Is Mormonism And Science Compatible? Attn Bcspace

[mfbukowski]

Yeah, I'm jesting, and please don't call me...oh, uh, that would be redundant, wouldn't it?

[mfbukowski]

I really hate to say it, but this particular monologue, including the inflection and emphasis placed on words, reminds me eerily of Robert Tilton. It does sound like a militant atheist version of a tent and sawdust trail sermon.

Which is, after all, what evangelical atheism actually is.

The tone is indeed a tad scarily militant. But I think Kerry would just think it emphatic. He has found his new "truth" and needs to follow that path. I was there too years ago. He has a good spirit- he will figure it out on his own just as we all have to.

Been there, done that!

That's what this life is for anyway.

Edited July 24, 2012 by mfbukowski

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

As I understand the OT, there are both just and unjust wars present within those texts involving Isreal and its enemies. In some of those cases, the Lord commanded and justified certain wars that were, at times, not only large scale campaigns but genocidal in nature (at least on a city-state scale). I hesitate to second guess the Lord here.

I think we should second-guess the records of what the Lord was supposed to have done there. These are fallible records, and it's completely possible and plausible that the corrupt and designing Priests who kept them committed many errors. Gods are not above the law; if they break it, they cease to be worth worshipping as "Gods" at all. We can't just abdicate our own responsibility by simply saying that maybe we can't understand their high and mighty purposes because they move in mysterious ways. Isaiah says that God asks us to come reason with Him; He and the rest of the hosts of heaven, like us, are only supposed to do things which affect others by common consent and through meekness and gentleness and persuasion and longsuffering; taking away someone's agency is what the Accuser wanted to do in the premortal council.

As it is the case that, at the second coming, all of the wicked, those tares that have been gathered out of the vineyard and bound, will be "burned as stubble" when the earth is "cleansed by fire" (by the energy released by the Lord's body itself when his full glory is unveiled in a telestial environment), what do you make of the refiner's fire and fuller's soap? We're talking about billions of people here, Kerry. That's called the "great and terrible day" of the Lord.

Do you have a problem with the eschaton? Does the Lord, being almighty God, have the right to both give and take life, upon his own eternal and lawful criteria? What about David's injunction from God to not leave a single living thing alive among the Amalekites? Men, women, children, camels, donkeys, everything? Was it perhaps that the Amalekites were a "ripe" people? Was the fruit already falling from the vine? It would appear that, from a scriptural perspective, when a people reach their spiritual and moral terminus (and we see this in the Book of Mormon repeatedly) the Lord may bring "speedy destruction" upon them unless they repent. He has at least two ways to do this, the fist being using the natural forces of the earth and elements, and the second being using other peoples to do it by removing his protecting and sustaining hand from them.

Sin, like ideas, has consequences.

I have a problem with the overly-literalistic way that the eschaton is sometimes interpreted. In much the same way that the two-edged sword coming from the Lord's mouth is not actually a literal sword He's got clenched between His teeth but is instead an evocative way of describing His Word to a particular culture, I think a lot of the "cleansing" and "burning" rhetoric we find in scripture is part of a culture-bound complex of metaphorical imagery. We don't believe in a literal Hell of endless fire; we say it's a metaphor for our own feelings of guilt. In the same way, I think the light Christ brings is truth, not physical light. In the great and terrible day, we won't be able to deny Him; we won't be able to lie about His reality, and therefore the old things are done away and burned up in the fiery light of truth.

I think we have to be careful about taking every instance in which someone says they are speaking for God at face value; certainly David and Joshua, among many others, commanding things in God's name which I think were expedient lies, or else simply didn't happen at all and were instead idealized retrojections from the nationalistic historians of a later time. I think sin has natural consequences, and the Lord has nothing to do with those, except insofar as being in His presence -- His reality -- causes us to come to an understanding of our own guilt, leading to the utter destruction of the self-justifying lies we tell ourselves to escape from our own culpability for our actions.

The bottom line here is that I think God is a God of the Living, and His work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of all humanity. From that precept, from that principle, from that record of His purpose, I simply can't accept claims that He is somehow divinely authorized to kill. That seems exactly opposite of His stated objectives. He is the Savior, not the Killer. If He has all power, then He must have a way to teach people lessons without killing them. We mortals don't have that power which allows God to change mortality into immortality in a twinkling, and so sometimes we are forced into violent acts to protect the innocent. But in a way, that's a failure on our part; if we were truly powerful, we'd have the ability to protect the innocent without killing those who threaten them. The blame for collateral damage lies solely and entirely in the terrorists who use civilians as cover; at the same time, if we have a way to stop them without causing harm to others, we're immoral if we don't use it.

