Back To The Garden: Eden In Mormonism

[Ahab]

That's no different than saying that eventually someone will invent a working implementation of cold fusion.

Until someone does, and is willing to do it consistently and repeatedly, it's not scientific.

How many examples would you need to see before you would say it could be done repeatedly and consistently, and that it would also be scientific?

The first premise I'm stating is: Everything God does is consistent and repeatable.

His methods are consistent because what he does is done the best way it can possibly be done, and everything he does is also repeatable because he repeatedly does what he does.

I was also saying that we can get to the point where we can do everything he can do, and it's the whole point of worshipping him.

Now you're saying until someone does what he does consistently and repeatedly, it's not scientific.

Does it count with you that our Lord can also do what God (our Father) does? Or would you need to know of yet another person who can do what he does consistently and repeatedly too? And once you found, say, a million other persons who could also do what they do, would you then say it was scientific?

How much evidence do you need?

[Questing Beast]

...

What does this teach us? It means that before God created the Earth, he created the animals and humans in their spirit form first. So if we were in heaven before the creation, we could have seen dogs, cats, llamas, mosquitoes, ducks, and catfish in their spiritual form.

...

Since we do not know what "heaven" is like, or what "spirit form" is like, the scriptural description of God creating spiritually first, followed by naturally upon the earth, could mean a lot of different things. The popular concept that all things that exist here on earth could be seen in heaven in "spirit form" is not believable to me. Every bacteria? Every extinct animal that was followed in the evolutionary chain by a "morphed" descendant"? Every human being looked spiritually like s/he does on earth? No. What is happening, imho, is that "God" sees everything and does it, imagines it and does it, down to the minutest detail, and up to the most cosmic scale; all in the "mind of God" and then created as reality. So evolution works because that is the process, demonstrably so by the evidence in the ground: "God" willed it this way, so the entire process was already in the "mind of God" and then became part of creation....

[thesometimesaint]

Because it's the wrong tool for the job.

One key problem for the theory of God using physical evolution as a tool is the doctrine that God created everything in a spiritual form first.

What does this teach us? It means that before God created the Earth, he created the animals and humans in their spirit form first. So if we were in heaven before the creation, we could have seen dogs, cats, llamas, mosquitoes, ducks, and catfish in their spiritual form.

Now, in order for us to believe that God used evolution as a tool, how does this work with a spiritual pre-creation? Because God would have to spiritually pre-create the entire chain of evolution! Including all the intermediary steps! So every generation and every adaptation in the evolutionary chain was created first as a spirit in heaven.

But this goes contrary to the foundational principle of evolution, which is that evolution has no predetermined goal. Things adapt, but they don't adapt with the idea that they have to look or act a certain way billions of years from now.

So what is the purpose of spending millions of years just kind of nudging the process along, with false starts and dead ends? It would be like trying to make chocolate chip cookies, but instead of just using the Nestle Toll House recipe from the back of the package, you make thousands and thousands of different batches, trying to figure out how to make Nestle Toll House cookies. Then, finally, after years and years of experimentation, you arrive at the exact cookie that you could have made the first time by looking at the package. Even if you used that method, you wouldn’t say that you “evolved” the cookie. You would say you developed the cookie using trial and error. Do we really want to suggest that God created our physical world using “trial and error”?

The other problem is the ongoing nature of evolution. The story of the creation gives the idea of a creative “period”, and then the state where things are “created”. 2 Nephi 2:22 certainly frames the creation in such a way. But evolution doesn’t have an end. How could it? How could God be evolving thousands of different species, each moving slowly towards their intended finished design, and then find that one moment in time where a species is “created”, and then have it keep evolving? And what happens when some speices are fully evolved/created after 20 million years, but other species need 80 million years, or 100 million years? Do some animals get their spirits first? Are there animals even today who are not yet “created”, and are spiritless lifeforms waiting to evolve into their final “spiritual” form?

If we are saying how the job was done. Evolution is the perfect tool.

Someone first has to have the idea of a tool. Then they make that tool. IE; Say I was the first person to imagine a hammer. It is only after I made the hammer that a hammer makes sense. Evolution is merely the hammer(tool) that was used.

