Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

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_brade
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _brade »

bcspace wrote:
bcspace, you said there is no doctrine on how the physical body was created.


There isn't.

That Ensign article purports to tell us how the physical body of man was created.


What does "out of the dust of the ground" mean? It is literal or figurative? And if literal, it still provides no details.


Here, bcspace,

When the divine Being whose spirit-body the brother of Jared beheld took upon Him flesh and blood, He appeared as a man, having “body, parts and passions,” like other men, though vastly superior to all others, because He was God, even the Son of God, the Word made flesh: in Him “dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And why should He not appear as a man? That was the form of His spirit, and it must needs have an appropriate covering, a suitable tabernacle. He came into the world as He had promised to come (see 3 Ne. 1:13), taking an infant tabernacle and developing it gradually to the fulness of His spirit stature. He came as man had been coming for ages and as man has continued to come ever since. Jesus, however, as shown, was the Only Begotten of God in the flesh.


What can you infer from that paragraph about how Jesus' physical body came into existence? I've put some sentences in bold to help you out.

Adam, our first progenitor, “the first man,” was, like Christ, a preexistent spirit, and like Christ he took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a “living soul.” The doctrine of the preexistence—revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days—pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches that all men existed in the spirit before any man existed in the flesh and that all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner.


What, bcspace, can you infer from that paragraph about how Adam's physical body came into existence?

It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.

True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man.


What can you infer from the last two paragraphs about how the physical body of the original man came into existence? To whom do you think 'the original man' refers in the last paragraph?
_EAllusion
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _EAllusion »

bcspace wrote:
Apparently it does. What is your explanation for why big brained homo sapiens hung around for more than a quarter of a million years without developing civilization and then all of a sudden there was an apparent uplift?
The reason for the burst of civilization was the end of the ice age and its concomitant population boom. (And possibly lucking into some key inventions.) That aside, if you are going to seriously float the idea that the reason for rapid cultural advancement after the iceage is that a man-god sent down a pair of ensouled humans who then rapidly spread their genes around the world, it makes your willingness to stick out your neck on evolution against the views of your prophets seem all the more petty. It's not likely you've traded rejecting them for a reasonable, scientific mindset.
_Morley
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _Morley »

bcspace wrote:
Apparently it does. What is your explanation for why big brained homo sapiens hung around for more than a quarter of a million years without developing civilization and then all of a sudden there was an apparent uplift?


Agriculture.
_brade
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _brade »

bcspace wrote:What is your explanation for why big brained homo sapiens hung around for more than a quarter of a million years without developing civilization and then all of a sudden there was an apparent uplift?


Yes, all of a sudden, like, 12,000 years ago.
_Sethbag
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _Sethbag »

Also BCSpace, would you dispute the taxonomic designation of wolves and coyotes as different species, despite the fact that wolves and coyotes can, and have mated and produced viable, fertile offspring? In fact, it is believed that red wolves are just a population of wolf-coyote hybrids which has become it's own species. I also read something quite interesting, that the Russians are using jackal-dog hybrids (which are fertile) as bomb-sniffing dogs, because jackals have a superior sense of smell, and breeding them with certain dog species gives them characteristics that make them trainable and workable.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
_SteelHead
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _SteelHead »

BC,
yes a species does not give birth to another species but are you saying that this precludes a species becoming another species through genetic drift and mutation across a geological time scale?

Now you are just playing games.

Did you re-watch the primer and pay attention to it from about 8:50 on?
It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener at war.

Some of us, on the other hand, actually prefer a religion that includes some type of correlation with reality.
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_bcspace
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _bcspace »

Where's the uplift on that amazonian tribe? They're still living in huts and carrying spears. So they must be, per your theory, possessed of inferior spirits. Right?


