As a Mormon do you believe in.....(Part 1)

Prometheus · Jun 10, 2007

Polaris said:
As far as salvation is concerned there is no preference given to any race/lineage/etc. Just because God selects certain people to take on certain responsibilites doesn't mean he prefers them or deems them a superior race.

He must esteem something about the race to be superior otherwise it would be a random throw of the dice. The problem is that God can't make random decisions as it contradicts His omniscient nature. God must make a judgment in order to select which people will have this responsibility. That judgment would be based on some quality of the race that is superior to all the others. Either there is a legitimate reasoning behind this selection process or there is not. If there is, then His racism would be justifiable. However, nothing that we know about genetics suggests that it is justifiable.

The Mad Hatter 2002 · Jun 10, 2007

Polaris said:
As far as salvation is concerned there is no preference given to any race/lineage/etc. Just because God selects certain people to take on certain responsibilites doesn't mean he prefers them or deems them a superior race.

You keep saying God selects certain races, I think you are sorely mistaken. Your religious founders selected races. I think it is a travesty for you to keep claiming God responsible for such acts and you do yourself great harm spiritually to do so. It was racist human beings only that could have created such absurd things.

yuvgotmel · Jun 10, 2007

Prometheus said:
He must esteem something about the race to be superior otherwise it would be a random throw of the dice. The problem is that God can't make random decisions as it contradicts His omniscient nature. God must make a judgment in order to select which people will have this responsibility. That judgment would be based on some quality of the race that is superior to all the others. Either there is a legitimate reasoning behind this selection process or there is not. If there is, then His racism would be justifiable. However, nothing that we know about genetics suggests that it is justifiable.

True...and apparently, when the Human Rights Movement became such a big controversy, "he" changed "his" mind...

There is a saying that I like a lot (yet can't remember who said it):
"Can man be more moral than 'god'?"

yuvgotmel · Jun 10, 2007

The Mad Hatter 2002 said:
You keep saying God selects certain races, I think you are sorely mistaken. Your religious founders selected races. I think it is a travesty for you to keep claiming God responsible for such acts and you do yourself great harm spiritually to do so. It was racist human beings only that could have created such absurd things.

So true... and it's so often done in religion.... Man makes rules that benefit themselves and then blame "god" for any bad repercussions.

Bishka · Jun 10, 2007

The Mad Hatter 2002 said:
[/u][/b]

Ok, thank you for explaining it. Now with your conclusion, are you saying that God decided not to be racist after a period of time? I think thats what I just read with your statement that is highlighted.

No, people decided not to be racist anymore. It is about people and their fallibility, not God.

Bishka · Jun 10, 2007

yuvgotmel said:
Man makes rules that benefit themselves and then blame "god" for any bad repercussions.

Whose blaming God? It was never a doctrine of the LDS Church to exclude blacks from the priesthood, it was a practice that regrettably happened. We know it is was our fault, and we have taken that responsibility. In the LDS Church now, any man worthy to hold the priesthood (not matter what color, race, ethnic group, etc) may hold the priesthood.

Why blame God for something that He didn't do?

Prometheus · Jun 10, 2007

beckysoup61 said:
Why blame God for something that He didn't do?

Because He's God. He's supposed to be supervising us, instructing us and guiding us in all things good, just and righteous. Instead, He sat back and did nothing while the members of the church He restored to the earth to preach His gospel became racists. Why would God restore His true church to the earth only to let it be corrupted so easily and give no revelation to His prophets on the matter? As it's been said by many Mormons before, Christ is the head of your church, not the prophet. If that were true, why did Christ tolerate this behavior of His chosen people?

Guitar's Cry · Jun 10, 2007

Religion and spirituality are necessarily personal. While a person could follow the dogmas and rules of a religion to the T, they will still be following their own interpretation of it.

If there were once Mormons who were racist, so be it. Some probably are now. But it's not religion that breeds racism, its ignorance and closemindedness. (Unless of course the religion is founded on it.)

The individuals that interpret Mormonism do so within their own paradigms. Not all will include racism. Religions are built on the present individual more so than the past.

