2015 April Conference Thread

[Joe Public]

Reprising my point from yesterday.

If we exist, (and we do), and if evolution is the way we got here, (it was) then there has to be an Adam and Even in between these two points. Someone had to make the jump between animal and human, heralding a new genetic strain of gods who know the difference between good and evil.

Seriously, what's the big deal?

On which side of the line do you place Neanderthals?

[clackamascoug]

On which side of the line do you place Neanderthals?

On the side where the Atonement makes them whole in the eyes of a Loving Father.

It's not black and white, and it's not one dimensional. Perhaps in another dimension the Neanderthals evolved into the dominant species.

[Northwestcoug]

On which side of the line do you place Neanderthals?

Animals. They obviously didn't know good from evil.

[SCcoug]

On which side of the line do you place Neanderthals?

4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/gen/6.4?lang=eng#3

Worlds without end

[Pelado]

I wonder if there is a Baylor board out there somewhere where some poster is complaining that he couldn't get hired at BYU because he is a baptist.

Some of my best BYU profs were baptists.

[Blueintheface]

tl;dw

[wuapinmon]

Reprising my point from yesterday.

If we exist, (and we do), and if evolution is the way we got here, (it was) then there has to be an Adam and Even in between these two points. Someone had to make the jump between animal and human, heralding a new genetic strain of gods who know the difference between good and evil.

Seriously, what's the big deal?

I went to grad school with a Argentino-Chileno-Gringo author who is the smartest person I've ever met. He once told me that he felt that Adam and Eve were the first creatures to be sentient in the human sense. He wasn't sure about Eden and that narrative (which SIEQ explained that we needed to have because we're humans), but he said that evolution would force us to admit that there had to have been a creature that ultimately realized the abstract, the sublime, the Real of our existence, which is terrifying. To cope with this awful Real of our Existence, building on Peter Berger, I'll add that religion is a concrete projection of human desires into/onto (depending on your view of human experience) subjective reality, especially the desire for a meaningful world that allows for hope, for a life and death imbued with some meaning that makes all of this worth the suffering that most experience. Religion attempts to make life have pleasure beyond the corporal, something that Adam and Eve would've been the first ones to understand...the pleasure of seeing a shooting star, of a sunset, of seeing another human, even one we don't know, escape death. These are all things that an animal might perceive, but there would be no pleasure to the animal. Adam and Eve might've been the first humans to take pleasure in the abstract.

I don't know what your feelings are and I am sorry it would exclude you from applying for a job if you wanted to.

My attitude would be just the same as I have to the PAC12, what a bunch of intolerant hypocrical pricks. Probably the PAC12 more than
Baylor because on second thought BYU probably writes the same kind of letters to people and I don't consider them pricks.

Yeah, well, we wouldn't let blacks get the priesthood until I was in kindergarten because God said so. So, I'm not ready to nuke Baylor from orbit or anything like that. I'm a white Southern male; it was amazingly educational to experience what prejudice feels like from the other side, even for a moment.

I wonder if there is a Baylor board out there somewhere where some poster is complaining that he couldn't get hired at BYU because he is a baptist.

No, I'm sure BYU is more genteel in telling Baptists to fuck off.

I wonder if wuap's Baylor (b12) application would have been viewed differently had BYU not shut down its wrestling program?

I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to pin the blame on anything or anyone.

[clackamascoug]

I went to grad school with a Argentino-Chileno-Gringo author who is the smartest person I've ever met. He once told me that he felt that Adam and Eve were the first creatures to be sentient in the human sense. He wasn't sure about Eden and that narrative (which SIEQ explained that we needed to have because we're humans), but he said that evolution would force us to admit that there had to have been a creature that ultimately realized the abstract, the sublime, the Real of our existence, which is terrifying. To cope with this awful Real of our Existence, building on Peter Berger, I'll add that religion is a concrete projection of human desires into/onto (depending on your view of human experience) subjective reality, especially the desire for a meaningful world that allows for hope, for a life and death imbued with some meaning that makes all of this worth the suffering that most experience. Religion attempts to make life have pleasure beyond the corporal, something that Adam and Eve would've been the first ones to understand...the pleasure of seeing a shooting star, of a sunset, of seeing another human, even one we don't know, escape death. These are all things that an animal might perceive, but there would be no pleasure to the animal. Adam and Eve might've been the first humans to take pleasure in the abstract.

