Urstadt

I agree. There are some laws out there that make me scratch my head, too.
I was intrigued by you stating that you fail to see the how the virtue to appreciate love connects to/is the same as the virtue to abide by law. I think the answer is rather simple, for me at least.
I abide law because I love God.
John 14:15 - "If ye love me, keep my commandments" could potentially read as, "If ye love me, abide by my law." So, if the first great commandment is to love God, then along with that comes a mighty commandment to abide His law ("keep my commandments.")
My wife asks me constantly to do little things that are seemingly insignificant, and seemingly have nothing to do with my commitment to love her. However, I do them because I do love her.
This brings back our prior discussion from a previous thread: morals emerging in, and becoming sensible because of, relationships. We can also say that law becomes sensible because of relationships. And, in particular, law becomes sensible to us because of our relationship with Heavenly Father. I close with an example:
On the surface, I see very little reason why Heavenly Father as asked us to abstain from tea. It makes no sense to me. There are as many (claimed) health benefits as health risks. Maybe more benefits. Without the relational context between myself and Heavenly Father, it does make no sense to follow that commandment (law), and therefore, I do have a right to be suspicious. However, once the context of my relationship with Heavenly Father is brought back into the picture, then it makes sense. He loves me and would only command something He believed to be in my best interest. Because I love Him, I want to obey. I can receive an answer from Him in prayer confirming what He does and does not want me to do. He and I have a relationship. We work together and I trust in His guidance.

Excellent. I very much agree with your sentiments regarding love and virtue. One could argue that without virtue there can be no love.
I appreciated your points about love and faith regarding abiding a particular glory. I also must admit that I have wondered in the past how a religion can be the deciding factor on such matters.
Another point I'd like to add to Seminarysnoozer's great response to your post is that of law. When you read D&C 88:20-32, law is mentioned. People will decide which glory they can abide based on which law they chose to live on earth: a celestial, terrestrial, or telestial law. And, they will likely choose that law based on their personal degree of faith.
In order for us to live by Heavenly Father's law, we must know it. He could choose any medium He wanted to inform us of His law, but he chose to have His church, led by a prophet of his choosing, be the meduim through which he informed us. I know you know this, I apologize for digressing. Please, bear with me.
With love comes the principle of agape: loving people enough to not enable them to escape their consequences. What my baseball coaches sometimes called tough love. But, agape requires love and love requires virtue. Law also requires virtue, as does living by it require virtue.
It is virtuous for Heavenly Father to have law, and it is virtuous of Him to exercise justice and mercy according to that law. Justice is where agape comes in.
Now let's consider seminarysnoozer's point about covenants and authority. We covenant with Him to abide by His law. The priesthood is required to fulfill many of the saving ordinances that His law requires. A church is needed (de facto Heavenly Father's decree) to administer that law and the authority to perform the ordinances required of the law. Those who make and keep their covenants to abide this law will be able to abide a celestial law. Their spirits will be capable of abiding it (similar to how a hand with an oven glove is capable of abiding a 400 degree oven). Those who don't abide it here will be unable to abide it in the hereafter.
So, you are intuitive, and impressively so, to pick up on love and faith in this debate. The additional piece is law.
I really hope this provides a puzzle piece or two for you. Let me know if I can explain anything a little differently.

As for law; well, being a liberal sort of fellow, I am not entirely sure about this aspect of so many religions. I resent any attempt to fence me, or anyone else, in. In fact, I have a lot of sympathy with AE Housman on this one:
 
The laws of God, the laws of man
  He may keep that will and can
Not I; let God and man decree
  Laws for themselves, and not for me,
And if my ways are not as theirs
   Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn
  Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves say I, and they
  Need only look the other way...
 
AE Housman, Last Poems, XII
 
I do not think I have quite understood why the kind of virtue required to appreciate love is the same kind of virtue necessary to refrain from eating pork, or forego blood transfusions, or visit Mecca at least once during your lifetime, or abstain from homosexual sex. Indeed, I am very suspicious of religious laws in all their forms; so often they seem to have been created by an establishment for the perpetuation of that establishment, and have little obviously in common with Jesus great commandments to 'Love God!' and 'Love each other!' All the Law and Prophets, He informs us, hang on these two commandments, and yet frequently these religious laws have taken on, through tradition rather than merit, a role in people's lives which, to my mind at least, they do nothing to deserve insofar as they seem entirely irrelevant to Jesus' two necessary loves.
 
Best wishes, 2RM.

I think it's important to note that the difference between Terrestrial glory and Celestial glory is that one must not just believe, but convenant with God.   You must make an outward sign of your committment, and be numbered amongst God's people. 

I think there is a general consensus in this thread and I agree with it.

