“Clearly, there was a time when I didn’t exist, but now I do. There is a saying that it is the clothes that make the man, but when I change my clothes during the day, I am not then a different individual. I am still the same person. If I wake up pale in the morning, spend the day at the beach and come home at night tanned, or more likely red, I am not thereby a different individual. I am still the same person. Even if I have organ transplants from another person, I am not a different individual. I am still the same person. My thoughts and emotions are essentially the same. Even if I change my mind and my attitude and my emotions, I am still me. How can I change so much and still continue to exist as the same person? What is that key element that makes me “me”?” Paraphrase of an argument posed by John Duns Scotus (c. 1266 – 8 November 1308) Link here.
Body & Soul
The soul has been described as the “animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life. When someone dies, that animating principle is suddenly absent. We can’t say exactly what it is, but we note its loss. Since the body remains, we see these two things as separate: a body which is animated by . . . an essence. And because they can be separate (or at least the essence can be absent from the body), the question arises where did that essence originate and where did it go? Did it come into being at birth (or before) and does it end at death (or later)?
The soul is “that which confers individuality and humanity”. The soul is the “seat of human personality, intellect, will, and emotions”. What an excellent description of what makes me, “me”! (see above link)
From another perspective (link here), we are all comprised of two parts: animal and spiritual. “What part of my consciousness is the physical and what part is the spiritual?” The post continues:
“You are who you are because that is who you have developed into and you have a special purpose in life. Your life experience is unique to you. Your personality, character, your body and your soul are all unique to you.”
Those developed qualities are a reaction to our need for survival (physical) in the unique environment into which we are born, an environment which is in some ways not optimal for our survival. Our response to that imperfect environment creates the neural pathways that become our unique personality. Or so this theory goes. If I were born into a much more hostile environment (hostile to my survival) would I still be me or would the me created by those circumstances be so substantially different, that my character and personality would not be me? It’s hard to say, but it’s the stuff of fanfic. At heart, that’s a nature vs. nurture argument.
The Perpetual Body
Science and medicine teach us that over about a seven year period an individual’s cell structure is completely renewed, that is, by age seven or so, there is not a single cell left in the body that was there at birth. The cells at birth have all died and been replaced, but I am still the same person. From birth to youth to young adulthood to middle age to retirement age to old age my entire body structure is replaced repeatedly, but I am the same person. What is it in me that makes that true?
A classic Star Trek (original series) episode is one called “By Any Other Name.” In this episode, a band of hostile aliens in humanoid form takes over the Enterprise. Captain Kirk tricks them by using their newly-acquired human nature to overcome their alien traits and mission of conquest. By taking on human form, they have changed their very nature! Rather than the spirit (their alien interior self) being in charge of and directing the body, the body influences and changes the spirit.
It’s an interesting philosophical question (and not just because it gives Kirk an excuse to make out with yet another nubile alien female). Does form follow function or does function follow form? Are our natures influenced and altered by our physical self or is only the reverse true? The title of the episode is ironic because unlike Juliet’s assertion (the line is from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet), the episode shows that they are fundamentally altered by their physical bodies. They aren’t the same “by any other name.” Their physical change includes personality-altering features like emotions and hormones, and as a result, they are not the same beings.
Fake It Till You Make It
There is an adage in English with a grain of truth to it: “Fake it till you make it.” In other words, taking on the physical characteristics that accompany the psychological traits you want to portray will result in your actually having those traits. The body tricks (or conversely, teaches) the mind to be a certain way. Feel nervous? Stand up straight, look people in the eye and smile. You’ll feel less nervous. Do it long enough, and you will be a more confident person.
