God and Punishment

[Non Sequitur]

I disagree. I thik it is equating the notion of blessing with material prosperity or personal gratification. IOW, it is not the formulation of God's interaction, it is the confusion of then ature of the blessing that we can or should expect. More often than not, in my experience, the blessing is having the wisdom and peace to deal with whatever life circumstance we are in at the time.

But what happens when that wisdom and peace don't come? That's when people get overcome with discouragement and frustration, and can't understand where they've failed. Then they assume they must have some moral failing and become overcome with guilt. In my own experience, I never found peace of mind until I realized there was no correlation between happiness and spirituality.

[creekster]

But what happens when that wisdom and peace don't come? That's when people get overcome with discouragement and frustration, and can't understand where they've failed. Then they assume they must have some moral failing and become overcome with guilt. In my own experience, I never found peace of mind until I realized there was no correlation between happiness and spirituality.

Fail;ure to find peace or happiness is in fact probabyl the cause of much substance abuse. My point is htat it is not the failure of God's approach that causes the abuse you are highlighting, it is our failure to understand and properly teach what is being offered. That some such as yourself dont find it until leaving God behind is another issue.

[Jarid in Cedar]

If you're saying that good things happen to people and bad things happen to people and God is irrelevant in the equation, then I would agree with you. I think teaching people that simply by obeying God's commandments they will be blessed and happy, is emotionally damaging and accounts for the booming anti-depressant business in Utah County.

I would say that someones current standing with God is irrelevant to the good and the bad that happens in their life. The point is to show how people,and those around them, try to reconcile these 2 polar opposites. I do agree that too many think that obeying and following will lead to blessings and happiness. They then have to try to reconcile the dissonance.

I disagree. I thik it is equating the notion of blessing with material prosperity or personal gratification. IOW, it is not the formulation of God's interaction, it is the confusion of then ature of the blessing that we can or should expect. More often than not, in my experience, the blessing is having the wisdom and peace to deal with whatever life circumstance we are in at the time.

I think that the situations don't always deal with the material or gratifications. I do agree that many do not recognize what we are blessed with and when.

In the situation that Orange Ute has outlined, the husband is saying that God is punishing his wife for her unbelief. How would he view her current situation if she was a faithful steadfast member?

The example I always think about when these discussions arise concerns a casual friend from college. He was paralyzed at T2 in a single car rollover about 1 month after returning home from his mission. He was absolutely convinced that he was being punished for messing around with a girl about 6 months before his mission finished. He couldn't accept that an accident can just happen. He would lament that if he had just not crossed that line or confessed his sin after it happened, he would not be stuck in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. He could not separate the 2 events in his mind.

[Jarid in Cedar]

But what happens when that wisdom and peace don't come? That's when people get overcome with discouragement and frustration, and can't understand where they've failed. Then they assume they must have some moral failing and become overcome with guilt. In my own experience, I never found peace of mind until I realized there was no correlation between happiness and spirituality.

I agree with the lack of correlation between spiritually and happiness. I do think that there is a good correlation between spiritually and peace.

[creekster]

I agree with the lack of correlation between spiritually and happiness. I do think that there is a good correlation between spiritually and peace.

for me, I am happy if I have peace. You define these as different things, I gather. What is the difference for you?

[Non Sequitur]

My point is htat it is not the failure of God's approach that causes the abuse you are highlighting, it is our failure to understand and properly teach what is being offered.

I agree with that point. My question then is what, exactly, is being offered? People are taught that if they obey the commandments, they will be happy. If that's not what is being offered, then what is the temporal payoff for trying to please God?

I realize that my question over-simplified, but it's really at the heart of why people choose to live or not live a spiritual life.

[Non Sequitur]

I agree with the lack of correlation between spiritually and happiness. I do think that there is a good correlation between spiritually and peace.

I kind of lump peace and happiness together. How do you have one without the other?

[creekster]

I agree with that point. My question then is what, exactly, is being offered? People are taught that if they obey the commandments, they will be happy. If that's not what is being offered, then what is the temporal payoff for trying to please God?

I realize that my question over-simplified, but it's really at the heart of why people choose to live or not live a spiritual life.

I think that happiness is peace and God offers us peace. I dont think God promises us anything temporal. It might be an ancillary benefit of some aspects of obeidence ofr some of us, but it is not what he promises us. All we get here from obeidence, IMO, is finding contenment for our soul regardless of the circumstances in which our body lives. As you saym, this is an oversmiplification, but it makes my point., I hope.

JiC suggests happiness is not peace, and I ma curious what he means by that.

[Jarid in Cedar]

for me, I am happy if I have peace. You define these as different things, I gather. What is the difference for you?

I think of the different situations and emotions that the 2 bring. I think of the things that bring me happiness as things that bring joy:

Breaking through with a difficult patient
Seeing my kids excel at a new challenge(seeing them cope with failure in a good way)
Driving a sports car really fast in a winding canyon(I digress)


I equate peace more with calmness within myself. Peace allows me to have perspective, allows me to sleep well when there is chaos in my life, peace comforts me when I am feeling down and beating myself up.

Granted there is alot of potential overlap, but in my experience, spirituality correlates better with peace than happiness.

[CardiacCoug]

My bishop asked me if my gall bladder/heel spur problems were due to "any spiritual imbalances" in my life.

Is your Bishop a chiropractor by chance?

[pellegrino]

I had a thorochotomy this year, and all I can say is thank God for Opiates. Of course, I couldn't wait to get off of them; the side effects are horrible. But I don't know how I could have gotten through that without Dilaudid and Oxycontin.

Opiates rock!

[statman]

I had a thorochotomy this year, and all I can say is thank God for Opiates. Of course, I couldn't wait to get off of them; the side effects are horrible. But I don't know how I could have gotten through that without Dilaudid and Oxycontin.

I've had a bunch of dental work done in the past 10 days and I've been on oxycodone and hydrocodone as well - to be able to sleep. And the ironic thing is I sleep TERRIBLY when I'm on the stuff.

But this kind of use is not what I'm talking about. My wife's a pharmacist in Utah County - she says that without exaggeration, she fills as much oxycodone here in a week as she filled in a year in Illinois (at a store with similar daily volume). Basically, every step on the opiate heirarchy gets kicked up a level here. Where she used to fill a lot of Codeine in IL, she hardly fills any here - it's hydrocodone instead (same types of docs writing scripts of similar size but for the next step up in strength). Where she used to fill hydrocodone, it's oxycodone here. And there are simply a bunch of people who come in every month with a script for 30 or 60 Percocet (oxycodone - strong stuff) - one or two a day. That's not an amount that you'd used to treat for chronic pain - people with chronic pain would get 3 or 4 times that amount - and she has about an equal number of the chronic pain people here as in IL. The thing she fills a whole bunch for here that she didn't there are those recurring 30-60 a month - an amount that would be used to take one or two every evening to relax. It seems that we in Happy Valley like to relax with an oxycontin after dinner instead of a glass of wine or beer...

[statman]

I kind of lump peace and happiness together. How do you have one without the other?

Is it wrong to equate "a piece" and happiness?

[OrangeUte]

i appreciate the feedback... i just have some thoughts on the subject i would like to share - more of the muddying the waters kind of thoughts, but for some reason, this is an interesting topic to me.

But, what if he punishes you for your sins and then you decide you want to repent - then has God made you suffer in vain because he has supposedly provided a savior to who has suffered for all of our sins. these two concepts seem to collide and are at odds with each other.

also, what did God do to punish Joseph Smith for the 116 pages? I imagine that Joseph freaked out and was stressed, and that therefore felt like God had withdrawn the holy spirit from him... is losing the spirit all that occurred, or was it more than that - was the punishment that God took away the gift of translation for awhile meanwhile knowing that he would return the gift to joseph as soon as the penance had been made... again, because of the suffering of jesus, isn't that punishment really just punishment in vain - so that it's essentially punishment for punishment's sake?

i guess what i'm asking is that if god can punish us for our sins, what is the purpose of the atonement?

i am always troubled by the scripture in d&c 19:4 "And surely every man must arepent or bsuffer, for I, God, am endless."

is there an option to sin as much as you want and then suffer the required suffering and that will satisfy the requirements of justice? is that suffering actually ongoing here on earth, or is it suffereing that occurs after death but before judgment.

19:20 says "Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I ahumble you with my almighty power; and that you bconfess your sins, lest you suffer these cpunishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have dtasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit."

So, it seems that withdrawal of the spirit is actually a small portion of punishment, but what happens if one pays for his own sins and then repents - that is the part that i keep getting hung up on because it seems like that suffering by man would make the atonement unnecessary in their own lives - punishment for punishment's sake?

even if god withdrawing his spirit is giving us a taste of the punishment christ suffered, it seems a tad bit arbitrary given that christ has already suffered for all of the demands of justice. i know that often, when i sin, i don't feel much different before i sinned than i do after... i may feel kind of silly for what i did, but i certainly don't feel abandoned or empty, and i can honestly say that i don't have a void that feels distasteful as described in the D&C. so, i guess at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters in terms of this "punishment" in the flesh argument is that God works in mysterious ways.

D&C 132:26 says: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man marry a wife according to my word, and they are sealed by the aHoly Spirit of promise, according to mine appointment, and he or she shall commit any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies, and if they bcommit no murder wherein they shed innocent blood, yet they shall come forth in the first resurrection, and enter into their exaltation; but they shall be destroyed in the flesh, and shall be cdelivered unto the buffetings of dSatan unto the day of eredemption, saith the Lord God."

i remember my mission president telling us that D&C 132:26 was proof that spencer w. kimball was actually suffering for his own sins when he had difficulty with his voice from surgeries (cancer?) and that only the very righteous who had entered into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage could actually suffer for their own sins as a tribute to how much they love the savior...

That makes no sense to me, and ends up raising all sorts of questiosn about the atonement... that position says that the savior suffered in vain - or maybe he didn't really suffer for all of mankind's sins so the truly righteous have to make up for the slack... why would god have his only begotten son suffer in vain?

i know so much in doctrine is a matter of faith, but this one is hard for me to wrap my head around - then again, maybe the answer is to just stop trying and just move forward with it making no sense but with a hope that one day it will all come together.

[jay santos]

I don't believe that God punishes. I think consequences for sin and bad actions come naturally, or not at all, in this life.