I only want to add, from a secular stand point. The main problem I have with our current scientific models as I understand them is the idea of a "Life soup". That all the chemicals to form life just happened to get together  in some salty water and by some process formed a massively complex molecule, like a protein molecule. That this process actually formed enough coherent molecules to create something that could reproduce itself and so forth.

It seems to me from the beginning of the earth to when we think life first formed, and the earth wasn't insanely toxic is a dang narrow window for that to happen. I am admittedly largely ignorant on the topic though.

I'm inclined to agree with all the above sentiments. I would just add that a literal interpretation of the creation myth(s - there are two, in Genesis, and they are not completely consistent) of the Bible inevitably involves the notion of a 'trickster' God; a God who has given us the clues of the geological sciences, the fossil record, radio-carbon dating, dendro-chronology, etc, solely to mislead scientists who, whatever their beliefs, are essentially dedicated seekers only after His truth. I do not think that a God who deliberately misdirects decent people of high integrity can be a moral God, and if not moral, not good.
 
Best wishes, 2RM. 

I agree with Urstadt.  I do believe that Adam and Eve were literal people, though, who were somehow different than all who had gone before them.  I haven't quite decided what I think about the Garden of Eden as a literal place; but I think that the general outlines--Adam and Eve beginning in a state of innocence and enjoying frequent communion with God Himself, and then making a conscious decision to leave that state of innocence with Satan playing a role in that decision--are fundamentally correct.

I honestly do believe Heavenly Father used evolution to create man. He tells us that we were created from the dust of the earth. And 6 days? More like 6 creation periods that in all likelihood spanned hundreds of thousands of years. Maybe even millions. To me, it just makes sense that evolution was used, as well as some of the other explanations for how our universe came to be. Maybe not all, and maybe not entirely in their present form. We'll find out eventually, though.

I agree. That's why I said it's "not always a good idea." And, why I specificed that it hasn't always been my experience. :)

OK, so I have, at least, an approximation of your thinking in this regard. I have to say, I do not find it at all unreasonable as a faith position. People have believed, and I am sure still do believe, far stranger things. And, as usual, your ideas seem to hang together quite well.
 
So let me put this question to you all. There seems to be a conflation of two quite separate concepts going on, here. One is the notion of faith, and one is the notion of virtue. I am not at all sure one can be held responsible for one's beliefs, which seem (in this world) to be as much a matter of accident of birth in time and space as any other consideration, whereas our vices and virtues are surely down to our own choices, and we can justly be held answerable for them. So, is it 'fair' to decide which of us will inherit heaven, in a prior life, so long before we have had the chance to exercise or fail to exercise any virtue we may possess, and determine our quality of heavenly reward by which point in time we come to accept some (let's assume, for the sake of argument, divinely) approved set of beliefs?
 
I'm sure you've argued this one out before; I'm interested to hear your views.
 
Best wishes, 2RM.

Morals do exist objectively, the same as wave lengths do. But those morals only become sensible to us in the context of our relationships, the same as those wave lengths only become sensible to us when our eyes perceive them as colors.Imagine if Plato had posed this dilemma with God and colors instead of God and morals. Charles Taylor's book The Sources of the Self: Making of Modern Identity, and John Macmurray's book Persons in Relation speak to these issues very coherently and convincingly. Consider taking a gander at these sources.

Morals do exist objectively, the same as wave lengths do. But those morals only become sensible to us in the context of our relationships, the same as those wave lengths only become sensible to us when our eyes perceive them as colors.Imagine if Plato had posed this dilemma with God and colors instead of God and morals. Charles Taylor's book The Sources of the Self: Making of Modern Identity, and John Macmurray's book Persons in Relation speak to these issues very coherently and convincingly. Consider taking a gander at these sources.

Well, I think you're on the right track. We can always do service, bring Christ-like love and compassion to others, and help out when we are needed/able to. That is the true purpose of religion anyway: fellowship; fellowship with service and other attributes of Christ. Without that, we are nothing. "If ye are not one, ye are not mine."

The LDS do not have the same "constraint" of omnipotence. God cannot do evil. The reason why God is God is because he is perfectly good, and if he were not perfectly good he would cease to be God. (Alma 42:22)
 
 
 
Let's go with #2, but slightly altered:
 
 "If my loyalty is with the Good, and I believe God to be good, but I don't trust my limited knowledge or my objectivity, my knowledge/objectivity must be faulty.
 
We can't possibly understand all the moral consequences just by experience and intuition alone. We can also let pride, grudges, etc. get in the way of it. 
 
If we all worshiped "goodness" we would all be following our limited understandings of goodness. Assuming you believe in a universal morality, that would be chaos.  That's (one of the reasons) why we need God; to guide us on the correct path.
 
So, our loyalty should be towards God because he's the only one who is actually loyal to the Good.
 