And the same goes for God.

[mfbukowski]

"There are no facts, only interpretations"

-Nietsche

That was for Loran.

[ShawFanX]

What this kind of atavistic 19th century positivism/scientism/rationalism really is, at its core, is the constructing, within one's own mind and heart, of a great intellectual golden calf. Kerry Shirts, for whatever reasons known only to himself, has now left the worship of the God of Israel, Issac, and Jacob for the worship of the god of reason, and worship of the god of reason is, at its very core, and stripped of all its sophisticated defensive verbiage, its paeans to critical thinking, logic, and verification, and its glorification of relentless analysis and criticism of every jot and tittle of every religious claim from a rationalistic, scholarly, and scientific standpoint, nothing more than the same old humanism - worship of humans, or of mankind itself, and of the self.

I have termed this kind of thing anthropotheism; humans worshiping and standing in awe and reverence of themselves and the "works of their hands." Kerry, like Dawkins and Dennett and Sagan and Hawking and Gould and Asimov and all the carbon based earthly prophets, seers, and revelators in which he places his faith and salvation, and trapped like the proverbial frog in the well within the tiny and cramped perceptual field of mortal experience, has apparently come to believe that the material observable universe, the one available for inspection through the scientific method (because the scientific method itself was created by human minds that are themselves perceptually embedded within and limited by the laws and conditions of that level of reality), is all that exists.

In his own particular modernist, Western way, Kerry has been fooled by Maya. He thinks, like those he mentions as authorities, that logic, rationality, and critical thinking are transcendent cognitive properties of mind that allow him to float, god-like, above the phenomenal fray instead of properties of human mind and thought that are themselves aspects of the very phenomenal world they attempt to understand and limited, conditioned, and patterned by and inextricably embedded within that phenomenal world (the telestial, or mortal sphere).

Kerry's arguments here, despite everything he's claimed in the video that was posted above regarding the importance of rigorous, relentless critical thinking and deep intellectual scrutiny, are thin dishwater excuses for philosophical argument and actually bespeak the condescending, patronizing, dismissive tone and attitude of Dawkins himself as can be seen in The God Delusion and among any number of "freethinkers" and militant atheists generally.

Kerry talks a very good game about the importance of intellect, logic, and critical thought. Can someone point out a bit of that anywhere in his posts? I'm all for debating and discussing things, in a mature philosophical manner, with atheists, but the O'Hair approach is not going to cut it.

Edited July 24, 2012 by ShawFanX

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

But the point is that God is human, who we can speak with face-to-face as one man speaks to another. (When the Savior shall appear we'll see Him as He is; we'll see that He's a man like ourselves, and that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory.) All these criticisms sound like they are rooted in traditional Christian views of humanism, trying to defend the ontologically-Other unchangingly Simple, groundless Ground of all being type of God. If Mormons are anything, we are materialistic anthropotheists! That's what so great about us. All spirit is matter; Truth is reason, truth eternal; God's glory is intelligence; whatever principle of intelligence we gain here will rise with us. Seek out the best books and teach each other words of wisdom, as all have not faith. Etc.

[ShawFanX]

The tone is indeed a tad scarily militant. But I think Kerry would just think it emphatic. He has found his new "truth" and needs to follow that path. I was there too years ago. He has a good spirit- he will figure it out on his own just as we all have to.

Been there, done that!

That's what this life is for anyway.

Yes, that's one way to look at it. Another was is that ideas and words have consequences, and whatever happens to Kerry, my concern is also for those who may come under his influence.

Just what we need, a cross between John Dehlin and Christopher Hitchens.

[Hamilton Porter]

Seems paradoxical to me.

Is this deism of sorts?

Deism Plus?

