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[mfbukowski]

28 minutes ago, Bobbieaware said:

Who can even begin to argue that the everlasting extinction in which you believe can even begin to compare in the slightest with life everlasting, an everlasting and glorious existence in which to live, learn, grow, improve, progress, enjoy and love? What a tragedy that in the scenario you believe you will, sooner or later, forever remain an unfinished work, cut off forever from the life of progression in knowledge, wisdom, love and enjoyment in which you are now enthusiasticly engaged. For you believe in an absolute extinction in which all that you now enjoy and  hold dear will be torn from you forever, as if you never existed or made any meaningful difference.

I once made the conscious decision to believe in a perfectly just, merciful and loving God, who will continue love, cherish and nurture me forever. And I did so because I decided that even if that belief doesn't turn out to be true, it most certainly is the way things should be, for it represents, at very least,  a vast improvement over the notion of eternal extinction and forever unredressed injustices in which you believe. And I'm happy to say after taking that initial leap in faith, God has turned on the lights of understanding and I now know for a surety, like Nephi of old, that God is real and the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. 

Convexly, how sad it is for one to believe he will foreever remain an unfinished work, and that the continued blessing he otherwise might have been to the loved ones who surround him will be stamped out of existence forever, as if he never existed. How sad to think we will all be destroyed forever as we are are all worthless, as if there is nothing in any of us preserving, nurturing and loving forever. How much more glorious is the gospel of Christ's everlasting life and love when compared to the anti-gospel of everlasting death?

Yep totally agree, and the irony is that your belief - speaking from pure reason- is just as "valid" as his since no one can possibly know naturally- ie from science- what happens after death, so your view is just as good as his

Pascal's wager!

I'll take that bet anytime!   And for the same reason you do- because the spirit testifies of its truth!

So what if the "spirit" is "just in your mind"?

That is- as even Pascal sensed, back to square one.   It is still better to have a fulfilled life in belief in what I know is true- that there IS an "Intelligence" out there responding to my needs

How am I worse off with that than thinking there is nothing but blackness?

What does he expect?  That he will come back from blackness to be able to say "I told you so!"

That is the tacit assumption here- that atheists want to be "right" and face the blackness - but the problem is that they will never come back to tell us that all there is is blackness.

It is an ego thing- they want to be smarter than everyone else, but unfortunately can't prove it.  Pure ego, nothing more.

It is a senseless discussion for both sides really.   Total waste of time to debate God's existence other than perhaps to show believers that atheists have nothing to show for all their effort, so go ahead and keep what the haters call you names for.

That is really the bottom line- militant atheists are haters!  We see that more and more in this world.....   but so much for politics...

 

[mfbukowski]

7 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying here... but whether or not secular humanism should be labeled as a "religion" is really just an exercise in semantics of how "religion" should be defined.  It doesn't particularly relate to the concept of "belief in God" vs. "not believing in God," which seems to me to be the core of what this topic is mostly focused on.

Ah, fine then and what does?

What use is the debate about belief in God?

Are you offering us salvation from our errors?   Why?   Will you come back from blackness to say "I told you so"?

Been there.  It is a useless belief that God does not exist.  I was fine with it- I am fine with it now.  I am fine in fact with the idea that the spirit is my "unconscious".   Makes no difference to me- whatever it is it enriches my life immeasurably

I just like my life as a believer much much more.  Everything works better and makes more sense to me.  

And all the secular philosophers I read say to go with it if it works.  But you have the TRUTH of no god, then right?  And you will convert me?

Edited September 8, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Daniel2]

12 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Ah, fine then and what does?

What use is the debate about belief in God?

Are you offering us salvation from our errors?   Why?   Will you come back from blackness to say "I told you so"?

Been there.  It is a useless belief that God does not exist.  I was fine with it- I am fine with it now.  I am fine in fact with the idea that the spirit is my "unconscious".   Makes no difference to me- whatever it is it enriches my life immeasurably

I just like my life as a believer much much more.  Everything works better and makes more sense to me.  

And all the secular philosophers I read say to go with it if it works.  But you have the TRUTH of no god, then right?  And you will convert me?

Hi, Mfb,

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking about when you say "Ah, fine then what does?  What use is the debate about belief in God?"... I didn't start the thread, but am happy to participate in it.

I'm not attempting to dissuade those of you who are believers from your path.  I subscribe to the philosophy that "a mind convinced against it's will is of the same opinion still." 

Additionally, if a belief in God offers you and others comfort, meaning, identity, purpose, happiness, and joy, who am I to try to dissuade you from that which is bringing you happiness, regardless of whether or not I believe it's true?  In fact, at no time have I claimed that my belief system is superior to yours, or that you should switch (though, ironically, more than one comment in response to mine has cast aspersions on my belief system and claimed superiority over it).

In short, I'm not "offering" you anything, nor am I attempting to proselytize in favor of atheism.  I'm discussing and enjoying our open and respectful exchange of values and beliefs, which is the purpose of this discussion board.

My purpose in participating is to refute (which my comments have centered around)  claims that atheism is something one has "faith in," and to demonstrate that it's isn't true that a disbelief in God automatically leads to an unhappy, unfulfilling, purposeless, joyless life. 

As I've repeatedly said, if you find value, purpose, meaning, joy, and happiness in your belief system, I fully support you in pursuit of living the life that is meaningful to you.

Hope that helps clarify,

D

[Bobbieaware]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Yep totally agree, and the irony is that your belief - speaking from pure reason- is just as "valid" as his since no one can possibly know naturally- ie from science- what happens after death, so your view is just as good as his

Pascal's wager!

I'll take that bet anytime!   And for the same reason you do- because the spirit testifies of its truth!

So what if the "spirit" is "just in your mind"?

That is- as even Pascal sensed, back to square one.   It is still better to have a fulfilled life in belief in what I know is true- that there IS an "Intelligence" out there responding to my needs

How am I worse off with that than thinking there is nothing but blackness?

What does he expect?  That he will come back from blackness to be able to say "I told you so!"

That is the tacit assumption here- that atheists want to be "right" and face the blackness - but the problem is that they will never come back to tell us that all there is is blackness.

It is an ego thing- they want to be smarter than everyone else, but unfortunately can't prove it.  Pure ego, nothing more.

It is a senseless discussion for both sides really.   Total waste of time to debate God's existence other than perhaps to show believers that atheists have nothing to show for all their effort, so go ahead and keep what the haters call you names for.

That is really the bottom line- militant atheists are haters!  We see that more and more in this world.....   but so much for politics...

 

Excellent, Mark! My thoughts precisely.

But you know what? These kinds of debates are constructive because, as a consequence of pondering on some of the thoughts expressed of this thread, I received a personal revelation that I'll now share with you:

The Spirit revealed to me it's the very kind of leap of faith I took when I walked away from my hardcore atheism that allows all good things to exist and consist. In other words, there is a very real creative power inherent in such leaps of faith because if there were no intelligent beings, including the Gods themselves, willing to take that leap to believe perfect goodness, justice, mercy, compassion, kindness, faithfulness and love can exist, and do so without absolute proof, they wouldn't and couldn't exist.

This means it's our very desire to believe that these good things exist that allows them to exist. They cannot exist in and of themselves. None of the divine attributes of goodness can exist outside of  minds of intelligent beings, even including the mind of God himself, because these things cannot exist unless intelligent minds want to believe in the reality of eternal goodness, for intelligences need to be fully willing do all that's necessary to actually make them real and true.

As much as any other intelligent being, God himself needs to have faith and hope in order to believe all good things are eternally sustainable because good things cannot exist as abstract principles outside of an intelligent mind. The only place goodness can exist is within the mind. So in my case, because I so fervently wanted to believe the God of perfect goodness and love is real and true, I did my part to help allow that reality to continue to be true. By sustaining God, I do my part to help him function as God.

Theoretically, if every intelligent being gave up on believing in faith, hope and charity, God would cease to be God and, as father Lehi testified, all things would vanish into nonexistence. It's because the divine Savior didn't give up on believing in the very real power of faith, hope and charity that he was able to redeem us and make possible the continued existence of all good things. It all happened in his mind.

