Useless Body Parts

[Seminarysnoozer]

I would imagine that if we somehow manage to master our adolescent understanding of the gospel and perfect our ability to follow God, and still have a burning desire to know exactly how he started us all, we will find out then. Until then, for applicability in my own personal life, how God got to the point where humans were considered "created" isn't a burning priority. First, I have to get to a point where I have nothing more pressing to work on.

Our "adolescent understanding" includes the knowledge that the definition of "man" is a mortal body combined with an intelligence-child of God spirit. We focus on the development of the body so much that the other half of the equation, I think, is ignored making it seemingly less important. No creature on Earth can be called "man" without having a spirit child of God combined with it. There is also no death without already having a spirit attached to the physical body as there would be no possibility of separating a spirit from the body that is not there. Until that process is introduced, the combining of a spirit-intelligence to any living organism, then there is no death. Once that process is started then death is introduced into the world.

With in vitro fertilization for example, does the zygote sitting in a petri dish (or wherever they are maintained) have a spirit-intelligence attached to it? Even though that is not revealed in detail, most would say no. So, the independent living organism (even though it is being kept alive it is still independently living from another organism) is alive without a spirit. If this is possible, then God could have introduced this process at any point, even after many organisms without intelligences passed. Now, this doesn't have to mean that there was no spirit material at all associated with those organisms as the whole earth was spiritually created.

If a person dies in a car accident but the organs are harvested for possible transplant and being kept alive, what spirit dwells within those organs? Not the original donor as that persons spirit has left, he died. So, there is living human tissue without a spirit intelligence attached to it, at least for a period of time. It certainly is possible. Whether that is the case or not related to all the organisms before Adam and Eve were introduced to the world I do not know.

I think, though, we need to keep in mind when we talk about "man" that means a spirit child of God combined with a body that has the image of God. It has to meet all that criteria, not just the body that has the image of God. And without any spirit being attachment there is no death even if the tissue dies, it is not "death" in the gospel sense of spirit separating from a body.

If a potential organ donation is kept alive for weeks after the donor dies but there is no recipient of that organ and so it "dies", when did that organ die? Did it die with the original separation of the spirit from it or only when the tissue was not alive 2 weeks later? This is where the secular description of "death" and the gospel definition of "death" clash and here we are trying to use them as if they are the same when talking about evolution and creation.

[annewandering]

If a potential organ donation is kept alive for weeks after the donor dies but there is no recipient of that organ and so it "dies", when did that organ die? Did it die with the original separation of the spirit from it or only when the tissue was not alive 2 weeks later? This is where the secular description of "death" and the gospel definition of "death" clash and here we are trying to use them as if they are the same when talking about evolution and creation.

The biggest problem with that is that we are told that all things have a spiritual component. It is a curious question though. I cannot conceive of man like beings without a spiritual component.

What kind of 'intelligences' would be put in those bodies? Not so bright 'intelligences'?

It just doesnt sound right.

[Desertknight]

I have found absolutely no evidence to suggest that the Biblical account of creation and evolution are at odds with each other. Presumably if God created the Earth, He either used the laws of nature to do so or created the laws of nature. Either way, it doesn't go into detail HOW He created people, only that He did, and that it happened after the creation of all the other living critters. There is a very plausible argument that the creation of mankind actually took generations of evolution to complete, and that it was only when the physical bodies had evolved to a satisfactory point that spirits were put into them. Additionally I remember there being alternate translations to the term "day" used in modern translations of the scriptures, and that a more literal translation would have been "a period of time" which is consistent with the teaching that a day to God isn't the same measurement of time as a day to man.

What does all this mean for me?

Science doesn't have to create a crisis of faith for me because from my perspective science only confirms/suggests methodology the wisdom and specific requirements needed in order to make our Earth how it needed to be.

That is a pretty good statement of what my earlier post alluded to. I don't have an absolute conclusion on the topic, but your post here is very helpful in presenting what I tend to think is the case.

[Seminarysnoozer]

The biggest problem with that is that we are told that all things have a spiritual component. It is a curious question though. I cannot conceive of man like beings without a spiritual component.

