God understands that sin is inherent in the creation and wishes to reconcile the sin. God knows that there must be a punishment for sin so god creates a scenario where the punishment is prepaid for everyone who wishes to accept the prepayment.

I think we all understand this. What we don't understand is, why.

God is omnipotent, why choose to do it this way?

I guess there are laws for the foundation of the universe itself. But what I want to know is where can I get an unbiased listing of these laws that can be verified by the head God in charge. Can we get a visitation from God's God's God's God's God's God's God's.......... God? That would really help my God's credibility. Sort of like wanting to talk to the manager when at a retail store and things have gotten a little strange with the customer service rep that is working with you.

Supposedly, God's God's ....... Was one Joseph Smith who needed to restore everything because the pure and precious doctrines were fucked-up. Just saying....

So Joseph the Smith was caught in this mortal deity loop? He was his god's God, but he worshipped his own god who worshipped him. Maybe his God was his dick, and his dick worshipped him. That loop makes a little more sense.

The problem with your difficulty in understanding the "why" of the atonement is that sin is NOT inherent in the creation according to the Bible. The idea of inherent sin comes from the Gnostics, one of the oldest heresies of the ancient church. Mormonism takes the idea of inherent sin and runs with it. Mormonism completely and totally misunderstands the Fall in Eden.
If you don't understand sin, e.g. Mormonism, you cannot understand atonement.

Note:. I understand you to be talking about inherent sin, not original sin.

I understand you to be talking about inherent sin, not original sin.


Correct, this isn't a discussion about original sin. My question is,

"all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"
"there is none righteous, not even one"

Why is it that sin is the natural state of things? Why is god's creation a place where sin and nature are one in the same?

Jacob, my understanding:

God did not create sin; he created a perfect, sinless universe. He put into that universe two free agents, Adam and Eve. They were sinless same as the rest of the universe. But they had the power to choose their own actions.

God gave these two sinless only one order. "Do not eat the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.". They ate and by eating sinned. THEY brought sin into God's creation. They created the need for atonement. God had known thru all eternity that they would sin, but he let them exercise their free agency and choose to sin. He did not force their moral choice.

Sin is NOW the "natural order of things" because God gave Adam and Eve dominion over all creation. They ran things. Adam named the animals. They had oversight over all creation, yet they chose to violate God's one commandment. All of creation was afflicted BECAUSE of their sin:. Work became hard, childbirth became painful and difficult, the animals were set against Adam and Eve and their offspring, the animals were set against each other, death entered both the human and animal worlds, etc. All this and more are involved in the idea of Original Sin.

I understand Inherent Sin to be the idea that God made humans so that they WOULD sin. God thought man needed to sin so that they could be saved and could move through levels of perfection toward the CK. Inherent Sin contains the idea that sin is good for those in preexistence. It gives them an opportunity to move toward perfection and the CK. Inherent Sin contains the whackadoo idea that a perfect sinless god would choose sin as the way for his perfect creation to fall and then strive for the perfection they already had before they sinned.

Sin is not the original idea in the mind of God for the nature of the universe. Sin is universal NOW because the head honcho of creation, Adam, chose to sin rather than to choose obedience.

My understanding is that inherent sin is JS's screwed up way of dealing with the culturally common idea of Original sin.

Steve Spoonemore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jacob, my understanding:
>
> God did not create sin; he created a perfect,
> sinless universe. He put into that universe two
> free agents, Adam and Eve. They were sinless same
> as the rest of the universe. But they had the
> power to choose their own actions.

I know this is a fairly common answer. However there is a fundamental problem with this view point. Nothing exists without god. I would argue that god created evil by defining what was good. Had god not defined good than there would be no evil.

>
> God gave these two sinless only one order. "Do
> not eat the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of
> Good and Evil.". They ate and by eating sinned.
> THEY brought sin into God's creation. They
> created the need for atonement. God had known
> thru all eternity that they would sin, but he let
> them exercise their free agency and choose to sin.
> He did not force their moral choice.
>

See above, god brought sin into his universe by giving the order to not do something.

> Sin is NOW the "natural order of things" because
> God gave Adam and Eve dominion over all creation.
> They ran things. Adam named the animals. They
> had oversight over all creation, yet they chose to
> violate God's one commandment. All of creation
> was afflicted BECAUSE of their sin:. Work became
> hard, childbirth became painful and difficult, the
> animals were set against Adam and Eve and their
> offspring, the animals were set against each
> other, death entered both the human and animal
> worlds, etc. All this and more are involved in
> the idea of Original Sin.

To me this doesn't follow. If Adam and Eve changed the fundamental nature of the universe than what role is left for god? If god is the creator, why create with such a massive flaw?

