Intellectually Troubled Mormonism and Logic

[_Philo Sofee]

Patrick Mason means well. You can't help but like his attempt and recognize that his genuineness of intending to help out those who are troubled with Mormonism is sincere. But. There's always a but to it isn't there.....

His entire premise of attempting to help is just flawed that's all. He says

"For all intents and purposes, the possibility of life began not with the violent explosion of the Big Bang but rather earlier, with the benevolent invitation of a loving exalted being to those intelligences that would become his children." (Patrick Mason, "Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt," p. 26)

This is so basic.... and so flawed that the rest of the sky scraper of Mormonism topples with it.
There is no before before the Big Bang. What Mason apparently failed to grasp if he ever studied the Big Bang is that everything originated in the Big Bang.... EVERYTHING, time, space, even the putative "intelligences" and most especially that embodied loving being he thinks exists. THAT certainly could not have existed as actual matter before the Big Bang, since, for all of our actual physics, mathematical understanding, and theorizing, we understand so far that there was no matter before matter existed which all came from the Big Bang. Even spirit being refined matter could not have been adrift outside the Big Bang because it couldn't have existed. Mason is simply making stuff up. An honest reading of Stephen Hawking or Brian Greene would have helped him out here.

I will give Mason credit for making the attempt at reconciliation with logic, reality, and powerful reasoning, but his testimony is so ignorant of truth, I see no reason to even meet him half way and try to make Mormonism work out through the troubling aspects of its unreality and wishful thinking that many have now come to see in their religion, including me. Someone stronger and better informed in the reality and logic of where we are needs to step up to the plate and take a swing, Patrick Mason is ill suited for the job.

[_Dr Exiled]

I think Mr. Mason is working with a flawed subject and therefore he can't be blamed too much. One cannot defend religion in the face of science and it seems pointless to continue to do so. I am interested in what religion purports to answer but the "answers" are either false or simply speculation. Finding out what happens beyond the grave will have to wait. And maybe that's for the best. Focusing on today instead of some mythical future seems to be the better course.

[_Shulem]

Mormonism contains zero logic in all its doctrine and teachings. The story of the creation is written by unscientific minds, men who didn't know jack about science or the workings of the universe. The creation account in Genesis which the Mormons hijacked and attached to stolen Masonic cult practices are barbaric ideas from the mind of ancient medicine men who knew absolutely nothing about science and the immense macro and micro cosmos that make up the universe.

The Bible and Mormon scriptures are apelike in advancement -- primitive -- false-- and a total lie. When I think of the Bible, it reminds me of Jack in the box. Turn the handle and listen to the carnival tinkles of a song that precedes the Big Bang: Jack pops out with a boo. And then there are the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3, blah, blah, blah -- pure Mormon crap.

[_huckelberry]

Philo, I am puzzled as to how you discovered there was no before the big bang and nothing out side of it. What I have heard is that all the physics we can observe is about what happened after, the bang being a singularity we have no way to see beyond.

[_zerinus]

Patrick Mason means well. You can't help but like his attempt and recognize that his genuineness of intending to help out those who are troubled with Mormonism is sincere. But. There's always a but to it isn't there.....

His entire premise of attempting to help is just flawed that's all. He says

"For all intents and purposes, the possibility of life began not with the violent explosion of the Big Bang but rather earlier, with the benevolent invitation of a loving exalted being to those intelligences that would become his children." (Patrick Mason, "Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt," p. 26)

This is so basic.... and so flawed that the rest of the sky scraper of Mormonism topples with it.
There is no before before the Big Bang. What Mason apparently failed to grasp if he ever studied the Big Bang is that everything originated in the Big Bang.... EVERYTHING, time, space, even the putative "intelligences" and most especially that embodied loving being he thinks exists. THAT certainly could not have existed as actual matter before the Big Bang, since, for all of our actual physics, mathematical understanding, and theorizing, we understand so far that there was no matter before matter existed which all came from the Big Bang. Even spirit being refined matter could not have been adrift outside the Big Bang because it couldn't have existed. Mason is simply making stuff up. An honest reading of Stephen Hawking or Brian Greene would have helped him out here.

