Seminarysnoozer

Sorry, this is getting more and more tangential but it does have to do with reproduction and spiritual versus physical. ... Sex may be a feature of the mortal body only, just like blood. It may be partially why Adam and Eve suddenly felt naked, if they didn't have those parts before it may be suddenly like wearing a big scarlet letter A on your chest, it was suddenly embarrassing and obvious that they had fallen, so shame makes them want to cover their bodies. Otherwise, why would a wife and husband feel embarrassed to be naked in front of each other? Also, without being too graphic, blood is needed for sex, as we know it. Immortal bodies don't have blood. Another point is that of all the individuals in all the glorified Kingdoms in the next life who do not have the privilege of producing spiritual children, whatever the process, do you think their bodies are different than those that do have that privilege? In other words, they would just be commanded to not reproduce or are they not physically capable of reproducing? Even the angels that are in the celestial kingdom will have the same body as those in the highest level of the celestial kingdom, or maybe they won't? (I thought the body of the sun was one, maybe its not) But those angels will not have the ability to make spiritual children. I think that would be rather cruel to have that as a feature of your body, reproduction, and not be able to reproduce. I think there has to be something more to spiritual reproduction than it being just a feature of that body, even a glorified celestial body. Otherwise, it would have to be that only those that are lined up for creating worlds of their own will have a body capable of reproduction. ... I think these are interesting speculations.

I agree. One example of this is asking yourself who created Lucifer and all who followed him who are now working their evil ways into the hearts of those here. There is agency before this life allowing some to choose evil, therefore God is not the root cause. ... now this may label me as a heretic but I am just throwing this out there as a possibility, a thought, not that I believe in this, I don't know .... In the organization of Intelligences, in the creation of all things spiritual is it not possible that the process of forming spirit children is based on eternal laws that necessitate a random mixing of character and traits that is out of the control of God? Think about what happens with in-vitro fertilization here (I'm not saying that's how it is done with spirits, this is just a metaphor) one can pick a healthy zygote and throw out the others, maybe God can't "throw out" the spirit formations that result in evil traits. Thus creating a spectrum of spiritual traits and like here "nature versus nurture" that is only a small part of where that individual will end up. And that spectrum of traits may have something to do with the age of our spirits, knowing that Jesus is the oldest. Again, this is just a thought, not my belief as of yet, just a working theory, so please don't rail me for this.

Here you go with your 'all or nothing' talk again. You cut out the words I say and take them out of context ... I used the word "everything." I said you don't have to interpret everything, you can leave some things as "I don't know right now." My point is that you don't have to make a determination about everything you read immediately. It is possible to leave particular stories that you are struggling with, uninterpreted. The goal is to have God's interpretation and if one holds on to their own interpretation of things too quickly without humility they may miss the real meaning or worse think it is God's 'interpretation' or intent when it is not. ... and I never said anything about your views. You are attempting to assume my views. I was talking about your approach to obtaining your views, that it had to be literal or allegorical only. I am pointing out you are leaving out a third option, unknown. Why would you look at the Bible as a history book anyway? Of course its not meant (now please don't take this word out of context either) as historical.

In all of your 'informal guidelines of absurdity' you leave out the most important rule which is humility. How do you know what is absurd, unless you tell yourself that you have experienced life enough to know what is absurd and what isn't, thus taking humility completely out of the picture. In contradicted by reality you assume that you know what reality is and that you have a good understanding of science, again no room for humility. You really think we know all there is to know about science? I know we don't, so you can't really use that rule. Attribution of evil, are you humble enough to realize that you do not know all of Gods laws or do you say that you can discern good from evil in every case? Internal contradictions is only possible when you think you can interpret the given scripture exactly as it was intended, also taking humility out of the equation. How you decide which? is your final question .... you humble yourself first, then you humble yourself even more and let your head shrink down some and realize you don't know enough to make these determinations in some cases. Then you pray about it, have faith and maybe you will have an answer. If you leave no room for humility then you will only think you know when you really don't and when the answer is given you won't hear it. Alma 32: 16 Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without stubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe. 17 Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe. Elder Dallin H. Oaks: "Humility is the catalyst for all learning, especially spiritual things. Through the prophet Moroni, the Lord gave us this great insight into the role of humility: “I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27).

Thanks Hemidakota, Intelligences existing one above another also brings up a characteristic of Intelligences, that intelligences are of different ages. I don't know if that is something I picked up going to church and sleeping through seminary or if it is scripture. It makes sense as we call Jesus our 'older' brother.

