NameIess

What are you writing?

I picked Scadrial, because I don’t want high gravity or the Everstorm and the political climate seems a bit more stable for living, at least in Elendel basin. for powers I picked Twinborn, A-pewter and F-gold would be my choice. I’d like A-steel, but I think Pewter would be more practical. and for mortal enemy, obviously Kelsier and Ruin are nonstarters being on Scadrial, so I picked Hoid. My logic is: Hoid can’t kill me personally, and since everyone else besides him is presumably free of the irrational desire to murder me, it will be difficult for him to convince anyone else to kill me. Especially with Design possibly running interference for me. Odium might be far away, but I don’t want to constantly worry about his devoted unquestioning followers assassinating me. Hoid doesn’t have those, so yeah, he’s my pick.

Maybe? I don’t know the catholic doctrines on sainthood that well. I think that’s part of it though. Personally I don’t know that I believe in the distinction of canonical sainthood, although certainly many of the saints have been exemplary servants of God. And since the Holy spirit does inhabit all Christians, I believe God can work miracles through any of us.

I’m don’t dispute that you believe Jesus to be a God. I was arguing that point because based on what Frustration was saying, it sounded like it wouldn’t be right for Jesus to be worshipped exclusively in the time of the old testament. However, it really sounds like that’s exactly what the nation of Israel did, without being rebuked by any of the prophets for doing so. Genesis 1:2 says: That’s a clear reference to the spirit of God. Also, throughout the OT, God’s spirit is described as coming upon various prophets, judges, and kings for limited amounts of time. Then in the New Testament, the Spirit came and remained upon Jesus. And before He returned to heaven after His resurrection, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to His disciples, which it did on the day of Pentecost, emboldening them to preach the gospel and working miracles through them.

I wouldn't say he would have to forget. He doesn't have to recount word for word what happened in order to get the important information across to his wives. But still, in the first case the angel is still a messenger of God, bringing a message from God to Jacob. Not making a claim to personal divinity.

Thank you for the correction. I had heard about the rejection of ex nihilo, but it does raise some questions for me, such as: in what form did we exist before creation? I guess this might be getting into your footnote, but what form did Jesus exist in before he was God’s spirit child? Where did whatever it was we were come from? Is there official teaching on whether God always existed in the same way as he does now? To the question of whether Jesus claimed he would be made perfect, I would have to argue towards innacurate translation there. I think the word translated ‘I shall be perfected’ would be better translated as ‘I shall (perfectly) complete my work’. And an eternally perfect Jesus is different from a Jesus who was once less than God, and only became equal with him at his resurrection. (If I am understanding your view correctly) I agree that the Israelites were not fully informed of God. For example, the afterlife was discussed very little in the Old Testament. And even today, there are questions we have about God that are not answered. We have what is needed to follow God and to be saved. However, worshipping the wrong being as God is not the same as not knowing everything about God. And indeed it seems to me that for the entirety of its history the entire nation of Israel (those who were not falling away to worship idols, at least) was worshipping a being who was not God, to the preclusion of worshipping God. The temple was Yahweh’s house: The psalms proclaim Yahweh as God. The people of Israel stopped speaking the name Yahweh out loud, due to the commandment in Exodus 20: It seems clear from the Old Testament scripture that Yahweh is God. The names are used interchangeably. I don’t think you can make a case from the Old Testament that Yahweh is not God, and so going by the revelation of the Old and New Testament, it seems that when Jesus identifies himself with Yahweh, he is claiming to be God. That said, I would like to add that this by no means disproves your faith. Again, please correct me if I am wrong, but LDS teachings are that portions of the Bible were lost which would have explained the distinction between God and Jesus. However, I would ask, considering the Old testament identifies Yahweh as God repeatedly, and Jesus identifies himself with Yawheh in the New, if that helps you understand why we who do not accept the book of Mormon or any of Joseph Smith’s revelations as inspired scripture wholeheartedly affirm the trinity. Because Yahweh is the name God gives to Moses at the burning bush. The name Jesus is identifying Himself with by saying ‘before Abraham was, I Am’. Is that what you meant by the question? I would say that in this verse, we don’t see the angel speaking. We see Jacob recounting the event to his wives. Now, one could say that Jacob was mistaken about what the angel had said, but that’s not what I’m trying to get at here. I would like to point out that if an angel appeared to me in a dream and said ‘I am God’, then based off of the context I probably wouldn’t say that an angel of God had appeared in a dream, but that God had appeared in a dream. So, either Jacob was able to distinguish between God and an angel, which is possible, or he just didn’t mention the part about how the angel first said something like ‘I am a messenger of God, here is the message.’ Regardless of whether that is what happened, the bigger point is that the angel brings Jacob a message from God. If I write a letter, I will sign my name on it. Just as the postman delivering that letter is not claiming to be me, the angel was making no claim to divinity by delivering God’s message.

