Religion is dead...how can Mormonism survive?

[dastardly stem]

Our sometimes seemingly frail society did some big flip flops over the course of the past century-century and a half. If you're familiar with the song that fronts a popular TV show The Big Bang, you know nearly 14 billion years ago there existed a hot dense state from which the universe expanded. That expansion is what is termed as the Big Bang--the beginning of the universe. Since that time the universe has been expanding, and as of nearly 100 years ago it was shown that the universe is forever increasing in its rate of expansion. That which is farther away from us is moving away from us at an ever increasing rate. Such that that which is twice as far away as something else is moving away from us at twice the pace, and that which is three times as far away is moving at the rate of three times the pace away from us and so on.

It used to be that the world was young and that God made the animals and humans, the plants and the mountains. At least that's what we thought. As science was beginning it's trecks into the unknown (But the pretended known, as religion would have it) it soon was realized everything was much older than assumed; everything was more mysterious, complex, and nothing was unnaturally or supernaturally composed. There was no "creation", and no supernatural interference. On that background the myth of human religion became apparent. But the indominable human spirit, if you will, has, in its obtuseness, insisted that the mythological assumptions and preferences must really be true anyway, contrary to all that we have come to see as reality.

On such superstitious thinking it is either 1. That which we observe could not possibly be and God simply makes it appear as though our scientific persuits have a purpose (this is describing in our venacular a Creationist position), or 2. That which we observe is really happening and God sits back after setting everything in motion billions of years ago, watching...waiting (somewhere along the lines of a deist or IDist position). But let's consider a third option, as if there couldn't be even more. If we take, say, a Mormon materalist perspective where in God is but a person in this universe, trodding upon an advanced planet near the land of Kolob, then we must ask, what do we have? If Mormon God really is, then we have some fallible character who once trodded on a different planet, mortally, in a distant galaxy. And if Mormon God really is, then there are innumerable planets with life in various stages of development. If Mormon God really is then we, on this planet, in this solar system, expanded away from many other solar systems, like the one where God once lived, are approaching the end of our chapter in this eternal saga. Because if Mormon God really is then as he has suggested, we are coming close to the end--a message he's seemingly repeated to everyone from the beginning. But if we apply what we observe, this might start to make sense. The Earth is 4 and a half billion years old after all. If Mormon God was ever really in charge of bringing us and our planet about, perhaps in a God-set-things-in-motion kind of way then he did so, billions of years ago. Perhaps in that time he busied himself in starting other earths in distant reaches of the universe.

So on that position, we have a material God out there, with many billions of other material creatures spread across an expanse no one can possibly fathom. And this material entity remains undetected by us, and every other peopled planet out there. And we claim the observable universe is 93 billion lightyears in diameter. We do so without, in that vast observable field, having detected anything resembling life. The thought makes reason stare, to quote a Mormon hymn.

But we have a number of problems on these assumptions. As of now, we can detect the smallest of particles. If, as Mormonism proposes, there are many billions among us housed in bodies pieced together by finer material than what we observe, we'd still be able to detect the molecules that compose these bodies, presumably. There could not be floating bodies looking over our shoulders inhabiting our atmosphere. That alone seems to disprove the Mormon theological framework, it seems to me, unless of course we are talking about magic bodies hidden amongst the molecules, transcending material. But that twist, as an attempt to hold out hope for the possibility, can't work because it defies previous teaching, defeats the notion of a material god, and ruins all apologetic.

So in what way can we, with our indominable spirit of believing against all reason and evidence, re-explain god, religion, and the supernatural that can possibly fit in with reality?

[mentalgymnast]

So in what way can we, with our indominable spirit of believing against all reason and evidence, re-explain god, religion, and the supernatural that can possibly fit in with reality?

What reality?

"I shall take the simple-minded view that a theory is just a model of the universe, or a restricted part of it, and a set of rules that relate quantities in the model to observations we make. It exists only in our minds and does not have any reality (whatever that might mean).”

..."it appears that he [God] chose to make it [the universe] evolve in a very regular way according to certain laws." This observation cannot be made within the confines of physics. Here is a good example of the physicist sliding beyond his expertise as a physicist and making a claim suitable for metaphysics, some other branch of philosophy, or religion. This is because "God" and "laws" are not observable with the senses. In fact, the "evolution" of the universe is not objectively observable either. These are assumptions, theories or beliefs that go beyond physics – Aristotle's term for this kind of discourse, "metaphysics," would be more appropriate.
http://www.understand-ultimate-reality. ... s-View.htm

Quoted sections are Stephen Hawking.

