Religion is dead...how can Mormonism survive?

[dastardly stem]

I sometimes wonder whether some atheists kind of slip back and forth about holding a definite belief about whether God exists or not.

I like Asimov's take as well.

I do think, on this point, there is plenty to uncover. It seems to me an atheist who, say, is in dialogue with a Christian will often take a God does not exist approach. But, I think context plays into it too. As in, if one is speaking to a Christian and denies the Christians arguments or position on God, that one is not rejecting all possible Gods but the God that is being claimed by his/her opponent. We tend to want to think we have two sides to any discussion, but that's just never so, or hardly ever. It's best to say, "based on what you are describing as God, it is less probable that he exists then not on these points...." And then list those points, if you have any. The attempt by a believer to win an argument by painting as if there is a god or no god is kind of pointless. No one actually knows if there's a god or not. One simply prefers there is a god and another does not. The argument is a matter of probability based on what we can observe. On that a believers loses every time and twice on Sunday, but then that just seems pedantic since so many people are believers in God anyway and aren't going to be convinced anyway.

If there is a God he likely is nowhere near anything any human has ever described, it seems to me. The unknowable God is the best option...but if he's unknowable what's the point in believing in him anyway?

[Craig Paxton]

I recently finished reading the book "The End of Everything" by Katie Mack. Mack lays out the argument that the universe is not, as we were taught in Mormonism, eternal but very finite and will eventually come to a very real and cold end many billions of years in the future. While there are many theories on how the universe will end such as The Big Rip, The Big Freeze, The Big Crunch, to name just a few...one thing they all have in common is that our universe will eventually come to an end. A far different story to the one Mormonism promotes of an eternity of worlds being created by faithful former Earthling Mormon mini-God's living with their multiple wives pumping out spirit children to populate all of those new earth's they've created for eternity.

Eternity is a myth promoted by religion. Our earth has a finite life as does our universe. Both will eventually come to an end. Earths will end when our Sun dies, expands and engulfs our earth burning it in the process and our Universe in a slow dark, cold death as everything eventually just burns itself out, expands to where even stars disappear due to their expansion from other stars and eventually die out.

[dastardly stem]

I recently finished reading the book "The End of Everything" by Katie Mack. Mack lays out the argument that the universe is not, as we were taught in Mormonism, eternal but very finite and will eventually come to a very real and cold end many billions of years in the future. While there are many theories on how the universe will end such as The Big Rip, The Big Freeze, The Big Crunch, to name just a few...one thing they all have in common is that our universe will eventually come to an end. A far different story to the one Mormonism promotes of an eternity of worlds being created by faithful former Earthling Mormon mini-God's living with their multiple wives pumping out spirit children to populate all of those new earth's they've created for eternity.

Eternity is a myth promoted by religion. Our earth has a finite life as does our universe. Both will eventually come to an end. Earths will end when our Sun dies, expands and engulfs our earth burning it in the process and our Universe in a slow dark, cold death as everything eventually just burns itself out, expands to where even stars disappear due to their expansion from other stars and eventually die out.

The world dissolving is a very western religion thing--all three big 'uns claim the earth will dissolve probably based on something Judaism picked up early on, I guess. Looking at it from a modern lens, all three likely suggest they were right all along in that the universe and earth will surely die out at some point. But all of those would put that dying out much sooner than any scientific model would put it.

You raise a good point about Mormonism. Its not like Mormonism had a good solid view of the universe, granted nothing like science has given cosmologists today. But one thing is true, it had a better point of view in terms of what was going on up in space compared to what was known at the start of the big 3. I'd imagine all saw earth as the center of everything, in terms of space and godly focus. None had any idea how vast space was though...so it makes sense that they really see God as creating us here and everything else up there exists for earth. Mormonism adds creation of other worlds somewhat aware of scientific notions already discovered. Of course when it started talking about people living on the moon and sun...well, that turned out wacky. Mormonism is really goofy with its "that's not really doctrine" and "that's no official" stuff. Its managed to stay pretty adaptable on that basis alone. "well they didn't have the added light and knowledge we have now". I'll wonder how that pans out as everything else continues to fall.

