Charity sufferereth long


Fether
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6 minutes ago, Fether said:

@LDSGator 

Im being a pain because I am confused where you would get the idea of me being ok with ignoring the victims. Nothing in anything I said even remotely suggests it. It seems that you are creating a straw man and air cannot figure out why.

Okay. 

1 hour ago, Fether said:

would say Charity (the pure love of Christ) is never bullying toward the victim.

Tom gets a DUI, and kills a 12 year old boy scout. I want to show Tom “charity” by holding his hand, praying with him, advocating for him to get a lesser sentence, etc. I’m showing Tom “charity” aren’t I? You bet I am. Now, what about the family of the Boy Scout? Charity towards Tom is innately cruel to them. Hence, it’s bullying the victim. 

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41 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Tom gets a DUI, and kills a 12 year old boy scout. I want to show Tom “charity” by holding his hand, praying with him, advocating for him to get a lesser sentence, etc. 

Ok first off, this goes back to my original point. You don’t SHOW charity, you have charity. You have empathy for the person and you seek to help them recover from the traumatic event.

The acts of advocating for a lesser sentence is not inherently an act that comes from charity.
 

41 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Now, what about the family of the Boy Scout? Charity towards Tom is innately cruel to them. Hence, it’s bullying the victim. 

You are coming from a place of justice and revenge with this example. No mercy or grace, which is heart of the pain they feel. Me loving the sinner is not hurting them. They are hurting themselves with their hellish feelings of revenge.

Would you say that Christ forgiving the sins of a repenting thief is harming the people he stole from?

Edited by Fether
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4 minutes ago, Fether said:

You are coming from a place of revenge with this exampl

Wrong. It’s called “justice” to want to see, in this life, the guilty punished. So....no. 

4 minutes ago, Fether said:

Would you say that Christ forgiving the sins of a repenting thief is unjust to the people he harmed?

Actually, to some degree, yes. I DO think it’s unjust to the families of the victims. If I shot your wife and kids then said “Well, Christ forgives me, so we’re cool. See you in Heaven bud.”’ you’d feel the same way I do now, even if you don’t admit it. 
 

Now, having said all that, I am glad He forgives all sins, including the horrible things I’ve done. And, the people I have hurt in my life have every right not to forgive me. As the one who hurt others, I have no right to lecture them about forgiveness. 

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Just now, LDSGator said:

Wrong. It’s called “justice” to want to see, in this life, the guilty punished. So....no. 

10 minutes ago, Fether said:

Your right! And I fixed what I wrote before you submitted your reply.

This is why Charity is a Christlike attribute. The whole purpose of the atonement was to satisfy justice in a way that saved the sinner from the full blow of justice. Mercy is applied where the sinner is repenting. That is the purpose of charity. To have that empathy for both victim and criminal. It’s hard, but it is chrisrlike.

3 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Actually, to some degree, yes. I DO think it’s unjust to the families of the victims. If I shot your wife and kids then said “Well, Christ forgives me, so we’re cool. See you in Heaven bud.”’ you’d feel the same way I do now, even if you don’t admit it. 

It’s a good thing “what I would do” do not dictate right and wrong. It’s also a good thing we aren’t talking about what I would do, rather, we are talking about what is the Christlike approach.

This point remains moot

 

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1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

So, just so that I’m clear, you see no issue with ignoring the family of a murder victim or a DUI manslaughter victim while instead focusing on the one who murdered them? Explain it nice and easy so someone as stupid as me can understand it please. 

Well, hang on a sec.  When I was a criminal defense attorney, and later a parental defender—I tried to “minister” to my clients as best I could, and I was often point-blank prohibited from talking to or interacting with the victims.

Similarly, I doubt our friend @prisonchaplain went out to find every single victim of every single inmate he ever ministered to.

We are all of us called to somewhat different ministries at different times of our lives; and I’m not sure I’d go so quite far as to say that we are erring if we minister to a perpetrator without personally, directly giving “equal time” to our victims (which is sort of how I interpret your position here; and apologies if I’m misreading you).

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21 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

(which is sort of how I interpret your position here; and apologies if I’m misreading you).

Oh no apology needed my friend. It’s exactly how I feel. It’s how I still feel too. I’ll be the first one to admit when I don’t understand something. When I die and if I meet my Savior, I’ll still have questions. I’m confident He will answer them. 
 

I’d much rather be honest and disagree with people than lie to keep the peace. So yes, it’s how I feel. 

Edited by LDSGator
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8 hours ago, Fether said:

Moroni 7:45 

“Charity sufferereth long”

 

what does this phrase mean?

 

secondary questions:

Is it correct to say that charity is an all encompassing view of the world? i.e. If I love my children, my wife, but gossip about those I disagree with, then can I say I have charity for my family? Or is it more accurate to say I do not have charity at all?

In Moroni 7, Moroni as author (or God/Joseph Smith as translator) is consciously aping the language of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13.  The Greek idiom rendered as “sufferereth long” in 1 Cor 13:4 is generally rendered “patient” in modern translations.

I don’t know that charity, by its nature, is any more universal than any other virtue—perhaps I am generous to my kids but stingy to a hobo?  Attentive to a judge but dismissive to a client?  In the example you cite, I think someone could rightly say that, as an objective fact, I do have charity.  I just don’t have the requisite degree of integrity to apply my charity universally.  

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15 hours ago, Fether said:

Moroni 7:45 

“Charity sufferereth long”

 

what does this phrase mean?

 

secondary questions:

Is it correct to say that charity is an all encompassing view of the world? i.e. If I love my children, my wife, but gossip about those I disagree with, then can I say I have charity for my family? Or is it more accurate to say I do not have charity at all?

It means:  No good deed goes unpunished. 🤐

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On 9/6/2021 at 1:57 PM, Fether said:

Your right! And I fixed what I wrote before you submitted your reply.

This is why Charity is a Christlike attribute. The whole purpose of the atonement was to satisfy justice in a way that saved the sinner from the full blow of justice. Mercy is applied where the sinner is repenting. That is the purpose of charity. To have that empathy for both victim and criminal. It’s hard, but it is chrisrlike.

It’s a good thing “what I would do” do not dictate right and wrong. It’s also a good thing we aren’t talking about what I would do, rather, we are talking about what is the Christlike approach.

This point remains moot

 

Something about the atonement is that one way of seeing how it fulfills justice is that we are ALL guilty of causing him pain and killing him.

Which is the greater law, that of man or that of the Lord?

We have ALL broken the law of the Lord.  WE are all sentenced to go to Hell.  That is justice.  We are ALL sentenced to death.  That is justice.

The dead cannot demand justice of others.  WE do not have the dead stand in court, only the living.  Perhaps a living person wants to represent a dead person, but it is still a living person.  No dead speak in court.  The dead cannot accuse...only the living.

IF we are all dead, there is no one left to accuse another one for justice.

ONLY through the Savior's love and atonement can we find life, thus only by his sacrifice.  He broke the bands of death, both physical and spiritual so we could live again.

To do this, he took upon him all the pain and punishment that we would suffer upon himself, thus taking upon himself the only one that can actually make accusation or make judgements after this.

As the dead can not accuse another, and only the living, only the Living Christ can be our Savior and advocate, and as he has the ultimate word, we could not ask for a better advocate in this life or the next.

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