The fall of Adam and the atonement of Christ are linked together—inseparably, everlastingly, never to be parted.

[CV75]

@Fair Dinkum I suggest you approach your consternation over the fall and Atonement of Christ with the most important thing, according to Joseph Smith: "The fundamental principles of our religion is the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, “that he died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended up into heaven;” and all other things are only appendages to these, which pertain to our religion. But in connection with these, we believe in the gift of the Holy Ghost, the power of faith, the enjoyment of the spiritual gifts according to the will of God, the restoration of the house of Israel, and the final triumph of truth." Consider how they got their testimony, and whether you can try the same approach without resorting to science.

 

 

[pogi]

16 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I asked this earlier but did not receive a satisfactory response. Please provide me with a scriptural reference that shows me that somehow No death before the fall means that actually there was death before the fall but just not in the garden of Eden.  Your logic would be similar to my asserting that Christ's resurrection and victory over death was limited to only those then living in Jerusalem, while those living elsewhere on the earth receive no such victory over death.

So please provide me with your scriptural back up  ( I can make it easy for you, none exists)

 

Please parse this statement for me: 

Perhaps we enlightened MD&D board participants should reach out to the brethren and correct the false doctrine they continue to teach.  I am sure they would appreciate being corrected and informed that Adams fall did not bring both temporal and spiritual death into the world but only to a very small garden in the state of Missouri.  Elsewhere throughout the world, death was very much alive and flourishing.

 

Don't feel too badly however, the Bible also teaches this false doctrine of no death before the fall See: 1 Corinthians 15:20–22

Who am I to question latter-day revelation

I suggest you re-read his post.  You are missing the point. 

[Teancum]

On 8/17/2021 at 7:58 PM, CV75 said:

For the same reason you can't address my post about that, just hissy-fit with a down-vote .

 A non answer and dodge.

[Teancum]

On 8/17/2021 at 7:00 PM, JLHPROF said:

 
 

In other words you cannot back u your religious faith claims with anything.  You lose.

[JLHPROF]

6 hours ago, Teancum said:

In other words you cannot back u your religious faith claims with anything.  You lose.

No, I find it highly amusing that you ask for evidentiary proof for things considered supernatural.
How exactly do you use natural science to prove something that by definition is outside of current science?

That's the issue with those who reject Adam, creationism, global floods, etc.  They are looking for scientific evidence for events that are by definition supernatural, outside of natural science.
And for some reason the idea that God is restricted to our current understanding of scientific law seems to be one they zealously hold to.

Sorry, but our current scientific understanding doesn't hold that much weight.  If Christ walked on water, turned water into wine, raised the dead, was resurrected, then I also have no trouble believing in Adam or Noah.
If I don't believe in Christ then I suppose I couldn't believe in Adam or Noah either.  But at that point I wouldn't consider myself religious or Christian so the whole issue of which is correct becomes moot.
But if I can believe in Christ I can also believe in Adam and Noah.  I don't find one less believable than the other.

Edited August 19, 2021 by JLHPROF

[Teancum]

22 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

No, I find it highly amusing that you ask for evidentiary proof for things considered supernatural.
How exactly do you use natural science to prove something that by definition is outside of current science?

That's the issue with those who reject Adam, creationism, global floods, etc.  They are looking for scientific evidence for events that are by definition supernatural, outside of natural science.
And for some reason the idea that God is restricted to our current understanding of scientific law seems to be one they zealously hold to.

Sorry, but our current scientific understanding doesn't hold that much weight.  If Christ walked on water, turned water into wine, raised the dead, was resurrected, then I also have no trouble believing in Adam or Noah.
If I don't believe in Christ then I suppose I couldn't believe in Adam or Noah either.  But at that point I wouldn't consider myself religious or Christian so the whole issue of which is correct becomes moot.
But if I can believe in Christ I can also believe in Adam and Noah.  I don't find one less believable than the other.

Sure.  You can believe anything you want.  You can believe in hobbits or middle earth or a teapot revolving around Venus. But without evidence your beliefs can summarily be dismissed as well.  And more so when there is evidence that opposes your belief.

[Teancum]

On 8/17/2021 at 6:47 PM, OGHoosier said:

Basically as long as you have Pre-Adamites and Adam and Eve's children interbreed with them, the subjects of this post are no problem. 

This is an example of Bertrand's teapot revolving around Venus proposition. The goal posts are constantly moving when the belief is found problematic in one way or another.

[JLHPROF]

31 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Sure.  You can believe anything you want.  You can believe in hobbits or middle earth or a teapot revolving around Venus. But without evidence your beliefs can summarily be dismissed as well.  And more so when there is evidence that opposes your belief.

Thank you Christopher Hitchens.
Oddly enough I have no issue with someone dismissing my beliefs, especially when I realize that faith is required for such belief.
I have no need or desire to convince the skeptics.   Time will do that for me, in this life or the next.  There have always been atheists, agnostics, etc and nothing anyone can say will ever change that fact.

[Teancum]

20 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Thank you Christopher Hitchens.
Oddly enough I have no issue with someone dismissing my beliefs, especially when I realize that faith is required for such belief.
I have no need or desire to convince the skeptics.   Time will do that for me, in this life or the next.  There have always been atheists, agnostics, etc and nothing anyone can say will ever change that fact.

Sure that is fine.  Takes all sorts. And essentially you have taken the only path you have for this.  That of faith. That is all religion ultimately has for so many of the supernatural  claims the myriad of religions make.  Faith is always used when reason, critical thinking  and lack of evidence leaves the adherent with nothing really. 

 

Hitchens was a bright fellow by the way whether you like him or not.

[bOObOO]

34 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Sure that is fine.  Takes all sorts. And essentially you have taken the only path you have for this.  That of faith. That is all religion ultimately has for so many of the supernatural  claims the myriad of religions make.  Faith is always used when reason, critical thinking  and lack of evidence leaves the adherent with nothing really. 

You mean nothing other than faith, I suppose.  Which is good enough for me.  Faith is what helps us to feel sure about something we can't see with our physical eyes and yet still be assured it is real, and true, and good when it is good, and bad when it is bad.  A sixth sense, some would say, when our other 5 senses can't help us to know what only faith can tell us.  A gut feeling kind of thing. Like we can have faith that there will be another tomorrow,  It isn't here yet so that isn't something we can see, and yet we can still have faith that there will be.  And like how we can have faith that our lives will continue even after we die. We're not going to see that until we see that we are still living even after we are dead, when our mortal bodies will turn to ashes unless or until we are resurrected.  

Edited August 20, 2021 by bOObOO

[OGHoosier]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

This is an example of Bertrand's teapot revolving around Venus proposition. The goal posts are constantly moving when the belief is found problematic in one way or another.

All beliefs move when problematic evidence is uncovered. As @Kevin Christensen is fond of saying, a theory can never be decisively tested since all theories depend on networks of propositions, any one of which might be changed to take the edge off. Science advances by this principle, adjusting hypotheses to (ideally) approach a higher-resolution image of the truth. At least, that's how it's advertised. 

Adjusting theories isn't a problem. The real decider is which pieces of evidence you view as most probative, or which questions are most important to have answered. 

For what it's worth, I find allegories like Russell's teapot and Sagan's invisible dragon to be lacking in probity because they don't pause to ask how the allegedly ridiculous interlocuter came to believe in the teapot or dragon in the first place. They don't investigate the relevant epistemic channels, they just assume that their epistemology is the universal acid. I find this at best dull and at worst infuriatingly arrogant. 

[Fair Dinkum]

On 8/20/2021 at 9:05 AM, Teancum said:

This is an example of Bertrand's teapot revolving around Venus proposition. The goal posts are constantly moving when the belief is found problematic in one way or another.

I thought the teapot revolves around Jupiter 😂

[Fair Dinkum]

1 minute ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I thought the teapot revolves around Jupiter 😂

Evidently it revolves around the sun 🤣

[Logan]

@Fair Dinkum

You are correct that according to LDS scripture there was no death anywhere on this earth prior to the fall of Adam and Eve. 

Which in my book means that the theory of unitarian scientists who age life on this earth to be millions of years old is false. 

I don't feel the need to harmonize the word of God with scientific theory. When the two are in direct opposition to each other the choice is simple for me, I choose the word of God over the words of man.

 

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

32 minutes ago, Logan said:

You are correct that according to LDS scripture there was no death anywhere on this earth prior to the fall of Adam and Eve. 

