Jamie123

Really Vort - you do surprise me!

This is one of the great ideas behind the Trinity: that God "contains" the loving community of the Father, Son and Spirit. God contained love for others within Himself from the start. At the moment I'm reading The Shack by Wm. Paul Young (a book my wife has long badgered me to read, and I'm finally getting round to doing so). The protagonist, while grieving for his murdered daughter, meets God and finds "Him" to be three people living together in a log cabin; when he asks "God the Father" (who defies his expectations by appearing to be a black African woman) why there are three of them and not one, she explains that if there were only one of her, she would be unable to love as God.

In an earlier thread (http://lds.net/forums/topic/57028-does-god-exist/) MormonGator suggested I check out “Quinque Viae” by St. Thomas Aquinas. I have, and it’s very interesting. Here are some comments: (My summaries of Thomas Aquinas’ arguments are rather laconic – if you think I’ve missed some important point by brevity, please tell me.) 1. The unmoved mover “Nothing moves unless it is moved by something else. (Nothing which moves is own mover.) In order for anything to move, there must have been a first mover: God.” Comments: This is very much what I was getting at in my earlier post; if we interpret “move” as “come into existence” then how does that apply to God? If God is the “author of existence” then His own existence must rely upon Himself. He is both “mover and moved” – which totally contradicts what Aquinas is saying. Also the first observation that nothing moves without a mover may have been true in Thomas Aquinas’ experience, but what about quantum-level events such as radioactive decay, that are only governed by probability? 2. The first cause “Everything must have been caused by something else. (Nothing that is caused is its own causer.) So for anything to be caused there must have been a first cause: God.” Comments: This seems to be little more than a restatement of the argument 1, so I’ll move straight on… 3. Argument from contingency “A thing may be either (a) non-existent or (b) existent for a finite period of time. It must be possible to all these things to be non-existent at the same time, in which case there would be nothing to make anything else become existent. Something must therefore exist permanently: God.” Comments: This assumes that (a) things do not come into existence spontaneously (the axiom behind arguments 1 and 2, which is questionable in the light of quantum theory) and (b) that a thing may exist without necessarily causing another thing to exist. This would require a thing exist without influencing in any way other things that exist. Is this even possible? Leibniz might have argued that there are an infinite number of monads which play no part in the pre-established harmony of the universe, but could such entities truly be said to “exist”? (I don’t know, and I always thought Leibniz was wacked.) 4. Argument from degree “Some things are more perfect than others. Perfection must therefore have an ultimate standard from which all other degrees of perfection are assessed: God.” Comments: I shall have to think about this some more before I can really comment, but for the moment two ideas spring to mind: firstly Plato’s “transcendent forms” – things that exist imperfectly in reality have their perfect archetypes in the world of ideas. But if a thing that exists as an idea can be truly said to “exist” then mermaids and dragons and the Loch Ness monster (not to mention God) truly exist. When communication engineers talk about the “gain” of an antenna, they measure that with reference to a perfectly “isotropic” antenna – but that does not mean that the perfect isotropic antenna really exists. This also makes me think of Anselm’s ontological argument: “The greatest thing imaginable” must exist as an idea, it cannot truly be the greatest thing imaginable because a “real” greatest thing imaginable would be greater. That real greatest thing imaginable is God. (This has to be has to take second place to Leibniz’s monadism in the “weird ideas” charts – but there again I’ve probably misunderstood it horribly.) 5. Argument from design “Natural bodies obey certain laws (e.g. trees grow, rocks fall, hot air rises) in a manner characteristic of intelligence, though the bodies themselves may be unintelligent. There must therefore be an intelligence behind their behaviour: God.” Comments: This reminds me of David Hume’s “Dialogues”: the character Cleanthes makes exactly this argument – that the universe is like a machine, and a machine must have a maker. Philo responds that if the universe is like a machine then given its imperfection it is a very poor machine, and that the God who made it was either an “apprentice” who has since moved on to better things, or else a senile old deity who died eons ago. He suggests (if I remember rightly – it’s years since I read it) that the universe is more like a vegetable. Though (to return to what Thomas Aquinas had to say) vegetables grow according to natural laws which most have an intelligent origin, so we’re at the start of an infinite regression of the sort he rejects in his first two arguments. Overall Comments To restate my original suggestion, I contend that God – the source of existence – cannot be categorized as either existent or non-existent (just as water cannot be categorized as either wet or dry). If so then Thomas Aquinas (and Dawkins too for that matter) are wasting their time trying to answer the question “Does God exist?” The question itself is ill-formed and unanswerable.

