Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

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_DrW
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _DrW »

Buffalo wrote:
bcspace wrote:
Well now that you're finally quoting something, how does this preclude evolution? The direct offspring is the spirit, not the body, and by this logic of yours, God scooping up handfuls of mud and clay to make a body also contradicts the 1909 statement.

Rather, the fact of the matter is that the physical body going through the process of evolution to be created meets the standard set forth by the 1909 statement since the physical body is not the direct and lineal off spring of Deity. Jesus Christ is the only Begotten of the Father and therefore it is only the spirit that is being referred to here.

So, process of evolution to create the body, and then it is combined with a literal spirit child of God. No contradiction.


But man can't be formed in the divine image. Our features are a legacy of our simian ancestry, and they came about through random mutation and natural selection.

Like I said, you're contradicting both your religion and science. Your attempt to harmonize them isn't working.


If BC Space is really interested in how his science and religion harmonization project is going, he should go ahead and do the thought experiment described in my earlier post about the lecture at MIT. What does he think would happen when he tried to convince professionals as to the value of his "revealed" science?

Then he should think about how his harmonization hypotheses would go over as a talk in Sacrament Meeting.

He would not be able to convince any serious student in any science class I can think of, and my guess is that he would not feel much of support for his ideas in Sacrament Meeting, either.

Wild, ad hoc, make-it-up-a- you-go-along speculation often gets a pass in religion. In science one faces a much tougher audience. Credible evidence is required. BCSpace has none to offer, at least on the science side of the discussion.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."

DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
_Buffalo
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _Buffalo »

Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.

B.R. McConkie, © Intellectual Reserve wrote:There are those who say that revealed religion and organic evolution can be harmonized. This is both false and devilish.
_Buffalo
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _Buffalo »

Bottom line - you're free to worship a god who merely let the machine run itself, but that's not Yahweh. You're worshiping someone else.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.

B.R. McConkie, © Intellectual Reserve wrote:There are those who say that revealed religion and organic evolution can be harmonized. This is both false and devilish.
_bcspace
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _bcspace »

Yet you did not say which one supported your case. I've seen those before. None of them do.

Of course a number did, but I do not expect one so baised to admit it.


And given recent experience, I certainly don't expect you to point out any specific one and where you think it precludes evolution. So I don't think you believe your own words.

If BC Space is really interested in how his science and religion harmonization project is going, he should go ahead and do the thought experiment described in my earlier post about the lecture at MIT. What does he think would happen when he tried to convince professionals as to the value of his "revealed" science?


I haven't proposed any new science so this is non sequitur. The "project" is really all about showing how an LDS person can accept all science on the matter of evolution (and any other subject) without coming into conflict with LDS doctrine.

Then he should think about how his harmonization hypotheses would go over as a talk in Sacrament Meeting.


Haven't done a Sacrament meeting with that. But I have done it in a Stake Conference; just a statement that one can accept evolution without conflicting with LDS doctrine and without going into further details. In various Sunday schools and Priesthood quorum meetings, I have said the same both as teacher and class member and have gone into details as I have done here. I have never associated my hypothesis with doctrine (because it isn't), but I have stated that the official doctrine of the Church is that there is no doctrine for or against evolution and so one can accept it or not or in part as long as they accept actual doctrines like the Fall.

There are indeed some members with which this did not sit well and some who were appreciative of it. No one in a position of priesthood authority over me rebuked or corrected me in any authoritative sense (some simply disagreed, but others agreed as I have stated). I was not released (dang!) and I continue to serve in the Church in what some would see as a fairly important calling.

Of course as I related earlier, when I was about 15, my quorum advisor and my bishop were really hot to correct my error in accepting evolution, but the Stake Pres. intervened on my behalf.

Wild, ad hoc, make-it-up-a- you-go-along speculation often gets a pass in religion. In science one faces a much tougher audience. Credible evidence is required. BCSpace has none to offer, at least on the science side of the discussion.
Buffalo wrote:
bcspace wrote:
Well now that you're finally quoting something, how does this preclude evolution? The direct offspring is the spirit, not the body, and by this logic of yours, God scooping up handfuls of mud and clay to make a body also contradicts the 1909 statement.

Rather, the fact of the matter is that the physical body going through the process of evolution to be created meets the standard set forth by the 1909 statement since the physical body is not the direct and lineal off spring of Deity. Jesus Christ is the only Begotten of the Father and therefore it is only the spirit that is being referred to here.

So, process of evolution to create the body, and then it is combined with a literal spirit child of God. No contradiction.


But man can't be formed in the divine image. Our features are a legacy of our simian ancestry, and they came about through random mutation and natural selection.

Like I said, you're contradicting both your religion and science. Your attempt to harmonize them isn't working.


If BC Space is really interested in how his science and religion harmonization project is going, he should go ahead and do the thought experiment described in my earlier post about the lecture at MIT. What does he think would happen when he tried to convince professionals as to the value of his "revealed" science?

Then he should think about how his harmonization hypotheses would go over as a talk in Sacrament Meeting.

He would not be able to convince any serious student in any science class I can think of, and my guess is that he would not feel much of support for his ideas in Sacrament Meeting, either.

