quote:My point in the above is this. The reason us Mormons can't answer the question about others recieving revelations is that it is a religious experience that other religions have rejected as legitimate forms of knowing the Truth.
This really isn't true. I suggest you vist the nearest Penticostal church this Sunday, just as an easy example. They very, very strongly believe in a two way exchange of information.
quote:For them, at least in just about every discussion I personally have had and known by other religious people who aren't LDS, absolute truths cannot be determined outside of a religious proof text.
Unless you're saying that LDS personal revelation is capable of superceding your religious texts, than Evangelical experience is again, identical.
I remember reading OSC's Lost Boys, and thinking how the Mormons in that story - in how faith is described - are basically identical to Charismatic Evangelicals.
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If that is true, Foust, than those same Charismatic Evangilicals are hypocritical when describing "Mormon Holy Ghost" witnesses to Truth. You should read how those other religions that believe in personal revelation (if that is what it is they believe in) will MOCK the same (if it really is) kind of witness for Mormons.
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You can have a revelation that shows you a unique exception to a rule, or tells you something that most people aren't aware of. But no individual besides the prophet is allowed to have and share revelations that countermand the scriptures for OTHER members of the Church. Personal revelation is personal.
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quote:If that is true, Foust, than those same Charismatic Evangilicals are hypocritical when describing "Mormon Holy Ghost" witnesses to Truth.
Well, Evangelicals don't believe their revelations can contradict the Bible. If someone receives "a word from the Lord" that contradicts the Bible, then it is disregarded.
In what sense can personal revelation supercede the text of the Book of Mormon? Are you refering to the Presidents, like Hinkely, or can rank and file members have revelations that supercede the BOM?
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quote: You should read how those other religions that believe in personal revelation (if that is what it is they believe in) will MOCK the same (if it really is) kind of witness for Mormons.
Yep. Some of it is that, from what I've seen, Mormons believe in revelation with a lot of strings attached; many evangelical churches would find this unusual. Another bit is that their starting assumption is that you aren't in fact talking to God, so of course your revelations are just delusional and worthy of derision.
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Notice, for instance, how much the Catholic representative tries to avoid the issue of definition.
First, Dagonee is not the only Catholic posting on his thread.
Secondly, to characterize his very appropriate modesty and reluctance in detailed talking about a deeply personal, formative experience as a *dodge* is rather disrespectful.
Occasional, if your goal is to have a dialogue with people or even to bring them around to your way of thinking, you really should reduce your stridency. The kind of tones you have used in the last couple of days are only good for preaching to the choir and rabble-rousing.
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So the comment has arisen that my dependence on the literal truth of the Bible for meaning is in some way "inferior" to reliance on myself or my own ideas. Two things:
First, I would not say that I rely on the Bible, but that I rely on God as revealed to me through the literal truth of the Bible. To deny the inerrancy of scripture in the way that I described it in my previous post does not directly destroy my beliefs, it only does so in that it denies the authority and reliability of the God I believe in. If God dictated a handful of stories that never actually happened to a people and told them it was their history, this God seems rather deceitful to me.
Second, I challenge anyone to give me an objective reason why my reliance on something (God) external to myself to provide meaning is in fact "inferior" to another person's reliance on his own ideas, standards, or philosophy. In my opinion, my position is superior (obviously, or I would not hold it). Mere words about how I will never be a "spiritual adult" or whatnot have no basis in anything. It seems very much to me that the Bible was historically written specifically for people who would take their source of meaning from the God and history revealed within it, and I have experienced great fulfillment intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually in doing so, although it is not always easy and constantly challenges me in all of the above areas. This to me is far superior to relying on myself, or indeed any personal revelation, because devout Muslims and devout Mormons can both claim personal revelation for their views that are diametrically opposed, but the historicity of the Biblical accounts cannot simultaneously be true with the historicity of holy texts of other religions, including modern ones such as naturalism.
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If you were relying on your actual biological father to help you through all your troubles, indeed to grant you immortality by killing himself : Would you consider that healthy?
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quote:Secondly, to characterize his very appropriate modesty and reluctance in detailed talking about a deeply personal, formative experience as a *dodge* is rather disrespectful.
quote:Originally posted by Jacare Sorridente: I don't hold much with religious mysteries myself. Perhaps that is why we differ on this point.
Sorry, Jacare... meant to answer this.
