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mfbukowski
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Not the case. Go to the website I linked to in the post just before yours
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hosemonkey
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And this is why there is such fear in the mormon heirarchy that documents and artifacts that are not “faith promoting” might be discovered that might just bring the whole house of cards down. There just may be a written confession in some as yet undiscovered attic that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Joseph Smith was a fraud and a con-man. A good example is the scandal of a few years ago regarding the “mormon murders” and the alacrity with which the mormon leaders were willing to spend large sums of money to aquire bogus documents. There is stuff still out there that could bust the mormon “church” wide open. For two thousand years, the enemies of Christ have tried to disprove his resurection, they have been unsuccessful. I’ll say it again, you must look at the character of a religion’s founder. Jesus Christ, Son of God, sinless Saviour of the world, founder of the Catholic Church. Joseph Smith, upstate New York farmboy, treasure-digger, adulterer, plagarist, megalomaniac, felon who died in a gunfight. Which do you choose?
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Prodigal_Son1
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Is finding a doctrine you are comfortable with, obedience to God?
That’s one of the problems of thousands of denominations since the reformation. People seem to pick and choose until they find a doctrine to fit their own lifestyles.
Christ started one Church, built upon Peter, and promised to be with that Church until the consummation of the world.
Just as C2M2C has said he wants to avoid anti-Mormon information, he should as well avoid anti-Catholic direction and open his heart and mind to the truth. I think mfbukowski has more than shown his contempt of Catholicism.
I can understand the troubles and concerns of converting. Even though I was not Mormon, I converted from Protestantism in 1985. My wife and I are the only Catholics in our immediate families. Our families love us and respect our faith with much support. I know there are several Catholic converts posting in this thread, who used to be Mormons. They probably had similar questions and experiences as C2M2C is going through and I’m sure they would be willing to share.
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hosemonkey
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mfbukowski
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What if the Jews are right? They are older than you and have more tradition. How do you know that Jesus was not a fraud?
Take a typical hosemonkey post and substitute “Jesus” for what he says about Joseph Smith.
How would any Catholic know that Jesus was not a fraud using your usual traditionalist historical perspective? Actually Judaisim is I think more consistent than Catholicism if this is your perspective. Look at the history! You upstarts claim two thousand years? How would you like 6 thousand on your side?
Where is the archaeological evidence for Jesus? That is your criteria, so please produce the evidence.
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hosemonkey
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C’mon Ski, get real. Where are all the bones and steel weapons from the great battle at Hill Cumorah? Or artifacts from anywhere else for that matter? They are still digging up bones and weapons from the battle of Thermopylae, in 480 B.C. mormons have not found a scrap of evidence. Your “true” religion cannot even agree on the location of the events described in “the most true book ever written,” the Book of Mormon. Face it, false religion.
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hosemonkey
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Stephen168
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Mormonism would still be a fraud
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Prodigal_Son1
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Are you serious? You do not recognize all the writings, by more than Christians about Jesus, some of which were not favorable? The Jews, Romans, Muslims and many others wrote about Christ, and those writings are available for review to this day.
Just ‘read’ the scriptures. Jesus did not avoid His arrest. He willing gave His life and asked for forgiviness for those who persecuted Him. Christ made the ultimate sacrafice.
Read the Old Testament and see the many ‘types’ that point to Christ. The Old Testament offers REAL prophesies of the Messiah. The Pharisees rejected the Messiah because He was not want they wanted, to fit their own lifestyles of the times.
Remember what Christ said on the cross?
Christ was letting them know who he was with that statement as foretold by David.
I follow the God of creation, the same God of 6000 years ago!
We believe in Christ and His Church, not because it is 2000 years old, but because it’s the true Church.
Do you really think your ‘what if’ speculation validates Mormonism?
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mfbukowski
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Get up to speed. No steel
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hosemonkey
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Your story. What about the bones, the chariot parts, the brass, the bronze? I’m talking about artifacts, thousands of bodies. Horse bones? Where??? Never happened, don’t exist.
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mfbukowski
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Ok I guess I understand what your are saying now. To be honest, I totally misunderstood this post. I didn’t recocognize that this quote was from those “Mormon Stumpers”.
