This thread is so old, I’m not sure anyone will really encounter your note. (As the current site administrator, I get alerted to all activity, that’s why I saw it.) 

If you’re interested in really exploring and discussing the temple recommend issue and how non-traditionally believing Latter-day Saints still choose to get recommends, there is a recent Mormon Matters podcast that has a good section on it. And it’s there that you might be able to find a more current and active discussion of this issue that you can join in on. 

Here is a link to it, Episode 60: “Matters of Integrity” 
http://mormonmatters.org/2011/11/15/60-matters-of-integrity/ 

Cheers,
Dan Wotherspoon

K Harding

JFQ, please tell me more about this, btw. I’m interested. My time is not my own right now and I probably couldn’t participate for the moment. But this will eventually change. Where are you even located?

And no worries on not always responding. Me calling that bad would be like the pot calling the kettle black.

You either do have a “scientific disproof” (this means 100%) of Mormonism, or you don’t. If you don’t, then my statement is factually true. It really does come down to a gut feel on evidence that can be interpreted either way.

If you *do* have a scientific disproof (100%) I insist you give it to me as such knowledge is valuable and I don’t currently poses it.

The problem is that you don’t have a scientific disproof. What you (most likely) have is a set of evidence you find convincing. We human creatures have a really difficult time telling the difference between evidence we find convincing and “proof.” But these two concepts are not the same.

I suppose you could argue with me that this collection of evidence of the truth of untruthfulness of the Church is compeling or more probable, etc. But the reality is that different people of equivalent intelligence will interpret the evidence in very different ways and thus see the probabilities differently. They might even see the probabilities in quite opposite ways and both be “right” from their point of view based on the heuristics they are personally using.

So perhaps I go too far to say “reason plays no role” in the discussion, since “reason” might simply mean “my heuristics that I feel are correct in this case.” But it still comes down to a “feeling.” And that was my point.

On the other hand, you say this about me: “There is no basis for a religious community in an intentional sense, just an accidental one of those to whom God sees fit to bestow extrarational experiences which bind that group together.”

I accept this as somewhat accurate to what I am saying. I just reject the word “accidental.” On the contrary, I believe it is God’s intention to send or not send experiences of a nature a person personally needs and a person’s desire to have those experiences that create religious groups. (I suppose I believe this is just one source, not every case. But I find it to be the ideal source of religious identity.)

I wish I knew what you meant here. A positive disproof of the LDS church by the scientific method would be very valuable to me. I guess I seriously doubt you actually have one. Indeed, I suspect if one existed, we’d all know about it.

“Given your assumptions about truth, there is no universal means by which truth can be communicated nor discovered”

I’m sure I didn’t say this. I think all I said was that there is no scientific proof or disproof of the LDS Church.

I do think you make an interesting point here: there does seem to be a strong “political proposition” element to the question and I don’t seem to have differeniated on this front, so your point is valid. The LDS Church may be “true” in that it’s true for yourself and it may be “true” in an absolute sense.

JFQ, thanks for the thoughtful response. I wish I could continue this conversation further. Perhaps we will on another thread.

I believe I understand what you are saying in the paragraph that ended with “In sum, the Bible, well, makes God a rather complicated and poetic entity compared with the approach LDS theology takes.”

However, I think you are more comparing the views that you held of God when you were a Mormon than really an “LDS theology approach.” Needless to say, a great many LDS people do have a insufficiently simplicitic view of God… but the same is equally true of traditional Christians (who often just turn out to be very simple modalists.) So while I don’t disagree with what you are saying for yourself (when a Mormon) as well as many Mormons, I do disagree it’s fully representative of Mormon beliefs any more that I feel modalism is fully representative of traditional Christian beliefs.

Also, you seem to misunderstand my real point about “contradiction.” The contradictions in Trinitarianism are very straightforwardly:

1) that there are three persons that are one being but no one cares to define those terms because they are functionally the same.
2) there are three persons that are fully God but in no sense whatsoever could this be thought of as three Gods (even numerically speaking.)

