And the Gods saw that they were obeyed.

[rameumptom]

Thought I'd share with you a link to a blog post I just put up regarding some thoughts on the Creation story in Abraham chapter 4-5.

Joel's Monastery: And the Gods saw that they were obeyed

Please comment here, as I'd like to see if there are other interesting things that you also have thought about in regards to the Creation and Abraham.

[Just_A_Guy]

I think I like this very much.

One of your commentators over at M* noted that your theory is reminiscent of Cleon Skousen. IIRC, Skousen's idea was that each subatomic particle has some degree of intelligence and chooses whether or not to obey God; and that (thus far) they have done so because they recognize God's perfect balance of justice and mercy as expressed through the Atonement of Christ. Skousen, I think, claimed to have gotten the idea from either Widtsoe or Talmage.

[rameumptom]

There are parts of Skousen's expansion of these ideas that I do not agree with. He did get the basis of this from Elder John Widstoe, who probably based it upon the concepts taught by Orson Pratt.

My way of seeing it is that the Light of Christ, which permeates the universe, gives intelligence to all things. In this way, smaller things can join to create new things. Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules have specific traits that are inherent in them due to the Light of Christ. When combined, they create H2O (Water), which not only retains the original traits (although some may now be latent), but now have greater ability or intelligence from before.

Eventually, we get to intelligences that not only have traits, but have individuality or personality. Herein, we may read in Abraham 3, where the "intelligences that are organized" are equated with spirits, which do have individuality and personality.

In this concept, God is willing to wait for as long as it takes for all/most of His creation to choose Him. For this reason, I believe (along with Elder Talmage and others) that there may be progression between kingdoms. God is willing to wait for others to learn to fully obey and accept a celestial law (D&C 88), even if it takes 4.5 billion more years or longer.

[dimbulbz]

This was a great read and I tend to agree with the concept that God is infinitely patient with his creations. I tend to think that since we have limited time here in mortality, that our position is such that we do not have an eternity to wait on people to embrace the gospel, hence the sense of urgency amongst the missionary minded - and for some of our parenting techniques.

I posted a question in a different thread about whether The Father and the Son took part in the war in Heaven, your article seems to me to strengthen my conclusion that the War, Skirmish, disagreement - whatever you want to call it, was actually between the Sons of Adam and the forces of darkness. Both The Father and the sons possessing both grace and truth, were taking a different tact, than the rest of us, who up to that point, understood Justice completely, but would have little understanding of Grace (that being charity, forgiveness, patience, brotherly kindness...) After all, we had been raised in an environment, where such things would be as foreign to us, from a practical standpoint as the sea would be to a desert dweller. The idea that we come to earth to participate in a life that will by necessity teach us charity that the Father and the son already possess, makes this plan of salvation all the more beautiful and meaningful for me, and places the learning the need for repentance, and forgiveness at the very forefront of our purpose here. I think everyone on earth possesses a natural instinct for Justice, and yet for the sinner, there could not be a harsher master. In our pre-mortal existence, it was Justice that led us to forcibly remove Satan and his hosts from our perfect home (rightly so) yet here in mortality, we often find ourselves on the opposite end of that desire for Justice, and it is misguided Justice that causes most of the heartache and destruction here.

Now for Skousens ideas on the Atonement, they are an excellent start, but I also agree that he missed some remarkable teachings in the BOM, that show the need for a redeemer in a far more intimate and personal way than he describes in his subnotes in the first 2000 years.

By the way I love your ideas about entropy - we don't talk much about that, although is is the prevailing law in the Telestial order. Things naturally move from a state of order to Disorder, and according to the Prophet Jacob (2 Nephi 9) Were it not for Christs teachings about Forgiveness and repentance, we would all wind up EXACTLY like Satan - I always had a hard time with that concept, but without Christ, there is only Entropy, and we know how that eventually turns out.

Lovely, Lovely post. Thank you for helping me tonight with some of my thoughts. Sorry if I temporarily hijacked the thread. It just struck a chord with me, and I had to put in my two cents worth.

Edited August 20, 2013 by dimbulbz
cant shut up.

[classylady]

Rameumpton, your blog post was very insightful. I liked it.

This past week, I happened to be contemplating quite a lot on Neandertal Man and doing some research on the species. (I happened to be near the valley in Germany where Neandertal remains have been found, and there is a museum there), which particularly piqued my interest in them. I like your statement "The last Ice Age would leave us with one species of human-like beings, removing the failed versions from the genetic pool and prepare the earth for us today." This is an interesting idea. And it's one I can envision as actually occurring.

I'm looking forward to the next life where all our questions will finally be definitively answered.

