Originally Posted by
Just_A_Guy
You epically missed the point. Jews scorned early Christians because their scripture—geared towards calling Iron-Age idol-worshippers to repentance—spoke of One God; and the introduction of Jesus as a Son of God clearly made two deities; leading Jews to roll their eyes at this apparently obvious violation of the Shema and leaving Christians to squabble over a resolution for few centuries and bouncing between moralism, adoptionism, Arianism, binitarianism, and a cat’s cradle of other -isms; before coming up with a magical creed that basically said “Three. But really one. But three! And one! But there are three, but they are one, but not two and not four and not really three or one; but still three. And one. And Anathema on anyone who questions this!!!”
2. Sophistry. The material wasn’t good for anything until God came along and did something with it. I can worship a God who manipulates pre-existing material, just as I can enjoy a tomato without idolizing the dirt from which the tomato grew.
3. Time is my god? This keeps getting weirder and weirder. And I reiterate my point 6 above. It is not my worship, but yours, that gets distorted; because you’re nakedly admitting that you only follow God because you perceive Him to be powerful. There seems to be little room for love or faith in your theology.
4. I am sorry to say it so impolitely, but . . . This is a lie. Everyone here knows it is a lie. Do you really think we are unaware of the myriads of self-proclaimed Christians who subscribe to young-earth creationism and deny the big bang? I actually agree with you that the big bang, and ancient earth theories are probably scientifically sound given our current knowledge; but to tie them up with Christianity is thoroughly dishonest.
As for the idea that infinite regress of gods in Mormonism would be limited by the age of the universe (whatever it may be)—you assume that all divine beings must exist solely within this particular universe. Mormonism makes no such claim.
5. This seems like a bait-and-switch—we were talking about the creation of spirits and then you whip out the old “but you say Jesus was physically conceived through SEXXXXXXXXX” saw that is entirely unrelated to this thread!
But, since you went there, I’ll bite: as I said in the other thread, your allegation is a position embraced by a handful of Mormonism’s over one-hundred past and present apostles. Just doing a cursory search of recent LDS Conference sermons I see that the virgin birth of Christ was defended or affirmed by, inter alia, Neil Anderson (April 2013), Russell Nelson (April 1988), Howard Hunter (Oct 1968), Mark Peterson (October 1965 and again in 1979), Sterling W. Sill (April 1966), Theodore Burton (October 1964), J. Reuben Clark (October 1956), and Bruce McConkie himself (April 1977 and again in 1982). It is also taught in Church instructional manuals (“Gospel Principles” chapter 11, “Old Testament Student Manial” chapter 13, “Jesus Christ: Son of God” (unnumbered; e-pamphlet accessible via Gospel Library app), “Jesus the Christ” chapter 7, and “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith” chapter 1. And this is by no means a comprehensive list.
Another misrepresentation you make: I have not “spiritualized” sexual relations; I have simply pointed out that sex is not biologically necessary for the creation of a human being. Since God only ever begat the physical body of one human being during the entire history of the earth, there was no precedent requiring He must do it in a particular way. It seems to be you, not I, who are now demanding that God “bring [Himself] down to man’s level” so that your own argument doesn’t fall apart.
6. First, you keep bringing in new and false interpolations of LDS teaching. Mormonism does not teach that either Jesus or God the Father ever sinned.
Second, this fetish with identifying and worshiping the ultimate creator really reduces to so much sophistry. Your logic would suggest that I ought never to eat a meal prepared by a cook who did not himself grow the potatoes, create the dirt from which the potatoes grew, and lay the egg that hatched the chicken he puts in the oven. It is, frankly, silly.
Finally, the thrust of my analogy wasn’t God’s love for man; it assessed man’s (specifically, your) love for God. It is unfortunate that you did not engage with it; because your philosophy really seems to suggest that religious devotion should be rooted in fear and/or ambition rather than love. Perhaps we can explore that tomorrow.
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