Re: when Jesus became God?

On 9 2 , 5:39, "Jeff Shirton" <jshir...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"David Bowie" <db.n...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:13dj8jokk2s3g0c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

equivocation. You've NEVER produced such a thing, David, in years. In
November of ''99 you also cited being quite busy as a reason for not
supplying answers -- in a post that waxed at length in service, IMO,
of obfuscation and evasion.

[...] November of 99 would have been the first semester of my first
real job out of grad school, right as the crush of finals were
approaching. Yeah, i got busy around then--very busy. Not all
of us have precisely the same schedule as you do, Scott.

You seem to have missed the point.

I think Scott's point was that while claiming you don't have time to
respond, you nevertheless spend a significant time when you *do*
respond, and a very lengthy response at that.

I too share Scott's experience of having *many* LDS go the length
of *multiple* lengthy posts trying to explain to me how they don't
have time to respond, and I just sit back and shake my head, "but,
but, but, look at all the time you're using writing *these* posts!"

I have a similar situation at school when students come in late,
but they come with a coffee from the coffee shop, and I wonder,
if they had time to stop for coffee, how come they didn't have
time to get to school on time?

I remember a missionary I worked with telling me about a missionary he
had worked with who had this attitude that, since he had been called
of God, everybody who would not listen to him was automatically going
to go to hell.

He apparently had missed this lesson from his missionary training:

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and
disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little
authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to
exercise unrighteous dominion.

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/121/39,41-42#39

Some of our missionaries do miss that lesson.

Well, I'm not going to tell you that you have to forgive your students
for choosing to put a higher priority on getting a cup of coffee than
on getting to your lecture on time. I'm not going to tell you that you
should at least ask what time he got off work. I won't tell you you
should ask whether he got an egg with toast with the coffee so that
the visit to the coffee shop wasn't a total loss, Nor will I tell you
that you might have asked whether the tables at the coffee shop are
wide enough to spread his books out and effectively work on his
homework. I won't even tell you to consider asking him if something
other than coffee might not have better met his nutritional needs.

But I will _suggest_ that you consider these and similar questions the
next time you are inclined to castigate someone for not showing
respect to you, the teacher.

And I will also remind you as gently as I can that I do not recognize
your claim to be called of God to be my teacher.

I don't have time. In fact, I'm cheating my family of time they need
from me right now as I type this.

The point is that claims of "I don't have time for this" seem
to lose their credibility when their actions demonstrate that
they *do* in fact have time, but they simply don't *choose*
to use that time in a more appropriate way.

Have you considered that the real answer, and not just the quick
attempt to point you in the right direction, would have consumed even
more time? Much more time, in my experience.

If you listened, it would be easier to justify the time, although
there comes a time when it is the listener's duty to go find the
answers himself.

Because Jeff claimed that God is limited to binary answers

I'm sorry if you have issues with me believing that God is
"limited" to *reality*, David.

Well, from our point of view, you are limiting God to _your_ reality,
as it were. That is, according to my view, a subset of the reality I
can perceive.

I assume that God is _not_ limited to what I have been able to
perceive as reality to this point, nor to anything I will be able to
understand during mortality.

Isaiah says it, you have seemed to like to use the scripture in the
past in your arguments, but I know that God's ways are _above_ my
ways. Therefore, I don't want to limit God at all.

I also believe God is "limited" to being good, not evil.

I do not believe that God is limited to being good in my perception. I
do believe that He will eventually teach me why some things that seem
evil to me now are necessary, and how they work out for the _best_ in
the end.

I also believe God is "limited" to being just, not unjust.

I do not believe in limiting the justice of God to things that I can
perceive are just. In the end, I know that I will confess that all
God's ways are just, even though I have trouble seeing the justice in
some things now.

I also believe God is "limited" to being holy, not unholy.

I believe that the holiness of God is so much greater than my
perceptions of holiness that He was able to quite literally descend
below all things and carry the burdens of my sins. I do not believe in
a hoiler-than-thou God.

I also believe that your use of "limited" in your comment
is beneath you, but that's just IMO.

Is it really an insult when someone suggests (or even asserts) that
your perceptions might be limited?

God has communicated to us through language.

According to the scriptures, God communicates to us through the Holy
Spirit.

Language is sometimes described as a medium of communication. It would
be a more effective description to compare its function to that of an
antenna.

Mathematically, we are sure that language, by itself, is not
sufficient for communication. I suppose I really should dig up some
remedial abstract algebra textbooks and point you to the relevant
chapters, but it is so basic that, if you are interested in the
subject at all, you should be able to find it, even though it would
take time away from calling us to repentance, as I suppose you
suppose.

And language
conveys meaning,

No it does not. Language provides us some patterns, the patterns
provide something to resonate with, but the meaning is conveyed
externally to the words and grammar.

and language is dependent on logical constructs,

No, the logical constructs themselves are just another language
invented (and refined a bit) by mortal men and women. Again, they are
patterns, the patterns resonate, but it is the spirit that carries the
meaning. (Or, in this case, fails to carry, or, perhaps, receive the
meaning.)

