upgraded June 19, 2008
Genesis 2:4-25 (NIV) This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens—5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground—7 the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." 18 The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." 19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
With the single exception of God, we have only two options for the beginning of everything. The beginning of every single thing, and the universe in its entirety could have only come through creation, or through evolution. Something was either created by a Creator, or it evolved from some other form.
If a human evolutionary process took place across tens of thousands of years with millions of failed attempts by nature to evolve, where is the evidence or remains of all of those millions of attempts? Why don't we find some Cyclops or some Triton pre-human carcasses? Why do we only find biped, and never uniped, triped, quadruped, or centipede human carcasses? Why are the remains of the "ice age man" dating from 5,000 years ago, the oldest remains of a living man ever found? On the other hand, if there was a single leap, or a few simultaneous leaps by a small number of ape-like creatures, why has there been no subsequent leaps in either the ape, or man since that time?
If man is just another animal, why has no single other animal in the history of the world, ever set up or worshipped a god? Man worshipping a god is irrefutably of the highest importance to man, as every man has consistently worshipped some god since man's creation.
"So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship." - Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevski 1821-1881
With the exception of fallen angels, man is the only creature in the universe that has sinned against God. After man sinned, he clothed himself with fig leaves. Why is man the only creature in the universe that wears clothes? No animal in history has ever sinned, or attempted to clothe their nakedness.
"Nothing wears clothes, but Man; nothing doth need But he to wear them." - George Herbert 1593-1633
With the exception of fallen angels, man is the only creature in the universe that has a reason to be ashamed of himself.
"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." – Mark Twain 1835-1910
As man has a physical body, so animals have a physical body. Physically, man is no more than an animal, nor is man physically any less than an animal. As relates to the properties of man's physical body, man is exactly the same as an animal. Man has a desire or lust to satisfy his physical body that includes; food, sex, and sleep. All animals also have a desire or lust to satisfy their physical bodies that include the exact same things as man; food, sex, and sleep. Man and animals both have a physical body, and man and animals both share the lust of the flesh.
Man has a soul. The soul is the inner core from which all of a being emanates. Our soul is our character, our integrity, our honesty, our righteousness. The soul is who we really are, which is determined by whom or what we worship. Man's soul was created for spiritual intercourse with God, and to worship Him only. Because man has a soul, man struggles with the desire to satisfy the lust of the eyes. Man is tempted to worship assets. Animals do not have a soul. Because animals do not have a soul, they are not concerned with the same things that man is concerned with in man’s lust of the eyes. Animals have no concern whatsoever about the worship of assets. As long as the lust of the flesh is satisfied, animals are just as happy living in a piano box under a bridge, as they would be in living in the White House.
Man has a spirit. The spirit contains our mental processes; how we think, our wisdom, our knowledge, our understanding, our attitude, and our pride. Because man has a spirit, man struggles with the desire to satisfy the pride of life. Man is tempted to take pride in what people think of him. Animals do not have a spirit. Because animals do not have a spirit, they are not concerned with the same things that man is concerned with in man’s pride of life. Animals do not take pride in what people think of them. As long as the lust of the flesh is satisfied, animals are just as happy belonging to a beggar or a criminal, as they would be in belonging to a prominent wealthy person or saint. Were all of these men still alive, any animal would be just as happy belonging to Abraham Lincoln, Jesse Jackson, or Jimmy Carter as they would be in belonging to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
For excellent documentation by a large group of scholars, covering the scientific evidence that proves the Biblical account of creation, visit www.creationevidence.org.
The Biblical account of man’s beginning reflect that he was created by God. (There are, however, minor environmental and cultural impacts on mankind after he was created. Considering that all of mankind descended from Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives, there would only be one race and one color of people in the world if environmental and cultural impacts do not effect changes in mankind. These minor environmental and cultural impacts do not change man from being a man.)
One of the greatest works of literature ever written by man, is John Milton's "Paradise Lost", and was published in 1667. In Book V, Milton credits Satan with the lie that God could not have created angels, because the angels did not see God create them. Satan lied in saying that either the angels created themselves, or something like fate created the angels. In 1871 Charles Darwin, the father of the Theory of Evolution published "The Descent of Man". Darwin put forth essentially the same lie that Milton had credited to Satan 204 years earlier in "Paradise Lost", in claiming that fate was the great creator. In "Paradise Lost" Satan claimed that something like fate was the creator of angels; in "The Descent of Man", Charles Darwin implies that something like fate was the creator of man.
