Why Creationism or Intelligent Design is Important

[Rob Osborn]

8 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

And hence you have failed out of science 101. But you're welcome to think whatever you want. 

See, you arent the one who gets to decide if I fail or not. 

[Jane_Doe]

1 minute ago, Rob Osborn said:

The polls show us, the Mormons, as being almost dead last in acceptance of evolution amongst other religions

Can you show us said poll?

[Jane_Doe]

7 minutes ago, Rob Osborn said:

See, you arent the one who gets to decide if I fail or not. 

You do realize that I teach college science?  And yes, "what is science" is literally covered the first week of class.  And yes, I routinely fail people who refuse to learn.

[anatess2]

6 minutes ago, Rob Osborn said:

See, you arent the one who gets to decide if I fail or not. 

Yep.  The teacher does.  That teacher had better passed Science 101... (I can hear @Vort saying homeschool... so hey Vort, what's the status of Science 101 in the home school?)

[prisonchaplain]

12 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Ugh.

I apologize to @prisonchaplain for this remark.

Please don't teach your kids that.

A miniscule 22% of LDS accept Evolution while a whopping 24% of Evangelical Protestants do. I guess that makes y'all about 2% smarter. Then again, 0% of Jehovah's Witnesses accept evolution.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_of_evolution_by_religious_groups  Anyone else wanna go with me on a road trip to Brooklyn?   

[Traveler]

3 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

When it comes to the sciences I have a healthy dose of humility. Further, I am thoroughly biased when it comes to the big picture question of how it all began. God did it. He's the Original Cause, the Prime Mover, etc. I'm fully aware that some scientists have performed poorly in Evolution vs. Creation debates, hosted at churches, because they did not know how to communicate with a faith-based audience. The reverse has likely happened, as well--where outside creation-proponents, or creation-believing university students are called on to debate their position against peers, or even professors, in a science department setting.  Even this string shows me how quickly I found myself in over my head on details I was not proficient at.

The point of my OP was to suggest to believers that our basic faith that God made us ought to be such a strong encouragement.  Sometimes--especially in the setting I work in--that truth may be the only one convincing me that God might still care about my wretched life.  At the same time, agnostics and atheists might find this issue to be the ultimate win/lose. After all, if God did not make me and this world, I'm not accountable to Him at all. I might as well live my life as a freethinking rationalist, and try to live a joyful, interesting, and positive 80+ years, unencumbered by invented religious ethics.

The apple or the Garden?  I choose the garden. 

 

I hope you do not feel that I am picking on you – but you are one of the best I have found to discuss these matters with.  There are problems with every creation paradigm we have – both in religion and in science.  It is very difficult to have a rational conversation when one party is so centered with their particular concept that they are unwilling to consider any logic or evidence if it offends their concept.  It is even worse when both parties are so disposed in their thinking.

I find it most interesting that Jesus spoke very little of the creation when he lived among us – this despite the fact that he is the creator, architect and enabler of our heavens and earth.   In the last few thousands of years there has been no addition to our understanding of our universe nor the principals that empirically govern what is happening from the religious community through the study of scriptures.  All that has moved us forward in understanding has come exclusively from the method of science.

You speak of basic faith that G-d made us.  That is a very general statement.  Some in the science community wonder where you get that idea.  The scriptures say that G-d created Adam and Eve but where does the idea that he made us come from?  Most of us have had the birds and bees discussion with someone about where babies come from and what adults do that results in babies.  So – were Adam and Eve ever babies?  If G-d creates ex nihilo how can you claim G-d created us?  If something comes about that is not ex nihilo why do you believe G-d is the architect or the original cause?  This also breaks down to the ex nihilo cause of evil?

I am concerned with the religious community that thinks to resort to logic and scientific methods to prove logic and scientific methods to be misleading or flawed.  How do you know that your understanding of scripture is not misleading or flawed?

 

The Traveler

[anatess2]

2 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

A miniscule 22% of LDS accept Evolution while a whopping 24% of Evangelical Protestants do. I guess that makes y'all about 2% smarter. Then again, 0% of Jehovah's Witnesses accept evolution.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_of_evolution_by_religious_groups  Anyone else wanna go with me on a road trip to Brooklyn?   