I think that's exactly the source of our difference. To me, a Religion without mystery is like biology without life or sociology without groups of people. Only a Mystery is worthy of being made into a Religion.
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King of Men, that analogy is at a different level than what we are discussing. The objections given before were on meaning and purpose. Even if I was relying on any human figure to "grant me immortality" as you suggest, I would still not draw any sense of meaning from that. It would be just some event in my life that was meaningless in and of itself. For instance, why should I desire immortality? What significance does my biological father have to me? What does it mean for him to kill himself? Who am I anyway? etc.
The point in contention here is that I see meaning in my life through the nature of God and reality revealed in scripture, in other words, an external source, and you made the claim that this is inferior to drawing meaning from purely internal sources. I don't see how this is so.
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Are you misinterpreting deliberately to provoke (as I did to some other poor soul recently) or just ignorant of the difference between submitting to death and killing yourself?
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Occasional, your contention that Mormonism is the only religion that believes in personal revelation is a great example of the lack of knowledge of/interest in/respect for other denominations that was discussed earlier on this thread.
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quote: Occasional, your contention that Mormonism is the only religion that believes in personal revelation is a great example of the lack of knowledge of/interest in/respect for other denominations that was discussed earlier on this thread.
It is probably best to leave interpreting what religions other than one's own believe to adherents of those religions. As DKW pointed out, lots of religions believe in personal revelation. Saying that their revelations are not like Mormon revelations seems rather similar to accusations that the Christ of Mormonism isn't the same as the Christ of other Christian religions.
quote: Sorry, Jacare... meant to answer this.
I think that's exactly the source of our difference. To me, a Religion without mystery is like biology without life or sociology without groups of people. Only a Mystery is worthy of being made into a Religion.
Fair enough. My definition of "mysteries", as it refers to my own religion is basically things that God did or does that we don't understand yet, but we don't really need to understand anyway.
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thanks for clarifying so concisely. You and I are yet another good reason for Annie's insistence that we not talk about religious experience quite so broadly.
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quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: Are you misinterpreting deliberately to provoke (as I did to some other poor soul recently) or just ignorant of the difference between submitting to death and killing yourself?
When at any time you have the power to extricate yourself from the situation, I don't think there is a meaningful difference. If I ask someone to give me an overdose of sleeping pills, someone who will stop and revive me as soon as I give a signal, and the sleeping pills kill me, isn't that a suicide?
quote:The point in contention here is that I see meaning in my life through the nature of God and reality revealed in scripture, in other words, an external source, and you made the claim that this is inferior to drawing meaning from purely internal sources. I don't see how this is so.
I'm going to have to concede that one, since you are in fact drawing meaning from an internal source, to wit, your imagination. I think, however, that you slightly mis-understood the nature of MrSquicky's criticism. I believe he was saying, and I agree, that the particular meaning you have taken is un-necessarily limiting to your mental growth. In particular, if you are going to define Genesis as literally true, the logical twists and turns you have to know your mind into in order to ignore all the actual evidence will of necessity make you ignorant in an astonishingly wide array of subjects - from astronomy to zoology.
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OK... so you really are obtuse and not just faking it.
So you have no empathy or respect for Damon and Pythias, either, I suppose? Or, in more recent and locally popular mythos, what Mr. Spock does in Star Trek II is merely suicide?
Or in the news, the two marines who threw themselves on grenades in Iraq (no, this isn't hypothetical, both have been recommended for the MoH) are mere suicides, right?
Your contempt and complete failure to even try to understand what people are talking about weakens your position terribly because it becomes clear that you haven't really considered what it is you claim to be talking about.
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I guess the point is that it's not actually a sacrifice if you go on living AND know the result AND set up the situation so you'd have to sacrifice yourself in the first place.
Spock's fictional sacrifice was in a lot of ways considerably more of a sacrifice than Christ's, depending on your opinion of the omnipotence of God.
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Tom's right. I've never understood why the crucifixion is refered to as a "sacrifice" - nothing was lost, and losing something is... well, kind of a prerequisite for a sacrifice, isn't it?
Edit to add: To put it another way, calling the crucifixion a sacrifice is like calling a three-sided figure a "square." It simply doesn't meet the definition.
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Just because a suicide accomplishes something apart from the actual death, doesn't make it less a self-killing.
