Time in the garden of Eden

[Teancum]

2 hours ago, waveslider said:

Just because Evolution is taught everywhere doesn't mean it can trump God.

Please fill me in on how life started? Show me where it was replicated in a scientific method? I'm quite interested in this if indeed there is knowledge of how life originated in the first place!

 

The scientific theory of evolution (which has so much evidence for proving it that it is really pretty much factual) does not have an answer for abiogenesis at this point. So the answer is "I don't know."  But this is better than theists who posit that they think they KNOW and it is all God.  Yet the evidence for God is lacking.  One cannot falsify a negative.  If a theist claims God did it all the burden of proof is one them.  The God of the gaps is constantly shrinking but there are still gaps.  Give us evidence that God started it all rather than saying the science cannot explain it so it must be God.

[Teancum]

6 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Yeah - what a crazy thing to have on a Mormon doctrine discussion board.  A belief in LDS doctrine and foundational leaders.
What's next, a Buddhist discussion board with people that believe in Buddhism, or a Muslim discussion board where people call Mohammed a prophet?

Crazy

Know I did not say it was crazy to discuss Mormon things on a Mormon discussion board. But making a priori statements like you often do are open for challenge on a Mormon discussions board.  You embrace Mormon plural marriage because you need to to sustain your testimony. But I have no doubt you reject most other versions of it that many enigmatic religious leaders have proposed.  Yet somehow Joseph Smith is special. If you did not have a vested interest in Mormonism and JS I suspect you would reject such nonsense.  It is tough to do. I didn't for over 50 years. But it became pretty clear that Joseph met the pattern of most enigmatic religious leaders that did such things. 

[JLHPROF]

10 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Know I did not say it was crazy to discuss Mormon things on a Mormon discussion board. But making a priori statements like you often do are open for challenge on a Mormon discussions board.  You embrace Mormon plural marriage because you need to to sustain your testimony. But I have no doubt you reject most other versions of it that many enigmatic religious leaders have proposed.  Yet somehow Joseph Smith is special. If you did not have a vested interest in Mormonism and JS I suspect you would reject such nonsense.  It is tough to do. I didn't for over 50 years. But it became pretty clear that Joseph met the pattern of most enigmatic religious leaders that did such things.

No, I embrace PM because it is part of the revealed gospel by a man I believe to be a prophet who was instructed by God.
I embrace it because it is a true principle with pattern in scripture and the temple.
I embrace it because most of God's chosen prophets have all practiced that law.

As we've discussed in the past your dislike for dogma and enigmatic leaders is no more valid as objective viewpoint than my own belief, and only by discounting any spiritual experiences I have received simply because you didn't share them are you able to claim my statements are a priori.  My beliefs are not independent of my experience, just independent of yours.

 

[Five Solas]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Thanks for the plug   So glad you are thinking of me,  

Yeah, our minds cannot get around the idea of no time and we definitely cannot think about it in words.  Notice that right now while reading, this sentence itself is sequential and now you are already at the end.  It took time to even express the idea of time.

God could not have "created" time because that very idea implies a before and after which means God must have created time IN time to have a time he created it!

So yah, I'll go with the good old LDS logic of eternal matter being organized at different "times" into different planetary systems etc- but the idea that there was actually a "time before time" just doesn't make sense

On the other hand the IDEA of time could be another matter- before humans there were no ideas so the idea of time could not have existed.

So was that postmodern enough for you?

your posts are an art form, mfbukowski.  and I'll confess just a teensy bit of admiration.  someday I'm going to pour myself a stiff drink and watch a Rorty video, start to finish.  if you were in Seattle, you could come over... 

:0)

--Erik

[Atheist Mormon]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

No, I embrace PM because it is part of the revealed gospel by a man I believe to be a prophet who was instructed by God.

Where's the logic in this God, who reveals this principle one man but leaves out 99.9% humanity?

[JLHPROF]

Just now, Atheist Mormon said:

Where's the logic in this God, who reveals this principle one man but leaves out 99.9% humanity?

