Philosophical Question

[James Moore]

So...it's wrong for people to try to better themselves or be good? Why bother doing anything?

[Jesse]

Why bother being good? Because we have a conscience, because God is good, because we can feel good, because we can get along socially, because we will be rewarded both now by a God who made the earth and in heaven by a God who made heaven. The issue is not whether we should be good, it's how good is good enough.

When it comes to earning a heaven made by an infinitely good God, there is no good good enough. But that's exactly why this infinitely good God gives the free gift of entrance into heaven to all those He's made simply by believing "that He is and that He rewards those who seek Him." (Hebrews 11) This is the only way a good God can truly be good and loving to all and maintain His standard of good.

Imagine the arrogance of Jesus' statement, "I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." (John 16:4) But Jesus could make this statement because He was the only Son of God, God Himself, and He offered Himself for all who believe to come to the Father.

How good is good enough? If you're working your way to heaven you will never have assurance that you're getting there, you will possibly never be good enough. If you accept God's free gift by faith, you can have assurance that you have eternal life right now.

And when you have assurance of heaven, of a Gracious God, I don't prove to Him that I'm good enough, but I certainly please Him by living well in this good earth that He's made and looking forward in hope to heavenly reward as well.

[James Moore]

Jesse you are now arguing with yourself. I am done here.

[Jesse]

I'm truly sorry if I seem unclear. It comes down to this, are you trusting in your good works to be your salvation, or are you trusting in a good God to be your salvation? If I adopt a son he can either accept my love and live like a son or he can act like he's always trying to please me and prove that he's worthy to be my son. Wouldn't I want my son to live in my love, he doesn't have to prove anything to me? He pleases me because he accepts my love, and out of that love he can live a great life, not perfect of course but he can be assured he has a loving Father who will always be there for him.

Many people didn't believe in Jesus even when he was on the earth, in fact it seems that more didn't believe than did. They were tripped up by Jesus' simple message of God's unconditional love and receiving eternal life by faith. They wanted to be validated in their own goodness, their own works, by following the Jewish law, by being good enough. They couldn't understand a God who was so good and so loving, this is biblical Christianity. Every religion in the world says, "Do good and live." Jesus says, "He who believes in me has eternal life."

[James Moore]

Jesse,

I understand what you're saying, it's just that it has no relevance to what this thread was originally about. We were discussing whether or not it would be better if everyone were Mormon. I don't disagree with your interpretation of the bible, but it is irrelevant. From the standpoint of someone who does not believe the bible to be true, using quotes from the bible to make your point makes no sense.

[Jeffrey McClellan]

Jesse,

From my perspective it appears the issue you are having is related not to the doctrine of the LDS church, nor that taught in the Book of Mormon, but rather to a common misunderstanding of our doctrine espoused by members and non-members alike.  The following video does a good job of explaining our stance on grace and works.  It is a speech entitled "His Grace is Sufficient" which was given at a BYU devotional in 2011.

http://www.byutv.org/watch/49475abb-10d4-4f45-a757-7000b9945468

[Sasha Pachev]

James:

Have you ever lost a chess game by moving the wrong pawn at the wrong time?  Better yet, have you lost it because of it, but did not realize it at the moment you made the move and only figured it out when somebody with more experience showed you the significance of your mistake (e.g. through a crushing response)? I do not have the time now to find a position where a faulty pawn move is absolutely disastrous, but it is sufficiently subtle that a class D player will never see the punishment on his own, class C player will see it given 5 minutes to think, class B sees it in 2 minutes, class A in 1, expert in 30 seconds, national master in 15,  and international master and above sees it as fast as they see a knight fork on a king and a queen. I'll try to find one - I think until we go through it I cannot quite communicate my point.

[Sasha Pachev]

James:

Here is the promised position, sort of. It is not quite of the level of difficulty as I promised - I did not have the time to search for one, so I just made it up. With me being only a class B player myself in a matter of minutes I could only come up with something of a limited level of difficulty. In this particular position, I would expect class C player to see the punishment for white moving the pawn from d4 to d5 in 10 seconds. I tested in on Benjamin who is also a class B player (maybe in reality class A based on a few of his recent games, but he still has to prove it and earn it officially) - he saw the punishment instantly.

So take a look at this:

http://asksasha.com/chess1.gif

White to move. It is tempting to play d4-d5 forking the knight and the rook. But it is a game losing blunder. Can you tell me why?

[James Moore]

I can't get that link to open, but I'll take your word for it.

My point is that losing pawns is sometimes necessary even if it is sometimes catastrophic. Really though, it's at this point that the chess analogy becomes weak. In chess, there exist better players that can be asked for advice. These players are easily identifiable thanks to the chess rating system. The rating system relies on the fact that in each game there is a clear winner and loser. Moreover, both players agree on who won as everyone agrees on the rules and the objectives. This is not the case with life, which is why we like to spend so much of our time/energy playing games.

Here are a couple of thought experiments:

Suppose you become busy with work and you don't have time to teach your younger children how to play chess. You trust their ability to learn on their own, but you want to give them some good advice. You decide to write up a set of guidelines (similar to your advice on running a sub 2:30 marathon). Would you write this up as a set of 'guidelines' or a set of 'rules'? I would think that you would right it up as a set of guidelines. You would hope that your children would start by following your advice, but then they would come to learn situations where 'rules' could be bent or even broken and they would be better players for it.