Even pretending you know the answer to a tough question results in actually knowing more answers to questions. You can make mistakes, but a study from Scientific American shows that you can actually release abilities you didn’t have with other thoughts: stronger muscles, better vision, and even access to information you didn’t realize you had. (Link here)
“There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person’s level of general knowledge. Psychologists Ulrich Weger and Stephen Loughnan recently asked two groups of people to answer questions. People in one group were told that before each question, the answer would be briefly flashed on their screens — too quickly to consciously perceive, but slow enough for their unconscious to take it in. The other group was told that the flashes simply signaled the next question. In fact, for both groups, a random string of letters, not the answers, was flashed. But, remarkably, the people who thought the answers were flashed did better on the test. Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right.” (see above link)
This idea that what we believe about our abilities can limit or unleash our abilities is called “priming,” and it’s behind studies that show that marginalized groups often do worse on certain types of tests when they are “primed” (either immediately beforehand or throughout their lives) to believe they will not perform well on that type of test. Statements like “people from your school tend to do well on this test” improved test scores measurably. Likewise, statements like “men usually outperform women in this subject, but do your best” produce a dampening effect on women’s scores.
Even for those with brain damage, neuroplasticity advances have retaught the brain to perform functions of a damaged primary system using a repurposed secondary system. People have learned to overcome a lost sense of balance, lost memory, language skills, or motor skills through the efforts of neuroplastic training. In addition to functionally retraining itself or even restructuring an undamaged area to compensate for injury in another area, the brain can even do something called neurogenesis, creating new neurons to overcome losses associated with the effects of stress, aging, or injury.
Mortal Probation
By contrast, perhaps, the Mormon theology notion that our mortal life is a test of our character would indicate that we believe that the physical world, our circumstances of birth, and our bodies (including their emotions, hormones, intellectual capacity, and limitations) are mere parameters of a test, not an intrinsic part of who we are; if the test conditions alter the test subject, it’s not a very good test. Or if they do alter who we are, surely our mortal probation must be handicapped to account for difficulty level.
About a year ago, one of my daughter’s church teachers was talking about mortal probation and made the comment that they were chosen for the life they had because they could handle tough things. She went on to explain her perspective that these upper middle class girls living in Scottsdale were living the most challenging life out there (on what basis their lives could be deemed difficult, I was equally agog with my daughter and her friends). They didn’t have the “life of ease” that others without the gospel had been given. This was a pretty nutty version of Mormon Persecution Complex in my book.
The reverse is something I’ve thought about a lot, though. Why was I given a mortal probation in which I had parental support, clean drinking water, enough food to eat, clothes to wear, consistent shelter, while others were not? We worked with a Cambodian charity when we lived in Asia, and we met and worked with women my exact age, born the same year I was, who had lived under the evils of the Khmer Rouge regime, seeing their whole families slaughtered, forced to participate in atrocities themselves or be killed. Why was I given the easy test? Why did they get the horrific one?
We know we die. We know our bodies decay after death. But does the soul decay? Is it eternal? We have a theological statement that the body is temporal and temporary. It’s part of a physical world that is a probationary period for our spirit. The spirit is eternal; the body is not. But does the body change the spirit? Does our physical state alter our mental state?
Prolonged illness affects mental state, sometimes causing depression and anxiety, even shortening our mortality. Physical impacts change emotional responses. A brain tumor can radically alter personality by interfering with reasoning or with appropriate emotional suppression. While the idea of the “criminally insane” is the purview of comic books, criminal cases have used brain injury as a justification defense. [hint: it’s not an easy case to make, although research shows correlation].
Discussion
- Would you still be you if you were born in completely different circumstances? A different country, economic strata, race, sex, religion, era of human history?
- Would you still be you if your brain were injured, suddenly allowing your worst impulses to flourish (or conversely, making you suddenly a better person)?
- Would you still be you if your physical traits were dramatically altered through the course of life events?
- Does negative “priming” alter the chances people have to do well in their mortal probation? Does positive “priming” give others an unfair advantage on the mortal probation test? Will mortality scores be adjusted for this at the judgment bar?
- How much change can you undergo before you are no longer you?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
The opening paragraph, attributed to Scotus, should be pondered by the LGBTQ etc. etc. etc.
C. S. Lewis, quoting from George MacDonald: “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
How different would I (my soul) be if I had been born in Cambodia? I don’t know, but I want to think I would be me.
I like how you said that if the test conditions alter the test subject, then it isn’t a good test. Because one of my problems with Mormonism is that our earthly conditions are so different, that how can this possibly be a fair “test”? It is obvious when you study psychology, that our physical experience (nurture) does alter what we become. Our physical body itself alters who we are as when one of a set of identical twins is born with birth defects, or androgen insensitivity turns a XY child into a female physically. If all this is true, which it is, then this mortal test cannot be fair.