Wouldn't that also mean that God created all the diseases that mosquito's carry?

No necessarily. Say my goal is to build a house. It normally isn't necessary for me to build the clay, to make the bricks, to make the foundation, to make the house that I live in.

The goal of evolution is to produce a creature best suited to its environment. Whether that environment is created by nature, by man, or by God.

For eternal creatures, what is a few billion years between friends? Think of the largest number you can. That number pales to insignificance when compared to eternity.

Who said it was false starts? Back to building that house. The fact that I cut some wooden boards to the correct length doesn't make those cuts false starts, or unnecessary.

Someone had to be the first to make those Toll House cookies by tinkering with(evolving) the combinations of this ingredient or that ingredient over generations of cookies till they were exactly what they were after. Then they had to be test marketed, and then only after successful completion in the test markets was the receipt put on the package.

Evolution of living species works because more offspring are born than survive to reproduce. That includes man. It takes on average of approx. 2.3 children per human couple just to maintain population. Any more surviving and population increases, and any less and the population decreases. Growing up we had a dear family across the street from us. Each was a single child and when they got married they had no children. That was their genetic dead end. Did God blow it?

Evolution will end at least on this planet. In about another 5 billion years our sun will have used up all its hydrogen. With that it will expand to size of a red giant consuming all life on this planet, if not the planet itself. Or Jesus will soon come back and after another thousand years or so the earth will be changed to a giant crystal. It is hard to see any life as we know it surviving in either event.

All life has a purpose even if we don't know its purpose. The simple phytoplankton in the world oceans is responsible for over half the free oxygen that we are dependent upon to live. Personally I like to breath, so I don't particularly want them to evolve beyond that.

[CV75]

All life has a purpose even if we don't know its purpose. The simple phytoplankton in the world oceans is responsible for over half the free oxygen that we are dependent upon to live. Personally I like to breath, so I don't particularly want them to evolve beyond that.

I agree with this 100%, but I don't think they necessarily had to evolve from or into some other life form for them to live. That might be how the evidence is scientifically interpreted, but there are other interpretations that support what the prophets have published about the origin of Adam and his descendants.

[thesometimesaint]

I agree with this 100%, but I don't think they necessarily had to evolve from or into some other life form for them to live. That might be how the evidence is scientifically interpreted, but there are other interpretations that support what the prophets have published about the origin of Adam and his descendants.

Either they evolved or they just appeared fully formed as they are now. Exactly opposite of what the science shows. The Church can tell me the way to go to Heaven, but not the way the heavens go. What ever Gods' plan for the creatures that existed before Adam, it really has no bearing on his plans for me.

[thesometimesaint]

What makes you think I don't know these things. It is the common garden variety of evolutionary pablum. It does not plainly show how evolution created new species it only shows how biologists think it happened because of extrapolated data from micro-evolution. the behavior of z does not always follow the pattern of x.

You have presented no evidence that you know these things. I have told you many times before how to prove evolution to be pablum. I eagerly await you providing that evidence in Science magazine. Heck I even await it in National Geographic.

[CV75]

What ever Gods' plan for the creatures that existed before Adam, it really has no bearing on his plans for me.

But you were saying the ancient phyotplankton provided the oxygen you currently breathe, and Genesis allows that they were created before Adam; and also allows that they may have left the garden before Adam.

[cinepro]

How many examples would you need to see before you would say it could be done repeatedly and consistently, and that it would also be scientific?

One would be a good start.

The first premise I'm stating is: Everything God does is consistent and repeatable.

And of course, you should avoid fallacies in your examples. Like this one.

[Stone holm]

I don't think that the idea of a spiritual creation is a valid objection given the fact that over the many, many generations of gods doing this they would know the various types of beings which would develop once the creation process is triggered, nor do I believe the fact that evolution is ongoing, which it clearly is would be a problem. We can tell evolution is ongoing from the lower life forms such as bacteria which quickly evolve immunities and studies of moths which overtime have changed their color to blend in better with industrial soot, etc.

[ERayR]

You have presented no evidence that you know these things. I have told you many times before how to prove evolution to be pablum. I eagerly await you providing that evidence in Science magazine. Heck I even await it in National Geographic.

No, I have presented evidence that I do not accept these things as you present them. Big difference. You continue to misconstrue what I have written.

[Stone holm]

But you were saying the ancient phyotplankton provided the oxygen you currently breathe, and Genesis allows that they were created before Adam; and also allows that they may have left the garden before Adam.

Hm, I wonder about salmonella

[ERayR]

I don't think that the idea of a spiritual creation is a valid objection given the fact that over the many, many generations of gods doing this they would know the various types of beings which would develop once the creation process is triggered, nor do I believe the fact that evolution is ongoing, which it clearly is would be a problem. We can tell evolution is ongoing from the lower life forms such as bacteria which quickly evolve immunities and studies of moths which overtime have changed their color to blend in better with industrial soot, etc.

that over the many, many generations of gods doing this they would simply take specimens (seed stock) from another world and transplant it. Saves eons of time.

[cinepro]

I don't think that the idea of a spiritual creation is a valid objection given the fact that over the many, many generations of gods doing this they would know the various types of beings which would develop once the creation process is triggered, nor do I believe the fact that evolution is ongoing, which it clearly is would be a problem. We can tell evolution is ongoing from the lower life forms such as bacteria which quickly evolve immunities and studies of moths which overtime have changed their color to blend in better with industrial soot, etc.

The problem with "ongoing evolution" is that if evolution is the "tool" God is using for creation, then He isn't done creating. Compare that with 2 Nephi 2:22

22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

But if God was using evolution to create the animals, then what would their state have been if Adam had not transgressed? Would it be any different than what we see today?

[CV75]

Hm, I wonder about salmonella

Don't be chicken!

[Stone holm]

The problem with "ongoing evolution" is that if evolution is the "tool" God is using for creation, then He isn't done creating. Compare that with 2 Nephi 2:22

But if God was using evolution to create the animals, then what would their state have been if Adam had not transgressed? Would it be any different than what we see today?

Why would we think God is done creating?

[thesometimesaint]

But you were saying the ancient phyotplankton provided the oxygen you currently breathe, and Genesis allows that they were created before Adam; and also allows that they may have left the garden before Adam.

According to Scripture God made the earth, and when all was ready he then made Adam and Eve.

[thesometimesaint]

that over the many, many generations of gods doing this they would simply take specimens (seed stock) from another world and transplant it. Saves eons of time.

Please show the mechanism for that transplant. For eternal beings why would saving eons of time be important?

[CV75]

According to Scripture God made the earth, and when all was ready he then made Adam and Eve.

Yes, that is what I am saying.

[thesometimesaint]

Yes, that is what I am saying.

Presumably that would include having a mechanism to supply the needed oxygen for all animals.

[ERayR]

Please show the mechanism for that transplant. For eternal beings why would saving eons of time be important?

Show the mechanism you are proposing is valid beyond the species level.

[CV75]

Presumably that would include having a mechanism to supply the needed oxygen for all animals.

Yes, and that could have been anything, and only when the mechanism was in place for them to require oxygen—there is more than one way to skin a cat (and not just two options).

[thesometimesaint]

Show the mechanism you are proposing is valid beyond the species level.

OTOH there is scant scientific evidence for the exogenesis that you are suggesting.

[thesometimesaint]

Yes, and that could have been anything, and only when the mechanism was in place for them to require oxygen—there is more than one way to skin a cat (and not just two options).

No; not just any mechanism. Any mechanism must conform to the evidence for that mechanism.

[ERayR]

[media=]

OTOH there is scant scientific evidence for the exogenesis that you are suggesting.

And just what mechanism is it that you think I proposed?

[CV75]

No; not just any mechanism. Any mechanism must conform to the evidence for that mechanism.

Only if one is set in his approach in viewing and in his view of the evidence, and in his conclusions. I have often found that the mechanism is not always as it appears, though the promises (outcomes) are, and vice-versa.

I don’t usually get a reply to this question, but I’ll ask you: “What is wrong with any mechanism involvng the origin of human beings (as we understand it), as long as we enter into and keep the same covenants, verifiable by the Holy Spirit?” Or this one: “What do you think are the Gospel-impacting ramifications of any mechanism?”