By the time of Christ monotheism was the order of the day. Even if you want to argue that early Israelites were monolatrists, you dodge the question of the intense, even militant, monotheism of Second Isaiah. Are you going to reject the parts of the Bible which are clearly and unambiguously monotheist? Because the clearly monotheistic portions are later than the fuzzy/monolatrist portions, understanding that perhaps God has clarified himself over time fits. This doesn’t work if you choose to read between the lines to get at monolatry (which, by the way, since the editors of the OT tried to minimize the suggestion in itself is another sign monotheism was the order of the day certainly by Christ) you have to willy nilly throw out the writings which are intensely monotheistic and go through a lot of bizarre manuevers to get around the fact that the standard Judaism that Christ came out of was monotheistic. Applying Occam’s Razor makes the first scenerio, theological development, stand out.

Why does traditional Christianity maintain that monotheism is the correct mode of worship? There is evidence that early Israelites practiced monoaltrism, which is similar to monotheism, but corresponds better with Mormon teachings.

jeff, that’s a given. There is no way to get out of having to take responsibility to figure things out best as we can with what we have. That at the very least demonstrates that we care about God.

And he made a good point: Historically, being part of the orthodoxy has NOT guaranteed that one’s beliefs were safely aligned with God’s position on things.

I don’t think you are a liar. I disagree with you, fundamentally, but you’ve shown yourself to be upfront and honest, plus very aware of the ins and outs of these debates.

I don’t mind being called out if you’ve think I’ve gone overboard. I may not agree with you, but I don’t mind the disagreement. Honestly, my moods change just like yours, some days I’m feeling more personal about things, other days less so and I’m sure that tone is reflected fairly bluntly in my posts.

The debate has gone beyond misunderstanding to the murky realm of simple, fundamental, disagreement. It’s murky because it’s always hard to accept that an opponent can understand your own position fairly well and yet have the audacity to disagree still. If the truth is so obvious, we think, understanding should lead to conversion (either which way). But it doesn’t. We still disagree. That’s the really interesting part, don’t you think?

I’m fairly certain I have the better argument at the end of the day, otherwise I would believe that which correlates to the even better argument. You probably feel the same way so… something to think about.

“If you choose to interpret that as fighting against it, that’s your prerogative.”

Yes, I know. I deliberately tried to keep my earlier posts on your threads a bit more restrained because I didn’t really feel like you were on the offensive (still don’t). So I tried not to as well.

But I got sucked into a Bible-bash with Darrell and I guess you got some of the spillover. I have a naturally combative personality that I struggle with. It especially gets bad when I’m trying to juggle several debates in my head at the same time.

I don’t particularly like playing FAIR apologist (at least, the nicer part of me doesn’t). But it tends to come out when I don’t think my faith is getting the respect that is due to it.

Cutting back on where I go on the internet wouldn’t be all that bad an idea either. Sometimes I stretch myself too thin and forget who I’m talking to.

One final note. Keep in mind that this issue of orthodoxy vs. orthopraxy (the original post) is a sore spot. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Christians call Mormons “sneaky” or “dishonest” just because we don’t worship the same way you do. Because we approach religion from different assumptions, we tend to misunderstand each other. Misunderstanding easily leads to accusations of dishonesty.

I’m really tired of being called a liar on the internet. Your post just tapped into that overall theme I guess.

No the apologies are mine. I clearly misunderstood your intentions with the Godmakers film. It can be hard to tell online sometimes what the intended meaning of a statement is, one of the unfortunate drawbacks.

The only way that the two infinite Beings could logically be constrained by the exact same constraints is to be the same Being. That is where the idea of separate persons sharing the same Being-ness comes from. To be God is to be truly unbounded and infinite– and a complete unity ( re the argument we’ve been discussing). It certainly seems reasonable then, to assume that there could be separate persons who share this identity as God.

Anyway, I don’t think it’s a good idea to tie this so directly to mathematics without strenuously defining what we are talking about. Consider, for instance, that you could have infinities in mathematics that look differently… some functions progress to infinity at a much faster rate than others. What exactly are we describing then?

Since God is not merely infinite IN spacetime, but beyond spacetime, we cannot so blithely talk about infinite sets borrowed from mathematics which speak about sets WITHIN three-four-five… spacetime dimensions.

“Well, if there is another infinite being there, then it is possible, theoretically, for that infinite being to impinge upont he choices of the other infinite being.”

No, it is not logically possible.

If there is another infinite being out there, that being would be bound by the same restraints as the first. Both would, by logic and necessity, be perfectly in unison of will and purpose.

A basic part of infinite set equations is that an infinite set can and does contain and infinite amount of also infinite sets.

Infinite numbers do not work the same way as finite numbers. Ask any PhD mathematician.

From the rest of your posts, I would indeed assume that you would not base your ideas of Mormonism from something like “The Godmakers.” I was not trying to put you in the same camp. I merely used the film to make a point of some false assumptions about Mormonism and its view.

No offense meant. Sorry about that.