Wild, ad hoc, make-it-up-a- you-go-along speculation often gets a pass in religion. In science one faces a much tougher audience. Credible evidence is required. BCSpace has none to offer, at least on the science side of the discussion.


But then again, bcspace has not asked science to accept anything different about what science already accepts. As for matters of faith, science doesn't speak to the historicity of it and will probably never be able to do so.

So really what we have here is a strawman, with critics unwilling and seemingly unable to argue the merits of whether or not LDS doctrine and evolution can go together without conflict and shifting to whether or not atheism is correct (which science also can't address).

One of the biggest obstacles to the spread of atheism is the existence of those who are religious and can accept evolution at the same time. So not having any counter argument, they resort to the invective of simple denial without any basis. The only way for them to successfully attack this is, in my case (LDS), to try and show how evolution might be incompatible with LDS doctrine. And as we have seen, it can't be done and they are very unwilling to trot out statements which they claim support their case but they must avoid doing so at all costs because those statements really don't support them and they know it.
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_bcspace
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _bcspace »

Well now that you're finally quoting something, how does this preclude evolution? The direct offspring is the spirit, not the body, and by this logic of yours, God scooping up handfuls of mud and clay to make a body also contradicts the 1909 statement.

Rather, the fact of the matter is that the physical body going through the process of evolution to be created meets the standard set forth by the 1909 statement since the physical body is not the direct and lineal off spring of Deity. Jesus Christ is the only Begotten of the Father and therefore it is only the spirit that is being referred to here.

So, process of evolution to create the body, and then it is combined with a literal spirit child of God. No contradiction.

But man can't be formed in the divine image. Our features are a legacy of our simian ancestry,


The simian is merely a stage (near the end) of the creative process, using evolution, to make bodies in God's own image. Evolution or literally shaped clay, both are merely processes to achieve the desire result. No conflict. Evolution does not preclude the fact that man is ceated in God's image.

and they came about through random mutation and natural selection.


Processes that God would have instituted in the Creation as He set up the universe by smashing two branes together (String theory).
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.
_DrW
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _DrW »

bcspace wrote:I haven't proposed any new science so this is non sequitur. The "project" is really all about showing how an LDS person can accept all science on the matter of evolution (and any other subject) without coming into conflict with LDS doctrine.

The issue is not whether you have proposed "new science". The issues is whether LDS beliefs, as set forth in scripture, are in conflict with science.

And the number of such conflicts is great. Apologists such as yourself can only dodge so many of them with the standard apologist arsenal of "loose interpretations", calls for "deeper understanding" and of course, the obligatory "not too literal interpretation of scripture".

Here are a few claims of LDS scripture that are in direct conflict with science;

- Kolob:
The Book of Abraham states that the sun to borrows its light from Kolob through the medium of Kae-e-vanrash. Really?

- God is an anthropomorphic being of flesh and blood who, according to modern prophets, obeys natural law. Yet according to LDS beliefs (and scripture) he can violate special relativity by shuttling back and forth between Earth and Kolob at will.

- God answers prayers from Kolob, again violating special relativity.

- The Jaredites came to the new world in unpowered wooden semi-submersibles after the confounding of languages at the Tower of Babel. There are so many technical problems with this belief that I will not enumerate them. (Consider the chances of 8 wooden telephone poles thrown into the sea off the coast of Oman or Yemen or the southern coast of the UAE all washing up in the New World at the place and at the same time 344 days later.)

- Reformed Egyptian

- Garden of Eden in Missouri (Garden of Eden anywhere)

- No death before the fall of Adam.

- Adam as the first human.

- Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from a funerary text.

All of these are conflicts, and there are many many more. They are conflicts because a faithful LDS member must profess belief in these claims, and no real scientist ever would.

Any Mormon who believes that there are no conflicts between Mormon scripture and science does so without supporting evidence, and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The only rational individual who could truly believe that there is no conflict between science and LDS scripture would be an individual who has never read LDS scripture.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."

DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
_Morley
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _Morley »

DrW wrote: ....
The only rational individual who could truly believe that there is no conflict between science and LDS scripture would be an individual who has never read LDS scripture.


Or one who has never read science.
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _DrW »

Morley wrote:
DrW wrote: ....
The only rational individual who could truly believe that there is no conflict between science and LDS scripture would be an individual who has never read LDS scripture.


Or one who has never read science.


That too.

Thanks.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."

DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _Morley »

DrW wrote:
Morley wrote:
Or one who has never read science.


That too.

Thanks.


Doc, I think that we assume people know a lot more about science than they actually do. I think that Mr. Space thinks he knows a lot more about science than he really does. (I'm not really talking behind your back, BC.)

Also, knowing a little bit about some science allows people to think that there is some hidden "true science" that will be discovered to vindicate their religious beliefs. Instead, each new discovery chips a little more away from the fortress.
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Re: Science 4,586,384,421, God 0

Post by _Themis »

bcspace wrote:And given recent experience, I certainly don't expect you to point out any specific one and where you think it precludes evolution. So I don't think you believe your own words.



I have had more then recent experience to know that you will continue to ignore what I have quoted. Oh well.
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