What is the official doctrine of why no children in the Garden?

[JLHPROF]

10 minutes ago, 2BizE said:

I was under the impression that the church was beginning to move from thinking of Adam and Eve and the Garden as real historical people/events and considering them to be just symbolic allegories/myths.  I believe the temple endowment session now makes a remark about historical vs symbolism.

Does the direction the Church "moves" have any effect on what is or is not real?

Or did someone get a revelation I missed declaring Adam and Eve as mere archetypes.  Especially when prophets have actually seen them.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, 2BizE said:

I was under the impression that the church was beginning to move from thinking of Adam and Eve and the Garden as real historical people/events and considering them to be just symbolic allegories/myths.  I believe the temple endowment session now makes a remark about historical vs symbolism.

No, I believe they are taught as historical figures.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/fall-of-adam-and-eve?lang=eng#title34

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-sunday-school-book-of-mormon-2020/06?lang=eng#p10

Edited December 6, 2023 by Calm

[CV75]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

No, I believe they are taught as historical figures.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/fall-of-adam-and-eve?lang=eng#title34

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-sunday-school-book-of-mormon-2020/06?lang=eng#p10

There is a really good article (In my estimation) in this month's Liahona that could be useful in scriptural and temple matters generally:

Interpretive Approaches to the Book of Revelation (churchofjesuschrist.org)

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

It stated the creation (organization) of man and woman is strictly figurative.  Not their relationship.

Which actually furthers the idea of Brigham Young that there has only ever been one way people are created.  The same way as us.

Adam, Eve, Christ - nobody was ever conceived in any other way.

Then if Jesus was the only Begotten Son, how does your paradigm account for A & E being embodied?

Evolution?

That would actually work.

God super-scientifically, using natural means, tweaks the environment to produce humans naturally. 

For me, these are simply paradigms for questions which are based on the primary category error, trying to harmonize present science with religion.

For me, the real question is how it is that spiritual experience itself exists

I think the answer for a unified paradigm is found in qualia.

God communicates through qualia. The rest is paradigms we have tacked together to satisfy the errors of Modernism, Descartes, and all dualism before that.

Edited December 6, 2023 by mfbukowski

[filovirus]

13 hours ago, 2BizE said:

I was under the impression that the church was beginning to move from thinking of Adam and Eve and the Garden as real historical people/events and considering them to be just symbolic allegories/myths.  I believe the temple endowment session now makes a remark about historical vs symbolism.

D&C 138 sure shows that Adam and Eve were real people. I don't know how the church would move from that thinking.

38 Among the great and mighty ones who were assembled in this vast congregation of the righteous were Father Adam, the Ancient of Days and father of all,

39 And our glorious Mother Eve, with many of her faithful daughters who had lived through the ages and worshiped the true and living God.

[mfbukowski]

25 minutes ago, filovirus said:

D&C 138 sure shows that Adam and Eve were real people. I don't know how the church would move from that thinking.

38 Among the great and mighty ones who were assembled in this vast congregation of the righteous were Father Adam, the Ancient of Days and father of all,

39 And our glorious Mother Eve, with many of her faithful daughters who had lived through the ages and worshiped the true and living God.

Ok, they are real people, the first who have Covenants /communication with God. The first of The Chosen People, if you want to be literal. A " small" mutation allowing for a God quale.

But that doesn't indicate they were the first of what we now call "homo sapiens".

Edited December 6, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Benjamin McGuire]

14 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Or did someone get a revelation I missed declaring Adam and Eve as mere archetypes.  Especially when prophets have actually seen them.

Yes, and Lehi actually saw a tree of life, a path, a rod of iron and so on. Just because we actually see something (or someone) doesn't mean that it isn't representative in some way of reality instead of being reality.

[MustardSeed]

14 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Does the direction the Church "moves" have any effect on what is or is not real?

 

No, clearly what is truth is truth. 
I don’t think we have always operated from complete understanding of what that truth is. I think that would be an unrealistic expectation. In fact, I think we would be very surprised to find out how unrecognizable certain truths are in comparison to what we traditionally think, and do. Doesn’t it make sense that we would be limited?

[mfbukowski]

18 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Yes, and Lehi actually saw a tree of life, a path, a rod of iron and so on. Just because we actually see something (or someone) doesn't mean that it isn't representative in some way of reality instead of being reality.

Yep.  "Representation" vs reality was the great breakthrough of the 20th century, hence Postmodernism.

Impressionism in art was one of the first manifestations of postmodern thought

What you see/experience IS your reality, for all practical purposes 🤔

Edited December 6, 2023 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

No, clearly what is truth is truth. 

 

9 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

In fact, I think we would be very surprised to find out how unrecognizable certain truths are in comparison to what we traditionally think, and do. Doesn’t it make sense that we would be limited?

Can you see how the second quote contradicts the first?

How "clear" then is truth?

Edited December 6, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

 

Can you see how the second quote contradicts the first?

How "clear" then is truth?

I think an analogy to what Mustard Seed is saying is the elephant is an elephant even if the blind men think it’s like a snake or fan or tree and they should have recognized their limits in understanding what an elephant is instead of disagreeing, etc.

Iow, truth is truth—or better put reality is reality—whether we recognize it or not and if we recognize our inability to recognize it, our limits (your position that Truth can only be experienced through what we are aware of, etc), we should be less absolute in our current conclusions about truths.  I believe Mustard Seed is expressing a hope that our understanding of truth/reality will grow in the same way the blind men’s understanding would have grown if they had chosen to accept their limits and not only listened to each other, but kept on exploring the elephant rather than being satisfied with their so little understanding.

——

I had no idea this parable was a venerable as it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

Edited December 6, 2023 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I think an analogy to what Mustard Seed is saying is the elephant is an elephant even if the blind men think it’s like a snake or fan or tree and they should have recognized their limits in understanding what an elephant is instead of disagreeing, etc.

"It is what it is" doesn't say anything 

But yes, 

"They should have recognized their limits in understanding what an elephant is instead of disagreeing, etc."

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

It is what it is" doesn't say anything 

The reflexive axiom is very meaningful in mathematics and in how we think about the world (in the sense we trust that something maintains its attributes if not acted on).

Edited December 7, 2023 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

The reflexive axiom is very meaningful in mathematics and in how we think about the world (in the sense we trust that something maintains its attributes if not acted on).

I guess it doesn't apply to old folks.

What in the real world is not acted upon?  You spent some good time researching that one!  😘