Seminarysnoozer

Who is saying that "supernatural" means something that is contrary to the laws of God? I am not following that line of thought either. God's laws are the all encompassing laws. Within those laws can be a set that we call "laws of nature" that may be unique to a fallen world. With that in mind, there are principles and laws and "mysteries" (since I know you like that word, :)) that do not pertain to this world or are not used here. It is just a matter of semantics, if you want to call those laws and principles supernatural or mysteries of God or celestial laws, etc. Whatever the name, they are things that are not obtainable while being in a fallen state.

I will respond to the other parts when I have time. Thanks for your response. If a person has Tourette's and yells out a swear word in the middle of a temple session is that what acts or what is acting upon that yelled out? If a person has Bipolar disease and runs out into the middle of an intersection threatening the cars going by with his clothes off (real situation of a member of the church) and the police have to tazer him to stop, is that what acts or is that what is acted upon that makes that action? Is a child who dies before the age of 8 not held accountable for her actions because of what acts or what is acted upon? In other words what is different about their being once they reach the age of 8, did the spirit change or the body? I think we are talking about semantics. I am trying to express that the "laws that govern its existence" referring to the virus that kills, is the thing that is acted upon. Those laws outline what acts and what is acted upon. And within those laws, what is outlined is what intelligence is held accountable for their actions and which ones aren't. Or do you think the virus intelligence is undergoing a second estate test? I don't think those intelligences that you are referring to, the ones pertaining to rocks, dust etc. had the capability of passing a first estate test and therefore are not in line to undergo a second estate test because they are not trying to become "actors" or greater responsibility. They are meeting what they are designed to do. Whereas we are here under probation to be tested for greater stewardship. To undergo the test there has to be things that act and things that are acted upon. A virus intelligence (if there is such a thing) could not go on to greater responsibility, it has reached its fullness. It cannot fail to do what it is designed to do and therefore cannot succeed either; so it cannot "act". But as an entity that is acted upon it could be used for good or evil depending on those spirits that can act use it. Such as infecting someone with the AIDS virus versus genetic therapies. The intelligence inside a rock (if there is such a thing) and the rock itself could be acted upon, such as in David's sling or it could be used to stone the prophets. It is acted upon but not held accountable for its movement or actions in this world. We have these things all around us so that the only thing in this world that is under trial, sons and daughters of God, can be tested by their actions. You tell me where it says in the scriptures that other entities are under a second estate probation.

Was the Prophet Lorenzo Snow "disconnected from the truth" when he used the word "supernatural"; "President Lorenzo Snow was a worker, following his own often-repeated counsel: “We have to exert ourselves. … Remaining idle without putting ourselves into action is of no use.” But he acknowledged that in his desire to build up the kingdom of God, his own exertions would never be enough without the grace of God—or “supernatural aid,” as he often called it. " Or how about Dallin H. Oaks when he explained the dangers of removing the supernatural from religion; "“What think ye of Christ?” (Matt. 22:42.) That question is as penetrating today as when Jesus used it to confound the Pharisees almost two thousand years ago. Like a sword, sharp and powerful, it uncovers what is hidden, divides truth from error, and goes to the heart of religious belief. Here are some answers being given today. Some praise Jesus Christ as the greatest teacher who ever lived, but deny that he is Messiah, Savior, or Redeemer. Some prominent theologians teach that our secularized world needs “a new concept of God,” stripped of the supernatural. They believe that not even a suffering God can help to solve the pain and tragedy of modern man." From the teachings of the Presidents, Lorenzo Snow; "Latter-day Saints, while in the performance of their duties, they are entitled to supernatural aid from the Holy Spirit, to help in the various conditions surrounding them, and in the duties that they are required to perform." And Marion G. Romney said; "“By the statement in the revelation on spiritual gifts, ‘… it is given by the Holy Ghost to some to know the diversities of operations, whether they be of God, … and to others the discerning of spirits’ [D&C 46:16, 23], it appears that there are some apparently supernatural manifestations which are not worked by the power of the Holy Ghost. The truth is there are many which are not. The world today is full of counterfeits. It has always been so. …" ____ Also, the difference between that which acts versus that which is acted upon has to do with agency and accountability, just to be clear. Entities that act hold some level of accountability for their actions but that does not mean that things that are acted upon cannot act on their own. When a virus kills a human being, is the virus an actor or being acted upon? Of course, the virus is not responsible for its actions. But now we are miss using the word "act" from the quoted scripture you gave. The 2 Nephi chapter 2 type of "act" is just referring to acts that are associated with agency and consequences of accountability. It is not referring to any kind of action whatsoever. 2 Nephi explains that there could not be agency and consequences if there are not opposites. And, that is why God created this "nature" so that we could have the chance to act upon our agency and be responsible. In other words, there has to be things in this world that are not responsible for their actions in order to have opposites. This is why when someone is killed by a lightning bolt, it really isn't an "act" of God (most of the time). It is simply an action of a force that does not have accountability. Or should we really hold God responsible for all "acts of God"?