DeepShadow · Jun 10, 2007

Prometheus said:
Because He's God. He's supposed to be supervising us, instructing us and guiding us in all things good, just and righteous. Instead, He sat back and did nothing while the members of the church He restored to the earth to preach His gospel became racists. Why would God restore His true church to the earth only to let it be corrupted so easily and give no revelation to His prophets on the matter? As it's been said by many Mormons before, Christ is the head of your church, not the prophet. If that were true, why did Christ tolerate this behavior of His chosen people?

Is this the same Prometheus who said in another thread that God needs to stop forcing us to do what's right? :yes:

Pick a side and stick with it.

DeepShadow · Jun 10, 2007

Blindinglight said:
I find it to be foolish that a god would show preferences of race or lineage.

Would you find it foolish that God would use extended metaphors to teach us? Can you imagine that some of those metaphors would involve familiar legacies?

I'm sorry, but I just do not see how it is a "right" to baptise someone when they believed something entirly different.

It depends upon what they believe now. Begs the original question.

The Jews have been greatly angered over this issue in the past before, and I completly agree with there reasoning on the issue.

And so do we, as a church. Don't indict the entire church for what a few people were doing.

Prometheus · Jun 10, 2007

DeepShadow said:
Is this the same Prometheus who said in another thread that God needs to stop forcing us to do what's right? :yes:

Pick a side and stick with it.

I'm speaking hypothetically. That should be obvious enough when you realize I'm speaking of God as if He actually exists in the first place.

Also, it's good to see you in this thread because I was just thinking about your "cosmic coin toss" argument in the aforementioned "other thread." It doesn't work. God can't make random decisions. If He could, He would not be omniscient. We should really take any further discussion on that to the other thread but I just thought I'd put it out there.

DeepShadow · Jun 10, 2007

Prometheus said:
I never said this. Those verses did. I suggest reading them.

Great idea! While you're at it, take a look at the other verses that say the Lamanites are more righteous than the Nephites, and the others that say they are all equal before God.

Prometheus, I've got a very serious question that you might be able to answer for me: why do critics of the Book of Mormon focus on the least detailed part of any particular issue? Like you here, you've taken a single verse to explain the entire Lamanite "curse," when this is explained in so much more detail later, in Alma 3. There, it takes over half a chapter states specifically the purpose of the dark skin (to prevent mixing with unbelievers) and it delineates the "curse" from the "mark" (Laman and Lemuel were cursed; their descendents were marked). It explains that this isn't about skin color, because the Amlicites were light skinned and were far worse than the Lamanites.

Why would you opt to quote a one-verse summary of this doctrine instead of the doctrine itself? Doesn't it stand to reason that the summary is going to oversimplify a few things?

DeepShadow · Jun 10, 2007

Prometheus said:
Also, it's good to see you in this thread because I was just thinking about your "cosmic coin toss" argument in the aforementioned "other thread." It doesn't work. God can't make random decisions. If He could, He would not be omniscient. We should really take any further discussion on that to the other thread but I just thought I'd put it out there.

Here or there is fine. I'll refrain from calling that a non sequitur until you reveal the rest of your logic.

Matter of fact, I think you just hit in a great point! Thank you, Prometheus, now I know how the coin was flipped!:bow:

DeepShadow · Jun 10, 2007

Prometheus said:
I'm speaking hypothetically. That should be obvious enough when you realize I'm speaking of God as if He actually exists in the first place.

Of course, but your complaints are contradictory. Do you think God should be forcing us to do what's right, or telling us what to do and then letting us find the consequences of disobedience? I stated the latter in the other thread, and I stand by it here. God has told us what to do, and when we stray, we suffer the natural consequences. Don't blame God because His people went astray.

Blindinglight · Jun 10, 2007

He must esteem something about the race to be superior otherwise it would be a random throw of the dice. The problem is that God can't make random decisions as it contradicts His omniscient nature. God must make a judgment in order to select which people will have this responsibility. That judgment would be based on some quality of the race that is superior to all the others. Either there is a legitimate reasoning behind this selection process or there is not. If there is, then His racism would be justifiable. However, nothing that we know about genetics suggests that it is justifiable.

This is true. To say one race can do things other's cant simply means God said whatever race is better than the others, for whatever reason. Skin color is nothing more than a process of natural selection darkening or lightening the skin to better suit the environment.
My question is, why would a God that loves everyone, feel only a certain skin color is good enough to preach his words?