What's your complaint with #2? Now that I've added on to it?

Thanks for that offer. I will take you up on it, to discuss further here, once I have digested what you have had to say and worked out it's implications. It may take me some time. I am, after all, only 2ndRateMind!
 
Best wishes, 2RM.

Thanks, Urstadt, for that concise and comprehensive review. I like what you have had to say.
 
Best wishes, 2RM.

Virtue ethics is not so much about a righteous act coming from a righteous person. This is circular reasoning and Aristotle (the author of virtue ethics) wouldn't have surrendered his philosophy to that kind of relativism.
Instead, virtue ethics is about being virtuous for virtue's sake. I am not honest in my dealings with my fellow man so that I may be admired by men or so that people give me their business. I am honest for honesty's sake. Because that is the virtuous thing to do, period. I'm with Aristotle on this to a certain point. Where I stop being a fan of virtue ethics is where Christ is removed from the equation. Glorifying Him is removed from the equation.
Deontology is crap.
Consequentialism isn't really morality, it's instrumental reasoning and pragmatism. However, I am not knocking it at all. There are times that I refrain from doing something merely because I don't want the consequences. E.g., I refrain from speeding on the road not because of some intrinsic moral stand I take, I just don't want the ticket. So, it definitely has its place, just not in morality.
As for a moral philosophy that is closest to the gospel, I find relational ontology (as put forth by dialogism and ontological hermeneutics) to be the closest to the gospel. We are relational creatures, co-constituted by our relationships (e.g., I cannot be a therapist until I have a client I am working with in therapy). So, from a relational ontology perspective, the purpose of all morality is to serve others. The purpose of religion is to serve others. I am not Mormon because I want to go to Heaven. I am Mormon so I can serve others with compassion in a Christ-like way that glorifies Him.
With virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontology, the focus is inward. The focus is on the individual. With relational ontology, the focus of morality is on the other. Morality is something we participate in with others, not something we have or not, it's not something we are or not. We participate in morality with others.
To me, relational ontology is the philosophy that most resembles morality in our church.
(See the quote in my signature by John Macmurray.)

The best person to talk to concerning this would be the Lord and a priesthood leader. If prescribed (out of need)* by a doctor I would not personally consider marijuana to be a Word of Wisdom violation. That said there is the issue that while your state may consider it legal federal law still considers it a controlled substance so there is more than just the Word of Wisdom considerations.
* Hydrocodone can be prescribed for legitimate medical reasons, if you're hitting your doctor up to get high off it though you are violating the Word of Wisdom in my view.

It is my impression that the nations of the civilized world in the last days are represented symbolically Babylon.  Anciently Magog was basically a land of the uncivilized barbarians.  I have wondered what would be going on in the world in our modern times that would cause and allow support of a global movement bent on the genocide of Israel.  I do think we are seeing the beginnings of the unbelievable.
 
I also think there is some misunderstanding concerning Jews being converted verses the Jews returning to Jerusalem.  It is my understanding that anti-Semitism has reached new high in all of Europe that is comparable to what was going on in Germany under the 3rd Reich. 
 
Something else I have wondered about concerns what many call the battle of Armageddon.  My research indicates that no battle has ever been fought in the place which was anciently called Armageddon – rather this was the place of gathering for all the tribes of Israel in preparation for going into battle or war – that would actually take place elsewhere.   I have wondered if Armageddon is symbolic of preparations for war by all the nations of the world. 
 
Anyway some thoughts.

Good point!  There are actually two battles of the forces of Gog and Magog against God's people.  The first is the Battle of Armageddon.  No specific nations are mentioned, but Gog and Magog are simply all those who combine against Israel at Armageddon before Jesus appears to the whole world at the Second Coming.
 
The second Gog and Magog battle occurs at the end of the millennium.  That's a really interesting topic.  If we consider that 3rd Nephi gives us a "type" or template for things which are to come, we see a pattern.  Here are the steps as an overview.
Prophets proclaim the signs of the first advent (Samuel the Lamanite in particular). The people disregard the warning and the signs appear as prophesied.  Many people believe because of the signs. Thirty-three years goes by and people begin to lose faith and patience.  Wars ensue. A great destruction occurs.  The people who were killed were mostly the wicked ones and the more righteous people (terrestrial kingdom) survive.  This is what occurs at the destruction preceding the Second Coming. The Lord appears and teaches the people.  They embrace his teachings and live in the United Order with all property in common.  (This represents the Millennium.) After a few generations, unbelief starts to grow among the people who did not see the Savior's visit.  The three Nephites don't minister among them any more.  Apostasy grows. Members of the church abandon the United Order and cease to have all things in common. Social classes emerge based on wealth and opportunity for education. Political divisions ensue.  At the end, the Nephite and Lamanites are not "racial" or ethnic groups.  They are political groups.  (Remember the Lamanites and Nephites intermarried during the years of unity and peace--there were no more "-ites" among them!) Finally, war breaks out, society collapses, and utter destruction is visited upon them.  (Final war of Gog and Magog.) We tend to focus on Armageddon because it's the closest to us, but there is a second battle of Gog and Magog.  I suspect that this one will be pointed toward the destruction of Zion, the New Jerusalem and will probably take place in North America.  The Lord's visit to the Americas was a literal event, but it also contains the symbolic outline of the events that will occur after the Second Coming down to the last battle of Gog and Magog at the Millennium's end.