Any Christian understands the power of vicarious acts as that is the role of Christ. It is also understood the desire of Christ that we become one. Is it not possible to vicariously "take on" all the acts performed before and in that way make it our own? The importance of being a covenant people and through the power of resurrection we believe it is possible to be one with God. If I am one with God some day then I can receive a fullness of all He has. There is nothing left out of that fullness. It isn't limited to the past 50 billion years or whatever number you want to put on it and it is not limited in the future. To comprehend this does not require a degree in physics or philosophy only to understand the power of vicarious acts and the importance of covenants which bind us to the past and the future. The details of which, we are probably not capable of understanding at this time. God having received His fullness at some point became part of that system of Eternal Life that does not have a beginning or an end. If a person was raised isolated in some distant jungle outside of the modern world was brought into the modern world and was able to learn and take advantage of all the things learned before his time then suddenly he gained years of time of experience. His existence just expanded by many hundreds of years. Extrapolate that to what it means to be Eternal. For example, you may say that you know how to speak English but you did not invent English and yet you have made it your own. It may (or may not) be your native language. (Whatever your native language is you call it your own.) How can you call it "your" native language when you weren't around at the start and didn't "create" it yourself? Because just by learning it we call it our own.

I think, as with all moral decisions, the judgement will be based on where the heart is. Is it done with an eye single to the glory of God or is it done so the person can have some carnal result, i.e - be more sexually attractive so they might have unfaithful relationships etc.? Understanding what is in the heart, of course, is outside our ability right now (for the most part). Is the weight loss done to follow the word of wisdom and to respect the body as a temple? Or is it done to increase carnal pursuits and desires? Is it done to call attention to self, like wearing an expensive dress? The question of whether right or wrong comes down to what falls within the commandments and obeying the commandments with the right intentions. A terrorist, for example, might work on keeping their body fit so they can be a more effective killer.

He isn't burdened by countless choices because countless choices is not the way. Like the iron rod versus the multiple winding pathways in the mist there is only one way. And the one way, He has already provided.

There are laws regarding accountability. If my teenager wanted to start to live on her own because she wanted to gain the experience of actually living on her own and to develop the knowledge of how to do that then I couldn't allow her to do it and at the same time say, "okay you can do it but I will move in with you and make every choice for you". If God really wants to teach us right from wrong then there has to be accountability. To have accountability He needs to let us make choices and suffer the consequences of those choices. This is why free agency means nothing without accountability. Also, like having the gutters blocked while bowling, the magnitude of the achievement is lessened and therefore the goal of learning is ruined by the intervention. John 20:29 " 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." There is a value to passing the test without being told every step. Of course there are helps along the way. One more thing to consider, we believe that all here on Earth know the truth, we all passed the first estate test. In other words, the right answer to the choices one face is within you. The test is more about where one prefers to go to find the answers, the world or the spirit? The restriction of having access to the answers is something we do to our self.

