Jamie123

If I believed as some do regarding the Trinity, and that The all seeing Deity was Omnipresent as well as all powerful and someone asked me out of the blue what I thought he was like...
Saying that he is a Gas is probably as apt a description as anything else.
You have an omnipresent being that is everywhere and everyplace, outside of you, inside of you, beyond your line of sight...etc.  Obviously it's not empty space...so how would you describe such a thing?
Something that is there, invisible to your eyes, but still present and takes up space, can be everywhere and in everything and beyond everything...
It's not the worst description I've heard in regards to trying to give a physical description to deity.
Of course, as has been stated already, we believe in Deity with a physical form and body...but if one did not...it could get interesting on the various ways they may describe him.

Blackadder was one of my favorites!  (Or does it have to be favourites?)

Fine by me too. I won't attempt to shut down Kingston Spiritualist Church any more than I'll interfere with congregations who pray to a six-armed elephant-man.
I'm treading on thin ice here I know, so I'd better stop digging*.
*And mixing my metaphors.

Chocolate chip ones?

I don't suppose many of you are familiar with Alan Partridge. Alan Partridge is a comedy character on British TV, played by Steve Coogan. He is the worst chat-show host imaginable: he is rude, ill-informed, badly researched, self-important and foul-tempered. He only has two real friends: Liz and Michael, who are about the only people stupid enough to put up with him. In the later series he also has an Eastern European girlfriend with an obsession for teddy bears.
Anyway, in one memorable episode Alan is interviewing a Christian lady. It went something like this:
Christian Lady: Alan, do you believe in God?
Alan: Er... (thinks about it for a moment) ...yes I do.
CL: How do you see God? What is he like?
Alan: God is... God is... (temporarily stumped, but then has a sudden inspiration) God is a gas!
CL: What???
Alan: Yes! Well... he's not a little gas. He's not like Calor Gas. He's a Big Gas... Like Oxygen! Or Carbon Dioxide. Oh no... that's bad isn't it? That's the Devil!
I always think of people who pooh-pooh the idea of a personal God as the "God is a Gas" crowd. A few years ago my wife really wanted to go to the spiritualist church in Kingston, so I took her. I hated - not least because it had all the trappings of a church (including the Stations of the Cross and Holman Hunt's "Light of the World" above the altar) but hw many times do you think Jesus was mentioned in the service? Not even once! Anyway, afterwards I went out into the little garden at the back and started talking to this bloke who was sitting there. When I asked him if he saw God as a person, his attitude was definitely "pooh-pooh" - as if he couldn't believe anyone could be so backward as to believe such a thing. Then he started driveling on about how "God" just means the same thing as "good"... and how the two are really the same thing. This is exactly what I mean by "God is a Gas": if all God is is "good", what's the point of God? We already have (if you'll excuse the pun) a perfectly "good" word for "good" so why do we need "God" too. We might just as well say that the Smurfs are God because they were good and Gargamel was bad...etc.
Anyway, I told all of this to our vicar at the time. As well as being our priest, she was also moderately famous on the radio - though I don't think I ever listened to her. I was surprised to find that she was "God is a Gas" too. She seemed momentarily shocked I should believe God was a person... but then checked herself and said (rather patronizingly I thought) "Well OK I guess if that's how you want to see God..."
That helped me put a few other things she'd said into context too... about the "afterlife" being no more than the memories our friends and families have of us. There was something else she said too about how she was convinced of the existence of "God" (whatever the word "God" actually means to her) by pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope and "Oh the colours! The beauty!) Well just as much beauty is to be found in the Mandelbrot Set and yet that is just z=z^2+c. And the Golden ratio? Just the limiting ratio of terms in the Fibonacci sequence. Is God merely mathematics? Is that all our Heavenly Father amounts to - just numbers? He might just as well be "A Gas"!

Fine by me too. I won't attempt to shut down Kingston Spiritualist Church any more than I'll interfere with congregations who pray to a six-armed elephant-man.
I'm treading on thin ice here I know, so I'd better stop digging*.
*And mixing my metaphors.

And while we're on the subject of pooh-pooh...
 

Fine by me too. I won't attempt to shut down Kingston Spiritualist Church any more than I'll interfere with congregations who pray to a six-armed elephant-man.
I'm treading on thin ice here I know, so I'd better stop digging*.
*And mixing my metaphors.

Chocolate chip ones?