Yikes.  The Buddhists must be really dumb.

But hey, look at that... Catholics, 58%.  And Mormons second to last.  This really is very eye-opening. 

[prisonchaplain]

Why do I say God made us? He made Adam & Eve, and it is my sense that they were physical adults. From the beginning they were given tasks to do. So, I assume that they started out that way. After all, who would have nursed them, had they been born infants? Since we are made in the image of God, his creative work is in each of us, though yes, we are born in the manner of the birds and bees.  As for how creation out of nothing comports with all of us being made through the process of human sexuality and birthing, the simple answer is that once there is something there is no longer need for creation from nothing.

[Jane_Doe]

6 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

A miniscule 22% of LDS accept Evolution while a whopping 24% of Evangelical Protestants do. I guess that makes y'all about 2% smarter. Then again, 0% of Jehovah's Witnesses accept evolution.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_of_evolution_by_religious_groups  Anyone else wanna go with me on a road trip to Brooklyn?   

22 vs 24 percent in probably within the margin of error (I can't find the exact numbers due to broken links).  The original report puts JW at 8% http://www.pewforum.org/2009/02/04/religious-differences-on-the-question-of-evolution/

[prisonchaplain]

@Jane_Doe  Your information helps mitigate the damage somewhat, but even with your updates, the road trip still appears to be needed. 

[Jane_Doe]

2 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

@Jane_Doe  Your information helps mitigate the damage somewhat, but even with your updates, the road trip still appears to be needed. 

But but... I'm a Wyoming girl-- Brooklyn has people that live there-- I don't know what to do places where people actually live-- it's scary!!!!  

[Guest Godless]

1 minute ago, Jane_Doe said:

But but... I'm a Wyoming girl--

Watch out for those grizzlies! 

[prisonchaplain]

@Jane_Doe  You realize that this is a public forum...that people will read your post...and that now WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE? 

[Jane_Doe]

Just now, prisonchaplain said:

@Jane_Doe  You realize that this is a public forum...that people will read your post...and that now WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE? 

That's a benefit of living in WY- I can say my town name and people have ZERO idea where it is :).  

[prisonchaplain]

That would be ME in the government vehicle, parked in your driveway.  So...what's for dinner? 

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

Bytheway Rob, Evolution is a REQUIRED course at BYU-I for all biology majors.  (I don't know about the other BYU's, I didn't attend them).

Evolution was taught as part of the Biology 100 class which is required general ed at BYU - Provo.

[Vort]

23 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

(I can hear @Vort saying homeschool... so hey Vort, what's the status of Science 101 in the home school?)

I have taught my children the principles of evolution from their earliest childhood. When they inevitably encounter the Sunday School teacher who is overtly hostile toward evolution, I talk with them about it and encourage them to study the words of the prophets and investigate the Church's actual position on evolution -- which doesn't take very long.

[anatess2]

11 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

Why do I say God made us? He made Adam & Eve, and it is my sense that they were physical adults. From the beginning they were given tasks to do. So, I assume that they started out that way. After all, who would have nursed them, had they been born infants? Since we are made in the image of God, his creative work is in each of us, though yes, we are born in the manner of the birds and bees.  As for how creation out of nothing comports with all of us being made through the process of human sexuality and birthing, the simple answer is that once there is something there is no longer need for creation from nothing.

Although creatio ex nihilo doesn't have to require Adam & Eve being born as physical adults, it does lend to a stricter reading of Genesis than pre-mortal existence especially with the belief that spiritual life begins at conception.  In pre-mortal existence, there's a period of time between the creation of the body and God breathing the spirit into it that puts some leeway into the transformations of the body before the spiritual man is born.

But all that is speculative so I really don't go into much detail about it.  For me, it doesn't matter HOW we were created in the image of God but simply that we are.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

A miniscule 22% of LDS accept Evolution while a whopping 24% of Evangelical Protestants do. I guess that makes y'all about 2% smarter. Then again, 0% of Jehovah's Witnesses accept evolution.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_of_evolution_by_religious_groups  Anyone else wanna go with me on a road trip to Brooklyn?   

Something is wrong with that graph.  On another page, the exact same graph was posted.  But it showed JWs at 8%.

Besides that, the problem with that graph is that it asks the wrong question.

