God the merciful

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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

Post by dantana »

Rivendale wrote:
Thu Mar 10, 2022 12:39 am
dantana wrote:
Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:11 am


I haven't ever asserted that I have an answer for why there is being instead of non-being. I've only stated that I have ruled out physicalism for myself. I think that a mechanical based methodology is not suited to detail how particles one day popped into existence.

I reckon that at least with a God, or idealism based worldview one has the option of thinking that at it's fundamentals, reality is not mechanics driven, and that's what it is going to take if one is going to say the particles one day popped into existence.
I don't understand this. Why do you suppose that particles just popped into existence? This seems like left over physiological baggage from being born and then attributing this to every other thing that you experience. Reality as we see it is not reality I would grant that. We see a slice of reality.
I think traditionally, P-ism has always had everything starting at the big bang. That would qualify as particles popping into existence. If any broadened thought has happened by P-ism as to that, it has been in the last few decades, and has never been fully printed out.
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Rivendale
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Re: God the merciful

Post by Rivendale »

dantana wrote:
Thu Mar 10, 2022 12:41 pm
Rivendale wrote:
Thu Mar 10, 2022 12:39 am


I don't understand this. Why do you suppose that particles just popped into existence? This seems like left over physiological baggage from being born and then attributing this to every other thing that you experience. Reality as we see it is not reality I would grant that. We see a slice of reality.
I think traditionally, P-ism has always had everything starting at the big bang. That would qualify as particles popping into existence. If any broadened thought has happened by P-ism as to that, it has been in the last few decades, and has never been fully printed out.
The issue seems to be that the particles came from nothing. We don't know if nothing is possible. All we know is at some point fundamental particles were created out of energy released from the initial expansion of the universe. That isn't coming from nothing. And previous the Planck time we just have no way of knowing ,(as of now) what preceded it or if that is even a meaningful question. Something like what is North of the North Pole. Placing an intelligent creator just adds to the mystery rather than explains the mystery. And we may never know.
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Rivendale
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Re: God the merciful

Post by Rivendale »

doubtingthomas wrote:
Thu Mar 10, 2022 12:56 am
Physics Guy wrote:
Mon Mar 07, 2022 1:42 pm
God's responsibility for the universe is one of the basic theological issues, indeed. But if whatever is responsible for the initial conditions is able to offer anything we might accept as an explanation, then whatever it is, it is that much closer to the traditional concept of God.
Did god have the time to create the universe? Did god exist before the creation of the universe?
This question always surfaces when god is placed outside of space and time. For me that seems to make god immobile and static. Unless of course you want to special plead god's mysterious ways.
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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

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Rivendale wrote:
Thu Mar 10, 2022 9:54 pm
(snip) what preceded it or if that is even a meaningful question. Something like what is North of the North Pole.
That's what I've been trying to tell you. P-ism by nature isn't able to take on this question. The, does-not-compute alarm goes off. So the question gets put on the shelf. It's a question only extra-natural can tackle.

I agree with you though and backtrack a little as to particles popping into existence at the big bang. They obviously existed at the big bang. Where they were just prior to that though is, as you say, un-answerable at this time.
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Rivendale
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Re: God the merciful

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dantana wrote:
Thu Mar 10, 2022 11:09 pm
That's what I've been trying to tell you. P-ism by nature isn't able to take on this question. The, does-not-compute alarm goes off. So the question gets put on the shelf. It's a question only extra-natural can tackle.
Just because naturalism can't tackle it does not mean it is open season on every theory possible. It is almost like the dumb and dumber claim.....so there is a chance. People had to be content with inconsistent, inaccurate information since the dawn of humanity. And they did make the leap for metaphysical explanations. Diseases were a curse. Storms were god's wrath. We are at the same crossroad.
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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

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Ah well, I've never been a Jim Carey fan anyway. You know, your voice sounds familiar. Have we met?
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Rivendale
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Re: God the merciful

