Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evolution

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_EAllusion
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _EAllusion »

a point at which the universe came into existence. If you don't see implications for God (your words "support") once the scientific evidence establishes a very probable beginning I can't help you - your simply moving into an irrational strong atheist position that won't accept evidence and will just imagine any possibility otherwise.

Even if we grant all the premises leading up to this point, a metaphysical or physical beginning of the universe does not imply that beginning requires or is best explained a personal cause. Consequently, it does not support the likelihood of a god existing. My paper points this out rather decisively. If you think otherwise, the problem is your ignorance, not mine. And I wouldn't trouble yourself with "helping" me as you should offer your "help" to the academic community. The idea that atheists somehow are ignoring the state of science on this one strikes me as borderline trolling on your part. Wes Morriston is not an atheist, by the way.
_hatersinmyward
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _hatersinmyward »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:This should pretty much end the question of life and evolution:

http://www.wimp.com/linelife/

- VRDRC


Thanks.
_mikwut
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _mikwut »

Hello EAllusion,

Even if we grant all the premises leading up to this point, a metaphysical or physical beginning of the universe does not imply that beginning requires or is best explained a personal cause.


Since this is simply the inference to the best explanation; which can include all other evidence and background knowledge rather than being restricted to the narrower conclusion of only the argument made by the beginning of the universe; before I answer, your alternative is what please? An infinite universe has been very probably eliminated. I assume for you to make the above statement you have on offer an explanation with greater explanatory power, give it then.

My paper points this out rather decisively. If you think otherwise, the problem is your ignorance, not mine.


I read the paper, it does not allow such confidence from you, psychology is offering you that not evidence.

And I wouldn't trouble yourself with "helping" me as you should offer your "help" to the academic community.


My dialogue is with you presently. Your attempt at a vague authority notwithstanding. I accept the findings of the beginning of the universe. There was a reason I think your well aware that that has been so important to theists, Thomas Aquinas or Al Ghazali perhaps was not at all familiar with Mr. Morriston's and your musings? His and others through long history and deep attempts at cosmological argumentation didn't even need Hume or others to dispel with any nonsense of beginnings because it didn't even matter. They could have conceded a beginning all along. (I am ignoring the contingency cosmological arguments to make this point.) And coincidentally (ironically?) the arguments that a beginning to the universe is an irrelevant assumption anyway show up when? Right when science shows the probability of such. But, not even centuries of the greatest minds and thinkers is enough to avoid the allegation you next make.....

The idea that atheists somehow are ignoring the state of science on this one strikes me as borderline trolling on your part.


Trolling? Oh brother.

You think a believer in God is attempting to deceive by drawing the logical and metaphysical implications from the universe, including space and time having a beginning to its existence - that word 'trolling' must have a thousand meanings then. Such as simply say it rather than provide an argument. Seriously, the fact you don't concede the slightest implication of such an amazing fact begs the question that you might be blinking while holding your hand. A weak atheist shouldn't have a problem conceding at least a weak inference to be allowed.

Morriston also mistates Craig's position which includes a distinction between eternity and timelessness. For Craig timelessness doesn't imply changelessness and there is a difference (which your author never mentions) between that and immutability. But that is neither here nor there, because I didn't cite Craig, your paper did. I don't have to explain the further metaphysics of God's timelessness or eternity to draw the implication of intention from a beginning of our universe. That's like the following conversation:

A: look at the incredible evolution of the fossil record, we evolved from a microbe to the amazing human form we see today.

B: That's magical and impossible so even if I grant your assumptions drawn from the record I don't accept that it supports your conclusion.

Wes Morriston is not an atheist, by the way.


The atheist I was referring to was you not Mr. Morriston.

my regards, mikwut
Last edited by Guest on Sun May 13, 2012 5:12 am, edited 6 times in total.
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
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"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_mikwut
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _mikwut »

EAlusion,

On a lighter note, do we happen to share the same alma mater? I have noticed your particularly fond of the Univ. of Colorado's philosophy department.

