When I was very young, I became ill. The medicine my mother was going to administer was of the worst kind, in my mind, and there was no way I was going to obediently take it. So, I quickly hid in a closet, closed my eyes, bowed my head, and said “Dear Heavenly Father, please give me a magic wand, so that I can make myself better”.
That was a pretty silly prayer to expect God would answer, I doubt many would argue. And yet, how many of us have been pretty close?
We don’t know an answer to a test question: God, is it B, D, or E?
We are stuck in traffic: God, please get these people off the road.
We are lonely: God please send me a soul mate.
We are tired: God, please get my boss to let me go home.
We want a nice car: God, please get me a raise.
Etc.
How many of us have ever thought, if only I were God?
Think of the possibilities.
You could think the thought, and make the neighbor’s dog stop barking.
You could wiggle your finger, and your son’s tattoo would be gone.
You could simply want some breakfast, and it would appear, bedside.
What would you get for yourself, if you were a god? How about:
A mansion with swimming pool and tennis courts and servants?
An intergalactic Lamborghini?
The best-looking, most fun, sexiest lover to be had (or many of them)?
Or, thinking on a larger scale, would you, if you were a god:
Establish world peace?
Abolish diseases? Flies? Weeds?
Get rid of crime, poverty, societal problems of every kind?
(How noble of you. J)
What do you think you would do with your “power” if you were a god? Take a minute, think it over.
Ok. Here are some other questions pertaining to godhood that you may not so readily ask yourself:
Would I have to be “perfect”? What would that mean? Could I be angry? Jealous? Could I prefer something over another thing? Could I love? Hate? Be excited? Have to not get excited?
What would my responsibilities be? Would I have to answer to anyone?
Who would I be responsible to/for? Would I have to spend godhood the way God is? Would I have to have spirit children? Would I have to answer my children’s prayers night and day, day and night, for thousands of years?
Will I allow free agency for my spirit children? Will I have to? If so, what will I do about the ones who hate me? Who sacrifice my other children to idol gods? Who want to follow other gods in the universe besides me? What will I do with the ones who rape, murder, torture, defile my other children? Will I create a hell for them? Will I destroy them?
What if I just don’t allow free agency? Is there any thing wrong with that?
What if I don’t want all that responsibility? Will I have to have it, or can I say “no”, that I’d rather just populate my world with cool plants and animals? Will that make me a lesser god?
What if I get tired of being a god? Can I opt out? Can I give my world over to a different god to run for me? Can I just assume that once I am in heaven, I will always want to be a god, and for eternity, I will never change my mind? Never get tired and want to do something else? Will I be eternally content? Happy with being a god?
It may be easy to dismiss any or all of these kinds of questions with a “well, we’ll know later”. Easy for us to dismiss what “god” means, by just saying “well, he was like us, so, whatever!”
The prayer I offered up for a magic wand revealed my childlike understanding of God and how miracles happen. I am older now, and I have learned much more about “reality”. And yet, there is so much that I don’t know and may never understand.
I do believe, however, that if we were created by God, then there is an absolute truth about God, about what it means to be a god, and about whether or not godhood is possible for anyone besides God.
Consider the possibility that there is a One, a Power, a Knowledge, a Wisdom, a Presence that is so far above everything else as to be The Absolute. It knows so much more than me, that I could spend forever just learning about it and from it. It is so much more loving than I am, that I could spend forever being happy just being close to it. It has so much more than I do, that for eternity, I will never lack for provision, work, play, rest, enjoyment, growth, etc. It is infinitely personal and relational and intimate. He is so complete in himself that I will never ultimately need anything else but Him.
The Holy Bible suggests that God is like this.
It says God is everywhere; there is no place where He is not.
It says God is eternal; there was never a time when He was not God.
He has ALL of the power; He is absolutely Sovereign.
He is the source of everything; there is nothing that can exist without Him.
The Holy Bible’s description of God eliminates the possibility of there being more than one of them. How could there be, with attributes like these?
On this forum there are basically two God views up for grabs. Neither can explain where God came from. Neither can explain how or why He became God.