[Moksha]

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.

- Doc

Couldn't this QAnon pharmacist opt for the Trump Defense of willful stupidity? Isn't this more of an indictment of insane secularism rather than crackpot religion?

[huckelberry]

Couldn't this QAnon pharmacist opt for the Trump Defense of willful stupidity? Isn't this more of an indictment of insane secularism rather than crackpot religion?

Moksha, is it legal to mix up peoples assumptions like this?

Or I could say, hey that's a good point!

[Dr. Shades]

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.

Actually, no, it was only about 22 years ago that it was shown that the universe is forever increasing in its rate of expansion. Up until that point it was unknown if gravity would eventually slow its expansion, and if so, if it would reverse it entirely.

[Meadowchik]

I sometimes wonder whether some atheists kind of slip back and forth about holding a definite belief about whether God exists or not.

I like Asimov's take as well.

I do think, on this point, there is plenty to uncover. It seems to me an atheist who, say, is in dialogue with a Christian will often take a God does not exist approach. But, I think context plays into it too. As in, if one is speaking to a Christian and denies the Christians arguments or position on God, that one is not rejecting all possible Gods but the God that is being claimed by his/her opponent. We tend to want to think we have two sides to any discussion, but that's just never so, or hardly ever. It's best to say, "based on what you are describing as God, it is less probable that he exists then not on these points...." And then list those points, if you have any. The attempt by a believer to win an argument by painting as if there is a god or no god is kind of pointless. No one actually knows if there's a god or not. One simply prefers there is a god and another does not. The argument is a matter of probability based on what we can observe. On that a believers loses every time and twice on Sunday, but then that just seems pedantic since so many people are believers in God anyway and aren't going to be convinced anyway.

If there is a God he likely is nowhere near anything any human has ever described, it seems to me. The unknowable God is the best option...but if he's unknowable what's the point in believing in him anyway?

What about the Good God? Do we really think a Good Omnipotent Being would require people to believe in them? That just doesn't track in my opinion.

[Shulem]

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.

Actually, no, it was only about 22 years ago that it was shown that the universe is forever increasing in its rate of expansion. Up until that point it was unknown if gravity would eventually slow its expansion, and if so, if it would reverse it entirely.

I believe you're correct, Shades. The universe expansion will eventually slow down and the energy driving the expansion will come to a halt and then it will begin to fall back on itself with all the driving force of everything that expanded. When that energy falls back and collides into itself it will cause another big bang and the universe will be reborn. That is the breathing in and out of the space time and time space existence as we ever know it.

Isn't that wonderful?

And, the universe is NOT infinite and never could be. The universe has a size and is quantifiable. It is ever expanding in rate and size and thus has a number -- it is not infinite. But the infinite realm does exists but it's not in our universe and is a static existence that does not move or have consciousness -- it just IS. Our universe is a little bubble of energy that came out of that static realm of infinite existence in order to create everything we do in the moment.

[dastardly stem]

Actually, no, it was only about 22 years ago that it was shown that the universe is forever increasing in its rate of expansion. Up until that point it was unknown if gravity would eventually slow its expansion, and if so, if it would reverse it entirely.

You jerk! hah. I mean....thanks for catching that. Should have left out the forever.

[dastardly stem]

What about the Good God? Do we really think a Good Omnipotent Being would require people to believe in them? That just doesn't track in my opinion.

I do think as a thought practice, its nice to apply an evil God idea to any argument put up by those who defend their god idea.

But on the topic of required belief, I would also wonder how that's supposed to work. It seems like in former eras the notion that God required belief was a great control mechanism, whether religion ultimately realized that or not. Growing up in a Christian world 500 years ago there was virtually no choice but to believe, it seems. For me growing up it was always an awkward question to ask--why do we treat belief in the unseeable, and as it turned out unreasonable, as the greatest of all virtues? Thinking of a god who is hidden as well as he is, why would He think belief in him is the highest virtue?