[Kerry A. Shirts]

I discuss this claim in some detail here, especially 66-68.

http://maxwellinstit...21&num=2&id=773

Just browsing through quickly I am at lunch, your ideas on slavery are silly. So the slaves were treated *better* in Israel than in other nations? Does that still give morality to owning slavery even if they are treated right? IF slavery is so immoral, wrong, and evil as we as a modern society have finally come around to believing and acting on, WHY didn't God simply say so in the first place? Saying evil is better treated in the Bible than in other areas does not excuse the *fact* that the evil still existed, was commanded, allowed, practiced, you name it, it's in there. It's in there as an O.K. from God. Paul himself, and even Jesus did NOT say anything negative about this heinous way of treating people. In the Bible it is o.k. to beat the living snot out of a slave so long as they did not die in two days. And that's O.K. since other nations beat their slaves so bad it took three days for theirs to die? Am I the only one to see the problem with your apologetic here? And I will get to the rest of your relativizing of evil in your article after I get back home. Perhaps in my skimming I missed out your logic of this, if so, I apologize for writing this, if I didn't and I find more, I will be happy to discuss it with you.......

[cinepro]

I really hate to say it, but this particular monologue, including the inflection and emphasis placed on words, reminds me eerily of Robert Tilton. It does sound like a militant atheist version of a tent and sawdust trail sermon.

With a dash of Huell Howser thrown in...?

[Kerry A. Shirts]

What this kind of atavistic 19th century positivism/scientism/rationalism really is, at its core, is the constructing, within one's own mind and heart, of a great intellectual golden calf. Kerry Shirts, for whatever reasons known only to himself, has now left the worship of the God of Israel, Issac, and Jacob for the worship of the god of reason, and worship of the god of reason is, at its very core, and stripped of all its sophisticated defensive verbiage, its paeans to critical thinking, logic, and verification, and its glorification of relentless analysis and criticism of every jot and tittle of every religious claim from a rationalistic, scholarly, and scientific standpoint, nothing more than the same old humanism - worship of humans, or of mankind itself, and of the self.

I have termed this kind of thing anthropotheism; humans worshiping and standing in awe and reverence of themselves and the "works of their hands." Kerry, like Dawkins and Dennett and Sagan and Hawking and Gould and Asimov and all the carbon based earthly prophets, seers, and revelators in which he places his faith and salvation, and trapped like the proverbial frog in the well within the tiny and cramped perceptual field of mortal experience, has apparently come to believe that the material observable universe, the one available for inspection through the scientific method (because the scientific method itself was created by human minds that are themselves perceptually embedded within and limited by the laws and conditions of that level of reality), is all that exists.

In his own particular modernist, Western way, Kerry has been fooled by Maya. He thinks, like those he mentions as authorities, that logic, rationality, and critical thinking are transcendent cognitive properties of mind that allow him to float, god-like, above the phenomenal fray instead of properties of human mind and thought that are themselves aspects of the very phenomenal world they attempt to understand and limited, conditioned, and patterned by and inextricably embedded within that phenomenal world (the telestial, or mortal sphere).

Kerry's arguments here, despite everything he's claimed in the video that was posted above regarding the importance of rigorous, relentless critical thinking and deep intellectual scrutiny, are thin dishwater excuses for philosophical argument and actually bespeak the condescending, patronizing, dismissive tone and attitude of Dawkins himself as can be seen in The God Delusion and among any number of "freethinkers" and militant atheists generally.

Kerry talks a very good game about the importance of intellect, logic, and critical thought. Can someone point out a bit of that anywhere in his posts? I'm all for debating and discussing things, in a mature philosophical manner, with atheists, but the O'Hair approach is not going to cut it.

In other words, you would rather cut me down personally in ad hominim than deal with issues......... I have been told this is how LDS treat people who think differently than them, and now I am seeing it in action. So now because I am trying to figure things out rationally all the sudden I am an atheist, a stupid logician thinker who has left the worship of the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob? I have seen enough to know now that I have to go. Thanks for the interesting conversations, I won't be back anytime soon.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Kerry A. Shirts

[ShawFanX]

I think we should second-guess the records of what the Lord was supposed to have done there. These are fallible records, and it's completely possible and plausible that the corrupt and designing Priests who kept them committed many errors.

I know of no church teaching, for nearly two centuries now, that has ever called those partuclar OT events into question. There is also near genocidal warfare in the Book of Mormon understood as both just and unjust, given the circumstances and motives of those involved, as well as whether the Lord justified such action or not.

Gods are not above the law; if they break it, they cease to be worth worshipping as "Gods" at all.

What law? Who's law?

We can't just abdicate our own responsibility by simply saying that maybe we can't understand their high and mighty purposes because they move in mysterious ways.

But the scriptures - repeatedly - tell us precisely that. In many cases, we just cannot comprehend, or even begin to approach comprehension, of God's mind and reasons for dealing with his children as he does in certain cases.

