askandanswer

Could I please borrow your closet key for a moment? There's just something I'd like to briefly check

I think that God wants us to be cleansed from sin, that is His will, but I think it is only one tiny part of what He wants from us, I suspect that His will towards us embraces far more than simply being cleansed from sin.

I sometimes consider the possibility that the atonement is God’s way of fixing up a "problem"1 that He is at least partially responsible for. While I haven’t arrived at a fixed conclusion on this question it is something I think about from time to time. To me, some aspects of the atonement don’t stack up, so I have learned to accept it on faith, which I tend to think of as a far more reliable basis than logic. The stated need for an atonement suggests a surprising level of intolerance by God of normal human behaviour. While a superficial glance appears to suggest that the primary purpose of the atonement is to enable forgiveness of sins, I think a more important purpose is to begin the process of sifting and shaping God’s children to prepare them to become as He. The information we have does not adequately explain why an atonement is necessary, or why there are not 50 other ways of overcoming the effects of sin or of meeting the demands of justice. For the atonement to be effectual in our lives requires submission to God’s will and I think that that is the primary intended outcome of the atonement – learning to submit to God’s will - more so than being cleansed of sin. To paraphrase something that @Traveler sometimes says, if you really want to understand the motivations and intentions of something, look at its outcomes. The primary outcomes of the atonement are increased dependence on God, trust in God, and submission to His will. If we are to ever become like Him, I suspect that in order to be successful in that endeavour, the teaching and learning process will require enormous amounts of submission, trust and dependence. If we don't have the requisite degree of trust, submission and acceptance I think that will become an obstacle to our learning. And perhaps God cares more about our growth and learning and progression, and becoming like Him, - all of which becomes more likely and possible because of the increased trust, submission and dependence that results from the atonement - than He does about the removal of a blemish caused by a menial sin. And that’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud! 1. Inverted commas because I'm not sure how much of a problem sin really is as compared to how much of a problem it has been made to become.

I think a much better question is what is it that will determines if God will intervene, and if so, what determines the nature of that intervention. In short, why does God do what He does in the way that He does? I believe that an algorithm can be worked out that could bring us closer to a semi-reliable answer than we are at present.

I get a little irritated when I see statements like this. There is only one, perhaps two creatures of pure righteousness, and they are God the Father and maybe His Son 1, and only one creature of pure wickedness, and that is Lucifer. Absolutely everyone else is a mixture of righteousness and wickedness, with the relative proportions varying all the time. If someone is righteous 51% of the time, and wicked the other 49%, are they righteous or wicked or something else or a bit of both? 1. Mark 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

Taking a different approach to the issue of the sanctity of life it could be argued that when the purpose of a life has been accomplished, there is no further need to sustain it, and when the purpose of a life has not been accomplished, there is a need to maintain it. We see hints of this approach in the extending and ending of prophet's lives. Abinadi and Joseph Smith are good examples. Prior to them accomplishing what they had been instructed to do, their lives were preserved. After they had accomplished what they were meant to do, their lives were no longer preserved and they ended shortly thereafter.

I don't think I would classify the resurrection as a form of mercy. I think it has more to do with kindness or love or compassion. To me, mercy is usually associated with the avoidance/removal/forgiveness/protection from, a penalty/punishment that becomes due following a breach of a law. Death is quite often not a result of a penalty resulting from breaching a law so I don't think I would classify resurrection of a physical body as a form of mercy. There are other things that I think it could be more correctly classified as.

Venusfire, not hellfire

I think I've solved the problem of the nature of outer darkness. At night, when I am in my room, it is dark. The environment on my side of the window, inside the apartment, is inner darkness. The environment on the other side of the window is.........outer darkness. Problem solved. Maybe I should give up my day job and become a theologian

