Agnostic Atheist Vs. Gnostic Theist (Part 2)

• Bob Vance
• I feel likewise. I look forward to responding to this once I get back to my computer hehe
• Okay, first off, I want you to have confidence that I am different than many "orthodox" religious people. I consider myself very open minded and open to new ideas. I have attended other Christian churches and studied Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Ancient Egyptian religions, and Mayan/Native American religion. Additionally I have read/skimmed through ancient apocrypha such as the Enochian records and Adam & Eve apocrypha.
• Ever since I was 9 years old, I felt a lot like Joseph Smith. I had this amazing spiritual experience (though not as impressive as Joseph Smiths) I found it impossible for me to deny the reality of what I had experienced.

  At a young age the idea of God existing became so obvious to me that I was intrigued by the idea that smart people would struggle with this concept.

  I tried to see if I could "convert" athiests online.

  I went to scientific forum websites and would chat with smart people and try convince them of God's existence.

  I found it to be very difficult to persuade them.

  They would often bring up scientific issues with the Bible and discrepancies and topics like evolution

  At first I was opposed to the idea of evolution.

  But the more I listened to them I kept an open mind and what they were saying started making sense.

  I started to grow fond of the idea of evolution, but it didn't stop me from believing in God.
• As a person with a computer programmer mind, I viewed evolution as a beautiful computer program that is set up to autonomously create, improve, and adapt life. It was an ingenious system. It made sense. I thought that if I was God, I would also program the universe to have evolution.
• But I also had similar questions to you. I am also a deep thinker. What happened before the big bang, etc.

  At first I was also opposed to the idea of the Big Bang, but likewise, this concept grew on me.

  It seemed like another perfectly designed program for the creation of universes. If I was God, I would also program a Big Bang to get my universes started.

  But the thing that helped me deepen my understanding of God and the Gospel the most was my study of Black Holes.

  Black holes answer all the deep questions.

  I don't think that God was created inside this universe, but rather He first began within the mother universe of our own.

  How is something created from nothing? The laws of physics would like to fool you into thinking that that is not possible.

  The law of conservation of energy is often poorly interpreted as "Energy cannot be created or destroyed but only changes its form."

  But what I would like you to open your eyes to the possibility that there is a way to create something from nothing within the laws of physics… and that is by the mutual creation of positive and negative energy.

  Conservation of energy only requires that the net energy remains the same in a system. But what if we add energy, and we also add negative energy? We have created energy while maintaining the balance.

  Suppose "In the beginning" there was zero energy.

  But amazingly something is created out of nothing!!!

  But its opposite must be created in order to maintain the balance.

  So our universe changes from..

  0 = 0

  to

  0 = 1 + (-1)
• 

  11/17, 4:10pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Cool, making sense so far
• Bob Vance
• This can also happen if we start with 1

  1 = 1

  1 = 1 + [ +1 -1]

  With regard to God's complexity,

  you are probably thinking, "well if God started in a prior universe, the what about his God, and then what about the prior God, all the way into the beginning, how did we first have God?

  You have to realize that Evolution and the Big Bang aren't the only beautiful programs in place for the creation and development of intelligences.

  You also have to understand that there is a finer level of energy that we have less grasp on, which is spiritual matter.

  Just as physical matter can evolve, so can spiritual.

  So in the beginning of every beginning, maybe there was just zero

  zero physical and zero spiritual

  but some quantum activity spontaneously created +1 -1 for both the spiritual and physical

  And then just how the physical matter slowly bongs to itself to become stronger and more complex

  the spiritual matter also bonds to inself and becomes stronger and more complex

  and more quantum mistakes create more +1 and -1

  and more matter of both types is gathered and naturally organizing itself onto eachother

  Somehow the physical is able to attract the spiritual and they learn from each other. The first universe slowly evolved life, with began attracting spiritual matter.

  It is possible that through this process similar to this, the first God of Gods was "evolved".

  But then a system grew into place where this evolution could be replicated in subsequent universes.

  And that is why it is easy for me to believe in God. Because I belief there are natural programs in place for the evolution of complexity in creatures both mentally and physically.

  And with regard to the "power" of God, I think that an easy analogy would be to compare Gods power to your own.
• 

  11/17, 4:25pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Now you're speakin my language!

  Love it
• Bob Vance
• The Hindu's believed in multiple universes and they also believed that the human body is a symbol for the universe.

  The hindu's even when so far as to say that you body actually IS a universe.

