Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral

[ether-ore]

Many scholars exist, who are not part of your faith, would disagree with you. How do you know who's right?

This is a determination each individual has to make for themselves. If you are indeed searching, may I suggest you look for one that has an eternal perspective.

If objective morals exist independent of God, we do not have to appeal to God to be moral. It also means that God has the capacity of being amoral, and God has/is doing some very immoral actions. For example: vicarious redemption, infinite punishment for finite crime, punishment for not believing, etc...

I think on the contrary, we do have to depend on God since He is our Heavenly Father as well as the administrator of the law. What you have said is akin to saying that you do not have to answer to a judge if you broke the law. God because of His nature, does not have the capacity to be immoral.... it is just not in His nature. If He were to do something immoral, He would cease to be God and all of His creations would collapse into chaos.

By what standard are you saying vicarious redemption is immoral? I hope you will not claim that such a standard is objective and universal, because I suggest to you that it is not. I am suggesting that according to God's law it is not immoral. Christ did indeed voluntarily suffer and give His life for us, but He is resurrected, and He lives.

An infinite punishment for a finite crime is not something LDS believe in. As I said in another post elsewhere, Christ said that those who do not repent must suffer even as He has suffered. This, I don't believe has reference to the cross. Rather, it has reference to what took place in the Garden of Gethsemane. What I believe took place there was Christ making the transition from being mortal to being immortal. He bled from every pore. He was shedding His blood in an extremely painful process.

Immortal beings do not have blood in their veins. What is there, I do not know, but when the Roman soldier pierced Christ's side with a spear, a clear fluid is reported as having come out.

Christ did not die from being on the cross. Being immortal, He could have hung there indefinitely. He remained and suffered to finish His mission for us and once done, He gave up His life by His own will, and three days later, by the power of His spirit, He took it up again.

The point being that unless we repent, we will have to endure that painful transition from mortality to immortality without the help of God. If we had repented, then Christ's sacrifice will have changed us "in the twinkling of an eye", and we will not have to endure that. However, after that penalty has been paid, we go on to a reward commensurate to our behaviors during mortality where we will find such peace and happiness as our actions suggested we desired.

How would you know if God administered the moral law correctly? Faith isn't enough.

God does not render judgment until after our mortal test is complete. "Judgment Day" is yet future and then God will render His verdicts according to the eternal moral law as it applies to each individual according as their works have been.

---

As I said, I do not believe I can provide any answer that will satisfy. All I can do is relate what the collective scriptures tell me, and that is that I believe we are all eternal beings who are currently in one stage of progression from one state to another. From an eternal perspective, we are in the third stage of our progression and what we do in this life; the choices we make, will affect where we go after mortality is over. So, what I get from the scriptures I accept and believe in is an eternal perspective. That this life is not the be all, end all of our existence.

Look, my question wasn't some really abstract thing. Give me a straight answer as to why you find the 'evidence' for Christianity more convincing than that of any other religion. I'm not asking you to justify your belief, although you should. I'm simply asking you to justify an assertion you made.

I would hope that you would understand that this is a personal determination. I have in so many words given you my reasons for choosing to be LDS before. But anyway... having decided that it is more probable that God exists than not based on the evidence of prophetic testimony recorded over millennia coupled with the added confirmation of modern scripture, and reasoning that an eternal perspective makes the most sense;

I have determined that Christianity (specifically the LDS variety) was more reasonable that all others I looked into (including non-Christian faiths). I do not see science as an enemy to religion. I do however, not believe in evolution or the big bang. I do believe in the laws of thermodynamics as they apply to the state of existence we are in. I believe that matter, energy, spirit, life, law and God (as a title and not as a specific individual) has always existed.

My belief system gives me an understanding of who I am, where I came from, why I'm here in mortality and what will happen to me after this life is over. I can believe in free agency because my belief system tells me I am eternal being and I have always had agency. I, my essence, was not created by God, but He is, through His loving kindness, helping me to progress. The world and my existence makes sense to me. I see my Father in Heaven as a benefactor and I am grateful for His gifts and His mercy towards me.

I do not see other faiths offering me the same reasonableness or depth of understanding from an eternal perspective.

I hope that answers your question.