Infinite Regress of Mormon Sex

[Peter]

You epically missed the point. Jews scorned early Christians because their scripture—geared towards calling Iron-Age idol-worshippers to repentance—spoke of One God; and the introduction of Jesus as a Son of God clearly made two deities; leading Jews to roll their eyes at this apparently obvious violation of the Shema and leaving Christians to squabble over a resolution for few centuries and bouncing between moralism, adoptionism, Arianism, binitarianism, and a cat’s cradle of other -isms; before coming up with a magical creed that basically said “Three. But really one. But three! And one! But there are three, but they are one, but not two and not four and not really three or one; but still three. And one. And Anathema on anyone who questions this!!!”
2. Sophistry. The material wasn’t good for anything until God came along and did something with it. I can worship a God who manipulates pre-existing material, just as I can enjoy a tomato without idolizing the dirt from which the tomato grew.
3. Time is my god? This keeps getting weirder and weirder. And I reiterate my point 6 above. It is not my worship, but yours, that gets distorted; because you’re nakedly admitting that you only follow God because you perceive Him to be powerful. There seems to be little room for love or faith in your theology.
4. I am sorry to say it so impolitely, but . . . This is a lie. Everyone here knows it is a lie. Do you really think we are unaware of the myriads of self-proclaimed Christians who subscribe to young-earth creationism and deny the big bang? I actually agree with you that the big bang, and ancient earth theories are probably scientifically sound given our current knowledge; but to tie them up with Christianity is thoroughly dishonest.
As for the idea that infinite regress of gods in Mormonism would be limited by the age of the universe (whatever it may be)—you assume that all divine beings must exist solely within this particular universe. Mormonism makes no such claim.
5. This seems like a bait-and-switch—we were talking about the creation of spirits and then you whip out the old “but you say Jesus was physically conceived through SEXXXXXXXXX” saw that is entirely unrelated to this thread!
But, since you went there, I’ll bite: as I said in the other thread, your allegation is a position embraced by a handful of Mormonism’s over one-hundred past and present apostles. Just doing a cursory search of recent LDS Conference sermons I see that the virgin birth of Christ was defended or affirmed by, inter alia, Neil Anderson (April 2013), Russell Nelson (April 1988), Howard Hunter (Oct 1968), Mark Peterson (October 1965 and again in 1979), Sterling W. Sill (April 1966), Theodore Burton (October 1964), J. Reuben Clark (October 1956), and Bruce McConkie himself (April 1977 and again in 1982). It is also taught in Church instructional manuals (“Gospel Principles” chapter 11, “Old Testament Student Manial” chapter 13, “Jesus Christ: Son of God” (unnumbered; e-pamphlet accessible via Gospel Library app), “Jesus the Christ” chapter 7, and “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith” chapter 1. And this is by no means a comprehensive list.
Another misrepresentation you make: I have not “spiritualized” sexual relations; I have simply pointed out that sex is not biologically necessary for the creation of a human being. Since God only ever begat the physical body of one human being during the entire history of the earth, there was no precedent requiring He must do it in a particular way. It seems to be you, not I, who are now demanding that God “bring [Himself] down to man’s level” so that your own argument doesn’t fall apart.
6. First, you keep bringing in new and false interpolations of LDS teaching. Mormonism does not teach that either Jesus or God the Father ever sinned.
Second, this fetish with identifying and worshiping the ultimate creator really reduces to so much sophistry. Your logic would suggest that I ought never to eat a meal prepared by a cook who did not himself grow the potatoes, create the dirt from which the potatoes grew, and lay the egg that hatched the chicken he puts in the oven. It is, frankly, silly.
Finally, the thrust of my analogy wasn’t God’s love for man; it assessed man’s (specifically, your) love for God. It is unfortunate that you did not engage with it; because your philosophy really seems to suggest that religious devotion should be rooted in fear and/or ambition rather than love. Perhaps we can explore that tomorrow.

1. There were Jews who were looking for the Messiah Jesus and there were Jews who were looking for something else. Don't mingle them together. Or blame the fault of one on the other. These squabbles of a distorted Christs was not among Christians, but in defense of Christianity against false teachers. Nothing was lost for 18 centuries.

2. I am glad you noticed your pre-existing self "wasn't good for anything" to show your view is false. God creates man in His image so man was never in a state of good for nothing. Your analogy breaks down because God created the dirt and the fruit that you idolize ahead of God. Dirt did not always exist. God created it. Your god did not create it but is limited by dirt. My God is transcendent.