Look at who makes to to top leadership in the church. Not one person born into an abusive family. No one born to starving parents in a third world country. And I could name a dozen other things that are just too hard to overcome and so the person doesn’t have time or emotional energy to devote to hours and hours of church service. So, either the top leadership of the were given the easy life because they are such weak spirits, or they is something “off” about the whole “test” idea.
I had a professor in college who called tests “learning experiences” and said that if we didn’t learn something by taking his test, then he had failed. He wanted us to learn something from a pop quiz, or the mid term test to apply to either the final exam, our licensing exam, or just life in general. He wanted us to know that this one test isn’t all there is. I think the Mormon perspective of life as a test is off in that same way. Life is not *the* final test of an eternity of preparation, but one learning experience out of many we will have during eternity. Whether you want to call it the early Christian belief of reincarnation, or the early Mormon belief of multiple mortal probations, or something else, this life has to be one of many learning experiences. It cannot be a final test. If it is, then it is so unfair as to render God a jerk and God is no jerk.
If I had been born into a poor family in India in the fifteenth century, with a totally different culture and language, I would not be anything like who I am now. I might have had a few of the same personality quirks, but I believe I would have been more a reflection of the familial and cultural influences around me. Language has a huge impact on who we become. I have also noticed a distinct effect on my character produced over the past twenty years by the occupation I happened to fall into. What makes us who we are? A thousand things, including a few we were born with.
“Life is not *the* final test…”
I agree. After this life is over, we understand we’ll have a thousand years of the Millennium, with Christ reigning personally on the earth. I recall Rev. ch 21–
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
During that thousand years, we’ll learn whatever we need to learn and experience whatever we need to experience. God is fair (and merciful and just and so forth).
Who you are comes from a soul or conscious level. You will always be you with additions of wisdom not intellect from physical experience. Who am I often is ego identity…we must learn to identify ego and separate it from our being in the physical. There in lies “the test”!
My answer will sound incredibly boring I think to most here, but I see no reason to believe that what makes me “me”, my consciousness, isn’t just the product of the vast neural network of connections that exists inside my brain. In other words, I am skeptical of the idea that we have a soul. All evidence I know of suggests that our personalities and consciousness is just a product of our brain activity. When the brain ceases to function, we cease to exist.
The case of Phineas Gage is fascinating. He was a railroad worker in the mid 1800’s who had a metal rod go through his frontal cortex in a freak accident. Phineas survived but for a time his personality was drastically changed. He became irritable, prone to cursing frequently, quite angry, to an extent that those who knew him before the accident no longer saw him as the same person. We’ve seen similar stories more modernly with individuals who develop brain tumors resulting in personalities that change quite drastically.
If I’m wrong, and something of “me” persists when I die, no one will be more excited to be wrong! In fact, this is the extent of my “faith” these days – a hope, however unlikely it seems to me, that I am wrong. Even if there is a spirit, knowing how dependent we are on our brain function for our personalities and what makes us who we are, I don’t understand how a non-physical entity without the same neural structures could somehow conjure up the same personalities, memories, etc, to persist beyond death.
In short, I think my brain function makes up “me” and I think the idea of a soul is an antiquated religious notion that is probably not true, at least not in the traditional sense of a same “self” persisting beyond death. No one will be more excited if this turns out not to be the case. Bonus!
Who is aware that you are you and that you have a brain or a body?
Ally,
I’m not sure if your question was directed to me or to everyone, but my answer is that “I” am aware. And that “I” is my consciousness, which itself is a result of the synthesis of the neural network inside my brain. It’s not nearly as glamorous as the idea of a soul, but it’s what makes the most sense to me.
Holy smokes, much philosophy! I wish I could have this kind of discussion at church.
“Does negative “priming” alter the chances people have to do well in their mortal probation?”