  And so if you think about it, we ALREADY are God's of our OWN universe.
• 

  11/17, 4:26pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Cool, that's what my sister believes
• Bob Vance
• We can move our hands and our feet according to our desires, within the laws of the universe.

  Just as we control our universe, God controls his.

  If you try to move your hand, what does it take? Does just purely imagining moving the hand cause it to move? Nope, you actually have to WILL it to move. That is a spiritual function.
• 

  11/17, 4:29pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  That's an interesting take on will, I was just trying to explore that idea with my bf yesterday!
• Bob Vance
• Now you may say, "We can move our hands because we are connected to them. But how does God move something that he is not connected to?" And that is when I would say that the Mother Black Hole to this universe IS connected to everything within the Child Universe, and therefore, there is a mechanism in place for God, via the Mother Black Hole, to be connected to everything.
• 

  11/17, 4:34pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Like an umbilical chord? Are you saying that the universe IS god?
• Bob Vance
• Not really, I'm saying that I think that it is probably that God is an evolved intelligence from a prior universe who became immortal and pure enough to reside within a Black Hole and survive. By becoming pure enough to withstand the Black Hole, he becomes the master of it. By living inside of the Black Hole he becomes connected to it and can manipulate it according to his will, just as if it was a part of him. Additionally, I have a theory that it takes 2 to create a child universe. Alone, this "God" has only a Black Hole. But when his "Wife" inherits a Black Hole, they begin to revolve around each other. My theory continues to say that by virtue of 2 black holes revolving around each other, the two opposing directions of gravity create the strongest known burden on space-time, both tugging the same space at levels exceeding the speed of light. Under these conditions, space is ripped and positive and negative matter are created. Perhaps because both parents are "positive" matter, the parents absorb half of the newly created matter. The left over "negative" matter is repelled away from the parental twin-Black Hole system at speeds approaching the speed of light. The rip in space perhaps sends this newly created negative matter flying into another dimension, and thus we have a new universe full of "negative" matter. Of course, when the negative matter slows down and becomes gravitationally attracted to itself, it will form planets and the subsequent life forms will never know the difference between a "positive" matter planet and a "negative" matter planet.
• But because Black Holes slow time down to zero, that act alone connects them to everything.

  When time is zero, the past present and future all happen at once.

  You become a creature of a higher dimension.

  An analogy could be, if us humans were to become zero time creatures, we would exist at every point in time at the same time. If we ran in a circle, our zero - time self would exist at every point in the circle.

  We would basically exist at multiple points in time at once, like a bunch of clones. But we are all connected. We are still the same. I still have control my hand in every point in time.

  The Black Hole becomes God's hand. Everything created out of the Black Hole becomes like an extension of his hand. He can move planets like we move fingers. He can heal wounds like we blink our eyes.
• 

  11/17, 5:25pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  I've got to say, this is a completely new and original philosophy. I haven't heard one quite like it, and I, well, quite like it! I have had similar thoughts about mother /daughter universes and had even considered black holes as the mechanism for reproduction, but nothing quite like that. It's interesting how you can fit it in with some of the deeper mormon doctrine. My boyfriend always tries to find ways to do that. He'll really dig this theory, I think, I'll show it to him.

  You see, it's alternative concepts of God like these that I can consider. I am an atheist to certain concepts of God, just as you are, and sometimes an agnostic deist when it comes to more sensible models. My goal is always to eliminate dogma, so it is important for me to have these kinda of conversations with religious people, to keep me in check. Atheists are wonderful people, I love my friends, but sometimes we think too similarly and there isn't a lot of growth happening. And that was why I left mormonisn in the first place, so I would stop surrounding myself with people who only confirmed my world view, never challenged it. If I continued to do that, I would be something of a hypocrite, wouldn't I. I left mormonisn because I was tired of feeling better/righter than the whole world. It made me less compassionate. It made me less understanding. I felt that only mormons had meaningful lives. It also caused me pain, the ideas presented to me about my roles. I just wasn't good as a mormon. The funny thing is, the more I let go of my old beliefs, the more "christlike" I became. It was fascinating to be able to watch myself finally live the principles taught in the gospel, when I stopped holding to the gospel so tightly. Weird irony, I guess.
• Bob Vance
• I appreciate your honesty and opinions

  Believe me, regardless of whether or not God exists, it doesn't make this life any more simple. There are an infinite amount of challenges that we can go through. I believe you when you say that you feel that letting go of the gospel helped you be more "christlike".

