And that’s the part that interests me, not having a philosophical debate about whether a God exists, or whether the Bible (or the Book of Mormon, or the Koran) is accurate. The great liberal preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick, in one of the Riverside Sermons, preached that the question of the gospel is not whether it is true, but whether we will make it true by our own actions. I suppose a placebo God would do as well in those circumstances, but my particular faith says there’s more. If that’s illogical, then so be it. I am an old line Episcopalian, after all, and I imagine we have more eccentricity than logic most of the time.

The whole problem here, in my silly opinion, is that we can’t get our minds around the concept of eternity. We can describe infinity in calculus, but even our brightest minds can’t fully comprehend it. But we do know it exists. Like Pluto the non-speaking dog, we see evidence of something more but we are powerless to understand it. Enlightenment does seem to exist, however, so I’m not going to knock over other people’s personal insight.

As David Duke quoted from Mormon scripture above, God said “for mine own purpose I created them.” God might as well be saying, “You don’t have a prayer of comprehending this with your feeble minds, so don’t even try.” However, one must wonder then why Moses got this vision and comprehension of every living thing in the first place. I think God sees our exponential growth to further understanding in these modern times and is simply letting us know He is aware of our dilemmas but not to worry, He has a “purpose.”

Concerning us being the “bad boys” of the universe, there might be some truth to that. We Mormons have speculated that Jesus’ atonement was for all of God’s creation (it is said to be an “infinite” atonement), meaning that He had to come to the only world where the inhabitants would actually kill their God. However (there is always a big “however”), in our theology, when Satan tempted Eve, he was “only doing that which had been done in other worlds”–that is, giving the fruit of knowledge to God’s creations thus necessitating a redemption that was also done in other worlds (presumably by similar means). Soooo… what this boils down to is that we simply don’t know.

One other thing. It is also Mormon doctrine, and my own personal belief as well, that God, being eternal, was never created, nor did He ever “create” anything. Joseph Smith taught that all matter, including “spiritual” matter is eternal. This includes ourselves. God merely “organized” us (whatever that means) into His spiritual children and heirs before we were ever born into mortality. This mortal life is merely a step in our progression to becoming like He is, which, since time has no meaning to God, we already are. Whoa, I got to lay down for a minute!

Okay, I’m back. Joseph Smith, of course wasn’t the first to postulate the eternal nature or indestructibility of matter, but he was a genius at codifying it all into a Christian doctrine. It is interesting to note however, if you choose to believe such things, that he was virtually unschooled and did not have access to much of the works of previous philosophical thinkers and Eastern mystics. So, he either came up with these things all on his own (certainly possible) or he was really inspired with visions from God. Or, as my brother would say, he simply must have gotten hold of some REALLY good weed.

Mormons have always taught that truth about God and the universe can be found in virtually all religious traditions–even truth that we Mormons don’t currently have. Joseph Smith also asked God, if you wish to believe this, if the books of the Protestant Apocrypha were worthy of study and inclusion. The Lord replied that there was indeed a lot of truth in them, but like the Bible, much had been corrupted and a few elements were simply outright fantasy, but we have all we need to keep us occupied in the Bible as it exists and the Book of Mormon and modern day revelation. We will always be given more as we, as a whole people, are ready for it. Not holding my breath there, though.

I’m not trying to make anyone believe any of this. I’m just sharing some insight I’ve found. I think we can only “discover” truth, it has always existed. We are only in a world or dimension, or whatever, where truth can be corrupted (rearranged out of order so that it is non-functioning) so that we can understand the difference. Light and darkness, yin and yang, and so forth.

I asked you how is faith any different from mere wishful thinking. I don’t doubt your sincerity in believing in God (and I like rockin’ the ganj too), but where do you draw the line? When is it okay to suspend the rules of logic? You’re a lawyer; you would never move to suspend the rules of logic in court. How does religion get this special status that says we cannot apply logic and reason to it? How can you formulate arguments about someone else’s religious beliefs and use “There’s no logic to it at all” to justify your own? How can you demand sense, reason, and logic from others, and waive them for yourself?

You’re right that faith without action is not likely to lead to results. Your faith in your beloved Hogs might not help them win games, though prayer can’t hurt. But what if the team weren’t the Hogs, but your local park league team. If you had faith in them that would be good, but if you went out and helped them in their practices and taught them strategy and teamwork and good sportsmanship, that would be great. Faith is like that. Faith in God (or Allah, or Buddah) is okay, but what counts is action. When you get right down to it, my faith is pretty well summed up in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, in which it all boils down to loving one another and not allowing pride to get in the way.

