The Mormon Cosmological argument

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Rivendale
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

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huckelberry wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 6:43 pm
What would it mean to be outside of time? People imagine possibilities and try to be logical. I do not think anyone knows. I incline toward a very generic Kabbalistic image of God inhimself being eternal unchanging and not touched by influence. In creation God goes in a degree outside of that and comes into contact with time which God as created. Perhaps all that means is that my mind compulsively keeps a distance from the Aquinas version where in all existence flows as idea from God and is returning to him so that he sees all time all of the time(like an outside observer looking at travelers in a row along a road, or a train) Aquinas view has hard core deterministic implications.
I agree no one knows. But theists like to claim they do. And when they claim god is outside of space and time it is up to them to prove it. It is special pleading to claim that god is outside of time and yet can't demonstrate it.
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

Post by huckelberry »

Rivendale wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 6:59 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 6:43 pm
What would it mean to be outside of time? People imagine possibilities and try to be logical. I do not think anyone knows. I incline toward a very generic Kabbalistic image of God inhimself being eternal unchanging and not touched by influence. In creation God goes in a degree outside of that and comes into contact with time which God as created. Perhaps all that means is that my mind compulsively keeps a distance from the Aquinas version where in all existence flows as idea from God and is returning to him so that he sees all time all of the time(like an outside observer looking at travelers in a row along a road, or a train) Aquinas view has hard core deterministic implications.
I agree no one knows. But theists like to claim they do. And when they claim god is outside of space and time it is up to them to prove it. It is special pleading to claim that god is outside of time and yet can't demonstrate it.
Rivendale, I doubt there are many if any theists who feel any obligation at all to prove Gods nature to you. I am unsure what you are aiming to say. I gather that you do not believe in God. Ok. Or are you proposing that the LDS view is as good as any,( meaning absurd? doubtful? equally plausible?) Perhaps there is an annoying antimormon ministry which talks as thought they know it all.(there are such)
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

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huckelberry wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:45 pm
Rivendale wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 6:59 pm


I agree no one knows. But theists like to claim they do. And when they claim god is outside of space and time it is up to them to prove it. It is special pleading to claim that god is outside of time and yet can't demonstrate it.
Rivendale, I doubt there are many if any theists who feel any obligation at all to prove Gods nature to you. I am unsure what you are aiming to say. I gather that you do not believe in God. Ok. Or are you proposing that the LDS view is as good as any,( meaning absurd? doubtful? equally plausible?) Perhaps there is an annoying antimormon ministry which talks as thought they know it all.(there are such)
As I said no one knows. And I think that applies universally to claims of the supernatural realm. But there are theists that feel they have an obligation. Just yesterday they knocked on my door. In fact there are thousands of missionaries that do that every day. I have no idea what you mean that theists don't have an obligation. It is literally in their scriptures. The Mike Norton's of the world burn bright for a little while.
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

Post by huckelberry »

Rivendale wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:14 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:45 pm

Rivendale, I doubt there are many if any theists who feel any obligation at all to prove Gods nature to you. I am unsure what you are aiming to say. I gather that you do not believe in God. Ok. Or are you proposing that the LDS view is as good as any,( meaning absurd? doubtful? equally plausible?) Perhaps there is an annoying antimormon ministry which talks as thought they know it all.(there are such)
As I said no one knows. And I think that applies universally to claims of the supernatural realm. But there are theists that feel they have an obligation. Just yesterday they knocked on my door. In fact there are thousands of missionaries that do that every day. I have no idea what you mean that theists don't have an obligation. It is literally in their scriptures. The Mike Norton's of the world burn bright for a little while.
Rivendale, I am familiar with scripture instructing people to spread good news, the gospel. That does not seem like the same thing as proving the nature of God or that God exists. People may at times take a shot at trying to prove but to my knowledge all such attemps do not actually prove God. There are people who do not believe i God. There are people with different ideas about God.
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

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huckelberry wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:52 pm
Rivendale wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:14 pm


As I said no one knows. And I think that applies universally to claims of the supernatural realm. But there are theists that feel they have an obligation. Just yesterday they knocked on my door. In fact there are thousands of missionaries that do that every day. I have no idea what you mean that theists don't have an obligation. It is literally in their scriptures. The Mike Norton's of the world burn bright for a little while.
Rivendale, I am familiar with scripture instructing people to spread good news, the gospel. That does not seem like the same thing as proving the nature of God or that God exists. People may at times take a shot at trying to prove but to my knowledge all such attemps do not actually prove God. There are people who do not believe i God. There are people with different ideas about God.
How is spreading the news not comparable to spreading the nature of god? They list a set of proposals as to what constitutes the gospel and that is somehow different than defining the nature of god? How can a theist possibly explain the gospel without first knowing what the nature of the rule giver is?
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

Post by huckelberry »

Rivendale wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:58 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:52 pm

Rivendale, I am familiar with scripture instructing people to spread good news, the gospel. That does not seem like the same thing as proving the nature of God or that God exists. People may at times take a shot at trying to prove but to my knowledge all such attemps do not actually prove God. There are people who do not believe i God. There are people with different ideas about God.
How is spreading the news not comparable to spreading the nature of god? They list a set of proposals as to what constitutes the gospel and that is somehow different than defining the nature of god? How can a theist possibly explain the gospel without first knowing what the nature of the rule giver is?
They are connected for sure but I do not know of any Theist who have a complete understanding of either the gospel or the nature of God much less be able to prove those . Theists try to understand so they think about the matter.
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

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It isn't up to anyone to prove everything which they assert. Proving things is simply one way of getting other people to believe them as well, if for some reason you want to do that. It's rarely possible, because so few things can be proven, and even a rigorous proof won't actually convince everyone, because some people won't understand the proof.

Some assertions are logically inconsistent. It's worth identifying those and exploding them. In general, though, the normal situation in a disagreement is just a stand-off. Two people have different self-consistent positions based on different premises. All you can do is understand the structure of the other person's position. There is no way to disprove it, or prove one's own. That's just how logic is.

As a contest, logical argument is more like tic-tac-toe than like chess. No-one can win unless someone makes a stupid mistake. With opponents competent enough not to do that, it's a pointless contest, so it's not a game that is worth playing to win.

(I understand that as a zero-sum game with no hidden knowledge, chess is also technically in the same category as tic-tac-toe, in that there must exist an optimal strategy by which one player will always win, or no-one will ever win. Chess is just so complicated that nobody knows what that optimal strategy is, so in fact both players usually make many mistakes in a game, even if they are experts, and the winner just makes less bad mistakes. Logical arguments on subtle questions can be like that as well, with people on both sides making mistakes that even smart people can make. The freedom to choose one's own premises is a strong force for stalemate, however. Smart people can contradict themselves without noticing, but it doesn't necessarily take a genius to avoid self-contradiction.)
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

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Physics Guy wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:44 am
It isn't up to anyone to prove everything which they assert.

Completely agree. If my friend tells me he has a car in his garage I am not going to ask for proof. If my friend tells me he has an invisible dragon in his garage I might want a little evidence to support that claim. We know where this is going. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Using chess as an analogy of logic moves is interesting but seems to be restricted to pre-established rules that are agreed on by both participants. That isn't how the usual debate goes when discussing meta physical claims.
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Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument

Post by Physics Guy »

Rivendale wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 8:57 pm
Using chess as an analogy of logic moves is interesting but seems to be restricted to pre-established rules that are agreed on by both participants. That isn't how the usual debate goes when discussing meta physical claims.
I'm going to break precedent by agreeing with this.
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