Perhaps I should have started this differently - Who thinks they know where the land of Magog is and how long it has been since any one tried to put that place under singular rule as one country with one leader?

My answer has 2 parts:1) No, is it not morally right, but that isn't so much the issue. The issues are how informed do they need to be? And, when should they be informed of everything? A secondary issue is that being informed is not always the moral precedent of the study whereas harm to the participants is. Take two studies for example. The first, the Stanley Milgram experiements in the 60's about authority. All participants were being told they were shocking an individual. What they didn't know was that the person supposedly being shocked, in fact, wasn't. He was just acting. Participants made their own choice to continue shocking them or not. Many refused to. But, all participants were shown after the study that the person was just acting. There was no real harm here to the participants. The second example is the Phillip Zambardo prison experiments. Half the participants played the role of prison guards while the other half played the role of prisoners. But, all of them had full consent (even though this has been wrongfully contested). Despite their full informed consent the experiment ended horribly with physical and psychological damage to both parties. The guards became physically abusive to the prisoners and the prisoners developed learned helplessness, stockholm syndrome, and severe depression. When you take these two studies, it wasn't the informed consent that was the problem, it was how the studies were conducted from the ground up.
2) What really concerns me are ethics of how research results are presented in the behavioral sciences. They are presented as evidenced-based, empirical studies. So the results are taken as scientific fact. But, this is a questionable assertion at best.
Take Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for example. This is currently the leading therapy in our field. It is also one of the worst ones. But, it is considered evidenced-based and empirically "proven" to be more effective than any other therapy. But, these waters are beyond muddied, which the researchers know that. The truth is, CBT is not empirical supported. All one has to do is look at the research methods, outcome measurements, and statistical analysis to see that.
So, even though those research participants of CBT studies are fully informed, I believe the real immoral precedent here is that counselors, clients, insurance companies and courts, and the general public are misled entirely about the "scientific" basis of CBT, causing them to pursue it, pay money for it, try to live by it, just to find out afterward that they didn't get the results they were led to believe.
Thank you for asking. Does this answer your question?

Mimetic Theory, by Rene Girard, may shed some light on this. Desire is merely copied, mimicked. It's mimetic in that once a person sees something someone wants (say an iPhone or S5), now that person wants it too. Ontological Hermeneutics (not exactly the same as regular hermeneutics) describes what's referred to as a background and a foreground in our minds. Charles Taylor has written quite a bit about these. When thoughts, emotions, impressions, etc occur in the background, they are typically not articulated enough for us to respond to and think deeply, or authentically, about. This causes us to be acted upon by these inarticulate, background thoughts, emotions, etc. Once we do bring something out of the background, into the foreground, it is articulated and we are more apt to act, rather than be acted upon.
Mimetic theory purports that if our desire is merely mimicked, copied, it is because we do not bring that mimicked desire out of the background, and into the foreground for examination. This is what creates the "herd" mentality that causes us to forfeit, or under utilize our agency.
My overall point is that regardless of what manipulations marketing uses, they are only successful when people fail to bring their mimetic desires out of the background and into the foreground where they can (among other things) think honestly and openly about who they are, what they want, what they need, and how they are using their agency.

In the headlines today...
China will create own Christian belief system amid tensions with church, says official New Chinese theology must suit Chinese culture and values, State Religious Affairs director says
 
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1568209/china-will-create-own-christian-belief-system-amid-tensions-church-says
This is an excellent modern example of how the Great Apostasy occurred.  Constantine created a state church out of Christianity and it was modified to meet the political ends of the Roman Empire.  Henry VIII started a state church so he could get divorced.  Martin Luther was sheltered by German kings so they could diminish the power of the Roman Church over their domain.  Now we see a new state chuch being created in real-time, for political purposes.
 
In 500 years (if the world lasts that long) there will be Chinese Christians contending with Roman Catholics and Protestants that they are the true church!  It's the way of history.

Please cite the doctrine that we teach that contradicts Paul and John. I suspect it may contradict your understanding of what they are saying or lack of understanding on what we truly believe.
 
Also, please tell us what denomination of Christianity you are a part of so that we can have a better discussion.