Is God the most high? Does it actually matter?

[Vort]

Duped the duping dupe.
 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Vort

[zil]

36 minutes ago, Vort said:

Why? Is it because you don't want the burden and restrictions of historical accuracy? Or is it because you are afraid of getting something wrong? Or is it some other reason or reasons? If you don't mind my asking.

Yes.

(That seems like a Vort-ish answer.)

In addition to all the above (and perhaps covered by them) are these:

1) I'm not interested in writing Mormon stories, and yet I cannot bring myself to consider the real world without the truth of the Gospel as far as I understand it.  Therefore, I cannot imagine writing a story which takes place in the real world.

2) One of the things I've always been interested in (but couldn't have put into words in younger years when I thought espionage was the genre for me) is exploring human behavior outside what us real people consider to be "normal".  Fantasy is the perfect genre for this.  I don't have to worry about what you and I think of topic X because I can create an entirely new universe with a completely different view of topic X, or even without topic X at all.  Having done this, I can explore what I want to explore without being constrained by reality.

I don't think you'd necessarily know I'm doing this since my stories are simple fiction, but by taking a character with a certain background and personality, and placing them in situation X, I can explore what that person does in that situation without worrying about extraneous stuff I'm not interested in.  (If I put them in the real world, I (and they) have to worry about extraneous stuff.)  What you see is a story.  What I see is the development of the character.

I've taken the same character (mostly) and given her a variety of backgrounds, and placed her in a variety of situations (some mine, some created by others), and explored what she does there (mostly in my head - pretty sure I've only documented anything in three of my universes, and only one in detail).  The character has to start, be, and / or act differently depending on the world she's in (otherwise, there's no story for her in that world).  If I reach a dead end, I tweak something in the story and try again (I have a very hard time abandoning scenarios where there's no story - I want to find a story in there somewhere).  This is the exercise which interests me.  And for me, it always starts with the character - I imagine someone with some background or trial they're facing or a goal, then figure out the world they're in, then sit back and watch what they do - and from my perspective, it's not me controlling things any more.  The character comes to life and I just observe.  I expect that may be hard to believe, and yet it's as true as anything else I know.

(I know L.E. Modesitt, Jr. creates the magic system first, then the world (I think), and finally the characters.  I'm the reverse.  Don't know about other authors.)

PS: That's what you get for asking me instead of you.

Edited September 12, 2017 by zil

[laronius]

4 hours ago, zil said:

 I've wondered if some of them weren't spies, moles, undercover agents, so to speak...  (Not sure that would even have been possible, but, you know, it makes for an entertaining story.)

In Jesus the Christ, Talmage seems to imply this may have been the case. (at least that is my interpretation of Talmage's interpretation)

[zil]

29 minutes ago, laronius said:

In Jesus the Christ, Talmage seems to imply this may have been the case. (at least that is my interpretation of Talmage's interpretation)

Huh.  Gonna have to go look for that.  Thanks.

[Traveler]

21 hours ago, Fether said:

@person0 I gotchya

I always understood it like this:

If a spirit was good, he was foreordained to the church. If he was bad or lukewarm, he was not. I imagine there were those that were foreordained and failed to, but there were none that were not foreordained and later repented and changed. That would suggest God dis not they would later be good.

sons of perdition are not foreordained to the gospel.

 

Have you ever thought it possible that while we were sitting around for eons without not much else to do that we may have taken part (perhaps the most significant part to fulfill our gift of agency) in planning our mortal experience?  And since we might review such things with our Father would go a great distance in explaining why I Father knows so much about us and how we fit in – in this life.

 

The Traveler

Edited September 13, 2017 by Traveler

[mordorbund]

18 hours ago, laronius said:

In Jesus the Christ, Talmage seems to imply this may have been the case. (at least that is my interpretation of Talmage's interpretation)

Hmm.... I'm not seeing it. https://www.lds.org/languages/eng/content/manual/jesus-the-christ/chapter-2

[laronius]

14 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

Hmm.... I'm not seeing it. https://www.lds.org/languages/eng/content/manual/jesus-the-christ/chapter-2

I think it was this part: the majority either fought with Michael, or at least refrained from active opposition, thus accomplishing the purpose of their “first estate”...

Maybe a stretch but it seems to me that he was implying that there may have been those who opposed God's plan but for some reason chose not to take an active part in Satan's rebellion. I guess my main point was that not all who come to earth do so because they wholeheartedly supported God's plan. Like I said this was my interpretation of his interpretation.

