![\"Brueghel's](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2020\/06\/Jan_Brueghel_the_Younger_Paradise.jpg\")
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More than a few of you, I think, will find this enjoyable:<\/p>\n
Conference Talks:\u00a0 \u201cJoseph Smith and the Architecture of Genesis,\u201d<\/a> presented by David Calabro<\/a><\/p>\n Dr. Calabro\u2019s interesting remarks were originally delivered on 25 October 2014 at the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s 2014 Temple on Mount Zion Conference.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And, speaking of Genesis, how about a visit to Eden?\u00a0 The folks at Bountiful Travel<\/a> want me to mention this trip<\/a> so that people out there will be aware of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s coming up in just a little under a year:<\/p>\n 9-20 February 2024\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sail with\u00a0Daniel Peterson\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>as he enlightens and uplifts our group with his informational lectures on sea days. Join our private tours at the ports to make the most of this incredible journey. This is a small-group tour limited to 30 people so you will want to book soon.<\/span><\/p>\n Explore\u00a0Auckland Museum<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0with its amazing Polynesian artifacts as well as\u00a0Harbour Bridge<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0Viaduct Basin<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Westhaven Marina<\/em><\/strong>. Learn about the\u00a0earthquake<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0that destroyed the city of Napier in 1931 and discover the unique\u00a0Art Deco style<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0they used to rebuild this unique city. From Picton, take a small boat wildlife tour to\u00a0Marlborough Sounds<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and visit\u00a0Motuara Island<\/em><\/strong>, a\u00a0kiwi nursery and bird sanctuary<\/em><\/strong>. Along with its beautiful city center, Wellington offers\u00a0Te Papa\u2014New Zealand\u2019s National Museum<\/strong><\/em>,\u00a0Zealandia<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Karori Sanctuary<\/strong><\/em>. Visit\u00a0Larnach Castle<\/strong><\/em>, the\u00a0Toit\u00fa Otago Settlers Museum<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Royal Albatross Centre<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0in Dunedin. Savor onboard evening shows, endless gourmet delights, and private lectures from Dan. Join our adventurous LDS group as we create memories to last a lifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n Small Group Tour: Group Size Limited to 30 People \u2013 Book Soon!<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, I don\u2019t want to dampen anybody\u2019s enthusiasm for this tour, but I\u2019ve read online that Peterson is not only one of the nastiest people alive but a complete buffoon.\u00a0 Still, Aotearoa or New Zealand is such a wonderful place that even Peterson probably can\u2019t ruin it.\u00a0 And, anyhow, he doesn\u2019t get paid for these junkets beyond simply being compensated for his and his wife\u2019s expenses \u2014 which may well rank him as one of the most dimwitted folks alive, even beyond<\/em> being a depraved monster \u2014 so it\u2019s not as if you\u2019ll be depositing money in his corrupt Swiss bank account should you sign up.\u00a0 This will, I think, be Peterson\u2019s fourth or even fifth trip to New Zealand.\u00a0 Or something on that order.\u00a0 And yet the country has survived.\u00a0 And participants on this cruise may survive, too.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And, of course, thinking about Genesis also gets me, fairly often, to thinking about evolution, which (sometimes) gets me to thinking about Richard Dawkins.\u00a0 In which context, I like the passage below from Alister McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology, <\/em>The 2009 Hulsean Lectures, University of Cambridge ( Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).\u00a0 A word about the author:\u00a0 Formerly (well into his university studies) an atheist but now an ordained Anglican priest, Alister McGrath currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. He has earned three doctorates at Oxford \u2014 first, a D.Phil. in molecular biophysics, then a D.D. (Doctor of Divinity) in theology, and, most recently, a D.Litt. (Doctor of Letters) in intellectual history.<\/span><\/p>\n To illuminate the problem more clearly, we may consider a passage from [Oxford biologist Richard] Dawkins\u2019s early masterpiece of Darwinian popularization, The Selfish Gene<\/em> (1976).\u00a0 This important and influential work supplements overt scientific description with a covert metaphysic, which represents genes as active agents in control of their own destiny and those of their hosts:<\/p>\n [Genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.\u00a0 They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.<\/em><\/p>\n The passage presents a completely defensible scientific statement \u2014 \u201cgenes are in you and me\u201d \u2014 with a series of rather less defensible metaphysical assertions.\u00a0 We are told, for example, that the preservation of our genes \u201cis the ultimate rationale for our existence.\u201d\u00a0 This is, however, simply a presentation of a \u201cgene\u2019s eye view\u201d \u2014 a hypothetical metaphysical way of interpreting scientific observation, which arguably reached its zenith in the early 1980s.\u00a0 This approach conceived the gene as an active controlling agent, which could be regarded as \u201cmanipulating\u201d the destiny of biological entities, including humanity.\u00a0 Yet the empirically verified facts in this statement are limited to the brief statement that genes \u201care in you and me.\u201d\u00a0 The rest is speculative.\u00a0 Metaphysical presuppositions have been smuggled in, and portrayed as if they were scientifically verified facts.<\/p>\n The point becomes clearer by reflecting on the same paragraph, as teasingly rewritten by the Oxford systems biologist Denis Noble.\u00a0 Noble retains what is scientifically valid and verifiable of Dawkins\u2019s prose.\u00a0 Then, in a masterly piece of ideological subversion, he identifies and inverts<\/em> Dawkins\u2019s non-scientific statements.\u00a0 Noble playfully portrays genes as passive, where Dawkins depicts them as active.<\/p>\n [Genes] are trapped in huge colonies, locked inside highly intelligent beings, moulded by the outside world, communicating with it by complex processes, through which, blindly, as if by magic, function emerges. They are in you and me; we are the system that allows their code to be read; and their preservation is totally dependent on the joy that we experience in reproducing ourselves.\u00a0 We are the ultimate rationale for their existence.<\/em>\u00a0 [pages 38-39]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n [To be continued]<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
New Zealand \/ Australia Cruise<\/span><\/h4>\n
13 DAY CRUISE<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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