Creation Vs Evolution; Exclusive Of One Another?

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Whoops! You are, of course, correct - 'twas a typo. My point was merely to contradict a literal Ussherian 4000 year-old creation.

Edited January 15, 2012 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[thesometimesaint]

JeremyOrbe-Smith:

I always find it interesting that the very Iron in our blood was created in a long ago exploded star. So in that sense we are children of the stars.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Yup. We're all starstuff. Carl Sagan is the man.

...

Continuing my trend of dragging threads down into nearly Ancient Astronaut territory, I also present for the jury two very fine songs which, when taken together, form a rather satisfying whole:

Clearly I disagree with the first video when it says our planet is unique; clearly I disagree with the second when it says there is a place where no matter exists. But c'mon, they're great, right? That first one could practically be a rewrite of Genesis, y'know? Don't let the anti-evolution foo's getchoo down just because the first video doesn't present every last "missing link" and therefore evolution is "just a theory." Don't let the anti-Mormon foo's getchoo down just because the second video doesn't give every last detail on how the gods did their work.

It's all simplified models, Reader's Digest abridgments of the full novel of the history of reality! Herbert Spencer and others popularized the word "evolution", which since the 1620s had meant "an opening of what was rolled up," from the Latin evolutionem, or "unrolling (of a book)." So we shall "go down where there is space", plant the "seeds" of a complex cellular "Tree of Life" on worlds without number! Can I get an amen?

Edited January 15, 2012 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Nominee]

Can I get an amen?

Amen!

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Yesss!

(Also, I still have your containers from Thanksgiving. If I don't bring them to sacrament tomorrow, I give you permission to thwap me on the head.)

[Nominee]

Yesss!

(Also, I still have your containers from Thanksgiving. If I don't bring them to sacrament tomorrow, I give you permission to thwap me on the head.)

You should not give me permission to thwap you on the head. It is your previous lack of permission that has always kept me from it. A new era begins.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Oh my.

[thesometimesaint]

I like both. Together they form a very logical system of thought.

As a scientist. This planet, that we know about, that has life. But we are mere babes in the woods when it comes to what we know. As a Saint I believe that we are but one of worlds without number that have life on them. So I can say Amen and Amen.

[dtorge26]

There are an awful lot of compelling arguments in favor of evolution. I agree with the science behind evolution, and I believe in the principles of evolution. However, I've come to the conclusion that a god who created man using evolution as the process is a rather ridiculous god. I can't wrap my mind around his choice to use that process, when there are (or should be) alternative ways to do it. There's an analogy which provides clarity to me on this matter.

Michelangelo is getting ready to create the statue of David. He considers his options. The most obvious option that pops into his mind is to grab a hammer and chisel, and start creating David directly. He knows what David should look like, for he is a man just like himself. There is nothing stopping him from creating the statue within a couple of years. He has the power to turn a chunk of marble into a masterpiece directly.

However, he realizes that there is another way to do it. He could do it without ever raising a hammer or chisel, and he could do it without meeting any tight deadlines. He could vigorously study the complex environments available across the Earth. He could study weather patterns. He could study ecological conditions. Then, he could take that slab of marble, and drag it all across the Earth for years (and years and years...) and position it precisely such that every rainfall, every wind, every ray of sunlight, every icicle which falls on this slab of marble, might slowly but surely shape his slab into the shape of David. This way, he never has to raise a hammer and chisel, but the environment surrounding that slab might bring forth his creation.

In a nutshell, the second option is ridiculous, plain and simple.

[altersteve]

There are an awful lot of compelling arguments in favor of evolution. I agree with the science behind evolution, and I believe in the principles of evolution. However, I've come to the conclusion that a god who created man using evolution as the process is a rather ridiculous god. I can't wrap my mind around his choice to use that process, when there are (or should be) alternative ways to do it.

Who are we to question the mind of God? It may seem "ridiculous" to us, but I think He knew what He was doing. Whatever method He used, He had a reason for using it.

Edited January 15, 2012 by altersteve

[Nominee]

What if it is because he loves his work, his children, and doesn't want to rush through it or miss something beautiful in the development? Like with our own children~ if a way to skip to whatever may be considered the best part in a moment was possible, would you? I wouldn't. I wouldn't give up one single second of the time I am given to watch every tiny little development of that miracle take place. I would choose the scenic route. Maybe God just likes the view. Maybe it is worth the time given.