I will give Mason credit for making the attempt at reconciliation with logic, reality, and powerful reasoning, but his testimony is so ignorant of truth, I see no reason to even meet him half way and try to make Mormonism work out through the troubling aspects of its unreality and wishful thinking that many have now come to see in their religion, including me. Someone stronger and better informed in the reality and logic of where we are needs to step up to the plate and take a swing, Patrick Mason is ill suited for the job.

What you forgot to tell us is, Who is James Mason, and why should I care about what he says?

[Guest]

Philo, I am puzzled as to how you discovered there was no before the big bang and nothing out side of it. What I have heard is that all the physics we can observe is about what happened after, the bang being a singularity we have no way to see beyond.

I am even more puzzled about how he knows that there was a big bang. There is no science that proves that there was a big bang.

[_Philo Sofee]

Sure there is evidence of a Big Bang, but ya hafta read the cosmologists not Thomas Monson or Boyd K. Packer to understand the evidences and how they work..... you won't learn about them from Russell M. Nelson either. And, no, unfortunately, neither will any other General Authority, oh say the caliber of Jeffery Holland will inform you of much either. My suggestion, and it's only a suggestion, is, don't read the Book of Mormon for the Big Bang, they didn't know about it either. Read the scientists, the ones who actually study it. I will give you a hint, the universe is expanding and there is astonishingly excellent evidence for that.

[_Philo Sofee]

For Zerinus, Mason is a fellow LDS defender who attempts to calm the ruffled feathers of a deceived priesthood. He fails miserably, because, of course, he doesn't possess half the knowledge that you do. He needs your help. You need to find a way to get your own books into Deseret Book to save the failing and flailing testimonies of so many hundreds of thousands of Mormons worldwide. The Lord NEEDS you friend! His work is overloaded, so he needs that vibrant and light filled testimony of yours to help him fill the world. He can't do it alone, the Lord is merely omniscient. He needs humans who have real knowledge to fill in where he can't.....

[_Philo Sofee]

Philo, I am puzzled as to how you discovered there was no before the big bang and nothing out side of it. What I have heard is that all the physics we can observe is about what happened after, the bang being a singularity we have no way to see beyond.

That is my understanding as well. Since we can't see beyond, it is meaningless to speak of a "before" the Big Bang. It stops making sense down at the level of the Planck length and Planck time. Since it is meaningless to speak of anything before then, we are logically impelled, based on the evidence of the math we possess, to say "before the Big Bang" is meaningless.

[_Nightlion]

Isaiah 45: 12
12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.

God took credit for the expanding universe thousands of years before man realized that the universe WAS expanding.

You cannot sanctify your science as pure by ignoring such evidence. Do you ever SEE a spirit when it leaves a body at death. No. So science must say that there IS no spirit in man.

But each of us know that is not true. Except those who WANT to deny a spiritual reality to protect their fragile ego from the admission that there is so much they do not know. And to remove guilt that plagues them. Such prejudice is the shoddiest sort or science. This weakest reasoning can be marketed unabashedly and foisted up to displace greater wisdom. It is like truth is branded as superior IF it denies more of the unknowable. To deny spiritual reality is to cheat reason.

And we all know that cheaters never win.

Not really.

Not in the end.

I have witnessed the reality of a spiritual dimension. It is greater than the physical reality we live in. There is no darkness on the other side as the commanding effect of the love of God is all pervasive. It is therefore a superior reality to the dominance of darkness in this physical reality.

To ignore what is a demonstrably superior reality is junk for science. On worlds without number I imagine a complete science cackles and shakes their sides in derision hearing about the stupidity of earth's scientists, so called. The physically handicapped.