The Dude wrote:Of course, Seth, I prefer to have some evolutionary biology taught at BYU than have it denounced campus-wide. The compromised evolution they teach at BYU is like the thin edge of a wedge.
Are they really teaching a compromised evolutionary biology down there? My understanding was they were teaching the real deal, and offering a compromised Mormonism to those who objected.
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
The Dude wrote:Of course, Seth, I prefer to have some evolutionary biology taught at BYU than have it denounced campus-wide. The compromised evolution they teach at BYU is like the thin edge of a wedge.
Are they really teaching a compromised evolutionary biology down there? My understanding was they were teaching the real deal, and offering a compromised Mormonism to those who objected.
Even better
"And yet another little spot is smoothed out of the echo chamber wall..." Bond
Stak, considering your thread on theism I might consider that a post on theism and evolution, not just the Mormon and evolution version, might not be completely out of place.
Your post back a ways pointed to a problem relating Gods role to the role of random events in evolution. Some interesting questions reside inside of that. You would be aware that in terms of classic theism there are no random events. Events could be understood as planned to follow the naturnal pattern of cause and effect to result in biological changes leading to human beings. In classic theism all aspects of the cause and effect chain are put into action by Gods all knowing plan.
I am inclined to think that a pure version of this is not the only possiblity. One might theorize that initial creation was ordered to establish the general ground of possiblities for life. This would not require that God would be subsequently forbidden to garden the beginning. If he snuck some seeds into the prebiotic soup there is nobody I imagine who would arrest him for fudging on the project of randomness.
What reason, other than to support a pre-existing belief system, is there to believe that such a scheme actually happened?
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
I could never reconcile non-homosapien homonids. These people had culture, they felt emotions, they worshiped gods. Yet I am supposed to believe that they lived their short lives, ridden with diseases and suffering, all so that they could be a stepping stone for what "god" REALLY wanted to create? Which was us?
Yah, screw that. It may have taken 200,000 years, but we actually have a word for that. It's called being a douche bag.
BCspace, do you think god is a douche bag?
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."
bcspace wrote: Still waiting to hear how that precludes evolution. If there is a God, there is nothing to prevent Him from using evolution to create people in His image on every world. Note that I can go with homo sapiens on every world or a looser definition of humanoids on every world.
How are your beliefs different from Intelligent Design, BC?
Because Intelligent Design is just another term in today's parlance for Young Earth Creationism. Saying "Intelligent Designer" is more accurate and it doesn't force a method of creation onto God. However, my undersatnding is that this term too is rapidly becomming another way of expressing young earth creationism.
You cannot account for the motion of every molecule in the universe(s) and as we know, even just footprints in the samd can effect the outcome millions or billions of years later. So it is quite possible for...
It is also quite possible that...
It is also possible, though very unlikely imho, that ...
It is also yet possible, though difficult to argue, that ...
So takes your pick or add some more, but yet again there is nothing to preclude God as a homo sapiens and Him having created our mortal bodies via evolution.
Laugh out loud. That was a classic reply, BCspace.
I see that we are operating by totally different rules. I am arguing by what is scientifically plausible and consistent with knowns -- but you are arguing by whatever could be possible in your imagination, even reaching out to remote inventions that you admit are "very unlikely" and "difficult to argue". But if push comes to shove, you would go there too! Whatever desperate gambit to keep Mormonism from running through your fingers.
So why do you go to the same place by assuming there is no God?
The problem I have with your reconciliation attempt with Mormon belief frameworks and evolution is that it creates just as difficult of problems even if one concedes to you that you have provided a successful reconciliation, (which I don't).
For example, if you are successful, what need is there for a restored church with a revelatory leader to remain vague on the subject? Why would your leaders not sustain your construction outright and plain? For example the Catholic church with at least closely analogous leaders did just that.
I'm not sure I understand the question. What do you my by "if you are successful"?
Second. If one understands how Genesis is understood as myth and understood in the time that it was authored (for example see, Nahum M. Sarna's Understanding Genesis - it's free on Kindle) its construction was purposeful in contrast to other myths. It historical can make sense. You have to accept that kind of history if your reading Mormon scripture in a symbolic manner. It would have been properly understood at that time. For example - see St. Augustine's On the Literal Meaning of Genesis and how he makes this point.
Can you be more plain? I highly doubt I'll be reading these works any time soon.
Mormon history utilized this foreign language and construction of pre-modern myth in a modern construction in the D&C when it refers to the six thousand years of the earth and the baptism of the earth in the flood. Whether you apologize for these for their literalness or their symbolic meaning neither is a proper historical fit and both fail. The literal is the very reason for your apology and the symbolic has no place in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
I don't see how my hypothesis conflicts with either a mythical or a literal (because we don't know the details) reading of Genesis 1 except for the fact that I don't accept a global Flood (and therefore I don't accept the baptism of the earth doctrine as it stands).
These fellows seem like these fellows are pretty bright scientists. Yet they seem to be able to reconcile LDS teachings with evolutions.
Here I am.
It was interesting that they briefly touched on Genesis being not literal. They commented that we should never read it as literal and that it was never meant to be such. They even implied there was not a literal Adam but then when confronted with the apparent problem Church teachings have about a literal Michael who became Adam they really just seemed to shelve it and said we don't know.
I haven't shelved it. I've accounted for it.
They also talked about how they handle issues in a Church setting where members may be insistent on the literal read and anti-science and all. Basically they don't confront much because as one said it risks the feeling of community. They will offer careful comments if someone is over the top dogmatic. But it sounds like they keep quiet. And this makes me wonder why they are the ones that have to be quiet.
I've confronted it head on and I'm still signing TR's.
Honestly and I do not mean to be rude to the fellows on the podcast or anyone here. But I kept feeling like my BS meter was spiking many times during the podcast.