The Most Unscientific Things Currently Published By The Church

[thesometimesaint]

Tarski:

It's worse than that. We have elements that last for only the tiniest fraction of a second. How that is etenal is beyond me. Plus if the science is correct, and I have no reason to doubt it. Then even the neutrons that make up atoms beyond hydrogen will eventually dissolve into nothing. As that is about 100 trillion trillion trillion years from now, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

[Tarski]

Tarski:

It's worse than that. We have elements that last for only the tiniest fraction of a second. How that is etenal is beyond me.

That's what I was hinting at.

Basically, neither particle number or total rest mass is a conserved quantity in relativistic quantum field theories or sucessor theories such as string theory.

But there is more to say to those that are worried about matter or energy being created from nothing at the big big event.

First of all, the big bang event is not a proper event since it does ot correspond to point in spacetime but rather a sort of singularity. Since, conservation laws relate quantities or fields defined in spacetime, there is no way even straighforwardly talk about a simple conservation violation at the big bang. There would be no before to compare with the after.

Secondly, conservations laws in their familiar form are true to the supposed fact that certain symmetries hold for spacetime. For Newtonian physics we have the familiar correspondences:

Translation invariance-----> conservation of total linear momentum

Rotational invariance-------> conservation of total angular momentum

time translation invariance-----> energy conservation

For special relativity these are subtly modified and combined in the Poincare group but the basic idea still holds. We expect such Noether's therem based conservation laws when we are using only special relativity (as we are when we do particle accelerator experiments).

But these symmetries do not apply globally in general relativity. One has to rework questions of energy conservation when there is spacetime curvature since the latter can destroy the existence of global spacetime symmetries. The notion of a local energy conservation law continues to hold in the form of zero divergence for the energy-momentum tensor, but the notion of total energy and it's conservation becomes problematic.

So why should we even expect a straighforward conservation law to hold at the big bang even if we could make sense of it?

It isn't a logically necessary principle and certainly not an obvious "spiritual principle".

Finally, the true theory of the BB will be a quantum theory and so we have to expect questions to be even more subtle because of the notion of quantum fluctuation (an admittedly tricky and perhaps unclear notion when looked at closely).

Edited October 9, 2011 by Tarski

[thesometimesaint]

I do keep up, but the math is way beyond me. Calculus was as far as I went. But in my work-a-day world. I seldom had to count beyond the number of my clients at any one time.

I did notice that we have discovered actual Dark Matter. http://apod.nasa.gov...d/astropix.html

Edited October 9, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[LeSellers]

If you have such a hard time knowing what the Title of the subject under discussion without a constant reminder there isn't much that I can do.

Whatever the topic may be, the discussion often (nearly always) goes off on tangents. This topic is no exception.

Context is critical to understanding any text. "Quote" is just not at all hard to use. The point of any discussion is to make one's position clear. Without context, it's much more difficult.

Lehi

[mfbukowski]

.... Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water are not eternal.

This is true, though on high council Sunday, Wind may definitely appear to be eternal.

[TAO]

Perhaps it is just me, but I equate the eternality of matter to conservation of energy and conservation of relative motion.

I think you guys are looking at it in a tiny bit of a different way than the scripture says. It essentially means that the spirit part of matter and the physical part are eternally connected. Or you could look at it as saying matter never 'disappears'.

But I could be reading it wrong.

Best Wishes,

TAO

Edited October 10, 2011 by TAO

[Sevenbak]

[img'>http://www.mormondialogue.org/public/style_images/master/snapback.pngthesometimesaint, on 09 October 2011 - 12:53 PM, said:

.... Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water are not eternal.

I do believe eternal fire is mentioned a few times here and there.

[ERayR]

These issues often get discussed in different threads, but I think it would be good to bring them all together just so we're clear.

What are the most "unscientific" things that are currently taught by the Church, including articles or talks on the Church website, or in Church or CES curriculum?

To be clear, I'm not talking about angels, resurrection, miracles and such things. I'm referring those things that appear to clearly and directly contradict current science (including archaeology). Or, if proven correct, would re-write current scientific theories and probably earn the prover a Nobel prize.

This can include articles by non-GAs. If any of these teachings have been corrected, updated or otherwise improved in subsequent Church publications, it would be very helpful for those references to be provided.

But please provide direct links and citations from LDS.org for all references. If it's not there, it doesn't count.

Here are a few that come to mind for me.

1. Obviously, the literal global flood is first and foremost:

The Flood and the Tower of Babel

(and literal Tower of Babel, see above)

2. The Earth was created near Kolob, and fell to its current location in the cosmos at Adam's fall:

The Book of Abraham: A Most Remarkable Book

3. The continents were separated after the flood, and the Jaredites were the first inhabitants of the new world.

A Promised Land

The church is not a scientific organization. Although our members do pretty well in the scientific areas.

[wenglund]

This is true, though on high council Sunday, Wind may definitely appear to be eternal.

Ah, yes...the quarterly parched scirocco . LOL

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[mfbukowski]

Ah, yes...the quarterly parched scirocco . LOL

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[thesometimesaint]

mfbukowski:

Ps. I've always wondered why Fast Sunday was always so slow.

Edited October 10, 2011 by thesometimesaint