Probably; and from what source does most of this negative priming come? The enemy of God. Why does it come? Because it is effective. “There must needs be opposition in all things” and for girls in Scottsdale, they will feel their opposition by dropping their cellphones in a toilet or having a girlfriend say they are ugly. What matters is what you do with the opposition you are given, the grace you exhibit as you face problems, even if the problem seems trivial to someone else.
“Does positive “priming” give others an unfair advantage on the mortal probation test?”
I have a doubt that “fair” and “advantage” can properly co-exist. If there is advantage, it is by definition unfair. If things are fair, then no one has advantage.
Either way I have a doubt that “test” is a meaningful word. God does not require a test as presumably he already knows the score. So what is it for and who needs the score? You and you! In heaven, you and I had no way of knowing what we would do in a hostile environment (namely, anywhere else). My test is for me, and your test is for you.
The more one is tested (encounters obstacles) the better one’s understanding of self and that in turn leads to better choices in this life and the next. Better by your desires; not better by mine. You are your judge, I am my judge.
“How much change can you undergo before you are no longer you?”
None or infinite. If by “me” that spark of intelligence, the thing that makes me unique in all the universe, is immortal and presumably unchangeable. It also is rather tiny and insignificant, a spark. God arranged for a spirit to house the spark, and a body to house the spirit. The “me” is that spark; but it is also the spirit, and also the body.
Me right now is not the same me of 20 years ago, or 40 years ago. I doubt that my essential (essence) personality has changed much in my entire life, but how would I know? As I grow, so does my yardstick, so all my life long I seem to measure “one yard”; but if measured by YOUR yardstick maybe I have grown quite a bit.
There’s a science fiction story, “Macroscope” if I remember right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscope_%28novel%29
Yeah I remembered right. The question of what is “me” is a significant feature of the story and manifests on several levels.
In that science fiction story, to travel at very high accelleration they discovered a way to liquify a human body, and then reverse the procedure. The heroine wonders, however, on being reconstituted will it be the same body and how would one know? Looking in the mirror, seeing tentacles or whatever, “Yes, it’s me!” because she remembers having tentacles (or whatever; it’s been a while since I read the book). But the memory would be false.
The implication is that *memory* defines self identification.
On another level is two personalities in one brain, either of which considers itself “me”:
“Schön briefly makes his first appearance during construction, revealing himself to be an alternate personality within Ivo’s brain. Schön is ostensibly the body’s “owner”, having created the Ivo personality to avoid being the subject of experimentation. Schön has frightening intelligence, but having given over his body to Ivo at the age of five, is still a child and largely without morals. In an attempt to take control of the body, Schön traps Ivo in a historical drama running in his own brain. Over time, Ivo sees parallels between the characters in the drama and the group in the ship, and eventually escapes the illusion and re-asserts control.”
I have first-hand experience with this sort of thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_%28psychology%29 especially “forgetting identity or assuming a new self (fugue).” The tricky part is that if you forget you, then you have no knowledge of any other you and no reason to look for one. In my case the clue was looking at an ordinary robin (bird) and not knowing what it was. My “new self” hadn’t bothered to learn bird identification even though the “real me” could name every bird in North America at about the age of 8 years. Near as I can tell this was a product of my parents’ divorce although at the time I felt unaffected by it and it seemed a bit odd that it should be so inconsequential.
So what is “me”? Memories and character. Memories are what I have done and help shape character; character shapes what I will do next in making new memories.
This theme is explored in the movie “Total Recall” (the original is still best). In it, the hero of the story shows considerable courage, stamina and virtue; but at the end is revealed he’s really one of the bad guys. Well, he *was* one of the bad guys; but his innate character was given a second chance, so to speak, and he preferred his virtuous self and decided to keep it.
What that means for people that find God is that you can become what you want to be, even if it is nothing like what you once were, provided your innate character is virtuous (in my opinion). Mormon theology teaches that ALL humans born on this planet were at least virtuous enough to be given this opportunity. True evil is not innate to any mortal soul, but is to be found in evil spirits. Now if a person embraces that evil spirit it can be difficult to see the inner spirit through the darkness surrounding it; and that good spirit might also not be able to see “out” and find any light to cling to.