My question was really, “please explain logically how to reconcile these points.”

While there is more than one possible explanation here, my feeling is that traditional Christians refuse to even try to answer the question because all possible answers, at some point, become one of the “heresies.”

But if traditional Christians refuse to answer the question, what is their basis for denying the Mormon formula of three persons that are one God? Aren’t we really comparing undefined to defined?

JfQ, are you referring in that quote to Mormons and their modern Prophets or Protestants and their Early Christian Fathers? Just sayin’, it fits each group equally.

I didn’t intend to avoid your questions. I’ve been swamped with real life this last week, and well, you had a TON of material there potentially to respond to.

I will say I appreciate your perception that I’m open to critical questions. I wish you were available to participate in our real-life interfaith meetings. That way you could get more of my attention — if you wanted it.

I regret that in your experience you haven’t found Protestants willing to engage and acknowledge that culture, theology, etc., inform interpretation of the Bible. I think a great deal of Protestant theology can be exegetically argued from the content of the Bible, and in sum forms a traditional heritage and interpretive thrust that should be consider edbefore dismissing its value. Nevertheless, differing interpretations can proceed exegetically from the text. It chagrins me that there isn’t more charity among the Body regarding this.

It often does make it hard to find common ground with LDS interpretations. First, some of those interpretations are shaped by a trumping appeal to extra-biblical scripture authority. Where LDS differences to traditional interpretations occur there is a greater willingness to disregard them as mistranslations. Of course, your critique that trad. Christians appeal to scripture authority when it suits and reason when it suits can also be a valid one. But LDS can do this too. So this really isn’t the dividing issue, as I see it, but that the authority perceived behind the Bible is viewed quite differently in our traditions. It is extremely hard to bridge that difference.

You ask why I see Trinitarian theology as paradoxical and not contradictory. Probably the first is formed by a very different view of who God the Father is. Obviously there is nuance on this matter within Christian tradition, but in sum, there is an extra-rationality that God is accorded as the Sovereign creator. He is not subject to natural laws, He is natural law. He was not at some time exalted above his original nature, He IS His original, exalted nature. He is a semi-abstract spiritual entity that may seem quite “imaginary” and “invented” when compared to an LDS Father God who is an exalted homo sapiens. All that is affirmed about His nature in the Bible is accepted as Truth — worthy for weighty theological grapple such as was seen at Nicaea when the dominant interpretation was challenged. In sum, the Bible, well, makes God a rather complicated and poetic entity compared with the approach LDS theology takes.

The other argument for seeing paradox over contradiction comes from a consideration that the Bible is God’s word. For many there is a debate over what “inerrancy” exactly means, but regardless of how abstracted or literal one plays out there is a general thrust that accords the Bible — even where it may be deliberated upon — as God’s manifestation of authority for His creation. This does not mean that revelation to us today is not embraced. It is, and by some denominations, what appears radically so. But for many within the Body if what seems as revelation, if it is not rooted in the New Testament gospel, then it is suspiciously viewed.

However, if one finds trad. Christians willing to be open-minded in approaching the discussion over what biblical inerrancy means — for example those who define the Bible is inerrant in its original forms — then there must be some common ground, I would hope, that could be carved out together with Mormons who are willing to depart from the LDS trad. interpretation of what “as far as it is translated correctly” means. In my view we must be willing to be radical and flexible in theologically proceeding foundationally _in and from_ the Bible. Yet we cannot deny that we all bring a lot of “scripting” to the table formed by denomination, culture, commentaries, intellectual and spiritual traditions, what leaders have said or do say, etc. The challenge is to stay self-aware of that. And to be willing to come back, time and time again, generation after generation, culture after culture, to the Bible and be willing to be changed or refined by it.

