BCSpace argues that evolution does not contradict LDS doctrine. It does.
How so?
What it does not do, is contradict BCSpace's own private version of LDS doctrine, complete with his very own ideosyncratic definitions of words and readings of scripture.
I've taken into account every LDS doctrine on the matter. It is true that the Church does not appear to see what I see in the scripture, but nothing they see conflicts with my view.
I know that LDS people can believe in evolution. I've met plenty who do. What I have not met, however, is someone who does so and actually reconciles evolution with LDS doctrine.
I've met them though I believe my theory is better.
The majority of LDS people that I know who believe in evolution don't bother to try, they just say things like "well I know the church is true, so somehow it gets reconciled, and I guess God will tell us how when we die." or some such. They completely sidestep the issue.
Nothing wrong with that.
Evolution is contradicted by the LDS doctrine that there was no death, nor procreation on Earth until after the Fall of Adam.
Not unless there was a creative state prior to the state of no death which is entirely possible without contradicting LDS doctrine.
This is iron-clad LDS doctrine that is impossible to weasle out of, though who knows, make a doctrine weasle-proof and, as BCSpace proves, they'll just invent a better weasle.
Where there is no revelation on a matter, you are free to fill in the blanks.
BCSpace tries to get out of this problem by pointing to wording in 2Nephi2:22, a scripture which serves as one of the basis for the LDS doctrine that there would be no procreation nor death until after the Fall.
And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
Note that the state in which things must have remained is the state in which they were "after they were created". BCSpace's claimed loophole is this word "after". He claims that there was a creative period which was in effect before things "were created", and that this creative period was no over until God said so, and only when God said so had things "been created". So, as long as God had not said that the creation was over, all the millions and millions of years of things dying had all occurred before anything "had been created", and so it doesn't count.
Indeed, there is an implied previous state because everything was created into a state of no death. There are no details on the length of the creative process nor it's properties. The only things we know is that when all was finished, man was placed in the garden into a state of no death.
But, magically,
A wizard did it!
once God said the creation was over, everything still in existence at that moment "had been created", and so all of that stuff must have remained forever, had Adam not sinned.
Yep. The completed creation signifies that state where all awaited the choice of Adam and Eve.
Of course, he just hand-waves off all of the problems presented by the existence of millions of f*cking
A crude term for a natural process.
and dying
Another natural process.
pre-Adamite homo sapiens all around the world.
No hand waving involved. The simplest explaination is that their spirits were not spirit children of God. That can go a long way towards explaining why homo sapiens existed for up to 100's of thousands of years without any significant development.
At the instant the "creative period" had ended and things then "had been created", none of them, according to LDS doctrine, could have died or procreated, from that point on until the Fall. This creates some obvious problems. But hey, all that goes away with enough hand-waving and smoke and mirrors.
And, truly, this theory is dead in the water anyway, because 99.9999% of things that have ever lived and died on Earth had already done so by any reasonable Biblical timeline for Adam and Eve.
The problem for you is that there are no details as to how long the state of no death lasted. Could've been a few days, a few years, a few hundred or a thousand years without any significant gap in evolution.
The only way BCSpace gets out of a jam doctrinally is to pronounce that 99.9999% of all things that ever lived and died on Earth were never actually created.
I have never said that, nor would I.
"All things that were created" therefore excludes almost everything that ever existed.
How so? Many things went extinct before the creation was ever finished and those things that did exist at the time were the end products of evolution up to that point. Since evolution continues apace after the Fall, there are no gaps, no noncreated creatures or anything at all like you postulate.
So much for a clear meaning of the words "all things", eh? And what sense does it make to say that thousands of generations of homo sapiens that lived, screwed, had the next generation of homo sapiens, and died had never been "created"? It doesn't, except in BCSpace's mind, because he's relying on his own little ideosyncratic definition of the word "created".
As you can plainly see above, my version of preAdamites has nothing at all to do with how you define the word "created".
Using any reasonable understanding of the meanings of the English words "all things", and "created", BCSpace's pet loophole is simply dead in the water. Only using custom-crafted definitions to those words which he qualifies in every way necessary to preclude conflict between evolution and LDS theology, can his loophole possible make any sense at all.
You're not even addressing the issue here and you seem to be putting words in my mouth.
BCSpace, I know you don't want to admit this, but your theory is dead. You cannot get away, in any reasonable discussion or argument with other speakers of the English language, with inserting qualifies into the Book of Mormon text in order to make the words "all things" and "created" have the meanings that your theory requires.
I haven't changed any meanings at all. What I have proposed are details possible that no one (that I know of) ever thought of until now.
In a religious discussion about the Creation, all things have to have been created. The scriptures make no allowance for uncreated things and creatures and people and whatnot.
Not having proposed such, i am still in the clear.
In a religious discussion about the Creation, "all things" cannot be understood to exclude 99.9999% of the things that ever were. You don't get away with this.
I haven't even attempted such as theory that you are postulating. It sounds more like you gnashing your teeth that your favorite chestnut has been debunked.
You claim you've been refining your theory for years, but it's time to go back to the drawing board, because you lose this one.
I still win because you are ascribing to me a theory I never proposed nor am I reqiured to accept in order to be in harmony with LDS doctrine.
ps: even if one manages to argue that LDS theology is not in opposition to evolution,
Which I have successfully done.
the fact remains that evolution does remain opposed by the utterances of many past Apostles and Prophets of the church.
None that are doctrinal. Notice your inability to quote any.
And it is this fact, along with the Noah's Ark story, which opened the chinks in the armor surrounding my faith that were just barely wide enough for me to be able to consider seriously whether the church might not also be wrong about some other things. So yes, evolution played a part in my apostasy.
Your loss. Must feel awful to have apostatized over the wrong reasons and more shameful still that you have to make up a theory to explain your faux pas.