My latest post at M* considers the possible ramifications of God being comprehensible. Here is a preview:

Is that a laudable goal, to try to comprehend God? Is God even comprehensible? Please note, I do not mean to ask if God is comprehensible to current mortal man. No, I am asking if God is comprehensible at all.

What does it mean to comprehend something? Try to define that for yourself for a moment to get a feel for the difficulty in doing so.

I would like to propose a fairly simple definition for your consideration. I propose that “to comprehend” something is merely the ability to describe it in terms of the laws the govern it — to algorithmically compress it, if you will. If we comprehend how the world goes around the sun, this surely must mean we understand the laws of physics that cause it to do so. Therefore comprehensibility is equivalent to explanation and description.

A new post at M* comparing Mosiah 15:1-5 and D&C 93. Here is a preview:

Do Joseph Smith’s own writings count as counter evidence if he explicitly tells us what he means?

If we take Joseph Smiths’ revelations as historical documents and as “his” writings, then I’d have to say D&C 93 completely undermines the Swedenborgian interpretation of Mosiah 15:1-5 in favor of a Representational Modalism / Divine Investiture interpretation instead.

We just had a very fruitful discussion (in my opinion anyhow) about many subjects near and dear to my heart that address certain deep concerns I hold.

I really appreciate everyone that participated and, amazingly, I don’t feel any of the frequent posters in that thread lost control or did anything but add productively to the conversation.

I was just reading Popper in Myth of the Framework that it’s a fallacy that you have to hold the same framework to have a fruitful discussion. But what really impressed me was his thoughts that the “Myth of the Framework” came into existence because people misunderstood the difference between “pleasant” and “fruitful.” True fruitful discussions are never pleasant. They are an attempt to bridge gaps between frameworks that seems unbridgeable at first, and may never be fully bridgeable, but can be substantially bridged for those that try. (more…)

I recently made a post on M* about H.P. Lovecraft and I forgot to put a link on Jr. G to it. Here is a preview:

Joyce Carol Oates suggested that Lovecraft’s “gothic tale[s] would seem to form psychic autobiography” apparently inspired by his own religious views, commonly called Maltheism where one “achieve[s] the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.”

I had a long conversation with J. Max recently about just why I generally like NOMs and even agree with a lot of what they say and do and feel they (potentially anyhow, if not in practice yet) could do the LDS Church a real service.

But there is one thing about that culture that has bothered me a lot, and it creates a huge divide that I don’t believe is bridgeable until addressed by them.

NOMs widely accept that it’s okay to hide (or worse, lie about) what they believe from Believing Members while actively undermining the faith of others through criticism. I have numerous documented cases of this now and it seems to be a very wide spread problem within that community. (more…)

Just another interesting quote, also from the Karen Armstrong interview on Speaking of Faith.

It’s not that religion has sparked these traditions, it’s rather that violence has become endemic in a region and religion has got sucked into that vortex. The Arab Israeli conflict began on both sides as a secular conflict. Zionism was originally a secular movement, a secular movement — a secular revolution — against religious judaism and the PLO was essentially secular liberation ideology. The lesson is, let’s settle disuptes while we can while they’re still secular…

My most recent post on M* is Mormons as Modalists. Here is a preview:

An interesting fact of Divine Investiture is that it makes Mormons “Modalists,” after a fashion.

Here I pause to the storm of disaffected Mormon and anti-Mormon protest. “No, Mormons aren’t Modalists! They are the opposite of Modalists! They are Freakin’ Tritheists!”

I also pause to let the Believing Mormons protest (assuming they’ve even heard of Modalism before). “No! I am not a Modalist! That’s… a heresy! It’s worse than… than… the Trinity Doctrine!”

This quote is from an interview by Krista Tippets (Speaking of Faith) with Karen Armstrong. It seemed to relate to my Divine Investiture post, so I wanted to capture it.

Gregory of Nyssa.. is 4th century, a wonderful mystic. And he… formulated the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of Trinity. And he said, first of all, this doctrine can only be understood in a ritual context and in the context of prayer and contemplation. It’s not something like an equation that you can just follow rational. But he said, “When I think of the three I think of the one. When I think of the one I think of the three. And then my eyes feel with tears and I lose all sense of where I am.” And that’s a theological formulation of the Trinity should do to us.

I have made a post over at Millennial Star about the Doctrine of Divine Investiture. Here is a preview:

Unfortunately Divine Investiture just doesn’t get the due it deserves. It is usually only trotted out to explain certain scriptures and then not mentioned again until we come to the next scripture that requires it. As such, some people have entirely discounted it as part of the doctrines of the LDS Church. They see it merely as an excuse to ignore or “figure-atize” scriptures that just don’t play well with Mormon’s (supposedly) otherwise Tritheistic doctrines. (more…)

From my other posts, I’m sure all of you know I’m a theistic evolutionist, but one very friendly to Intelligent Design and even Creationism. I see them as wrong, but understandable points of view that (like all points of view) belong in political debate. If they are wrong let the facts fell them. Therefore, I generally find the Atheist Evolutionists point of view right, but immoral.

However, nothing in life is that simple, is it? (more…)

Join Podcastle podcast for the tale of an Evil Overlord’s hilarious attempts to stop his prophesied downfall.

I have done numerous posts in the past exploring the Mormon Doctrine of Deity. I recently put up an M* post reviewing my past posts.

I then later “continued my series” by doing a post about The Oneness of God in the Book of Mormon.

Actually, I’ve been wondering about the best way to handle posts like this. I really want to put them on both Jr. G and M*. Is it best to do a cross post or just a post linking to the other?

This article talks about a proposal on how to teleport energy via quantum entanglement. (See actual paper here.)  Based on everything I’ve ready about the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, particularly this paper by Frank Tipler, if you really could teleport energy, that would disprove the MWI, wouldn’t it? (Since MWI says there is no quantum non-locality)  (more…)

I am really hoping that this article captures (perhaps poorly) a real attempt to reach out and sincerely address the needs of people with same-sex attraction without being untrue to ourselves and teachings.

If you can see past the SLtrib intentional spin, it seems like we might have a story here of some very productive approaches to how to better integrate our teachings and a more Christ-like and emphathetic approach to those with same-sex attraction. (more…)

Found this one listening to the Radio West podcast. The interview was with Philip K. Howard, that wrote Life without Lawyers. (With apologies to all the lawyer bloggers, this really isn’t a negative view about lawyers at all. The name is misleading.)

There is this kind of general notion, that is still the presumption in this society, that a law suit just a dispute between two parties. But that’s not true. What people can sue for establishs the boundaries of everyone elses freedom.