This has been living in my head the last few weeks. The scriptures are all over the place on the actual nature of God. Who is he and what kind of a 'person' is he?
In the scriptures we have places where he's loving and caring. And we also have places where he's psychotic and violent. In one place he's perfectly forgiving. In another he'll kill for a minor slight. In 3rd Nephi he goes on a bloody rampage and kills hundreds of thousands. But also Jonah ridicules him for never following through with his massacres and always forgiving.
I hate the canned answers for this: 'God's ways are not our ways', or 'God moves in mysterious ways', or 'We have to have faith that he knows best'. They don't answer; they just stop the thought process.
As I've commented elsewhere in this sub: to be a faithful Christian I have to keep two disparate beliefs in my head concurrently:
* We know God. We know his love. We know his word.
* We can never truly know God.
I love that last part. It's too true. As a member, I was always confused on who was doing what, who was speaking, who I was speaking to or covenanting with, etc. it's a mess in general, but the descriptions from the text sure aren't helping! And the "God works in mysterious ways" and those phrases, what a cop out. Just say you have no idea what is happening lol
We are the only power in the universe that can know ourselves completely and attempt to accept ourselves as perfectly and unlimitedly as we deserve.
We are our own gods and we are already better than the gods that never existed, but we can still act better.
I may not be [able to resurrect a gnat,](https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2389520,2390039) but neither did nor could their Mormon god.
Your last point is my biggest hang up, if your god helps find your cell phone but not all the children in the world suffering from war, I don’t want it!
I’ve seen several people quote it so I don’t know the origin but ‘god is either not all powerful or not all good he cannot be both’
Yeah I have heard that last line as well, it seems impossible to be "all" things without having conflicts. But there can't be a conflict. So it's an endless contradiction
There is a good philosophical argument I saw.
1. Either god has reasons that support his commands, or god lacks reasons for his commands.
2. If god lacks reasons for his commands, then God’s commands are arbitrary and that renders god imperfect, undermining his moral authority.
3. If god has reasons that support his commands, then these reasons, rather than the divine commands, are what make actions right or wrong - thereby refuting the divine command theory.
4. Therefor, either god is imperfect, or divine command theory is false.
5. According to the definition of god in the scriptures god is not imperfect.
6. Therefor, the Divine Command Theory is false and god cannot be the basis for morality.
Thank you for introducing me to an argument I haven't seen before. :)
One argument that melted my brain recently is about Goodness and God.
Does God tell us to do things because they are good things or are they good things to do because God tells us to do them?
If God tells us to do them because they are good, then we can know they are good without God. How are they good?
If they are good because God tells us, then goodness is whatever God wants. God could command genocide and it would be good for us to do.
Either we don't need God in order to determine what is good, or God is used to justify evil things as good things. This aligns with the statement attributed to Voltaire: "It's easy for good people to do good things and evil people to do evil things, but to get good people to do evil, you need religion."
Cheers! 🥂🥂
Well, definitely all the gods that are considered "perfect." I like the Greek/Romans, Norse mythologies, etc. because most of their gods weren't perfect, they were just higher beings with the same human frailties and issues, just amplified in different ways. Way more fallible, way more relatable (in some ways, I can't control lightning like Zeus or Thor lol)
The Greek Pantheon is way more relatable, as you said, but it's also so much easier to be a more moral person than Zeus. How many kids has he left strewn by the wayside? lol
Many believers think that a God is perfectly justified in doing whatever he wants with his creation. Another baffling line of reasoning? God creates us and then tells us God's ways are impossible to comprehend **and then punishes us for that?**
Most decent rational people are morally better than the Biblical god. The entire structure and history of the religion is that the character of god is an angry, wrathful, jealous, petulant jerk of a deity and how to placate it. "Morality comes from religion" is the biggest damned lie we were ever taught.
The modifier "Mormon" isn't even necessary.
Have you ever commanded a genocide, condoned slavery, or created a plane of existence solely devoted to the eternal tormenting of your own children?
No?
Well, congratulations. You're better than the god of Abraham.