>
> I understand Inherent Sin to be the idea that God
> made humans so that they WOULD sin. God thought
> man needed to sin so that they could be saved and
> could move through levels of perfection toward the
> CK. Inherent Sin contains the idea that sin is
> good for those in preexistence. It gives them an
> opportunity to move toward perfection and the CK.
> Inherent Sin contains the whackadoo idea that a
> perfect sinless god would choose sin as the way
> for his perfect creation to fall and then strive
> for the perfection they already had before they
> sinned.
>

These are just words ordered to resemble coherent thoughts. The bottom line is that god is the creator and god did design a system where humans by nature sin. The first thing Adam and Eve did was break a rule. That still seems like a design flaw to me.

> Sin is not the original idea in the mind of God
> for the nature of the universe. Sin is universal
> NOW because the head honcho of creation, Adam,
> chose to sin rather than to choose obedience.

God had one idea and Adam changed it because Adam is so powerful that he can alter creation on a fundamental level?

>
> My understanding is that inherent sin is JS's
> screwed up way of dealing with the culturally
> common idea of Original sin.

Words

And that's the problem that I have with it as well.

God, all powerful, all knowing, somehow managed to create beings that were imperfect, on purpose. Then when they turn out to be imperfect, which they were created to be, God get's mad and demands some sort of sacrifice. Somehow sacrificing himself meets the arbitrary requirements that he himself set.

Maybe he's punishing himself for creating flawed beings? But if he's perfect himself, aren't we doing exactly what he wanted us to do?

Jacob and FinallyFree!:

As the man said, "Yo pays yo money and yo takes yo choice."

I don't mean to be simplistic and I certainly don't mean to judge. But it seems to me that we cannot get on the same page because you approach the questions from the point of view of Mormon doctrine and I approach from a background of traditional Christian orthodoxy. Re-read what byuathiest says. The whole reason we disagree is that we have different starting points.

Mormon theologians know that they are not orthodox. For them that's the whole point. They believe orthodoxy is wrong and that the entire REASON for LDS teaching is that JS was charged with "restoring" the gospel. I and other orthodox believers beg to differ. We believe that the Church got along quite nicely for 2000 years without JS's restoration. If Mormonism has caused as much pain, abuse of women and girls, division in families, lies and half-truths as people on this board say, why on God's green earth would you want to stick to the doctrine and theology that started the whole sewer? Start over with a clean slate!

This is not a judgement, but as I read the comments on this board day after day I get so frustrated because I constantly run up against the fact that I am hampered in what I want to say because we don't even share a common vocabulary.

One thing I think I must insist on, however, is that to argue that God is somehow responsible for the fact that Adam and Eve sinned is ludicrous. God gave them a commandment and the power to obey (they were perfect, after all), and they CHOSE to defy God. That choice was not God's fault. The Mormon argument that God somehow made them sin is just such a distortion of how personal relationships work that I cannot fully get my head around it. Example:. If your father told you not to put beans in your nose and you went out and put beans in your nose, how is that your father's fault??

It's not just the Mormon starting point, people of other backgrounds have this problem with it too. Just look up all of the arguments against original sin, this is one of them.

And if you're a nevermo, then why are you here bugging everyone about Christianity, and then getting upset that the words don't come across? Are you just curious about Mormons and excited to use this as a soap box? I appreciate the info, but chill out.

R2:

Message received. I apologize if I have used this board as a soap box. I deeply regret that I have offended.

I got carried away. At the beginning of this conversation I understood Jacob to be asking a question. I tried to answer and then got too wrapped up in what I thought was give-and-take.

Apologies. You are absolutely correct. I hereby chill.

Steve Spoonemore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One thing I think I must insist on, however, is
> that to argue that God is somehow responsible for
> the fact that Adam and Eve sinned is ludicrous.
> God gave them a commandment and the power to obey
> (they were perfect, after all), and they CHOSE to
> defy God.

How could they know defying 'god' was wrong when they had no knowledge of good and evil (right/wrong)?
Oops.

Now, keep in mind, the whole thing is a fairy tale of the worst kind. However, were it real...if you make the system, you're responsible for what happens in it. Especially if you're omniscient, which means you knew what would go wrong before it did. It's your fault. And the normal father analogy doesn't work, either -- your normal father didn't make the beans, or the world, or anything else. Oops again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnArCFSrkg8

I really like these.

5/18 11:14PM post:
"God gave these two sinless only one order. 'Do not eat the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.' They ate and by eating sinned."

Then why would god plant the fucking tree in the first place? If you don't want someone to get hurt, you don't deliberately put them in harm's way.


5/19 7:43PM post:
"to argue that God is somehow responsible for the fact that Adam and Eve sinned is ludicrous. God gave them a commandment and the power to obey (they were perfect, after all), and they CHOSE to defy God. That choice was not God's fault."

Of course it was. God set them up for failure by placing them in that situation, otherwise the tree serves no purpose. "Here's a tree which I planted. Don't eat the fruit cuz I said so!"