LOL thanks Vort - I wonder how many more of us possess the 2-level nerdyness needed to get the joke

Before we can answer this question... 1. What is God? 2, What does it mean to exist? I don't totally know how to answer the second question except to give some examples... Things that exist: Kangaroos Blue whales The North Star Things that don't exist: Mermaids Dragons The Loch Ness Monster (probably) So what is God? The creator? If so then God must be that which determines which of the two above lists any given item belongs to. Or to put it another way, any entity obtains its property of existence or nonexistence from God. So which list does God belong to? If God does not exist then nothing exists from which anything else could have derived its existence. But if God does exist, then from what did He obtained that property of existence? From Himself? If so then He is himself a part of His own creation. This makes a nonsense out of anyone who says "Where did everything come from? A creator must exist! That is God!". In bestowing the property of existence upon God, they include Him within creation. We're left with the same question: "What created creation?" (in which "creation" now includes God). It reminds me of a question I used to wonder about when I was a kid: "Is water wet?" A thing becomes wet from contact with water; if it has not been in contact with water then it is dry. If water is that which determines wetness or dryness, is water itself wet or dry? Most people thought I was an idiot for asking such a question, but maybe the question "Does God exist?" is no different.

Depends which Wonder Woman you're talking about. I don't recall ever seeing Lynda Carter fly (except of course in a plane) - though she could run pretty fast and bounce bullets off her wrist bands when anyone tried to shoot her.

http://blog.nasm.si.edu/behind-the-scenes/wonder-womans-invisible-jet/ Doesn't it look exactly like you thought it would?

My degrees are in engineering, but I was never a very good engineer. My main problem was that I could always see too many different ways of doing something, and could never decide between them. I'd start working on a problem one way, then (no matter how well I'd thought I'd thought it out to begin with) I'd see a better way of doing it, which would mean undoing most of what I'd done already. (Changing horses in mid stream is rarely a good idea, but I've never been good at telling that to myself.) Then I'd realize my new "better" way had complications I hadn't foreseen and I'd have to start again. And the end result would usually be a mess. Maybe if I'd persevered I'd have sorted myself out eventually, but I chose to go into teaching - originally electronic engineering but now computing. Oddly enough, I'm a lot better at keeping students' projects on track than I am at controlling my own.

I'll tell you something else that's quite interesting: there are more plastic flamingos in the world than there are real flamingos.

Oxford University.... is older than the Aztec Empire... It's the News you'll Never Use!

Do you count anti-superstitions? There's a member of our theatrical club who likes to shout "Macbeth" in a loud voice at the beginning of rehearsals. (Hot Potato Orchestra Scores, Puck will Make Amends)

Did Joshua and his followers believe in a God you would recognize when they massacred the population of Jericho? Maybe the God of the Islamic fundamentalists is a false God, and the God of Joshua (and us) is the true one, but I don't see how we can argue this on the basis of nice vs. not-very-nice.

It usually does have something to do with the weather in this country! Really? I was a student at Bradford University 83-87 - right next door to Leeds. I don't remember the temperature ever getting much above 50. I do remember there was quite a lot of snow - by UK standards anyway. And my shoes had holes in them.