[Fether]

3 hours ago, Traveler said:

 

Have you ever thought it possible that while we were sitting around for eons without not much else to do that we may have taken part (perhaps the most significant part to fulfill our gift of agency) in planning our mortal experience?  And since we might review such things with our Father would go a great distance in explaining why I Father knows so much about us and how we fit in – in this life.

 

The Traveler

Interesting thought! I agree that he taught us the why of the plan, but I would say that we never got a "sneak peak" of our life. Nor did we pick the trials that we were.

And I assume you know this, but we weren't just chilling, but we were learning and living like we do here over the eternities.

[SpiritDragon]

I would like to add a thought that I haven't seen yet, but maybe I just missed it. God has promised that the faithful will share all the Father has and be joint heirs with Christ. It seems to me that this would be part of why it is important in Celestial Law to have all things in common or live a consecrated life. For some reason it seems to bother people that God's children could become actual equals with God our Heavenly Father or even Jesus Christ. To me it simply seems to be what has been promised, so I don't see the problem with it. From this perspective, I don't see why all who are faithful and rise to the challenge, responsibility and blessing of godhood would not share in the title of most high, just as they share the title god. I mean, logically, if every one is equal, what room is left for a position that is "more high" than another?

[Guest]

On 9/11/2017 at 4:55 AM, CommanderSouth said:

God was once a man, now enthroned in yonder heaven. True, he is perfect and just and glorified, but he is still a being bound by laws that we don't know where the came from (or perhaps are simply self existing).

We don't really know what laws he's bound by.  He's bound by something just as any omnipotent being in any theology/mythology/fiction would be.  Think about it for a while and if you need further explanation, ask.  I'll be happy to oblige.

On 9/11/2017 at 4:55 AM, CommanderSouth said:

This version of God doesn't create ex nihilo and reminds me of the statement that any sufficiently advanced technology would appear as magic to one of lesser understanding. With that in mind, one could simply treat this God as a sufficiently progressed man. Which is some ways removes the mystery and majesty of the divine. 

And what would be the difference?  What is mystery and majesty beyond something great and powerful that we don't understand?

On 9/11/2017 at 4:55 AM, CommanderSouth said:

Now let's go to the other hand. God is a self existing being who created our universe from nothing. He created the laws of our universe and is not bound by them. This leaves more questions about his reasoning as the idea of an omnipotent being creating feeling creatures that will suffer if they don't follow him by faith alone, that has its own set of problems. 

See the bolded.  He's not bound by the same laws that we are bound by.  This is true.  That's what makes him God.  But some "eternal realm" has its eternal laws.  It is these that will always exist as a fundamental principle of reality.  No, we're not going to be able to reason out everything because it really is beyond our understanding.

On 9/11/2017 at 4:55 AM, CommanderSouth said:

This second being is more mysterious and divine in someways in my mind. But the question is, which God (if either) is God?  

They both are.

On 9/11/2017 at 4:55 AM, CommanderSouth said:

I think the idea I have is that, the LDS idea of God sometimes makes me feel like we lessen him by putting him on our level.  That he simply holds all knowledge and that is how he does everything.

Do we think of God as less than God becuase he became flesh as Jesus Christ?  Do we worship the Son less than the Father?  In case you don't know, the answer is "NO".  We worship all three of the Godhead as one.

[Vort]

On 9/11/2017 at 6:42 AM, Vort said:

Yes. Yes.

Does anyone have the least idea what this guy was trying to say? Because I certainly do not.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Vort said:

Does anyone have the least idea what this guy was trying to say? Because I certainly do not.

Yes.

[MrShorty]

@Vort I suspect he was just trying to be agreeable -- kind of like Tevye:

 

 

[Guest]

I don't understand what happened.  I just noticed that this is an old thread.  But it showed up on my screen as a new posting.  So, I answered it.  Now I realize that the last post before me was from last year.

Whaddup?

[The Folk Prophet]

On 9/13/2017 at 9:38 AM, laronius said:

Maybe a stretch

Maybe?

[zil]

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Whaddup?

You were caught in a timewarp when the thread showed up as new, but by the time you finished your reply, time had sorted itself back out, and your reply was a year late.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, zil said:

You were caught in a timewarp when the thread showed up as new, but by the time you finished your reply, time had sorted itself back out, and your reply was a year late.

Ah, so that was what I felt last year.