Author Archives: Bruce Nielson

The Conservative Case for Taking Immediate Action on CO2 Emissions – Introduction

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I am going to do a series of posts making a case for why we have a moral obligation to take action on CO2 emissions and to do so right away. I am aware I am writing to a deeply skeptical and probably jaded audience.

As is customary, I’m going to start with a quick explanation of my “credentials.” Geoff B told me that he has been studying Global Warming since the 80s and sent me links to his favorite pro and con global warming websites. He didn’t say how many hours he’s spent studying this topic, but it sounds like its hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours by now. Probably many of you have equivalent amounts of experience studying these issues. What can I possibly say to someone that knowledgeable on the topic? I really better have good credentials so that I can command some real authority, right? Continue reading →

The Laws of Physics and the Comprehensibility of God

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Can God be Comprehended?

A while back FireTag (a bloggernacle participant with the Community of Christ) recommended a physics book to me called The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch. I was electrified. I went on to read several more books out of it’s bibliography including Roger Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind, Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Frank Tipler’s The Physics of Immortality, and Karl Popper’s Myth of the Framework. In addition, I supplemented my science reading with Alice in Quantumland by Robert Gilmore and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I’m currently reading Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality, which will likely be finished just before the day I die.

What all these books have convinced me is that physics is far more than trying to understand “the physical world.” It is really about comprehending reality altogether. Therefore physics is really about (or at least can be about) comprehending God.

If we do discover a complete theory… we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we are and the universe exists. …it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God. (A Brief History of Time, p. 175.)

…physics must be extended into theology. (The Physics of Immortality, p. 329)

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. Continue reading →

Mosiah 15 and D&C 93: Divine Investiture or Swedenborgian?

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In my post on Book of Mormon Doctrine of Deity, Divine Investiture, Representational Modalism, I mentioned the idea that some people hold up Mosiah 15:1-5 as proof that Joseph Smith (as supposed author of the Book of Mormon) originally wrote the Book of Mormon to support a Swedenborgian view of God (aka Serial Modalism) where The Father is a spirit that took on a body called Jesus.

In my opinion, this point of view ignores a lot of facts or at least force fits them. For example, the Book of Mormon also presents both the Spirit of the Lord as being a person as well as the premortal Jesus. It also presents the premortal Jesus as talking from Heaven as a personality separate from the Father.

But there is a bigger problem I have with the assumption that Mosiah 15:1-5 can only be historically read as Swedenborgian and thus (we are told) we must assume Joseph Smith meant it that way.

It’s D&C 93.

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

H.P. Lovecraft and the Godless Worldview

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Howard Phillips Lovecraft, born August 20, 1890, was the great horror writer of his generation. Lovecraft created the so-called Cthulhu mythos, which is even today visited liberally by imaginative writers the world over. Even one of my favorite Babylon 5 episodes, Third Space, visited Lovecraft’s chilling universe.

Lovecraft seems to have lived a depressing and lonely life. As a young man, particularly from ages 18 to 23, he had “almost no contact with anyone but his mother.” (link)  In 1924 he married, though he and his wife separated a few years afterward, never to live with each other again. The divorce was never finalized. Continue reading →