 

Quote

2 Now behold, my son, I will explain this thing unto thee. For behold, after the Lord God sent our first parents forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground, from whence they were taken—yea, he drew out the man, and he placed at the east end of the garden of Eden, cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the tree of life—

3 Now, we see that the man had become as God, knowing good and evil; and lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, the Lord God placed cherubim and the flaming sword, that he should not partake of the fruit—

4 And thus we see, that there was a time granted unto man to repent, yea, a probationary time, a time to repent and serve God.

5 For behold, if Adam had put forth his hand immediately, and partaken of the tree of life, he would have lived forever, according to the word of God, having no space for repentance; yea, and also the word of God would have been void, and the great plan of salvation would have been frustrated.

Questions:

• Where was the tree of life located?
• What was the purpose of separating Adam and Eve from the tree of life?

[Logan]

11 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Where was the tree of life located?

On earth and specifically in the garden of Eden.

12 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

What was the purpose of separating Adam and Eve from the tree of life?

So they wouldn't live forever in their sins.

Now a question for you:

What does the tree of life represent?

[Hamba Tuhan]

8 minutes ago, Logan said:

Now a question for you:

What does the tree of life represent?

Like all symbols, I think it represents many things, including eternal life. But the scripture in Alma is clear. Eating from that one tree resulted in living forever, even in one's sins (i.e., not eternal life). I'm not aware of such a tree existing outside Eden. Are you?

Edited August 24, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Logan]

8 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Like all symbols, I think it represents many things, including eternal life. But the scripture in Alma is clear. Eating from that one tree resulted in living forever, even in one's sins (i.e., not eternal life). I'm not aware of such a tree existing outside Eden. Are you?

Physically eating fruit from a literal tree of life is not what prevented physical death prior to the fall. 

Go back and check out Lehi and Nephi's vision of the tree of life. It's the same tree and it doesn't represent eternal life. It represents something else. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

7 minutes ago, Logan said:

Physically eating fruit from a literal tree of life is not what prevented physical death prior to the fall. 

I have no way of knowing if there was a 'literal tree' or not. All I know is that access to the tree = living forever. Being cut off from the tree (which involved leaving Eden) therefore resulted in death. Your claim about what the scriptures teach on this point is unsupported. Just as the Old Testament doesn't tell us anything about what was happening outside the Near East, accounts of Adam and Eve are completely silent on what was happening outside the garden. And once Adam and Eve enter the 'lone and dreary world', it is clearly a place of death and disease. There are multiple ways to understand those details, not just your preferred way.

[Logan]

26 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I have no way of knowing if there was a 'literal tree' or not. All I know is that access to the tree = living forever. Being cut off from the tree (which involved leaving Eden) therefore resulted in death. Your claim about what the scriptures teach on this point is unsupported. Just as the Old Testament doesn't tell us anything about what was happening outside the Near East, accounts of Adam and Eve are completely silent on what was happening outside the garden. And once Adam and Eve enter the 'lone and dreary world', it is clearly a place of death and disease. There are multiple ways to understand those details, not just your preferred way.

It's not my "preferred way." This is what the LDS Bible Dictionary says about the fall of Adam:

Latter-day revelation teaches that there was no death on this earth before the Fall of Adam. Indeed, death entered the world as a direct result of the Fall (2 Ne. 2:22; Moses 6:48).

From the books of Moses and Abraham it also says that Adam was the first "flesh" upon the earth. It says he was placed upon this earth before there were any plants and animals upon the earth. 

It's impossible to reconcile what LDS scripture says about the creation and the fall with the unitarian scientific theory for the origin of life upon this earth. They simply aren't compatible. We must choose one or the other. I choose the word of God. Others are free to choose scientific theory if they wish. 

Have you figured out the correct meaning of what the tree of life represents yet?

[JustAnAustralian]

49 minutes ago, Logan said:

This is what the LDS Bible Dictionary says about the fall of Adam:

The bible dictionary isn't doctrine, it's a study aid.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bd/introduction?lang=eng

Quote

This dictionary is provided to help your study of the scriptures and is not intended as an official statement of Church doctrine or an endorsement of the historical and cultural views set forth.

Nonetheless, reading that part of the BD, it's pretty clearly not about creation, procreation, or death of plants or animals.

 

58 minutes ago, Logan said:

It says he was placed upon this earth before there were any plants and animals upon the earth. 

All four (or five if you split genesis) LDS accounts (Genesis, Abraham, Moses, Temple) of the creation have both plants and animals created before man.

