Blasphemous Question

[SoonerCoug]

Kind of like if you had Sooner and LA both take a shot at describing church leadership. Repent, Sooner.

I think it's already clear that I have had more relatives in church hierarchy than anyone else on this board besides Cardiac. I figure this gives me the right to say what I want.

Besides, I'll be damned if I ever subscribe to the Dallin Oaks Doctrine: "It is wrong to criticize church leaders even when the criticism is true." If that's not akin to communist totalitarian philosophy, I don't know what is.

[wuapinmon]

but does the fact that you think he is make him a dick? If it does, why even think about him at all?

My dad was a dick. I still love(d) him.

[pellegrino]

Oh, my bad. Punctuation matters!



I won't rehash my old complaint with God, but I know this. Lets say that I was in need of my dad's help. Not wanting, needing. I asked my dad for help (I know he's dead, we're pretending here) help, and his response is to 'tell' me via not-saying-a-damned-thing-to-me whispers that he'll get around to it because he knows best. He won't say why when I ask him why. He won't even acknowledge the question. After the 1000th time, I just sit there and think, "my dad's kind of a dick."

but does the fact that you think he is make him a dick? If it does, why even think about him at all?

[UtahDan]

Gersonides and Maimonides are smiling down on you.

My seminary kids were very interested in this question. I told them that the best we can find in the scriptures is that sometimes wicked things are allowed to happen so that the wicked themselves can be punished. One student very quickly asked whether a much smaller number of Jews couldn't have been killed to accomplish the purpose of indicting their wicked mass murderers. I said, if you figure that out, let me know. There is no answer that I have ever heard.

[wuapinmon]

It's a holy mystery wuap.

Gersonides and Maimonides are smiling down on you.

[UtahDan]

Remember that my dad has commanded me to ask him for help, but then he gives it in his own time. And what about the little girl, raped, buried alive, lungs full of dirt when they find her corpse? What of those prayers? Where were those footprints? Again, I maintain that he does a lousy job of explaining himself, and I've never ever heard anyone give, beyond two centuries-dead rabbis (Gersonides, & Maimonides--in his perfectly-titled Guide for the Perplexed), any kind of cogent explanation for why people who believe in God have to suffer, especially the innocents.

My dad was blessed that he would be healed and return to his calling as ward clerk. On more then one occasion. By more than one person.

I dumped his ashes in Apalachicola Bay last October, and someone is probably dissecting his brain at Case Western right now. If my dad had been healed, we would have to praise God. When he died, we were told, blessings are dependent upon the Lord's will.

Again, why give us the power of the priesthood, to act in his name, if he just gets to do whatever-the-hell-he-wants anyway?

What's the point?!

Why?

In summation, even with a prophet, hell, 15 of them, not counting John and the Three Amigos, we still don't get logical things from God. We get Prop * support and "brother Williams, is there some spiritual imbalance in your life that is causing you to have this physical affliction?"

I do not hold that I am right; I maintain that for someone who demands blind obedience to his commandments and faith in things unseen and a second Second-Thessalonianseque-cessation-of-miracles-like-was-seen-in-the-Nauvoo-Church, he does any absolutely lousy job of explaining himself, especially when he putatively KNOWS what it's like to be human.*

* as much as anyone groomed for divine captaincy from birth can.

It's a holy mystery wuap.

[UtahDan]

You can't fool me. That's not a buttprint. That's a sandbutt! Either that or a buried corpse.

I understand that some people take photos of themselves with their bottoms dusted with sand.

[Babs]

You can't fool me. That's not a buttprint. That's a sandbutt! Either that or a buried corpse.

[wuapinmon]

and behold, wuapinmon one-uppeth KL in the blasphemy department.

Remember that my dad has commanded me to ask him for help, but then he gives it in his own time. And what about the little girl, raped, buried alive, lungs full of dirt when they find her corpse? What of those prayers? Where were those footprints? Again, I maintain that he does a lousy job of explaining himself, and I've never ever heard anyone give, beyond two centuries-dead rabbis (Gersonides, & Maimonides--in his perfectly-titled Guide for the Perplexed), any kind of cogent explanation for why people who believe in God have to suffer, especially the innocents.