Has anyone ever noticed a certain kind of cold, which is actually not that cold (it could be over 50F) but it chills you right through and makes your bones ache? It's usually accompanied by chilling wind and a very light cold drizzle. The colder temperatures that produce snow and frost I don't mind that much. The cold is certainly colder, but if you wrap up warm and blow your hands every now and then you can keep it out. But this... This what it's like in London right now. I took my daughter to Funpark last night (it's a travelling carnival-type-thing which comes to our area every few months). Some of the rides are good but others are pathetic. The Ghost Train is the most pathetic I've ever ridden on (and I've ridden on some pretty pathetic ghost trains) but they didn't have that this time. And as I've already said the weather was horrible. Not that my daughter minded of course (which is the main thing) - kids love fast rides however foul the weather - but after 4 hours in the dank chill all I wanted to do was get into a hot tub - and by the time we got home I was too exhausted even for that. Moan moan moan... Hey, it's Good Friday tomorrow!

It seems to me these blessings come not from membership of the Church per se, but from an assurance that these promises are true. If you don't believe then membership of the LDS (or any other) church is nothing more than a piece of paper.

This had me in stitches for about half an hour... P.S. I realise now I posted this thread in the wrong forum. Sorry.

You're quite right Dravin: some people do say "Pedancy" but (as I now confirm from Google) the proper word is "Pedantry". And yes, I know this is ironic as I'm taking a dig at Ralph Bakshi for mispronouncing his Sindarin. (Motes and beams etc.) I actually quite like Bakshi's LOTR (which makes me a heretic I know, but I've already exposed that by admitting to liking David Lynch's Dune). I think Bakshi's "Mirror of Galadriel" scene is much better than Jackson's. And I don't care that Galadriel looks like a Disney princess! Annette Crosby provides the perfect queenly voice, so long as you keep One Foot in the Grave out of your head when you listen to her. By comparison Cate Blanchet overacts the part. And what was the deal with turning her into....well I don't quite know how to describe what they turned her into (some sort of wicked ghost/witch?) but it certainly did nothing for me. As for Ralph Bakshi's Treebeard though.... Did Fimbrethil tell him to go get his nose clipped?

The song "Jesus He Knows Me" by Genesis sums up the idea rather well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35K6vQRt67g

Princess Irene (from The Princess and the Goblin/Curdie by George McDonald)

Fairy Hardcastle (From That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis.)

To be fair to dear Sister Detton and Sister Hinckley, I may have misquoted them when I said "something the Church had had to repent of". This was 23 years ago, and I can't remember exactly how they phrased it. The point I was making is is, they didn't try to deny that it happened, or that Church members were responsible for it. Sisters - if you are reading this, and if I did misquote you, please accept my apology.

Which is fine until the rug is lifted. I remember the second time the missionaries visited me back in the 1990s, I'd had a chance to look up "Mormonism" in the encyclopedia, and had learned about (amongst other things) the Mountain Meadows Massacre. When I asked them about this they told me it was true and it was something the Church had had to repent of. I could respect that. If they'd told me it was "all lies" - and I found out the truth later - I'd not have been impressed.

MoE: I had always assumed you were LDS, but now I see "Not Mormon" in your profile. Your point of view is extremely interesting - it's certainly nothing I've ever heard from an LDS member. Mosr people (myself included) tend to view the BoM as either "theopneustos" (God-breathed and therefore infallible) or a 19th Century fabrication. (And given its purported origins - angels and seer-stones that would seem to me very reasonable.) You present a very interesting middle position. I would be very interested to see how many actual Mormns agree with you.

Something else has just occurred to me... The brown uniforms that the Nazis used to wear (e.g. http://www.usmbooks.com/images/ORGbk/1936OrgBk/NSOB36-5.jpg) As a kid - even after seeing many WW2 movies - if you'd asked me what colour they were I'd have said "dark green". It was only years later when I read about the "brown shirts" that I realized my mistake. I suppose it's because that's the colour I expected military uniforms to be, and that's what I thought I saw.