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_Samantabhadra
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _Samantabhadra »

@mikwut

I enjoyed that article but its treatment of a cyclical universe was cursory. The "big crunch" model is perhaps the most common although hardly the only possibility. Additionally, the BGV theorem simply assumes that expansion rates will always be greater than 0, but they have absolutely no evidence (mathematical or otherwise) to support that assumption. And in that paper, they themselves admit that increasing entropy over successive cycles is only a "potential" problem, however there are any number of ways around it; for starters, their position requires assuming that the entropy of singularities is like the entropy of a classical thermodynamical system, which is just about certainly false. In cyclical "big crunch" models the collapse into a singularity essentially hits a giant cosmic reset button on global entropy. And remember, "volume" is a term that is dependent on space, but space itself manifests from the Big Bang, so the idea that the volume of the universe would increase over successive cycles, as a way of avoiding the ("potential") problem with respect to entropy, is.... quaint.

@Chap

But go on: give me an example of how I will act differently in a situation where other people are involved once I give up the 'misguided cognitive habit of realism'. Show me just one way how losing that habit will make me interact with others differently, and why the loss of that habit will effect the change in question.


Say someone harms you. If you think of them as being real, and yourself as being real, and the harm as being real, then it's very natural for you to get angry and upset, maybe even seek revenge. At a minimum it's going to cause you significant duress. But if you don't think of yourself as being real, or the harm as being real, or the person who harmed you as being real--if, instead, your cognitive habit is to see the whole thing as an illusion or a magical display--then what is the problem with being harmed? It will glide off of you like water on a duck's back.

Moreover, so much of the time, we make our problems worse by getting caught in our reactions, because we think we are reacting to real things out there. For example. Your wife says something that upsets you. You think she is real, and the words are real, and your emotional reaction of being upset is real, and so you do or say something in response that just makes the problem worse, leading to more suffering for you (and her) down the line. If you can cut the cognitive habit of realism, though, and just see through to the fact that actually none of it really exists, it becomes much easier to deal with ordinary, everyday situations like this in a more skillful way--instead of getting caught up in an emotional reaction, just smiling and letting it go.
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _Chap »

Samantabhadra wrote:....
@Chap

But go on: give me an example of how I will act differently in a situation where other people are involved once I give up the 'misguided cognitive habit of realism'. Show me just one way how losing that habit will make me interact with others differently, and why the loss of that habit will effect the change in question.


Say someone harms you. If you think of them as being real, and yourself as being real, and the harm as being real, then it's very natural for you to get angry and upset, maybe even seek revenge. At a minimum it's going to cause you significant duress. But if you don't think of yourself as being real, or the harm as being real, or the person who harmed you as being real--if, instead, your cognitive habit is to see the whole thing as an illusion or a magical display--then what is the problem with being harmed? It will glide off of you like water on a duck's back.

Moreover, so much of the time, we make our problems worse by getting caught in our reactions, because we think we are reacting to real things out there. For example. Your wife says something that upsets you. You think she is real, and the words are real, and your emotional reaction of being upset is real, and so you do or say something in response that just makes the problem worse, leading to more suffering for you (and her) down the line. If you can cut the cognitive habit of realism, though, and just see through to the fact that actually none of it really exists, it becomes much easier to deal with ordinary, everyday situations like this in a more skillful way--instead of getting caught up in an emotional reaction, just smiling and letting it go.


Thanks for taking the trouble to explain. So it boils down to: 'If you don't like what is happening - then don't let it get to you, because it is in fact illusory, not real at all.'

My problem with that is that the comfort obtained by saying "this is not really happening", is based on the assumption that one is comparing the unpleasant experience with other 'real' experiences. The ability to dismiss bad experiences as being no more than 'an illusion or a magical display' depends on our having other experiences that we are sure are NOT 'an illusion or a magical display' . But on your view our entire phenomenal experience is illusory - even magical tricks are only 'illusions of illusions', not 'real illusions'. So I do not see how anyone will be much helped by the stratagem of saying 'My wife is not really cussing me out for not bringing in enough money despite the fact that I am already doing three jobs and getting only six hours' sleep a night: this is just an illusion', since the horrible experience in question is no more illusory than all the other experiences one has had, including the times he has had the illusion that his wife was kind and loving to him.

