Orthodox Christians Are Atheists

[saemo]

The old "omni"-de jour approach to theology.

All I can say is, wow.

[Flyonthewall]

No, I am not a pantheist. God is my Creator, the One who has given me breath, who strengthens my soul, and consoles my suffering. This to me, is everything. It is a common American English term, "He is everything". Are readers being obtuse? Or unable to understand in a non-literal sense?

Not trying to be obtuse...but it is always a challenge to know when to take things litterally or figuratively. In some respects the language used sounds very much like God = the Universe.

There are major differences in our beliefs because scripture is taken literally or figuratively.

[saemo]

Well it explains the topic of this thread then, if people think God is One, in three Persons, somehow equates to God is everyone and everything.

I don't even know how that leap could be made, or, how the leap to the topic of this thread was made. People here just making stuff up, I think.

Edited September 28, 2011 by saemo

[Mudcat]

The weight of a human soul.

http://www.snopes.co.../soulweight.asp

Pertinent and intresting.

Zak are you asserting that the human spirit/soul has mass?

[Flyonthewall]

Well it explains the topic of this thread then, if people think God is One, in three Persons, somehow equates to God is everyone and everything.

I don't even know how that leap could be made, or, how the leap to the topic of this thread was made. People here just making stuff up, I think.

Just to let you know, the topic of this thread never once entered my mind before, and I still do not agree with it. There are many non-christian religions out there that believe in something I don't believe exists except in their own mind. I would not call them an athiest.

You believe in the same God I do, you simply have a different conceptualization of Him/Them. If you are an atheist, then so am I.

[altersteve]

Zak are you asserting that the human spirit/soul has mass?

The human soul is both the body and the spirit combined together, so yes, the soul most definitely has mass.

[Mudcat]

The human soul is both the body and the spirit combined together, so yes, the soul most definitely has mass.

Okay, that is interesting. I didn't know LDS thought "soul" = "spirit"+"body"

Zak was using on doctors experiment that the body is lighter after death to make some sort of point.

Given your statement Steve, I'll rephrase. Do you think the spirit has mass?

[3DOP]

Mudcat,

Knowing that this will be read mostly by Mormons, I am happy to be corrected, but from what I have seen, there is nothing that has meaning or existence that is not made out of matter, according to the LDS worldview I have heard articulated. I have asked about things like love, Wednesday, bird calls, and field goals and have been reassured that since they are real, they are made out of matter. Concepts, ideas, and words have mass...although not as much. The LDS, in my experience, who discuss the question, do not admit to believe in any immaterial realities. For you and I, spiritual means immaterial. In discussions with LDS, we have to remember that spirtual means "less material" or "finer material".

[Calm]

Concepts, ideas, and words have mass...although not as much

Interesting idea, but I think it's wrong if someone actually believes this.

However, I think it more likely that anyone who expressed this to you is a poor communicator. I have not heard of this idea myself....and I think it lacks substance.

I suspect what they really meant is that all such things are understood through material expression or has its source in matter, ie. we experience love through the physical and verbal actions of ourselves and others...thus it is a 'material' experience, Wednesday is a label for a time period and therefore is a reflection of material experiences (our day to day interactions, etc.), bird calls and field goals are a result of physical beings acting...again a material expression (and to think of it we hear bird calls and see field goals because they are communicated to us through physical means, first sound and light waves and then our senses which are a physical process.)

I suppose they could have taken the mechanistic/behavioural psych idea that all internal experience such as thought and emotion are just neurochemical states in the brain and applied it to the spirit as well, that the spirit has its neurochemical analogues so that all experience is in essence material (as opposed to be grounded in the material environment), but I have never heard this expressed by an LDS or anyone else for that matter.

Perhaps some have equated actions with mass because they've heard of the direct association of energy with mass, so they think of forces as having mass or get confused by the idea that forces are conveyed by particles, but I think they've either don't understand the actual relationship or are playing semantic or philosophical games.

