Day 2

They came back. Today we didn't talk as long because they had to go do some other Monday-only Jesus related business. This first question has an obvious answer but I wanted to see what they said.

1. Why pray? If it changes god's mind then he is not sovereign. If it does not change god's mind then it is superfluous.

A. You don't ask for things in prayer. Prayer is not like ordering pizza. You do it to tune your will to god's will.

hmmmm... so we pray to figure out what god wants from us? Maybe he should initiate some of this conversation.


2. If god knows the past and future with perfect certainty why did he create me knowing my fate to be an eternity burning in hell forever? If you had a disease which caused all your children to live in relative comfort for one hour and then die slowly in horribly debilitating pain for ten years, would you choose to have children? Is this moral or is god simply a bored sadist?

A. (At this point the institute teacher rambled for about 10 minutes about how I sounded like Jonathan Edwards. And then proceeded to completely ignore the question.) Bad things happen for a reason. If you had children, you wouldn't let them live at home forever. God "kicked us out of his home" to allow us to progress. Doctrine and Covenants 38:2 says that "all things are present in his eyes" which apparently means everything happens for a reason. So us going to hell happens for a reason? At this point they ask me if the question was answered. I say "absolutely not." So they ramble about FAITHFAITHFAITH for about 30 minutes and then give up and leave.


The missionaries will be back on Thursday, September 24, 2009