This may be inappropriate but here goes. There seem to be some born to be obedient, and some to question, I am having a discussion with a libertarian named Gerald on millenial star, who seems to think God only wants the poor helped by individual charity (is this why US has highest rate of poverty in OECD). Why do I understand the world so differently?
A lot of this seems to come from our environment, but a lot doesn’t.
“This idea that what we believe about our abilities can limit or unleash our abilities is called “priming,” and it’s behind studies that show that marginalized groups often do worse on certain types of tests when they are “primed” (either immediately beforehand or throughout their lives) to believe they will not perform well on that type of test.”
This is why many of us cringe when messages are given to LGBT saints that their sexual attractions are defining for who they are and they cannot expect to live in accordance with the Gospel (and the Church and other Saints are somehow hateful to ask them to). It is priming them to fail these tests, instead of inspiring them that they are Children of Almighty God with infinite potential to overcome this (and any other) obstacle that might act to separate them from their Father. It is why the Brethren are so careful to not let the LGBT identity replace the identity as children of God (for which, unfortunately, they were mocked).
We should never be priming anyone for failure in the most important tests of obedience and discipleship. We should be telling them that they have access to Grace, Christ will walk Hand-in-hand with them through this (and all other) challenges they face, and they are strong enough to live as disciples and can trust God to work things out for them.
As for the variation of testing between Cambodia and Scottsdale, it presumes a type of testing that I don’t know is accurate. God didn’t need to send us down to Earth to know where we belong — He knows the end from the beginning and it isn’t like He is sitting around thinking, “I really thought Jonathan would have kept that commandment, but there he goes again breaking it.”
No, God could have sorted us the day that He created us if it was just a matter of proving to Him where we belong. Rather, we came to this Earth to gain experience but also to be proven — to ourselves. C. S. Lewis stated that in the Final Judgment it will not be us begging to stay and Christ demanding we leave, it will be Christ begging us to stay and us demanding to leave. We must prove to ourselves that we are made of Celestial stuff down here, and so much of the Perfect Plan is designed with that end in mind.
And, incidentally, someone cited Phineas Gage (but incorrectly). Yes, his brain injury did change his personality. But, as the years went on, he largely returned to his previous personality and by the time he died he was essentially back to preaccident status. There is always some of that going on with each of us — we are in the process of both becoming the person we are becoming and getting back to the person we are. Life has a habit of knocking down our house of cards many times in our lives and we are forced to rebuild them. Each time we rebuild our lives, more of who we are goes into our recreations until we are less and less what is done to us and more and more who we are.
Jonathan: I’m not convinced God is omniscient. If God is an exalted man, at what point does he become omniscient?
Jonathan: Didn’t mean to post that comment independently. The other point you made that I believe should be addressed is the idea of priming for LGBT individuals. How you’ve framed it may indeed be how church leaders see it. The problem is that you can’t “unprime” someone’s self identity. For example, if you tell a mixed gender group that men really do well on this test, and you tell them that they are all men (even the women), that’s still negative priming for the women and positive priming for the men.
Angela, I’m with you, I’m not convinced that God is omniscient. In fact, I’m not convinced he is any of the omni’s, with the exception of omnibenevolent.
Angela:
I don’t know where you can find scriptural backing for the idea that God is not omniscient (at least in the context of us and this world). If He is not omniscient, it throws a big wrench into the whole idea of a perfect Plan, and Joseph Smith spoke extensively on how recognition of God’s omniscience is an important element of trusting in God.
Perhaps there are things that God doesn’t know somewhere in relation to some frame of existence, but they are not pertaining to us and this mortal world. He fully knows “the end from the beginning.”
“The problem is that you can’t “unprime” someone’s self identity.”
Sometimes people’s self-identity is incorrect. We have all met people who think that they cannot do something and we know that they can. We do them no favors in joining them in their misconception of their self-identity. Likewise there are those who see their fundamental nature tied to their sexual attraction (just as there are those who see their fundamental nature tied to a number of other things — work, social status, etc.) that are not consistent with their true identity as children of God. If someone thinks their social status defines them as a human being, we recognize that as selling themselves horribly short — it is the same if people are defined as human beings by their attraction or, in fact, absolutely anything else other than their divine nature and relationship to their Heavenly Father. And, of course, if we are honest we can look back and see times in our lives (maybe even the present, if we are particularly perceptive) when our own self-identity was or is incorrect.
