Beyond Mitt's Underwear: Part 3: The Preexistence, Creation, and Plan for Salvation
Father in Heaven (Elohiem) and His wives live near the star called Kolob on a pair of magic stones. They were once mortal humans just like we are and have retained their physical bodies of flesh and bone, but instead of blood they have “spirit matter, a substance which is more refined and pure and glorious than blood”. At the time of creation
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Except you've never demonstrated which God you're asking, if God actually answers, or even if the "answers" you get come from God. You have *no clue* if your answers come from God, Satan, Xenu, or if you just made them up.
I went to the real source
You don't know what "the real source" *IS*. You can't even explain how you concluded that your source is the real source, let alone how you tested it once you thought it might be.
No, I've had answers to questions, problems solved, miracles occur, and all kinds of things outside of the very narrow window of questions your comment implies.
And you've never considered that God might, y'know, do something you couldn't do on your own, or that wouldn't have happened anyway? Those things ARE testable, by the way, and God has failed every single one of those tests.
to tell you of that experience would require from me a certain amount of vulnerability and going into some detail concerning mistakes and weaknesses of mine that I would really only share with very close friends or family.
That's fair enough.
No, really.
Just don't expect me to take "a claim that you can't tell me about" as persuasive.
. I'm having a hard time envisioning a reality where this could happen, if for the sole reasons that 1) you are not a believer in any sense of the word, let alone LDS
Didn't you know that nonbelievers are MORE moral, since we're nice without coercion?
2) you are in Canada, so we will likely never meet in person,
Tragically yes. The US border gives me crap every time I cross it, and the USA itself is a backwards place that provides no unique experiences. As such, I feel it would be a shame to make all the work Homeland Security has done to impede tourism go to waste.
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Heh. Yeah, I've heard that argument, and it holds true for the subset of believers that are only motivated by fear of Hell. But let me make a couple of points here, and I mean them in the most sincere, nicest, honest way possible:
1) I do not fear Hell. I choose virtue because I am happy when I do so and I desire greatly to emulate God's perfect example of love towards my fellow man. So if I am not acting moral because I am being coerced by fear, how do you rank yourself with me, morally speaking?
2) Every single time I have been rude or reacted in anger, I have come back and apologized. Every time. My vision of morality includes treating everyone on this earth, including those who hate me personally, mistreat me, or are disrespectful to me, with respect and kindness and patience. While I am not perfect, that is my vision. You, to some degree, revel in your rudeness. So what definition of "nice" are you using that tells you that you are being nice without coercion when I am nicer than you also without coercion, but you are still convinced that somehow you are nicer than me?
These are very serious, non-snarky questions.
Just don't expect me to take "a claim that you can't tell me about" as persuasive.
Who said I was trying to be persuasive? I have no interest in changing your mind. I have an interest in having a dialogue where I can learn new things about myself and you. :) If I was really trying to convince you, I would throw all my concerns out the window and pull out my big guns, regardless of how personal they were, which I haven't done, nor do I plan to.
Tragically yes. The US border gives me crap every time I cross it, and the USA itself is a backwards place that provides no unique experiences. As such, I feel it would be a shame to make all the work Homeland Security has done to impede tourism go to waste.
Hahaha! Seriously, you crack me up. Your gaming quotes always make me laugh, too. I thoroughly enjoy your sense of humor. :)
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A surprising number of true believers get tripped up by that one.
My vision of morality includes treating everyone on this earth, including those who hate me personally, mistreat me, or are disrespectful to me, with respect and kindness and patience.
Except you belong to a bigoted church, who treat entire swathes of their community disrespectfully, unkindly, and impatiently.
Which swath changes across centuries - you were a white supremacist church until that became politically untenable, and you're currently a virulently homophobic church even though that's in the process of becoming politically untenable. I'm curious to know who your church will choose to hate next - my personal bet is immigrants - but I don't expect to be shocked by actual, y'know, DECENT BEHAVIOUR taking hold any time soon.
You, to some degree, revel in your rudeness.
Yes. Intolerance, being intolerable, is not tolerated. Someone who calls you out for being a bad person supporting bad causes is, in fact, a better person than someone who stays silent, and is better still than someone who, for example, knowingly pays tithes to a hate group, who then uses those tithes to harm the helpless.
So what definition of "nice" are you using that tells you that you are being nice without coercion when I am nicer than you also without coercion, but you are still convinced that somehow you are nicer than me?
The GENERAL case of "I don't have be threatened to be nice, so I'm better than someone who DOES have to be threatened to be nice" is snarky.
The more specific case is that snideness, sarcasm, snarkery, and rudeness simply do not make someone a bad person, and politeness is neither a carrier or a symptom of morality.
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Blah blah blah. We've done this conversation, too, and we also both know where it ends.