Here are some totally speculative notes I wrote on the subject many years ago. Here are a few thoughts I have jotted down over the years on the possibility that black holes have some sort of divine role in the universe. There is nothing scriptural here, just a few ideas, maybe even possibilities. I’m not saying they are right or wrong, I’ve just found it to be an interesting thing to think about from time to time. Doctrine and Covenants 93:37 Light and truth forsake that evil one. What forces or objects in the universe repel each other in the same way that light and truth forsake evil? Opposite ends of magnetic poles? Matter and anti-matter? Are these forces properties of, or in some way derived from that same opposition between light and evil? What creates or generates light, and what absorbs light and sucks it up? Stars create light, black holes absorb it. Are stars in some way gods, or the abode of gods, and black holes in some ways abodes of evil? Do stars create matter through nuclear reactions and then disseminate that matter throughout space and do black holes tear matter apart through gravitational forces and prevent matter from dissemination throughout space? God creates by joining things together, eg, spirit to intelligence to create a soul, sperm and egg to create a body, husband and wife to create an eternal couple, black holes tear things apart. Isaiah 54:2 (Old Testament | Isaiah 54:16) 16 Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. When God wants something to be destroyed, one way of doing so would be to separate that thing into its component parts. The works of God are endless and eternal and possibly increasing. The universe is expanding. Gravitational forces could prevent the universe from expanding and cause it to contract back in upon itself, ultimately reversing the big bang. That which limits is evil and of the devil, that which increases is good and of God. That which promotes freedom, ie, free movement and expansion of matter or spirit, is of God, that which promotes control, ie, preventing the movement of matter and spirit, is of the devil. If the intentions of God and expansion and progression, and the effect of black holes is to contract, these two forces would seem to be completely opposed to each other. It seem likely that God’s dwelling place is a Sun. Abraham chapter 3 seems to suggest this as do the many references to God dwelling in the midst of everlasting burnings. If this is true then it is interesting to speculate on the possibility of outer darkness being a black hole. It seems reasonable to suppose that hell, or outer darkness would be the opposite of heaven. A sun gives out all its light, a black hole gives out none. A sun allows life by giving of its light, a black hole causes death by sucking up whatever gets too close, including light. Just this morning, while thinking how to respond, I came across this. Totally unsupported, and somewhat dated, but indicating that at least someone else has considered the possibility that black holes might be outer darkness. If the black hole were rotating and the astronaut navigates his ship at just the right angle, instead of being drawn to oblivion at the hole's center, he might be flung to another region of time and space. But we would never know if he were successful: it would be impossible for him to return. Could this be the "outer darkness" mentioned in some scriptures such as D&C 101:91? (From The Creation, by Frank B Salisbury, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_B._Salisbury available on gospelink.com Black Holes are "outer darkness" where God will cast those sons of perdition that deny His spirit. This includes all Ex-Mormons. See "The Creation," page 146 and D&C 101:90-91 I wonder if outer darkness will involve a dixcontinuity of identity for those who go there. Those who go there will be those who have first received and then denied the Holy Ghost. They are opposed to or cannot adjust themselves to the least portion of the Spirit. As such, there is absolutely nothing at all that can be done with them. This suggests that they are totally unsuitable for any other purposes and totally unable to be redeemed. The raw material of which they were made, being unable to accomodate any portion of the spirit is burned and purified until it is once again usable. Only the base elements of which the person was composed would remain, ready to be put to use once more, to start the whole journey of eternal progression again, beginning from the lowest point. Without accepting a degree of the Spirit, nothing would be able to progress. Without accepting the loving guidance of a Father in heaven there is nothing more that can be done for that being.

I think I understand what you are saying, but I don't think I agree with it. I think it is more important to have more people saved than to have those who are saved place a higher value on the mechanism that enabled them to be saved.

The thing that bothers me the most about the concept of the pride cycle is that it suggests that God repeatedly blessed the people with that which made the biggest contribution to the start of the next pride cycle. The concept suggests that the people were blessed by God with prosperity and that the prosperity led to pride which then led to destruction. Surely God noticed this and once He did, He may have realised that it was not such a wise idea to bless people with something that fuelled their destruction. I like to think that God makes better decisions than that. I think that there are many other things that He could have blessed them with that would not have contributed to their destruction. I'm more comfortable with the idea of attributing the prosperity that often followed periods of warfare and destruction to the natural economic cycles related to peace and stability, the increased demand for all manner of goods and services to replace that which was lost during the period of war, and the flow of income and investment to productive and profitable activities rather than the wasteful and destructive expenditure associated with warfare.

I think another necessary condition to add to your list of five is that God does what He does with the informed consent and involvement of those on whose behalf He works.

