joseph_daniel_zuki...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> rasqual wrote:
> There is only one God. Right?
Whether that's true is something that Mormons frequently are not
willing to unequivocally declare.
> So, what do we do with the scriptures in which Jesus talks to His
> Father?
Granted that we consider the scriptures authoritative, we accept that
Jesus is talking with Father. Right?
> If (and I'm not saying there are) there were any other being worthy of
> being called (by us) God, that being would also be joined with them in
> perfect unity.
A definite article is implicit, I think, in how you're using "God"
just there. In this sense, you're being tautologous. You're saying
that if there were four whatevers instead of three who we considered
to be God, Mr. Four would be God in the same way as his kin.
Not really in dispute. What's in question is whether there's any
"extra-trinitarian" deities.
Some LdS indisputably believe that Father was once a man. This is not,
apparently, a forbidden belief among LdS. It seems to be consistent
with other authoritative LdS beliefs, as far as an observer could
tell. LdS are frequently cir***spect when discussing it, but it's not
really possible to claim that this is not a belief held by some LdS.
Such LdS do not uniformly believe that generations of deities comprise
the one God we know, in some extra-trinitarian mass deity of infinite
number. They seem to think, some of them, that each generation of
deities will have it's own world where something like ours occured. In
fact, a credible (if flawed) apologetic for Mormonism was advanced by
Arden Eby back in the day, citing just suchy a cosmology.
For most LdS, such things are speculative. But I note the foregoing to
indicate that no, to many LdS it's not the case that if there are
other gods out there in the metaverse, they're necessarily part of the
Godhead in the way you indicate.
This isn't surprising, since it's not really possible for you to
prescribe what other LdS may believe about something that's only
speculative for most LdS, and whose details vary among those who
consider it more probable than speculative.
> There are no other Gods than these three to us, and,
> no, it matters not to us one whit whether our Jesus is the savior of
> other planets, or whether our Father is the same being who created all
> the galaxies and/or all the other parallel or disjoint or otherwise
> universes which might exist.
But it's not especially honest to use words of universal im****t in
stating your beliefs, when that's not what you mean. It's a bait and
switch tactic, from a point of proselytizing. A person is not turned
off by Mormon beliefs because on the face of it, they're stated in a
very familiar way. But this familiarity is only superficial. The
difference between "God actually DID create ALL things" (which means
that everything that exists owes its existence to him) and "God might
not have created all things" (the Mormon view does not exclude the
notion that God owes his own existence to the metaverse, inasmuch as
many Mormons believe as much) is profound. It's useless to shrug in
the direction of controversies regarding the carelessless of such
meaningless claims by Mormons -- for meaningless they are, if "all"
and "some" end up being logically interchangeable.
> Therefore, the assertion "there's nothing left for any other god to
> have created." either contradicts itself and does not make sense,
You're reading someone else's mail. Since we both know there are
Mormons whose beliefs include the notion of generational deities and
generational worlds with their respective "gods," the assertion isn't
meaningless when addressing, as it turns out, the LdS I have in mind.
Obviously, my remarks do not pertain to LdS who don't hold to such
notions. That such notions are not incompatible with Mormon orthodoxy,
however, remains interesting.
> And the fact that there are still a lot of things which we, being
> mortal, don't know, means what?
It means that LdS should be more careful about their use of language,
not more careless. To say "all" when you don't know whether you might
only mean "some," seems very irresponsible.
> > This is really a striking thing. LdS will speak of belief in other
> > gods as speculative.
> Speculative at best, quite likely idolatrous.
Not at all. I didn't indicate that they wor****p such gods. They simply
believe in generational deities and successive worlds. It might seem a
primitive folk belief to you, but that's OK. Mormonism is a big
tent. ;-)
> > On the other hand, they will speak with apparent
> > certaintly of how "God created all things." Yet when the implications
> > of the certain thing and the speculative thing collide ("if God
> > created all things, then there's nothing left for other gods to have
> > created, in the case that they might exist"), many LdS will not reject
> > the speculative thing.
> Or, perhaps, what they reject is your assertion that you have
> understood what we believe well enough to make any sensible assertions
> about our beliefs.
That's a consistent thing, yes. What's incredibly rare, though, is for
them to ground their rejection rationally.
I can drop a valuable diamond on the ground and walk away. What will
puzzle onlookers is WHY I did so.
> There are no other Gods. Whether there are other gods (lower case) or
> not, anything they might create is only as God allows, and thus within
> the domain of things which are ultimately created by God.
That's what I call "neoMormonism," which is tantamount to orthodox
Christianity. Welcome to the wave of Mormonism that's going to end up
in a rapprochement with orthodox Christianity someday. Nice to see
you've come so far. ;-)
> (Surely you don't want to reach for the question of evil again?
Oh, I'd love it. But unfortunately, the moderators have forced
orthodox to tie our brains behind our back (http://snurl.com/1zem9
-
google group history). Perhaps the current generation of moderators
will realize how ad hoc that judgment was, and rescind it.
> You know how we deal with that: that there are things which appear evil
to
> us which aren't, and that there are things which it would be evil for
> anyone but God to do which are not evil for God to do.)
The problem would be if you resorted to that as a wild card for every
instance where the question was raised. If you really believe that
this is Mormonism's ANSWER to the problem of evil, little motive is
left for genuine ethical examination.
One further problem is that any religion could use this as an excuse
for any insane behavior by their version of deity, prophet, or holy
man. In fact, we see this with radical Islam. It's just not a very
satisfying answer to the problem(s) of evil.
- S
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