Ex-Mo's: Ever explore different options?

[_Fence Sitter]

Could it not be that God simply desires to commune with someone besides Himself? Why does an artist have to paint or a sculptor model a statue, or an actor enjoy being a character. It isn't about what GOD needs to exist. It is about what GOD simply desires. HE is reaching outside HIMSELF through creation. Jesus is God. And God does seem to demonstrate His love towards what He created by buying it back from destructuion. GOD didn't bring evil into this world. Man listened to the lies of satan. For God to then fix everything, HE would to have needed to destroy everything and begin anew. GOD realized that individuals like you and I would someday inhabit this world if God allowed it continue. In fact, the Bible clearly indicates that GOD knows who will and who will not come to Him. And so He allowed the events to continue with a plan of redemption/salvation for you and I. In this way GOD has demonstrated HIS undying L O V E towards us. One day all the horror of this universe will be over and forgotten by those HE came to save.

Or it could simply be he does not exist and people feel the need to create lengthy convoluted post hoc explanations to defend an elusive phantasm.

Ask yourself what is it about yourself that placed you in a position to be favored by the Biblical God, and why the bulk of humanity has not found themselves in a similar situation. Quite convenient that those who believe in the Bible are also the ones that God loves, while those who have never seen the Bible are not worthy.

And if you can step outside your Biblical box for a moment, ask yourself why religious adherents throughout history in all religious beliefs, have always felt that God favored them.

The problem with being trapped inside a religious box is that the instructions to escape are on the outside where everyone else can plainly see them, but the person in need of them most, cannot.

[_Gadianton]

I didn't "characterize" atheists. There are plenty of atheist thinkers who believe atheism is nihilistic, e.g. Nietschze. Like V.S. Ramachandran said, we're nothing but a pack of neurons. That's quite a suicidal philosophy to live by.

The problem is there are Mormon philosophers who embrace Nietszche and that style of thinking now; their influence is only growing. Just keep an eye on the new Maxwell Institute and you'll see the references cropping up over the years. You can't really be "nihilistic" by embracing nihilism, by the way.

And how does the Mormon conception of the mind help? Why is it suicidal to believe we're nothing but a pack of neurons? The Mormon idea is that a spirit, or intelligence, is material, according to Joseph Smith -- there is no such thing as immaterial matter. If our spirits/intelligences are material, then all you're doing is pushing the work of neurons back to the material spirit mind. Why is it any less suicidal to believe we are material neurons than material spirit particles, which are more "fine" per Joseph Smith? You can say the Mormon mind isn't determined, but then you must demonstrate that a spirit materialism isn't determined while ordinary materialism must be determined. If you can argue a way for a material spirit mind not to be determined, then the same argument should work for a "pack of neurons". So the crux of the issue has nothing to do with whether we are "neurons" or not, and the Mormon appeal to things like spirit and intelligence in the end don't help. They are black box concepts that run into all the same problems other concepts do once an attempt to define them is made.

Practically speaking, atheism seems suicidal to a Mormon because of the huge adjustment in expectations. If you're born into a family that tells you you're a prince, and that one day you'll rule over a crystal city where all the people love you, that you'll be rich beyond belief, and have your choice of all the prettiest girls in the land, and then one day you realize your parents were lying to you, then that would be devestating. But if you live a realistic life from the beginning and appreciate what you have -- sort of a Nietzchean perspective, at least according to one of my BYU professors -- then whether you're going to die and rule a galaxy for ever and ever isn't so necessary to make you happy.

Interestingly, for all the talk I hear from Mormons and Christian about the hopelessness of atheism, I get the impression that I've accepted things like death better than most of then, notwithstanding their sheer testimony and knowledge that one day they'll be immortal, physically attractive and forever young, there seems to be a unreasonable fear of death.

[Guest]

...

[_CaliforniaKid]

Sorry I picked you out of this plethora of oppinions to comment on. But your (or atleast what I understood) opinion is a basic fundamental flaw in todays reasoning concerning theology and science.

First off , many from what I think is your angle or way of thinking , severely simplify what the other group of people they are appearing to be in direct contrast to. (hence science vs religion)

You don't seem to have understood my post. My point was that knowing I'm an atheist tells you very little about my "angle or way of thinking." It's just one small aspect of my way of thinking, and it's not even an aspect that's particularly important to me. So when you assume things about my beliefs (such as that I "severely simplify" the views of theists), you are in fact "severely simplifying" my own beliefs.

[Guest]

...

[_Mktavish]

...