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I'm also with Tom on this one. Even when I was a kid, I couldn't understand why no one else seemed to have this thought; in fact, when I asked the question of adults a couple of times, I got very blank looks in response. Like the question made so little sense to them that they weren't even sure how to figure out what I was asking. "What do you mean? He DIED on a CROSS." "Well, but no, he is alive, right?" "Right, because he ROSE from the ..." and so forth. They thought I was missing the point; I thought they were missing my point. I suppose I was a pretty obnoxious kid. Questions, questions, questions.
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Sharpie, you're not the only one to have that thought, I assure you.
The point is that because he was both fully God and fully human, he experienced the same pain and torment a human would through death and pain and torment we can never know. It was not something that was to be undertaken lightly - in other words he didn't just stroll toward the cross thinking "Coolness! Let's get this over with so I can rise from the dead and kick some butt!"
The human part of him, his human body, suffered greatly. Not only that, the divine part of him was forced to bear the burden of sins for all in order that he could be considered a fitting blood sacrifice for atonement, so he suffered the torment of bearing the burden of sin, which he, a sinless man, had never borne before. Plus, he was separated from God, ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?") which was intensely painful for someone who had a deeper communion and relationship with God than we will ever know in this life.
So, he didn't go into the crucifixion lightly. Remember the prayer in the Garden? He actually asked to have the cup taken away so he didn't have to go through it.
It was a suffering and death on a scale no human can ever experience. No vulcan either. Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Except it was temporary, and then he went back to being God in heaven.
Compared to an eternity in heaven, whatever experiences Jesus had in his 33 years on Earth - no matter how terrible - really are trivial. No matter how much hyperbolic rhetoric you describe them with.
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I'm not sure if this is in line with EVERY Christian denomination's theology, but Paul does offer one possible explanation for how this was a sacrifice and what it means for us -- that now no-one need suffer death without resurrection.
Sorry I can't look it up right now (lacking my software at the moment). But if I recall correctly it's in Romans I and the deal is that we share in Christ's death AND his resurrection. And if he hadn't gone through it, completely, neither could we.
I'm not claiming that this isn't anything more than Paul's logic on the matter, but it puts a perspective on the sacrifice thing. I mean, Jesus is God, according to our belief. So, he didn't have to do ANY of it. He could've kicked back and enjoyed heaven and never had to experience any of the pains of being human at all. That's a sacrifice in and of itself. God didn't have to come to Earth and become man. It was done for us. Then, the death and resurrection are also a sacrifice because (and I know the logic is tough to just accept here) God could've just gone back to heaven, no big deal. But in order for US to get to heaven, it was necessary for Jesus to die and be resurrected.
I don't know why that's true. I'm sure if someone tried to explain why it is true, I'd have a difficult time understanding (let alone agreeing with) their logic. But it seems pretty clear that it wasn't done for God's sake, but for ours.
And if we understood the why of that, we might understand a lot more about everything than we do now.
It'll be a good question to ask God when you get the chance.
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quote: 5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Hey, KOM. I've looked for info on The Håvamål that you quoted from, and only found an english translation with no explanation as to what it is. Any background links you can send my way? I've enjoyed reading the translations I've found, and want to know more.
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I don't know if this has already been covered. I have to go put my husband on a plane or I'd read the whole thread. But I can't imagine the Eve-made-from-Adam's-rib thing being literal. I mean, I know that's what it says. But I tend to think that it was the only way Moses could put into his language what was revealed to him. As we were saying before, the scriptures themselves abound in imagery and symbolism. Like the waters of Mara and the Brass serpent and a lot of other things.
And another story I hope is real is when the widow feeds Elija her last measure of meal... for several weeks.
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The Håvamål is part of the Icelandic skaldic tradition; it might be thought of as the Nordic equivalent of the Hebrew Book of Proverbs. The title translates as 'speech of the High One', ie Odin. You'll note that at the end, it goes from general advice to describing the sort of spells Odin can do. Presumably people were adding their own glosses to it for a long time while it existed as an oral tradition; it was written down in early Christian times by Snorre.
Wikipedia has a short article on it, with some links. You might also want to try googling the Anglicised version of the name, 'Havamal'.
Interesting trivia : In my father's day, schildren in Norway studied Old Norse so they could read the sagas in the original. In these more degenerate times, we read translations; but the curriculum still includes at least one saga. I did the Saga of Gunnlaug Worms-tongue.
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