What kind of 'intelligences' would be put in those bodies? Not so bright 'intelligences'?

It just doesnt sound right.

So then what is your understanding of the spiritual component that is left in the alive tissue of the donated organ after the donor is dead but the tissue is not in anyone else?

Is it still part of the spirit that is now gone? Or is it some new spirit placed into that material? Or is it the that all matter has its corresponding spiritual matter and therefore kept alive without having an "intelligence"? Or some other possibility?

"Man-like" is very vague. What about a computer, that is sometimes described as man-like. Can you conceive of a computer without a spiritual "intelligence"? If so, I don't see why you would have a hard time with a less than man organic tissue without an intelligence attached to it, not to say that it doesn't have some kind of spiritual matter attached to it, like rocks do. Do viruses have a spiritual "intelligence" attached to it? How about cloned cells? How about a new yeast cell that was made by man putting together DNA sequences from scratch?

[rameumptom]

SS,

The light of Christ fills the immensity of space, gives light to the stars, and gives intelligence to all matter. That a molecule not only has components (atoms), but specific capabilities given it depending on the type and arrangement of the atoms, is caused by intelligence. Some molecules/atoms you will not find in nature, because nature does not need them. The light of Christ is able to animate them, convert them into other forms, etc.

2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen atoms make a water molecule. Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms have distinct characteristics. As water, they now have even more capabilities than the atoms had separately. We can then combine more components/molecules, to make even more advanced things, like skin or hearts. Just because a person dies and their spirit leaves the body, does not mean the light of Christ has left the components. Rather, it remains to guide its continued development: whether as a replacement for someone else, or in its decay into simpler components to be reused elsewhere in nature.

[Seminarysnoozer]

SS,

The light of Christ fills the immensity of space, gives light to the stars, and gives intelligence to all matter. That a molecule not only has components (atoms), but specific capabilities given it depending on the type and arrangement of the atoms, is caused by intelligence. Some molecules/atoms you will not find in nature, because nature does not need them. The light of Christ is able to animate them, convert them into other forms, etc.

2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen atoms make a water molecule. Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms have distinct characteristics. As water, they now have even more capabilities than the atoms had separately. We can then combine more components/molecules, to make even more advanced things, like skin or hearts. Just because a person dies and their spirit leaves the body, does not mean the light of Christ has left the components. Rather, it remains to guide its continued development: whether as a replacement for someone else, or in its decay into simpler components to be reused elsewhere in nature.

Thanks, I agree. This is why I am saying that it is possible to have living organic material organized via the "light of Christ" or spiritual matter or whatever else it may be referred to that is not necessarily a spirit being. If a spirit being, an "intelligence" that lived independently in a pre-earthly existence, were to be attached to a mortal body, then death is introduced from a gospel sense. If it is simply the universal animating force found in every physical thing then we don't have to call it "death" as in separation of spirit and body death when those organic forms die in a physical sense. In other words, to be more direct, could the humanoid that lived 30,000 years ago etc, be animated by the universal light of Christ type spirit matter found in rocks etc and not necessarily have a spirit "intelligence" being animating it?

Again, this may be a crude example (but the only one I can think of right now), just like a computer could be made to interact and follow some primitive reflex-like actions, when this happens that happens type behavior and even some basic creative type behaviors, as computers can do. Computers obviously do not have a separate spirit "intelligence" attached to it that when the computer "dies" there is a separation of that spirit to live independently in a different sphere from the physical form. Why is it that some organic tissue could no be used to make the 'organic-computer' to make it any different than how we would consider an actual computer. The difference, from what we believe, is the spirit intelligence that is put into the grouping of atoms, as you put it. We have no knowledge of these ancient humanoids being critical thinkers. They can still be creative but without knowing whether they were also critical thinkers (in the manner we are discussing things now) then we have no outward knowledge of them being attached to a spirit "intelligence". Adam and Eve could be the first critical thinking humanoids, man, as they are the first to have a spirit "intelligence" attached to their bodies, the bodies that came from a transfiguration of the perfect bodies formed in the garden.