Isaiah says that God asks us to come reason with Him; He and the rest of the hosts of heaven, like us, are only supposed to do things which affect others by common consent and through meekness and gentleness and persuasion and longsuffering; taking away someone's agency is what the Accuser wanted to do in the premortal council.

OK, so now you're isolating scriptural references and using them as prooftexts for your particular vision. We can do that all day, but this is clearly not an intellectually productive undertaking. There will be no common consent from the wicked when they are "burned as stubble." There was no common consent at the Flood. I see no common consent when the Nephites were obliterated as a people by the Lamanites. No common consent when the Romans flattened Jerusalem, as prophesied by Jesus himself.

I have a problem with the overly-literalistic way that the eschaton is sometimes interpreted. In much the same way that the two-edged sword coming from the Lord's mouth is not actually a literal sword He's got clenched between His teeth but is instead an evocative way of describing His Word to a particular culture, I think a lot of the "cleansing" and "burning" rhetoric we find in scripture is part of a culture-bound complex of metaphorical imagery.

This is about as far from core, established Church doctrine as it is possible to go without simply rejecting the gospel outright, in m view. We could do this across a plethora of doctrines and counsel from the Lord's servants and just make up our own Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints according to our own "laws," and human sense of morality and what should or should not be the case, but that, as fun as it may be, is called "apostasy," and I've never been very partial to it. A Unitarian or liberal mainline Protestant might find this kind of carefully nurtured sophistry attractive, but Latter day Saints who have lived the gospel deeply and consistently enough to have had the revelation available to those who will seek it and have held on to the Iron Rod, are not likely to take this kind of thing seriously. The eschaton is literal, and for both the righteous and the wicked, it means precisely what the language of the scriptures used to describe it appears to mean - the literal end of the world, not the planet itself, but "Babylon" and the presence of wickedness upon the earth. It means the literal return of Jesus Christ to the earth as Lord of Lords and King of Kings, to rule here personally.

We don't believe in a literal Hell of endless fire; we say it's a metaphor for our own feelings of guilt.

We say nothing of the kind. Where are you getting this from? There is no literal hellfire, to be sure, but Hell, or Outer Darkness, in core LDS teaching, is a very real place, or sphere of existence, as is the spirit world generally, in all of its fundamental divisions and departments, and as is the telestial, terrestrial, and celestial worlds. I frankly don't know what you're talking about here. You're a Latter day Saint, correct? Are you unaware of fundamental Church doctrines regarding the plan of salvation and their various degrees of literalness and symbolic content?

In the same way, I think the light Christ brings is truth, not physical light. In the great and terrible day, we won't be able to deny Him; we won't be able to lie about His reality, and therefore the old things are done away and burned up in the fiery light of truth.

Fine, but this is purly your own speculations and is not congruent with established Church doctrine.

The bottom line here is that I think God is a God of the Living, and His work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of all humanity. From that precept, from that principle, from that record of His purpose, I simply can't accept claims that He is somehow divinely authorized to kill.

He is almighty God. He is the giver of life. He is the cause, father, and source of all organized existence, matter, and intelligence. He brought order out of chaos. the universe and all its elements, forces, and structures, from the most fundamental to the most complex and elegant, are his creation. He has the absolute right to give physical life, and to take it away, as he wills and as our conduct as mortals requires and according to the laws of eternity (priesthood).

If you wish to be prophet, seer, and revelator to the church and to humanity, and to decide what is to be doctrinal and what is not, please show my your mantel of authority and your errand from the Lord to do so.

Loran

Edited July 24, 2012 by ShawFanX

[volgadon]

In other words, you would rather cut me down personally in ad hominim than deal with issues......... I have been told this is how LDS treat people who think differently than them, and now I am seeing it in action. So now because I am trying to figure things out rationally all the sudden I am an atheist, a stupid logician thinker who has left the worship of the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob? I have seen enough to know now that I have to go. Thanks for the interesting conversations, I won't be back anytime soon.

Kerry, it is a common tactic of Loran's, he has used similar ones on me. You know full well that LDS aren't a monolithic block, so why are you taking obnoxious personal attacks as the norm?

[ShawFanX]

Kerry, it is a common tactic of Loran's, he has used similar ones on me. You know full well that LDS aren't a monolithic block, so why are you taking obnoxious personal attacks as the norm?