Except he didn't.
All people will have the opportunity to accept or reject every law and ordinance of the Gospel.
Some in this life, some posthumously in the Millennial period before the final judgement.

And in the judgement 100% will receive the blessings commensurate with the laws they were willing to accept.

 

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

No, I embrace PM because it is part of the revealed gospel by a man I believe to be a prophet who was instructed by God.
I embrace it because it is a true principle with pattern in scripture and the temple.
I embrace it because most of God's chosen prophets have all practiced that law.

As we've discussed in the past your dislike for dogma and enigmatic leaders is no more valid as objective viewpoint than my own belief, and only by discounting any spiritual experiences I have received simply because you didn't share them are you able to claim my statements are a priori.  My beliefs are not independent of my experience, just independent of yours.

 

Once you provide evidence the JS should be trusted more than other egnimatic religious leaders that instituted some sort of polygamy type activity into their sect then your comments above may carry some weight.  Till then all we have is your especially subjective views and claims to personal revelation.   The fact that you are extremely vested into defending this must also be taken into account. It's tough to find out you may have been misled.

[Atheist Mormon]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

Except he didn't.
All people will have the opportunity to accept or reject every law and ordinance of the Gospel.
Some in this life, some posthumously in the Millennial period before the final judgement.

And in the judgement 100% will receive the blessings commensurate with the laws they were willing to accept.

 

How naive you can get? Even in this age of internet (let alone then where you could not travel ten miles in one day) how are you going to convince people of this holy scheme of yours?

[waveslider]

7 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

How naive you can get? Even in this age of internet (let alone then where you could not travel ten miles in one day) how are you going to convince people of this holy scheme of yours?

He won't have to convince anyone:

"11  For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
12  So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God."
Romans 14:11-12

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Atheist Mormon said:

How naive you can get? Even in this age of internet (let alone then where you could not travel ten miles in one day) how are you going to convince people of this holy scheme of yours?

The future is set.  All that remains is our choice of our part.
But since my beliefs come from scripture that you reject I am not sure what your purpose is in discussing gospel items.
All knowledge of these things come from a playbook you have already rejected.

It would be like me discussing how evolution would work without allowing anything Darwin postulated as possibly being valid.
 

[mfbukowski]

23 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Yea, I'm one of them, married most of my adult life...... Darwinian evolution does not care one iota about the the sacredness of marriage (I'm not mocking anything) all it cares is the SURVIVAL of species. and do you se that humans or any other species owe anything to any higher principle?

Contradiction check.  Did you think the above post disappeared when you posted this?

On 9/18/2016 at 8:02 PM, Atheist Mormon said:

Did you understand, my "higher Design" mocking? Actually Marriage is a horrible design (if ever was a design) with over 50% failure rate? 

[Atheist Mormon]

9 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Contradiction check.  Did you think the above post disappeared when you posted this?

Where's the contradiction, I stand by what I wrote. It's obvious that the institution of Marriage does not work, when you have failure rate over 50%. Even I was divorced once. Defending marriage as a divine institution is ridiculous. 

 

[Atheist Mormon]

9 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

The future is set.  All that remains is our choice of our part.
But since my beliefs come from scripture that you reject I am not sure what your purpose is in discussing gospel items.
All knowledge of these things come from a playbook you have already rejected.

It would be like me discussing how evolution would work without allowing anything Darwin postulated as possibly being valid.
 

Those Scriptures you talking about are outdated and didn't work even in their time. I'm curious why would you want to choose a master who fails to show himself over & over and yet expects you to be obediently waiting...The worse part is He let's his wishes known by a third party guy (not a gal). There are too many holes in this story. 

Charles Darwin gives you evidence of Evolution, collaborated by scientists around the world....They don't come up with a different scenario...You go to Natural history museums around the world and get same displays and same stories...Because unlike religion the theories are tested and tested. 

[Gray]

15 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Where did "utility" come into conversation in the first place?

Evolution is all about that which has utility. The same goes for social evolution. That which is not useful be selected out. 