Yes. Intolerance, being intolerable, is not tolerated. Someone who calls you out for being a bad person supporting bad causes is, in fact, a better person than someone who stays silent, and is better still than someone who, for example, knowingly pays tithes to a hate group, who then uses those tithes to harm the helpless.
Here's where we part ways. No matter how horribly someone has treated another person, that person still deserves basic human kindness from me. Let's assume you are correct, and I'm a hateful human being - does your hate inspire me to stop hating, or inspire me to resist and resent you?
Some of the most fascinating stories from WW2 were the ones involving the concentration camps where the prisoners treated the guards with kindness and how the guards responded by softening, sometimes immediately, and sometimes years later. You change people's hearts by softening them towards your view, and you do that through kindness and understanding. Your way breeds more hate, and so feeds the cycle rather than breaking it.
In other words, your intolerance is part of the problem, not part of the solution. It assuages your conscience because you can look at another person, judge them to be less than you, and then treat them in the same way you accuse them of treating someone else, all the while justifying your brand of hate as not just acceptable, but morally obligatory.
Standing for something does not require mistreatment of another human being. Period. In fact, whatever you are standing for is undermined by your own terrible behavior. You damage your own cause.
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Yes, with you admitting that the way your church treats people is miserable and that doing some good work does not give you "morality credits" to allow you to be inexcusably immoral without question at other times.
your intolerance is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Yeah, if only I was SUPER NICE and wasn't so terribly rude as to say "what you are doing is wrong, you should stop doing it", you would totally stop doing it. Because disagreeing with you is just gosh darn well going to HARDEN YOUR HEART and we can't have that, can we? I have such a nice worldview and it would be a SHAME if something you did HAPPENED to it, which just might happen if I don't start being nicer to you. And it'll be ALL MY FAULT when it does, won't it.
then treat them in the same way you accuse them of treating someone else,
Again, you don't get it.
Free clue: Me saying "the Mormon church does bad things, and you should not support them in doing bad things" is not the same, at all, as what the Mormon church does.
In fact, whatever you are standing for is undermined by your own terrible behavior. You damage your own cause.
YAAAAAAWWWWWN oh hey, Ian Vass with yet another Tone Argument. Haven't we done this dance just a few times before?
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Thaaaaat's not what I said.
I admitted that my arguments were flawed, and I would stop using them, which I have, but don't get caught up in the fallacy fallacy.
Yeah, if only I was SUPER NICE and wasn't so terribly rude as to say "what you are doing is wrong, you should stop doing it", you would totally stop doing it. Because disagreeing with you is just gosh darn well going to HARDEN YOUR HEART and we can't have that, can we? I have such a nice worldview and it would be a SHAME if something you did HAPPENED to it, which just might happen if I don't start being nicer to you. And it'll be ALL MY FAULT when it does, won't it.
Heh. You really haven't read any of the books involving the concentration camps and how genuine kindness towards another changed that person, have you? I'm not talking about being polite. I'm talking about how when you see someone as a person instead of a Thing-That-Does-Something-I-Don't-Like, you see that someone who treats another poorly is also in pain themselves. Address that person's pain and you start to solve the problem. Seriously, go read some books on the subject. I highly recommend anything by Dale Carnegie, most especially How To Win Friends And Influence People.
YAAAAAAWWWWWN oh hey, Ian Vass with yet another Tone Argument. Haven't we done this dance just a few times before?
Heh, and I recall last time also doing my best to explain that it wasn't a tone argument, while you blew me off and insisted it was anyhow.
I think we're done chasing this one down again.
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You were wrong then, and you're wrong now.
Let's make this clear: I don't hate you. I think you're ridiculous-to-insane (to use your words) for being religious in the first place, and I think it leans heavily towards "insane" (again, to use your word) because you've completely arbitrarily chosen one of the very few definitely-cannot-be-true religions out there.
I still don't hate you.
You're voluntarily a member of a hate group, though, and you voluntarily and knowingly pay for that group to do unconscionable things, on your behalf. You are doing wrong. You are increasing the amount of evil in the world. You are harming the innocent. And you're doing it not only without objection, but while making excuses for the organisation that you pay to do it on your behalf.
I still don't hate you.
If you were one of the Mormons arguing in court that homosexuals weren't real people, just like you argued that non-whites weren't real people,I might hate you.
If you were one of the Mormons deciding to spend the Church's money on homophobic ads, just like you used to spend it on racist causes, I might hate you.
If you were one of the Mormons deciding to spend the Church's money on temples and riches rather than feeding the poor, I might hate you.
But you're not.
You're just giving them money.
You're just enabling them.
You're just defending them.
I don't hate you, I think you're sad.
I pity you.
Is that clearer?
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