The evolution theory for the creation of man is primarily an assault on the belief in the very existence of God, the Creator. The evolution theory for the creation of man is also a veiled proposal for the creation or evolution of God. The creation/evolution debate is not about man. It is about the existence of God, or the creation/evolution, beginning of God. The same theories that prove or disprove the creation or evolution of man apply to the creation or evolution of God.
Satan proposes two different lies in order to deceive people concerning a beginning of God. He currently proposes a lie through the Roman Catholic Church in implying that God had a creator. If God were created by something else, then that something else is the great creator, and consequently superior to God. Satan, very subtle in his deceit, is successfully promoting this lie through the Roman Catholic Rosary, just as he promoted worship of the Queen of Heaven in ancient times:
"Holy Mary Mother of God Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus."
While Mary was the mother of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was fully God, the subtle lie implied by Satan and the Roman Catholic Church is that Mary was the creator of God and thereby superior to God. Roman Catholics have been trained to pray to Mary, and that deification of Mary is pure and simple Idolatry in the worship of a false god.
"Early Christians sometimes worshiped before the statues of Isis suckling the infant Horus, seeing in them another form of the ancient and noble myth by which woman (i.e., the female principle), creating all things, becomes at last the Mother of God." - Will Durant. Our Oriental Heritage from The Story of Civilization, volume 1. Norwalk Connecticut: Easton Press 1992, page 201.
"In the end it was not Hellenism that won in Alexandria, but mysticism; now were laid the foundations of New-Platonism and the medley of promissory cults that competed for the Alexandrian soul in the centuries that surrounded the birth of Christ. Osiris as Serapis became the favorite god of the later Egyptians, and of many Egyptian Greeks; Isis regained popularity as the goddess of women and motherhood. When Christianity came neither the clergy nor the people found it impossible to change Isis into Mary, and Serapis into Christ." - Will Durant. The Life of Greece from The Story of Civilization, volume 2. Norwalk Connecticut: Easton Press 1992, page 595.
"One of the most beautiful of Greek myths, skillfully narrated in the Hymn to Demeter once attributed to Homer, tells how Demeter's daughter Persephone, while gathering flowers, was kidnapped by Pluto, god of the underworld, and snatched down to Hades. The sorrowing mother searched for her everywhere, found her, and persuaded Pluto to let Persephone live on the earth nine months in every year - a pretty symbol for the annual death and rebirth of the soil. Because the people of Eleusis befriended the disguised Demeter as she "sat by the way, grieved in her inmost heart." She taught them and Attica the secret of agriculture, and sent Triptolemus, son of Eleusis' king, to spread the art among mankind. Essentially it was the same myth as that of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, Tammuz and Ishtar in Babylonia, Astarte and Adonis in Syria, Cybele and Attis in Phrygia. The cult of motherhood survived through classical times to take new life in the worship of Mary the Mother of God." - Will Durant. The Life of Greece from The Story of Civilization, volume 2. Norwalk Connecticut: Easton Press 1992, page 178.
"Cybele and Isis were mother-goddesses acquainted with grief, who mourned like millions of bereaved women; they could understand what the Roman deities seldom knew-the emptied hearts of the defeated. The desire to return to the mother is stronger than the impulse to depend upon the father; it is the mother name that comes spontaneously to the lips in great joy or distress; therefore men as well as women found comfort and refuge in Isis and Cybele. Even today the Mediterranean worshiper appeals more often to Mary than to the Father or the Son; and the lovely prayer that he most frequently repeats is addressed not to the Virgin but to the Mother, blessed in the fruit of her womb." - Will Durant. Caesar and Christ from The Story of Civilization, volume 3. Norwalk Connecticut: Easton Press 1992, pages 526-527.