Thanks for the information! I understand not wanting this to devolve into an Atheism vs. Christianity or Atheism vs. religion thread, that sort of discussion would be better held elsewhere. To answer your question, probably not. I understand some parts of an atheist worldview. I can understand and agree with wanting to base a worldview on evidence, even if I don't agree with where the evidence leads. I don't, however, really know what it would be like to live as an atheist. Did I come onto the thread to build my understanding of the atheist experience? I was curious about a specific point that had come up here related to the atheist experience, so, yes, probably.

Problem: I don't think Vasher needs Stormlight. He can probably feed off of Towerlight, Warlight, Lifelight, etc. So there's no extra motivation to kill Taravangian. Henceforth, he'll probably target Endowment, for reviving him in the first place.

The identity of God is more important than the authority of the church. I can call someone in the catholic church my brother or sister in Christ because we believe in the same God, three in one. I might disagree with them on many important beliefs and doctrines, but we worship the same God, place our faith in the same Jesus, and the same Holy Spirit indwells both of us. The Jesus I believe in is equal with God the Father, co-eternal with Him. The Jesus you believe in (and forgive me if I misrepresent your beliefs, if I do it is out of nothing other than my ignorance) is a created being, the firstborn of God. All things (aside from himself) were created through him, and he is divine, immortal, uniquely inheriting both spiritual and physical 'essence' (probably not the right word) from God the Father. These are different. Whether Jesus is eternal, equal, and one with the Father is an important distinction. I had not heard of that view before. I suppose that would make Jesus's words in John 8 consistent with your view, but I do think that causes some problems with the Old Testament. For example in Exodus 20:2-3, God identifies himself by the name Yahweh or Jehovah, then continues to tell the Israelites they shall have no other gods before him. How would you explain this?

It’s not merely because it’s a majority view. The identity of Jesus Christ is very important to the religion named after him. No, it would not. At least not from me. Not sure if it would be entirely accurate (like Matell, I’m not an angelologist) but certainly not offensive. There are more sources than just John 10:30. John chapter 1 is one of the most explicit examples of Jesus and God’s oneness, though I believe you would dispute the translation and/or the interpretation. John chapter 8 is another great example, where Jesus identifies himself with God. The critical verses are 24: 28: and finally 58: the phrase ‘I am he’ in verses 24 and 28 are actually the same greek words used in 58, translated word for word it would be simply ‘I am’ all three times. Jesus’s wording here is clearly intentionally meant to hearken back to Exodus 3, when God speaks from the burning bush to Moses: As evidenced by the Jew’s immediate response of attempting to stone Jesus for heresy, they understood his meaning.

My thoughts: Focused ones can presumably break Radiant Shardplate, especially since it doesn’t seem to feed off their Stormlight. Thunderclasts could do a great job of breaking down the fortifications from afar, with thrown rocks. In an aluminum-lined fortress, it seems it would be difficult to recharge spheres. Presumably they would have to hang them outside or at least have them be exposed somehow. So that’s a potential target. You could airdrop in masked ones under cover of darkness, allowing them to infiltrate and begin doing all sorts of sabotage. Unmade. We’ve only seen Yelig-nar on-screen one time, and Amaram barely even figured any of the surges out. We do know a host is incredibly dangerous, and a competent one would be capable of taking Fifth-ideal Radiants. Other unmade are also likely capable of similar battlefield feats, we just haven’t seen them on screen. The midnight mother, for example, could send endless waves of midnight essence at the fort to wear them down and drain their stormlight reserves. Better soldiers. In an era with very poor metallurgy, having soldiers that grow armor comparable with modern steel is an incredible boon. The average singer soldier is dramatically easier to equip than the average human one. Invested troops aside, humans would have a very hard time winning a war against singers. Any point on the wall where there’s not Radiants, there will be problems if Singer troops get up. And they might be able to simply leap up to the top of the wall if it’s not tall enough. Remember that they can leap Chasms.

On your side note, I would say that the council codifying Christian beliefs about the trinity does not mean that those beliefs were not held before then, nor that they are not evident in the scriptures. As to calling Jesus Satan’s brother, I’ll admit I’ve never heard that said about LDS before, but I think its’s so objectionable beyond rejecting the trinity because to us it’s like saying God and Satan are brothers. Like @Mattel said, it’s either elevating Satan, the original fallen angel and a created being, to the same level as God, or lowering Jesus to the level of an angel. It does feel like a step beyond rejecting the trinity, because it’s not just saying that Jesus and God are not one, but also that Jesus is basically just like an angel, and not even that but he’s similar to Satan.

@Pathfinder, you'd mentioned a kind of harm related to people deconstructing back on page 2. could you perhaps PM me some more information about that? I looked at the website you linked, and there seems to be quite a lot of information on a great many topics, and I couldn't narrow down exactly what you may have been talking about. @Verdance, if you were making a group PM do continue the discussion, I'd be interested in being there, although I'm not certain if I'll be very active in it.