If you wish to be reported, just keep it up, volg. I have avoided you completely since coming back here, and for the very reason of your long history of unrelenting hostility towards me (and we know why, don't we?). You attacked me personally the moment I showed up here, and I have not responded, and do not intend to respond to you after this post.

Mind your own business.

Loran

[volgadon]

If you wish to be reported, just keep it up, volg. I have avoided you completely since coming back here, and for the very reason of your long history of unrelenting hostility towards me (and we know why, don't we?). You attacked me personally the moment I showed up here, and I have not responded, and do not intend to respond to you after this post.

Mind your own business.

Loran

Let's just say that making personal attacks upon others and mischaracterising their thoughts and motives don't exactly endear you. In this case, your numerous attacks on Kerry personally are not something he warrants.

[volgadon]

But the point is that God is human, who we can speak with face-to-face as one man speaks to another. (When the Savior shall appear we'll see Him as He is; we'll see that He's a man like ourselves, and that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory.) All these criticisms sound like they are rooted in traditional Christian views of humanism, trying to defend the ontologically-Other unchangingly Simple, groundless Ground of all being type of God. If Mormons are anything, we are materialistic anthropotheists! That's what so great about us. All spirit is matter; Truth is reason, truth eternal; God's glory is intelligence; whatever principle of intelligence we gain here will rise with us. Seek out the best books and teach each other words of wisdom, as all have not faith. Etc.

Well said.

[ShawFanX]

Nonsense. You are all over the place here, both admitting and denying the foibles of science and technology. Indeed, scientism can and has been deified in many places, but it is a false god, and you will find it betraying you the same way any phony baloney system betrays its adherents. The authoritarian academy worships at the feet of Alfred Nobel, it serves the military-industrial complex heart and soul, it cynically uses power for personal gain and for vengeance against enemies. Science & technology make the spread of porn, human trafficking, and drugs virtually unstoppable. Preening scientists lie, cheat, and steal their way to august positions and titles. I love science and technology, but then so does Hugh Hefner -- and if you think he cares at all about morals, I feel very sorry for your coming disappointment.

The Roman empire lived for the glory of conquest through their superior science and engineering, murdering whole cities and peoples, not much different than their Nazi admirers. Hedonism and the worship of power brought both down to destruction, but look at how many they took down with them. Science & technology are useful tools, not gods to be worshipped, lest we lose all sense of perspective.

Excellent points all, but one thing yet remains, and that is the most relentless and un-self corrected corruption of science since Lysenko, and that is, of course, AGW (or DAGW or CAGW, as you will). And this is not the only area in which politics and ideology have ensconced themselves within a science or body of sciences and corrupted or destroyed scientific ethics, the peer review process (which is no panacea in any case), and sought science with policy implications.

What Kerry is up to here is the religification of science and the deification of human beings as those who have created and expanded it. Logically then, his attack on science is, by definition, an attack on the very scientism he now supports.

[ShawFanX]

Let's just say that making personal attacks upon others and mischaracterising their thoughts and motives don't exactly endear you. In this case, your numerous attacks on Kerry personally are not something he warrants.

Your longstanding hatred of me over ideological and political subjects is of no concern to me. If you'd like to show me anywhere in my posts thus far where I've attacked Kerry personally, and have not simply pointed out and criticized weaknesses and negative aspects of his psychological and mental orientation, and attacked his ideas and arguments, please feel free to do so.

Don't try to derail the thread, please.

[ShawFanX]

In other words, you would rather cut me down personally in ad hominim than deal with issues.........

Uh...first of all, your arrogant, condescending, and philosophically vulgar attacks on religion per se and upon religious people and thier convictions, understandings, and faith per se:

Its about understanding our material world, not some fairytale made up thing floating around in the sky somewhere. Science is grounded in observable reality, not tissues of non-evidential faith.

Yes, Kerry, we get it. Mormonism, like all other varieties of serious theism, are about the "Flying Spaghetti Monster." Yes, we all "get it."

Secondly, your condescending insults aimed at the intelligence and education of others who disagree with you:

Uttrerly preposterous BCSpace. IF we CANNOT account for every single particle (hey. lets throw in sub atomic particles while we are at it shall we?) then there is NO WAY to account for computers working......yet THEY DO WORK because science is CORRECT. So do we also put in your ridiculously stringent thinking to God as well then?

So you think science cannot preclude God? It can do so with utter ease, and without your silly tap dancing dodge. SHOW *ANY* physical evidence that God exists.

