Evolution For Coggies

[_bcspace]

That is what ID is about. People who try to poison the well by conflating ID with creationism are just throwing chum into the water.

If I understand you aright, then I must wholeheartedly disagree. ID is just Creationism repackaged.

[Guest]

You've confused me. Are you saying because genetic mutation is chance that this somehow makes the process of evolution random?

The entire process of evolution, as a whole, must logically be understood as random, if the blind, mechanistic forces that initiated it are random and if it is understood, as say, Dawkins understands it, that those blind, mechanistic forces define the sum total of all possibility in the universe. Any process derived from those forces, unless they obtain intelligent information form outside themselves, must continue to be random.

Sooo... unless it is made by God, it's random? What? I'm randomly tapping my fingers across the keyboard right now -- tagadkjfaja (no God here;).

Natural selection is, while not random, also not intelligent or mediated by an intelligent agency. In other words, as I said above, natural selection, while itself not random, is a feature of a larger system that itself can be understood (in the full Darwinian paradigm) in no other way.

So since natural selection is not created by God it does not exist? Gotcha!

Genetic variations occur from gene flow, and genetic shuffling too. After there is genetic variations then selective forces can act.

~I'm editing this~~

So, you're saying that you just refuse to consider evolution because you think it discredits God? Is that where you are Coggins? I was flippant with my above answers because I really don't know how to reply to you?

[_Moniker]

That is what ID is about. People who try to poison the well by conflating ID with creationism are just throwing chum into the water.

If I understand you aright, then I must wholeheartedly disagree. ID is just Creationism repackaged.

Amen and a Hallelujah to you!

[_Coggins7]

For me, it all starts with 2 Nephi 2:22 in which we see that Adam was created into a state of no death. This leaves room for a previous creative state whose properties are undefined and therefore it is not unreasonable to think that death existed in the creative state.

Incredible point bc. I've been toying with a theory very much along these lines for several years now. Something like this is the only thing that, in theory at least, can make sense of some of the apparently irreconcilable problems of modern geology, paleontology, and the Gospel creation narrative.

Part of my own present view here has to do with the term "earth" and the "days" of creation, or different phases.

I can't go into a great amount of detail here (and in fact I haven't worked it all out yet into a coherent whole), but my basic idea is that there have been a number of "earths" during this planet's history. Its the same planet, but not the same "earth" when by earth I mean a major creative phase or period that was not directly related to the seven thousand year "age" of the earth since the fall of Adam.

It appears that this planet has also been a part of different earths, or phases of planetary history. A major problem has always been the official Church teaching that this earth was created in a paradisaical state. This has caused me unending consternation, until I realized that, perhaps, this earth was created in a paradisaical state, even though this planet, as a physical object, was not.

Pure speculation, but does this make any sense?

[_Moniker]

And evolution does not discredit God.

That's all well and good. Now go talk to Beastie, Seth, marg, tarske, Richard Dawkins, Sephen Hawking, or Daniel Dennet about the matter. What you will see in this world is the idea that evolution precludes and forecloses acceptance of theism of any kind.

That is what ID is about. People who try to poison the well by conflating ID with creationism are just throwing chum into the water.

Coggins, while it may be true that as we learn more about our natural world this may make God inconsequential in some sense, to some. Yet, wouldn't God want us to discover the mysteries? Solve the puzzles? Perhaps God put it all in motion?

I think you see evolution as attacking God and that just isn't the case. Until we know how life originated I'm pretty sure He is doing okey dokey. :)

[Dr. Sunstoned]

f I understand you aright, then I must wholeheartedly disagree. ID is just Creationism repackaged.

The Church and its Gospel are wedded to some form "ID" whether you like it or not bc; the central theme of the Gospel is divine teleology; the eternal plan of salvation with God as organizer, architect, creator, and sustainer of the universe.

The original ID theorists, well before the term was coined, Arthur Eddington, Alfred Whitehead, James Jeans, and in more recent years, Sir Fred Hoyle, were never theists. They did approach a kind of Deism, however, because they felt they were forced to by the weight of evidence. LDS rejecting the work done by both scientists and philosophers in this area is tantamount to threading one's own philosophical noose and then handing it to Richard Dawkins on a silver platter, and I'm afraid I don't understand the attitude.

Serious ID has no more relation to creationism than Bambi does to Godzilla.

[_Coggins7]

I think you see evolution as attacking God and that just isn't the case.