[Freedom]

There are an awful lot of compelling arguments in favor of evolution. I agree with the science behind evolution, and I believe in the principles of evolution. However, I've come to the conclusion that a god who created man using evolution as the process is a rather ridiculous god. I can't wrap my mind around his choice to use that process, when there are (or should be) alternative ways to do it. There's an analogy which provides clarity to me on this matter.

Michelangelo is getting ready to create the statue of David. He considers his options. The most obvious option that pops into his mind is to grab a hammer and chisel, and start creating David directly. He knows what David should look like, for he is a man just like himself. There is nothing stopping him from creating the statue within a couple of years. He has the power to turn a chunk of marble into a masterpiece directly.

However, he realizes that there is another way to do it. He could do it without ever raising a hammer or chisel, and he could do it without meeting any tight deadlines. He could vigorously study the complex environments available across the Earth. He could study weather patterns. He could study ecological conditions. Then, he could take that slab of marble, and drag it all across the Earth for years (and years and years...) and position it precisely such that every rainfall, every wind, every ray of sunlight, every icicle which falls on this slab of marble, might slowly but surely shape his slab into the shape of David. This way, he never has to raise a hammer and chisel, but the environment surrounding that slab might bring forth his creation.

In a nutshell, the second option is ridiculous, plain and simple.

If God has been around for trillions of years and will continue to exist for trillions of years, and if he has created trillions of worlds, why can't the proposed method be the way it is done? Unless you can come up with a better method based on the evidence, you are arguing from silence. Time is relative. For us, 4 billion years is a long time. We do not know how time is measured in the next life.

[Calm]

There are an awful lot of compelling arguments in favor of evolution. I agree with the science behind evolution, and I believe in the principles of evolution. However, I've come to the conclusion that a god who created man using evolution as the process is a rather ridiculous god. I can't wrap my mind around his choice to use that process, when there are (or should be) alternative ways to do it. There's an analogy which provides clarity to me on this matter.

Michelangelo is getting ready to create the statue of David. He considers his options. The most obvious option that pops into his mind is to grab a hammer and chisel, and start creating David directly. He knows what David should look like, for he is a man just like himself. There is nothing stopping him from creating the statue within a couple of years. He has the power to turn a chunk of marble into a masterpiece directly.

However, he realizes that there is another way to do it. He could do it without ever raising a hammer or chisel, and he could do it without meeting any tight deadlines. He could vigorously study the complex environments available across the Earth. He could study weather patterns. He could study ecological conditions. Then, he could take that slab of marble, and drag it all across the Earth for years (and years and years...) and position it precisely such that every rainfall, every wind, every ray of sunlight, every icicle which falls on this slab of marble, might slowly but surely shape his slab into the shape of David. This way, he never has to raise a hammer and chisel, but the environment surrounding that slab might bring forth his creation.

In a nutshell, the second option is ridiculous, plain and simple.

For one solitary creation, perhaps, though it might be very satisfying to the person doing so. I am thinking of those who tend trees and shrubs for decades, snipping here and bending there, sometimes passing on the care of the plant to another after they die. Not everyone is into instant gratification. For some the process is as fulfilling as the final product.

Also the creation involved a lot more than just one man, it involved the entire earth with all that exists upon it (and involved more than one earth so it's not as if God didn't have anything to do while he was waiting for this one to reach an appropriate point to introduce His Covenant). Perhaps it was a much more efficient use of energy and resources, if not time, to organize creation using evolutionary processes. And what would it matter how long it took for someone who lives in eternity? Perhaps God can even step out of time so that his experience was the equivalent of taking up a hammer and chipping away rather than it being the experience of mortal man.

PS: as an interesting side note, IIRC, it is the Dune Encyclopedia (a collective work--approved by Herbert but not seen as canon--published by some of his fans) describing artists who use the winds of the desert to sculpt. The winds are quite fierce so it does take less time than a millennium to accomplish their work, but it is the same principle of anticipating how natural erosion processes act on a subject in order to produce art so not so ridiculous at least to some.

Edited January 15, 2012 by calmoriah

[thesometimesaint]

dtorge:

If I get all the ingredients together for a cake, mix them into a batter,put it in tins, put them in the oven, and bake them. Did I make a cake, or did the oven? Evolution is just a process. It doesn't claim there is no baker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8&feature=channel_page

[CV75]

If we think of the true makeup of man in much broader terms than what is entailed by the category "Homo sapiens", the Church’s stance on evolution makes sense.