And just WHY is eating from the tree a sin? Was it god's idea? If so, it is god's fault since he could have declared it not a sin. And if it wasn't god's idea…

"Yo pays yo money and yo takes yo choice."

Yes, that's exactly what a "loving" God would say? "Well, you screwed up, you weren't perfect, even though that's how I created you. So now, someone has to die... I know, I'll die, because I won't really die, then we can all be happy"... This makes no sense, Mormon background or not.

You can insist all you want... But if an all knowing creature, plants an appetizing tree, then tells his flawed imperfect creations not to eat from that tree, even though he put it in front of them, then he's responsible.

For example, if I set a bowl of dog treats on the floor in front of my puppy and tell him, "You shall not eat this!", even the best trained dog is going to slip up from time to time and eat at least one of those treats if you wait long enough. Who's at fault? The Dog? Or me for leaving the treats out where the dog could get it. I am. I'm the far more responsible party in the story. God, is far more responsible than Adam and Eve in the story. He is after all a perfect being with perfect knowledge, you don't get much more responsible than that. If God really didn't want them to eat from the tree, he shouldn't have put the tree there.

Also, as an all knowing, all powerful being, he knew ahead of time what would happen. So, he's still at fault.

Finally, I'm not going to require a dog to die because another dog ate a treat I told it not too, that would be inhumane. If a flawed being such as myself can see that, why can't God?

jacob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> God
> knows that there must be a punishment for sin so
> god creates a scenario where the punishment is
> prepaid for everyone who wishes to accept the
> prepayment.

Why "must" there be?
And if god "knows" this, someone must have defined it before "god" existed...so "god" isn't eternal? Somebody makes rules "god" has to follow? "god" isn't omnipotent?

The entire thing -- no matter which christian sect tries to explain it -- is patently absurd. And logically self-contradictory.

Seriously.

Did she ever really leave? No, it was just a dream. Could the sham-god wizard really help her? No. Were all those weird adventures necessary before waking up? No...but she wouldn't have believed it if she had been told outright at the beginning.

Don't we all feel alienated in our embodied daily existences, with their little or large pains, frustrations, or sense that something's missing? Will the desired trinkets or ego achievements ever permanently erase these...or are they simply temporary distractions and consolations? Why can't we be always serene, ecstatic, satisfied or fulfilled here in this dimension--that we've dreamed up, individually and collectively? A bad dream is a psychological matter, not an objective reality that must be "improved" piecemeal before we can be content.

Richard Foxe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't we all feel alienated in our embodied daily
> existences, with their little or large pains,
> frustrations, or sense that something's missing?

No, actually, we don't all feel that way.

Richard Foxe:

Man, you cannot be nor ever have been a Mormon!!

The paragraph "Don't we all feel alienated...." is straight from Mary Baker Eddy. You have GOT to have a Christian Scientist in your philosophical wood pile!

I felt like that as a Mormon. A stranger in a strange land waiting to die and go home. But now I am home, happy to surf the cycles of incarnation looking for the Big Kahuna. Xiomara, Bra.

In the books, she really does go to Oz, and she returns there a few times in Return to Oz, Ozma of Oz, etc.

Besides the one time from my horse, I don't remember falling--not from Grace anyway.

And please do not erase my "sins" as they were the best part of my life. They are my dark diamonds. One man's trash is another man's treasure as they say. I learned more from immersing myself in real life than from building a wall around myself as an ultra religioso. I want knowledge and experience not salvation. Salvation means someone else has to save you and it only counts in my book if I do it myself.

In the end, God, Heavenly Father, Elohim or any of his previous incarnations never once stuck his head through the clouds and said any of this. It is all man made ridiculosity.

IfIcouldhietokolob, excellent point. Thank you.

God doesn't learn anything. God knows all things. God chooses in his infinite wisdom to do or not do things. In that sense, God is a free agent, just like the first man and woman he created.

There "must" be punishment for sin not because something existing before God made that the rule. And God didn't make it a rule that sin must be punished. Sin must be punished because it affronts the NATURE, the character, of God.

God IS omnipotent but He honors, He pursues, He cannot deny His character. He does not choose to be loving, omnipotent, omniscient, just, righteous, etc. He is those things because He IS those things in his character, his essence, his very being.

In reference to Mormonism, God did not choose for sin to enter creation as Elohim supposedly did. Elohim chose the "value" of sin for the spirit babies who needed to improve to reach the CK. Sin is abhorrent to God. He would never have chosen it, even if he could, which He couldn't because sin is contrary to His very nature.

Guys, please know that I do not mean to be proselytizing. I mean to play devil's advocate (What an idea in this context!). I mean to show Mormonism conflicts with orthodoxy.