The reason I was so flippant about them was that I personally feel I have an understanding of this issue and for me, the stumpers are not stumpers. I have my questions to be sure, but I have resolved those questions for myself. You may disagree with my persepctive, but nevertheless I will present it. I also have to apologize because frankly most of us here have been rehashing the same old stuff for quite a while now, and I forget who was in on what conversation.
That is one of the reasons I am unresponsive to the others here – we have been over it so many times before, and the time to spend here is not infinite.
Now you come in, and it’s kind of like sitting in the dining room with two old people who have been bickering 40 years and you have no clue why they are being so hostile when they ask the other to say, “pass the milk”. It is some problem that happened 40 years ago that they have not gotten over. It’s kinda like that here, but you get to be the newcomer. Sorry.
So why does all this one God/several god thing appear so inconsistent? That is what I will try to answer.
It IS inconsistent to talk about the problem because basically it involves a linguistic paradox that APPEARS to be a real paradox.
Before I get into the theology, let me do some ground work.
There is a paradox called the “liars paradox”. There was a philosopher named Bertrand Russel who did some work on this in a sophisticated way, and his work added to our understanding of some logical issues.
Here is a link to a site that explains it very well:
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/305_html/Deduction/Liar’sParadox.html
And if you want to get into it a little further:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox
What the liar’s paradox shows is that to solve it, it is necessary to CHANGE THE CONTEXT of the question. It is necessary to ask the question in the right way. In fact, there is a Mormon video which has been circulated which has had a distorted title put on it called “lying for God” which makes this exact point.
Those who do not understand the need for asking questions IN CONTEXT misinterpret the video. Those who understand it, have no problem. So this is what I hope to do here, though I have done it before elsewhere. As I have said to Rolltide, CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING
So now the question is: do Mormons believe there is One God or many gods? The paradoxical answer is “yes”! If you look at quotes in which you do not understand the CONTEXT you will get this impression. “But it’s paradoxical!! How can you say that?? Why is it that Joseph and pres Hinckley in one place say there is one God and in others that there are many gods? Are they lying?”
No, not at all
To me, the answer has to do with time. Let’s think of the classical Christian view of God. Timeless, transcendent, the creator (we would say organizer) of time. God is eternal, He always was and always will be. He is one. It says that multiple times in the Book of Mormon. We believe that is true.
Paul dupre who posts here, is an ex-mormon catholic who believes that the Mormon and Catholic conception of the “trinity” are resolvable (Paul I know you will read this, so if I get this wrong, I know you will correct me) if we think in terms of a “family” of three persons, separate and distinct, but one. Mormons would say “one in purpose” catholics would say “one in being”, which I am not sure what that means, but ok. I think they say “three whos and one what”, and I am sure I will get corrected on that one. I think that ultimately the Mormon and the Catholic concept of the trinity are pretty close, but I am sure they will disagree.
But what about this “man was once God stuff?”
This is where we need to change the context to talk about God in a different way.
Suppose there are multiple universes about which we in principle cannot know? I don’t even know if the word “universe” is big enough. I have talked before about multiple “big bangs”
What happend “before” the big bang? If time and space started with the big bang, It doesn’t really even make sense to talk about what happened “before” time. It is like the “liar’s paradox”. You can only get out of the paradox by having your language jump to a different context. It’s like that video game that is it’s own world. You can buy a house, have a family, do all kinds of things and have an entire life that is only really a video game. Who is God for those "people"in the video game? Is he two dimensional and made of electrons on the screen? But to those “people” he is God. He is infinite and eternal. And he really is in that reality. IN THAT CONTEXT he is God. This is only an analogy.
But when we step outside that context, our perspective changes.
(Continued in next post)
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mfbukowski
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"Suppose that our infinite eternal God (to us) was once as we are now. Is He less infinite and less eternal? "
The above sentence is like the liar’s paradox. Because we are mixing the contexts, it leads to confusion.
So God really IS infinite and eternal and transcendent in every way we can possibly ever know. But when you mix the contexts, linguistic paradoxes occurr.
There are certain things that the very fact of you observing them changes them. It’s like the old “if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” That question is about the nature of “sound”. Do we call it “sound” if NO ONE hears it? It’s just energy waves.