[anatess2]

1 minute ago, Carborendum said:

Something is wrong with that graph.  On another page, the exact same graph was posted.  But it showed JWs at 8%.

Besides that, the problem with that graph is that it asks the wrong question.

 

[Traveler]

Just for fun I will add something to this thread.  As some know I am an expert in industrial applications of artificial intelligence.  I have always found the notion of artificial intelligence interesting.  For example: if something is intelligent how do we determine if it is artificial or actual intelligence?  If there actually is a difference.

I have been working through the idea that quantum physics (or what some would call quantum weirdness) has elements of intelligence.  For example there are possibilities that we define in quantum physics for an electron.  In the scientific community we break these possibilities down into mathematical probabilities.  In essence there is no direct trail of cause and effect so I wonder if we can apply principles of intelligence or should I say artificial intelligence?

In this pursuit of intelligence I also speculate if what we observe as dark energy, dark matter and dark radiation also contains elements of intelligence?  Most think of intelligence as a product of something living.  I find this concept quite incredible for those in the religious community that deal with the notion of spirit or ghost stuff.  That is the concept that intelligence can exist within the context of empirical matter and outside of the religious concept of spirit. 

As far as I have observed we LDS are unique in understanding intelligence as an attribute of spirit and that such intelligent stuff is not created by G-d.  But there is more – as I understand we LDS also hold that intelligent spirit stuff permeates all matter and energy in our universe of space time.  Thus that the very elements of matter and energy possess intelligent spirit stuff.   Thus creation is not so much a matter of matter and force as it is teaching and enlightening – or as some think in terms of “organizing”.

Maybe love, compassion kindness and sacrifice for the greater benefit is much more an element of intelligence than many consider (in the scientific community or the religious community).  Maybe the very ability to recognize and embrace “light and intelligence” is the key of creation – maybe it has little to do with ultimate power as many think of and define G-d.

 

The Traveler

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Traveler said:

Just for fun I will add something to this thread.  As some know I am an expert in industrial applications of artificial intelligence.  I have always found the notion of artificial intelligence interesting.  For example: if something is intelligent how do we determine if it is artificial or actual intelligence?  If there actually is a difference.

Well, the pure atheist would have to say there is no difference because what we consider to be intelligence is merely the result of a very mechanical body/brain.  Consider electron affinity.  It could easily be described as "how badly an atom wants another electron."  But the fact is that atoms don't "want" anything.  They have no desire.  But it certainly behaves that way.

The pure theist would have a hard time with that.  Do we have intelligence because of the soul or the body?  or a bit of both?  Not a lot written in scriptures on the subject.

Edited January 19, 2017 by Guest

[Traveler]

37 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

Why do I say God made us? He made Adam & Eve, and it is my sense that they were physical adults. From the beginning they were given tasks to do. So, I assume that they started out that way. After all, who would have nursed them, had they been born infants? Since we are made in the image of God, his creative work is in each of us, though yes, we are born in the manner of the birds and bees.  As for how creation out of nothing comports with all of us being made through the process of human sexuality and birthing, the simple answer is that once there is something there is no longer need for creation from nothing.

You do realize what you just said?  - If there was any living thing like Adam and Eve before Adam and Eve - there is no need for a creation from noting. 

 

The Traveler

[Traveler]

3 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

  But the fact is that atoms don't "want" anything.  They have no desire.  But it certainly behaves that way.

Exactly - but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Traveler

[estradling75]

Sad..

Quote

The First Presidency said in 1931,

Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored Gospel to the people of the world. Leave geology, biology, archaeology and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church.

We can see no advantage to be gained by a continuation of the discussion to which reference is here made, but on the contrary are certain that it would lead to confusion, division and misunderstanding if carried further. Upon one thing we should all be able to agree namely, that presidents Joseph F. Smith, John Winder and Anthon Lund were right when they said: "Adam is the primal parent of our race.

—First Presidency, Memorandum to General Authorities, April 1931.

Found here http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_science/Pre-Adamites#cite_ref-1

After listening to argument from both sides this is what the First Presidency of the Church declared of the matter.

If we consider our selves faithful saints we should follow and emulate the wisdom of the First Presidency and not claim that we know better then them what is true about the subject