THAT is all science has to do, not this silliness you dream up from who knows where.

BCSpace said:

The scriptural injunction (D&C 88:78-79 for example) to seek learning and knowledge about secular things puts the Church's stamp of approval on science. They will never be in a state of conflict.

Kerry notes:

This is fundamentally illogical to the core.

And the smug sense of intellectual superiority with this little tidbit aimed at Bob Crockett:

I simply disagree with the rest of what you say also. But then, that's the price of reading so much science.

Then you move on to your next nemesis, Bill Hamblin:

just browsing through quickly I am at lunch, your ideas on slavery are silly. ...And I will get to the rest of your relativizing of evil in your article after I get back home.

You have, as of yet, as I've pointed out before, not attempted a single critical, logically coherent analysis or refutation of any of the arguments or points I've made thus far. You keep evangelizing for your new religion of atheistic materialism, but you've come up far, far short thus far regarding logical argument and philosophical rigor - you're very stated cardinal principles. You've been talking down your nose to virtually everyone who disagrees with you strongly - and in other threads as well - since your atheist Great Awakening began.

Calling other people's well thought out arguments and observations "silly," "silliness," a "tap dancing dodge," and concepts and ideas sacred to others, including your own fellow Saints, a "fairy tale" that is "floating around up there somewhere," has been outrageous, smug, self satisfied, and paternalistic. Let me give you a hint: if you talk like Kevin Graham, you're going to receive some blow-back.

I've not personally attacked you at all save to point out aspects of your beliefs and apparent mental state to which I take exception. If you wish to attack Dr. Hamblin as a moral relativist and presentist, please feel free to do so, but don't be surprised if there is a response, and don't wail in anguish that you're being bullied.

I have been told this is how LDS treat people who think differently than them, and now I am seeing it in action.

Yes, yes, and so you are now being put upon by the Blue Meanie apologists who find you among them calling serious points and arguments "silly" and "preposterous" and intellectually substantive rebuttals a "tap dancing dodge" and the gospel they have embraced a "fairy tale," and when someone observes that some of your key arguments may be able to bear the title "preposterous" themselves, you he cry foul.

So now because I am trying to figure things out rationally all the sudden I am an atheist,

Oh for crying out loud, stop bathing in your own intellectual grandiosity. Many of us here have been trying to figure things out rationally for most of our lives, me among them. That we haven't come to the same conclusions as you have, or have not gone swerving across the same medians as you have, does not mean anything regarding the intellectual rigor we have brought to the table. Reason, Kerry, is a tool; it is disciplined thought, and nothing more. It is not oracular in nature.

a stupid logician thinker who has left the worship of the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob? I have seen enough to know now that I have to go. Thanks for the interesting conversations, I won't be back anytime soon.

Logic can lead one to truth or, depending upon both the motives and the initial assumptions of a process of logical thought, into abssal darkness. Its is a human endevor, even at its best, with all that implies.

Edited July 24, 2012 by ShawFanX

[ShawFanX]

OK, let me step back for a minute, put some ice cubes on my forehead, and restate something, minus the fielding of Kerry's personal emotional responses to the dissent and criticism he has received here as to his new philosophical orientation, and restate something I said above and ask Kerry to comment upon it in an intellectually substantive manner:

Reason, Kerry, is a tool; it is disciplined thought, and nothing more. It is not oracular in nature...Logic can lead one to truth or, depending upon both the motives and the initial assumptions of a process of logical thought, into abssal darkness. Its is a human endevor, even at its best, with all that implies

Edited July 24, 2012 by ShawFanX

[mfbukowski]

Well said.

Agreed.

[mfbukowski]

Your longstanding hatred of me over ideological and political subjects is of no concern to me. If you'd like to show me anywhere in my posts thus far where I've attacked Kerry personally, and have not simply pointed out and criticized weaknesses and negative aspects of his psychological and mental orientation, and attacked his ideas and arguments, please feel free to do so.

Don't try to derail the thread, please.

Wow I am really glad you didn't attack him personally, just "negative aspects of his psychological and mental orientation."

Who knows what it would have been like if you attacked him personally.

Besides I thought you were now ignoring volgadon?

[Calm]

The tone is indeed a tad scarily militant. But I think Kerry would just think it emphatic. He has found his new "truth" and needs to follow that path. I was there too years ago. He has a good spirit- he will figure it out on his own just as we all have to.

Been there, done that!

That's what this life is for anyway.