So true... and it's so often done in religion.... Man makes rules that benefit themselves and then blame "god" for any bad repercussions.

Books are wrote, translated, printed, and published by man after all, which can, and accidentally in the past, made things different. The Black Bible is just one instance.

Prometheus · Jun 10, 2007

DeepShadow said:
Great idea! While you're at it, take a look at the other verses that say the Lamanites are more righteous than the Nephites, and the others that say they are all equal before God.

Prometheus, I've got a very serious question that you might be able to answer for me: why do critics of the Book of Mormon focus on the least detailed part of any particular issue? Like you here, you've taken a single verse to explain the entire Lamanite "curse," when this is explained in so much more detail later, in Alma 3. There, it takes over half a chapter states specifically the purpose of the dark skin (to prevent mixing with unbelievers) and it delineates the "curse" from the "mark" (Laman and Lemuel were cursed; their descendents were marked). It explains that this isn't about skin color, because the Amlicites were light skinned and were far worse than the Lamanites.

Why would you opt to quote a one-verse summary of this doctrine instead of the doctrine itself? Doesn't it stand to reason that the summary is going to oversimplify a few things?

I will concede everything in this post if you can tell me why God would allow His restored church to practice racism.

DeepShadow said:
Here or there is fine. I'll refrain from calling that a non sequitur until you reveal the rest of your logic.

I don't know how you could think my logic doesn't follow. If God is omniscient then nothing can be random to Him. Random means unpredictable. If God can't predict something, He's not omniscient. Any decision He makes must have some kind of reasoning behind it.

DeepShadow said:
Matter of fact, I think you just hit in a great point! Thank you, Prometheus, now I know how the coin was flipped!:bow:

Please share.

DeepShadow said:
Of course, but your complaints are contradictory. Do you think God should be forcing us to do what's right, or telling us what to do and then letting us find the consequences of disobedience? I stated the latter in the other thread, and I stand by it here. God has told us what to do, and when we stray, we suffer the natural consequences. Don't blame God because His people went astray.

So, much like Katzpur admitted, you have no idea which of your church's doctrines and practices are of God and which are not.

DeepShadow · Jun 10, 2007

Prometheus said:
Why would God restore His true church to the earth only to let it be corrupted so easily and give no revelation to His prophets on the matter? As it's been said by many Mormons before, Christ is the head of your church, not the prophet. If that were true, why did Christ tolerate this behavior of His chosen people?

We (the people of the church) weren't ready for the revelation. God has said on many other occasions that he's withheld revelation that the church isn't ready for. Say all you want about the "racism" of the modern church, but the bottom line is that in the Southern U.S. Mormons are now far more integrated than any mainstream church. Everywhere I go I see "Black Baptist" and "A.M.E." and other signs of segregated churches, and I think, "you all should have waited! In a few more years, the majority of the racist jerks would have been dead or out of the picture, and they wouldn't have been able to influence you this way!"

The sad truth is, there were attempts to reconcile the Black priesthood issue under David O. McKay, but there was just too much opposition. The higher ups decided to wait until racism was less entrenched in the church instead of forcing the issue.

And I think they were very wise--even inspired--for doing so.:yes:

Prometheus · Jun 10, 2007

DeepShadow said:
And I think they were very wise--even inspired--for doing so.:yes:

Because we all know it's more important to have followers than to stand up for what is right.

Katzpur · Jun 10, 2007

Prometheus said:
So, much like Katzpur admitted, you have no idea which of your church's doctrines and practices are of God and which are not.

What did I say to give you that impression, Prometheus? I think I have a very good handle on what our doctrines are and what our policies and procedures are. I really would appreciate it is you didn't try to twist thing to make a point. It seriously makes me feel as if it's just a waste of my time to try to answer.

Prometheus · Jun 11, 2007

Katzpur said:
What did I say to give you that impression, Prometheus? I think I have a very good handle on what our doctrines are and what our policies and procedures are. I really would appreciate it is you didn't try to twist thing to make a point. It seriously makes me feel as if it's just a waste of my time to try to answer.

I didn't say you don't know what they are. I said you don't know which are of God and which are not.

As a Mormon do you believe in.....(Part 1)

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