I think knowledge also is important, it has to do with awareness. Intelligence can spiritually create but the goal is knowledge that the plan was actually carried out. "To bring to pass..." is the knowledge or awareness of it being completed. If God only had to create it spiritually, knowing of the potential and ability to see all time then He could have stopped right there, but there is apparently a glory attached to carrying out the plan, 'to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.' I think of that as knowledge as opposed to intelligence. Knowledge requires experience.

When you ask the question are they spiritual or physical, at what point in time are you asking? What came first the chicken or the egg? These are interesting questions. Even when a child is "born" on earth there is nothing new created in terms of the material organized to become a fetus then infant. All that material was around. So even when we use the word "born" for mortal births it is still an organization of existing material. What is your definition of born? Is it just the physical union of spirit and body? When we take an existing bacteria or yeast and plug in viral DNA to make a new virus that previously did not exist in this world did we give birth to the virus or create the virus or produce the virus? I think its just semantics. My understanding is that Adam and Eve were created by joining their spirits with spiritual (perfect physical) bodies, which is the 'God's breath' part. Just a thought, it is possible the production of a spiritual body cannot be done through reproduction but by 'changing' a corrupted body into a perfect one. And thus the act of joining spirit and body and they were born. ... I could be wrong. That's how I see it.

Right. That's why I said in my first post of this thread that JS knows more than even he has shared with us.

Why are you so hard-lined with your view that everything 'has to be' interpreted? You say "its okay or desirable to interpret them in a way that best aligns the tools God has blessed us with - reason and intelligence." And I say, it is okay to not interpret everything in the bible until you come to that level of understanding. It can be left uninterpreted. This whole discussion goes back and forth because you keep leaving out one option, that of leaving the scripture in question uninterpreted. Sometimes you have to tell yourself, I just don't understand the significance of that scripture right now but I will pray about it, ponder it and then maybe it will come to me, but maybe it won't and I am okay with that. Every item in the Bible does not have to be designated black or white .... (boy, I sound like I'm talking to my husband) And by the way, God has told you how to interpret 'such events or myths' but it may not be time for you to receive such instruction.

That hasn't been given to us. All we know is that we are spirit children of our Heavenly Father and started to develop our Intelligence before coming here. What is the very beginning of you or I as an individual intelligence we haven't been given the details of that, probably because we wouldn't understand it now and doesn't affect our task right now. Whatever the process it allows us to call God our Heavenly Father and we are literal sons and daughters of God.

(*laughing at the "knew a bit") Haha, he knew more than he even shared with us. To understand "Intelligence" you have to first have a good grasp of the concept that we can develop ourselves and eventually become like God. And that His glory is tied into our development and successes just like when my son gets an A on his report card, I feel that happiness even though I did not receive the A myself. He tries to teach us that by having family here on earth, then one better appreciates the glory of God and His purposes. "Intelligence" when used in discussing the gospel is, in part, the measurable part of spiritual growth or in other context the level of spiritual development attained.

I disagree with the things I stated in my posts that I disagreed with. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that I don't also, even if I can't prove it to you. Maybe you can expand your understanding of what agency is by realizing that free agency is not just a choice between good and evil, free agency can also be measured by the amount of good one can do. It is a function of degree, not a question of degree. God is not good without bad options, that is impossible. Nobody is going to be able to explain that view any more without you getting past that primary principle, good options do not exist without a bad option. No more than I can win a game without the possibility of losing. Or get an A in a class without the possibility of getting an F. God cannot chose evil and continue to be God, but the choice is still there. Therefore, I do not disagree with the scriptures. I am sorry that you do not understand that and I will not fall into your traps. Stealing hardens one's heart to understand things that are good, grossly limiting their future choices in life, unless they repent. But doing good opens your eyes to both good and bad options, seeing the error of the bad. Choices are limited by choosing evil. You really want to argue against that?

I think you have this part backwards. When someone chooses bad they limit their options and become less of an agent. Only by choosing good can you maintain and even increase your options. God has unlimited options because of his good choices. God has more free agency than us because we occasionally choose bad as we are not perfect and in doing so limit our choices, becoming less of a free agent.

Yes, that shows you how deceitful Satan is, trying to sell something as 'good' when it is theoretically impossible. Of course, when we had no idea what good and bad really were it was probably even more appealing, luckily all of us born into mortality saw through his deceit. But even then, Satan still tries to convince people of this deceitful plan. At least make them think about why it isn't that way. Then doubt the plan they already picked, the plan requiring a probationary state.