[rameumptom]

Thanks for the nice comments. I would say that I believe Father and Jesus were involved in the war in heaven, leaving the direction to Michael, the general of the armies of heaven. As for us coming here to learn charity, etc., this is true. However, Jesus also had to come to learn. In Abraham 3, we read that the "great and noble ones", or those that had become divine gods in the premortal existence, were gathered around God. This would have included Christ (and Abraham). Christ had to learn through his suffering how to succor us (Alma 7), and so do the rest of us need to learn such qualities. Yet, he was still a divine God prior to this earth life.

The war was thrust upon the followers of God, as Lucifer did as many in the BoM attempted. When they did not get their way by persuasion, they turned to force (Nehor, Amlici, Amalekiah, etc). In such instances, the General would go with the armies to fight. Captain Moroni went to fight, while the chief judge remained to conduct the business of the government, for example. So it was in the war in heaven.

It is very easy to assume things in the scriptures from an absence of actual scriptural detail. We need to be careful not to read into it things that go against the overall teachings of the scripture, science and history. For instance, some read Genesis and read six 24 hour periods of creation. Yet that is reading one's own belief system into it, while disregarding all other facts available to us.

And it is not only regular members who fall into this trap. Sometimes even General Authorities do so. Brigham Young did so with Adam-God. Joseph Fielding Smith did so with his opinion that mankind would never make it to the moon (and later said that we shouldn't explore other worlds, because the Lord told Moses that he would only receive the info regarding his own world; ignoring the additional fact that God revealed to Abraham the cosmos).

[Traveler]

Ram - I enjoyed reading your thoughts. May I add something? The engineer in me sees something a little differently. Having worked on many construction projects of new manufacturing facilities, I see some interesting parallels with the creation. There are many factors in designing a facility but one of the most important has to do with checking or testing one's design.

As a consultant engineer I have often warned my clients that anything that is not tested and known to function properly will not work and is just waiting to frustrate any efforts to continue until it is properly tested. Sometimes it seems to me that until a process is tested - it will not know what it is suppose to do.

I see the comments in Abraham of checking for obedience as a pre-planned and scheduled testing phase where any errors that are discovered are corrected.

There are many reasons to run multiple levels of testing when constructing an automated manufacturing facility. Even if all the equipment being installed has already been tested and is known to work - testing with elements of the workforce (human labor) also serves as training that will pay off many times over in live operations.

The purpose of testing is to fix problems or discover more efficient methods. With that in mind I am thinking that we are still in the testing phase of a great many things concerning creation. In essence we are creating new facilities (Celestial Kingdoms) that are currently in development and a critical testing phase.

I am not sure how the rest of you are turning out with your projects - but I have a lot of bugs to fix - mostly where I tried to short cut the design. Woops.

The Traveler

[rameumptom]

Traveler, do your kids blame you for having taken short-cuts on their design?

You may be right on this. As I noted, there may have been lots of experimenting, to see what would work and what would not. We see many extinctions of species in the fossil record. Some of these may have been poor designs, while others were wiped out to open the door for new creation (or demolished to open the way for new construction).

[classylady]

Traveler, do your kids blame you for having taken short-cuts on their design?

You may be right on this. As I noted, there may have been lots of experimenting, to see what would work and what would not. We see many extinctions of species in the fossil record. Some of these may have been poor designs, while others were wiped out to open the door for new creation (or demolished to open the way for new construction).

Or, could the extinctions of species have been planned all along? Could that have been the plan all along for modern day fossil fuels?

[rameumptom]

Perhaps. But then why not think that someday we'll also go extinct, providing a pathway for some better primate or being in the future?

[classylady]

Perhaps. But then why not think that someday we'll also go extinct, providing a pathway for some better primate or being in the future?

Who knows? We may go extinct. And, then again, that may be the plan from the beginning. When the Millennium is ushered in, and millions die, is that an extinction of sorts?

[Traveler]

Or, could the extinctions of species have been planned all along? Could that have been the plan all along for modern day fossil fuels?

I would like to dispel some ideas that I think are a little misleading and are resulting in the possibility of faulty conclusions. To begin with there is a vast difference between research and development both in the methods and concepts towards experiential design plausibility testing procedures and how we test operational functions, tolerances and capabilities in real time.

One of the interesting points made in scripture is that after life forms are created G-d commands the created life to only reproduce after their own kind. One thought that I have is that perhaps it is possible that during the creation a particular life form may have been used to produce several different kinds of life through a rather exciting evolutionary process – or species as we tend to think. If one kind of life could produce many kinds that both sheds light on evolution and creates a dilemma concerning evolution both in how we perceive the forming and history of earth but also in what we tend to look for from a scientific standpoint.

As for overall design – I do not think that poor design would persist beyond a mutated individual life form. I think we need to look at other reasons for extinctions of species. Also since we have found hydrocarbons in space – previous life forms on earth were not necessary for petroleum products – in fact labeling hydrocarbons as fossil fuels may be a fundamental error.

The Traveler