And the spirit to which the listener tunes his antennae does filter
the meaning. If you listen in a spirit of contention, the meanings
will come across to you contentious.

which are quite evident in passages such as Mor. 10:4-5.

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/moro/10/3-5,7#1

... by the power of the Holy Ghost ...

Nowhere does it mention in those verses that language is used to
convey the meaning.

If language has *any* meaning at all, if the "Scriptures" are to
be useful to us, if God can communicate to us through their
language, then we need to be able to understand them according
to their natural meaning.

Which I have assured you that you are not doing. Or, rather, I have
assured you that you are understanding them by the wrong nature and
context. You attempt to understand our scriptures outside the context
in which they were given (to us), and I am sure (or I would at least
hope) that it is because you believe that your context is the only
correct context. But I tell you that you cannot understand the Book of
Mormon by trying to force it into the context in which you learned
religious philosophy.

To throw out the meaning in the the text seems to reduce
your view of Scripture to simply "inspirING" rather than
"inspirED", similar to many heterodox who think that reading
the Scriptures brings them "open" to guidance from God
which may have absolutely nothing to do with the content
of the text itself.

And we don't even have to throw out the meaning in the text to do
that. In fact, I would not say "reduces", because I know the limits of
words+grammar. And I know the necessity of "being inspired" rather
than just "depending on the inspired".

And I know that God sometimes moves in mysterious ways that appear to
the analyses of logic as non-sequiter.

I agree with Scott in wanting to see some external sources
which back up your assertions, which otherwise seem (IMO)
to simply be trying to avoid problems with your Scriptures.

Then get out the textbooks and learn the subject. Linguistics,
abstract algebra, those can tell you the failings of language. By
contract, academics in our present society often refrain from
attempting to deal with spiritual matters, so to look at the role of
the spirit in communication you have to rely on scripture from God.
I've pointed you and Scott in the past to some of our scriptures on
the subject, you can find them again through our topical guide which
is on line at scriptures.lds.org .

(leaving aside the interesting but dataless case of non-answers)
in response to Moroni's Challenge--True or not-True.

Well, that is interesting, in light of the fact that LDS respond to
most critics' assertion of the failure of the Moroni Challenge
as, "you didn't get an answer of 'no', you simply got "no answer"
(even when the critic *did* get a positive answer of "no").

Sometimes, no answer is an answer. Or, the lack of requested response
is indication of something to the person seeking the response.
Possibilities include such things as none-of-the-above and not-now.

But this is precisely an example of where the spirit, rather than
words and grammar, is conveying the meaning.

Many of our members choose unwisely about how they bear their
testimonies before critics, not realizing that critics will see only
the words and the grammar, since they are (probably) listening to a
different spirit. (I am probably doing so now.)

Will you take offense at the implications of that?

But looking at the Moroni Challenge again:

Mor. 10:4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort
you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in
the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and
if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent,
having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of
it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know
the truth of all things.

IF (you ask God about these things)
THEN (He will manifest the truth to you)

Which, in my experience, is true.

I would argue that an answer of "silence" ("no answer") would
likewise be a failure, since the result is claimed to be a positive
answer, and "no answer" is not a "positive answer".

Example:

Dad. Please. I. Want. The. Car. Keys. Now.

(A pregnant silence.)

Silence cannot convey meaning?

Hmm. Let's try that again.

Dad. Please. I. Want. A. Vision. Just. Like. Joseph. Smith's. Now.

(A holy silence.)

Does that paint a better picture of one possible case which could be
hidden by your description?

I argue that such binariness isn't a valid way of describing
things, since natural human language doesn't generally
work that way. Got it?

It seems to me that human language *does* work that way,
and it also seems to me that LDS specifically wield the
Moroni Challenge as *if* language works that way.

I suppose some of us may wield it so. Possibly they do so mistakenly.

But, no, language does not work that way unless you are glossing over
the actual function of language in the hope that the listener will
just understand anyway, and in the interest of saving time that one
really should be giving to one's family.

Actually, I guess I better correct that. LDS assume the
logic of language when the answer to the Moroni Challenge
is a positive one. But when someone gets a negative answer,
then "all bets are off" (at least in my experience).

You seem to think that is a bad thing. Sometimes understanding we are
asking the wrong question is more important than getting an answer to
the question asked.

(Which answer, since the question is the wrong question, would tend to
lead us away from truth rather than towards it.)

Now, I have just committed an error of testimony, and my wife points
out to my that, if I stop now, I might have time for about five
minutes of light exercise for this back that is killing me before I go
to church.

(Bishop: How is it going?)

(Me: I may have trouble concentrating in Sunday School.
I didn't get any exercise this morning and my back is killing
me.)

(Bishop: Oh? Why didn't you get any exercise?)

(Me: I, erm, was arguing with a critic on s.r.m,)

(Bishop: Arguing with a critic when you should have been getting
yourself and your family ready for church?
Isn't that a bit like being late for class because you stopped
for a donut?)

(Me: You know I can't eat donuts.)

(Bishop: Exactly.)

But the bishop does have some authority for such judgements,
considering that I recognize him as being called of God to be my
bishop at this time.

judanzuki

.

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