I think the laws of the spirit realm can be different from the laws of the physical world. I think this is why we are taught that spiritual things are discerned spiritually and carnal things are discerned carnally. There are laws that are "according to the flesh", otherwise why is that distinction made? We believe in a God that has both a spirit and a body, don't we? His world is all encompassing but that doesn't automatically mean that we can detect that realm through carnal means alone. (My shot at a metaphor) If I am in a submerged submarine, I might be breathing air but one would have to travel through water to get there or would have to detect it through the water. If one didn't have means to view through the water or travel through the water then it remains outside of her knowledge and yet the laws pertaining to the air on land and the air within the submarine could be similar or the same. If God's realm is above or outside our scientific understanding and unreachable through scientific understanding then it is supernatural. But the definition of supernatural does not mean incompatibility with our nature. It doesn't mean there would be opposing laws that would preclude them from being together as two natures in one system even though right now we may have limited access to the spiritual nature. It would be rather hard for one to subdue the other if they are the same nature.

I don't think we can say that much about it. I don't think that has been revealed. I disagree with our ability to see 'fine' matter with a strong enough microscope. I doubt it is discernible through course matter means. I doubt there is a 'tower of Babel' that could detect fine matter. And, I don't think we need to go down the tower of Babel road again ... didn't we learn our lesson already? Probably the better way to say it is that the physical world exists within the spiritual and not the other way around. The spiritual world is more encompassing, I'm sure. The physical is finite, limited and restricted.

Yes, and by definition 'fine matter' is not seen by science and therefore is not measured by science even in theory such as 'dark matter' or 'dark energy' etc. Fine matter is truly supernatural. To give my opinion about an earlier question; you asked how does the spirit relate to the body, I would say the via the brain for a number of reasons. Again this is opinion and not doctrine but the brain is the only organ that cannot be transplanted. Also when the brain is not working correctly such as with people that have Down's syndrome they are not held accountable. That would make sense if the spirit cannot sufficiently influence the brain. Our only connection with this fine matter is through the spirit. Spiritual things are discerned spiritually and not physically. Our own spirit speaks to our physical being and therefore there can be physical manifestations of the spirit influence such as feeling a burning in the bosom or when tears fill the eyes during sacrament meeting. But the communication is through spiritual pathways and then to body. A transformation of the body can make it so the physical can perceive the spiritual but at the point of transformation the physical (mortal realm) is not 'physical' (physical universe material). Even for our spirits to communicate with this corrupted mortal physical body there had to be a change, a fall. In other words, the two entities do not naturally exist together, a spirit and a corrupted body unless the spirit becomes corrupted (fallen) or the body is made higher. This is why we cannot see fine matter through corrupted means - the natural world. Any physical science theories about dark matter, dark energy, time-space continuum ect. are based in corrupted world physics and may or may not be properties that remain in the spirit world. We are not currently on the same playing field.

That is a huge hurdle as the very nature of God is His social dependency. The glory of God is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man. This is, in part, why we put so much importance on family. Family is a good way to develop those social skills. A lack of family interaction puts people at a huge disadvantage (not to say that is what is happening with you, just speaking in general). Take advantage of family ties to help develop that God-like character.

Yeah we should spend only 20% of sleep in REM.

Thats impressive, they did a study for 12 hours. Sounds like you have very light sleep. Common things being common, the usual cause is poor sleep hygiene like not turning off the lights 12 hours before they come on at the same time every day. But this is not a medical forum so I will leave it at that. When a person is sleep deprived, the easiest way to self stimulate is to force the topic to change rapidly. This is why in the sunbeam class you don't want to stay on any one topic for more than 2 to 3 minutes. If the topic stayed the same for more than a few minutes they would quickly lose attention. Sleep deprivation causes the same issue, a lack of ability to stay on one topic for more than a few minutes. ... not sure how all of that relates to what we were talking about.