Something can be experienced in a material way without having mass or being composed of matter itself in my opinion and I would immediately tell this to a LDS if they said that love or Wednesday had "mass", telling them they didn't understand the concept and were taking things way too far.

there is nothing that has meaning or existence that is not made out of matter

I would state this instead that there is nothing that has meaning or existence outside of the material context. Edited September 29, 2011 by calmoriah

[Vance]

Interesting idea, but I think it's wrong if someone actually believes this.

However, I think it more likely that anyone who expressed this to you is a poor communicator. I have not heard of this idea myself....and I think it lacks substance.

I suspect what they really meant is that all such things are understood through material expression or has its source in matter, ie. we experience love through the physical and verbal actions of ourselves and others...thus it is a 'material' experience, Wednesday is a label for a time period and therefore is a reflection of material experiences (our day to day interactions, etc.), bird calls and field goals are a result of physical beings acting...again a material expression (and to think of it we hear bird calls and see field goals because they are communicated to us through physical means, first sound and light waves and then our senses which are a physical process.)

I suppose they could have taken the mechanistic/behavioural psych idea that all internal experience such as thought and emotion are just neurochemical states in the brain and applied it to the spirit as well, that the spirit has its neurochemical analogues so that all experience is in essence material (as opposed to be grounded in the material environment), but I have never heard this expressed by an LDS or anyone else for that matter.

Perhaps some have equated actions with mass because they've heard of the direct association of energy with mass, so they think of forces as having mass or get confused by the idea that forces are conveyed by particles, but I think they've either don't understand the actual relationship or are playing semantic or philosophical games.

Something can be experienced in a material way without having mass or being composed of matter itself in my opinion and I would immediately tell this to a LDS if they said that love or Wednesday had "mass", telling them they didn't understand the concept and were taking things way too far.

I would state this instead that there is nothing that has meaning or existence outside of the material context.

Even the words used to describe the "im-material" God are material based.

Words like substance and essence.

Even the word "spirit" is derived from a material phenomenon known as "breath".

I find absolutely NOTHING in scripture to indicate, imply or express the abstract concept of immaterial. It must be presumed and then read into the text.

Oops! There goes "sola scriptura" under the "immaterial" bus.

Edited September 29, 2011 by Vance

[3DOP]

Even the words used to describe the "im-material" God are material based.

Words like substance and essence.

Even the word "spirit" is derived from a material phenomenon known as "breath".

I find absolutely NOTHING in scripture to indicate, imply or express the abstract concept of immaterial. It must be presumed and then read into the text.

Oops! There goes "sola scriptura" under the "immaterial" bus.

Hey Vance.

I can't tell if you agree or disagree with calmoriah. If I were LDS, I would be one like cal.

As for essence and substance...just because almost all substances and essences are material doesn't imply that all substance and essence is material. If we can admit that words are immaterial, how far are we from admitting that "the Word" is immaterial reality?

[Vance]

Yes, I agree with calmoriah.

As for essence and substance, ALL substances and essences that we know about ARE material. Existence of "immaterial" substances and essences are purely SPECULATION!!!!!

How are words "immaterial"? It takes ink and paper, voice-box and sound waves, computer screen and electrons to produce them. It is our material existence/experience that gives them meaning. What exactly are words anyway? Can you provide a definition that excludes any and all material aspects?

For that matter, what is love?

Is it a "feeling", a "thought", a "labor", an "act". Please feel free to provide a definition that excludes any and all material aspects.

I can agree that "love" as a concept, could be called "immaterial", but in practice or experience it can't be exercised of all things material.

[Calm]

Oops! There goes "sola scriptura" under the "immaterial" bus.

Vance, not all discussions need to be turned into a 'I win, you lose' format....surely 'I win' is sufficient most of the time.

[Rob Bowman]

Vance,

You wrote:

Even the words used to describe the "im-material" God are material based. Words like substance and essence.