Simply put, it's because intelligent beings want faith, hope, charity and all good things to be real and true that they are real and true. Herein lies the fatal flaw of atheism: Without realizing it, they have no confidence in the divine because they want the security they think would be theirs if it could somehow be demonstrated that faith, hope, charity and all good things exist on their own, outside of the workings of the mind, especially the minds of a quirky fallen mortals. But this is something that can never be, "For without faith it is impossible to please God." (Paul) If there weren't a single mind that wanted God to exist, he wouldn't exist. It's because there are intelligent minds that want all good things to exist that they do exist.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[Daniel2]

3 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

Who can even begin to argue that the everlasting extinction in which you believe can even begin to compare in the slightest with life everlasting, an everlasting and glorious existence in which to live, learn, grow, improve, progress, enjoy and love? What a tragedy that in the scenario you believe you will, sooner or later, forever remain an unfinished work, cut off forever from the life of progression in knowledge, wisdom, love and enjoyment in which you are now enthusiasticly engaged. For you believe in an absolute extinction in which all that you now enjoy and hold dear will be torn from you forever, as if you never existed or made any meaningful difference.

I once made the conscious decision to believe in a perfectly just, merciful and loving God who will continue love, cherish and nurture me forever. And I did so because I decided that even if that belief didn't turn out to be true it most certainly is the way things ought to be, for it represents, at very least,  a vast improvement over the notion of the eternal extinction and forever unredressed injustices in which you believe. And I'm happy to say after taking that initial leap into the realm of faith that God has turned on the lights of understanding and I now know for a surety, like Nephi of old, that God is real and the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. 

Conversely, how sad it is for one to believe he will foreever remain an unfinished work, and that the continued blessing he otherwise might have been to the loved ones who surround him will be stamped out of existence forever, as if he never existed. How sad it is to think we will all be destroyed forever as if we are are all worthless, as if there is nothing in any of us worth preserving, nurturing and loving forever. How much more glorious is Christ's  gospel of everlasting life and love when compared to the anti-gospel of everlasting death?

I'm glad you've found meaning in your beliefs to the extent that you're maximizing your happiness and potential.

As a gay man who didn't and couldn't believe that my innate ability to love my husband is misplaced, I found the promises and alleged potential of Mormonism (to have a post-mortal personality lobotomy--that is, to have my identity and ability to love and value I receive from our relationship be erased/replaced after I die) to ring hollow and unfulfilling.  Thankfully, I've likewise found meaning in my beliefs to the extent that I truly believe I'm on a path that maximizes my happiness and potential.

What is valuable to you may not be valuable to me, and vice versa.   And that's perfectly fine; our differences are manifestations of the diversity of life and humanity, and it's understandable that we may not share the same goals/values/beliefs. 

Rather than try to persuade you that "mine is better than yours" by either diminishing or demonizing your beliefs or by bragging about how mine is so much better, and without trying to advance arguments to try to convince you that "yours isn't actually better than mine," I'll just leave it that I'm grateful and glad for both of us that we're each on paths in which we're living with integrity and in which we're each joyfully, meaningfully, and happily engaged.

D

Edited September 8, 2017 by Daniel2

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

Excellent, Mark! My thoughts precisely.

But you know what? These kinds of debates are constructive because, as a consequence of pondering on some of the thoughts expressed of this thread, I received a personal revelation that I'll now share with you:

The Spirit revealed to me it's the very kind of leap of faith I took when I walked away from my hardcore atheism that allows all good things to exist and consist. In other words, there is a very real creative power inherent in such leaps of faith because if there were no intelligent beings, including the Gods themselves, willing to take that leap to believe perfect goodness, justice, mercy, compassion, kindness, faithfulness and love can exist, and do so without absolute proof, they wouldn't and couldn't exist.

This means it's our very desire to believe that these good things exist that allows them to exist. They cannot exist in and of themselves. None of the divine attributes of goodness can exist outside of  minds of intelligent beings, even including the mind of God himself, because these things cannot exist unless intelligent minds want to believe in the reality of eternal goodness, for intelligences need to be fully willing do all that's necessary to actually make them real and true.

As much as any other intelligent being, God himself needs to have faith and hope in order to believe all good things are eternally sustainable because good things cannot exist as abstract principles outside of an intelligent mind. The only place goodness can exist is within the mind. So in my case, because I so fervently wanted to believe the God of perfect goodness and love is real and true, I did my part to help allow that reality to continue to be true. By sustaining God, I do my part to help him function as God.