If we think of God in such terms as those found in D& 88 (He …comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things …he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made …[as also the moon, the stars, and the earth]… the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, …in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things), then we can also think of man, who is created in God’s image, in the same terms. If man is to his sphere what God is to His, then he is more than an isolated organism; he is in reality a great living system. Especially if he is co-existing and co-eternal with God.

The Fall changed the nature of man so that everything separated, not only from God but from himself. He disintegrated as a complete and whole system. He was no longer one with and the head of all that was “him.” All creation split into competing entities, with man having to confront, control, understand, tame and otherwise sorrow to survive in relation to his broken pieces (Genesis 3:16, 17) instead of simply tending harmoniously to one great whole (Moses 3:15). The atonement reconciles what occurred physically, spiritually, temporally and eternally. The Gospel offers insight into what man really is.

This view makes evolution not so much an explanation of how man came to be, but what happens when apple falls so far from the tree. To the natural man, evolution explains how man came to be. To the spiritual man, evolution shows what happens when man, created in the image of God, falls.

We might try to reconcile this by saying that evolution applies to all other forms of life except man, but when man is seen as “all things” (as God is), he cannot be separated from the rest of creation until he falls. We might also try to reconcile it by saying that evolution is one of the mechanisms that allows life to adapt after the Fall, but this would mean that “man” is not made in the image of God after all, since “all things” would have been in competition with “itself” from the beginning.

This might relate to the idea that the Fall, like the Atonement, was as effective before the act (partaking of the forbidden fruit, as suffering in the garden) was accomplished as well as after. It might also relate to the idea that even the best of science is still a tool of a fallen mind that cannot grasp what the science might really be saying. In either case, from the point of view that man in his innate state is one with all things as God is, he cannot have evolved organically.

[dtorge26]

If God has been around for trillions of years and will continue to exist for trillions of years, and if he has created trillions of worlds, why can't the proposed method be the way it is done? Unless you can come up with a better method based on the evidence, you are arguing from silence. Time is relative. For us, 4 billion years is a long time. We do not know how time is measured in the next life.

It isn't the time requirement that makes the method ridiculous to me, rather its the process itself. It's in the nature of the decisions that God required of himself to make, because of the method chosen. And, as my study of science transitions from traditional physical sciences such as chemistry and biology, down to even lower levels of reality's grain, such as quantum and theoretical physics, the method of evolution as creation only grows more ridiculous. One begins to see how randomness plays an important role in shaping the great variety of macro objects we observe all around us. Once you learn the uncertainty principle for example, you start to grasp just how invested a creator would have to be from beginning to end in the tiniest details, and the massive degree to which corrections would have to be introduced along the way, in order to ensure a final product that meets his original design.

You are absolutely correct that I cannot offer the specifics of a better method that matches evidence. Best I can do is offer a working hypothesis.

If man was in the beginning with God, then God didn't actually design man. Man existed in the beginning through evolutions's natural processes. So man's design belongs to nature, but God still creates man. God's creation method is currently incomprehensible to us and should not be limited to today's scientific knowledge. But it is still reasonable that God could use natural law to summon pure energy and shape it directly into the form of man. Such a product would have the appearance of a natural history, but without actually having one.

[katherine the great]

There are an awful lot of compelling arguments in favor of evolution. I agree with the science behind evolution, and I believe in the principles of evolution. However, I've come to the conclusion that a god who created man using evolution as the process is a rather ridiculous god. I can't wrap my mind around his choice to use that process, when there are (or should be) alternative ways to do it. There's an analogy which provides clarity to me on this matter.

Michelangelo is getting ready to create the statue of David. He considers his options. The most obvious option that pops into his mind is to grab a hammer and chisel, and start creating David directly. He knows what David should look like, for he is a man just like himself. There is nothing stopping him from creating the statue within a couple of years. He has the power to turn a chunk of marble into a masterpiece directly.

However, he realizes that there is another way to do it. He could do it without ever raising a hammer or chisel, and he could do it without meeting any tight deadlines. He could vigorously study the complex environments available across the Earth. He could study weather patterns. He could study ecological conditions. Then, he could take that slab of marble, and drag it all across the Earth for years (and years and years...) and position it precisely such that every rainfall, every wind, every ray of sunlight, every icicle which falls on this slab of marble, might slowly but surely shape his slab into the shape of David. This way, he never has to raise a hammer and chisel, but the environment surrounding that slab might bring forth his creation.

In a nutshell, the second option is ridiculous, plain and simple.

No, your example is ridiculous. The statue of David is not an organic complex biological being that has at least 30,000 genes in every cell of it's body. Different stages of our evolution have endowed us with different advantages and the cumulative additions have made our bodies fit to house our spirits. Are they perfect? No. But they are mortal and part of the natural world. They are not supposed to be perfect, but they are still pretty amazing.