Therefore, this choice to view the Bible with this kind of authority shapes God’s nature as complicated and mysterious. At worst it definitely can be seen as contradictory. Trinitarian tradition proceeds from the hope that even in mystery that the Bible is fundamentally true. Non-trinitarian traditions like modalism, for my part, seem to deviate too far, yet I believe there should be some sympathy and charity toward how believers arrive textually at these positions. It grows more difficult to find empathy for LDS theology — at least that of the Nauvoo period forward — that is more greatly shaped by post-Enlightenment thinking. As I said, I think this is due to the Bible being accorded in value distinctly different. But even more I think it is a radical difference in the view of God the Father’s nature that is fundamentally bolstered not from biblical exegesis — even if viewed fringe and heretical — but because it rests on claimed prophetic authority that is unabashedly extra-biblical.

That’s an interesting issue. Will the Lord and the angels who return to earth with Him be as blunt as the cruise-director in that South Park cartoon about hell who says “‘The Mormons’ is the correct answer.”

My take is that the Lord only gives out truth as fast as people are able to receive it. So my personal belief is that no, there won’t be a general authoritative announcement that “‘The Mormons’ is the correct church.” However, believing mortals will still be able to bear testimony. I don’t know what detail the resurrected beings (angels) who visit the earth will be allowed to go into, or who they will be allowed to contact.

My take on James is that he’s coming at these questions with a less-than-complete undersanding of what the possible scenarios are for people after they die, and what the possible scenarios are for both the living and the dead during the millennium.

You two were just talking past each other. I could tell that you and I have the same basic general assumption of what will, or will likely happen. James just doesn’t have those same beliefs or basic assumptions. So when you described a scenario (with sufficient detail to invoke a similar mental picture in the mind of someone like me, with similar assumptions) your description was insufficient to paint the same scenario in James’ mind. He was envisioning a different scene because he has different underlying assumptions of what can happen.

The bottom line is, no matter which extremes of numbers you use, there are a sufficent number of deceased “true believers” (Nephites, plus believers of the 1st century from the middle east, plus some lost tribes and others mentioned in 2nd Nephi, plus modern day “Mormons”) currently residing in the spirit world who can preach to the other 100 billion dead people who didn’t hear the gospel during their mortality.

And, I think we can logically assume that once someone has accepted the gospel in the spirit world, they likely have the ability to teach the gospel to more people over there, even if they have to wait to have their temple work done.

And given reasonable conversion numbers, a few million Mormons who survive the 2nd coming will convert (and procreate) enough to create sufficient temple-goers to do 100 billion or more temple ordinance sets in 1000 years.

With almost 1000 years of no wars (there will be one final war at the end of the millennium according to the book of Revelation) and no one leaves mortality (as in death) until somoene is “changed in the twinkling of an eye”, the rate of population increase will be truely geometric.

On the surface, every major religion is a failure because it can never live up to its promises, not only its own members, but also to the world at large in bringing peace, some form of enlightenment and a nice ending to it all.

In fact, the chosen people, the Jews, are a great example of God’s own apparent failure. Their population is dwindling due mainly to their own lack of reproduction, as well as, intermarriage and being killed by their enemies. The world, in general, hates them, even though their religion is the basis for the Judeo/Christian/Islamic world and they are among the world’s most accomplished people.

Looking at Jesus and his ministry, He was also a failure because He was unable to convince the Jewish Leadership and thus, the majority of Jews, that He really was the Promised Messiah. Now, His success appears to be the million of followers He now has, but even they don’t really agree on much of His teachings. And even when some groups of followers generally agree, they ignore that agreement to kill off or marginalize those who don’t agree with them specifically.

the best you can really hope for is that we catch the vision of Jesus and try to pattern our own lives to it. If each of us do that and strive with our best effort, I think the rest ultimately takes care of itself. How? Well, I think that is called a miracle. And that cannot be measured or calculated.

