Originally Posted by
Just_A_Guy
1. Ah, the beloved “no true Scotsman” approach.
2. All analogies break down if strained in ways they were never intended to be used. The point, of course, was that enjoying or adoring the product does not entail either idolatry towards or superiority of the raw material.
I don’t see what you’re getting at with your citing my statement about intelligence not being good for much until God converts it into something better. Sounds like you’re trying to play “gotcha” on a point about which we ultimately agree—that it is God who gives meaning to all.
3. A god with ALL those traits would be fascinating; but the problem of theodicy tells us that of omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence—you can pick two of any three traits, but won’t get the third. And I have yet to meet a mainline Christian who could really articulate just what “omnipresent”’ is supposed to mean.
And I reiterate: Your entire argument to now has been that man’s emotional attachment to God derives, not from God’s original love, but from His original power.
4. You are either a) stupendously sheltered, b) trotting out your “no true Scotsman” fallacy again, or c) not telling the truth.
5. This is amusing. You bring up the idea that Jesus was conceived sexually; you perseverate on it even after I point out that it was neither scientifically nor theologically necessary; you bring up the idea of goddess-sex; but I’m the one with sex on my brain?
And there is nothing either in scripture or science saying that human reproduction can only occur through intercourse. Perhaps you are suggesting that in-vitro fertilization is a scientific hoax?
Also, re Jesus’ conception—I did not say “many”; I said “some”. The number of LDS apostles I cited who disageeed with it outnumbered the number of apostles you could find agreeing with it, on the order of seven or eight to one.
6. Where to start on this one?
Mormonism is crystal-clear that Jesus committed no sin whatsoever. You insist that notwithstanding this, Mormonism requires Jesus to have been sinful because He was human, conceived by a mortal mother and by some physical seed from an immortal Father. You imply that the Bible says no human, ever, can live a sinless life. In fact, the Bible never states this as an absolute of the human condition (the author of Ecclesiastes says there is no sinless man, at a time when Jesus hasn’t been born yet; and Paul cites Ecclesiastes to liken it to the state of the specific audience to whom he was writing and which audience did not include Jesus). Moreover, your grounds for denying Jesus’ humanity—in spite of a human and mortal mother, in spite of His repeated self-references as the “Son of Man”, in spite of His body, in spite of His ability to ingest food and to breathe and to bleed and His need for sleep, in spite of His sufferings and in spite of His death—are pretty darned artificial.
As for who our idols supposedly are—first off, the supposedly primordial material isn’t dirt, it’s intelligence; which Mormons often defined as “light and truth”. So let me ask you something:
If your god were a god of darkness and lies, but was still the mightiest being in the universe—would you still worship it?
Tell me, Parture. You’ve told a lot of lies about Mormon teaching in these two discussions in which we have been participating. Do you think Jesus cares?
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