How does one know they are unconscious at the moment they are unconscious? Sure, later during the return of consciousness one can say there was a lapse of time and they realize that there is time unaccounted for and so they must have been unconscious. This is why I was trying to explain earlier that a "dream" (the typical REM dream) is comprised of memories that remain in the active memory upon awakening that are put together at the point of wakefulness into a story like presentation. The way we know this is by watching what state of sleep a person is in and if they go through episodes of REM sleep without waking, they go right into another state of sleep and wake up out of stage 2, 3 or 4 sleep then they don't recall any dreaming. People say things like, I was dreaming all night but what happened there is that their sleep was really light and they woke up momentarily out of REM enough to maintain memory of the dreaming. The point is that even "dreams" (of the REM type) are really functions of wakefulness that occur at the moment of waking from the dreaming state that are not there if a person remains in sleep and awakens out of another stage of sleep.

Yes, thanks for supporting my argument. He states; "I was being taught, and the eyes of my understanding were opened by the Holy Spirit of God so as to behold many things." This was clearly a vision. It was not a dream or near death experience but a vision by the Holy Spirit. The opening scripture of the talk is D&C 50 which talks about receiving instruction through the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Truth and not by some other way, like through the functions of the body. A spirit to spirit communication is not dreaming nor is it a near death experience.

Good comments. You said earlier "scientific discovery" - that is what started the conversation in this direction. In reality only a very tiny portion of what you and I know was "discovered" by us. ... and that is how it is in the next life too.

Why is it only 0%, 50% or 100%? It could be 99% and 1% or any other combination. His body was not like ours, at least to some degree.

You think that 'where much is given much is expected' applies to scientific discovery for all of us? If God commands me to spend all my days serving others without spending any time in pursuing scientific discovery then I am giving much back where it is expected. Or if God commands me to spend my time in scientific pursuit then I should be doing that. But there is nothing special about scientific pursuit unless it is specifically part of one's life mission to do such a thing according to the promptings of the spirit. I have a good friend who is a well known artist. She has devoted her life to painting and has contributed to many church publications and other uses. She has testified in church that she believes she has been called to devote her time to these pursuits but to do it with an eye single to the glory of God and then she would be successful. I don't think she would be better off studying science then that what she feels is an inspired pursuit. I think what makes a good servant is not what is learned but how and with what intent. Specifically, if it is done to better the kingdom of God, as opposed to the kingdom of man or self. Granted there are some that pursue science for altruistic and selfless reasons but I would think there is a greater percentage of people that pursue religious based service with unselfish desires. (at least in my world that seems to be the case and I am surrounded by many who have devoted their life to scientific pursuits.) I guess I have been around way to many "scientists" who are pursuing the recognition, wanting to be published or have their name behind some discovery and who see their self as that discovery, my own father being one of them. "I am the one who first discovered ___" "I am the first to implant an artificial heart" etc. None of the that is useful in the world to come without it being done with an eye single to the glory of God.

Yes, that goes along with what I am saying, that if we follow the gospel of Jesus Christ then we shall have all the truth. In other words, if one lives a religious life in accordance with the gospel of Christ then they will eventually have all the truth. So, how does that support your hypothesis that scientific discovery affects salvation? What you have said above does not distinguish a person who follows Christ in 1840 versus one who follows Christ in 2013 but has more scientific discovery available. How is the one in 2013 greater with the additional scientific discovery specifically?

I can see that, yes, we were not talking about the same things. I was more referring how the Father could take on all the things that were done before Him as His own. And since this life is one eternal round, the Father having taken on all that was before Him allows Christ to do what He saw His Father do (even though He may not have been the one who actually did it - He just took it on as His own). Let me ask a question before I answer yours. What is the need for a body to become like our Heavenly Father? and Do our attributes change upon resurrection? I would say yes. The body contains a set of attributes as one body is like the glory of the sun, another is like the glory of the moon and then there are many others that take on the varied glories of the stars. (metaphorically speaking). Right now, my body attributes do not contain any of those glories. So, once I receive one of them, I will take on the attributes associated with that particular body. I hope to be worthy of such a gift. (key word - gift) If it is a gift, it was not personally created by me, then it was received by a vicarious act, namely the vicarious sacrifice of my Savior.

