Coggins7 wrote:All the more reason why God Complex driven metaphysical naturalists like Dawkins and his ilk should never, under any circumstances be taken seriously outside of their own, tiny academic niches.
I'm assuming you don't respect non-LDS theologians as having any particular divine insight. And yet, why should I take LDS apostles and prophets seriously outside of their own narrow niche, which is corporate management? I mean seriously, the LDS church still teaches that the Flood of Noah literally happened, globally, just a few thousand years ago, which has been conclusively disproven. They teach that nothing died on earth until Adam fell, just a few thousand years ago. They now disclaim actually knowing whether we can become Gods, whether God was once a man, as we are, and deny knowing whether a man sealed in the temple for time and all eternity to two wives can be the husband of them both in the eternities. Just what is it, Coggins, that our apostles actually know? What have they got to offer us in terms of verifiable knowledge about
anything that there's reason to believe they're experts in?
Of course, Neither Watson nor Crick nor Dawkins have any possible evidence or facts from which they could conceivably derive such conclusions regarding teleology or the meaning of existence. But the secular humanists do talk a good game, do they not?
ROFL. Talk a good game? And what evidence or facts have the LDS got? Got any golden plates? Got Zarahemla? Got
any city from the Book of Mormon? How many investigators is the church paying to search for the "missing" Book of Abraham scroll? How about the cave chock full of records, and the sword of Laban, under the Hill Cumorah?
LDS apostles and prophets, all sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators, have no evidence, no methodology, no nothing that can lead to verifiable knowledge or evidence to support their claims. They barely even make claims anymore at all, so often have they been wrong in the past. It's hilarious, really. Joseph Smith had "revelations" every day, it seemed, yet our guys today can do not much more than try to maintain the status quo, while slowly whittling away at traditional LDS doctrine and watering down the message.
The fact of the matter is, science does not have the intellectual tools or methodology to study or make any positives claims about the possible underlying meaning of the universe, nor does "natural man" have the perceptual range necessary to move any farther beyond what his senses present to him.
And Gordon B. Hinckley does? He has intellectual tools, and a methodology, to study or make claims about any possible underlying meaning of the universe? Such as?
The fact that there are and have been many first rate scientists who are both deists and theists simply lays bare the stark contrast between science and scientism.
Sometimes smart people believe a lot of dumb things.
Scientism attracts people like Dawkins because it allows their own preconceived assumptions to bask in the glow of the epistemological prestige of science while avoiding making explicit the implications of those assumptions.
And the words of our LDS prophets bask in the adoring glow of fawning masses of LDS, standing out of respect and singing "we thank thee oh God for a prophet" who reveals exactly nothing, prophecies exactly nothing, "sees" exactly nothing. He can't seem to correct a lot of past LDS teachings even when they've been proven wrong, forgets that he ever knew some other past LDS teaching, and gives us less and less "meat" every year, turning all into milk, until my daughter's generation knows a hell of a lot less of what Mormons have actually believed since 1830 than my generation did.
Dawkins or Crick or Hawking are no more qualified to opine with any degree of certitude upon the meaning of existence and whether or not God exists then I am to pontificate on the design of the engine that powers the Space Shuttle. Indeed, infinitely less so, as, at least in theory, I could learn about that subject through purely human, cognitive means. Coming to grips with the things of eternity requires something more than just intellect. Indeed, it requires moving to another level of perception altogether; one that involves, but at the same time transcends intellect.
It requires a vivid imagination, a gullible mind, and a willingness to latch onto feelings and emotions and regard them as somehow teaching and confirming cosmic truth. It requires one to be willing to suspend disbelief, and buy into half-baked ideas that are insupportable by any earthly means, on the say-so of guys who are only oh so willing to produce revelations that tell others they need to have sex with them, give them money, etc. Like that's so much better. Dawkins, Crick, Hawking, and the rest, are at least trained in clear, rational thinking, and skeptical of insupportable, absurd cultish belief systems.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen