Evolution: Your Inner Fish

[ERayR]

I don't view the fall as symbolic either.  Perhaps I am not remembering the problem you see here.  Why is it a problem to view Adam and Eve as the first of God's literal spirit offspring through an evolutionary model?

 

As I said I take it very literal when it comes to the atonement and its relationship to the fall.  To fall means to descend from a higher place.  The macro-evolutionary model has man ascending (not descending) from lower forms.  This is the opposite of a fall.  I think the literal atonement was accomplished to repair a literal fall.

[SmileyMcGee]

I don't care whether it is or isn't. The theory means nothing to me. What is ridiculous is that if you don't agree with it the automatic reply is "that is pseudoscience". And you call others close minded. Pot meet kettle. Look in a mirror. etc.

It's not a matter of whether I agree with the idea that a comet created or enhanced the ice-caps, it's that the idea does not agree with physics. A cometary impact would release so much energy that the ice would be vaporized. I was trying to point you in that direction. For the "comet created the ice caps" idea to work there would have to be some supernatural element to the event. Supernatural phenomena are outside scope of science. Kent Hovind puts forth the "comet = ice caps" ideas as if it's rooted in science. It's not. He is therefore engaging in pseudoscience.

Edited February 25, 2015 by SmileyMcGee

[JLHPROF]

I don't view the fall as symbolic either.  Perhaps I am not remembering the problem you see here.  Why is it a problem to view Adam and Eve as the first of God's literal spirit offspring through an evolutionary model?

 

Because it completely screams that God is a hateful being.

Imagine the following:

 

God: Ok Adam, you are my first spirit child on the earth.  I want you to follow my commandments, become like me and attain Godhood.  You and your wife.

Adam: What about our earthly parents?

God: I'm sorry they are not my spirit children.  They are less advanced than you and cannot achieve exaltation.

Adam: But they raised me, loved me, I love them.

God: Yes, but they aren't in my image.  They are an inferior evolutionary step without the potential to become like me.  Also, they aren't my spirit children so I didn't account for them in the plan of salvation.

Adam: That doesn't seem very loving

God: You are my spirit child and can become like me, your father isn't and can't.  Deal with it.

 

Seriously, do we think that there are neanderthals in the Celestial Kingdom?  How about Homo Erectus?  How about other primate descendants - are there resurrected Orangutans receiving exaltation?

Which stage in primate evolution (or any evolution) is the cutoff for the plan of salvation and exaltation?  Who was the person that missed the opportunity by one generation?  Adam's poor father...

 

 

Edited February 25, 2015 by JLHPROF

[pogi]

As I said I take it very literal when it comes to the atonement and its relationship to the fall.  To fall means to descend from a higher place.  The macro-evolutionary model has man ascending (not descending) from lower forms.  This is the opposite of a fall.  I think the literal atonement was accomplished to repair a literal fall.

 

If Adam and Eve are God's first and only literal spirit children, then there is no ascension any more than there would be an ascension from the dust of the earth.  One has to rise up from creation (however it happens) before he can fall.  Either way you look at it, Adam and Eve were the first of their kind - literal spirit children of God, and the first to be tempted by the adversary.  They were innocent as the first of their kind, and thus free from death, and thus susceptible to fall.

[SmileyMcGee]

I can go with this. However, to me macro-evolution (even directed) creates more problems than it solves.

removed

Edited February 25, 2015 by SmileyMcGee

[thesometimesaint]

I have stated before that I think macro-evolution destroys  the concept of the fall and if it goes  then so does the need for a savior and an atonement.  I know that some solve the problem by looking on them as symbolic.  That approach doesn't work for me.  If the fall is symbolic then the atonement has to be symbolic.  If that is the case then Christ did not need to suffer and die for symbolism.  To me it is real or it isn't.  As far as the atonement is concerned there is no middle ground, it was real or it wasn't.  To believe in it as symbolic would cause more cognitive dissonance than I want.

 

Macro-evolution is simply the fact that descendents of one living species of organism change over time, and that some of those descendents will no longer be able to reproduce viable offspring with other descendents of that original species. It is been demonstrated in nature, and in the lab.

 

Science really doesn't have anything to say about The Fall, The Savior, The Atonement, or The Resurrection, other than there is no physical evidence for them. Individual scientists, like everyone else, are free to believe or not believe as they choose.

 

Cognitive Dissonance has become a Whipping Boy. Most of us are comfortable with holding two or more disparate idea's at the same time. We can disagree with our spouse over some trivial or not so trivial point and still love them.

