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The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 12:58 am
by doubtingthomas
Schmid's cosmological argument happens to be compatible with Mormonism
P1: Whatever begins to exist is made from preexisting stuff;
P2: The universe began to exist:
The universe is made from preexisting stuff
Hopefully, apologists add Schmid's cosmological argument to their list of Mormon evidence.
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 1:30 am
by Philo Sofee
Oh my hell, this just has to be a spoof...
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:20 am
by drumdude
Mormon God doesn’t seem to have any of the attributes that Christian philosophers assume defines what God is when making their arguments about God’s existence. Christians assert God is timeless, spaceless, infinite, uncaused, outside of the Universe. God is completely separate and apart from his creations. God is not of the same category or substance as that which God creates.
Mormons are very much like atheists in that they say such a God doesn’t exist. They raise humans to the level of God and lower God to the level of humans. Technically I don’t think Mormons can really be said to believe in any God at all, in the standard sense of the Judeo-Christian or Islamic traditions. Mormonism is just atheism with a few extra steps.
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:24 am
by Rivendale
drumdude wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:20 am
Mormon God doesn’t seem to have any of the attributes that Christian philosophers assume
defines what God is when making their arguments about God’s existence. Christians assert God is timeless, spaceless, infinite, uncaused, outside of the Universe.
Mormons are very much like atheists in that they say such a God doesn’t exist. They raise humans to the level of God and lower God to the level of humans. Technically I don’t think Mormons can really be said to believe in any God at all, in the standard Judeo-Christian or Islamic traditions. Mormonism is just atheism with a few extra steps.
Stephen Frye said it best , can you make a better paper clip?
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:37 am
by ¥akaSteelhead
The universe did not begin to exist - it emerged from a singularity. There was no dimension of time in the singularity ergo "begin" re the singularity is incoherent. The singularity can therefore said to be eternal.
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 6:27 am
by Moksha
This short video answers all those perplexing cosmological questions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BA3SO1sokA
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 5:31 pm
by Physics Guy
The Big Bang in general relativity, both in the original vanilla version and in more recent inflationary scenarios, is indeed a singularity. This isn't really something that physicists believe to be true, though. It could conceivably be true, but most people think it's more likely to just be an indication that our theory doesn't really work at that point.
We know lots of other cases where a singularity indicates the failure of a theory, rather than an actual infinite concentration of energy or anything. Ray optics, for example, is a fine theory that will let you build microscopes and telescopes and binoculars and stuff, but it's only a handy approximation to wave optics, which is more fundamental. Within ray optics it can sometimes happen that many rays all converge together. This is known as a "caustic"; the bright ripples you see on the bottom of a swimming pool are the classic example.
Ray optics tells you, correctly, that these convergence points are especially bright spots, but it actually tries to tell you that they are infinitely bright. That's not true. What's really happening when the brightness goes past a certain level is that the ray optics approximation is failing and you really have to resort to wave optics, which is a more complicated theory of how light works. It correctly tells you that caustics are concentrated bright spots but not infinitely so.
In the case of gravity, we don't have the analog of wave optics, if there is one. But most people assume that there is one, and that someday we'll find it, and the Big Bang won't be so singular, after all. Or maybe we won't, and it is. We don't know. But at least we know that.
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 7:38 pm
by Rivendale
Physics Guy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 5:31 pm
The Big Bang in general relativity, both in the original vanilla version and in more recent inflationary scenarios, is indeed a singularity. This isn't really something that physicists believe to be true, though. It could conceivably be true, but most people think it's more likely to just be an indication that our theory doesn't really work at that point.
We know lots of other cases where a singularity indicates the failure of a theory, rather than an actual infinite concentration of energy or anything. Ray optics, for example, is a fine theory that will let you build microscopes and telescopes and binoculars and stuff, but it's only a handy approximation to wave optics, which is more fundamental. Within ray optics it can sometimes happen that many rays all converge together. This is known as a "caustic"; the bright ripples you see on the bottom of a swimming pool are the classic example.
Ray optics tells you, correctly, that these convergence points are especially bright spots, but it actually tries to tell you that they are infinitely bright. That's not true. What's really happening when the brightness goes past a certain level is that the ray optics approximation is failing and you really have to resort to wave optics, which is a more complicated theory of how light works. It correctly tells you that caustics are concentrated bright spots but not infinitely so.
In the case of gravity, we don't have the analog of wave optics, if there is one. But most people assume that there is one, and that someday we'll find it, and the Big Bang won't be so singular, after all. Or maybe we won't, and it is. We don't know. But at least we know that.
I see this argument used by theists often. Even physicists don't know what happened before the Big Bang. (Similar to the question, What is north of the North Pole) At least theism's leap of faith provides comfort and a moral road map. An infinite dense universe the size of an apple is no more fantastic than resurrection from the dead....and on and on. Of course we have NOMA trying smooth the ruffles over and create categories of junk drawers. Feynman's "the pleasure of finding things out" should be inscribed in a stone somewhere for future generations. In any event I would like to hope that we can discover what initiated our current universe. Or solve abiogenesis. Or solve the hard problem of consciousness.
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 10:45 pm
by Dr. Shades
Rivendale wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 7:38 pm
Of course we have NOMA trying smooth the ruffles over and create categories of junk drawers.
Why would the New Orleans Museum of Art be trying to smooth any ruffles over?
Re: The Mormon Cosmological argument
Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 12:30 am
by Rivendale
Dr. Shades wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 10:45 pm
Rivendale wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 7:38 pm
Of course we have NOMA trying smooth the ruffles over and create categories of junk drawers.
Why would the New Orleans Museum of Art be trying to smooth any ruffles over?
It is all those floats that irritate people. And the resonance frequency of the jazz music tends to reproduce the effect that Lucille Ball had when she claimed she was receiving messages through her teeth.