But personally, the Biblical view gives me peace I never had when I subscribed to the other view. It takes the illusion of control away from me. It absolves me from making myself my own hero. I have such freedom of mind and soul, knowing that God created me, that He worked/is working out my salvation, and that He will be my heaven when this life is over. Given what He has created and surrounded me with so far, I’m extremely excited to find out what He has planned!
Shem, no, I will tell you that you are wrong. It doesn’t work like you want it to. All you are doing is telling me that we can’t talk about what is right because we view them differently, and becausae of that, we should just not even go there.
Wrong.
I think I do understand why you say so, since such discussions are tough, and since often folks will just dig in. But really, its a bit of a cop out to tell me not to tell you that you are wrong because all you are doing is telling me what you believe. I accept that you believe it, but you are wrong, plain and simple.
Saying the rags apply to only the nation of Israel but not to the individuals in it? My. “Male and female, he created them” doesn’t speak to God creating us? You do point to an interesting concept, that God knew us before we were born, but this speaks to his all knowing attributes, but even if you say we have spirits before we are born God created us as spirits. In other words, there is little to justify your belief that we have existed from eternity.
I could go on…
The bottom line with this post is to say that just because something makes sense to you does not make it right. That was my point about slavery being justified through the Bible, or the Inquisition or any other belief justified on the Bible. But, at the same time, there is a message to be gleaned from it that is true…
Are you willing to leave the comforts of LDS thought and explore it?
Shem,
Can you please share with us your process of biblical interpretation? What sources do you use that enlighten you regarding Hebrew? Do you only use the KJV as your source? Have you ever done word studies; if so, can you share some of that exprience with us? Thanks.
Peace…
JACK
My sources or God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the men that have been called by them to teach the truths of the Kingdom of God. I need no other source to understand the word of God.
MICHEAL
On the other hand, your entire argument can be used against you as well, so what is the point.
You can tell me I am wrong, but you cannot prove it. In like manner I cannot prove you are wrong. As such what is the point is trying? This is my point. You cannot show me any place in the Bible that directly contradicts what I believe without me being able to show you six other places that support it.
I really don’t care if you think I am wrong, for only God can prove either of us right.
Your only argument against what I have said is to say that I am wrong. You have not actually given anything to contradict what I have said.
As to us existing for all eternity, let us refer to a great argument presented by Joseph Smith. While I do not quote directly, it can be found in the King Follet discourse.
The idea is simple. All things that have a beginning can have an end, and in truth must have an end. You cannot have a beginning without their being an end. Thus, to say that our existance began with this life, or that is began at any time that God created us, is to prove that at some point in the future we will cease to exist. Thus to believe in a beginning of the Human race is to teach the doctrine of anialation. This doctrine is not found in the Bible, at least not by me. Thus, there can be no beginning the existance of man, because there will be no end.
As to us existing before this earth not justifying the eternal nature of our existance, does it really contradict it. From the Job quote it seems obvious that we existed before God began his work of Creation, and thus we have no real indication of when we began to exist. While there may be no justification for it, there is also no justification against.
Shem,
Sorry to disagree with you and JS on one point. If we look at our numerical system there is the set of natural numbers. These are non-negative integers starting from either 0 or 1, depending on to whom you talk with. There is definitely a beginning but no end.
However, it is just a subset of a greater picture without beginning or end. But this is how the Evs look at this life, as a subset of the whole picture and define a starting point and can show and say that there is no end to it even though there is a start.
RALPH
But even so, was there ever a time when the concept of zero did not exist, or the idea of numbering did not exist. Numbers themselves are not an entity or object, they are an idea, or way of explaining an entity or object, and what they explain has no beginning or end.
In like manner, the Bible uses ideas or symbols, which symbols have a beginning but no end, to explain that which is eternal. There was a first time that the explanation was used, but not a first time in which the truth it teaches was true.
All objects and entities that had a beginning will have an end, even though the ideas used to explain them may not.
It’s been a heated week. I’m closing down these threads so I can not worry about them over the weekend. Have a great weekend guys. Let’s take a break!
Sharon’s posts are coming up today and this week, and she’s much sweeter than I am 🙂