I think you need to define exactly what reality is before continuing the discussion.

Regards,
MG

[huckelberry]

Dastardly stem
It is clear that the universe is big and old. It is not clear whether it has had previous cycles,interrelates with something else or has a future beyond dissolution.

It is not at all clear that that a creator God does not interfere with the process going on. We have no way of knowing. It is true that we do not observe clear events of divine interference so it is not entirely unreasonable to theorize that perhaps God does not interfere. I am unsure how we could detect divine interference which was infrequent and subtle. There are people who have wondered if God influences people and expects them to do the actual work of changing things.

It is not at all clear to me what the difference between natural and supernatural is. After all anything that is could be called natural. I think people have used the word supernatural to indicate something with an uncommon relation ship to God. That leaves it a vague and flexible word I think.

An advantage of thinking of God as immaterial infinite and eternal is that the large spaces and times of the universe do not present a problem for such a God. Such a view has been pretty normative in past 2000 years. I see in Mormon thinking that this eternal source is there but we do not personally relate to it. Previous humans who have in some way become one with that eternal glory are called God and are the who we relate to as God.

Now Doc will b at me again that I cannot explain the eternal glory thing. I cannot really, I read about in the lectures on faith back in seminary. It is not really a part of what I believe but I think it is a bit of an unknown(like an x factor) as placeholder which holds together some of Mormon theology.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well. Tbf, Huck, I’m a fan of precise language and just wanted to see if you had any concrete and relatable ideas attached to the term.

Stem, that was a really good write up. Speaking of expanses, I just started watching The Expanse and it brings to mind your thoughts about the indomitable human spirit and our potential as a species to reach into the stars while at the same time destroying our most precious resource, the earth. Honor had some really good thoughts about humans replacing religion with other forms of worship, namely the Qtards and their worship of an anonymous prognosticator who preys on our ignorance and fear for the lulz. To wit, I don’t think religion is going anywhere any time soon despite our potential for progress because, ironically, our potential is also matched by our hubris and narcissism. We’re literally causing a mass extinction event and it seems we can’t help ourselves because *insert reasons here*. And we need something to worship that justifies our behavior, namely religion, whatever form it takes. Personally I think it boils down to tribalism, and religion predates on all of us, finding ways to exploit our us vs. them programming. It’s a real pickle, for sure.

- Doc

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

This is kind of what I'm getting at:

https://www.folkspaper.com/topic/antiva ... 88800.html

An anti-vaxxer who destroyed several vials of the Moderna vaccine also believes that “the Earth is flat and the sky is fake”.

Steven Brandenburg was recently arrested in Wisconsin after he deliberately destroyed 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine, citing that the pandemic was a hoax. The vials contained at least 570 vaccination doses. Brandenburg destroyed them by intentionally removing them from the fridge at Advocate Aurora Health Systems, where he worked as a pharmacist, as he knew that the inappropriate temperatures would spoil the vaccines and they could not be administered.

Brandenburg was arrested in December. Upon his arrest, he told officers that the vaccine is 'microchipped' and will 'turn off people's birth control and make others infertile.'Now one of his colleagues at Advocate Aurora, Sarah Sticker, has opened up about his other conspiracy theory beliefs.

In an interview with the FBI published by The Daily Beast, Sticker said that Brandenburg is a flat-earther who doesn’t believe that the sky is real. In the words of Sticker, Brandenburg thinks that “the sky is a shield put up by the government to prevent individuals from seeing God.”

Brandenburg's ex-wife Gretchen has backed Sticker’s statement. While talking to several media outlets, she claimed that he stored bulk food and guns in a number of different locations, believing the government was planning to attack the electrical grid computer networks. She said that she was so terrified that she and her children left town.

Brandenburg confessed to two counts of attempting to tamper with consumer products with reckless disregard. He is due in court on 9 February and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each charge.

https://heavy.com/news/steven-brandenburg/

I don't know if we can just chalk this up to 'mental illness'. He was smart enough to make it through life, becoming a pharmacist, planning for a doomsday event that lined up with Qtardery, etc. I think there's just something up with our brains that want to seek the divine, even if it's cuQuoo Qult stuff.

- Doc

[Philo Sofee]

Dastardly Stem
So in what way can we, with our indominable spirit of believing against all reason and evidence, re-explain god, religion, and the supernatural that can possibly fit in with reality?

All reasoning? Science is powerful, but it is not all powerful. Science does not have the only monopoly of reason in any manner. It is as imaginative as religion is in so many ways on the extreme scales of the large and small. In fact, it is pretty much all imagination and lack of evidence that science has discovered at the extremes. Remember, of this entirely huuuuuuge universe, we know barely 3-5 %. Let us not imagine we surely know it all or even enough to pronounce certitude yet. That's a little bit overboard if ya know what I mean. There is still vastly more that we do not know about than what we do.
Rather than one having to explain, perhaps the idea now is to experience. That is what esotericism notes. Sure we need the exoteric, but that hardly accounts for the esoteric. Is it only logic which explains? No. Because there may be a a metalogic we are simply unfamiliar with because out focus has always been on only the logic as if that is the only way to think through things. (Much as James Gleick demonstrated concerning chaos. We had no idea how valuable it would and could be and is, simply because we pre-judged it as valueless, and ignored it. Now it is dang near CENTRAL to reality! And this in just the last mere 20 years) But analogical thought is equally as valid, and it does not tread on the logic path to understanding. Logic and reasoning are not the only singular ways of grasping, of understanding our universe. It is quite a narrow way to go about it from just one singular view. After all, that is why Mormonism takes it in the teeth, and properly so. Why replace it's "only true way" with just another yet incomplete "only true way"?

Religion is not anywhere near dead. Sure there are evolving tendencies, and change, but of course. But that does not equal dead, not by any means. For goodness sake, that is quite unrealistic. We are in an era where the entire Zohar, (Pritzker edition, 12 gigantic sumptuous, gorgeous volumes) has just been handed to us by Daniel Matt, within the last few years, for the first time in all of history, and millions are now enjoying the extraordinary discovery of this "religious" literature, as well as the upsurge in the other mystic texts, the Bahir and the Sefer Yetzirah, and the spirituality which comes with this extraordinary literature. Religion dead? That's almost funny. What we are witnessing is an unprecedented era of change, not death of religion. In so many ways religion is expanding right now!

[huckelberry]

From the first Lecture in Lectures on faith:
"15 By this we understand that the principle of power, which existed in the bosom of God, by which the worlds were framed, was faith; and that it is by reason of this principle of power, existing in the Deity, that all created things exist—so that all things in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, exist by reason of faith, as it existed in HIM."

Doc, I realize it is fair for you to ask clarification. It has been over fifty years since I read the Lectures on Faith so I did a little review. I find that my memory has likely been influenced by my seminary teachers attempt to bridge these lectures and what is proposed in the King Follett address. His observations may have been a bit experimental.

The quote is part of a very odd idea pursued in the Lecture. Faith is pictured as a power in itself. I think my teacher speculated that it is that power which a person absorbs which enables God to become God. The power exists prior as a foundation of the divine. The lecture seems to at least tread close to that idea.

Now this idea is one I do not share. The lecture references Hebrews 11:3 as source with an peculiar reading. I see the author of Hebrews proposing that faith is powering our knowledge not powering Gods actual creative act. I think the author of Hebrews, a person certainly not Paul, is sometimes unclear in his argument and pronouncements. If one thinks only of the one sentence in Hebrews it could read either way.

////////
I thought I would add that I was rather surprised by the description of faith as being a power in itself. Even though the Lectures are no longer in the Dand C the ideas seem to continue to influence Mormon attitudes or speach about building faith. There is a peculiar focus on activities or problems as faith building. Even being here on earth is to unusually large degree described as a faith building exercise.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Perhaps faith ‘the power’ is the power of consensus? It’s typically when people act in concert that mountains are literally moved, cities are razed or built, and MLMs make a few people wealthy (heh). If faith is the power of consensus then it could be that God, as manifested through his interlocutors, becomes real because the works of men in concert with faith-consensus are made manifest by that unity of belief, hierarchy, and action.

- Doc

[Physics Guy]

I don't think "religion" is really a thing. Or at least, it's such a broad thing that it's hard to believe it can ever die. Can optimism die? Can hope die?