May I suggest that you consider another view of the consequences of denying what you call 'self-nature'? How about taking the point of view related to what I believe Buddhists call Pratītyasamutpāda, 'dependent origination'? That is, when confronted with what appears to be an object with the characteristics 'nagging, unreasonable and unloving wife', one follows your line of saying that this is not a 'self-natured' thing, that is, a wife who is in some absolute way nagging, unreasonable and unloving, but is instead something that has arisen as part of a web of cause and effect in which one is oneself both a cause and an effect, as well as the wife? That means that one has the possibility to change the unpleasant object perceived into a different one - perhaps an anxious, stressed-out and scared wife in need of love and reassurance? And of course, since as you would put it the husband is without self-nature, the identity of 'overworked, misunderstood and unloved husband' is not itself an absolute one, and is subject, like all things, to change.

Can you use any of that, do you think?
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.
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _Samantabhadra »

Chap, that is a very sophisticated response. Thank you for taking the time to really engage with what I'm attempting to articulate.

First of all, though, I want to clear something up. It's not exactly the case that what I'm saying concerns "bad" situations. It is true that I gave you that example, because you asked for a practical example, and it seemed like a good example of an everyday situation where a lack of the cognitive habit of realism would be useful.

But it's important to remember what I started with, which is the underlying construction of duality. "Good" and "bad" are just another dualistic opposition like "subject" and "object" or "existence" and "nonexistence." (Yes this raises separate questions related to ethics, but let's bracket those for now). You are absolutely right to call attention to the fact that it would be inconsistent to ignore "bad" experiences as being unreal while clinging to "good" experiences as being real. But that's not really what I'm saying; you asked for an example, and I gave you one, but it's only a single example and a relatively basic one at that. At a more advanced level, you could say, what causes (or: what creates the conditions for) suffering is exactly the tendency to think that "good" experiences are real/not illusory. In other words, even experiences that we think of as "good" or "pleasurable" create further suffering for ourselves, even while we're experiencing them. (More precisely, the underlying cognitive habit to bifurcate experience means that even as a "good" experience arises, the fact that it is being experienced as "good" and "existent" means that we are still trapped within a dualistic framework and thus are still suffering, even if only at a very subtle level). It's not possible to break the cognitive habit of realism by simply saying to yourself, when something goes wrong, "It's okay, this isn't real," but then really enjoying good experiences and forgetting all about the prior insight when things go your way. That's not how it works!

Chap wrote:How about taking the point of view related to what I believe Buddhists call Pratītyasamutpāda, 'dependent origination'? That is, when confronted with what appears to be an object with the characteristics 'nagging, unreasonable and unloving wife', one follows your line of saying that this is not a 'self-natured' thing, that is, a wife who is in some absolute way nagging, unreasonable and unloving, but is instead something that has arisen as part of a web of cause and effect in which one is oneself both a cause and an effect, as well as the wife? That means that one has the possibility to change the unpleasant object perceived into a different one - perhaps an anxious, stressed-out and scared wife in need of love and reassurance? And of course, since as you would put it the husband is without self-nature, the identity of 'overworked, misunderstood and unloved husband' is not itself an absolute one, and is subject, like all things, to change.

Can you use any of that, do you think?


Yes, absolutely, we can use that!

I think what you've hit on is one of the main points of contention between Great Vehicle or Mahāyāna Buddhism and 'Mainstream' (sometimes called Theravāda) Buddhism. What you've outlined above is classical Mainstream Buddhism, and certainly also works within a Mahāyāna framework in general. But the Great Vehicle goes above and beyond this framework. From a Mahāyāna perspective, what is dependently-originated is necessarily lacking in self-nature, and there literally could not be any dependent-origination if entities had self-nature. Sometimes it's said that "emptiness is form, form is emptiness." Appearance and the lack of self-nature are two sides of the same coin.