Another way to think about it. Suppose you set out to prove me wrong and right out a set of 'rules that will never be broken even by a grandmaster'. I imagine this set of rules would be extremely long. It would be incredibly difficult to write and almost impossible to read. But let's suppose that your child is smart enough and patient enough to use it correctly. You give this super book to Stephen and tell him to always follow it no matter what. You give the a simpler set of guidelines to Matthew. To begin with Stephen always wins swiftly. Matthew learns much simpler from studying Stephen moves as well as your own guidelines but can never win. But who is really the better chess player in this scenario? Who would win if you took away their aides. And given that the number of possible chess games far exceeds the number of atoms in the universe, what happens when the limit of Stephen's super book is reached? I would argue that Matthew wins in the end and ends up the better player.

Many years later Stephen and Matthew are the two greatest chess players on Earth. Someone shows up from another planet and challenges our planet to a battle of wits, similar to the movie Space Jam but with chess instead of basketball. However, this space chess has weird rules. For example, the starting position of the knights and bishops might be mixed, the pawns move diagonally except when capturing, the board is a giant sphere, etc. These rules subtly change the game to the point that the super book is now useless or close to useless.

[Sasha Pachev]

James:

What browser are you using? This is a GIF file. Try Firefox or Chrome. I feel my point is not complete without that position.

Now we are not talking about losing a pawn here - just moving it onto a square that appears very attractive, and, unless your rating is 1500 or higher, you will struggle somewhat understanding how to punish such a move.

In chess we can ask grandmasters for advice. In matters of morality we can ask the Lord. And there are winners and losers. Except you have to die to know "scientifically" who won and who lost. Just like in a chess game - if you  make a bad move, you might not find out it was bad for a long time. But you can know by faith, and that is the whole point of living here. This is why the Bible and the Book of Mormon come to us in a simple book form and not delivered to everybody in some spectacular manner. Are we able to read those books and recognize their origin through the Holy Ghost?

Assuming your rating is significantly below 1500 (if not replace the position I created with something harder that is appropriate for your level). Look at the diagram. Now suppose you have a grandmaster advising you on your moves, but you do not know who he is. You are about to play d4-d5. He is screaming at you. He is hysterical.  You do not understand what's wrong with him. You think he is nuts. This looks like a great move - you are going to win a piece. You dismiss him as some crazy guy and make the move. Now it is your opponent's turn. He listens to his grandmaster adviser. What does he do?

[James Moore]

Ironically, I was using chrome. Then I tried internet explorer and it worked! Yes, I see sacrificing the pawn would lead to a check mate on the next turn with the knight and the queen.

I accept that, if this were a more complicated example, then I would require advice. I also accept that, in such a situation someone who listened to a grand master would beat me. But what if the chess player ONLY ever did what the grand master said? Would they really be a good chess player? For one thing, they would never be able to beat the grand master? In this way, listening to the grand master serves as a crutch in place of real skill.

Now in this analogy if 'the grand master'=God, then this is not really a problem. If someone lives their life getting advice directly from God and following it perfectly then, assuming that God really is omnibenevolent, that's the best you can possibly do.

In most religions the source of advice isn't just God. There are books, priests, etc. Not only that their are so many of them from different religions. Maybe their advice is really, really good. But in some cases it seems to be just wrong, it seems like the prejudices or the flaws of the individual have corrupted it. Consider what Brigham Young said about Africans. It took until 1978 for this policy to change, because, apparently people were more interested following what the church had always done rather than what God told them to do. I'm quite sure that the vast majority of Mormon's at that time were NOT racist...so perhaps they would have been better of following their conscience.

[Sasha Pachev]

James:

I want to make sure you really understand the position as it was not clear from your comment about the mate with the queen and a knight. Can you post more specifics? So White plays 1 d5 - what does black do? 1 ... ?  Assuming black responds correctly the next move is forced. 2 ? 3 ? Then what? Did you realize what role the queen is playing in the mate assuming white defends correctly after the 1 d5 blunder?

Once you get those details figured out, explain the job that the pawn was doing on d4 that made the above punishment impossible.

[Kevin Smith]

Let's move beyond chess comparisons.  I am really and truly honest if the world would be better off is everyone was LDS, it seems as long as your a straight white male it's great.  But the continued discrimination based upon gender, race and sexual orientation is worrisome at best.  I will say LDS probably stands somewhere in the middle of religions on the issues of tolerance, but I think that says more about the institutional shortcomings of religion in general. 

Why do you say LDS is the best choice? Why not Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, some variety of Protestant, or another religion that more than 0.2% of the population has agreed is the right path to God or Gods.

[James Moore]

Sorry, I should have been more specific

W: d4-d5 (This is a mistake because it opens up the White Queen so it can trap the King)

B: knight g4 to f2 Check (I originally thought this was checkmate, but now I see it blocks the Queen again)

W: Forced to move King H1 to G1

B: knight F2 to E4 check (queen this time)

W: Has two options at this point King goes to either F1 or H1

B: Knight e4 to g3 checkmate no matter where the King is.

So 3 moves instead of one.

[James Moore]

And remember, this is not a debate about which religion (if any) is true.