MG 2.0 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:09 pm
Rivendale wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 8:53 pm
From a designer perspective how did life on earth start? Was it the result of the operation of natural laws and the right starting conditions (in the Big Bang)? Or was there an intelligent designer intervened to set the universe in motion, and then intervened again to begin life? If so, what exactly did that intelligent intervention produce and at what point? Did the intelligent designer start with self-replicating molecules and make them progressively more complex over the eons? Or did he/she/it instantly create algae, weeds, and trees, followed by fish and birds and dogs and bears and dinosaurs and insects and humans? In the past there was no barn owl and the next day, the intelligent designer introduced barn owls? The same question applies to every other species.
Not to get temple-y but this process, in it’s basic template-ic form is laid out pretty well in the LDS endowment ceremony. Need I say more? Hope not, because I won’t.
Regards,
MG
MG,
This is the first time that I have encountered the suggestion that the puzzles about creation singular to Mormon teaching are clarified in the endowment. I have not become endowed so cannot say for sure but I really find it a stretch to think there is some secret explanation about creation that is not presented outside of the temple. I understand that various details of ritual and covenants are to be kept within the temple. I do not wish to find out such details.
My understanding , I think resting pretty close to center in traditional christian understanding is that the order of atomic structure and thus the possibilities of organic molecular formation are part of the foundational structure of Gods creation. Creation is the whole thing not adjustments to parts that would not work. As such evolution is a good description of how the variety of species develop. I do not know if a special intervention, a gardening type start, was necessary to get life going. The fundamental potential for life was built into the beginning.
Believers are naturally attracted to the puzzle of how life started. It might suggest miracle (a gardening type jump start) but it is clear to me that such is not possible to demonstrate. All the parts of organic life consist of natural combinations of atoms. It is possible that God set up the relationships in the beginning which came together for life by following the naturally occurring combinations.
Naturally the same block preventing us from seeing whether there was a miracle with the start of life prevents us from being sure that the whole picture of fine tuning is a miracle. It could be just the way things are and that is the final why ( perhaps without a creator God)
Myself I think the wonder of life in this universe is evidence of god because life growing out of nonlife is a sort of harmony with the idea that the ultimate order is life. I know full well that that is not proof. I find myself seeing this through the realization that I cannot know if God exists. My idea of God rests on the holiness of our obligation to the world we live in. I find that of real value and would still be even if that reality turns out to be ultimately less personally concerned as traditional understanding of God. I do not live with any certainty of life after death. I do want to be responsible and responsive in the life I have.