You are mistaken. In modern popular (non-philosophical, non-theological) usage substance denotes the physical stuff or compositional element(s) of a physical object, hence dictionaries typically give as one of their definitions something like "that which has mass and occupies space; matter" or "the tangible matter of which a thing consists" or "physical material from which something is made." In this usage there is generally no distinction made between material and physical substance; this usage assumes that the substance is physical, even "tangible." However, the word substance also has non-material usages, most notably the usage defined as "essential nature; essence" or "ultimate reality that underlies all outward manifestations and change." "The philosophical term 'substance' corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means 'something that stands under or grounds things’" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). The concept of an immaterial substance, in just those terms, is as old as Plato and Aristotle.

The word essence implies nothing about materiality or physicality. It derives from the Latin esse meaning "to be."

You wrote:

Even the word "spirit" is derived from a material phenomenon known as "breath".

Yes, but by this reasoning spirit beings must be physical beings, since breath is a physical phenomenon. The fact is that the word spirit is used to express the idea of something that is unseen and bodiless (breath and wind are both unseen, bodiless realities), not to suggest that spirits are physical entities.

I find absolutely NOTHING in scripture to indicate, imply or express the abstract concept of immaterial. It must be presumed and then read into the text.

Oops! There goes "sola scriptura" under the "immaterial" bus.

I find absolutely nothing in the Bible to indicate that spirit is a finer type of matter. As an adherent to sola scriptura, I must look at what the Bible does say about spirits and decide which view best comports with the totality of the biblical evidence. I am not limited to accepting ideas that can be found in explicit statements using the exact terms in question. That would be a misunderstanding of sola scriptura.

[saemo]

Even the words used to describe the "im-material" God are material based.

Words like substance and essence.

Even the word "spirit" is derived from a material phenomenon known as "breath".

I find absolutely NOTHING in scripture to indicate, imply or express the abstract concept of immaterial. It must be presumed and then read into the text.

Oops! There goes "sola scriptura" under the "immaterial" bus.

We speak in human terms and in ways that humans understand, because that is what we are. We cannot describe God, and that, is Biblical. LDS can't describe God without lowering Him to that of human. I'd rather let God be God, and not be able to describe Him, than make Him in the image of myself.

Edited September 29, 2011 by saemo

[Ahab]

We speak in human terms and in ways that humans understand, because that is what we are. We cannot describe God, and that, is Biblical. LDS can't describe God without lowering Him to that of human. I'd rather let God be God, and not be able to describe Him, than make Him in the image of myself.

I hear what you're saying, but what you don't realize is that our Father in heaven is actually our Father.

You seem to take that term figuratively, as if it's really not true, but he actually is our literal Father, even though we have "fallen" from what we once were when we shared his glory with him.

Someday I hope you realize that is true, and that Jesus Christ atonement was for the purpose of restoring us to our state as we were before Adam and Eve "fell" in the garden of Eden, and even to go beyond that state so that we will actually remember what we knew before the veil was put into place so that we could be tested by faith.

[Ahab]

I find absolutely nothing in the Bible to indicate that spirit is a finer type of matter. As an adherent to sola scriptura, I must look at what the Bible does say about spirits and decide which view best comports with the totality of the biblical evidence. I am not limited to accepting ideas that can be found in explicit statements using the exact terms in question. That would be a misunderstanding of sola scriptura.

Would you please tell me "what" you think a spirit/ghost is?

... and if you tell me "nothing" I'm going to go shoot myself, figuratively speaking.

[saemo]

I hear what you're saying, but what you don't realize is that our Father in heaven is actually our Father.

You seem to take that term figuratively, as if it's really not true, but he actually is our literal Father, even though we have "fallen" from what we once were when we shared his glory with him.

Someday I hope you realize that is true, and that Jesus Christ atonement was for the purpose of restoring us to our state as we were before Adam and Eve "fell" in the garden of Eden, and even to go beyond that state so that we will actually remember what we knew before the veil was put into place so that we could be tested by faith.

Pre-existence is something I could never believe, sorry. It is to me, new-agey. I don't mean it in a way to insult, just, that is how it looks to me.

As for Father, I don't think you know what I believe. :-) He certainly isn't anything like my biological father, and wouldn't want Him to be.