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Because unlike religion the theories are tested and tested.

And that is where you are wrong.

I have tested the promises of God.  I have had responses to my communications with him.  So have millions of others.
In fact, other than the fact that these are personal and individualized instead of publicly demonstrable, there has been far more evidence and proof of God's existence that there is for evolution.

But the cries of "prove it to me" and "I can't see it" just show how blind the world has become.
 

[thesometimesaint]

14 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Where's the logic in this God, who reveals this principle one man but leaves out 99.9% humanity?

It is generally one man who reveals things until the other 99.9% catches up.

[thesometimesaint]

10 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

And that is where you are wrong.

I have tested the promises of God.  I have had responses to my communications with him.  So have millions of others.
In fact, other than the fact that these are personal and individualized instead of publicly demonstrable, there has been far more evidence and proof of God's existence that there is for evolution.

But the cries of "prove it to me" and "I can't see it" just show how blind the world has become.
 

Billions of people claimed that their God revealed to them that the sun revolves around the earth.

[Freedom]

On 9/19/2016 at 6:49 AM, Atheist Mormon said:

What are you saying exactly? Just letting competent people to marry? Because the way it looks, it is not a great way to brag about it with failure rate over 50%.

your logic is idiotic, honestly. Lets stop exercising because it has a 90% failure rate. Lets stop promoting fruits and vegetables because it has an 80% failure rate. Reading books has been a disaster with everybody watching netfix so lets just stop publishing. Don't get me started on sleep. Who gets enough sleep these days. A total disaster. Need I go on? 

[Atheist Mormon]

1 hour ago, Freedom said:

your logic is idiotic, honestly. Lets stop exercising because it has a 90% failure rate. Lets stop promoting fruits and vegetables because it has an 80% failure rate. Reading books has been a disaster with everybody watching netfix so lets just stop publishing. Don't get me started on sleep. Who gets enough sleep these days. A total disaster. Need I go on? 

no, you are looking wrong place to call idiotic.... I'm not the one who claims Marriage is divine. I'm just showing that it is another miserable institutions of man invented. (And yes, I could do a much better job inventing a partnership that might work better.)

[halconero]

I don't really feel like engaging Atheist, as his arguments tend to smack of the adolescent tropes made popular by Dawkins and Hitchens. I prefer my Atheists to be like Valentinus or the other few we have on the board.

So, getting back to the topic, it's evident that there's the dictionary definition of time, and the Gospel definition of time. The dictionary definition simply being the measurement of the progress of existence, whereas the Gospel definition tends to be more restrictive. I'm of two mindsets, that on the one hand time is a measurement of mortal existence, from birth till death as applied to the individual. On the other hand, and I lean more to this one, its the measurement of the Telestial State of Probation or the 2nd Estate. Everything that I have read has indicated that the Spirit World, including paradise and prison, are temporary states and the continuation of our 2nd Estate, with the veil only being fully lifted upon resurrection and exaltation.

Within this context, it raises the notion the the Garden of Eden, postulated to exist outside of "time," existed outside of the 2nd Estate. It wasn't the placement of Adam and Even in the Garden which commenced that estate, but their partaking of the fruit. In that sense, their marriage in the Garden was an eternal one outside of time. This raises the question of whether their marriage covenant was renewed to be for "time" after their Fall. 

Then there are those of us including JHLFPROF and myself (though I'm more of a Brigham-Talmage hybrid in certain aspects) who would consider Adam to have entered the garden already being sealed to Eve. At the same time, this doesn't prevent the renewal of ordinances, which is a fairly common pattern in the scriptures (the rebaptism and reordination of the Nephites under Christ, the rebaptism of Joseph and Oliver upon the Church's organization on 1830 for Church membership, etc).

[thesometimesaint]

8 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

no, you are looking wrong place to call idiotic.... I'm not the one who claims Marriage is divine. I'm just showing that it is another miserable institutions of man invented. (And yes, I could do a much better job inventing a partnership that might work better.)

Then do it.

