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God A Man - Page 4

dbackers, thank you for your thoughtful and reasoned response. I apologize for a couple of lines in my post--"In the end, I find Mormonism absolutely fascinating. I also find its vision of reality to be bizarrely incoherent." That was uncalled for, because it was merely provocative and I appreciate your calm reaction.

In terms of the content of your response, I find myself in agreement with many of your views. They would seem to reinforce much of what I previously claimed--that an atheist (in terms of one who rejects "classical theism") could embrace Mormonism because it is entirely naturalistic and requires no belief in the supernatural. Everything that exists, including any gods, would be subject to the laws of nature. Deities are a natural part of reality and learn to manipulate it, they don't create it from nothing. That reality could include multiple universes and dimensions which is where science is leading us now. So your claim that gods could originate in other universes and create new ones from previously existing matter and energy has to be acknowledged as a possibility.

This would seem to lead to a serious problem of eternal regression. If you postulate an infinite series of progressing beings back into eternity, at any point along that chain you could look back and still see an eternity that would have to be traversed before that point could be reached. It also fails to address the issue of ultimate origins for such beings. Mormonism clearly teaches that one must first receive a spirit body from heavenly parents then go through a mortal estate before being able to progress to exaltation. How would the "first deity" have been able to progress to that point without that structure? How would an eternal "unorganized intelligence" even begin to progress without a body and senses of some sort that would enable it to gain knowledge of existence?

At that point, it appears Mormons would have to appeal to the same sort of "First Cause" that most other Christians appeal to--An eternal, uncaused, infinite, immaterial, immutable being they call "God."

As an atheist, I have none of those problems. I would agree with you that existence itself, in whatever forms it assumes, is eternal and infinite--and completely natural. There is no need to posit a supernatural realm of any sort. Eternal regress is not a problem because there is no universal time--whatever universes or dimensions that exist are subject to their own laws and measures of space-time. Unlike most Christians, I do not see existence itself as a product of consciousness (God) rather, it is just the opposite. As I noted in my previous post, I believe consciousness is a product of existence.

The LDS view that there are eternal "unorganized intelligences" (individual beings with consciousness or the capacity for it) which gradually progress to deity simply seems contrary to reality to me. I would agree that consciousness itself is just as axiomatic as existence itself--neither can be explained or defined by anything more basic. However, there is absolutely no indication that consciousness is self-existent, it is a state which arises when matter reaches a level of complexity sufficient for it to come into existence.

As you said about yourself, I can say as well--I could be entirely wrong. Yet at this point in my life, I see no need to posit deities of any sort, it seems we are entirely on our own in this short life.

Man God

Most likely though it should be noted that Jesus was also a mortal, but perfect, man.

Why not? Relative to us and our creation, God is all powerful. Why cannot there have been a time prior to this existence when God was a mortal man? The Bible gives us only one process by which Gods are made and that is by the deification of man.

God A Man Studies Doctrine Mormon

I was a bit disappointed at the fact that one of our prophets tried to avoid answering a question with regards to this same issue on national TV. As a member of the church for a very long time, this is a little disturbing to me. I don't think there is nothing to be ashamed of at the idea that maybe God was a man in the past with the same weaknesses and strengths than we have right now.