a relationship. Is it possible that she didn't feel secure telling him all the details? Is it possible that she knows him well enough to know that she'd lose him if he knew the details of LDS doctrine? Because the situation now seems to be at a head. Either she breaks from the LDS church, or she breaks from him. Those are the options he's given her. In either case, she's going to lose something precious to her. That doens't sit well with some of us.

Again, point taken, but I do think it's worth keeping in mind that we're talking about a person who, in essence, has walked into a Latter-day Saint forum and, after a few doctrinal questions were tossed back and forth, said "I won't marry my girlfriend unless she converts out of your religion," knowing she would be willing to do so, to followers of a belief system that places a VERY high value on its particular denomination. That is an ultimatum, which tastes like manipulation. Yeah, people are gonna react.

I would have hoped that my comments/questions since then would have shown you the point of that. Guess not.

Point taken. I do think it's worth pointing out that we (meaning the LDS side) have been coming at it form two different points of view. One side is suggesting there's very little difference, while the other is suggesting there's a BIG difference. (I'm on the latter). I think it's important to acknowledge the differences, especially when they're significant. Protestantism and Orthodoxy both hold the core view of the trinity. We use a lot of the same language and terms, as someone pointed out earlier, but we mean very different things. From the Protestant/Catholic view, the LDS doctrine may seem downright polytheistic... and I wouldn't want to have to argue against that. If someone tossed that accusation my way, I'd probably just shrug and say "so be it." Meanwhile, from the LDS view, (speaking for myself and my friends with whom I've discussed the issue) the doctrine of the Trinity looks a lot like a philosophical effort to have it's doctrinal cake and eat it too. (No offense or criticism intended, just making a point). So basically that core view is incredibly important, IMHO and it's understandable why it rises to the level of "worldview" and not just "belief" or "doctrine."

"unixknight disagrees, therefore he doesn't understand me." Brother, I understand your perspective very, very well. I disagree with it precisely because I understand it. My questions are designed to get you to think about the answers as a way of making my point. You speak as though your point of view were obvious and plain. It is not. I've been offering you opportunity after opportunity to show me, Scripturally and plainly, where the trinitarian/modalist view comes from and instead of rising to the challenge, mostly what I've got back is "You don't understand so I can't help you." Now, if you'd like to agree to disagree, we can certainly do that, since this is a matter of worldviews.

I think the issue here is, respectfully, that you're assuming I don't understand simply because I don't agree. What I'm hoping to do is get you to acknowledge that others may see it differently. That's ok. I believe I made my point.

No, she isn't but you are absolutely right.

I'm afraid it does not.

It isn't obvious to me how that statement either supports or is supported by a trinity/modalist model.

I see. Chapter and verse, please? So... now there is more than one Jesus? I'm being facetious, I admit... But hopefully you can see my point. The Scriptures do not say that, nor do they say anything like it. That sounds, (and again I'm being blunt for clarity, not to be insulting) like a philosophical construct to avoid the plain and simple interpretation that Jesus and Heavenly Father are, in fact, distinct Beings.

It isn't that I'm confused, it's that I'm trying to make a point. Sometimes when you reply, you sound like you're describing the same thing we believe: That the 3 Members of the Godhead are distinct and separate. At other times, you sound like you're saying the 3 are one single Being. So my question was both rhetorical and direct: If you believe the Father and the Son to be entirely separate, then no contradiction exists. It is natural than Jesus would speak to Heavenly Father. On the other hand, if you believe them to be different and yet the same divine Being, then that's logically contradicted in Scripture, because not only do these separate Beings speak to one another, they also appear to have diverging wills, in at least one significant instance. Great question. Yes I would. I honestly mean no offense in what I'm going to write here, I'm just going to be direct in order to be clear since I think maybe we're on different pages. The descriptions I"m hearing here, along with what I was taught as a Catholic, honestly sound to me like an effort to have it both ways... To have 3 identities for God while stopping short of actually acknowledging that there are separate entities. Given what's in your quote here, how do you account for Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He asked if the cup could pass from Him, but ultimately accepted God's will, as distinct from His own? How can they not be separate Beings if they do not share the same will?

If He's one Being, why would it be necessary for one to talk out loud to the other?

I've imagined that scenario. Firstly, I'm not convinced the Pope listens to God. Second, if the Pope suddenly were to make an announcement that the true Church is the LDS Church... well, let's just say I doubt he'd be allowed to get that far. Good things take time. And those who aren't hearing the message yet won't be forgotten or left out. What about the first time you pray about it? If the answer is 'no' you'd walk away, right? You can stop praying about it at that point. At least, that's what I would have done. And if, on that first time, you pray about it and the answer is 'yes'? Well, in my case, I joined the Church... but no I didn't stop praying about it. I'm a human being, and yes, I occasionally feel doubts. When I do, I pray again. So far, the answer has always been consistent. As for a case where someone first gets a 'yes' and subsequently gets a 'no' well, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario in which someone got conflicting answers. I suppose that would be up to the individual to determine how best to handle it. God exists whether the Church is true nor not... So He should always be the one we pray to for guidance directly. This is why our Church doesn't have intercessors to pray through. We're always supposed to go directly to the source ourselves, not through priests or anyone else. That way, your relationship with God exists independently.

Ok so that's t he core of what I'm getting at. If we're talking about one divine being, then that would mean Jesus was talking to Himself. I understand you are drawing a distinction between them as separate persons, but if God is one Being then He's still talking to Himself. The idea of separate persons doesn't alter that.

So you agree that Jesus was praying to Heavenly Father, a separate divine being? (Not a gotcha question, just trying to be sure to understand where you're coming from.)

That, my friend, is where we disagree.