The Root

[bill4long]

The Mormon god is an "exalted being" (King Follett sermon.)
He has a "father", who is a god, back in time on and on...
About 40 years ago, back when I was about 24 years old, a boy who was a son of my best TBM Mormon friend, asked me:
Brilliant, Joe, brilliant!
Loony infinite regress.
"Who is the first father?", he asked.
He was about 10 or 11 years old. Smart kid. Thinking outside of the box.
I was taken aback.
I gave him some BS answer.
What other answer could I have given?
Even today?

[Shulem]

What other answer could I have given?

Hmmm.

Behold, I am Heavenly Father.

Click the link and I’ll show you my Father: ---link---

[bill4long]

What other answer could I have given?

Hmmm.

Behold, I am Heavenly Father.

Click the link and I’ll show you my Father: ---link---

Are you saying that's the First Father? Maybe they all look alike? Okay then, who is the First Turtle (all the way down)? Because I've heard it on good authority that each god stands on his own turtle.

Seriously, I have to hand it to the kid that came right up against Infinite Regress at a young age with no coaching.

[Shulem]

Behold, I am Heavenly Father.

Click the link and I’ll show you my Father: ---link---

Are you saying that's the First Father? Maybe they all look alike? Okay then, who is the First Turtle (all the way down)? Because I've heard it on good authority that each god stands on his own turtle.

Ah!

Joseph Smith lost himself within the principle of INFINITY ∞ (that which *is* infinite) in which there is no beginning and no ending, ALL (forever) based strictly in definite mathematical terms wherein it cannot be solved -- seen, understood, or grasped by intellect. Smith’s doctrine of the plurality of gods was based on a retarded religious point of view that literally makes zero sense. It was most uninspiring and totally false.

Seriously, I have to hand it to the kid that came right up against Infinite Regress at a young age with no coaching.

[bill4long]

Joseph Smith lost himself within the principle of INFINITY ∞ (that which *is* infinite) in which there is no beginning and no ending, ALL (forever) based strictly in definite mathematical terms wherein it cannot be solved -- seen, understood, or grasped by intellect. Smith’s doctrine of the plurality of gods was based on a retarded religious point of view that literally makes zero sense. It was most uninspiring and totally false.

Infinity is an abstract mathematical concept that has zero isomorphic relation to the timebased cause/effect universe that we find ourselves in.

Infinite regress is nonsense. So is transcendance, but it's less nonsense. Joe had no idea about transcendence. He imagined an infinity regression of gods.

Joe didn't think it through because he did have that kind of brain. If he would have, that would have been impressive indeed.

But he wasn't.

What thoughtful TBM Brighamites should ask themselves is: who is the first God?

The logical implications of that should convince any rational person how ridiculous Joe's theological model is.

[Shulem]

Joseph Smith lost himself within the principle of INFINITY ∞ (that which *is* infinite) in which there is no beginning and no ending, ALL (forever) based strictly in definite mathematical terms wherein it cannot be solved -- seen, understood, or grasped by intellect. Smith’s doctrine of the plurality of gods was based on a retarded religious point of view that literally makes zero sense. It was most uninspiring and totally false.

Infinity is an abstract mathematical concept that has zero isomorphic relation to the timebased cause/effect universe that we find ourselves in.

Soon after the Book of Mormon was published, Smith expanded his revelatory ideas of the creations made by a finite Trinitarian-like God as expressed in the Book of Moses (1830) in showing how God's personal creations are so large that man can't begin to count or number them like God can:

"And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose....innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me....and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine."

Thus, the worlds created by Smith's finite god are numbered and entirely quantifiable. Forget about the infinite and forget about quantum physics on a universal level and beyond! Smith's god is a tiny little god who counts his worlds like a shepherd counts his sheep. Same goes for his father, and his father's father, and so on. Everything is countable and known and is therefore NOT infinite. The infinite cannot be counted, cannot be quantified, and cannot be numbered. So, in affect, Joseph Smith's concept of god grasps only the finite and has nothing to do with the infinite.

[Shulem]

Infinite regress is nonsense. So is transcendance, but it's less nonsense. Joe had no idea about transcendence. He imagined an infinity regression of gods.

Late in his ministry, Smith posed this question: "Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son?"

The Mormon god has a beginning and cannot therefore be an infinite God which is what most people ascribe to. Smith's concept of godhood among the gods is a club based on finite thinking -- everyone has a number, everything is quantifiable, and everything is known and accounted for. This is NOT the infinite!

Smith's views of God are retarded nonsense.

[Shulem]

Joe didn't think it through because he did have that kind of brain. If he would have, that would have been impressive indeed.

Joe's mind was limited and subject to his personal passions and desire to make himself a god in the god's club. Little did he know that the little smudge in the night sky (Andromeda) was of itself a whole other galaxy -- far far away from so-called Kolob's center place! Smith had no idea of the vastness of our own galaxy, let alone all the other galaxies throughout the universe which nobody knew about until 1924, thanks to Edwin Hubble. Smith's galactic statement, however, in Moses is quite grand, but flawed on a universal scale:

"And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still"

Why would all knowing infinite god use the word "millions" when there are numbers much larger in modern vocabulary? Is it because Smith was doing the talking and not God? I think so! Here are terms that God would use to better describe our universe rather than Smith's limited Newtonian thinking and vocabulary:

BILL'ION, noun bil'yun. [bis and million.]
A million of millions; as many millions as there are units in a million.

TRILLION, noun tril'yun. [a word formed arbitrarily of three, or Gr. million.] The product of a million multiplied by a million, and that product multiplied by a million; or the product of the square of a million multiplied by a million. Thus 1, 000, 000 x 1, 000, 000=1, 000, 000, 000, 000, and this product multiplied by a million= 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000.

How much more authentic would the Moses revelation be if it said something to the effect of:

"And were it possible that man could number the stars of this galaxy alone, yea, there are trillions of galaxies like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still throughout the universe"

That is much better, wouldn't you say?

[Shulem]

But he wasn't.

Joe was clueless of modern physics. He had no idea that our grand universe is merely a little bubble that manifests itself out of the infinite cosmos which includes every potential thing that could ever be. Infinite knowledge is the real God, manifested in bubbles like our universe. There are trillions of universes. But there is no concrete number of them!

[I Have Questions]

This is a very difficult topic to navigate. Our brains are predisposed to think of things in linear terms, because that is how we are experiencing our current existence - our lifespan is linear. It has a start, and it has an end. Thinking about a concept of existence that isn't linear is very very difficult. It will make your head hurt. The atoms that have combined to form "you" have always existed. They will always exist (by "always" I'm referencing a timeframe so long that it is beyond our human comprehension and so long that it ceases to be relevant - in the same way that $1 is an irrelevant number when talking about sextillions of dollars). They were used to form different things in the past, maybe ancestors, or plants, or animals, or a liquid, or a gas etc. If we think of "you" as a combination of atoms, then "you" have always existed and will always exist, but in other combinations of atoms. Like 20 lego bricks in a box of 100,000 lego bricks that are used to make some things today, then broken back down into individual bricks again, before being recycled to make something else tomorrow. On that basis "you" are eternal.

God therefore, might be seen as a generic term to describe the process of lego bricks being used and reused and reused, ad infinitum throughout the cosmos.