  I don't believe that this life is simple or easy at all. Me in particular, I sometimes feel I have more confusing trials than most.
• I also believe in Satan obviously. I believe that Satan has a lot more power than we understand. I think that a lot of Satan's power can be explained in the book of Job. Satan has the ability to get permission from God to do things in our lives to challenge our faith. I believe that each of us mormons is a target of Satan and he uses different tactics to weaken us.
• I can imagine Satan talking with God and saying, "Well God, Seth loves you because you answer his prayers. Well what if you start giving him the opposite of what he asks for? I doubt he will continue strong in the faith after a trial like that." And God gives Satan permission to do that. And then Satan goes to God and says, "Julie loves you because it makes sense to her, it is intellectually stimulating to her, and she feels more christ-like. But if you make things confusing for her, take away the intellectual stimulation, and make her feel like she isn't fully christ-like, she will stop believing in you." And God gives Satan permission to push us to our limits. Sometimes people let it get to them. Sometimes they don't. I almost gave in a few times. Satan knows he can't get me to doubt God's existence, so he tries to get me to blame bad circumstances on God. If not an Atheist, Satan would turn me into God's enemy. But I having to learn how to put my pride and frustration aside and submit to God's plan.
• There is a picture in one of Hue Nibley's books about an ancient chinese mythology which helped me form my theories the connect the gospel with black holes.

  The Chinese drawing depicts two people, male and female, who are "revolving" around eachother

  They are obviously creatures of a higher level than we are, since they appear to have the ability to fly among the cosmos.

  They also have Mormon temple symbols in their hands.

  Thee message written on the artwork is quoted as saying, [“the way things should be, the moral standard”; it literally means the compass and the square."]

  What I get from this is that the ancient chinese understood Eternal Marriage, Exaltation, and even more, perhaps my Black Hole theory of revolving partners.
• Monday
• 

  12:08am

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Question though, why would BELIEF be a virtue? Why would all powerful beings spend their time devising ways to trick people into unbelief? Why, really why, does God care if we suppose he exists? Is he really so insecure of his own reality that he feels it's awfully important for his children to believe he exists? I can understand a superior being concealing his identity, and not blatantly walking around the planet. If I was running an experiment on a planet, I would do the same thing. However, it makes no sense why a superior being would remain almost completely hidden, and still require his subjects insist that he really is there. It makes no sense that he would actually judge us on how certain we are of his reality. If knowing he existed was so vitally important to him, how about he just... I dunno... Makes himself known. It's because either no such person exists, or he does exist, and he absolutely isn't concerned with our "level of belief." Belief is not a virtue. It does not make you a more moral person, it does not make you a kinder person. In fact, it's so frequently opposite. Some of the most difficult people in the world are those that believe the strongest. As I have let go of my need to "believe" in stories, I have become a better person, a person Christ if he's real would get along much better with, a person who, if a superior being is watching, would be much prouder of. There is no monstrous, evil creature taking ideas of how he can lead me astray to God, and God approves, because he likes tricking people, because he's testing how strong I can "believe" despite reason. I cannot makes myself any clearer, there is no one leading me astray. This journey is my own, it came from my heart, it came from my head. The beauty and truth I have discovered on this journey belongs to me and no one else. Seth, are you familiar with the idea of memetics? I imagine you are. The reason the concept of "belief" has persisted as a standard for moral character, when belief does not inherently even GIVE you more moral character, is because the idea itself is self-preservatory. So many people believe that believing is good, because the very idea requires that you believe it. It's the evolution of memes, ideas, the same way organisms evolve. The same way viruses evolved because they happened to preserve and propagate themselves, so that there were more of them. And the better they survived and propagated, the more there were. Certain ideas in the mind behave the same way. If you think about it, really think about, "belief" as a virtue is almost completely arbitrary. Kindness. Loyalty. Confidence. These ideas clearly translate into wellbeing and survival for an organism, but belief? It persists because it happens to be a meme that viciously defends itself, and spreads from parent to child, from preacher to investigator. It's as arbitrary as if it just so happened that... Say... Crankiness was essential to your spiritual health. It's very important that you hold onto your crankiness! Being cranky shows how much you deserve to go to heaven. Those who aren't cranky, don't understand how powerful it feels to snap at people. God has asked us to be cranky! Therefore, display your crankiness often, to show your devotion to God.
• 

  12:30am

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Again, my apologies for all the errors
• 
  
• Bob Vance
• You bring up a lot of really good points here. I'm impressed. I'll got back to you a bit later on this.