“With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27)”

James, I believe about 99.95% of the members of the Church understand the math (at least the concept inherent in the math) and have no problem with billions not hearing the Gospel in this life. In fact, I believe that about 99.95% of the members of the Church use the math as one of the foundation reasons to believe the “Restored Church” over more orthodox, Protestant churches – many of which preached as core creed salvation only for those who hear of and accept their narrow version of Jesus in this life. (Some still teach that, but many are moving away from it, btw.)

These members of the Church “do the math” and reject other theological constructs that do not allow for “conversion” of good people after death. “Doing the math” is one of the things that brings people into and keeps people in the Church, in my experience.

Bruce, you’ve said things like the above before, and since you and I don’t share the same assumptions about the nature of truth nor the methods by which truth can most reliably be apprehended, it makes discussion difficult. While the proposition “Yes or No on the LDS Church” as you frame it above looks and sounds like a political proposition, not a factual one, the sub-claims that the existential Yes or No on the LDS Church rests are, many of them, and in the case of the LDS Church, more than other Christian religions, testable by the scientific method.

Given your assumptions about truth, there is no universal means by which truth can be communicated nor discovered and hence the teachings of Christ in the vein of “let every man who is warned warn his neighbor” make no sense. There is no basis for a religious community in an intentional sense, just an accidental one of those to whom God sees fit to bestow extrarational experiences which bind that group together.

This won’t answer your number 48 completely but it will maybe make clear a number of peoples positions.

From a missionary perspective we strongly teach about the apostasy and the need for a restoration.

1. Do you think that God has the power to restore his church back to the earth?
2. Do you think we need God’s influence in our day?
3. Do you think he is a god of confusion, and would want us to go around to all the religions to collect the truth?
4. Do you think he would want us to have the complete truth just as it was taught when Christ was on the earth in his day with apostles,teachers etc?

Then you teach about how all the above was solved through Restoration. Maybe I am naive but I always felt that our church taught that our world was really meant and designed especially for that process –Gods church.

We learn in the temple and through the teachings of the church why the earth is here it’s a testing ground and a huge part of that is too see if will accept the Gospel. ( I think most the church thinks of course their will be some that will slip through in this life but when they do the maths and realize we haven’t touched the surface – there lies the problem!!

I know you have figured out at the end how 5 million of us will teach 112 billion – kind of the Amway principle. (Didn’t mean that in sarcastic way)

But I can also see where some members would think – I don’t buy it I can’t see how god would make our planet and our universe and then be so inefficient! That most of his children won’t get a sniff of the Gospel and will all have to do the work in the millennium.

I wrote that article Walking and a Talking like a NOM and I guess that’s my thing right now is for us to really feel and try to understand where people are at.

Did you read Bushman’s article recently the one it was Notes from all over. These issues are it sounds like creeping into BYU.

I’m trying to be careful how I word things I don’t want to make the dialogue seem final where it shuts people down. These are only thoughts which are very susceptible to change for me as I get more knowledge.

if god got us all to hear the gospel it would defeat everything. god’s not just going to hand the gospel to us.
if we deserve it or want it then it will come to us or we will find it.

if we all turned up to earth and all heard the gospel don’t you think that would be pointless?

But I also understand that there is a real concern here even once you discard the numbers game. It really does “feel wrong” in a way, that God would declare some sort of exclusive truth (no matter who we decide has it) and inefficiently let it spread in this life. (And all religions, even really large ones like Catholics, would still be “highly inefficient” if we accept this point of view.) The LDS church answer that there is no need to have the gospel spread to all in this life is a good answer (as I’m about to argue, it’s actually the best possible answer) but I can see why it would still bother people: especially if they grew up in a protestant culture were we tend to think of “accepting the gospel” as the purpose of life.

But here’s the rub: every attempt to be “unexclusive” just turns out to be “exclusive” in an equally bad or worse way. I know I’ve argued this over and over, but let’s take the most common way people try to get around the exclusivity problem: by declaring ‘salvation’ to come through ethical teachings. Thus all religions that have ethical teachings are all “equally true.”

