Evolution/Intelligent Design -- what it means about God

[Dwight Schr-ute]

How is this clear to you?

Also, where do you see the term "organize" being deliberately used?

Creating something out of nothing would clearly violate the laws of matter.

This is a scientific principle. You can reorganize and restructure, but you simply can not manipulate something that isn't there.

As for the principle of organization, as was stated above, the language is used heavily in the temple. I was thinking that it was a little heavier in the Book of Moses, but I was mistaken. Having said that, there are subtle inferences in both the Genesis and Moses accounts that should leave literalists scratching their heads.

"20 Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, AND fowl with may flay above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And I, God, created great whales, and EVERY creature that moveth, WHICH the waters brought forth abundantly..."

"24 And I, God, said: Let the EARTH bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind, and it was so;"

I read these as indication that God allowed nature to take its course. It is the water and then subsequently the earth that are bringing forth the creatures, not God. I know that people get really hung up on the whole "after their kind" business, but these are typically people that have little comprehension of DNA and an eternal timescale.

Or we could just believe Cleon Skousen's alien stocking program theory. Because that makes more sense.

[SCcoug]

So the assumption is God created everything? If he used consistent rules to create everything how would we recognize his hand in the creation, wouldn't it look just like nature to us?

[lambdacoug]

This is a scientific principle. You can reorganize and restructure, but you simply can not manipulate something that isn't there.

It isn't actually true that something cannot come from nothing. I'm pretty certain this happens all the time, according to quantum mechanics. Things can, and do come into existence from nothing, so long as the net change in energy is zero. I know I've heard both Lawrence Krauss and Michio Kaku explain this in some documentaries I've watched. That's the extent of my knowledge so if someone wants to fill in or tell me how wrong I am, please do.

[Brian]

Creating something out of nothing would clearly violate the laws of matter.

This may not be correct.
See Krauss and Hawking.

[Brian]

It isn't actually true that something cannot come from nothing. I'm pretty certain this happens all the time, according to quantum mechanics. Things can, and do come into existence from nothing, so long as the net change in energy is zero. I know I've heard both Lawrence Krauss and Michio Kaku explain this in some documentaries I've watched. That's the extent of my knowledge so if someone wants to fill in or tell me how wrong I am, please do.

Ah, beat me to it.
I was writting something up and then my boss came by before I could press submit.

[jay santos]

My bad. I didn't mean to bring out the physics nerds.

You guys go ahead and have at it.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

It isn't actually true that something cannot come from nothing. I'm pretty certain this happens all the time, according to quantum mechanics. Things can, and do come into existence from nothing, so long as the net change in energy is zero. I know I've heard both Lawrence Krauss and Michio Kaku explain this in some documentaries I've watched. That's the extent of my knowledge so if someone wants to fill in or tell me how wrong I am, please do.

Dammit! Looks like I'm done.

[jay santos]

Dammit! Looks like I'm done.

So we went from clearly understanding how God works to not being sure about it, all with one scientific discovery. Interesting.

[woot]

This seems like a nitpick. It's a really cool principle and whatnot (I just heard Brian Greene talk about this when I was in Utah), but energy isn't nothing, so it's still true that you can't create something out of nothing.

[Northwestcoug]

The God I believe in isn't so much Gob the magician as he is the man behind the curtain. Clearly, he can't make something out of nothing. What makes him God, isn't so much that he supersedes law as much as complete adherence to law. I think that the LDS are the only ones that declare that God could actually cease to be God. Creating something out of nothing would clearly violate the laws of matter.

So instead, he's a God of direction. He sets things in order and then watches them play out. The term "organize" is used deliberately in relation to the "creation" process. SO the general church membership is okay with this "organization" when it comes to land, water, and space. But the same membership takes serious offense when it comes to the slightest suggestion that we, possibly "weren't" from the beginning. As if the idea that God needed intermediaries from matter unorganized to His likeness is some reflection of His love, or the lack thereof.

But I think it's just the opposite. How much does God love us? Enough to invest billions of years into our development. Billions of years, complete with an incredible history of "bycatch" so that we could have an environment that allows us to sit around and bitch at each other about which hand one should use to take the sacrament with.

I don't necessarily disagree with this sentiment, but for me it is in direct contradiction with the being that church teaching has humanized into a perfected heavenly father. It does take a lot of faith to believe that a perfect father would invest so much in us, yet deal with us in a very mysterious, detached, and cold manner.

[Brian]

This seems like a nitpick. It's a really cool principle and whatnot (I just heard Brian Greene talk about this when I was in Utah), but energy isn't nothing, so it's still true that you can't create something out of nothing.

I am not a physicist, but my understanding of this is that the total sum of energy in the universe is zero. In relativity, gravity is negative energy, and matter is positive. The observable universe appears to have equal amounts of both, so the sum is zero.
Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy, with the matter condensing out of the positive energy, and gravity created from the negative energy.

maybe something like this:
0 = -1 +1

[beefytee]

I am not a physicist, but my understanding of this is that the total sum of energy in the universe is zero. In relativity, gravity is negative energy, and matter is positive. The observable universe appears to have equal amounts of both, so the sum is zero.
Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy, with the matter condensing out of the positive energy, and gravity created from the negative energy.

maybe something like this:
0 = -1 +1

Sounds like "Opposition in all things" to me.

[lambdacoug]

I am not a physicist, but my understanding of this is that the total sum of energy in the universe is zero. In relativity, gravity is negative energy, and matter is positive. The observable universe appears to have equal amounts of both, so the sum is zero.
Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy, with the matter condensing out of the positive energy, and gravity created from the negative energy.

maybe something like this:
0 = -1 +1

That is my understanding as well. This is important for the multiverse theory, something can pop into existence and then back out of existence instantaneously (in our frame of reference) without violating any laws of physics. Perhaps our universe is one such thing and in some other frame of reference, we pop into and out of existence instantaneously, but in our frame of reference it takes billions and billions of years. Its all very mind bending stuff...but fun to think about.

[Jeff Lebowski]

In spite of the dumb click-bait title (), this is a pretty good article.

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/03/god_...ium=socialflow

Jeremy England, a young MIT professor who’s proposed a theory, based in thermodynamics, showing that the emergence of life was not accidental, but necessary. “[U]nder certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life,” he was quoted as saying