I've made no such claim. What I don't like is Darwinian fundamentalism, which is a form of scientism that attempts to discredit the Gospel (or the idea of divine creation generally) and place itself in the position of the oracle which explains the mysteries of the universe and the meaning of existence (which, of course, at the end of the day, turns out to be that there is none. Whatsoever).

Evolution, to the degree we understand it, is fine for explaining what Darwin set out to explain: the origin of species. Where it falls flat on its secular humanist face is when it attempts to discern origins, ultimate origins, and delves into ontology.

At that point, it becomes a counter religion relative to the Gospel and a part of the "great and abominable Church of the Devil", a conglomeration of like minded institutions and entities.

[_bcspace]

I can't go into a great amount of detail here (and in fact I haven't worked it all out yet into a coherent whole), but my basic idea is that there have been a number of "earths" during this planet's history. Its the same planet, but not the same "earth" when by earth I mean a major creative phase or period that was not directly related to the seven thousand year "age" of the earth since the fall of Adam.

It appears that this planet has also been a part of different earths, or phases of planetary history.

Being the astronomer that I am, I have never accepted the notion that the earth is made of pieces of other planets; especially pieces that we can detect. The early earth was molten and differentiation caused the heavier elements to sink to the core and the lighter elements to float to the surface. Thus there would be no fossils from other worlds to see.

A major problem has always been the official Church teaching that this earth was created in a paradisaical state. This has caused me unending consternation, until I realized that, perhaps, this earth was created in a paradisaical state, even though this planet, as an object was not.

Was the whole earth that way or is it that in the future the earth will become a paradise like the Garden was?

Pure speculation, but does this make any sense?

2 Nephi 2:22 can handle it for you.

Evolution continued apace until all was ready and bodies were found that could take a spirit child of God. The finished creation included this paradisical state in which all was stopped and awaited upon the decision of Adam and Eve.

One can have genetic homo sapiens wandering around 20, 40, 60, even 500,000+ years ago. They don;t have to have the proper spirits. One can have the Fall of Adam at any date though I like something closer to 15,000 years ago or less.

It's all taken care of by this one concept.

[_Coggins7]

Quote:
I can't go into a great amount of detail here (and in fact I haven't worked it all out yet into a coherent whole), but my basic idea is that there have been a number of "earths" during this planet's history. Its the same planet, but not the same "earth" when by earth I mean a major creative phase or period that was not directly related to the seven thousand year "age" of the earth since the fall of Adam.

It appears that this planet has also been a part of different earths, or phases of planetary history.

Being the astronomer that I am, I have never accepted the notion that the earth is made of pieces of other planets; especially pieces that we can detect. The early earth was molten and differentiation caused the heavier elements to sink to the core and the lighter elements to float to the surface. Thus there would be no fossils from other worlds to see.

I think you completely, utterly, and thoroughly misunderstood my point here, and perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been. This has no relation to the idea of this earth being made out of the pieces of other earths. What I said was, in the scriptures, the Lord may be using the term "earth" not only to describe this planet, but different "earths", where by the term "earth" is meant various phases or distinct epochs of this planet's history that are sharply demarcated from other phases.

"Planet" is the terrestrial body upon which we live and the Dinosaurs lived. We and the Dinosaurs, however, inhabited different "earths" or, let's say, different compartments comprising different planetery conditions that, while linked to our own age historically, are differentiated from ours by a great boundary which we call the Garden of Eden and the Paradisaical state. Adam was a watershed and a pinnacle, and there is a sharp demarcation line between him, and his world, and all ages before.

Is that clearer?

Admittedly, this idea makes it possible that, while the earth was created in a telestial state, at some point, after 4.5 or so billion years of preparation, it was raised, for a short time, to a paradisaical state so Adam could fall. I am saying that this "raising" could be understood as a 'creation". That's not Church doctrine of course, but right now, its the only way I can see to have both "creation in a paradisaical state" and the obvious mortality that obtained for billions of years prior to the Fall.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

[_Coggins7]

As to "ID" (whatever that apparently means), it was James Jeans who said, "the stream of knowledge is heading towards a nonmechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine." and Sir Arthur Eddington who said "the stuff of the world is mind-stuff... The mind-stuff of the world is, of course, something more general than our individual conscious minds... The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time... The mind-stuff is the aggregation of relations and relata which form the building material for the physical world.", not Jerry Falwell or John Hagee.

I'm really not sure I understand how criticisms and insights within the intellectually serious ID movement does not help the Church and LDS in general make their case.