Theoretically, if every intelligent being gave up on believing in faith, hope and charity, God would cease to be God and, as father Lehi testified, all things would vanish into nonexistence. It's because the divine Savior didn't give up on believing in the very real power of faith, hope and charity that he was able to redeem us and make possible the continued existence of all good things. It all happened in his mind.

Simply put, it's because intelligent beings want faith, hope, charity and all good things to be real and true that they are real and true. Herein lies the fatal flaw of atheism: Without realizing it, they have no confidence in the divine because they want the security they think would be theirs if it could somehow be demonstrated that faith, hope, charity and all good things exist on their own, outside of the workings of the mind, especially the minds of a quirky fallen mortals. But this is something that can never be, "For without faith it is impossible to please God." (Paul) If there weren't a single mind that wanted God to exist, he wouldn't exist. It's because there are intelligent minds that want all good things to exist that they do exist.

Thanks so much for that, it is absolutely brilliant and I agree completely. I think in this way if speaking we have found common ground. Intelligent minds create reality, " or there is no existence".

Sound familiar?

Edit:

All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.

WE are the acting intelligences, including of course Father

 

Edited September 8, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Bobbieaware]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Thanks so much for that, it is absolutely brilliant and I agree completely. I think in this way if speaking we have found common ground. Intelligent minds create reality, " or there is no existence".

Sound familiar?

Edit:

All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.

WE are the acting intelligences, including of course Father

 

Bullseye!

[clarkgoble]

On 9/7/2017 at 0:30 PM, Daniel2 said:

Mormons believe that 'faith' is defined as "hope for things which are not seen, but which are true."  Is that the definition you would agree with?

Atheism itself is defined as "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods."

And as an atheist, I would disagree that my lack of belief in God--or a lack of 'faith' in God, if you prefer--can accurately be described as 'faith in' a lack of belief in God.  It doesn't make any sense to me to suggest that anyone has "faith in atheism."  That's like saying atheists "have faith in a having no faith" in the existence of God.  It's nonsensical. 

There's a lot of equivocation over the term of faith. Typically the way Alma uses it he's talking about trusting someone so you accept a claim. So your faith is in the claim "that thing." However faith in a broader religious sense is trust in Christ the way a child might trust their parents. Yet an other sense of the term is belief in a proposition you don't have sufficient evidence to ground as knowledge. I think that's more alien to the scriptures but due to the history of Christianity being affected by philosophy this is the sense many people use it.

In that latter sense both "there is a God" and "there is no God" are propositions for which there's not unambiguous public evidence for. The theist accepts the former proposition and the atheist the latter. Because there's not evidence to justify it then it's belief people believe anyways. Their motives for belief don't really matter for this use, although hope may apply for many in this sense. (In the same way I believe turning a light on will turn the light on. While in that case I typically have sufficient evidence, it's also true I act because I hope it's true." Faith in this sense also constitutes acting as if the proposition were true. 

Now what tends to happen is that we use the word "faith" in one sense and then switch the ways in which the term is used. So if we switch to say trusting in a person, an atheist doesn't believe the person is there, therefore they can't have faith. But that's an equivocation and thus fallacy of argument if the person was using it in a different sense. In your case your error is in assuming there's only a single sense of meaning for the word faith.

[Meerkat]

4 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

If there weren't a single mind that wanted God to exist, he wouldn't exist. It's because there are intelligent minds that want all good things to exist that they do exist.

Very interesting.  I'm trying to keep up.  This statement sounds like the old "If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, was there sound" analogy.  I believe the definition of sound would be the vibrations.  So yes, there was sound.  If we didn't perceive God, it could be that He was still in the formative, organizing state and we hadn't caught up to that awareness yet.  But He would still have existed and exists because we exist.  I am not a figment of your imagination, nor you mine.  And I don't believe that we are figments of His imagination. I see what you are getting at with Father Lehi's statement.  I believe Father's and the Saviors integrity and dependability are so deep, we follow and our future is assured.

Life is real.  Life is earnest, and the grave is not it's goal.

Dust thou art to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul.  (Psalm of Live, Longfellow)

If God is from all eternity to all eternity then I don't know how this would work.  But if God and we rose from the primordial soup, then we all started as elemental intelligences.  I assume you would consider each elemental intelligence a mind that chose to organize around the one we could trust, the one who gathered other intelligences together, formulated a plan, the one with rock solid integrity who we could follow with confidence.  