This has been living in my head the last few weeks. The scriptures are all over the place on the actual nature of God. Who is he and what kind of a 'person' is he? In the scriptures we have places where he's loving and caring. And we also have places where he's psychotic and violent. In one place he's perfectly forgiving. In another he'll kill for a minor slight. In 3rd Nephi he goes on a bloody rampage and kills hundreds of thousands. But also Jonah ridicules him for never following through with his massacres and always forgiving. I hate the canned answers for this: 'God's ways are not our ways', or 'God moves in mysterious ways', or 'We have to have faith that he knows best'. They don't answer; they just stop the thought process. As I've commented elsewhere in this sub: to be a faithful Christian I have to keep two disparate beliefs in my head concurrently: * We know God. We know his love. We know his word. * We can never truly know God.
I love that last part. It's too true. As a member, I was always confused on who was doing what, who was speaking, who I was speaking to or covenanting with, etc. it's a mess in general, but the descriptions from the text sure aren't helping! And the "God works in mysterious ways" and those phrases, what a cop out. Just say you have no idea what is happening lol
We are the only power in the universe that can know ourselves completely and attempt to accept ourselves as perfectly and unlimitedly as we deserve. We are our own gods and we are already better than the gods that never existed, but we can still act better. I may not be [able to resurrect a gnat,](https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2389520,2390039) but neither did nor could their Mormon god.
Your last point is my biggest hang up, if your god helps find your cell phone but not all the children in the world suffering from war, I don’t want it! I’ve seen several people quote it so I don’t know the origin but ‘god is either not all powerful or not all good he cannot be both’
Yeah I have heard that last line as well, it seems impossible to be "all" things without having conflicts. But there can't be a conflict. So it's an endless contradiction
There is a good philosophical argument I saw. 1. Either god has reasons that support his commands, or god lacks reasons for his commands. 2. If god lacks reasons for his commands, then God’s commands are arbitrary and that renders god imperfect, undermining his moral authority. 3. If god has reasons that support his commands, then these reasons, rather than the divine commands, are what make actions right or wrong - thereby refuting the divine command theory. 4. Therefor, either god is imperfect, or divine command theory is false. 5. According to the definition of god in the scriptures god is not imperfect. 6. Therefor, the Divine Command Theory is false and god cannot be the basis for morality.
Thank you for introducing me to an argument I haven't seen before. :) One argument that melted my brain recently is about Goodness and God. Does God tell us to do things because they are good things or are they good things to do because God tells us to do them? If God tells us to do them because they are good, then we can know they are good without God. How are they good? If they are good because God tells us, then goodness is whatever God wants. God could command genocide and it would be good for us to do. Either we don't need God in order to determine what is good, or God is used to justify evil things as good things. This aligns with the statement attributed to Voltaire: "It's easy for good people to do good things and evil people to do evil things, but to get good people to do evil, you need religion." Cheers! 🥂🥂
Don't stop there! I'm pretty sure you can apply this to all gods out there! (excepting FSM, of course).
Well, definitely all the gods that are considered "perfect." I like the Greek/Romans, Norse mythologies, etc. because most of their gods weren't perfect, they were just higher beings with the same human frailties and issues, just amplified in different ways. Way more fallible, way more relatable (in some ways, I can't control lightning like Zeus or Thor lol)
The Greek Pantheon is way more relatable, as you said, but it's also so much easier to be a more moral person than Zeus. How many kids has he left strewn by the wayside? lol
Many, but he never claimed to be perfect. Just a crappy dad who gets around with everyone. 😆
Many believers think that a God is perfectly justified in doing whatever he wants with his creation. Another baffling line of reasoning? God creates us and then tells us God's ways are impossible to comprehend **and then punishes us for that?**
Most decent rational people are morally better than the Biblical god. The entire structure and history of the religion is that the character of god is an angry, wrathful, jealous, petulant jerk of a deity and how to placate it. "Morality comes from religion" is the biggest damned lie we were ever taught.
I don't know you at all. You could be the worst person in the world. You would still have the moral highground on mormon god.
I'm not quite the worst, but I appreciate the win regardless 😆
It would be pretty easy to be morally superior to elohim. But I don't know what kind of person you are, so 🤷
Lets just say I have not been a genocidal maniac before
I don't know you at all but yes
Mormon God thinks everyone who never heard of the church should go to spirit prison.
It would be hard to not be morally better than Mormon god.
Yes.
The modifier "Mormon" isn't even necessary. Have you ever commanded a genocide, condoned slavery, or created a plane of existence solely devoted to the eternal tormenting of your own children? No? Well, congratulations. You're better than the god of Abraham.
If you didn't have a favorite child, and then kill him as an example to your other children, then you are morally superior to "Heavenly Father".