Now, many people say that you can do all this without a belief in God. That’s true. Many people do. And I have no problem with that, and I don’t think God has a problem with that. I think God would have a problem with people who put too much emphasis on belief over action. The Bible says that faith without works is dead, and that’s one part of it I do believe (most of the rest I don’t much believe).

But bear in mind that I come at this from a little different perspective from many people who post on here. I’m an old fashioned Episcopalian, an Anglican of the old liberal school, of the type that value liberal arts education and progressive social policy. And tweed. Being an Anglican, to me, is separate and distinct from being a Christian. Historically, we Anglicans have chosen to be Christians, and we have chosen to believe many, but not all, of the things that more conservative Christians believe. However, the mainstream of the church is veering ever leftward, and I don’t doubt that most Episcopalians today are little better than agnostics in what they actually believe. At some point, I suspect that the Episcopal Church will decide that belief in God is optional, and I wouldn’t be opposed to that.

Many believe that faith is wishful thinking, but it is not. Christian faith is based on mirror image of God in the Bible as well as rationale of humanity. To see mirror image of God in the Bible one need to wear 3D (three dimensional) glass in mind, w/o 3D glass, one would see nothing.

How is faith any different from mere wishful thinking? My Hogs don’t win games, because I have faith in them. What makes you think your god exists? Because you want him to? I’m just amazed how a person as logical as yourself can just throw logic to the wind when it comes to this singular question.

The fact is that we don’t know much about the origin of anything, and suggesting that God MUST exist simply because we don’t know things is not much of an argument. I like faith better.

Besides repeating “big Bang” in laboratory, we need, in order to void Holy God in reality, 1) to repeat life (single cell like ameba) in a Petridis with non-living substance and environment, 2) to repeat souls of intelligent being out of a single living cell, and still it is not out of question. May be the last question would be how a void was formed. To rely on science to void Holy God would take billions of earth years; by that time you and I would loose our opportunity to turn to God. Worst decision of all time is not to honor God.

You don’t give humanity enough credit. We are limited by nature, but we’ve come a long way in 10,000 years when cave paintings and stone tools were quintessential marks of genius. Newtonian physics and calculus are less than 500-years-old, relativity and quantum theory have been around for less than 100 years. Our understanding of the universe is increasing at an exponential rate. We’re discovering things so fast, we don’t even get excited anymore. We found water on the moon, and the general public doesn’t even really care. It’s simply astounding to me how little we’re astounded by great discoveries about our universe.

Let’s take this thread one step further: if we discover a natural explanation for the Big Bang, ruling out a supernatural force as the creator of all mass and energy in the universe, would “god” still be necessary?

Biblical literalists had a hard enough time with the Enlightenment and rationalism. If humans ever do encounter intelligent extraterrestrial life I expect that Christian fundamentalist heads will explode trying to reconcile plain facts with their preconceived theological truths. The culture shock will be too great. We wrestle with issues of sex. what if our new friends have no sexes, or perhaps more than two? We may believe that life is sacred but still struggle with how best to apply that principle in our lives. Could we deal with a civilization that depends on cannibalism for its survival?

Or perhaps the others would view us humans as uncivilized. They might be horrified by our practice of nurturing other living beings just so that we can tear them apart to eat them. Perhaps they would find our warring nature a threat to creation, and decide that humans need to be exterminated for the good of the rest of the universe. Scary thought.

27 And it came to pass, as the voice was still speaking, Moses cast his eyes and beheld the earth, yea, even all of it; and there was not a particle of it which he did not behold, discerning it by the spirit of God.
28 And he beheld also the inhabitants thereof, and there was not a soul which he beheld not; and he discerned them by the Spirit of God; and their numbers were great, even numberless as the sand upon the sea shore.
29 And he beheld many lands; and each land was called earth, and there were inhabitants on the face thereof.
30 And it came to pass that Moses called upon God, saying: Tell me, I pray thee, why these things are so, and by what thou madest them?
31 And behold, the glory of the Lord was upon Moses, so that Moses stood in the presence of God, and talked with him face to face. And the Lord God said unto Moses: For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me.
32 And by the word of my power, have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth.
33 And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.