Who is God?

[Vort]

Yes, I am on this forum to discuss mechanics. If you don't want to, you don't have to.

I guess I don't understand. Let me recap in paraphrase what I have understood our conversation to be:

Christy: I am struggling to reconcile my insights into science with my Mormon beliefs. I am wondering if it's possible that [insert speculations on mechanics].

[Many answers from various people]

Vort: I suggest you consider the possibility that your understanding of divine mechanics is faulty, and that in fact you are currently unable to understand those mechanics. That doesn't mean they don't exist, just that you are not in a position to understand them in the way you want to.

Christy: Well, look, if YOU don't want to discuss mechanics, then just leave. I'M still going to discuss them.... If you don't want to join me in discussing possible mechanics then don't.

Do I understand you correctly? You want to understand how to reconcile something, I give a possibility, and you respond by saying, "I want to reconcile things, but not like that! Go away!"?

You will never reconcile deep truths with the scientific method, because the scientific method does not reveal truth. At all. No truths. The scientific method only improves models, and those models themselves are never supposed to be "true" in the sense of the unchanging final word. In fact, you cannot subject the scientific method itself to the scientific method; you need to have ground to stand on to start out with.

I don't accept that they are unknowable and beyond us. They may be, but I don't think they have to be.

Is quantum mechanics unknowable and beyond the grasp of a three-year-old? Well, yes. But the three-year-old can grow up, study it, and then understand it. You are currently a spiritual three-year-old. This is not an insult, but an observation of condition. You expect to understand the things of God when you are manifestly unready to grasp them. You may grasp them one day; in fact, you will understand them fully if you follow the path that leads to that understanding. But your efforts to understand divine things by applying (what you believe to be) a scientific analysis to them is doomed to failure, just as certainly as the three-year-old's attempts to understand quantum mechanics by playing with her blocks.

But if the three-year-old throws a fit and insists that she is absolutely certain she can understand quantum mechanics by playing with her blocks, that doesn't mean she really can do so, even if she tries really hard.

When Paul says we are buried with Christ in baptism (Rom 6:4), and we go into the water, are you suggesting that we actually die and that as we come up out of the water we are literally born again and that something physical (sin) is absorbed into the water of the font?

No.

Or maybe death, burial, and cleansing and metaphors to help us understand better.

Of course. But that metaphor is used in Situation A does not therefore mean or imply or even suggest that it is being used in Situation B.

Authority? None.

Logic and reason? That's exactly what I'm here proposing: logic and reason. Not magical thinking.

But you have used neither logic nor reason. What is the logic in your proposition? Can you explain it? Logic is a mechanical process. Your logic ignores important foundational lemmas in favor of sheerest speculation. I think estradling's post really explains it thoroughly.

[Vort]

Upon further reflection, I would suggest that "death" is perhaps not used metaphorically at all, but in its larger sense of "separation". Physical death is the separation of our (dualistic) nature, of the spirit from the body, the font of physical life. Spiritual death is the separation of our spirit from God, the font of spiritual life. Baptism marks the separation of our thinking and beliefs from our old, non-covenant patterns and their rebirth into new, covenant patterns.

All areas use specialized vocabulary. Do you think physics is false because it defines "power" as "energy per unit time", rendering meaningless such phrases as "political power"? Or do you instead understand that there are specialized definitions and usages that narrow (or sometimes extend) pre-existing words to facilitate communication and understanding?

It is God's job to speak to us in language we can grasp. It is our job to work to understand that language. When you hyperfocus on whether "death" means exactly what you already think it means in a new context, you are missing the chance to hold up your half of the communications bargain.

[Alphalpha]

Your not the first person to propose the ancient astronaut theory, but it would require a second god--an ultimate god who who created the universe, unless you're challenging traditional Judeo-Christian theology that God is not the first creator. An even more interesting question is addressing the first cause. Dawkins states that requiring an intelligent being as an a priori is less simple than simply having a spontaneous big bang. Between the two options, a spontaneous big bang is simpler. Dawkins says that if we propose that God initiated the big bang, then then we have to address God's origins.

The renown aged philosopher Anthony Flew recently converted to theism after promoting atheism for decades. In his recent book "There is a God", Flew reached his conclusion based completely on philosophy and logic. In opposition to Dawkins, Flew has chosen to believe in the reality of God (as an intelligent Mind) which exists as the brute fact which instituted the big bang. The alternative for Flew is to accept that the universe started as chance and he finds this more preposterous than to accept that the cosmic constants are designed by intelligence--the cosmic constants being those laws of physics which if just one of them were off by just a fraction of a percentage, the universe wouldn't support life. This is one of the strongest and most common of the newer arguments of the theists--that the universe appears to have been finely tuned to result in a prolonged existence which allows for life.

In "The Grand Design" by Stephan Hawkins and Leonard Miodinow, they claim that the reason that the universe appears to have been finely tuned to support life isn't because there is a designer behind it, but rather because our universe is just one of many--i.e. a branch of the multiverse. Most of the universes' laws don't allow for a balance of gravity and nuclear forces, so they won't create carbon and other elements necessary for DNA. Those other universes will be relatively insignificant. Ours is one of the universes that allows for life. Hawkins use of the multiverse would seem to negate the need for God. Flew says that all Hawkins has done is kick the can down the road. Flew says: what's more complicated, a mega-multiverse or a single intelligent Mind? If a multiverse is the the origin of our universe, then how was the multiverse created?

[Alphalpha]

Your not the first person to propose the ancient astronaut theory, but it would require a second god--an ultimate god who who created the universe, unless you're challenging traditional Judeo-Christian theology that God is not the first creator. An even more interesting question is addressing the first cause. Dawkins states that requiring an intelligent being as an a priori is less simple than simply having a spontaneous big bang. Between the two options, a spontaneous big bang is simpler. Dawkins says that if we propose that God initiated the big bang, then then we have to address God's origins.

The renown aged philosopher Anthony Flew recently converted to theism after promoting atheism for decades. In his recent book "There is a God", Flew reached his conclusion based completely on philosophy and logic. In opposition to Dawkins, Flew has chosen to believe in the reality of God (as an intelligent Mind) which exists as the brute fact which instituted the big bang. The alternative for Flew is to accept that the universe started as chance and he finds this more preposterous than to accept that the cosmic constants are designed by intelligence--the cosmic constants being those laws of physics which if just one of them were off by just a fraction of a percentage, the universe wouldn't support life. This is one of the strongest and most common of the newer arguments of the theists--that the universe appears to have been finely tuned to result in a prolonged existence which allows for life.

In "The Grand Design" by Stephan Hawkins and Leonard Miodinow, they claim that the reason that the universe appears to have been finely tuned to support life isn't because there is a designer behind it, but rather because our universe is just one of many--i.e. a branch of the multiverse. Most of the universes' laws don't allow for a balance of gravity and nuclear forces, so they won't create carbon and other elements necessary for DNA. Those other universes will be relatively insignificant. Ours is one of the universes that allows for life. Hawkins use of the multiverse would seem to negate the need for God. Flew says that all Hawkins has done is kick the can down the road. Flew says: what's more complicated, a mega-multiverse or a single intelligent Mind? If a multiverse is the the origin of our universe, then how was the multiverse created?