Should I butt completely out?

and acknowledged by the Mormons themselves, that they disagree with orthodoxy. The whole premise of Mormonism is that the orthodoxy was wrong, and Jesus had to come and restore the true gospel.

I appreciate reading this whole conversation, so I hope you don't butt out. Your expression of your understanding of the atonement is helping me to understand more deeply the orthodox Christians that I know, and how they understand the atonement.

I also appreciate what I seem to characterize as the atheist, or other non-christian/non-mormon points of view. Love all the different understandings.

Though I have to admit, all this gave me a scary Mormon Hell dream last night - complete with blood and sacrifices and demons. But it's good for me to process and work through it.

Woke up with gratitude for the beautiful light of a full sunny day before me. Wishing you all a good one too!

Steve Spoonemore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> IfIcouldhietokolob, excellent point. Thank you.

:)

> Guys, please know that I do not mean to be
> proselytizing. I mean to play devil's advocate
> (What an idea in this context!). I mean to show
> Mormonism conflicts with orthodoxy.
>
> Should I butt completely out?

Of course not. Talking these things out is interesting, informative, and fascinating. Even when we disagree.

From my side, I often point out that "orthodoxy" isn't all that settled in the first place, and in the second place...so what if mormonism conflicts with it? That doesn't make "orthodoxy" right and mormonism wrong, it just means they're different. After all, "orthodoxy" only got to be "orthodoxy" by survival, not evidence. Me, I care about what evidence shows to be "correct" or "true." Not about what's most popular or what has been around the longest. In other words, there is plenty of verifiable evidence that shows mormonism claims false -- without caring whether or not it's "orthodox."
And just be aware, there's plenty of evidence showing lots of "orthodox" claims false, too -- and precious little to none showing it correct or true :)

No hard feelings, feel free to disagree and say why! :)

We are to forgive. But God needs his "pound of flesh."

I can only see two rational reasons for punishment:

(1) to change the future behavior of the person being punished.

(2) as a deterrent to others.

The atonement fits neither of these. So there must be a third:

(3) to satisfy the desire for vengeance.

This is something that is considered a flaw in humans, but
seems to be fundamental with God.

Now the Mormon explanation is that we owed a debt and that
Jesus paid it on our behalf. Now if I am owed a debt I want it
paid and I don't care who pays it. That's because I like the
money. I'm not interested in you having the experience of
paying me I just want my money BECAUSE I LIKE IT.

The debt that Jesus paid was was paid with agony, suffering,
and death. That means that God (whichever is the recipient of
the payment) likes agony, suffering, and death and doesn't
really care whose.

So God is a cosmic sadist.

Bravo! And, the truest thing ever said:

"This is something that is considered a flaw in humans, but
seems to be fundamental with God."

If God were man he would be in jail serving millions of life sentences.

If the bible were truly of divine origin and accurately described God and his purported demand for The Atonement, one could justifiably conclude that God has some serious issues that need to be addressed.

Quite frankly, if I were God, I would be very insulted by how I were portrayed in the bible; regardless of whether it were an accurate portrayal.

And if I had the power that God is supposed to have, a bible that portrayed me as such a petty and disturbed individual would never have seen the light of day, and it's authors would be atoning in eternity.

God of the Bible is an accurate portrayal. Of His authors.

That is all.

Exactly!

Thank you for that..

I tried to post my take on the Atonement, but I was stopped by the spam filter.

Steve Spoonemore, I think what Jacob and Finally Free! said above in response to your explanation of original sin vs. inherent sin is spot on.

God created all things, the non-mormon viewpoint doesn't correct any flaws in the atonement. You place adam and eve in the garden and give them one rule and they break it. Well, did God borrow adam and eve from another God or dimension? Supposedly, God created all things and was here from the beginning and always and is the ONLY God. That means god created adam and eve. They sinned. i.e. god's creation is not perfect. It sounds the same as the mormon viewpoint.

Joe Smith took it slightly further by saying its the natural state of man and its an enemy to god. Then he postulated that we were like god and become gods because they could discern between good and evil etc...

At the end of the day, "God created all things" its a catch 22. The bible done painted itself into a corner. Why does anyone need to die to save another? It is a totally morbid concept. It makes God out to be a brute of sorts. Uncivilized. Cruel. Just like the mean boy who sits with a magnifying glass over an ant hill burning up living creatures.

In order to understand the atonement, you have to understand heaven.

Heaven is the most glorious spiritually powerful, loving place. The heavens are way way way more advanced than earth. The heavens created everything, spirit, body, neurotransmitters, endorphins, DNA...everything on the earth.

There is nothing greater than to live in heaven in the presence of Jesus. Money, power, fame, women, control... All pale in comparison to being in heaven.

We need to be cleansed of sin to enter, or we will be subject to Satan. Jesus spiritual power was the only one to withstand all that Satan threw at him, and dieing for someone else shows the highest love for another, hence the cross.