In Mainstream Buddhism, this is basically heretical, since the teaching is that partless particles really exist, really have their own self-nature, and although things like husbands and wives and pots and mountains are only "designated to exist" on top of those particles, those particles themselves are real. From a Mahāyāna perspective, though, those partless particles can't be real, for any number of reasons; some critiques focus on the impossibility of maintaining that they can agglomerate while remaining partless, other critiques focus on the precise mechanics of their causal interaction in a way that is reminiscent of Zeno's Paradox (e.g., at the time of the cause, there is no effect, and at the time of the effect, there is no cause; so how can we speak of a "cause" that is really truly established as a "cause"? It doesn't make any sense).

If you'd like, we can walk through some of those critiques. Obviously, I find them compelling, and not at all contradictory with the insights of contemporary particle physics. The bottom line, though, is that (from a Mahāyāna perspective) the thought that what is dependently-originated--even if "what is dependently-originated" only refers to partless particles--is real, is a cause for future suffering. Until or unless we break the cognitive habit of realism, we are bound to become attached to "good" experiences and averse to "bad" experiences, with all the negative consequences this entails.
_Chap
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _Chap »

Samantabhadra wrote: ... From a Mahāyāna perspective, what is dependently-originated is necessarily lacking in self-nature, and there literally could not be any dependent-origination if entities had self-nature. Sometimes it's said that "emptiness is form, form is emptiness." Appearance and the lack of self-nature are two sides of the same coin. ...


I suppose that is where I must have picked it up, though as you have seen I tend to use less technical language than that. But we are really on the wrong board to continue this discussion. What would a Buddhist discussion board be like, I wonder? Do bitter ex-Buddhists go on about how they have been shunned when they lost their faith and go to great lengths to show that the Lotus Sutra was not really uttered by Gautama Siddhartha but was written down centuries after his lifetime, or do Mahāyāna adherents castigate Theravādins as being heretical & vice versa?. I suppose you are well aware that many Mahāyānists, at least in East Asia, might raise a gently questioning eyebrow to hear the Theravādins described as 'mainstream'!

I must confess, too, that I tend to view detailed metaphysical statements as entirely secondary by-products of the personal attempt, made within the very limited horizons of a single human life, to find some kind of tolerable way through the messy experience of being sentient and in an inextricable relation with other beings, principally human beings. If you find that detailed metaphysical formulations do you some good, by all means stick with them!
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.
_Samantabhadra
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _Samantabhadra »

Thanks Chap, it's been fun. Just as a side note, the reason I use "Mainstream" as opposed to Theravāda is twofold: first, historically speaking, the Mahāyāna was a tiny minority sect for most of the first few centuries of its existence, that deliberately set itself apart from what most people were doing (hence "Mainstream"). Second, there were many lineages that weren't a part of the Mahāyāna, but for a long time the Theravāda tradition as such had Mahāyāna and even tantric teachers up through ca. 1400 CE. It was only when one particular Sri Lankan monastery became politically ascendant that Mahāyāna and tantric elements were expunged from the Theravāda tradition.

As for the rest, online Buddhist discussions often devolve into either sectarian poop-flinging (especially when Ole Nydahl's cyberthugs get involved) or philosophical nitpicking. I will say, though, I don't see too many internet discussion boards or therapy groups for ex-Buddhists, or for that matter, ex-Catholics or ex-Orthodox or ex-Hindus, who are desperately trying to reassemble the pieces of their lives that were shattered by the exit from their religion, either. To my mind that's a major difference between a cult like LDS and what I'll call, for lack of a better term, a "real" religion.
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Re: Russel M. Nelson comments on big bang theory and evoluti

Post by _Chap »

Samantabhadra wrote:I will say, though, I don't see too many internet discussion boards or therapy groups for ex-Buddhists, or for that matter, ex-Catholics or ex-Orthodox or ex-Hindus, who are desperately trying to reassemble the pieces of their lives that were shattered by the exit from their religion, either. To my mind that's a major difference between a cult like LDS and what I'll call, for lack of a better term, a "real" religion.


Can't resist another post, to say that many of the problems for people exiting from the CoJCoLDS would be reduced if LDS believers were not so insistent that their religion was (in the sense of our discussion above) 'real'!
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.
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