One scripture that I love is 1 John 3:1-3 "1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
            2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
            3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."

Man of Holiness is His name.  Mos. 6:57

No matter what state we are in, (mortal or immortal,) we will follow Holiness if we want to live where He lives.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Meerkat

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Intelligent minds create reality, " or there is no existence".

If you doubt that, tell me the exact location of all the unknown planets.

Do those planets now "exist"?  Where are they?  What are their characteristics?   In what sense do they "exist" then?

What of all the unknown species?

What of unknown technologies ( maybe startrek stuff or more?  To even characterize it is to make it exist in some sense- as unicorns exist, so do "replicators").  But what of technologies we cannot imagine?  Do they "exist"?

Do we bring them into existence through intelligence?  What of the creatures we call "Dinosaurs".  If we never knew about them would they "exist"?

What is the difference between what we "know exists" and what we do NOT "know exists"?

For humans, nothing exists until we know about it.  As Rorty says, there are still unknown "causes" out there independent of the human mind, but if we do not know about them, we cannot speak of them- and so for all practical purposes we cannot say they "exist"

It makes no sense to say so as these examples show.   

Human intelligence creates the world as HUMANS know it.  That is a tautology and is as true as A=A is true.

What "existence" means is "something we know about"

[Bobbieaware]

1 hour ago, Meerkat said:

Very interesting.  I'm trying to keep up.  This statement sounds like the old "If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, was there sound" analogy.  I believe the definition of sound would be the vibrations.  So yes, there was sound.  If we didn't perceive God, it could be that He was still in the formative, organizing state and we hadn't caught up to that awareness yet.  But He would still have existed and exists because we exist.  I am not a figment of your imagination, nor you mine.  I see what you are getting at with Father Lehi's statement.  I believe Father's and the Saviors integrity and dependability are so deep, we follow and our future is assured.

Life is real.  Life is earnest, and the grave is not it's goal.

Dust thou art to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul.  (Psalm of Live, Longfellow)

If God is from all eternity to all eternity then I don't know how this would work.  But if God and we rose from the primordial soup, then we all started as elemental intelligences.  I assume you would consider each elemental intelligence a mind that chose to organize around the one we could trust, the one who gathered other intelligences together, formulated a plan, the one with rock solid integrity who we could follow with confidence.  

One scripture that I love is 1 John 3:1-3 "1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
            2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
            3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."

Man of Holiness is His name.  Mos. 6:57

No matter what state we are in, (mortal or immortal,) we will follow Holiness if we want to live where He lives.

To simplify, because God is an independent intelligence and a free agent, he has to make the same kind of moral choices we must make. This means God is good because he wants and desires to be good -- no one and no thing is forcing him to be good. In fact, an intelligence cannot be considered to be morally good unless he makes the moral choice to cleve unto goodness and eschew evil (think of Christ when he was tempted by the adversary in the wilderness.and made the conscious decision to not succumb to the adversary's temptations). 

As an independent moral agent, God is perfectly free to choose whatever path he wants to follow and there is not even the slightest degree of compulsion exerted upon him. He does all the good he does, including the willingness to make an infinite and eternal atoning sacrifice of untold suffering, because he wants to be and do good.

 In Mormonism, God is a conquering hero because he has engaged in battle with evil in a fair fight and utterly defeated it, even though he had to descend in suffering bellow all things, even lower that the sons of perdition, in order to prevail in the eternal war between good and evil. The Latter-Day Saints praise and honor God not because he has no choice but to be good but because he totally conquered evil, and did so even though at the beginning of the atoning process there was a place within his mind that wanted to shrink from the awful task, even going so far as to plead with the Father three times that he, the Father, might take away the bitter cup that Jesus might not have to partake.