But you immediately bump into all of the following problems that I’ve raised elsewhere, but no one has cared to tackle so far:

1. You are now teaching an exclusive truth claim that denies all unique truth claims of other belief systems, save only your own. Besides being inconsistent, you are literally remaking the very problem you are trying to solve. Now there is greater happiness in this life if people will JUST discard their exclusive truth claims and accept yours. (And let’s be honest, this is exactly what many people — Matt Thurston for example — have argued with me here.) You now have exactly the same exclusivity problem you started with only worse.

2. You need to logically deal with the Christian argument that salvation can’t ever come through works. This is no small matter: just how good do you have to be to be saved? To say nothing of the much bigger problem that teachings never save anyone. They just damn us because we are all sinners. I need a savior, not a teacher that teaches the impossible.

3. A possible response to #2 is “there is no afterlife” you decide, during this life, if you are “saved” or not through your ethics. But this response has massive problems. For starters, not everyone has ethics in this life and it isn’t always a choice. To say nothing of the fact that this means God really is unjust since unjustice often wins the day here in this life. An afterlife is required for God to be the being we believe Him to be.

My point is that you can’t fix the exclusivity “problem.” You can only remake it in a new and worse form. The exclusivity problem isn’t a problem at all. It’s a reality that exists and must be dealt with. It’s like seeing a mountain as a “problem” and instead of climbing it to get over it, deciding it isn’t there. It doesn’t help.

The LDS Church is the only religion in existence (that I am aware of) that simultaneously accepts the reality that there can be only one “truth” while also accepting that God works through every religion with every person in a meaningful way. I would challenge everyone here to try to improve upon the LDS model. You might be able to match it, but you can’t improve upon it.

The LDS Church tackled this mountain and climbed it in a unique way. Its critics have yet to start climbing because they are too busy pretending the mountain doesn’t exist.

#42, 43, 45 –

Okay, NOW we are down to the real issue. And, note, we have now admited it’s emotional not rational.

The truth is that all arguments for or against the LDS Church (or any religion) are “non-rational” (not, irrational — counter to reason, but non-rational, that is to say, reason plays no role.) All arguments for and against the Church come down to “what we feel.”

YES, I can completely see how someone that grows up in the Church might pick up a view that God created the universe for the purpose of having the LDS church convert everyone in this life. THAT really is an issue worth discussing (as Ray did so capably.)

This is exactly my problem with so many discussions we have here: they really seem besides the point to me. In this case, we started with a numbers game that we have now demonstrated is really a post-facto psuedo-rational explanation for another concern.

We should just identify that real concern, and discuss it. (I know, easier said then done.)

I can’t remember when I discarded the idea that God created the universe so that the LDS church can convert everyone in this life. Rationally, this really is impossible and so there is no possiblity it’s true. Searching through teachings of the Church, I simply couldn’t find it. It turns out it’s just a cultural thing. So I ended that way of thinking.

Once I discarded this idea, certain logical conclusions followed:
1. It is not God’s desire or wish that everyone be converted in this life.
2. Life must then have other purposes that overlap with but are not the same as accepting the gospel. (Ray’s explanation of “accepting true principles” is an example of this.)
3. The creation of, say, Venus, must have no connection at all with the idea of accepting the gospel in this life. Indeed, it must have very little connection to our lives. So it’s creation must serve another purpose. (C.S. Lewis attempted to address this in Perelandra. His solution was that creation has it’s own purposes.)

1) The biggest argument against LDS exclusivity for me here is that we as LDS often make “this-life” claims about the gospel. “One can only be truly happy when following the teachings of the restored Gospel”

2) but for many thinking the plan of salvation is only heard by a selective few of heavenly fathers children is hard for many to cope with.