[Ahab]

Pre-existence is something I could never believe, sorry. It is to me, new-agey. I don't mean it in a way to insult, just, that is how it looks to me.

I agree. The correct term is "pre-mortal existence". Pre-existence is a term that some anti-"Mormons" came up with to be silly.

As for Father, I don't think you know what I believe. :-) He certainly isn't anything like my biological father, and wouldn't want Him to be.

Now why would you say he's not like your biological father when he's actually the one that put you together biologically?

Do you mean he's a better kind of person, or something like that?

[saemo]

I agree. The correct term is "pre-mortal existence". Pre-existence is a term that some anti-"Mormons" came up with to be silly.

Now why would you say he's not like your biological father when he's actually the one that put you together biologically?

Do you mean he's a better kind of person, or something like that?

Either way it's a belief in a previous life, like people who believe in reincarnation and imagine themselves as a maharaja. LDS speak in similar terms.

I mean God transcends what we all are.

The thought of God being a human just plain creeps me out (sorry). Humans fail, quite often. So either God fails, or people think they are God and cannot fail. I cannot accept either.

[etana]

We speak in human terms and in ways that humans understand, because that is what we are. We cannot describe God, and that, is Biblical. LDS can't describe God without lowering Him to that of human. I'd rather let God be God, and not be able to describe Him, than make Him in the image of myself.

Some LDS do see things this way.

[Gervin]

Pre-existence is a term that some anti-"Mormons" came up with to be silly.

Boyd Packer writes: "President Joseph Fielding Smith explained that “all spirits while in the pre-existence were perfect in form, having all their faculties and mental powers unimpaired."

President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., October 19, 1940: "Our whole philosophy is bound up in the erection of temples and the performance of the work therein—our pre-existence, our birth, our death, and our resurrection, and eternal progression thereafter."

Edited September 30, 2011 by Gervin

[etana]

well, "pre-existance" would imply a being that was external to this universe/cosmos/reality or that was only manifest in the Father's thought or foreknowledge. a being from this cosmos/monistic ontological reality/ whatever could only be pre-mortal or pre-earth or pre-whatever we claim to be now.

[Mudcat]

Even the words used to describe the "im-material" God are material based.

Words like substance and essence.

Even the word "spirit" is derived from a material phenomenon known as "breath".

I find absolutely NOTHING in scripture to indicate, imply or express the abstract concept of immaterial. It must be presumed and then read into the text.

Oops! There goes "sola scriptura" under the "immaterial" bus.

Vance,

Given your argument, the statement that, "Nothing is impossible." Would plainly be false. "Nothing" refers to "things" and is ergo "thing" based. So the appeal to "nothing" would be absurd. Also "impossible" refers to what is "possible" and is equally dispensed with for similar reasons.

Statements like, the Holy Spirit has a nonphysical body would also be equally absurd.

IMO Vance, the sort of argumentation you present only knee caps our language and has little to with any actual point. It is a cheap shortcut that I have grown weary of seeing.

We don't see the Bible reference the word immaterial specifically. We do see the usage of invisible, void, nothing and so forth.

All Due Respects,

Mudcat

editted for snark

Edited September 30, 2011 by Mudcat

[3DOP]

Yes, I agree with calmoriah.

As for essence and substance, ALL substances and essences that we know about ARE material. Existence of "immaterial" substances and essences are purely SPECULATION!!!!!

How are words "immaterial"? It takes ink and paper, voice-box and sound waves, computer screen and electrons to produce them. It is our material existence/experience that gives them meaning. What exactly are words anyway? Can you provide a definition that excludes any and all material aspects?

For that matter, what is love?

Is it a "feeling", a "thought", a "labor", an "act". Please feel free to provide a definition that excludes any and all material aspects.

I can agree that "love" as a concept, could be called "immaterial", but in practice or experience it can't be exercised of all things material.

Does Wednesday weigh a little more than love because it is composed of more letters? No. Both are immaterial realities, and once that is established we can go on to say what is essential and what is non-essential to love or Wednesday. We can say what has to be for love or Wednesday to exist.

Edited September 30, 2011 by 3DOP