Philosophy distinguishes between “physics” and “metaphysics”. Metaphysics is about what in principle is unknowable. We can only know what we experience. What is “red” REALLY like? Well we can say it is a wave of energy with a certain frequency etc. But that is not the same as the experience of “red”.
What if what I experience when I see red, is what YOU experience when you see blue? Maybe that’s why people like different colors.
But these kinds of ideas are impossible to verify or even know really, and linguistically they are awkward at best. These are “metaphysical” issues.
Metaphysical issues are the subject of “faith” not “knowledge”
So now looking at your quote:
"When asked: “Don’t Mormons believe that God was once a man?” Hinckley demurred. “I wouldn’t say that. There’s a little couplet coined, ‘As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.’ Now, that’s more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about”
It becomes clear that the reporter was looking for quick sound bytes. Pres Hinckley had no opportunity to explain it. Yes it is deep theology, of which I have only a glimmering and I have expressed probably a “quarter of a glimmering”. And he was exactly right that “we don’t know very much about” it. Because it is a metaphysical statement, it is true that we know “nothing” about it. We take it on faith. He “wouldnt say that” because to say that is a distortion We literally cannot speak correctly about this unless we discuss the whole thing in context, which he was not given the opportunity to do.
It’s like the old “when did you stop beating your wife?” question. It takes more than a simple yes or no.
To me, as I have said before, we answer questions other relgions don’t even ask. And sometimes, because they do not understand the answers – because they are asking within their context-- it appears to be contradictory. But within the context, it makes total sense.
The above sentence is like the liar’s paradox. Because we are mixing the contexts, it leads to confusion.
So God really IS infinite and eternal and transcendent in every way we can possibly ever know. But when you mix the contexts, linguistic paradoxes occurr.
There are certain things that the very fact of you observing them changes them. It’s like the old “if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” That question is about the nature of “sound”. Do we call it “sound” if NO ONE hears it? It’s just energy waves.
Philosophy distinguishes between “physics” and “metaphysics”. Metaphysics is about what in principle is unknowable. We can only know what we experience. What is “red” REALLY like? Well we can say it is a wave of energy with a certain frequency etc. But that is not the same as the experience of “red”.
What if what I experience when I see red, is what YOU experience when you see blue? Maybe that’s why people like different colors.
But these kinds of ideas are impossible to verify or even know really, and linguistically they are awkward at best. These are “metaphysical” issues.
Metaphysical issues are the subject of “faith” not “knowledge”
So now looking at your quote:
"When asked: “Don’t Mormons believe that God was once a man?” Hinckley demurred. “I wouldn’t say that. There’s a little couplet coined, ‘As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.’ Now, that’s more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about”
It becomes clear that the reporter was looking for quick sound bytes. Pres Hinckley had no opportunity to explain it. Yes it is deep theology, of which I have only a glimmering and I have expressed probably a “quarter of a glimmering”. And he was exactly right that “we don’t know very much about” it. Because it is a metaphysical statement, it is true that we know “nothing” about it. We take it on faith. He “wouldnt say that” because to say that is a distortion We literally cannot speak correctly about this unless we discuss the whole thing in context, which he was not given the opportunity to do.
It’s like the old “when did you stop beating your wife?” question. It takes more than a simple yes or no.
To me, as I have said before, we answer questions other relgions don’t even ask. And sometimes, because they do not understand the answers – because they are asking within their context-- it appears to be contradictory. But within the context, it makes total sense.
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mfbukowski
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TO C2M2C
Regarding the “anti-catholic” stuff.
Yes I agree it is regrettable. I think it comes from our persecution complex. But you know I think that is common to minorities. Sometimes you hear complaints of “racism” for example when to most whites, the charges are unfounded. But racism is real.
Maybe it is harder to understand what it is like to live in a non-Mormon culture from a Utah perspective, I don’t really know. I have only lived in Utah for one year, and hated the experience.
Kids grow up having to learn how to explain their relgion to a world that sees them as weird. So after a while, they either get strong or they don’t. And we probably bash more than we should, but I think the church is starting to realize that we need to get the truth out more and quit sitting on the sidelines because we don’t want to bash. The hard part is being charitable while others insult and distort and lie about your religion.