Agency is, in part, defined by its associated accountability. And it is usually not an all or nothing thing. With that in mind, who is responsible or accountable for the decisions you make in this life? You or God? I am not sure how you would define "true agency". Maybe that would help more people answer your question. Is there such a thing as "false agency"? If someone gets drunk and then drives and kills someone, who was responsible, even though the person was not really conscious, or herself, during the act of driving drunk? The idea is that we are free to make choices but not free to decide on the consequences of those choices.

For the most part I agree with you, only because I cannot speak for all religion and religious leaders, I am not sure what is in their heart. I can only really speak of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Please tell me about your belief that scientific discovery affects my salvation. Are you to say that with more scientific discovery more people would accept the gospel? I am not sure about the idea that a greater percentage of people would accept the gospel with each advance in scientific discovery. I haven't seen that to be true. Of course, when talking about this, you would have to include the numbers of those that accept the gospel in the spirit world too. Since you probably don't have those numbers, I am not sure that you could prove your hypothesis to be true. I do think that scientific discovery polarizes people more quickly and so it might intensify the process. But, we already knew that through religious prophecy, that the battle would become more intense in the last days. So, that fact was already proven by religion.

How in the world did you get that from what I said? I said the value of the work is the same ... so not sure why you are thinking I am saying it is less. The value of a person that accepts the vicarious baptism is the same as the person that was baptized here. Is it not? Similarly, the vicarious work of the Savior can be valued equally as the person doing the work, it is done on our behalf, IF we accept it. I think, "accepting" would include the interest and being a part of the work or reflecting it in their behaviors etc that you are concerned about. I think that is implied in the word "accept". We have to be Christ-like to receive the vicarious work of Christ. If we accept the gospel of Jesus Christ then His work will serve as our own. There would be no reason for a person accepting the gospel of Christ fully, keeping his/her covenants to have to come back to another mortal world to receive the value of such a sacrifice for their self again. Christ overcomes the world for us. I that is true, in the end, can't we say that we also overcame the world? Then their children could say, "I do what I see my Father do". Will the person who receives a vicarious baptism have to say that someone else was baptized for them or could they simply say they were baptized? My point is that we don't lessen the value of vicarious work. (just the opposite of what you were suggesting)

Do we not believe that if a person in this life did not receive the gospel message that they would have the opportunity to hear it in the spirit world? And if they receive that message, can they not be baptized? How is that? Through a vicarious ordinance. After that ordinance is performed are we going to differentiate whether they were baptized in the flesh or only in the spirit? I don't think so, that is why we have to do it vicariously. It's value is similar to the act that would have taken place in the flesh had the person had the opportunity to do it for their self. Well if that is equal in value, then all else that is done in the flesh vicariously for another holds the same value as if the person did it their self. This includes all that Christ does for us. The point is, a Savior allows us to receive the act of His sacrifice as if we are making the sacrifice our self in the flesh. It holds the same value. If one is baptized vicariously in the spirit world, we do not believe that the person would have to be born again and then be baptized for their self again. Likewise, all that receive the fullness of the glory of God receive all that was done vicariously for them, including the sacrifice of the Savior. It would not have to be repeated individually. For God the Father to be God the Father, He would have had to receive the fullness, whether vicariously or individually, for us it makes no difference. And Christ seeing what His Father has done could refer to both vicarious acts as well as individual, to us it makes no difference and we would call it the same .. it was done by Him. The excellent message of the gospel is that we too can receive all that the Father has by our Savior's sacrifice, by the grace of God this is given and by His vicarious act it could be ours. This requires a lot of faith to really take this in, but this is what Christ wants, for us to have that much faith in His redeeming act.

I think you are claiming that one does not abhor the other from a philosophical stand point where the issue is not in the claims made by one or the other but the state of mind of the people making the claims. The issue lies in that science claims to know based on our own knowledge, which is inherently a prideful statement. Whereas, religion in general but more specifically, LDS religion, we know of the value of humility, the Joseph Smith story being a great example. One cannot be self centered, prideful and eye single to the glory of God at the same time. That is where one abhors the other the most. Of course, if a person does not care about pride or humility then I suppose the claims from one side versus the other could make for a great discussion.