It is as Paul said, even though Christ was "crucified in weakness" he took anything and everything the devil could throw at him but never gave up on believing in the transformative power of faith, hope and charity. And since Christ said he did none other things than that which he had seen the Father do before him, we may safely conclude that at some point in time the Father also engaged in mortal combat with evil and the power of the devil, just as his Son did, and in doing so he also came off as a great conquering hero of perfect moral righteousness.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[cinepro]

On 9/6/2017 at 10:56 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Today I was having a Facebook conversation with an atheist friend. He quoted some guy named Dyson, "Littlewood's law of miracles states that in the course of any normal person's life, miracles happen at the rate of roughly one per month. The proof of the law is simple. During the time that we are awake and actively engaged in living our lives, roughly for eight hours each day, we see and hear things happening at a rate of one per second. So the total number of events that happen to us is about 30,000 per day, or about a million per month. With few exceptions, these events are not miracles because they are insignificant. The chance of a miracle is about one per million events. Therefore we should expect about one miracle to happen, on the average, every month"

I didn't know how to reply rationally. Please help. The Atheists do know how to do some very good gymnastics to explain away everything  I think I am simply wasting my time with him because nothing helps him. He just keeps making clever arguments, but he won't listen to my main points. I tell him many Atheism problems, but he quickly finds an answer or solution to everything. His faith in Atheism is so strong I seriously doubt he is ever going to change his mind. He thinks my arguments are weak and long debunked. He insists I don't understand Atheism. 

So I wonder if it is even possible to change someone's mind during an online conversation? I think will be done soon. 

Update: He Told me Ramsey Theory explains "my religious experience" and shared video. In the comment section some are saying the same thing that Ramsey Theory explains religions.  I am not good at all at Math, I have no idea how to give a good rational response.  Help. 

 

If you're asking for "help" in understanding what your friend is talking about, I highly recommend this book:

The Improbability Principle

It's a good overview of the math involved in probability, and why humans are so bad at understanding the probability of events (and what that event means).

The book won't make you an atheist, but it will make you a little more skeptical of people who claim divine intervention for an event based on their estimate of improbability.

[Meerkat]

1 hour ago, Bobbieaware said:

To simplify, because God is an independent intelligence and a free agent, he has to make the same kind of moral choices we must make. This means God is good because he wants and desires to be good -- no one and no thing is forcing him to be good. In fact, an intelligence cannot be considered to be morally good unless he makes the moral choice to cleve unto goodness and eschew evil (think of Christ when he was tempted by the adversary in the wilderness.and made the conscious decision to not succumb to the adversary's temptations). 

As an independent moral agent, God is perfectly free to choose whatever path he wants to follow and there is not even the slightest degree of compulsion exerted upon him. He does all the good he does, including the willingness to make an infinite and eternal atoning sacrifice of untold suffering, because he wants to be and do good.

 In Mormonism, God is a conquering hero because he has engaged in battle with evil in a fair fight and utterly defeated it, even though he had to descend in suffering bellow all things, even lower that the sons of perdition, in order to prevail in the eternal war between good and evil. The Latter-Day Saints praise and honor God not because he has no choice but to be good but because he totally conquered evil, and did so even though at the beginning of the atoning process there was a place within his mind that wanted to shrink from the awful task, even going so far as to plead with the Father three times that he, the Father, might take away the bitter cup that Jesus might not have to partake.

It is as Paul said, even though Christ was crucified in weakness he took anything and everything the devil could throw at him but never gave up on believing in the transformative power of faith, hope and charity. And since Christ said he did none other things than that which he had seen the Father do before him, we may safely conclude that at some point in time the Father also engaged in mortal combat with evil and the power of the devil, just as his Son did, and in doing so he also came off as a great conquering hero of perfect moral righteousness.

Thank you.  Beautifully simply put.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

15 hours ago, Meerkat said:

I believe that's what happened to you because that's exactly what happened to me.  And I carry that joy with me.  And no fun loving, maybe even well meaning athiest or anti Mormon is ever going to take it away from me.  I know what I know because, whereas I was filled with sin and sorrow, Christ came into my life and took it all away and replaced it with a joy exactly as Alma said, MY soul did expand, and I do sing the song of redeeming love.

My dear friend Samuel, you have a Friend up above who knows you.  And you are going through a valuable experience that will strengthen your faith.  I can tell you have a wonderful humility about you that God responds to, as do your friends here on this post.  We can strengthen each other here. I relate to what mfbukowski said in his concern about coming across as condescending.  We are all equals here, trying to do our best for God and our fellow beings, whom we love. You are doing a great job.  Keep up the Good Work!

I conclude my post with the words of Helaman 3:35: "Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God."

Thank you that is powerful. Did you feel the spirit to share a message with me? 