That's why I love.... "Who told thee that wast naked?" It's like the bone being thrown into the air at the foot of the obelisk in 2001 - A Space Odyssey. If you had to pinpoint the exact most crucial moment in the last 4 billion years, that would be it.

#TheJump

[ERCougar]

Sure, you don't need a literal tree, fruit, or talking snake. Those can be waved away with hardly any damage to a gospel doctrine. But that's not what the general discontent from ER and others seems to be focused on. They are arguing about the literal existence of Adam and Eve.



OK, so exactly what was the fallen state? Was there a paradisical (sp?) existence of the earth at one point, and was it inhabited by humans? Or is the fallen state more allegorical, like we have fallen from God's presence and need Christ to get us back 'home'?

I certainly support making as much scripture allegorical as possible, especially the nonsense parts. But you have to admit there is a lot more teaching in the Mormon canon that compels members to accept a literal Adam and Eve. Remember, Joseph Smith saw him, and added further evidence that he existed.







Joseph F. Smith saw him as well:



That's a lot of testifying of Adam's literal existence. So if the scriptures are true about his existence, why aren't they true about what his fall entailed?

There are lots of things that Joseph and others saw with their "spiritual eyes".

Really, I don't care if people try to fit a real Adam and Eve into the evolutionary timeline. It's the literalist and anti science bent that I think is harmful.

[SCcoug]

I went to grad school with a Argentino-Chileno-Gringo author who is the smartest person I've ever met. He once told me that he felt that Adam and Eve were the first creatures to be sentient in the human sense. He wasn't sure about Eden and that narrative (which SIEQ explained that we needed to have because we're humans), but he said that evolution would force us to admit that there had to have been a creature that ultimately realized the abstract, the sublime, the Real of our existence, which is terrifying. To cope with this awful Real of our Existence, building on Peter Berger, I'll add that religion is a concrete projection of human desires into/onto (depending on your view of human experience) subjective reality, especially the desire for a meaningful world that allows for hope, for a life and death imbued with some meaning that makes all of this worth the suffering that most experience. Religion attempts to make life have pleasure beyond the corporal, something that Adam and Eve would've been the first ones to understand...the pleasure of seeing a shooting star, of a sunset, of seeing another human, even one we don't know, escape death. These are all things that an animal might perceive, but there would be no pleasure to the animal. Adam and Eve might've been the first humans to take pleasure in the abstract.

woot would know but my limited understanding is that the first evidences of religion or religious behavior show up some time between 30k-300k years ago. Those wanting a literal Adam and Eve (as first thinking,sentient humans) would need to throw out their Old Testament chronology bookmark from seminary.

333114472374e3f4360edb5f8c0e2dc0.jpg

[old_gregg]

This is what happened the last time I worried about having to claim I believe that there was not a literal Adam & Eve:

if you aren't living in a house paid for by a settlement from baylor you're crazy

[TripletDaddy]

Reprising my point from yesterday.

If we exist, (and we do), and if evolution is the way we got here, (it was) then there has to be an Adam and Even in between these two points. Someone had to make the jump between animal and human, heralding a new genetic strain of gods who know the difference between good and evil.

Seriously, what's the big deal?

good post

[Commando]

Good stuff. So what do you guys parsing what anti-scientific things you will and won't believe think about life after death? Is that a scriptural analogy to you or is that different?

[fusnik]

Really? What was the purpose of the atonement, if there wasn't a literal Adam who fell from a state of grace? This seems like Mormonism 101 to me.

Look, you can still have a belief in evolution and a literal Adam and Eve. It requires a fair amount of nuancing some scriptures and some creative thinking. There's that whole 'there was no death on the earth prior to Adam' teaching, but that can be nuanced also. But once you discount a literal Adam and Eve you really negate a HUGE chunk of the centrality of Christ's mission.

I don't think you can at least not how Holland described it, ie no human death pre Adam and Eve.

In his view point, couched with science, would require an Adam born and an Eve born, that were the first homosapians. These two would have had to find each other amongst the thousands of Neanderthals and other hunanoids and regardless the amount of time it took they wouldn't age past an age that would disallow procreation.

What a ridiculous idea...unless you can offer up a better idea.

[fusnik]

The best way to view A&E is through a temple lens. We are told to imagine ourselves as if we were Adam and Eve.

What that means to me is:

Adam = spirit
Eve = body
God created both and both are good
When body and spirit join for a common good God is manifested
Garments are rent just like the veil and you bask in the glory of Gods light