A) That quote is uttered my too many members and, in my mind, simply is ludicrous. Our scriptures say that “true happiness” comes from living the **principles** of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, NOT the “teachings” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. Someone who is a moderate social drinker can be just as happy (in this life and the next, according to Mormon theology) as a temple-attending Mormon. The distinction generally made is that one must live consistent with the dictates of his or her own conscience, according to the understanding they possess throughout their lives. If that were not so, all of temple work would be completely meaningless.

B) That leads to the second statement: If someone doesn’t believe that all will hear the plan of salvation (if that isn’t part of their paradigm), it is easy to see why they reject Mormonism’s claim.

The two difficulties are tied together quite well. An over-emphasis on accepting the Gospel in this life leads to an inability to understand and accept chances in the next life, while an under-emphasis on responsibility in this life can lead to a procrastination complex that thwarts spiritual growth and can harden hearts – thus, in our perspective, lowering the chance that one will accept the Gospel in the next life.

My personal solution: Believe that God will work it all out in the end, probably in a way that would blow our mortal minds now but seem perfectly reasonable then, and focus strictly on trying to be happy and help others be happy by living and teaching the principles of the Gospel to the best of my ability. I’m content to do my best and believe that I won’t be dismayed in the end – even though I’m fairly certain I’ll be surprised by the view I obtain from the other side.

“So an issue like this would normally only come up after various other issues were fully raised and accepted that undermined the core tenets of their faith. Only then can it really become an issue worth mentioning at all.”

I agree with you here – in what I have seen its a lot more than one issue- but for many thinking the plan of salvation is only heard by a selective few of heavenly fathers children is hard for many to cope with. That he has gone to a huge effort to make this world, for us to prove our selves to see if will accept the gospel in this life and for so few to hear it.

It’s not really a rational argument, but it makes faith in one church more difficult, the same way realizing just how many galaxies likely exist in the universe and how few of the planets in them are likely inhabited by sentient beings can make faith in our planet’s central place in the scheme of things more difficult. These realizations are cognitive, perhaps not fully rational in a lockstep way, but nonetheless quite powerful.

The biggest argument against LDS exclusivity for me here is that we as LDS often make “this-life” claims about the gospel. “One can only be truly happy when following the teachings of the restored Gospel”. If this is true, it does strain credulity if one has a certain conception of the nature of God.

No, actually, that is exactly what I would tell them… only politely. I would lay out just what I said and show that there is no reason to believe it’s an issue. If they *still* had an issue (following my logic, which is valid, at the end of #40) be certain that they are being irrational. I woudldn’t tell them that, of course, but I would point out that their view is not logically valid.

If they *still* have this as an issue, I’d just agree to disagree with them.

But that’s just it, James, I have never met someone with this as their number one issues for leaving the Church. While I don’t rule out the possiblity someone exists like that, I can be reasonably sure that they are a very very small miniority. Probably zero.

I can be that certain precisely because anyone that had an issue like this has to have a certain level of intelligence. And that level of intelligence would normally always be enough to allow them to make up numbers that make it a non-issue. If this were their number one issue, it wouldn’t be their number one issue for more than ten or fifteen minutes, normally, before they resolved it themselves.

So an issue like this would normally only come up after various other issues were fully raised and accepted that undermined the core tenets of their faith. Only then can it really become an issue worth mentioning at all.

Okay, actually, that IS what I was saying. I actually used both examples.

Both are obviously just made up numbers built on assumptions that may or may not hold true. We just don’t know how the Millenium is going to work.

What if, for example, out of 6 billion, only 50 million are spared? What if 5 billion are spared? what if only 1% decide to convert? What if 50%? We just don’t know.

But since we don’t know, and it’s just as easy to make the case that it’s a non-issues as make the case that it’s an issue, the rational thing for a believer is to assume it’s a non-issue and not worry about it.

Conversly, it is NOT rational for a non-believer to assume it’s an issue and not worry about it. The believer is defining their own beliefs, the non-believer is defining someone elses. So the believer has a right to assume a best case scenario but the non-believer rationally must be open to any rational possibility since they are the ones trying to produce the disproof.