As long as Kerry keeps his love of learning and for life, I do not worry about the outcome....just hope the process is as painless and as joyful as it can be for him.

[zerinus]

BCSpace has claimed Mormonism and science are completely compatible. I sincerely disagree and BCSpace has agreed to debate the evidence for and against said proposition. Here is my first, and by no means not the only, evidence against compatibility.

Disagreeing with BCSpace isn’t hard. I would try to find something more challenging than that if I were you!

With regard to science being compatible or incompatible with Mormonism, you need first to define your terms more clearly. The word science has far from a clear meaning. By “science” do you mean the scientific method, or do you mean the conclusions of science? And do you mean exact sciences like physics, chemistry, mathematics; or do you mean inexact sciences archaeology, geology, or anthropology? Do you mean science in the modern sense (i.e. the experimental sciences) or the traditional sense (which simply means a body of knowledge)? Many academic disciplines including theology has been called “science”. So you need to define your terms very clearly; and in this case I don’t think you have done that. I prefer to use the word “truth” rather than “science”. If you put the question in this form: “Is Mormonism and truth compatible?” instead of, “Is Mormonism and science compatible?” my answer would definitively be Yes. But when you put the question the other way, then the answer is not clear, because the meaning of science is not clear. If science was always = truth, then the answer would be yes; but I don’t believe that the conclusions of science is always = truth. That is especially the case of inexact sciences, like geology, archaeology, anthropology etc. Their conclusions are not always = truth.

Evolution for starters is not about design or purpose. There is no direction, no intent, and no reason, it just happens. There is absolutely no god or gods directiing their creation via the means of evolution either. There is your first incompatibility with religion.

That is certainly true of Evolution as it is envisaged by the “scientists”. From their stand point, Evolution is entirely a random process; therefore by definition there is no “design” behind it. And since they are the ones who invented the idea in the first place, they certainly have the right to define what it means. And I would go along with that. Those who believe that Evolution and Creation are or can be “compatible,” need to redefine the meaning of Evolution in such a way that is both different from the “scientific” definition, as well as being credible, as well as being compatible with Creation. They haven’t done that. The scientific definition of Evolution is not compatible with Creation, because it is defined as a random process. Creation is not random. So they need to come up with a different definition, and they haven’t done that yet, as far as I know.

Remember, Mormonism as the "only true religion" has taken a NEUTRAL stance on this issue.

I am not sure how you come to that conclusion. I have statements form the First Presidency that do the opposite. It has be quoted here galore. Not going to quote it again.

Haven't you ever wondered at such a weird take? Here God Almighty himself, the source and fountain and cause of eternal truth, of verifiable truth hasn't given the truth on this most important subject?

I don’t know how you come to that conclusion either; and even if it is true, what conclusion you draw from it? If God hasn’t spoken on it, that means it is true, or false, or what?

And all the while evolution continues to show itself WITH EVIDENCE as completely certifiable, while creation has now been completely explained as natural occurrences with no supernatural add on hypothesis even needed?

You are entitled to that opinion, but it is not one that I am inclined to share.

Remember you said Mormonism and science are compatible, but Mormonisms' stance on evolution is a cop out. Neutrality is NOT compatible with the evidence and proofs of evolution, it is a cop out.

I can’t really vouch for what other people have said. They have to defend their own statements. But from my point of view you need to explain two things: (1) Why Mormonism’s stance on Evolution is a copout? And (2) If it is a “copout,” what conclusion do you draw form that? Suppose Mormonism fails in something? That proves what? I don’t think that Mormonism has always been successful at everything. But I don’t know what conclusion you intend to draw from that. I think it is still true, in spite of its failures.

Edited July 25, 2012 by zerinus

[ShawFanX]

Wow I am really glad you didn't attack him personally, just "negative aspects of his psychological and mental orientation."

Who knows what it would have been like if you attacked him personally.

Besides I thought you were now ignoring volgadon?

I attacked Kerry's ideas and arguments, as well as his presentation of them, and I see no way to disassociate his ideas and arguments, as well as the attitude he brought with him into the thread, from Kerry himself. Sorry.

I am ignoring volgadon. Each and every time I come back into this forum, he's lies in wait and takes every opportunity to pull me into a personal rumble with him and reports my posts at the slightest provocation. I know how he operates from past experience. I only asked him for some examples, which I thought was appropriate. I will be ignoring him from now on.

Edited July 24, 2012 by ShawFanX