God is Infinitely Perfect, All-knowing, All-Goodness, Unchangeable and therefore can't make mistakes...so it's silly to even go there.

The lesson is God does not abide hard bitten, unrepentant sinful people.

You are referring to Genesis 6 which tells of the sinful situation of man as God is looking down upon His creation. It's been around 1600 years since He created Adam and Eve and 6:5-7 tells us that "And God seeing the wickedness of men was great on earth and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times. It repented Him that He had made man on the earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, He said I will destroy man,...."

Here we read of the enormity of sin in the world which was so provoking God that He decided to destroy all His creatures. God saw the ingratitude of man and it repented Him that He had made man. Since there was one just and virtuous man, Noah, whom God found favor with, He punished everyone except Noah and his family by the Flood. There are many lessons that we take from Noah and the Flood. One is that God punishes the wicked and saves the just.

Heh.  I was going to answer some of this, but why bother?  I am curious, though.  What is "hard bitten?"

I looked it up and got this:

Main Entry: hard–bit·ten
Pronunciation: \-ˈbi-tən\
Function: adjective
Date: 1784
1 : inclined to bite hard
2 : seasoned or steeled by difficult experience : tough

I guess God doesn't like people that bite...or tough people. So, toothless pansies we shall be!

~Zoo

So, nobody has mentioned it yet, I guess I will put my own spin on it.

Our reason for being here is to glorify God.

Now, God knew, when he created the first humans, that we would fail. He knew that we could not glorify Him without Him. So we did fail, and God was able to show how wonderful He is by sending His son to save us. He created us, He loves us, and He is worthy of all praise because of that.

Now, if he had created humans without free will, they never would have fallen, and he never would have needed to send His son, and man would never know what God was willing to do for us. Apparently, God thought it was important that we would know what He did for us. That's why the Bible is still going strong, that's why it had to fail to start with.

No greater love has a man than to give his life for his friends.

There's a different between the love shown by taking care of someone, and the love shown by taking a bullet for someone. We weren't created to live a life on this earth of ease. We were created to realize our dependence on Him. So that we would come to Him, so that He would be glorified through our lives, and through the sacrifice He made for us.

You might say that it's egocentric of God to make everything about Him, Him Him Him. Well, it makes sense to me - we're His creation, why shouldn't we be here for his pleasure to do with what He wishes? That He takes the time to care for any of us at all is more than we have a right to ask of Him.

So, yeah, that's my spin on it.

I hear this over and over again, and mostly it just sounds like God is an egotistical loser who wanted people to tell him how cool he was. Explain how this makes sense?



You still didn't answer the question. All I hear from all of you is "God is egotistical and can't stand people not telling him how great he is".

Come on. Give me more than that.

Our purpose is to glorify and to give fellowship to God.

So, in other words, there is no answer to my question. You've said that, Jythier's said that, Lula's said that, and it's all just empty, pointless words.

You're still describing a God who was egotistical and lonely. What a loser of a god (small 'g' intentional) he sounds like.

That would be true if the purpose of glorifying Him was only to glorify Him. It's not, there's a further purpose. Glorifying God, in this life, has the purpose of leading others to him, that they may also be saved. His heart is one that wants to rescue you, wants to die for you, wants you to be with Him forever.

ERATHONIEL POSTS:

SC POSTS:

Nah uh, that's not what I said...I agree with that we are to glorify God, but not with the fellowship part. I have no idea what that is or means.

I said #77,

More exactly put, God made man to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next.



The facts are that God is All-Powerful and Infinitely Perfect in every way. He has Infinite knowledge while our knowledge is very limited. Therefore it's absurd to sit in judgment of God...so don't even go there. Reason alone tells us that He is to be trusted by us. Revelation tells us how He died for love of us, embracing the most bitter suffering in the process. We must bow down in faith, trust, and love before His Will.

SC,

What do Mormons believe as far as man's purpose on earth regarding their Creator?

I think that's the fellowship part, Lula.



God's a special sort. Either you love Him, or you hate Him. If you hate Him, you often come up with a different version of him you think you'd like. But the only version that you really NEED is the real one.

God created us to be like a pet cat would be to us. Companionship. Except we're more like a rabid dog.

No. Absolutely not. Bad analogy.

God created us to be like sons and daughters are to us. We have our own thoughts and feelings, but we are still best served by being obedient to Him, because He knows better than us. But He would still let us have freedom to choose what to be obedient in.

OK, then I'm on board.   

Yeah, in hindsight, the analogy is pretty bad.

You've already had this discussion with Ted. Mormons believe that God created us just like we have children - in order to become like him in every way. Not to be inferior beings, little sycophantic singing beings who suck up all day long, but to become as he is.

Romans 8:16-17.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

The only way we can be 'heirs of God' and 'joint-heirs with Christ' is if we can become like them.

Straight up.

[/sanchonino in this discussion]