Edited February 25, 2015 by thesometimesaint

[ERayR]

If Adam and Eve are God's first and only literal spirit children, then there is no ascension any more than there would be an ascension from the dust of the earth.  One has to rise up from creation (however it happens) before he can fall.  Either way you look at it, Adam and Eve were the first of their kind - literal spirit children of God, and the first to be tempted by the adversary.  They were innocent as the first of their kind, and thus free from death, and thus susceptible to fall.

 

All I can say is if it works for you go with it.  I can't make it work.  I am more inclined to think that with an inexhaustible supply of seed stock why would he do it the hard way?

[pogi]

Because it completely screams that God is a hateful being.

Imagine the following:

 

God: Ok Adam, you are my first spirit child on the earth.  I want you to follow my commandments, become like me and attain Godhood.  You and your wife.

Adam: What about our earthly parents?

God: I'm sorry they are not my spirit children.  They are less advanced than you and cannot achieve exaltation.

Adam: But they raised me, loved me, I love them.

God: Yes, but they aren't in my image.  They are an inferior evolutionary step without the potential to become like me.  Also, they aren't my spirit children so I didn't account for them in the plan of salvation.

Adam: That doesn't seem very loving

God: You are my spirit child and can become like me, your father isn't and can't.  Deal with it.

 

Seriously, do we think that there are neanderthals in the Celestial Kingdom?  How about Homo Erectus?  How about other primate descendants - are there resurrected Orangutans receiving exaltation?

Which stage in primate evolution (or any evolution) is the cutoff for the plan of salvation and exaltation?  Who was the person that missed the opportunity by one generation?  Adam's poor father...

 

 

 

First, this assumes that Adam and Eve were raised by their birth parents and knew them.  I think they were raised by the Gods.  

Second, it assumes that the afterlife state of animals that are not direct spirit offspring of God will be cruel or undesirable.  Knowing God, I can't imagine that.  We simply have no revelation on the state of other animals in the afterlife.  One thing we can trust no matter what, it will be perfectly merciful and just.

[ERayR]

Macro-evolution is simply the fact that descendents of one living species of organism change over time, and that some of those descendents will no longer be able to reproduce viable offspring with other descendents of that original species. It is been demonstrated in nature, and in the lab.

 

Science really doesn't have anything to say about The Fall, The Savior, The Atonement, or The Resurrection, other than there is no physical evidence for them. Individual scientists, like everyone else, is free to believe or not believe as they choose.

 

Cognitive Dissonance has become a Whipping Boy. Most of us are comfortable with holding two or more disparate idea's at the same time. We can disagree with our spouse over some trivial or not so trivial point and still love them.

 

If I had a dollar for every time you trot this out and declare it as fact I could buy a couple of pretty expensive meals. 

 

I read it the first time and the second and the . . .  Try giving them a number and instead of doing all that typing just type two or three numbers.  It will save a lot of time.

[JLHPROF]

First, this assumes that Adam and Eve were raised by their birth parents and knew them.  I think they were raised by the Gods.  

Second, it assumes that the afterlife state of animals that are not direct spirit offspring of God will be cruel or undesirable.  Knowing God, I can't imagine that.  We simply have no revelation on the state of other animals in the afterlife.  One thing we can trust no matter what, it will be perfectly merciful and just.

 

As to your first - wow, talk about having your cake and eating it too.

As to your second - I didn't assume that animal afterlife was undesirable.  I'm sure it's very nice.  What I assumed was that based on the evolutionary model Adam had a physical father.  And that physical father would be considered (under your model) to not merit salvation with his physical children, for being one genetic generation too early.

 

If find your first far too convenient and your second horribly cruel.

Edited February 25, 2015 by JLHPROF

[Rob Osborn]

I am saying that you have made several claims that have been rebutted (see post 201).  Instead of defending your position, you resort to  "they are wrong".  Show me the evidence. 

 

The silly thing is, if you would simply say "I take it on faith" I would lay off, but if you are going to try and support your theory using scientific evidence, then I want you to supply the evidence for examination and scrutiny.  It seems that when your evidence is examined with scrutiny, you shut down and become dogmatic about it without giving any "plausible" explanations.

Before I provide any evidence then we have to have fair rules. He first rule is that a scientist cannot be automatically diacredited based on what side hes on and where that info comes from. If we agree on that then we proceed, otherwise their is no point to continue.

[pogi]

As to your first - wow, talk about having your cake and eating it too.

As to your second - I didn't assume that animal afterlife was undesirable.  I'm sure it's very nice.  What I assumed was that based on the evolutionary model Adam had a physical father.  And that physical father would be considered (under your model) to not merit salvation with his physical children, for being one genetic generation too early.