[JLHPROF]

52 minutes ago, halconero said:

Then there are those of us including JHLFPROF and myself (though I'm more of a Brigham-Talmage hybrid in certain aspects) who would consider Adam to have entered the garden already being sealed to Eve. At the same time, this doesn't prevent the renewal of ordinances, which is a fairly common pattern in the scriptures (the rebaptism and reordination of the Nephites under Christ, the rebaptism of Joseph and Oliver upon the Church's organization on 1830 for Church membership, etc).

Oooh...look at you raising interesting questions. 
For those who believe Adam and Eve were resurrected beings in the garden to what end was a new marriage covenant created?  Wasn't their prior eternal marriage covenant still binding?

Now I get to revisit the conditions of the marriage covenant and see if a fall to mortality might change the nature of that covenant.

[Atheist Mormon]

I can't Saint. Not after this old of age, I wouldn't move my pinkie finger. But if I was starting over again first thing I'd look in a woman would be #1-She would self sustain in case I died or we divorced #2-I'd sign contract with her about five year length to our partnership (not a day longer), then we'd sit down & discuss pros & cons of our relationship. Of course we wouldn't marry to make things more difficult. 

Imagine you are 19-25 year old and making a lifelong commitment about your partner...(it is wrong).  I've been extremely luck to marry women (both professional and alot smarter than I am).....There's nothing right or wrong about divorce.  

[waveslider]

1 hour ago, Atheist Mormon said:

I can't Saint. Not after this old of age, I wouldn't move my pinkie finger. But if I was starting over again first thing I'd look in a woman would be #1-She would self sustain in case I died or we divorced #2-I'd sign contract with her about five year length to our partnership (not a day longer), then we'd sit down & discuss pros & cons of our relationship. Of course we wouldn't marry to make things more difficult. 

Imagine you are 19-25 year old and making a lifelong commitment about your partner...(it is wrong).  I've been extremely luck to marry women (both professional and alot smarter than I am).....There's nothing right or wrong about divorce.  

I think if you want to keep going on and on about marriage not being a divine institution, you should probably start another thread. I don't mind a little side tracking, especially since part of my opening post was concerning Adam and Eve and their life, which included marriage, it wasn't the main focus. I think your claim that there is a failure rate in marriage shows it not to be divine is a weak argument. I have reason to believe that selfishness is opposite of divine, and that every single last divorce that ever has happened, or will happen, is based off of some form of selfishness. Divinity is the exact opposite of selfish desires so selfishness always fails in the long run. Even your precious Darwinian, "Survival of the fittest," phrase (Which by the way wasn't even coined by Darwin, but instead by a philosopher Herbert Spencer) can't work without some form of symbioses. Selfishness creates failure in Evolution as well when all is said and done, so by your own logic Evolution can't be the answer either.

Thank you Halconero for redirecting. I don't mind discussing more on the topic of divorce vs evolution on it's own thread, but what I am interested in is the construct of time as experienced from an eternal view.

[Atheist Mormon]

40 minutes ago, waveslider said:

I think if you want to keep going on and on about marriage not being a divine institution, you should probably start another thread. I don't mind a little side tracking, especially since part of my opening post was concerning Adam and Eve and their life, which included marriage, it wasn't the main focus. I think your claim that there is a failure rate in marriage shows it not to be divine is a weak argument. I have reason to believe that selfishness is opposite of divine, and that every single last divorce that ever has happened, or will happen, is based off of some form of selfishness. Divinity is the exact opposite of selfish desires so selfishness always fails in the long run. Even your precious Darwinian, "Survival of the fittest," phrase (Which by the way wasn't even coined by Darwin, but instead by a philosopher Herbert Spencer) can't work without some form of symbioses. Selfishness creates failure in Evolution as well when all is said and done, so by your own logic Evolution can't be the answer either.

Thank you Halconero for redirecting. I don't mind discussing more on the topic of divorce vs evolution on it's own thread, but what I am interested in is the construct of time as experienced from an eternal view.

You are right, no reason to prolong the discussion. We expressed our opinion about it.