Thanks again for reminding me. 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

3 hours ago, cinepro said:

If you're asking for "help" in understanding what your friend is talking about, I highly recommend this book:

The Improbability Principle

It's a good overview of the math involved in probability, and why humans are so bad at understanding the probability of events (and what that event means).

The book won't make you an atheist, but it will make you a little more skeptical of people who claim divine intervention for an event based on their estimate of improbability.

Yes my friend was saying something very similar. Very interesting. 

5 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

There's a lot of equivocation over the term of faith. Typically the way Alma uses it he's talking about trusting someone so you accept a claim. So your faith is in the claim "that thing." However faith in a broader religious sense is trust in Christ the way a child might trust their parents. Yet an other sense of the term is belief in a proposition you don't have sufficient evidence to ground as knowledge. I think that's more alien to the scriptures but due to the history of Christianity being affected by philosophy this is the sense many people use it.

My friend insists he doesn't have faith.  He says his lack of belief in moon dragons isn't faith.  I do feel my friend has faith in Atheism for the way he talks. 

10 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Your friend is just trying to confuse you.  Here is a simple explanation of Littlewood's law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlewood's_law

One interpretation is that miracles happen every day.  So what?  Do we make up "miracles"?

The spirit tells us differently.  Do we make THAT up?  IS everything made up?  

That argument goes nowhere- so I don't know what your friend is saying here.

Ramsey's Theory as much as I can see, is about human perception and is very complex.  As you intuitively understand, it seems to have absolutely NOTHING to do with religion.

I think your friend is trying to say that humans have a tendency to see patterns in everything and therefore seeing patterns is "false" and means that religion and visions etc are "made up"

If we see patterns everywhere, created in the human mind,  the VALID conclusions would be that EVERYTHING is made up then.   So when happens when we go over a cliff- is that made up?

I don't know where he is going from your description- don't let him confuse you more.  Get a new friend!

Yes my friend did mention "tendency to see patterns" and probabilities like Cinepro mentions above.  Maybe I should get a new friend. 

 

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Yes my friend was saying something very similar. Very interesting. 

My friend insists he doesn't have faith.  He says his lack of belief in moon dragons isn't faith.  I do feel my friend has faith in Atheism for the way he talks. 

Yes my friend did mention "tendency to see patterns" and probabilities like Cinepro mentions above.  Maybe I should get a new friend. 

 

 

He says miracles happen every day, and that proves that God does NOT exist?

Does that strike you as odd?

[Meerkat]

3 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Thank you that is powerful. Did you feel the spirit to share a message with me? 

Thanks again for reminding me. 

I hope so.  Your comment was very kind and much appreciated. Thank you!  

Edited September 9, 2017 by Meerkat

[Meerkat]

20 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

He says miracles happen every day, and that proves that God does NOT exist?

Does that strike you as odd?

Some miracles are beyond random events.  In one case my family and I ran into an old friend of mine from Junior High School out in the Olympics.  After joining the Church, I had tried to find her and apologize for being such a jerk in Junior High School.  Her family was gone.  She had left the area without a trace.  So my wife and I prayed for that opportunity.  God came through, and I was able to apologize to her.

One day, Some friends invited us out for an all day sail on Commencement Bay.  We had been cut off from two of our sons, and this was a welcome break from discouragement.  We met in Gig Harbor that morning, sailed all day long and docked at Anthony's for dinner.  Putting our names on the list, we took the long walk to Owens Beach to visit a bit before dinner.  It was dusk.  I saw a shadow jogging toward me.  It was one of our boys we hadn't seen or spoken with in a long time.  He lived twenty miles North in Federal Way.  We lived 20 miles East in Puyallup.  Yet here, at 7pm, after a day on the water, our boy we had been praying for ran straight to us.  "Dad," he said, "What are you doing here?"  Then he said said "That's a real odd cooincidence."  Mmm Hmm.

It's not.  God answers our prayers all the time.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

He says miracles happen every day, and that proves that God does NOT exist?

Does that strike you as odd?

Right. He says miracles are coincidences that our brains interprets as meaningful. 

[cinepro]

On 9/9/2017 at 9:29 AM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Right. He says miracles are coincidences that our brains interprets as meaningful. 