3. God is loving and omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent, what Mormonism is sorely lacking. Since your god lacks these qualities, God of the Bible trumps your gods.

4. I am not aware of any Christian who denies the big bang, or accepts young earth. I know someone who believes in flat earth with all his heart and soul, but that very thing expresses the fact that he is not a Christian. Gen. 1.1 fits perfectly with the big bang. And the 6 days sum up the period of restoration after God caused earth to become desolate and waste in Gen. 1.2 due to the sin of the inhabitants of earth's earliest ages.

5. That which is born of the flesh, the Bible says, is flesh. There is no other way so there is not some sex-fest going up in their with God the Father and Goddess mother. Take sex off your brain. Since the Bible disallows any other kind of procreation, you have distorted Jesus as being conceived by sex, as you admit many leaders of Mormonism attested to. That is raping his own daughter to conceive Jesus.

6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. No human being ever existed who did not sin and that includes your Jesus and Father. Mormon leaders attest to this as well. Many LDS sects I am sure fight over this. As Joseph Smith said as man is God once was and as God is man may become. Your idol is the dirt, the placing of your existence from the beginning, which debases and restricts God to the dirt. Whereas in Christianity God created all things. It is quite strenuous to accept Jesus said He created all things then try to get out of that claim.

[Peter]

1. You may be a little confused, in that there are Mormons who buy into a folk belief in Mormonism that Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother create spirits (not physical bodies) through sexual intercourse. But this, again, is not endorsed by the collective body of LDS leadership; and at any rate, it has nothing to do with how physical bodies are created. 2. So, having been defeated in your assertion that Mormons believe God and Mary had sex; you now shift to an argument that Mormons believe God is essentially human. Now, if I were feeling pedantic I might re-word that to suggest that Mormons believe humans are essentially embryonic gods; but if you insist on using your own verbiage then all I can say is: guilty! 3. Your statement here is interesting in that it seems to confirm what I suggested earlier: that you’re worried that a god might take sexual pleasure in impregnating a mortal. As for the power imbalances: I resolve the issue, not by saying that God as a non-human creator has a right to unilaterally impose any burdens He wants on his creations (including unplanned, unsolicited pregnancy and child-rearing) and that they are duty-bound to hail the imposition as a blessing; but by concluding that Mary knew and trusted and loved God enough to submit to His will in spite of any short-term costs; and that she did so freely and voluntarily. On your question about placing seed in one’s own daughter: as I outline earlier in this post, Mary is not physically God’s daughter; so the analogy is a non-starter. In Mormonism Mary’s relationship to God is most closely analogous to that of creature to creator, not of daughter to father; and Mormons have no more reason to find the incident disturbing than Protestants do.

1. If the Goddess mother is not having sex to produce spirit beings and is not how physical beings are created then what is she doing? As you know in Christianity there is no Goddess mother. The idea is ridiculous, considering after all the Bible says there is no marriage in heaven.

2. God of Mormonism would have to have sex with Mary since the God of Mormonism is a man. A man always remains a man.

3. You're looking forward to the sexual pleasure of having sex with mortals after you become a God?

4. I still think it is wrong for God to have sex with his own daughter.

5. Mary is physically God the Father's daughter in Mormonism since she was created by him. It's wrong to have sex with your own daughter. This whole problem arises because you make people gods. This problem doesn't occur for the uncreated Creator who created time and space. Big difference!

[Peter]

A big picture thing here is that LDS believe that Truth comes from God, via revelation. We do not believe that Truth comes from men and men's reasoning. Hence scripture is praised, and the Creeds are rejected.
I know that @Just_A_Guy already addressed these initial questions, but I feel its' best if I re-address them rather than the tangent..
LDS believe the Father, Son, and Spirit are three different persons in ONE God, via unity.
Creedal Christians believe the Father, Son, and Spirit are three different persons in ONE God, via a shared substance. Scripture does not teach this, in fact it makes no mention of God's substance at all. Rather this is a teaching of the post-Bibilcial Creeds.
I respect that you may very well agree with the above statement. I/we respect your view and right to disagree with it. But as you asked us to explain LDS views, which is the above, regardless of what any thinks about it.
That's not why you should feel humility to God.Rather, scripture teaches you should feel humble towards God because you (natively) are a prisoner of sin in desperate need of His saving. I can't speak as to what your sinners are, so I'll speak to mine: I am natively prideful, petty, and vindictive. Left to my own devises I do many things which are wrong and turn against God. I cannot overcome this by myself by any stretch of the imagination. I desperately need a Savior to wash away my past sins, and raise me up today to over come my habitual sinful ways. Christ is my Savior-- and everyone else's. There is no other and no other way towards God.