Of course, that doesn’t resolve the issue you describe, and the question of how best to help someone in that position is a sticky one. But I am not at all convinced that language priming any of us for failure in keeping our covenants or establishing that eternal relationship is helpful.
Jonathan: Telling gay people that they can “pray away the gay” has been demonstrably ineffective. Declaring the self-identity of 6-10% of the earth’s population to be faulty seems like hubris, unless you are including yourself in the “can’t accurately assess my own identity” category. Yes, priming can help people overcome negative thought patterns that limit their potential, but (at least according to our current scientific knowledge) being gay isn’t a negative thought pattern to be overcome. Bees can fly, a useful trait no doubt, but you can’t prime me to believe I am a bee when I am clearly a human and all evidence I see and all my lived experience tells me I am a human and not a bee. Could you gaslight me and bully me until I give in and say “OK, fine, I’m a bee!” Maybe if you are really committed and terrible about it. But that probably just means that my attempts to fly will fall short. Could you gaslight me into thinking I’m homosexual (even though I’m heterosexual)? Maybe, if you are really committed, and I’m cowed into it. But in our society, the bullying generally goes the other direction. The majority bullies the minority.
As to whether God is omniscient, if you are willing to concede that his omniscience may be only relative to our limited knowledge, I can meet you there. I’m just not sure there’s a good reason to believe an exalted man is omniscient. Since scriptures are written by humans, mostly ancient ones, their views are colored by their own understanding. I have no real stake in whether God is omniscient, but my read of the concept of an exalted man is that omniscience isn’t part of it.
I have had a lot of reasons to ponder these questions lately. For most of human history, it was pretty easy to believe in immaterial spirits that animated human bodies and provided them with their full capacities of consciousness, intellect, and moral reasoning. Now that we know how completely depended these things are on having a properly-functioning brain? Not so much.
However, I also believe that the hard problem of consciousness cannot be solved through materialistic means using the known laws of physics. In other words, it is impossible to assemble any number of inanimate particles in a conscious entity. Something that operates according to a force beyond those presently known must be added to provide that spark of consciousness. But that spark of consciousness is still completely helpless without a properly-functioning brain to enable thought and memory.
Joseph Smith taught that “all spirit is matter.” And we all know that the spirit isn’t the only matter that goes in to constructing a human being. It seems that all of the matter, spiritual or otherwise, must be in proper order for people to think and experience the world and choose between good and evil. A naked spirit must then be unconscious – it is no more capable of thinking without a brain than a blind man is capable of seeing without eyes – perhaps briefly, by a miracle provided by the Holy Spirit – but not of its own accord.
What, then, does this mean for the pre-existence? I suppose that our spirits must have inhabited some other forms that enabled thought before we were born as men and women – perhaps that is what cherubim and seraphim are.
And what does it mean for earth-life now? It is my own belief that, when we are provided with a healthy brain and knowledge of good and evil, we are responsible for building our personality and character as we grow, and we will be judged for what we choose. Those who lack those thing – either proper mental function, or a knowledge of good and evil – are not accountable in the same way as those who have them.
Angela:
There must always be a priority. Is someone with same-sex attraction an LGBT individual who happens to be a child of God, or a child of God who happens to have same-sex attraction?
When you say:
“but (at least according to our current scientific knowledge) being gay isn’t a negative thought pattern to be overcome.”
you elevate scientific knowledge over scriptural morality. There are any number of things that science says are not negative that we know through revelation to be wrong. And sometimes science catches up (see tobacco). And sometimes it catches up, then deviates, then comes back (see alcohol — I’ve lost track of where the science is this week). But your argument above could equally be used by a smoker in the 1920s who said that according to our current scientific knowledge smoking isn’t a negative pattern to overcome — it helps with weight loss, curbs appetite, decreases depression, etc.