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dantana wrote:
Fri Mar 11, 2022 2:16 am
Ah well, I've never been a Jim Carey fan anyway. You know, your voice sounds familiar. Have we met?
I am not sure if that is a movie quote or a legit question.
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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

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Bump for this question. It was asked early on in this thread but mostly ignored. I would be interested in seeing a believer give it a go, as I think it is pertinent to a current topic on the front page here. -


If entities must be rated and sorted to a permanent disposition, then obviously they must have something about their base component, or their hard wiring that cannot be fixed. Ever. If entities can move through existence gaining knowledge and experiences. If Intelligence can be added to entities, then it can be taken away. It is all then superficial to some sort of blank slate hard drive. How can an entity be personally responsible for having a bad hard drive it couldn't possibly have itself created?
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Re: God the merciful

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dantana wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 8:59 pm
Bump for this question. It was asked early on in this thread but mostly ignored. I would be interested in seeing a believer give it a go, as I think it is pertinent to a current topic on the front page here. -


If entities must be rated and sorted to a permanent disposition, then obviously they must have something about their base component, or their hard wiring that cannot be fixed. Ever. If entities can move through existence gaining knowledge and experiences. If Intelligence can be added to entities, then it can be taken away. It is all then superficial to some sort of blank slate hard drive. How can an entity be personally responsible for having a bad hard drive it couldn't possibly have itself created?
I can give this question a quick attempt. Relating to the OP, I think Latter-day Saints would have a hard time with the idea that judgment is just a big algorithm measuring good and bad actions. We tend to get talks in General Conference talking about becoming rather than doing. I would say a better example is your muscle. Yes, we could set up an algorithm that keeps track of every exertion of your muscle over your lifetime. It could measure sedentary periods and active periods. It could measure injuries and strength training. If this were the case, we wouldn't necessarily say someone has succeeded by having more "good" muscle movements than "bad". The easiest way to measure success would be to see what that muscle is now capable of doing. Can it do one pull-up or ten? Anyway, this may be stretching the analogy too far, but that is closer to the Latter-day Saint position. Yes, the final judgement will probably measure our previous actions, but more emphasis will be placed on what type of person we have become over our lifetime.

Now regarding your specific question: Again, I don't think gaining the most intelligence or experience is necessarily the primary point of this life. Becoming something different than we were beforehand is the point. To give a fairly poor analogy, olympic athletes tend to be young. A person in their 50s just isn't going to be an athlete in many of the sports. If I really wanted to become an olympic athlete and didn't find the time when in my teens and twenties, it probably just isn't going to happen. And truth be told, I probably didn't want to become an olympic athlete as much as I thought I did. I know there are various flaws with this analogy, but I think it puts us in the general ballpark. We came down here to this life to gain experience, but to also become the type of person that is like God. That is an impossible task without a bunch of help. It takes enormous effort and discipline. If we spend our whole lives and just don't ever get around to becoming like God, maybe we just didn't really want to become like him as much as we thought. Yes, one life isn't an eternity, but I have to assume that this is a fair chance. How exactly that works, I don't know. I do know that if I could magically be given a late teens or early twenties body again, I know deep down that I still wouldn't find time to become an olympic athlete. Other things are just more important to me.
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dantana
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Re: God the merciful

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JohnW, thankyou for taking the time to respond and, welcome to the Mormon board!

So, similar to a psychologist trying to trace back in a persons life where they first went wrong - What caused them to choose a life of crime. Was it nature or nurture. I thought it might be an interesting thought experiment to try to locate where a soul first went wrong.

A basic premise of Abrahamic religions is that souls must be tested, evaluated and sorted. It follows then that if that is the case there must be something wrong with the basic blueprint of the soul/spirit/entity. Something that cannot be fixed. Ever. How did the soul acquire that bad blueprint?

If souls can learn, have information/software added to them, (nurture) then it must trace back to some hardware. (nature) The software is not them. The blank, core, hardware is them.

How could the soul have written it's own hardware/nature?
Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever. - Lee Marvin/Monte Walsh
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