Three Powerful Books

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_I have a question
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _I have a question »

mentalgymnast wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:40 am
To come to an absolutist position as to the non-existence of a creator is rather risky business in my book. Personally, I’m comfortable erring on the side of a personal God.

It’s got to start with God before taking the leap to the restoration of the Gospel.
To come to an absolutist position on the existence of God is rather risky business....but....It’s got to start with God....

Self-contradiction at it’s finest.
_Chap
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _Chap »

mentalgymnast wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:40 am
To come to an absolutist position as to the non-existence of a creator is rather risky business in my book.
It is possible to feel justified in a strong affirmation of the existence of certain well-defined things - such as black and white cows with horns, since we can easily identify actual examples of such things in the world around us. Similarly, certainly other well-defined things may be subject to a well-justified denial of their existence - an example of those might be 'full-scale models of the Empire State Building made entirely of green jello on a planet with a surface gravitational field similar to that of our home planet'. Given the density and mechanical properties of jello, such an object cannot exist.

Suppose however someone starts talking about a thing called 'boopaloop', which they claim to be both existent and very, very important. You ask some questions about boopaloop, and they can't tell you what it is made of, or where it is, or how how its presence or absence may be detected, or why they think it is 'there' (wherever 'there' is) at all (apart from the fact that their mother and father always talked about boopaloop a lot). Some of the things they say about it don't make sense, such as 'boopaloop made everything there is, because otherwise where did everything come from, but nothing made boopaloop, because boopaloop didn't have to come from anywhere.' In other words, they fail to identify any clear and consistent referent for the word 'boopaloop'.

You might say, after a while, 'I'm sorry, but I don't think there is a 'boopaloop'. That is not the same kind of denial that we applied to the jello model of the Empire State Building, where we felt sure that a thing like that was simply a physical impossibility. It is more like saying 'You gave me a box labelled 'boopaloop', but the box was empty', or 'I followed the URL you gave me, but it led nowhere'.

For 'boopaloop' read 'God'.
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_Kishkumen
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _Kishkumen »

Here are my recommendations for recent books about the Book of Mormon:

Don Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories

William L. Davis, Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_mentalgymnast
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _mentalgymnast »

honorentheos wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:10 am
mentalgymnast wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:40 am


Evidence that maintains the possibility of a creator God. To come to an absolutist position as to the non-existence of a creator is rather risky business in my book. Personally, I’m comfortable erring on the side of a personal God.

It’s got to start with God before taking the leap to the restoration of the Gospel.

https://www.closertotruth.com/topics/co ... e-universe

Regards,
MG
Evidence for a creator God, such as....?
The Bias is strong with this one.

Regards,
MG
_Lemmie
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Re: Hg on bias Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _Lemmie »

Holy Ghost wrote:
Sat Jun 20, 2020 8:55 pm
Dr Moore wrote:Givens reminds me of reading Bushman: the words are there, but the facts and the logic around them feel too often like conclusion before reason, masked in a "but actually, this is the reason before conclusion."
mentalgymnast wrote:
Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:29 pm
I think we all bring in our own biases and life experiences that impact the conclusions that we make.
Morley wrote:
Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:47 pm
Isn’t this a little like saying “Water flows downhill.” or “Red is a color.”?
mentalgymnast wrote:
Thu Jun 18, 2020 8:46 pm
Yes it is. But it’s true. And it bears repeating.
Yes, repeat it weekly and it will itself become self-affirming as if biases towards evidence are on as shaky ground as biases like religious fantasies (LDS theology) for which there is no evidence.
Well said. This “bias toward evidence” approach wreaks havoc on the actual definition of bias. Let’s add a Dictionary to the list of recommended books.
_Lemmie
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _Lemmie »

Kishkumen wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:06 pm
Here are my recommendations for recent books about the Book of Mormon:

Don Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories

William L. Davis, Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon
Thanks for the information about Davis’ book. His article, I think honor referred to it in this thread, was extremely powerful. I look forward to reading this.
_Dr Moore
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _Dr Moore »

Bias toward evidence is a bad thing, does this mean bias toward non-evidence is a good thing?
_honorentheos
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _honorentheos »

mentalgymnast wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:07 pm
honorentheos wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:10 am

Evidence for a creator God, such as....?
The Bias is strong with this one.

Regards,
MG
I was just asking a question. That makes your response odd. Are you implying I should have provided an example on your suggestion of a topic? So it's insurmountable bias if a person makes a suggestion about a category and the other party doesn't supply an example within that category?

Why didn't you just provide the requested example?
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth?
~ Eiji Yoshikawa
_honorentheos
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _honorentheos »

Also, if you open up the definition of God to include an unknown and potentially unknowable "something" outside of current scientific knowledge or theory that was behind the creation of our universe, I am very, very open to that possibilty. I don't preclude the concept of something beyond human comprehension being a creator of our cosmos in some manner. There's infinite amounts of information beyond human knowledge and likely comprehension out there.

Where you and I likely will not agree is on the concept of a creator God as described in the Bible existing. If you think there is evidence for that, this seems to be the venue to share it.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth?
~ Eiji Yoshikawa
_mentalgymnast
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Re: Three Powerful Books

Post by _mentalgymnast »

honorentheos wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:57 pm
Also, if you open up the definition of God to include an unknown and potentially unknowable "something" outside of current scientific knowledge or theory that was behind the creation of our universe, I am very, very open to that possibilty. I don't preclude the concept of something beyond human comprehension being a creator of our cosmos in some manner. There's infinite amounts of information beyond human knowledge and likely comprehension out there.

Where you and I likely will not agree is on the concept of a creator God as described in the Bible existing. If you think there is evidence for that, this seems to be the venue to share it.
It’s the bias towards the non acceptance of a creator God that I am referring to. Why is that bias so strong?

Let me ask this question. What would it mean for you, personally, if there was a creator God?

Regards,
MG
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