Author: Karyn
Date: 03-26-04 00:49
RW - I would like to respond if I may.
RockWalk wrote:
> JAK and anyone else that would care to read this post - have
> you heard this before...from God's own words according to what
> we mormons believe? "Worlds without number have I created and
> inhabited them."
Is this a quote from the Book of Mormon?
> However, I ask; why not? If there was or is no beginning to
> time (as I believe) then you could go back in time 1000000
> trillion * 1000000 trillion * 1000000 trillion years and that
> still would be so small a time in the eternal past that it
> couldn't even be measured. This is also true going forward.
>
Well, RW, you assume something detrimental to your argument - that time is constant. But time is not constant; it is a product of motion. Without going into too much detail, the faster something is moving, the slower time goes by for that thing. It has been demonstrated that for anything moving at the speed of light, time stops completely. So what you really are saying when you believe that 'time has always existed' is that you believe the universe has always been in motion. But the universe's expansion is slowing down; its motion is not remaining constant. Please see below for more on that.
> Not only do I believe that, but I also believe that matter has
> always existed; neither was it nor can it be created (meaning
> from nothing).
This is impossible, and absurd to state such a thing. Ages can be put on many objects within this universe, from galaxies to rocks. If you believe that matter has always existed then you believe that it does not have any beginning - that matter is eternal. There's just one little problem with your theory - its called the Law of Entropy. Put simply the entire universe is in a massive state of entropy. It cannot always exist because it is breaking down.
If you think that rediculous (no beginning to
> time and matter never having been created) how much more
> rediculous is it to believe that there was a beginning?
Why is it innately ridiculous to imagine that the universe had a beginning? Especially as a theist? Your theory, most closely resembling either steady-state or oscillating universe theory by atheists, has mountains of evidence against it. In fact even a moderate knowledge of physics can disprove these two theories.
How
> long would one need to watch absolutely nothing before a
> rock appeared. If that's impossible - and of course it is
> impossible - then it must have always been there; meaning no
> beginning.
>
This is a silly argument - a straw man. No one claimed that just watching a rock will cause anything to be created from it, or that watching the ground will cause a rock to appear. That is the whole point of cosmology, in fact - that everything has a cause. First you say that matter has no cause, then you refute your own point by explaining that the rock must have had a cause for being there. "Having always been there" is not an option for valid and rational argument. The Earth hasn't always been here, so that rock, which is a part of the Earth, could not possibly have existed for all eternity. And even if you reply that the rock simply existed in another form, you still have a major problem with entropy.
> Let me take this one more step and then I'll quit. If it's
> impossible for a rock to materialize out of nothing;
Let me quote something from the Bible, Jesus words, which I think might help you understand who could have created that rock: "With men this is impossible, but not with God, for with God, all things are possible".
what are
> the possibilities of an intellegent creature (talk, see, hear,
> reason, taste, etc.) to materialize out of nothing. I'm not
> talking about a single molecule developing into some
> intellegent creature...I'm talking about 'absolutely nothing'
> becoming an intellegent creature.
It can't. You're on the right track here, you're just attributing your answer to the wrong source. In order for anything to have come into existence, wherein before that point in time it was not in existence, there had to have been a cause. "Existing for eternity" is not a plausible 'cause'...we can immediately reject such a notion by observing the world around us with even a passing glance. The second law of thermodynamics states that everything runs down. It is a law of the universe. Period!
Intellegence as well as
> matter was not nor can it be created out of absolutely nothing.
> Intellegence can't be created nor can it be destroyed.
> Intellegence departs the human body at death (if you want we
> can discuss intellegence before it entered the human body in
> another post), but continues housed in a spirit body (spirit
> being a very fine form of matter) awaiting the resurrection.
>
You have been indoctrinated by Mormon flubbery; a religion which has been as shrouded in irrationality as its founder was. Joseph Smith also taught that Quakers lived on the moon. I don't believe any astronaut has found the fabled Quaker clan.
A spirit is a 'very fine form of matter'? Matter cannot exist in more than one place at one time. It is physically impossible. So how to you explain the Holy Spirit? How do you explain the verses in the Bible which state BOTH that God (the Father) is:
1. A Spirit
2. Omnipresent
You are misguided in your views on the soul, my friend. Matter is matter, there is no 'fine' and 'not fine'. Matter is tangible. Have you ever grabbed hold of a spirit? I do not think so. If spirit were matter, we could measure it as one weighs physical things. We could observe it under a microscope. The fact is, spirit is not matter, and matter is not spirit. What is material cannot be immaterial and vice versa. To suggest otherwise is to commit logical suicide.
> If every person on earth (about 6 billion I guess) could fly
> straight into space all heading different directions for a
> trillion trillion light years what would we pass or see? We
> would see worlds without number! And, then we could continue
> on for another - let's use a number like 1 with 100 million
> miles of typed written zeros - light years away and still
> not even come close to touching the end of space all filled
> with matter and intellegence.
>
May I submit to you that you are in no position to tell us what we might or might not see if we could 'fly into space' for a 'trillion trillion' light years? And I suppose that you think each of these parallel universes are reigned by former Mormon men who have become Gods through their own good works. Tell me, if Moroni was perfect in every way, why is he still an angel and not a god as is taught by Mormonism?
>I will only do so if you share with me
> your belief on how we arrived to be here this very day in time.
> I'm not talking about the few billion years of evolution, but
> way before that? If you believe there was a beginning, explain
> what that beginning was. If you believe there was not a
> beginning, but don't believe as I do, then fine, just give me
> what you do believe.
>
OK. Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that at one point within eternity, all that existed was God. I believe that at one point along this eternal continuum (which I will not call time, because if all that existed was God, time is irrelevant), God acted upon his own will to create the universe. From this point forward, time, space and matter were created. I believe that the manner of creation was something like a 'big bang' in that the universe exploded because God caused it. From there it is a long story of how the universe developed. I personally believe that God created the universe in stages, as is told in the account of Genesis. I do not believe that the creation happened in seven literal days. First of all, due to our discussion of time earlier, this would be illogical....time is not constant. People who define a day as "24 hours" at the very birth of the universe have no knowledge of what time is. But I do believe that the universe existed for some amount of time, perhaps a dozen billion years, before the next 'stage' was begun. I believe this is a rational way to explain the biologic evidence of evolution. But I do not believe that life came from non-life. I believe God had to have caused it. And I do not believe that humans evolved fully from apes. Although we share 98% of our genetic code with apes, that remaining 2% is quite a difference! I believe that God created humans last, that is, he caused humans to come into existence - a different type of animal from what he had previously created, because humans are capable of intelligence, capable of emotion, capable of judgment and forethought. No other animal is capable of such action.
> Again, if you want to call me the dumb one, then you need to
> open up to your beliefs. You are here, alive, thinking,
> writting, reading right now!
You are asking everyone who has ever lived to deny observable facts of the universe in order to embrace Mormonism. Clearly, this is not a very compelling argument. If one religion is true, if one religion was given to us by God, and not merely a product of man's imagination, then it stands to reason that that religion cannot contradict universal laws and properties of God's creation. If God's own religion can contradict God's own Creation, then God Himself is a contradiction and cannot be trusted to represent truth.
Your religion must be compatible with science. But your religion is utterly incompatible with any aspect of science. Redefining your concept of God into a more Biblical view would be a good starting point for further research.
Karyn
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