How do you know they don't have civilization now? Or that their ancestors never had it? Just because one is capable of civilization doesn't mean one is going to take that route. You're eating around the edges. Try giving us an example of a civilization before Sumer.
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_bcspace
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _bcspace »

When the divine Being whose spirit-body the brother of Jared beheld took upon Him flesh and blood, He appeared as a man, having “body, parts and passions,” like other men, though vastly superior to all others, because He was God, even the Son of God, the Word made flesh: in Him “dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And why should He not appear as a man? That was the form of His spirit, and it must needs have an appropriate covering, a suitable tabernacle. He came into the world as He had promised to come (see 3 Ne. 1:13), taking an infant tabernacle and developing it gradually to the fulness of His spirit stature. He came as man had been coming for ages and as man has continued to come ever since. Jesus, however, as shown, was the Only Begotten of God in the flesh.

What can you infer from that paragraph about how Jesus' physical body came into existence? I've put some sentences in bold to help you out.


Evolution looks pretty good here especially if you think it's implying Adam was once an infant. Matches my hypothesis pretty well.

What can you infer from the last two paragraphs about how the physical body of the original man came into existence? To whom do you think 'the original man' refers in the last paragraph?


Same thing. Once again, evolution and preAdamites are supported here though not intentionally I'm sure.

The reason for the burst of civilization was the end of the ice age and its concomitant population boom.


So? There had been periods of glaciation before during the time of homo sapiens; Würm, Riss, Mindel, Günz, etc. Plus, glaciation does not necessarily imply glaciers or extreme cold over all the world.

Agriculture.


Besides the possibility of different spirits, my hypothesis can also handle the case of someone coming down and teaching them. Again, the question must be asked, why so long before agriculture is developed?

Yes, all of a sudden, like, 12,000 years ago.


Sumer placed at what? 6000 B.C.? A less than one magnitude of error in the traditional Biblical chronology (for which there is no revelation, just an assumption).

yes a species does not give birth to another species but are you saying that this precludes a species becoming another species through genetic drift and mutation across a geological time scale?


No. Same thing though. Species still gives birth to species.
Machina Sublime
Satan's Plan Deconstructed.
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Conservatism is the Gospel of Christ and the Plan of Salvation in Action.
The Degeneracy Of Progressivism.
_EAllusion
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _EAllusion »

So? There had been periods of glaciation before during the time of homo sapiens; Würm, Riss, Mindel, Günz, etc. Plus, glaciation does not necessarily imply glaciers or extreme cold over all the world.



The genetic evidence tracks with significant population booms and busts cycling with the ice age periods. It's hypothesized that at the end of one ice age humans were down to a few thousand members scattered around. It's in the last one that humans come out with a huge boom in multiple population centers. That civilization developed after a population boom after an ice age is not a coincidence.

But go on arguing that civilization is best explained because an ape-god from another planet sent his spirit children to this planet to embody biologically human vessels who then spread their genes and copper age technological know how far and wide around 10,000 years ago. That'll show us how you're not at all like those crazy creationists.
_bcspace
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Re: Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

Post by _bcspace »

The genetic evidence tracks with significant population booms and busts cycling with the ice age periods. It's hypothesized that at the end of one ice age humans were down to a few thousand members scattered around. It's in the last one that humans come out with a huge boom in multiple population centers. That civilization developed after a population boom after an ice age is not a coincidence.


Indeed. The garden state did not come about until after a creative period, when all was ready. But if this is your criteria, it does not answer the question as to why.

But go on arguing that civilization is best explained because an ape-god from another planet sent his spirit children to this planet to embody biologically human vessels who then spread their genes and copper age technological know how far and wide around 10,000 years ago.


I've never made that argument.

That'll show us how you're not at all like those crazy creationists.


Doesn't mean anything to me.
Machina Sublime
Satan's Plan Deconstructed.
Your Best Resource On Joseph Smith's Polygamy.
Conservatism is the Gospel of Christ and the Plan of Salvation in Action.
The Degeneracy Of Progressivism.
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