Mosiah 4

Mosiah 4:27

“… for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength…”

Humanity is stupid. As creatures we are nowhere close to understanding or being part or in harmony with the divine. Thank God that reaching our goal does not depend on how fit we are, but only on whether we are striving appropriately. Our best thoughts are completely evil, but what counts is when we try our best to be good. Does this seem like pretending?

“… And again, it is expedient that he might win the prize…”

            This is not pretending, although are acts of goodness may as well be pretension. But when we have a genuine desire to be good we only do “good” the best we know how, even if it is only as good as pretending to do “good”. If a baby is crying on the hot asphalt in the middle of the street, and the best we can do is drop a cracker beside him and pretend to ourselves that we help him out, though our acts are still evil and pathetic, they are enough for God.

Written 9-23-14

Mosiah 4:2

“And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth…”

They were able to see themselves in a new light. They saw themselves in the light of such a great manifestation that they saw their worthlessness. This is an essential revelation that all must have. People tend to have a degree of pride that is part of their everyday lives. This degree of pride makes one think that their life matters, that they have a duty and a responsibility to make something out of their existence. This degree of pride makes one think that they must succeed and excel beyond what they are, that they must make themselves suffer through great efforts to make certain things happen; and yet, the collective struggles of all of humanity do not even measure up to a whimper in the universe. In the light of God we may as well not exist.

Mosiah 4:5

“For behold, if the knowledge of the goodness of God at this time has awakened you to a sense of your nothingness, and your worthless and fallen state –”

Mosiah 4:11

“I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility,”

This realization frees you from all responsibility, from all desire and pressure to change something in the world. It makes one’s pain, conflicts, struggles, meaningless. One can finally rest from the cares of the world and admit that they could never make anything “meaningful” no matter how much they try. It is all in God’s hands, there is nothing on your shoulders. God carries all burdens, you are free to roam or to stay, you are free to run or to struggle, but you are never obligated to do either.

Mosiah 4:11

“And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of an angel.”

Written 9-24-14

2 Nephi 2

Verse 11:
"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteous could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness not misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if iy should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.'

One of the beliefs that I keep hearing (and that seems to be essential to the Mormon tradition), is that original sin was necessary for humanity to evolve out of the state of innocence. That life in Eden was not enough; it was not bad, but then it could not be good either. And so, it was necessary for them to obtain the knowledge of good and evil, so that they could practice their "agency" (agency is an essential concept in Mormonism) and thus grow in goodness towards God's perfection.
This idea is not quite dualistic by saying that life and world must always have good and evil, instead it admits goodness within a dualistic nature but goes on to explain that even though this dualism was necessary in the origin that the purpose of this dualism was to grow perfectly into goodness and eventually eradicate evil.

"And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and  they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery, doing no good, for they knew no sin."
- 2 Nephi 2:22-23

In a "Practical Theology" class I took I read about Niehbur and how he thought that the reason why man was prone to sin was because of his "dual" nature. Because man is both animal and spirit, both spiritual and physical, he ends up desiring things that he cannot have. This is a problem for man because he ends up resorting to inappropriate measure to obtain the impossible; what else would he resort to? In this sense, it is the conflicting nature of the way that God formed him, that forced man to sin. And through the same token, it makes sin not an unnecessary and negative element; but an unavoidable step in the process of the growth of man.
And so, it seems that we are still in our embryonic stage as mankind lives in the state of sin. God is still creating us, and he will only finalize his creation, we will only be born until we are resurrected into perfection. Then we will truly be able to say with God that what he created was indeed good. (Read Romans 8:19-29)

This reflects another common concept that without evil, good cannot be defined; without pain there would be no pleasure; and without tragedy there would be no success.
I may believe this common concept but I also believe that evil is unnecessary, and therefore it logically follows that I believe that good is also unnecessary. In other words, as the Mormons would put it, I would have preferred to have stayed in a state of innocence in Eden. But this is because, I think that good and evil are misconceptions of reality. The knowledge of good and evil really is a fall, because Adam and Eve fell from reality into an illusion, and I want to wake up out of that dream.

Written 9-4-2014



Verse 23:

"And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery, doing no good, for they knew no sin."
In one of the conversations I had with the missionaries, they pointed out that God gave Adam two certain commandments... 1: Thou shall not take of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and 2: be fruitful and multiply. Also, they always say that if Adam would have not transgressed he would not have had any children. So in conclusion, what God was giving them was an impossible ultimatum. Either they would not take the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and not be fruitful and multiply, or they would be fruitful and multiply only after they took the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You cannot follow one commandment without breaking the other.
According to them, God knew this and he had planned for it all along.

Genesis 1

Genesis 1

Verse 7

“And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from waters which were above the firmament.”

The first times I read through this verse with an attentive intent, I glanced over this verse without wondering what it meant too much.  Maybe it was a typo, maybe it was talking about something else, maybe I misread.  I disregarded it for a while, but then the inevitable question came back.

Waters above the firmament?

What could it be talking about?

Is there really water above our sky or is this “firmament” refer to some other firmament?

The next verse confirms the meaning of this firmament.

Verse 8

“And God called the firmament Heaven.  And the evening and the morning were the second day.”

I noticed that in the KJV, Heaven is spelled with a capital “H”; maybe it refers to a higher heaven?

So far up to the end of the universe maybe?

Is that what surrounds our universe? Water?

And what would such water be like?

What form would it take in such location?

Would it be an ethereal state of water and therefore have a metaphorical meaning, and not really a physical state of water?

Or is this just a cheap way to explain why the sky is blue?

I looked back to it a couple of times each time I thought about it, to make sure it actually said that.  Even now it surprises me when I read it.

For a while I believed that the mysterious contents of the ends of the universe was, therefore, water;

especially because in verse 14 and 15, God places “lights” in this firmament (the sun, the moon, and the stars… galaxies and such), and if there is water above the firmament, then the water is found above all of these.  In other words, at the ends of the universe.

Until I read Genesis 7:11 where it says that the ”windows of heaven were opened” and torrents of water poured out…  So I guess there is no more water at the ends of the Universe.  I still wondered whether all or only some of the water was flushed out.

Verse 22

“And God blessed them, saying, be fruitful, and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.”

When I think of God’s words I think of something engraved in reality itself, this is how God is able to “speak things into existence”.  When God gave the command to be fruitful and multiply, I imagine it as a description of the manifestation that happened within the instinctual mind and physical anatomy and neuro-anatomy of these beings.  When God commands for something to happen, the universe morphs itself to match his command; when God commands us to do something, that command becomes part of us, so that if we decide to go against His command, we are ultimately going against something that is intrinsically and naturally part of our constitution and/or part of the design of the universe as well (and this is what is called chaos/darkness/evil/etc.).

June 15, 2012