You know the old saying “just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean they are not out to get you”.
That there have been church authorities who have said some genuinely rotten things about the catholic church, I cannot deny. They should not have done it. They should be above such statements
But you know, frankly in this forum which I take as a microcosm of the world, I can see how their tempers sometimes get ahold of them. Of course everyone here knows that I am the sweetest person imaginable at all times. My wife knows that too.
Regarding the “anti-catholic” stuff.
Yes I agree it is regrettable. I think it comes from our persecution complex. But you know I think that is common to minorities. Sometimes you hear complaints of “racism” for example when to most whites, the charges are unfounded. But racism is real.
Maybe it is harder to understand what it is like to live in a non-Mormon culture from a Utah perspective, I don’t really know. I have only lived in Utah for one year, and hated the experience.
Kids grow up having to learn how to explain their relgion to a world that sees them as weird. So after a while, they either get strong or they don’t. And we probably bash more than we should, but I think the church is starting to realize that we need to get the truth out more and quit sitting on the sidelines because we don’t want to bash. The hard part is being charitable while others insult and distort and lie about your religion.
You know the old saying “just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean they are not out to get you”.
That there have been church authorities who have said some genuinely rotten things about the catholic church, I cannot deny. They should not have done it. They should be above such statements
But you know, frankly in this forum which I take as a microcosm of the world, I can see how their tempers sometimes get ahold of them. Of course everyone here knows that I am the sweetest person imaginable at all times. My wife knows that too.
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1holycatholic
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I am baffled as to why you feel compelled to use terms like “metaphysics.” It appears that you either don’t understand the term, or you are simply redefining it to bolster a weak argument.
These are the commonly held descriptions of metaphysics. Your arguments don’t have anything to do with metaphysics.
The Christian understanding of God has *never *been anything like what you describe. Reading the early Church Fathers ought to make this clear.
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hosemonkey
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mfbukowski
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Yep, my definition is just what your site says it is. I don’t know what your problem is. Are the propositions of metaphysics provable by experience? No. Issue closed.
The word itself means “beyond physics”. In other words, it is what physics or any science cannot prove. In other words, it is not verifiable by experience. The a priori is not metaphysics, logic is not metaphysics.
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truthsilence
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Thanks, but no. Been through that maze already, and it leads to nowhere.
Peace to you.
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mfbukowski
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quotes from your site:
"Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world. More recently, the term “metaphysics” has also been used more loosely to refer to “subjects that are beyond the physical world”.
www.yourghoststories.com/glossary.php
The study of that which is beyond the laws of physics.
www.zteck.com/secret/paranormal.htm
The study of events beyond or outside of man’s understanding of classical physics.
gotghosts.us/definitions.html
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
www.darkgods.net/Glossary_of_Thelemic_Philosophy
The study of the fundamental nature of being and reality; supposedly distinct from physics, as it attempts to consider issues concerning the existence and nature of non-physical entities, or the nature of being and reality as such (in itself). See ontology, epistemology.
philosophy.wlu.edu/gregoryp/class/old/fall02/313/glossary.html"
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Prodigal_Son1
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mfbukowski,
Look at the Dead Sea scrolls, they are not steel yet, they exist from a much older period of time than the Nephites.
Steel is not as big an issue as you attempt to make it out to be. The event the Roman general, Josephus, wrote about where 900 died to avoid capture by the Romans, was evidenced by many artifacts including bones.
You dispute the Book of Mormon having the header listing coinage and said they used measuring containers, yet when I asked where are the containers, you failed to respond anymore.
You argue steel rusts, therefore we can’t be expecting to find evidence, yet metal artifacts from a much older period in time are found in the middle East. Not only the metal artifacts but the smelting tools are found.
Entire civilizations do not completely disappear from the face of the earth. The two battles that took place in Cumora, where millions died, produces no evidence. In fact, on every point where we’ve asked you for evidence on anything, you have admitted there is no evidence but, you believe it.
You argue the plates that the Book of Mormon was etched on couldn’t be reproduced. Wasn’t there a time it could have been written on skins, papyrus or any multiple sources for safe keeping?
Get up to speed. No evidence = serious questions.
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