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

7 hours ago, JustAnAustralian said:

The bible dictionary isn't doctrine, it's a study aid.

Elder McConkie was the editor of the Bible Dictionary, and here is what he said about it and the other scripture aids: 'None of these are perfect; they do not of themselves determine doctrine; there have been and undoubtedly now are mistakes in them' (Bruce R. McConkie, cited in Mark McConkie (editor), Doctrines of the Restoration: Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie, Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1989, pp. 289–90).

Regarding the main topic, this is what Elder Talmage had to say on it, as published in the official Church magazine: 'The oldest, that is to say the earliest, rocks thus far identified in land masses reveal the fossilized remains of once living organisms, plant and animal. The coal strata, upon which the world of industry so largely depends, are essentially but highly compressed and chemically changed vegetable substance. The whole series of chalk deposits and many of our deep-sea limestones contain the skeletal remains of animals. These lived and died, age after age, while the earth was yet unfit for human habitation' (James E. Talmage, 'The Earth and Man', The Instructor, 100:12, December 1965, pp. 474–77).

This statement also appears in a Church pamphlet published in 1931.

Regarding the First Presidency's April 1931 memorandum to general authorities, Elder Talmage wrote the following in his journal: 'That there was no death upon the earth prior to Adam's fall is likewise declared to be no doctrine of the Church. I think the decision of the First Presidency is a wise one in the premises. This is one of the many things upon which we cannot preach with assurance[,] and dogmatic assertions on either side are likely to do harm rather than good' (James E. Talmage, journal entry, 7 April 1931, 29:42, Archives and Manuscripts, Harold B. Lee Library, BYU, emphasis added).

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Logan]

6 hours ago, JustAnAustralian said:

All four (or five if you split genesis) LDS accounts (Genesis, Abraham, Moses, Temple) of the creation have both plants and animals created before man.

Go read Moses and Abraham again. It says that plants, animals, and humans were all created spiritually in heaven prior to Adam being placed upon the earth. It specifically says that they were not physically found upon the earth until after Adam was placed upon the earth. 

[Logan]

6 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Elder McConkie was the editor of the Bible Dictionary, and here is what he said about it and the other scripture aids: 'None of these are perfect; they do not of themselves determine doctrine; there have been and undoubtedly now are mistakes in them' (Bruce R. McConkie, cited in Mark McConkie (editor), Doctrines of the Restoration: Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie, Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1989, pp. 289–90).

Regarding the main topic, this is what Elder Talmage had to said on it, as published in the official Church magazine: 'The oldest, that is to say the earliest, rocks thus far identified in land masses reveal the fossilized remains of once living organisms, plant and animal. The coal strata, upon which the world of industry so largely depends, are essentially but highly compressed and chemically changed vegetable substance. The whole series of chalk deposits and many of our deep-sea limestones contain the skeletal remains of animals. These lived and died, age after age, while the earth was yet unfit for human habitation' (James E. Talmage, 'The Earth and Man', The Instructor, 100:12, December 1965, pp. 474–77).

This statement also appears in a Church pamphlet published in 1931.

Regarding the First Presidency's April 1931 memorandum to general authorities, Elder Talmage wrote the following in his journal: 'That there was no death upon the earth prior to Adam's fall is likewise declared to be no doctrine of the Church. I think the decision of the First Presidency is a wise one in the premises. This is one of the many things upon which we cannot preach with assurance[,] and dogmatic assertions on either side are likely to do harm rather than good' (James E. Talmage, journal entry, 7 April 1931, 29:42, Archives and Manuscripts, Harold B. Lee Library, BYU, emphasis added).

 

Go read what D&C 86 says about the wheat and the tares in the church and you’ll find the answer to why Elder Talmage said what he said. 

Have you figured out what the tree of life actually represents yet?

[mfbukowski]

On 8/16/2021 at 9:14 AM, OGHoosier said:

Fine, I'll retract. I'll say that I read him differently but there's not much point in arguing it. 

Every single thread here lately seems to be about the difference between HOW God made the earth, not WHY.

Everyone wants the mechanics which plainly we cannot know objectively.  Heck we don't even know what light "really" is, but we know what it's good for.

Same with religion.  We know what it's good for.

I guess if one can't understand these simple differences, as you say, there's no reason to argue about it. What would be the point?

It's been said again and again