His first question in his response: " The problem lies in the points made by Snow and Moksha that even modern prophets are not infallible. How do we know that they are actually telling us the truth, and not spinning fables?" He gave two options that require knowledge of telling the truth or spinning fables (implied). My response is that sometimes you don't know, and that is ok.

You don't have to work for it, you have to work to make it significant. Like If you get a scholarship to college. What good would that free gift be if you didn't want to go to college or weren't planning to study when you got there? The gift of salvation (from mortality) is like going to grade school, free to everyone. LDS believe there is life after grade school, so to speak, and if you want the scholarship for higher learning you've got to get good grades here.

Yes, I think that. Just like man flying is no longer miraculous to me, it is still amazing and wonderful but not miraculous. Our science is limited, our understanding is limited and if the person in the example you give still considers it a miracle than, for me at least, by definition it means the person doesn't fully understand it, even after it being explained. Many things we will not fully understand in this life. It is not for us to understand all the mysteries of God in this life. Not that He is 'withholding' any information, just we can't understand it. Like trying to teach a 4 year old calculus it will not mean anything unless they first understand all the principles up to that point.

Why is it so necessary to know 100%? Even Nephi said he didn't understand all the mysteries of God. Well, if Nephi can say that than so can I. I don't consider that a slippery slope to say, this one I understand and this one I don't. I think the slippery slope is to say, 'this one I don't believe until it is proven by modern science.' As opposed to, this one I don't understand yet, maybe someday I will but until then I'm ok with it and I am ok with not knowing. Because as soon as you start to disbelieve then you create a slippery slope. That is the process Alma talks about in Alma 12. The hardening of the heart occurs and then you have the lesser portion. The only way to expand your knowledge is to take more of a glass half full approach than a glass half empty. Satan wants all of us to doubt and then focus on that doubt. We all doubt at some point, but we don't have to focus on the doubt. It only becomes a slippery slope when you focus on the unknown so much that you throw out the baby with the bath water. Those last two sentences Rameumptom I think describes the only two possibilities being total disbelief versus partial knowledge. I think people start heading down the slippery slope when they start to think there should be a third option, total understanding of everything. I don't think that will happen until the next life. I think you have to be ok with partial knowledge, like Nephi, to avoid the slippery slope. Saying to yourself that it is all or nothing is creating the slippery slope. To answer the first question, in part, I think you have to recognize when your heart is hardening. Then you know whether it is true or not. Faith is taken out of the picture when the only two options are complete or incomplete knowledge, proven or unproven. There is such a thing as true but unproven, how? by faith. Some stories in the Bible are literal some are symbolic and some we don't know. And some we learn later about once our hearts aren't so hardened by disbelief and then we understand.

Snow, I think you make a good point which is reinforced by reading this whole thread, that without ongoing revelation the story is incomplete and confusing. I choose number 3 above. A religion without ongoing revelation has to take the written word as complete and unalterable and leans towards literalism. Islam is a good example of this, the Qur'an has to be accepted as a complete work because they believe Muhammad was the last prophet. To say there is no further revelation worthy of becoming written scripture is to say that what we have, in the Bible for example, is complete.

... and a gold toilet with gold leaf toilet paper to complete the reverie.

Some things that we think bring us happiness in this life are just fleeting happiness, just momentary and often times come with a price to pay, like having to lose weight after. True happiness is long lasting. It's hard to figure out what is it that brings true happiness, that's what the gospel is for. When it says eat meat sparingly I am assuming that there are eternal happiness bringing consequences from that. A theory (outside of gospel teaching) would be that there is no meat available there but there could be some pretty good synthetic meat, who knows.

There is no good without bad. "Good" loses its meaning without also having bad. So, the theoretical question is impossible.

Well, I guess I am assuming in the next life there is no meat available because there is no death. Eating fruits and seeds doesn't result in plant death necessarily. But, I have no idea what food substances are available or not in the next life, that's why I started out the phrase with "I think." But it seems logical to me that there will not be meat. If you think otherwise, please share your thoughts.

A miracle is only a miracle when there is a lack of understanding of how that thing happened. All miracles will cease to be 'miracles' after we have a full knowledge of how they came about. To a person of Jesus' time, a man flying would be a miracle. But if I say I flew to New York this weekend, nobody here would think I am talking about a miracle. To me, Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon is a modern miracle until someday, probably in the next life, I will learn all the "science" or natural methods behind how that happened. Until then, I call it a miracle. There are many stories in the Bible that I don't know how they happened so they fall under the category of miracle, that doesn't mean there is a perfectly good explanation under natural laws that we are just not told, that doesn't take away from it being a 'miracle'.

There are probably some pretty good soy ribs there. :)