Help me find the Truth. (Personal question)

For the sake of a discussion, let's assume that I am a brand new neighbor of yours. We have only met each other in passing. You play the part of the Christian and I will play the part of the agnostic. (BTW, none of the below is true about me. Upfront, I am Mormon, but I have tried to get into this discussion on this forum for some time, but haven't been able to do so.)

(I also realize that there are some of you who are more than eager to post anti-Mormon material on this thread and I request that you don't do so. I don't even want Mormonism mentioned in this thread beyond this point.)

Let's assume that I'm out trimming the hedges between your house and mine and that you are working in a garden close to the hedges.

My wife and three kids, ages 3, 8, and 13, are all out with me. My wife keeps telling me I need to paint the house before it gets colder, my younger children are throwing little rocks at me to get my attention and laughing and giggling, and the oldest is pestering me about buying her a cellphone and about the promise I made a year ago about letting her pierce her ears for earrings.

In a calm moment, my wife and I get into a neighborly chat, well would be my wife, I'm a science/math teacher at the local community college and it's very hard for me to just sit down and chitchat and you tell us you are Christian.

My wife tells you she is a Christian also, but doesn't go to any denomination and hasn't been to church in several years, since marrying me, but that I am always peppering her with questions that she doesn't know the answers to. She says that one of the reasons she has stopped going to church is because she likes to spend Sundays with me since we don't get a lot of lone time together. I spend a lot of time helping students at the college and when I'm home, I have to spend a lot of time with the kids. We do have a date night every week, but that's just not enough.

She also says that she is also tired of seeing so much hypocrisy among the church members and the preacher is always asking for money, that she had decided to stop going. She says that her preacher, when she was little, told her she was saved as did her parents, so her salvation was guaranteed.

I tell you that I really don't go to any denomination, but I have read the Bible, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, the Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, some of the writings of Marx, and some New Age books. I tell you that I don't know what the right way is or even if there is a right way?

I tell you that I tend toward Uniterianism, but Buddhism has some attraction to me also, but it's a little too esoteric for me. I tell you that I also have some problems with life after death, reincarnation, or any supernatural miracles.

I tell you my parents were Catholics before they died, but they died when I was very young and I have been to church only a couple of times since their funeral, but the people who adopted me were strong agnostics and never directed me to follow any particular path. I'm thinking about going back to the RCC, but haven't made any decision yet.

You realize that I am fairly knowledgeable of the Bible when it comes to knowing where what is, but you realize that I don't interpret them at all as you do. In fact, I have a very shallow understanding of them. I think the Bible is good literature and can help a person do a lot of good in this life, but I don't know anything about being saved and what that means.

I ask you what you believe and how I can find the happiness and joy you have in your life.

problem with your thesis is that the Big Bang didn’t come from nothing nor was it The Beginning. It was the beginning of our universe as a individual universe. It originated from another universe that had more physical dimensions than ours. Mathematically, we have calculated that our universe was once part of a,IIRC, 11 spatial/1 temporal dimensional universe and there is evidence that there were other universes are greater dimensions.

What is your scientific evidence that the Universe (all time, space, matater, energy) originated from another universe. The Multiverse theory has no scientific evidence at all. The philosophical theory you propounded has no basis in fact or science. If you propound that the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle accounts for Boltzmann brain and we are all a derivitive of quantuum vacuum you need to take another look. Inflationary cosmology has yet another liability; Once permitted as a possible explanation for anything, it destroys practical and scientific reasoning about everything. Inflationary cosmology can explain the origin of all events, no matter how improbable, by reference to chance because of the infinite probablistic resources it purposts to generate. It follows that events we explain by reference to known causes baed upon ordinary experience are just as readily explained in inflationary cosmology as chance occurrences without any caussal antecedent. Accordcing to inflationary cosmology all events consistent with our laws of nature will eventually arise as the result of random fluctuations in the quantum vacuum constituted by the inflation field. This means that an exquisitly designed machine or an intricately crafted piece of poetry is just as likely to have benn produced by chance fluctuations in the quantum vacuum as by a human being. It also means that events such as earthquakes or regular pehenomena such as condensation are just as likely to have been the result of chance fluctuations in the quantum vacuum as to have been the result of an orderly progression of discernible material casues. In short, if inflationalry cosmology is true, anything can happen for no reason at all, beyond the supposed random fluctuations in the quantum vacuum of the inflation field. To make matters worse, inflationary cosmology actually implies that certain explainations that we regard as extremely improbable are actually more likely to be true than explanations we ordinarily accept. Consider the 'Boltzmann brain' phenomenon Under standard conditions for bubble-universe generation in inflationary cosmology, Boltzmann brains would be expected to arise as often, or more often, than normal occurrences in our universe. Indeed,, calculations based upon some inflationary cosmologies; models lead to a situation in which these free-floating Boltzmann brains infinitly outnumber normal brains in people like us. The epistemological implications of this possibility cannot be ignored in an honest assessment of inflationary cosmology. To assert our universe fluctuated into being one asserts that our universe, with its extraordinary improbable intital conditions which was orderly and law-like in its behavior (gravity, 1st and 2nd thermal laws, etc) and its uniformity, is disregard all of scientific evidences that the universe began. This means the many-world hypothesis generates absurdity, and that there is no reason (scientific) or otherwise to think we can rely on reason adn rational thought, but that those very qualities generated from a quantum field, and are therefore meaningless. It implies that our universe is not what it appears, and therefore anything generated from this quantum effect cannot be trusted according to the hypothesis of eternal inflation. It relies all scientific reasoning and explaination unreliable, therefore undermining any basis for it's own explanation of how life came to be. Nothing could be more self-refutin;g.

I have given you the evidence that you live in a theistic universe. Moreover you live in a Christian Theistic Universe, and have supported this with scientific evidence, philosophical evidence, moral evidence, teleological evidence and the Cosmological argument.
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Wow! That’s a lot more work than I put into it- you make me realize that I may have skipped a step when I concluded that the only evidence of faith is faith itself.

Let me explain. I have gone over these arguments in philosophy classes and with actual atheists and agnostics, and they ALWAYS find some ‘reason,’ whether reasoned or not, to nit-pick their way into being satisfied with their own understanding and lack of faith. Heck, I did it myself when I was younger. Ultimately, then, the process of demanding proof is also an expression of faith: faith in one’s own understanding. This is why I just skipped the whole dance of going through the arguments you posted above.

But you’re right. If it takes going through the whole dog-and-pony show to save a soul, then it’s worth it. Bless you!

Question:
I was on a trip to Chile a few years and some Mormon Missionaries were on the trip and started to evangelize me. I told them I am a Christian and their message was more suited toward those that were not.

They persisted and while I admire tenacity I explained that we were probably on the same team and again I am not a prospect for conversion.

They then asked If I had about Joseph Smith to which I replied “I have heard of Joseph Smith and it doesn’t matter to me. Jesus Christ is the only one my salvation is with or possible through”.

Again they persisted about Joseph Smith and I said “Guys. You are nice kids doing good work but I don’t care about Joseph Smith”.

Luckily the plane began to pitch and yaw, as ascend/descend pretty violently. I suggested it might be a good idea to pray this thing stays in the air. They hastily agreed.

Why was it important to persist on educating me about Joseph Smith?

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