"The worship of Cybele held its ground in Lydia and Phrygia, Italy and Africa and elsewhere, and its priests, as before, emasculated themselves in imitation of her beloved Attis. At her spring festival her worshipers fasted, prayed, and mourned the death of Attis; her priests cut their arms and drank their own blood; and a solemn procession bore the young god to his grave. But on the morrow the streets rang with exultant shouts as the people celebrated the resurrection of Attis and the renewal of the earth. "Take courage, O mystics," cried the priests, "the god is saved; and for you also will come salvation." On the last day of the feast the image of the Great Mother was carried in triumph through crowds that hailed her, at Rome, as Nostra Domina, "Our Lady." Even more widely honored than Cybele was the Egyptian goddess Isis, the sorrowing mother, the loving comforter, the bearer of the gift of eternal life. All the Mediterranean peoples knew how her great spouse Osiris had died and had risen from the dead; in nearly every great city on that historic sea this happy resurrection was commemorated with gorgeous pageantry, and jubilant worshipers sang, "We have found Osiris again." Isis was represented in pictures and statues as holding her divine child Horus in her arms, and devout litanies hailed here as "Queen of Heaven," "Star of the Sea," and "Mother of God." Of all pagan cults this came nearest to Christianity in the tenderness of its story, the refinement of its ritual, the solemnity and yet joyful atmosphere of its chapels, the moving music of its vespers, the conscientious ministry of its white-robed and tonsured priests, the honors and opportunities with which it charmed and comforted women, the universal welcome it gave to every nationality and every class. The religion of Isis spread from Egypt to Greece in the fourth century B. C., to Sicily in the third, to Italy in the second, and then to all parts of the Empire; her icons have been found on the Danube, the Rhine, and the Seine, and a temple to her has been unearthed in London. The Mediterranean soul has never ceased to worship the divine creativeness and maternal solicitude of woman." - Will Durant. Caesar and Christ from The Story of Civilization, volume 3. Norwalk Connecticut: Easton Press 1992, pages 523-524.
The Roman Catholic Church is not the first whom the devil prompted to worship Mary:
Luke 11:27-28 (NIV) As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
Worship of the Queen of Heaven is ancient. Jeremiah began his ministry in 627 B. C. The people of Judah were already involved in that worship.
Jeremiah 7:16-18 (NIV) So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger.
Jeremiah 44:15-28 (NIV) Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were present--a large assembly--and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt, said to Jeremiah, 16 "We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD! 17 We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. 18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine." 19 The women added, "When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cakes like her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?" 20 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, both men and women, who were answering him, 21 "Did not the LORD remember and think about the incense burned in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem by you and your fathers, your kings and your officials and the people of the land? 22 When the LORD could no longer endure your wicked actions and the detestable things you did, your land became an object of cursing and a desolate waste without inhabitants, as it is today. 23 Because you have burned incense and have sinned against the LORD and have not obeyed him or followed his law or his decrees or his stipulations, this disaster has come upon you, as you now see." 24 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including the women, "Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah in Egypt. 25 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You and your wives have shown by your actions what you promised when you said, 'We will certainly carry out the vows we made to burn incense and pour out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven.' "Go ahead then, do what you promised! Keep your vows! 26 But hear the word of the LORD, all Jews living in Egypt: 'I swear by my great name,' says the LORD, 'that no one from Judah living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name or swear, "As surely as the Sovereign LORD lives." 27 For I am watching over them for harm, not for good; the Jews in Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed. 28 Those who escape the sword and return to the land of Judah from Egypt will be very few. Then the whole remnant of Judah who came to live in Egypt will know whose word will stand--mine or theirs.
Secondly, Satan frequently misconstrues the written doctrine of the Mormon Church into a different lie in proposing that God evolved. The interpretation that is a lie, is that God evolved from what we are at the present, and we can evolve into what God is at the present.
If God had evolved, it would be impossible in an evolution process for Him to be Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent from His very first moment of existence, and would thereby not always have been Perfect. The concept of an evolving imperfect God is not acceptable.
If God evolved, then that evolution is by chance and there is also the chance that He might not ever have evolved. If God evolved by chance, then there is the possibility that other equal or superior Gods also evolved prior, at the same time, or later to His evolution, rendering Him one of many Gods, or an inferior God.
The devil proposes that every male can become a God. That proposal is a lie.
Isaiah 43:10c (NIV) Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.
Isaiah 45:22 (NIV) "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
Satan obviously does not care what lie a person believes, as long as the person is deceived.
The Mormon doctrine does state that "What God is, we can become, and what we are now, God has been." The only interpretation in which this can possibly be true is in the position that: When we are "Born Again", we are children of God, and His Holy Spirit fills us. The second portion of that doctrine can only be true if it is interpreted: Jesus is God, Jesus was (is) a man, we are men, ergo, what we are now (physical men), God (Jesus) has been.
If there is in existence, another universe with another God, then neither the True and Living God, nor that other God, is God. These two God beings would only be god-lings, or by Webster's Dictionary definition, a local inferior god. The existence of these two god-lings would by default necessitate a being superior to them. That superior being would therefore be God. Consequently, if there is in existence a single other god-ling in any other universe, and there exists no God superior to these two god-lings, then there is no God. The fact that I KNOW God personally, as He is my Father, renders this philosophical reasoning and conclusion frivolous.