 

If find your first far too convenient and your second horribly cruel.

 

First point, what's the point of having a cake if you can't eat it? 

I assume they were made an offering to God. (A type of Christ perhaps - like Isaac)  Who says that animals don't believe in and obey God?

 

Second point, I don't see it as being any more cruel than not allowing any other animal/non-spirit child of God exaltation.  Who says animals wont be "saved"?  Like a chimp, Adams biological father will have no qualms with their afterlife state, they will know their place and be content with it being perfectly merciful and just.

 

I don't get into the whole "God is cruel" arguments to prove or disprove theories.  This example seems much less cruel than other real world examples I can come up with.  We simply cannot see the big picture.

[Uncle Dale]

Seriously, do we think that there are neanderthals in the Celestial Kingdom?  How about Homo Erectus?  How about other primate descendants - are there resurrected Orangutans receiving exaltation?

Which stage in primate evolution (or any evolution) is the cutoff for the plan of salvation and exaltation?  Who was the person that missed the opportunity by one generation?  Adam's poor father...

 

As my Baptist friend says -- "yeah, there's a bunch of petrified

things in the rocks -- weren't none of them human though. The

Devil put them there to test the faith of us Christians."

Same guy told me "in heaven we'll all have white skins..." I'm

not sure if he meant to say that all the saved would be white

Christians, or whether even the skins of the world's earliest

humans (from Africa, I'm told) would there be turned white.

UD

[pogi]

Before I provide any evidence then we have to have fair rules. He first rule is that a scientist cannot be automatically diacredited based on what side hes on and where that info comes from. If we agree on that then we proceed, otherwise their is no point to continue.

 

I try to be very open minded and open eared to both sides.  I will be as unbiased as possible, I expect the same from you.

 

Rule #2 - If a scientist is discredited, it cannot be assumed that they are being discredited based on "what side he's on", but rather on the merit of his claims and support of his evidence. 

 

Show me the evidence.

 

Rule #3 - I don't want links to pages and pages of documents to read.  I want you to spell it out for me with a link for verification, or use direct concise quotes from the links.

Edited February 25, 2015 by pogi

[JLHPROF]

Second point, I don't see it as being any more cruel than not allowing any other animal/non-spirit child of God exaltation.  Who says animals wont be "saved"?  Like a chimp, Adams biological father will have no qualms with their afterlife state, they will know their place and be content with it being perfectly merciful and just.

 

 

But you are not talking a chimp with a human child.  You are not even talking Cro-magnon.  Genetically, how different are you from your biological father?  Now imagine that because you are Adam, the first man in the image of God, your father is genetically one generation too early for God to consider him a spirit child.  He cannot be resurrected to a Celestial Glory.  He cannot attain exaltation.  You have his eyes, his hairline, his laugh.

But you as a spirit child of God can attain to a Celestial glory as one of God's children, and the man that gave you earthly life cannot.

All because he was one generation earlier than God's spirit children started.

No, Adam had no physical father on this earth.  Evolution was not the method by which Adam received his physical body.

 

It's nonsense to accept the "first spirit child" model, and frankly, if you believe in evolution there has to be some point at which animal turned to man, at which the primate became capable of receiving salvation and exaltation.  And that cutoff point is nothing short of cruel to the parent that missed it.  THAT is why I can never accept evolution - to me it makes the gospel a mockery.

Edited February 25, 2015 by JLHPROF

[Calm]

And that physical father would be considered (under your model) to not merit salvation with his physical children, for being one genetic generation too early.

If all are placed in the sphere that they are happiest in then why is this cruel? There is nothing scriptural about those exalted being cut off from those who are not save for those who are sons of perdition nor that God is separated from his creations that are obedient to him, which would include any physical ancestors of mankind it would seem to me.

[Calm]

"And that cutoff point is nothing short of cruel to the one that missed it"

If that individual didn't have the capability to be exalted, as an obedient creature of God, he would not desire it but would rejoice in what God had made him for,so why would it be cruel?

Do all geniuses have geniuses for parents? Are these parents suffering cruelly when they see their kids doing stuff they will never be able to do...what if these parents don't want what their kids have?

What if the first covenant man was not the first capable of accepting the Covenant, but the first who desired to do so?

Edited February 25, 2015 by calmoriah

[ERayR]

"And that cutoff point is nothing short of cruel to the one that missed it"

If that individual didn't have the capability to be exalted, as an obedient creature of God, he would not desire it but would rejoice in what God had made him for,so why would it be cruel?

Do all geniuses have geniuses for parents? Are these parents suffering cruelly when they see their kids doing stuff they will never be able to do...what if these parents don't want what their kids have?

What if the first covenant man was not the first capable of accepting the Covenant, but the first who desired to do so?

 

Maybe/maybe not but it does sound rather Calvinistic so I guess if you don't consider Calvinism to be cruel then this scenario would be.

[Calm]

I would not think Calvinism cruel if it allowed for those not saved to be joyful in what they were getting as opposed to suffering in hell for eternity.

[pogi]

Maybe/maybe not but it does sound rather Calvinistic so I guess if you don't consider Calvinism to be cruel then this scenario would be.

 

I don't think it is any more Calvinistic than the doctrine that some intelligences became human, some became rats, and other became rocks.  There has to be a cut off point somewhere determined by God.  How is that any less cruel?  Adam's "intelligence" must have been greater than his fathers for this distinction.  To what degree we don't know.  I assume it was substantial - he inherited God's attributes (which his father lacked) as much as he inherited his father's physical attributes.   

Edited February 25, 2015 by pogi

[ERayR]

I would not think Calvinism cruel if it allowed for those not saved to be joyful in what they were getting as opposed to suffering in hell for eternity.

 

Fair enough.  However, it still remains that for LDS Calvinism is not correct.  For me Calvinism for pre-adamic evolutionary "man" sounds equally incorrect.

[ERayR]

I don't think it is any more Calvinistic than the doctrine that some intelligences became human, some became rats, and other became rocks.  There has to be a cut off point somewhere determined by God.  Adam's "intelligence" must have been greater than his fathers for this distinction.  To what degree we don't know.  I assume it was substantial - he inherited God's attributes (which his father lacked) as much as he inherited his father's physical attributes.   

 

I prefer to think Adam's father was God.

[pogi]

I prefer to think Adam's father was God.

 

He was, but not in the same way that Christ's father was God.  Even with Christ, God needed to create his child from existing flesh.

Edited February 25, 2015 by pogi

[danielwoods]

Cal already addressed your first point.  A flood model actually would do harm to the idea of animals freezing "very quickly".  It would have taken much more time for an animal to freeze solid in flood water, than for an animal to freeze on an ice cap in sub-zero temperatures, then get covered with snow and ice.  A dead body will sink for a few days until decomposition begins, which creates gases in the body (no freezing down below), the body will then float to the top and after only 8 days in cold water, decomposition will have progressed rapidly, after 20 days, DNA analysis would be needed to identify the person.  Reference: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post/how-long-do-dead-bodies-remain-inta-2009-06-10/?id=how-long-do-dead-bodies-remain-inta-2009-06-10

 

It would take much longer than that for oceanic ice to form several feet deep from relatively warm flood waters to cover, say a mammoth.  Decomposition would win that race I am afraid.

 

To your second point, ice ages do not eradicate evaporation, there are still warmer places on the globe that supply colder regions with moisture.  The transition happens slowly, so the bulk of the snow buildup happens earlier, then the colder air preserves the snow and ice later.  Evaporation will slow down eventually, which actually helps to preserve the snow and ice already formed. 

 

Question:  Where is the "warm air" coming from in your model?  I thought you said it got really cold?  How is "warm air" going to freeze the oceans and instantly preserve drowned animal corpses?  For an "ice age" you need global cooling or all of your snow and ice will not advance, but will melt down to previous levels. 

 

What do you mean by "different sizes of animals were observed."  Are you suggesting they evolved?

 

Cal offered one scenario. If my memory serves me, it wouldn't exactly explain the data, but I'm not really at a place where I want to quibble about it.

 

In the flood model as I understand it, both the firmament in the sky and the fountains of the deep added to the water on the Earth. The fountains of the deep are likely underwater volcanic activity, which would be warm moist air. The animals that were quickly frozen, weren't frozen by water, but by heavy snow/cold wind, storm, which was the result of the firmament falling. Essentially, the firmament created a greenhouse effect, where the poles were actually warmer than they are now, and the rest of the Earth was more tropical than it is now. 

 

You asked about different sizes. No I'm not referencing evolution. Rather, the net effect of having more radiation hitting the planet with the firmament gone, is shorter life spans. For some animals this means they don't grow as large, and there is less vegetation to eat. 

[JLHPROF]

He was, but not in the same way the Christ's father was God.  Even with Christ, God needed to create his child from existing flesh.

 

SO glad I believe in the Adam-God doctrine. 

Much preferable...