[zerinus]

Yes, and usually for dogmatic reasons. The point is, there is no good reason to put dogma above science. Religion of all stripes has a horrible track record of telling us truths about the world around us.

I think we should accept people's words at face value, and not try to prejudge them according to our perception of their supposed "motives". I don't agree with it when Mormons do it, and I don't agree with it when non-Mormons do it.

Mormonism tells us to put faith in Church leaders no matter what. Anything else would be trusting the "arm of the flesh" or the "reasoning of men" which we are told, are not God's ways.

That is not the Mormonism that I am acquainted with.

I don't see how evolution can be realistically reconciled with creation. For one thing, according to evolution, we're still evolving. A million years from now we would necessarily evolve into a different species altogether, and yet we're told in Mormonism that we're created in God's image in the most literal sense; an image which happens to be anthropomorphic, as man exists in his current form. Both ideas cannot be true.

I rarely agree with what you say; this is one of those exceptions. I have never been able to understand why some Mormons insist on having one foot in evolution and one foot in creation. The two appear to me to be mutually exclusive.

Edited January 15, 2012 by zerinus

[thesometimesaint]

dtorge:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-meritt/complexity.html

[zerinus]

My son is in my image, and yet does that mean he has not evolved or changed? Can anyone tell me what our image will be in say a million years and how that image will be distinct from God's? What if it remains relatively the same since we have learned to control our environment?

You are reinventing Evolution to fit your own mould. That is not what Evolution is. Evolution is the transformation of one species into another by the process of natural selection. I don't believe it is honest to reinvent other people's ideas to fit my own redefinition.

[Jeff K.]

Jeff K., on 14 January 2012 - 06:19 PM, said:

My son is in my image, and yet does that mean he has not evolved or changed? Can anyone tell me what our image will be in say a million years and how that image will be distinct from God's? What if it remains relatively the same since we have learned to control our environment?

You are reinventing Evolution to fit your own mould. That is not what Evolution is. Evolution is the transformation of one species into another by the process of natural selection. I don't believe it is honest to reinvent other people's ideas to fit my own redefinition.

No, I am not "reinventing" evolution. Evolution deals with environment, it is not a singular intractible movement in one direction. If a species controls its environment, what then becomes of evolution? Will it enter a distinct phase away from the creation phase? Did you think of that? Perhaps you should think on it a while.

[Duncan]

Keanu Reeves, in the role of Cinepro.

I can't tell you how totally and completely FREAKED out that movie made me! I saw it in theatres and it still gives me the willie nillies

[Flyonthewall]

More than 20 years ago, I remember our stake presidency coming to speak in Sacrament meeting. One of the topics addressed was evolution.

Gist of the message was that man did not evolve from a lower species. We may have any other opinion of the animals, but man did not evolve.

Since man's body is part and parcel of who we are, this tells me that man's body did not evolve.

[katherine the great]

You are reinventing Evolution to fit your own mould. That is not what Evolution is. Evolution is the transformation of one species into another by the process of natural selection. I don't believe it is honest to reinvent other people's ideas to fit my own redefinition.

Ugh. Please do some research Z! Speciation is only a part of evolution. Evolution is change in gene frequencies.

[zerinus]

There are plenty of academic institutions sponsored by religous bodies which circumscribe (or prohibit) the teaching of evolution in those institutions. If such teaching were contrary to the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is no reason why the Church would not (or at least, why it could not) do the same at the academic institutions it sponsors. It does not.

The Church does not have to agree with Evolution in order to allow it to be taught in an academic environment such as BYU. I don't believe Evolution is correct; and I have no objection to its being taught at BYU.

One can believe in evolution without believing that men ascended (or descended, if you prefer) from primates. (There are those pesky missing links!)

That is redefining Evolution again. I think that is dishonest. That is not what evolution is defined by the scientific community who came up with the idea in the first place. Evolution is their copyright. It is what they say it is, not what you say it is.

Evolution is a current, observable phonomenon.

Not true.

As for the humanoids which apparently populated the planet for billions of years, do you know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden, or what was going on outside the garden while they were there? I don't.

Irrelevant to the discussion.

I don't see any conflict between the teaching of biology and the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, and none of what you say in response to my previous post undercuts that position.

You don't because you redefine Evolution to mean what you want it to mean, not what the scientific community who thought of the idea in the first place understand it to mean.