The thing is, it's easy to call something a "miracle" (or otherwise attribute divine intervention as the cause).  But unless we're going to take an extreme position with God as the puppetmaster controlling every coincidence, we have to acknowledge that sometimes stuff will just happen because it happens.  People will win the lottery.  Sometimes I'll be thinking of a song and turn the radio on they'll be playing that exact same song!  Sometimes I'll be standing in line at Disneyland and just happen to be standing next to a friend from fifth grade who I haven't seen in 20 years.

So if we're willing to accept that sometimes stuff like this happens without God's intervention, then we should probably figure out a way to tell the difference.  We could just go by our feelings, and accept everything as a coincidence unless we get a feeling that God is behind it (or attribute some meaning related to religion to it).  But that only works until everybody is doing it for their random deity or belief. Is the Mormon God who arranges for missionaries to miraculously connect with golden investigators the same God who arranges for Evangelicals to miraculously call a friend who just happens to be meeting with the Mormon missionaries and talk them out of it?

Further conversation with your friend should probably involve describing your methodology for determining between the two kinds of events (miraculous coincidences and non-miraculous coincidences). If your methodology rests mainly on your specific religious beliefs, then it may make perfect sense to you, but you'll have to be forgiving of those who don't share your same beliefs and thus see things differently.

[mfbukowski]

On 9/9/2017 at 9:29 AM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Right. He says miracles are coincidences that our brains interprets as meaningful. 

Yes I understand that.  My point is that I find that extremely ironic because what he is saying is HIS interpretation!  HIS interpretation is they are random while our interpretation is that they are purposeful,  or are guided by intelligence.  Whether or not there "is really" any such intelligence cannot be proven on either side.

There is no possible evidence either way.  So it is his "religion" against our religion.

[mfbukowski]

On 9/7/2017 at 1:12 PM, Johnnie Cake said:

See there are things that we can agree on...with a little modification

If you actually studied the philosophy I have tried to teach you there would be very little disagreement between us, except a matter of faith about the "existence" of God.

You would be like Thomas Nagel if you understood the philosophy.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/09/27/philosopher-defends-religion/

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/thomas-nagel-thoughts-are-real

But unfortunately......

Edited September 10, 2017 by mfbukowski

[SamuelTheLamanite]

29 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes I understand that.  My point is that I find that extremely ironic because what he is saying is HIS interpretation!  HIS interpretation is they are random while our interpretation is that they are purposeful,  or are guided by intelligence.  Whether or not there "is really" any such intelligence cannot be proven on either side.

Yes it is all interpretation. I myself believe God made our planet appear to be godless with millions of years of Evolution to test our faith. Many people here don't like my interpretation that there was really no death before the Fall.   

33 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

There is no possible evidence either way.  So it is his "religion" against our religion.

Yes exactly. I like your philosophy that we can't really prove anything. 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

35 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

There is no possible evidence either way.  So it is his "religion" against our religion.

My friend says Ramsey theory doesn't disprove anything, according to him it is just a rational explanation for him. 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

The thing is, it's easy to call something a "miracle" (or otherwise attribute divine intervention as the cause).  But unless we're going to take an extreme position with God as the puppetmaster controlling every coincidence, we have to acknowledge that sometimes stuff will just happen because it happens.  People will win the lottery.  Sometimes I'll be thinking of a song and turn the radio on they'll be playing that exact same song!  Sometimes I'll be standing in line at Disneyland and just happen to be standing next to a friend from fifth grade who I haven't seen in 20 years.

So if we're willing to accept that sometimes stuff like this happens without God's intervention, then we should probably figure out a way to tell the difference.  We could just go by our feelings, and accept everything as a coincidence unless we get a feeling that God is behind it (or attribute some meaning related to religion to it).  But that only works until everybody is doing it for their random deity or belief. Is the Mormon God who arranges for missionaries to miraculously connect with golden investigators the same God who arranges for Evangelicals to miraculously call a friend who just happens to be meeting with the Mormon missionaries and talk them out of it?

I believe God helps everyone. How can probability theories explain when the spirit tells a missionary to turn right instead of left, then learns afterwards that he avoided a terrible accident for turning right? How can your probability theories explain when a Bishop says the right words to help someone during a crisis? How do you explain when a missionary is called to the right city to find his long lost brother?   

Edited September 10, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite