Jamie123

No bucket list for us. We just roll with what comes our way.

(I'm not an expert on Mormonism, or on theology in general, so my apologies in advance if anything in this post is grotesquely wrong.)
 
Aspects of Mormonism I don’t really care about one way or the other:
 
1. Joseph Smith
2. The Restoration/Priesthood
3. A Living Prophet
4. The Temple
 
All of these things really hang together: the Restoration of the Priesthood and the Temple came through Joseph Smith, who was first of a line of “Living Prophets”. This intrigues me somewhat, and that it happened (or supposedly happened) during what historians would call "the Modern Period" lends it a certain credibility over things that were said to have happened 2,000 years ago. But my overall response is (as some would say) “Meh!”
 
Aspects of Mormonism I do care about:
 
1. “Man is that he might have joy”.
 
God is the literal loving Father of all humanity. He loves and desires the happiness of every human being living or who has ever lived, regardless of whether they believe in or even know about Him. Not everyone will necessarily achieve salvation, just as not every child of the most loving earthly father will necessarily live a happy life; failure to achieve happiness would not be due to any plan by the father. But there was never any person born for whom God did not intend salvation.
 
Contrast this with the view that God’s Fatherhood begins only when a person comes to Christ, and that a person can only come to Christ through God’s favour. There is no libertarian “free will”; individuals are “free” to act only as a clock is “free” to strike the hour. (Some people call this “compatibilist” free will.) Humanity is therefore divided between the Elect (those who have or who are scheduled to come to Christ) and the Reprobate (those who have not and will never come to Christ, and are therefore scheduled for eternal suffering).
 
This view is sometimes called “Calvinism”, though it is not (I believe) what Calvin originally taught*. Others would call it “Hypercalvinism”. It includes the idea of “limited atonement” – that Christ only died for the Elect. (What would have been the point of His dying for anyone else?) I’ve always had a deep-seated dislike for this idea, and you’ve no idea how it bugs me that it’s enshrined in the Articles of Faith of my own denomination.
 
You do of course have the alternative view of Arminianism – though I must confess I don’t really understand this: some would see it as almost identical to what the Mormons believe - with the proviso that God desires all come to Christ, and in doing so become His sons/daughters. But that's really not quite it: if I understand rightly it still includes the concept of perfect divine foreknowledge; that God knows in advance what path any individual will take. If God is omnipotent, and if He desires happiness for all, then why did He not program each individual to take the correct path? (This was of course Satan’s plan – but with libertarian free will ruled out what other path was there for a loving God – even if it would have made the history books rather boring?) The only answer is that He did not intend to – and thus we are back to Calvinism.
 
But what if God is like a Father – a loving perfect father – to all humanity? What if He hopes, suffers, fears, weeps for and takes joy in all His children.....guides them, but allows them to make their own mistakes? Then…well then there’s hope for everyone!
 
Could it be true?
 
* My knowledge of Calvinism and Arminianism comes primarily from having read The Lion Concise Book of Christian Thought (300 pages covering St.Paul to Billy Graham) so I can hardly claim to be an expert. But from what I understand John Calvin himself was never overly keen on the idea of predestination, and he's been somewhat unfairly "blamed" for it.

I was talking to a mathematical colleague the other day about the curious "fact" that the sum of all natural numbers from 1 to infinity is -1/12. (If you've never heard of this Google it - it's quite a source of distraction!)
 
Anyway, he came up with an interesting factoid of his own - namely that i^i (where i as usual means sqrt(-1)) is real.
 
It took me a while to get my tiny mind around this, but eventually the penny dropped: Euler's equation gives us i=exp(i*pi/2) so i^i=exp(i*i*pi/2)=exp(-pi/2)=4.810477381 which is indeed real number!
 
But when I googled this online I found I had missed something: there is a more general version i=exp(i*pi/2*(1+4n)) where n is any integer, so i^i=exp(-pi/2*(1+4n)).
 
Each n, i.e. ...-2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3... generates a different value. All values are real, none of them are equal to each other but all of them are equal to i^i.
 
1.67758E-05=i^i
0.008983291=i^i
4.810477381=i^i
2575.970497=i^i
1379410.706=i^i
 
but
 
1.67758E-05!=0.008983291!=4.810477381!=2575.970497!=1379410.706
 
What does this remind you of?
 

(I'm not an expert on Mormonism, or on theology in general, so my apologies in advance if anything in this post is grotesquely wrong.)
 
Aspects of Mormonism I don’t really care about one way or the other:
 
1. Joseph Smith
2. The Restoration/Priesthood
3. A Living Prophet
4. The Temple
 
All of these things really hang together: the Restoration of the Priesthood and the Temple came through Joseph Smith, who was first of a line of “Living Prophets”. This intrigues me somewhat, and that it happened (or supposedly happened) during what historians would call "the Modern Period" lends it a certain credibility over things that were said to have happened 2,000 years ago. But my overall response is (as some would say) “Meh!”
 
Aspects of Mormonism I do care about:
 
1. “Man is that he might have joy”.
 
God is the literal loving Father of all humanity. He loves and desires the happiness of every human being living or who has ever lived, regardless of whether they believe in or even know about Him. Not everyone will necessarily achieve salvation, just as not every child of the most loving earthly father will necessarily live a happy life; failure to achieve happiness would not be due to any plan by the father. But there was never any person born for whom God did not intend salvation.
 
Contrast this with the view that God’s Fatherhood begins only when a person comes to Christ, and that a person can only come to Christ through God’s favour. There is no libertarian “free will”; individuals are “free” to act only as a clock is “free” to strike the hour. (Some people call this “compatibilist” free will.) Humanity is therefore divided between the Elect (those who have or who are scheduled to come to Christ) and the Reprobate (those who have not and will never come to Christ, and are therefore scheduled for eternal suffering).
 
This view is sometimes called “Calvinism”, though it is not (I believe) what Calvin originally taught*. Others would call it “Hypercalvinism”. It includes the idea of “limited atonement” – that Christ only died for the Elect. (What would have been the point of His dying for anyone else?) I’ve always had a deep-seated dislike for this idea, and you’ve no idea how it bugs me that it’s enshrined in the Articles of Faith of my own denomination.
 
You do of course have the alternative view of Arminianism – though I must confess I don’t really understand this: some would see it as almost identical to what the Mormons believe - with the proviso that God desires all come to Christ, and in doing so become His sons/daughters. But that's really not quite it: if I understand rightly it still includes the concept of perfect divine foreknowledge; that God knows in advance what path any individual will take. If God is omnipotent, and if He desires happiness for all, then why did He not program each individual to take the correct path? (This was of course Satan’s plan – but with libertarian free will ruled out what other path was there for a loving God – even if it would have made the history books rather boring?) The only answer is that He did not intend to – and thus we are back to Calvinism.
 
But what if God is like a Father – a loving perfect father – to all humanity? What if He hopes, suffers, fears, weeps for and takes joy in all His children.....guides them, but allows them to make their own mistakes? Then…well then there’s hope for everyone!
 
Could it be true?
 
* My knowledge of Calvinism and Arminianism comes primarily from having read The Lion Concise Book of Christian Thought (300 pages covering St.Paul to Billy Graham) so I can hardly claim to be an expert. But from what I understand John Calvin himself was never overly keen on the idea of predestination, and he's been somewhat unfairly "blamed" for it.

My son got married this weekend. Of course, the folks at church who are his age have been married 10-15 years, but better late than never, I suppose.
 
We had rain, but it stopped for the outdoor wedding and every time we had to do something, so that worked out (big shout out, HF!).
 
Now for the grandkids!

Ignore the ninny parents raising a generation of ninnies. You're doing fine. Let your kids ride their bikes.

This puts me in mind of the Duke University lacrosse scandal of a few years ago, where an exotic dancer complained she had been gang-raped by a bunch of (admittedly rather badly-behaved) lacrosse players.
 
This spurred (quite correctly) a police investigation and (somewhat more dubiously) a well-organised harassment by Duke University students of their own lacrosse team. This in turn prompted 88 Duke academics to publish an open letter "thanking" the students for (what amounted to) expressing their disgust immediately without waiting for any of the facts.
 
You might think these 88 academics would have been embarrassed by the subsequent finding that the "victim" had been lying through her teeth. (I'm not saying that false rape accusations are common, but on this occasion even the state prosecutors declared accused boys to be innocent.) Not a bit of it though - instead of apologising they came out with a raft of excuses as to why their original response had been quite reasonable.
 
All I can say is that this woman (in the Darth Vader selfie case) seems to have a lot more integrity than certain Duke University professors. 

There is a very, very distinct difference.
 
1. God, if it is Thy will then....
 
2. Charlie Charlie, if it is thy will then...
 
The fleece vs. the pencil is not my point at all. The prayer to God vs. the "prayer" to Charlie is the point, and is all the "cogent" anyone needs for the argument.
 
Now if people were using the pencil thing and saying, "God, God...etc..." then we'd have a different thing to discuss as related to the fleece thing, and my back might be up against the wall a bit more, as I would surely still contend that it wasn't valid or of God -- but the cogent argument become decidedly more difficult.

This puts me in mind of the Duke University lacrosse scandal of a few years ago, where an exotic dancer complained she had been gang-raped by a bunch of (admittedly rather badly-behaved) lacrosse players.
 
This spurred (quite correctly) a police investigation and (somewhat more dubiously) a well-organised harassment by Duke University students of their own lacrosse team. This in turn prompted 88 Duke academics to publish an open letter "thanking" the students for (what amounted to) expressing their disgust immediately without waiting for any of the facts.
 
You might think these 88 academics would have been embarrassed by the subsequent finding that the "victim" had been lying through her teeth. (I'm not saying that false rape accusations are common, but on this occasion even the state prosecutors declared accused boys to be innocent.) Not a bit of it though - instead of apologising they came out with a raft of excuses as to why their original response had been quite reasonable.
 
All I can say is that this woman (in the Darth Vader selfie case) seems to have a lot more integrity than certain Duke University professors. 

I think I understand what you're saying - you're supposing that in my view it is the Prophet who is the prime mover, while in your view it is God.
 
I don't totally agree with this. For one thing other churches make much the same kind of claim about the decisions they make (or perhaps I should say "revelations they receive"): for example I remember when the Vatican were deciding whether to beatify Mother Theresa, one Catholic commentator pointed out that it was God who was the main actor, and the cardinals were merely trying to divine His will. But it would be difficult for a non-Catholic like me to take that view of the proceedings.
 
Now as well as being a non-Catholic I'm also a non-Mormon, but I'll try to look at this from your perspective (if I can - no promises that I'll get it right). It seems to me that even if your view is correct, "revelation" still comes through prayer, answers to prayers, and through the study of the commandments given in scripture.
 
I remember a while ago reading what one of the Apostles wrote about the circumstances leading up to the admission of blacks into the priesthood in 1978 (I'll try to find the reference later). The way he described it this momentous decision (or "revelation" I should say) came through prayerful reflection by the General Authorities rather than through the apparition of angels, or disembodied hands writing on the temple wall. It was still a decision made by human men....but given the authority of those men - not to mention the basis on which their decision was made - I don't see how it wasn't also an action of God.  

I'll accept your apology, because as a believer I should. I am sorry to hear about your wife. But I wonder how a "believer" yourself can have contempt for the same. Also, no believer puts God in a box, people try to put people in little boxes so they can difine them easily, like...oh that person is mean, or ugly, or stupid, or sinner, and on and on. They (or we all at times) do so because it takes work to know all that they are, good or bad. But it is worth it and required of us by God, to try and find the good and not to judge them, and it is also worth it. God grant us the desire and ability to do so.

Jamie, I'm sorry to hear about your wife. I hope all goes well for her and for you.
 
I largely agree with what you wrote. For the record, I don't find "Peter Priesthood" offensive, because I think it's a silly stereotype that is taken literally only by those who are so lost and clueless as to be beyond reach at the moment. I use the phrase, along with the associated "Molly Mormon", on occasion. Frankly, I aspire to be "Peter Priesthood", though of course I am not.

Jamie,
Sorry you're worried about your wife. I hope and pray everything will go well and that the surgery will be performed well and that she won't experience any complications.
In my younger days I used to get my hackles up at so-called "Christians" who leveled charges at me or my loved ones that we're not Christian. I felt like LDS believers were unfairly singled out until I decided to peruse a "Christian" news group or two and see what the tone was like there. And, Lo and behold, not so different from the LDS forum, discord and accusations were hurled about, the biggest being ----- > "You're not a Christian!" .. Baptist condemning baptist.. Pentecostal condemning Methodist... Etc. That made me feel quite-a-bit less singled out as an LDS Christian. It also helped me realize that I'd essentially been guilty of the same thing. I had been quick to fire back with my own rejoinders of, "Oh yeah, well let me tell you all the reasons why *you're* not a Christian!"
Why does this happen? Is it because we have doctrinal differences? Certainly we do. But is it only about that?
What kind of spirit prevails in the discussion? Does kindness matter? Can one be kind AND speak the plain truth?
I think we, who really should be brothers and sisters in Christ our Savior, are often our own worst enemies. Don't most of us believe that Jesus really was and is who He said? ... Not just a great teacher who made some good points about ethics, love and forgiveness... He really IS the Son of God.. Not just some ancient fairytale or prophet who was misquoted.. For those of us who really put all our faith and hope in that core of our doctrine, that He is the living Son of God, despite which building we attend, whether it has a cross or a steeple or neither, wouldn't that faith and hope make each of us a Christian?

Many, many years ago, when I was a student, I voiced the view that when approached by drunks and addicts begging on the street, the kindest thing to do was give them a couple of quid, because trying to persuade them to change their ways "probably wouldn't work".
 
I was with a group of Christian Unionists at the time, in Pizza Hut. In fact I had just attended my first ever Christian Union meeting since going to college, and considering that I was already a sophomore (though we don't use that term in the UK) you'll believe that I was not overly keen on attending religious student meetings.
 
If I'd been a little older and wiser I'd have know better than to have said this. The guy sitting next to me (who was the non-LDS equivalent of "Peter Priesthood" - at least as far as his words went) took serious issue with me and the next couple of minutes I was formally charged with:
 
1. Putting God in a box
2. Limiting the power of the Holy Spirit
3. Quite a variety of other unpleasant things.
 
The main prosecution evidence was that "so many people" had had their lives "utterly changed" by the Holy Spirit working through Christians speaking out in faith.
 
He omitted to tell me who these people were, how many of them, how their lives had "utterly changed" or for how long. But I suspect (perhaps unfairly) that they come from the blurb on the backs of a bunch of "Christian paperbacks" he'd seen at the UCCF bookstall. Or (let's be a little fairer) perhaps from the pages inside said Christian paperbacks that he'd bought and read to give himself a warm glow whilst not doing a thing to help anybody...except raising his hands and closing his eyes during Church worship and shouting meaningless truisms from the back of the bus during CU outings about how he wants to be a "Slave to Christ" .
 
Sorry to sound bitter. I'm just in one of those moods.
 
Also this has nothing to do with the LDS Church....except why are there no LDS missionaries in North Korea? They could be sent in illegally couldn't they? After all, isn't obeying the directive to "make disciples of all nations" more important than respecting the wishes of a baby-faced dictator? Isn't God more powerful than Kim Jong Un?
 
I know exactly why not: "it probably wouldn't work". They'd be caught and put in labour camps - or worse. But hey - isn't raising such an objection "putting God in a box"?
 
I find that common sense has a way of making you do exactly that.

IMHO it is generally better not to give the cash to a pan handler.  Most know where the shelters, food banks, soup kitchens etc. are.  As for the theological dump you were exposed to, yeah, it sounds like the guy was a little more full of himself than the Spirit--at least from your telling of the episode.  On the other hand, there are Christians in North Korea.  They face imprisonment ("to the third generation"--meaning parents and children too), and often death.  There are a few missionaries (non-LDS) who sneak in.  They know full well they may die.  There are also many missionaries near the border, in China, who also operate illegally, and at great risk (again, non-LDS).  I would never guilt-trip a church organization, nor another Christian into going to such places.  I give great honor to those who do take up that call, because quite often it is a martyr's mission.

Honestly, you might as well be disgusted by the fact that men exhale carbon dioxide or grow hair on their faces. Unlike those things, the response to an attractive woman is at least partially within the man's control, and is to a large extent influenced by the society in which they were brought up. But if you find the reality of human beings that distressing, having a mature and intimate relationship with someone is probably going to be beyond your ken.
 
I am guessing you are quite young. If this is true, you should probably not worry much about this and just give yourself time to gain experience and adjust to the realities of human beings. They are amazing creatures who, at their best, resemble God, even if they have morning breath and poop daily. This is as true for men as it is for women.

I would just point out that on your list of "things that don't exist"--all three of those things are basically fanciful human interpretations, but rooted in things that do in fact exist (I believe the common wisdom is that "mermaids" got their start from sailors who saw manatees in the distance.  There are large reptiles that look an awful lot like dragons; and of course those photos of the Nessie show something--even if it's just a stick of wood, rather than a serpentine sea monster).
 
The problem of "who created God?" is speculatively intriguing to me--and of course, Mormonism's view is unique in that it basically ascribes to God (and to all mankind) an uncreated, eternally existing core which developed (evolved?) into its current form with the assistance of some "higher being", and that the chain of higher beings--so far as we are aware--stretches back into infinity.  It's certainly mind-boggling; but ultimately but I have a hard time seeing it as logically more problematic than either the mainline Christian idea of God who "was just always there". 
 
And the secular scientific notion of a "big bang" encompasses an ongoing debate that is really pretty analogous to the Mormon/mainline Christian views of God's past.  The idea, as I understand it, is that prior to the big bang the universe consisted of an immensely dense particle of mass existing in a void so empty that there was not even such a thing as "space" or "time"; and that either this particle was "just always there" (analagous to the mainline Christian view of God), or was this particle was the most recent result of a perpetual cycle of expansions and contractions that stretches back into infinity (analogous to the Mormon view of God).

Before we can answer this question...
 
1. What is God?
2, What does it mean to exist?
 
I don't totally know how to answer the second question except to give some examples...
 
Things that exist:
Kangaroos
Blue whales
The North Star
 
Things that don't exist:
Mermaids
Dragons
The Loch Ness Monster (probably)
 
So what is God? The creator? If so then God must be that which determines which of the two above lists any given item belongs to. Or to put it another way, any entity obtains its property of existence or nonexistence from God.
 
So which list does God belong to? If God does not exist then nothing exists from which anything else could have derived its existence. But if God does exist, then from what did He obtained that property of existence? From Himself? If so then He is himself a part of His own creation.
 
This makes a nonsense out of anyone who says "Where did everything come from? A creator must exist! That is God!". In bestowing the property of existence upon God, they include Him within creation. We're left with the same question: "What created creation?" (in which "creation" now includes God).
 
It reminds me of a question I used to wonder about when I was a kid: "Is water wet?" A thing becomes wet from contact with water; if it has not been in contact with water then it is dry. If water is that which determines wetness or dryness, is water itself wet or dry? Most people thought I was an idiot for asking such a question, but maybe the question "Does God exist?" is no different. 

Seems to me Hitler got an awful lot of pushback, too.(Yeah. I went there.)

http://blog.nasm.si.edu/behind-the-scenes/wonder-womans-invisible-jet/
 
Doesn't it look exactly like you thought it would?

http://blog.nasm.si.edu/behind-the-scenes/wonder-womans-invisible-jet/
 
Doesn't it look exactly like you thought it would?

Do you count anti-superstitions? There's a member of our theatrical club who likes to shout "Macbeth" in a loud voice at the beginning of rehearsals.
 
(Hot Potato Orchestra Scores, Puck will Make Amends)

Everyday is "hug an engineer day" for me...my wife is an engineer!

But for all the other engineers I have to deal with on almost a daily basis, I like to stick with this quote:
"There comes a time in every project where you just have to shoot the engineer, and get the project done!"

Sorry to tell you this Jamie, but despite the best efforts of the Aztecs to kill off all flamingos, according to each of my recent counts, on April 9, March 21, March 6 and February 2 the number of real flamingos exceeded the number of plastic flamingos by between 3 (9 April) and 7 (21 March). However, given the frequency with which these figures change, its quite possible that by tomorrow, the number of plastic flamingos will once again prevail. Interestingly, the situation with plastic turtles is the complete opposite of the plastic flamingos, but that's a story for another post.

Do you count anti-superstitions? There's a member of our theatrical club who likes to shout "Macbeth" in a loud voice at the beginning of rehearsals.
 
(Hot Potato Orchestra Scores, Puck will Make Amends)