But here’s the thing — even if it doesn’t show scientific benefit, there are things that disciples are to do in order to be disciples. To paraphrase President Kimball, if we only did what is scientific, this would not be a test. Each of us is called to give up absolutely everything to the Lord — He may not require it from us, but we need to be willing to give it up. That is discipleship and the path to sanctification. Telling someone with same-sex attraction that God’s commandments don’t apply to them because their desires are wholly natural (which may be true for all I know — though I think my best understanding is a continuum between nature and nurture different for most people) ignores that anger is natural. Promiscuity is natural. Laziness is natural.
Promiscuity is perhaps the best example above. Darwinians will tell you that promiscuity is not only not a negative pattern but is, in fact, an optimal pattern among those with the capacity to pull it off. Yet God is pretty clear His thoughts on the matter. Whom do we follow? And what do we project to others? If someone self-identifies as a womanizer (which, according to some current scientific knowledge, isn’t a negative thought pattern to overcome), do we say to them that their nature as a womanizer makes the Gospel incompatible with them and they should celebrate who they are? Or do we tell them that despite their attractions, and despite how they see themselves, God has another way for them?
Calling this praying the gay away is disingenuous. It is the recognition that each and every one of us has desires, appetites, and passions that are not in accordance with the Lord’s will and we are called upon to fight them each and every day of our mortal life. Oftentimes they won’t be removed (Paul and his thorn), but that doesn’t excuse us not fighting them and seeking out the ennobling power of Christ’s Grace. If anyone is not fighting against something they see as core to their very nature today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of their mortal life they are not walking the pathway of discipleship — because each and every one of us is fallen. And that applies to those with same-sex attraction just like it applies to you and to me and to everyone else.
To be fair, it is a daunting challenge (for each of us, though perhaps more obviously for those with same-sex attraction). But that is why they (and we) need to hear over and over again that we are children of an Almighty God who sent us to Earth not only to succeed, but to succeed gloriously — and through Christ we can overcome all things.
On Omniscience: As I understand it, God knows all that can be known, but some things cannot be known, and God does not know such things.
GEOFF -AUS observes “There seem to be some born to be obedient, and some to question”
What a wonderful introduction to the MBTI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator
Yes, absolutely. People are born very differently, from siblings, from parents and to a large extend “wired” differently. I am perfect capable of obeying while questioning, a skill required in the US Navy. Obedience is essential for every sailor; questioning useful but not everyone needs to question. “Uh, why is the capstan turning clockwise?” There might not be a reason, but then again, there might as the force of the capstan works with, or against, the twists of the line (rope). The Boatswain’s Mate will or should know this but the deck crew does not need to know it. Those who ask questions may well have the Right Stuff for leadership.
“I am having a discussion with a libertarian named Gerald on millenial star, who seems to think God only wants the poor helped by individual charity”
All examples in scripture are of individuals performing charity. At no time did Jesus demand the Roman government provide charity.
I believe it is because of free agency. You do not have a right to take the fruit of my labor and give it to someone else (tax and spend). So, while God might not “only wants the poor helped by individual charity”, the alternative is forced conscription of Other People’s Labor and that violates Free Agency, a higher law.
Furthermore, Jesus points out that the “poor will always be with us”, the principle reason for giving charity is to develop the character and soul of the GIVER. It is impossible to solve the problem of global poverty (see the “iron law of wages” also Thomas Malthus) by human beings as presently constituted.
Wikipedia on Thomas Malthus: In his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus observed that an increase in a nation’s food production improved the well-being of the populace, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. In other words, humans had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the “Malthusian trap” or the “Malthusian spectre”. Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship, want and greater susceptibility to famine and disease, a view that is sometimes referred to as a Malthusian catastrophe.
Technology has postponed the inevitable for a while.
“Science and medicine teach us that over about a seven year period an individual’s cell structure is completely renewed, that is, by age seven or so, there is not a single cell left in the body that was there at birth.”
This is actually true about every type of cell except neurons. Neurons don’t regenerate. We start with a whole lot more at birth than we have as adults, and we go through a stage of pruning them down in the early years of life, but we don’t make new ones. We may make new connections between existing neurons, but we don’t make new neurons.
Consequently, at age 49, I am only sort of a self-made woman 7 times over. As for my identity, I will be the person my mother created until I die.