Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

[_Simon Belmont]

Actually, the score is:

God: ∞
Science: TBA

[_bcspace]

The issue is not whether you have proposed "new science". The issues is whether LDS beliefs, as set forth in scripture, are in conflict with science.

No. What it really boils down to is the existence of a God who has a greater knowledge of science than the rest of us. Everything else science has taught need not conflict. In other words, you're judging God based only on what science can do now and assuming everything else is impossible.

And the number of such conflicts is great. Apologists such as yourself can only dodge so many of them with the standard apologist arsenal of "loose interpretations", calls for "deeper understanding" and of course, the obligatory "not too literal interpretation of scripture".

Nothing wrong with deeper understanding. Science is in teh business of pursuing that as well. I don't think I myself have really used any of those other methodologies. I'm more used to thinking about alternative explainations.

Here are a few claims of LDS scripture that are in direct conflict with science;

And as we shall see, none of them actually do.

- Kolob:
The Book of Abraham states that the sun to borrows its light from Kolob through the medium of Kae-e-vanrash. Really?

Gravity, which powers the stars, and with which scientists are trying to unify into a grand theory (everything is interconnected) could be a possible explaination. No conflict.

- God is an anthropomorphic being of flesh and blood who, according to modern prophets, obeys natural law. Yet according to LDS beliefs (and scripture) he can violate special relativity by shuttling back and forth between Earth and Kolob at will.

By "natural law", I assume you mean laws humans are curently aware of. However, I'm not aware of any prophets stating He obeys laws known only to man. Isaiah 55:8. I don't see any problem with God being a relativistic Being. Even now scientists themselves hypothesize the existence of tachyons so having faith that God can overcome the known effects of special relativity is really no different than what scientists are searching for.

Are you familiar with Quantum teleportation circa 1997? We're on the way to doing what God can do.

- God answers prayers from Kolob, again violating special relativity.

See the above.

- The Jaredites came to the new world in unpowered wooden semi-submersibles after the confounding of languages at the Tower of Babel. There are so many technical problems with this belief that I will not enumerate them. (Consider the chances of 8 wooden telephone poles thrown into the sea off the coast of Oman or Yemen or the southern coast of the UAE all washing up in the New World at the place and at the same time 344 days later.)

If God can do what science can do now, what is the problem?

- Reformed Egyptian

City of Troy

- Garden of Eden in Missouri (Garden of Eden anywhere)

City of Troy

- No death before the fall of Adam.

If God can place a spirit within man, what is the problem with controling life and death?

- Adam as the first human.

The gospel definition of man is a physical body with a spirit child of God within. If the spirits were different preAdamically, what is the problem?

- Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from a funerary text.

US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq carry rudimentary translators with them. Also there is the matter of the missing papyri.

All of these are conflicts, and there are many many more. They are conflicts because a faithful LDS member must profess belief in these claims, and no real scientist ever would.

I've just shown how there are none.

Any Mormon who believes that there are no conflicts between Mormon scripture and science does so without supporting evidence, and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

What evidence would that be? Most of your example fail because of exisitng science. The rest fail because God cannot be disproved or your details are wrong.

The only rational individual who could truly believe that there is no conflict between science and LDS scripture would be an individual who has never read LDS scripture.

I've yet to run into a critic of the LDS Church who has demostrated they have actually read LDS scripture and that includes exmos.

Doc, I think that we assume people know a lot more about science than they actually do. I think that Mr. Space thinks he knows a lot more about science than he really does. (I'm not really talking behind your back, BC.)

Well, I certainly don't claim to know all about science even though I have an Engineering and a Physics degree. I even helped a professor develop a Quantum Mechanics class. But don't let that stop you from assuming I know little of science. It is a logical fallacy to claim superior eduction or training proves my point. Seriously.

Also, knowing a little bit about some science allows people to think that there is some hidden "true science" that will be discovered to vindicate their religious beliefs. Instead, each new discovery chips a little more away from the fortress.

The opposite happened here. Someone gave examples he thought were preposterous yet had not known that science has taken the first steps to achieving them or that science is seriously contemplating them.

[_Buffalo]

Actually, the score is:

God: ∞
Science: TBA

God couldn't even work out the value of Pi.

[_Buffalo]

The simian is merely a stage (near the end) of the creative process, using evolution, to make bodies in God's own image. Evolution or literally shaped clay, both are merely processes to achieve the desire result. No conflict. Evolution does not preclude the fact that man is ceated in God's image.

and they came about through random mutation and natural selection.

Processes that God would have instituted in the Creation as He set up the universe by smashing two branes together (String theory).

That's in direct contradiction to the theory of evolution. Traits are selected for through random mutation and natural selection. There is nothing inevitable about the evolution of man.

If the dinosaurs hadn't by chance been wiped out, it's possible that one of their species could have become sentient.

[_Morley]

Doc, I think that we assume people know a lot more about science than they actually do. I think that Mr. Space thinks he knows a lot more about science than he really does. (I'm not really talking behind your back, BC.)

Well, I certainly don't claim to know all about science even though I have an Engineering and a Physics degree. I even helped a professor develop a Quantum Mechanics class. But don't let that stop you from assuming I know little of science. It is a logical fallacy to claim superior eduction or training proves my point. Seriously.

BC, I respect you and I respect your education. I didn't say (or insinuate) that you knew "little of science." I said that you seem to think that you know more than you really do.

That you expect some future discoveries to validate your beliefs, suggests this to me all the more.

[_DrW]

Well, I certainly don't claim to know all about science even though I have an Engineering and a Physics degree. I even helped a professor develop a Quantum Mechanics class. But don't let that stop you from assuming I know little of science. It is a logical fallacy to claim superior eduction or training proves my point. Seriously.

BC, I respect you and I respect your education. I didn't say (or insinuate) that you knew "little of science." I said that you seem to think that you know more than you really do.

That you expect some future discoveries to validate your beliefs, suggests this to me all the more.

For its own safety and survival, the world just needs to make absolutely certain that folks who see the world as BCSpace does are kept out of the lab, away from the drawing board, and most importantly of all, out of the science classroom as instructors.

That being said, the BCSpace brand of "ecclesiastical science" seems pretty harmless and even amusing.

[_Simon Belmont]

The only rational individual who could truly believe that there is no conflict between science and LDS scripture would be an individual who has never read LDS scripture.

The resulting flow of illogic from your statements causes gaping jaw syndrome.

[_Buffalo]

The only rational individual who could truly believe that there is no conflict between science and LDS scripture would be an individual who has never read LDS scripture.

The resulting flow of illogic from your statements causes gaping jaw syndrome.

They are legitimate contradictions between science and Mormonism.

Let's not even get into archeology and history.

[_DrW]

The only rational individual who could truly believe that there is no conflict between science and LDS scripture would be an individual who has never read LDS scripture.

The resulting flow of illogic from your statements causes gaping jaw syndrome.

Simon,

As I have stated many times over on MADB,

"Anyone who believes that there is no conflict between science and Mormonism needs to read more about Mormonism, or science, or both."

Many of the faithful over on MADB (MD&D) don't appreciate this statement anymore than you appreciate it here. Nonetheless, it is a true statement.

[_Simon Belmont]

Here is how it should read:

"Anyone who believes that there is conflict between science and Mormonism needs to read more about Mormonism, or science, or both."

Much more accurate.