I don't suppose many of you are familiar with Alan Partridge. Alan Partridge is a comedy character on British TV, played by Steve Coogan. He is the worst chat-show host imaginable: he is rude, ill-informed, badly researched, self-important and foul-tempered. He only has two real friends: Liz and Michael, who are about the only people stupid enough to put up with him. In the later series he also has an Eastern European girlfriend with an obsession for teddy bears.
Anyway, in one memorable episode Alan is interviewing a Christian lady. It went something like this:
Christian Lady: Alan, do you believe in God?
Alan: Er... (thinks about it for a moment) ...yes I do.
CL: How do you see God? What is he like?
Alan: God is... God is... (temporarily stumped, but then has a sudden inspiration) God is a gas!
CL: What???
Alan: Yes! Well... he's not a little gas. He's not like Calor Gas. He's a Big Gas... Like Oxygen! Or Carbon Dioxide. Oh no... that's bad isn't it? That's the Devil!
I always think of people who pooh-pooh the idea of a personal God as the "God is a Gas" crowd. A few years ago my wife really wanted to go to the spiritualist church in Kingston, so I took her. I hated - not least because it had all the trappings of a church (including the Stations of the Cross and Holman Hunt's "Light of the World" above the altar) but hw many times do you think Jesus was mentioned in the service? Not even once! Anyway, afterwards I went out into the little garden at the back and started talking to this bloke who was sitting there. When I asked him if he saw God as a person, his attitude was definitely "pooh-pooh" - as if he couldn't believe anyone could be so backward as to believe such a thing. Then he started driveling on about how "God" just means the same thing as "good"... and how the two are really the same thing. This is exactly what I mean by "God is a Gas": if all God is is "good", what's the point of God? We already have (if you'll excuse the pun) a perfectly "good" word for "good" so why do we need "God" too. We might just as well say that the Smurfs are God because they were good and Gargamel was bad...etc.
Anyway, I told all of this to our vicar at the time. As well as being our priest, she was also moderately famous on the radio - though I don't think I ever listened to her. I was surprised to find that she was "God is a Gas" too. She seemed momentarily shocked I should believe God was a person... but then checked herself and said (rather patronizingly I thought) "Well OK I guess if that's how you want to see God..."
That helped me put a few other things she'd said into context too... about the "afterlife" being no more than the memories our friends and families have of us. There was something else she said too about how she was convinced of the existence of "God" (whatever the word "God" actually means to her) by pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope and "Oh the colours! The beauty!) Well just as much beauty is to be found in the Mandelbrot Set and yet that is just z=z^2+c. And the Golden ratio? Just the limiting ratio of terms in the Fibonacci sequence. Is God merely mathematics? Is that all our Heavenly Father amounts to - just numbers? He might just as well be "A Gas"!

I don't suppose many of you are familiar with Alan Partridge. Alan Partridge is a comedy character on British TV, played by Steve Coogan. He is the worst chat-show host imaginable: he is rude, ill-informed, badly researched, self-important and foul-tempered. He only has two real friends: Liz and Michael, who are about the only people stupid enough to put up with him. In the later series he also has an Eastern European girlfriend with an obsession for teddy bears.
Anyway, in one memorable episode Alan is interviewing a Christian lady. It went something like this:
Christian Lady: Alan, do you believe in God?
Alan: Er... (thinks about it for a moment) ...yes I do.
CL: How do you see God? What is he like?
Alan: God is... God is... (temporarily stumped, but then has a sudden inspiration) God is a gas!
CL: What???
Alan: Yes! Well... he's not a little gas. He's not like Calor Gas. He's a Big Gas... Like Oxygen! Or Carbon Dioxide. Oh no... that's bad isn't it? That's the Devil!
I always think of people who pooh-pooh the idea of a personal God as the "God is a Gas" crowd. A few years ago my wife really wanted to go to the spiritualist church in Kingston, so I took her. I hated - not least because it had all the trappings of a church (including the Stations of the Cross and Holman Hunt's "Light of the World" above the altar) but hw many times do you think Jesus was mentioned in the service? Not even once! Anyway, afterwards I went out into the little garden at the back and started talking to this bloke who was sitting there. When I asked him if he saw God as a person, his attitude was definitely "pooh-pooh" - as if he couldn't believe anyone could be so backward as to believe such a thing. Then he started driveling on about how "God" just means the same thing as "good"... and how the two are really the same thing. This is exactly what I mean by "God is a Gas": if all God is is "good", what's the point of God? We already have (if you'll excuse the pun) a perfectly "good" word for "good" so why do we need "God" too. We might just as well say that the Smurfs are God because they were good and Gargamel was bad...etc.
Anyway, I told all of this to our vicar at the time. As well as being our priest, she was also moderately famous on the radio - though I don't think I ever listened to her. I was surprised to find that she was "God is a Gas" too. She seemed momentarily shocked I should believe God was a person... but then checked herself and said (rather patronizingly I thought) "Well OK I guess if that's how you want to see God..."
That helped me put a few other things she'd said into context too... about the "afterlife" being no more than the memories our friends and families have of us. There was something else she said too about how she was convinced of the existence of "God" (whatever the word "God" actually means to her) by pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope and "Oh the colours! The beauty!) Well just as much beauty is to be found in the Mandelbrot Set and yet that is just z=z^2+c. And the Golden ratio? Just the limiting ratio of terms in the Fibonacci sequence. Is God merely mathematics? Is that all our Heavenly Father amounts to - just numbers? He might just as well be "A Gas"!

High school classes are mostly a waste of time. AP classes teach like one semester of a college course in an entire year, and in my experience don't do a very good job of it, because it's a high school teacher trying to teach a college course. Simply taking the class at a community college is generally a far better experience. And so-called honors courses? A complete waste of time. Worse than a waste of time. A negative experience. You would be better off taking the non-honors course, which itself is just a regular crappy high school course, but without the worthless extra homework and posturing that you get in an "honors" course.
If high schools taught reasonable courses at a reasonable rate with reasonable expectations, I would be much more likely to get behind an effort to make post-high-school education more like a trade school. But high school graduates today often lack basic academic skills that are developed only after the students start at a college. In that case, the gen ed requirements serve not only to provide a broad, "liberal education" foundation, but to teach and hone basic academic skills such as taking notes in lecture and keeping up on the homework.
The US is generally considered to have the best overall collegiate-level educational system in the world. I think the general ed requirements are an important aspect of that, something that differentiates American diplomas from the much more trade-school-ish degrees found in most of the rest of the world. I'm willing to be educated on why I'm wrong, but until someone offers an argument I find convincing, I will remain pro-gen-ed for a bachelor's degree.

In the UK, it is possible to go straight into med school at 18 (though I believe in practice a lot of med school entrants actually do have degrees already). A basic medical degree MBBS, which is actually two bachelor degrees* (MD means something totally different in the UK) takes five or six years to complete, after which you have the courtesy title of "Dr." but cannot do much except under close supervision. This is followed by another 9 or 10 years of clinical training - as a "foundation doctor" (what used to be called a "houseman") and then as a "registrar" - so I suppose it would be possible to be fully qualified at 32.
* Medicinae Baccalaureus and Baccalaureus Chirurgiae. Medicinae Doctor (MD) is a "higher doctorate" and is awarded for research contributions (similar to a PhD only a bit more prestigious).

Did you actually forbid them from taking the cookies? (Your post doesn't make that very clear.)
As a kid I was forever taking cookies out of the cookie jar. (We'd have said "biscuits out of the biscuit barrel", but it means the same thing.) Taking cookies was not forbidden exactly, but if a grown-up saw you do it they would say something boring like "don't ruin your appetite", which spoiled the enjoyment. So you tended to do it surreptitiously. I can well remember the pleasure of getting a bunch of cookies from the cookie jar to my bedroom with no grown-up knowing about it. Cookies always tasted better when they'd been "well smuggled"!
P.S. Did you know that John Wayne based his on-screen persona on Wyatt Earp, whom he met in 1928?

Anyone considered this dilemma before?

To equate this with physical death would imply that the story is literal. I've always taken "death" in the story to refer to alianation from God - the breaking of the relationship between Man and God, which required Christ's atonement to restore.

This book is free until 9.1.23 on Audible.com
Highly Recommended.

The Tree of Life is the "Word of G-d" -- Jesus Christ 
 
As for the Eden epoch, it seems that we keep rehashing old questions.  I will give my opinion on this subject.
First – I do not understand why eating the apple is considered the original sin.  Before the problem of Adam and Eve in Eden, Lucifer was exiled from heaven with no opportunity to be pardoned or redeemed.   If there was an original sin – it was Lucifer that invented, it and carried it out.  I am convinced that anyone that labels the transgression of Adam and Eve as the original sin does not understand scripture or true doctrine.         
Second – the cartoon demonstrates a very obvious logic conundrum that many have in trying to understand scripture.  Obviously, Adam and Eve could not be “JUSTLY” held accountable for something that they did not understand.  Many “Christian” denominations have a problem if they believe G-d is just (let alone merciful) and sentenced Adam and Eve to death over something that they did not understand.   If you were to treat your children like that – an intelligent and just society would rightfully take your children away from you.
Third – The tree in question was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  It amazes me that no one seems to ask the question – What is the knowledge of good and what is the knowledge of evil?  The answer to this question is the reason for including the Eden epoch in scripture.  It seems to me that if someone cannot answer that question that they have failed to understand the purpose of the Eden scripture.  The answer is obvious to me.  Death is the knowledge of evil.  The atonement of Christ (including the resurrection – the entire divine plan of the salvation of man) is the knowledge of good.
I believe I ought to explain something about death and the atonement.  Every human will experience death and the atonement – even a newborn child that dies before they experience any sin themselves – still experiences the wages of sin, which is death.   If anyone has a better understanding of the knowledge of good and evil – I am open to what else someone may think and why they think it so.
I would add one last notion to this post.  Only in the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the truth of the divine plan of Salvation taught.  It is the reason that a restoration was necessary in these last-days in preparation of the return of the Messiah.
 
The Traveler

Anyone considered this dilemma before?

I don't think I asked a question in this thread. Are you sure you don't mean someone else?

This is tangential to the subject, but it's interesting that in Revelation 22, only the Tree of Life is mentioned.
No mention of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, as in Genesis:
I've long wondered if the Tree of Knowledge represents the Law and the Tree of Life represents Grace. Prior to the atonement Law was needed, but as a temporary measure. In the world ruled by Christ, the Law (and hence the tree that represents it) is no longer needed.

I've struggled with this for many years. As a teenager I stumbled across Leibniz's "monadism" and the concept of "preestablished harmony" and utterly hated it. Years later I learned about Calvisnism* and hated that too. Predestination seemed to create a world which was dead - sterile - empty of joy. It reduced God from a loving Father to a mere clockmaker, with humans as mere cogs and gears and springs. Passages like Romans 9 gave me a nasty feeling that was what the Bible taught, which made me very irritable of people who quoted them with joy - like it was somehow a cause for rejoicing that we were "predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son" - while those horrible reprobates "in the World" were predestined to roast forever and no one could do anything to stop it happening. Ugh!
When I encountered the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I wasted a good many missionary-hours debating with them about predestination (with them repeatedly telling me "this isn't what we're here to discuss!") I recall one Elder (who had never actually taught me) giving me an encouraging smile and saying "You're doing well aren't you, Jamie? You're Elect, aren't you, eh?" I mumbled something about "I don't know about that" but I really wanted to yell in his face "EVERYONE'S TOLD ME YOUR CHURCH DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ELECTION!!!!! AND NOW YOU ASK ME THAT?????" In some ways I wish I had - though it would have been mean.
But at that time, I still somehow had the idea that "free will" was merely a stochastic process. I was only just beginning to wonder why a stochastic process was any more "free" than a deterministic one? Once that thought did come, I learned to be a bit more cautions: I had a vague idea there might be something else that was neither deterministic nor stochastic: the only word I really had to describe it was "spiritual" though I never really understood what this word means. We use it to describe so many different things: there are certain combustible chemicals called "spirits", some of which are served in bars. There are the phrases "Show some spirit!" or "That's the spirit!" of "Spirit of the Age" (or Zeitgeist as the Germans say). There are the "spirits" of dead people that mediums (supposedly) communicate with through crystals and Tarot cards and other such tosh. (My inability to take such codswallop seriously was one reason (I suspect) why my wife left me.) And then there is the Holy Spirit. But the word originally it comes from the Latin "spiritu", which essentially means "air" (though with secondary supernatural meanings) - and is a translation of the Greek "pneuma" (same meaning) or the Hebrew "ruach" (same meanings).
I can't really finish this post, except to say that I still don't really understand what free will is.
*To be totally fair to John Calvin, what is currently bandied about as "Calvinism" isn't quite what he taught. He was never (I believe) very strong on the idea of predestination.
 

Not exclusively an LDS idea: from the 15th Century hymn "Adam Lay Ybounden" we have:
I remember singing that in the church choir many years ago and thinking "So the Mormons aren't the only ones who think that!"

Not exclusively an LDS idea: from the 15th Century hymn "Adam Lay Ybounden" we have:
I remember singing that in the church choir many years ago and thinking "So the Mormons aren't the only ones who think that!"