Since ancient Israel was monotheistic, redefining the term God will not work.

Your sin is so great you have exalted yourself alongside God claiming you always existed.

Your sin is so great you don't want redemption other than through a distorted Christ. This distorted Christ did not create all things; whereas Jesus did. He said so along with the Father and the Spirit.

The only one qualified to atone for sins is God, not a redefined God, but the Triune God who brought time and space and matter into existence.

Atheists also reject the uncreated Creator. They believe in an eternity of the past of cause and effects.

I don't know how to distinguish Mormonism from Atheism.

[Peter]

1. Ah, the beloved “no true Scotsman” approach.
2. All analogies break down if strained in ways they were never intended to be used. The point, of course, was that enjoying or adoring the product does not entail either idolatry towards or superiority of the raw material.
I don’t see what you’re getting at with your citing my statement about intelligence not being good for much until God converts it into something better. Sounds like you’re trying to play “gotcha” on a point about which we ultimately agree—that it is God who gives meaning to all.
3. A god with ALL those traits would be fascinating; but the problem of theodicy tells us that of omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence—you can pick two of any three traits, but won’t get the third. And I have yet to meet a mainline Christian who could really articulate just what “omnipresent”’ is supposed to mean.
And I reiterate: Your entire argument to now has been that man’s emotional attachment to God derives, not from God’s original love, but from His original power.
4. You are either a) stupendously sheltered, b) trotting out your “no true Scotsman” fallacy again, or c) not telling the truth.
5. This is amusing. You bring up the idea that Jesus was conceived sexually; you perseverate on it even after I point out that it was neither scientifically nor theologically necessary; you bring up the idea of goddess-sex; but I’m the one with sex on my brain?
And there is nothing either in scripture or science saying that human reproduction can only occur through intercourse. Perhaps you are suggesting that in-vitro fertilization is a scientific hoax?
Also, re Jesus’ conception—I did not say “many”; I said “some”. The number of LDS apostles I cited who disageeed with it outnumbered the number of apostles you could find agreeing with it, on the order of seven or eight to one.
6. Where to start on this one?
Mormonism is crystal-clear that Jesus committed no sin whatsoever. You insist that notwithstanding this, Mormonism requires Jesus to have been sinful because He was human, conceived by a mortal mother and by some physical seed from an immortal Father. You imply that the Bible says no human, ever, can live a sinless life. In fact, the Bible never states this as an absolute of the human condition (the author of Ecclesiastes says there is no sinless man, at a time when Jesus hasn’t been born yet; and Paul cites Ecclesiastes to liken it to the state of the specific audience to whom he was writing and which audience did not include Jesus). Moreover, your grounds for denying Jesus’ humanity—in spite of a human and mortal mother, in spite of His repeated self-references as the “Son of Man”, in spite of His body, in spite of His ability to ingest food and to breathe and to bleed and His need for sleep, in spite of His sufferings and in spite of His death—are pretty darned artificial.
As for who our idols supposedly are—first off, the supposedly primordial material isn’t dirt, it’s intelligence; which Mormons often defined as “light and truth”. So let me ask you something:
If your god were a god of darkness and lies, but was still the mightiest being in the universe—would you still worship it?
Tell me, Parture. You’ve told a lot of lies about Mormon teaching in these two discussions in which we have been participating. Do you think Jesus cares?

1. Who can deny there are Jews who believed in the Messiah unless you are anti-Semetic?

2. An idol is placing something before God. You have certainly done that with your infinite regress, pre-existence, material, intelligences all concoctions to not submit yourself to the uncreated Creator.

3. Your God is not omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, righteous, holy, and love. There is no love having sex with your own daughter. There is no righteousness getting someone else to die for sins; whereas the creator Jesus did die for sins.

4. No Christian believes in young earth or denies the big bang. Christians believe in science.

5. Mormons believe in a Goddess Mother not Christians. There is no Goddess mother to be found in Scriptures. What's up with that? You see the sex between God the Father and God the Mother as some eternal sex-fest. Jesus was conceived not through sex-fest so your conception of God is wrong. Alarm bells should go off when you refer to Jesus as the brother of the Devil the Antichrist. Jesus had no brothers or sisters in 3rd heaven.

6. All men sin, for all men are born of the flesh. Therefore the Mormon Jesus sinned. In Christianity Jesus is the Creator of the universe, time and space so Jesus could be conceived by the Holy Spirit and does not require a Father impregnating his own daughter.