I think that some of the difficulties caused by the question of evil stems from the idea that killing is wrong. And assuredly, killing is wrong, but I think it might not be a compelling example to illustrate the problem of evil. Time and time again we see the example of large-scale killings such as Rwanda or the Holocaust, being put forward as some kind of ethical/moral problem that doesn’t fit in with our knowledge/beliefs in other things. I don’t believe this is a helpful or accurate way to view death. Death is a necessary part of the Plan of Salvation, and that being the case, I’m not sure how much meaning or significance should be attached to the manner and timing of any particular death. There is a tendency to view death as an evil, or bad, or undesirable thing rather than a necessary step towards a positive outcome. Death is simply a transition, not an end, and the condition that death transitions us to is in so many ways better than the conditions it takes us from. Why should we think as evil an event that takes us to a better place? I think our perspective on the problem of evil could be changed if we viewed death as a necessary step rather than an evil. We know that death is not the end of life, it is simply the continuation of life in a different “place” and form. Sure, in many cases, death seperates us from our loved ones, but it also reunites us with a greater number of loved ones who have preceded us. Death limits our abilities to provide for the temporal needs of our loved ones, but it gives us increased opportunities to administer more and better to the eternal needs of a greater number of souls who died without the gospel. So, in short, I don’t see killing, whether done on a single scale or a wholesale scale, as a persuasive example of the problem of evil. And given our inability to make reliable judgements about the fairness/evil/justice of God and His plan based on the minutely short second act of a three act drama, I’m not even sure that there is a problem of evil or if anything useful can be said about it. I think the appearance of a problem may arise from a tendency to evaluate the goodness or badness of an action from our limited perspective of the here and now, with insufficient regard for the eternal consequences of an action, and this limited perspective makes it difficult to both see the problem clearly, and come up with reliable answers. I think the appearance of a problem arises from our tendency to judge certain acts as evil when in fact we are in no position to make such judgements, as our position, located in mortality, distorts our judgement.

It's nothing to get cross about

1. If one source of mercy is available to everyone, under a very narrowly defined set of conditions, and another source of mercy is available to everyone under a more flexible, less demanding set of conditions, which source of mercy do you think would be more useful and more used? 2. Is there a relationship between the quality of mercy and the conditions on which it is accessible?

If we continue to act as if this teaching was true it has the potential to slow the rate of our spiritual learning and progression. The verse of scripture in which this phrase is found suggests that this method of teaching is reserved only for a certain type of people and a certain type of purpose- and not a particularly righteous kind of people or helpful kind of purpose. 13 But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. A more relevant and recent teaching is Oh, there is so much more that your Father in Heaven wants you to know. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “To those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, it is clear that the Father and the Son are giving away the secrets of the universe!”

We'd better get someone out there right away to take a look at this!

I agree with this sentiment. The only thing that you or I or anyone else really knows is that which has been confirmed by the Spirit. Everything else is just theory and speculation, based on the balance of probabilities, and subject to change. And I think all of us will be better off if we place a higher value on, and spend more time pursuing, that knowledge which will be true forever rather than theories which will always fade away over time, only to be replaced by new, transient, ideas.

This came up during the question and answer session we had with Elder Wakolo during yesterday afternoon's session of District Conference. Our Branch President asked whether this part of the world could be one of those areas where the new style of garment would be trialled. Elder Wakolo replied that the Pacific Area would be included in the trial. No time frame was given.

Two major cyclones in 2 weeks and they still support Trump!

Having read @Jamie123's summary I'm so glad that I can now cross Kalevala off my reading list - a minute or so reading this has saved me a lot of time.

I'm sure that some of the engineering projects youv'e helped bring into existence will impact the lives of thousands for decades.

I believe that in the long run, effort and intent will count for more than outcomes. How others respond to our charitable and Christ-like actions, should not in any way reduce our desire or responsibility to act in a charitable and Christ-like manner. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. There's nothing in here about whether the recipient of the cup was actually thirsty, or wanted a drink.

I've only read the first post in this discussion but felt the need to respond to this one straight away. I don't think any honest and well-intentioned effort to teach something true and helpful to anybody could fail to make the world a slightly better place. There is real and lasting value in effective teaching by good teachers.