Not all hope has to be religious, of course. But I don't believe you can draw a clear line between hope and religion. Like Wittgenstein calling up a good carpenter to defeat any definition of "chair" you might choose, I bet I could find a form of religion that would defeat any simple form you might choose.

I'm afraid I suspect some atheists of committing the No-True-Scotsman fallacy with religion. In effect they define "religion" as "stupidity", and end up insisting that if it's not stupid then it can't be religion. But when billions of human beings self-identify as religious in some way, that's a perverse use of language. We already have the word "stupid" and there seems to be a good use case for "religious" as something not quite the same.

I entirely agree that many forms of religious conviction are dumb. In particular I'm dumbfounded by religious creationists who see Big Bang cosmology as an atheistic enemy. The Big Bang was a scientific scandal because it's so appallingly consistent with "And God said, Let there be light." Science accepted it with clenched teeth, because the correspondence between spectral redshifts and Einstein's equations was too immensely universal to ignore even though the idea of a beginning to time itself seemed so religious.

Big Bang cosmology sets the timing back from thousands of years ago to billions, but thinking that Bronze Age myths ought to be accurate about timing is clearly one of the stupid parts. Even if it had never occurred to any religious person that the basic concept of creation is distinct from any specific chronology, any intelligent modern atheist ought to recognise that the ideas are independent. So in my book, anybody who goes on tarring "religion" with the brush of Young Earth Creationism is clearly not really interested in truth but just in scoring debating points to get back at their fundamentalist parents, or something.

In fact, of course, religious people going back at least to Augustine have been quite agnostic about technical details like the age of the Earth. Expecting the Book of Genesis to get details like timing right isn't "religion". It's American anti-intellectualism.

I'm afraid I think it's going to be especially hard for ex-Mormons to sort out all these distinctions, because Mormonism isn't a typical religion. It's young but it's retro. It's a really unusually retro religion—a 19th century CE attempt to revive the 9th century BCE. It's retro in a way that no real 9th century BCE religion ever was. In their day, the old religions were young. They're OG.

[Chap]

I don't think "religion" is really a thing.

That is a significant observation.

The term has been applied to such a wide range of human beliefs and practices that it has great big stretch lines all over it. And just to confuse matters further, English speakers nearly always tacitly assume that a 'religion' is always something like the three Abrahamic systems - one deity, ontologically superior to the world it created and sustains, the ground of all morality, and so on.

Trying to get Buddhism and the thing nowadays called Confucianism into that mold can cause major misunderstandings and distortions. For Americans, the problem is made more acute by the fact that 'religion' is explicitly privileged in the Constitution, so that the question of what is or is not a religious belief or practice can give rise to significant practical implications.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was of course devised to draw attention to the pernicious consequences of this ...

Flying Spaghetti Monster or Pastafarianism, a social movement that promotes a light-hearted view of religion and opposes the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in public schools. According to adherents, Pastafarianism (a portmanteau of pasta and Rastafarianism) is a "real, legitimate religion, as much as any other".[3] It has received some limited recognition as such.

The "Flying Spaghetti Monster" was first described in a satirical open letter written by Bobby Henderson in 2005 to protest the Kansas State Board of Education decision to permit teaching intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in public school science classes.[9] In the letter, Henderson demanded equal time in science classrooms for "Flying Spaghetti Monsterism", alongside intelligent design and evolution.[10] After Henderson published the letter on his website, the Flying Spaghetti Monster rapidly became an Internet phenomenon and a symbol of opposition to the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.

Pastafarian tenets (generally satires of creationism) are presented on Henderson's Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster website (where he is described as "prophet"), and are also elucidated in The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, written by Henderson in 2006, and in The Loose Canon, the Holy Book of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The central creation myth is that an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe after drinking heavily. Pirates are revered as the original Pastafarians.[12] Henderson asserts that a decline in the number of pirates over the years is the cause of global warming.[10] The FSM community congregates at Henderson's website to share ideas about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and crafts representing images of it.

Because of its popularity and exposure, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is often used as a contemporary version of Russell's teapot—an argument that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon those who make unfalsifiable claims, not on those who reject them. Pastafarians have engaged in disputes with creationists, including in Polk County, Florida, where they played a role in dissuading the local school board from adopting new rules on teaching evolution.[13] Pastafarianism has received praise from the scientific community and criticism from proponents of intelligent design.