My dad was blessed that he would be healed and return to his calling as ward clerk. On more then one occasion. By more than one person.

I dumped his ashes in Apalachicola Bay last October, and someone is probably dissecting his brain at Case Western right now. If my dad had been healed, we would have to praise God. When he died, we were told, blessings are dependent upon the Lord's will.

Again, why give us the power of the priesthood, to act in his name, if he just gets to do whatever-the-hell-he-wants anyway?

What's the point?!

Why?

In summation, even with a prophet, hell, 15 of them, not counting John and the Three Amigos, we still don't get logical things from God. We get Prop * support and "brother Williams, is there some spiritual imbalance in your life that is causing you to have this physical affliction?"

I do not hold that I am right; I maintain that for someone who demands blind obedience to his commandments and faith in things unseen and a second Second-Thessalonianseque-cessation-of-miracles-like-was-seen-in-the-Nauvoo-Church, he does any absolutely lousy job of explaining himself, especially when he putatively KNOWS what it's like to be human.*

* as much as anyone groomed for divine captaincy from birth can.

[wuapinmon]

... and when I looked back I noticed only one set of foot prints... that's when I realized that I was the dick.

Yes, perhaps. But, I don't have to look back in your case.

[cowboy]

This has already been said, but though you may be on to something, I believe that the difference is mostly perspective. I always use the mission president example.

We had a mission president that was loved by most and hated by some. Not surprisingly, he was hated by the disobedient, as he was kind of a take no prisoners type of guy. If a slacker and a regular missionary were both asked to describe him, you wouldn't recognize the description as the same person. Kind of like if you had Sooner and LA both take a shot at describing church leadership. Repent, Sooner.

[UtahDan]

... and when I looked back I noticed only one set of foot prints... that's when I realized that I was the dick.

[Babs]

Oh, my bad. Punctuation matters!



I won't rehash my old complaint with God, but I know this. Lets say that I was in need of my dad's help. Not wanting, needing. I asked my dad for help (I know he's dead, we're pretending here) help, and his response is to 'tell' me via not-saying-a-damned-thing-to-me whispers that he'll get around to it because he knows best. He won't say why when I ask him why. He won't even acknowledge the question. After the 1000th time, I just sit there and think, "my dad's kind of a dick."

and behold, wuapinmon one-uppeth KL in the blasphemy department.

[clackamascoug]

Oh, my bad. Punctuation matters!



I won't rehash my old complaint with God, but I know this. Lets say that I was in need of my dad's help. Not wanting, needing. I asked my dad for help (I know he's dead, we're pretending here) help, and his response is to 'tell' me via not-saying-a-damned-thing-to-me whispers that he'll get around to it because he knows best. He won't say why when I ask him why. He won't even acknowledge the question. After the 1000th time, I just sit there and think, "my dad's kind of a dick."

... and when I looked back I noticed only one set of foot prints... that's when I realized that I was the dick.

[wuapinmon]

Who says he needs to explain himself?

Oh, my bad. Punctuation matters!

I don't know, maybe it's that we do a bad job of understanding, or better, we're really incapable of understanding. I kind of get the feeling that those luminaries in this world (and I use that term purposefully) who get more than the average glimpse of the numen are simply incapable of accurately describing it and those who are trying to understand are just as ill equipped for that particular task.

You put ten people through the same experience and they'd all describe it differently simply because they experienced it differently. I kind of feel like that's the way it will always be - flashes, glimpses, that are related in an imperfect manner which makes it that much easier for those that hear it to misunderstand.

I won't rehash my old complaint with God, but I know this. Lets say that I was in need of my dad's help. Not wanting, needing. I asked my dad for help (I know he's dead, we're pretending here) help, and his response is to 'tell' me via not-saying-a-damned-thing-to-me whispers that he'll get around to it because he knows best. He won't say why when I ask him why. He won't even acknowledge the question. After the 1000th time, I just sit there and think, "my dad's kind of a dick."