spotlight wrote:Oh sure, if you don't want to get into any details you can pretty much gloss over anything to hand wave it away.
ETA: No comment about the endogenous retroviruses? The human race is not any evidence of an Adam, Clark. It is evidence of evolution and common ancestry with the rest of the apes.
I recognize is that you wish to only discuss public evidence for the conclusion. That is ultimately all that matters is a scientific analysis. As someone whose schooling was in science, I can completely understand that. My point about missing the forest for the trees is just that you're missing that I was discussing religion not science. Trees may be both on lawns and in forests, but if you only pay attention to the tree, you may miss whether you're discussing a forest, garden or lawn.
spotlight wrote:Oh sure, if you don't want to get into any details you can pretty much gloss over anything to hand wave it away.
ETA: No comment about the endogenous retroviruses? The human race is not any evidence of an Adam, Clark. It is evidence of evolution and common ancestry with the rest of the apes.
I recognize is that you wish to only discuss public evidence for the conclusion. That is ultimately all that matters is a scientific analysis. As someone whose schooling was in science, I can completely understand that. My point about missing the forest for the trees is just that you're missing that I was discussing religion not science. Trees may be both on lawns and in forests, but if you only pay attention to the tree, you may miss whether you're discussing a forest, garden or lawn.
OK great, thank you. So would you mind explaining your viewpoint on how the DNA issue is resolved with a scientific explanation? I thought you said something somewhere about the importance of having a faith that is in harmony with the facts of science if I'm not mistaken. My interest is understanding how anyone who's a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ( I have to respect the prophet here, we're in the celestial ) can harmonize evolution with the church's doctrine. I still haven't heard a sensible explanation of this from any member who claims they accept the church as well as science.
The whole idea in this model is that the fall is becoming a fallen human and thus having DNA. I rather doubt resurrected bodies are tied to the chemistry of DNA even if they have the appearance of human bodies.
So how would Adam fall? By this question I mean to ask specifically how he comes to end up with a body that has a common ancestor with the other apes.
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
spotlight wrote:So how would Adam fall? By this question I mean to ask specifically how he comes to end up with a body that has a common ancestor with the other apes.
Clark do you think Adam had earthly parents or was he created in a celestial/terrestrial lab or sorts?
spotlight wrote:So would you mind explaining your viewpoint on how the DNA issue is resolved with a scientific explanation? I thought you said something somewhere about the importance of having a faith that is in harmony with the facts of science if I'm not mistaken. My interest is understanding how anyone who's a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ( I have to respect the prophet here, we're in the celestial ) can harmonize evolution with the church's doctrine. I still haven't heard a sensible explanation of this from any member who claims they accept the church as well as science.
Not quite following you here. I outlined a fairly broad example of a theory. There are other ones but this one seemed the most plausible. You have pre-Adamites that have evolved language sometime between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago. You then have a later time Adam and Eve who receive bodies that are genetically similar to the pre-Adamites. The pre-Adamites and post-Adamites not genealogically related to Adam are adopted to Adam in terms of creating a family unit for the next life.
So how would Adam fall? By this question I mean to ask specifically how he comes to end up with a body that has a common ancestor with the other apes.
Presumably God makes it.
Themis wrote:
spotlight wrote:So how would Adam fall? By this question I mean to ask specifically how he comes to end up with a body that has a common ancestor with the other apes.
Clark do you think Adam had earthly parents or was he created in a celestial/terrestrial lab or sorts?
In this model the lab analogy is more apt although presumably to make something compatible with existing genetics would require some mimicry of those genes.
Again to emphasize this is one theory among many. But it seems a common one among those scientifically inclined. However anyone holding it, including myself, doesn't take it too seriously. It's a pretty loose theory tentatively held. There's not a lot of data to work with. So consider it more as a possibility.
So just to clarify, not the original terrestrial body then? In other words Adam's spirit jumps ship from the terrestrial body and enters the physical body with DNA?
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
So just to clarify, not the original terrestrial body then? In other words Adam's spirit jumps ship from the terrestrial body and enters the physical body with DNA?
Or one is modified. Works either way. We have no idea what a terrestrial body is like. However since central to all Christian theology is the resurrection, it's not like this sort of thing should pose a theological problem even if a skeptic will look askance at it.
ClarkGoble wrote:Or one is modified. Works either way. We have no idea what a terrestrial body is like. However since central to all Christian theology is the resurrection, it's not like this sort of thing should pose a theological problem even if a skeptic will look askance at it.
I just don't get why we need a Adam if people are already running around the earth. There presence does away with the Adam and Eve story. Why create two people with terrestrial bodies with a plan to have them fall into a state God already created. Your world was already in a fallen state. It destroys the whole story. I understand your problem in that Joseph had revelations making Adam important in really existing that most of Christianity can get around, but it has a lot of problems.
The difference with what I've heard from other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who accept science or who are anti-anti-science is this idea of adoption. I believe Boyd K. Packer's objection (not to adoption) was something along the lines of "Well I guess you don't believe in temple work then." While adoption could be used to remove some of this objection it gets fuzzy when we consider that a contemporary of Adam's from the evolutionary side wants to be sealed to their biological parents rather than directly to Adam. At what point in the evolutionary chain going back would this no longer be an option that is allowed? Would this break in the chain (if there were one) of not being allowed into the family of God be due to their lack of valiance in the pre-existence? Joseph taught that animals would be glorified in the resurrection and receive greater light and knowledge, etc. Are animals previous to the era of Adam allowed into heaven as well? If so will pre-Adamites be offered the same opportunities with them? I am specifically interested in the break point in the chain here. If I were a contemporary of Adam's and my biological parents were cut off while I were not would they be in heaven as animals rather than as children of God. Thoughts?
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
Clark has done a better job than William Lane Craig in attempting to resolve this dilemma. Turns out that W. L. Craig is sort of a Kent Hovind with a better vocabulary as they both peddle pseudoscience and both begin with the conclusion rather than the evidence to arrive at their positions. Recalling Ken Miller's video on Human Chromosome II and him being Catholic I investigated whether this all makes sense within Catholicism and what do I discover? No it really doesn't.
It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).
In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: "When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own" (Humani Generis 37).
The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, "The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents" (CCC 390).
Polygenism is not acceptable. This has me scratching my head. How is one to maintain any sort of intellectual integrity without dismissing the Biblical God? I did not seek to arrive at this point when embarking upon my journey. I have been forced to this position kicking and screaming most of the way. But I refuse to accept a kludge of an explanation that glosses over the details of the science.
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
