Are Mormonism and Human Evolution Compatible?

[_asbestosman]

Taking the other POV, how bad would it be if to affirm Mormonism I deny evolution? Perhaps I could affirm LDS doctrine while yet conceding that evolution is probably the best one could do if he rejects God, or at least the LDS version of God. If I did that, how much trouble would I be in? I don't have sufficient evidence in favor of Creationism--at least without accepting the Bible as true which I suppose it is only reasonable that our public schools do not. Maybe if one doesn't reject the Bible, evidence can yet be reconciled with Creationism even if by itself it supports evolution better than creationism?

[_Sethbag]

Taking the other POV, how bad would it be if to affirm Mormonism I deny evolution? Perhaps I could affirm LDS doctrine while yet conceding that evolution is probably the best one could do if he rejects God, or at least the LDS version of God. If I did that, how much trouble would I be in? I don't have sufficient evidence in favor of Creationism--at least without accepting the Bible as true which I suppose it is only reasonable that our public schools do not. Maybe if one doesn't reject the Bible, evidence can yet be reconciled with Creationism even if by itself it supports evolution better than creationism?

I don't know what your bishop might say, but in terms of proselyting efforts, though the uneducated might not even know there's a problem, finding converts among the more educated, who view evolution as a fact, might be more problematic. And that's as it should be, IMHO. The church has been playing the "but we have revelation from God" card for too long, and yet "the goods" they've got to show for it are pretty much directly contradicted by evidence. People not inclined toward magical thinking cannot help but be powerfully influenced by that.

[_truth dancer]

Hey Jason,

I often wonder how one can be so certian about things that are essentially unkowable.

The way I see it, the CHURCH is the one who claims to have the definitive answers.... I think most scientists go with the idea that we learn as we go. The CHRUCH is the one who claims to KNOW God is a man, there was no death until Adam and Eve, there was a war in heaven, God has a body of flesh and bones, etc. etc. etc.

And, it is the church who claims to be receiving truth and knowledge from GOD Himself...

Ya know?

You do not know that evlution is like it claims.

Hmmm... seems to me, every day there is more evidence supporting this "theory." It makes perfect sense, is confirmed in virtually every area of study, and as far as I know, there is no evidence against evolution. Will we know more in the future? Of course, but my guess is, evolution is at the core of life on this planet.

Are you so certain that you cannot let a bit of the mystical and metaphysical benefits that come through faith and religion come into your life.

Are you so certain that Santa Clause doesn't exist that you can't let yourself have faith that there is a magical man flying in the sky with Reindeer and a sleigh bringing you presents? (smile)!

To me, the idea of trying to believe what seems nonsensical TO ME, doesn't make a lot of sense.

You were a strong believer once. How is it that you are so certain a non believer now, as certain a non believer as perhaps you were a TBM before. So many of you have traded one dogma for another.

I know you were not speaking to me but... I am not certain of anything. What I am is very comfortable in living with what seems real, makes sense, and feels right. In other words, for ME, living in a world that required I believe and have faith in what seemed nonsensical and even unholy at times was not a healthy way to live.

I'm fine with suffering for eternity if I am cast out because I can't believe what I am supposed to. For ME, I need to just manage this life in the best way possible and it has greatly helped me to let go of beliefs that (to me), seem harmful, cruel, silly, or unholy.

:-)

~dancer~

[_Sethbag]

As noted a number of times elsewhere here I hold to my faith because of the utility it brings in my life. the joy and meaning and so on. I think you rather overstate what I twist and turn and what is and is not true to me.

The degree to which you have to twist and turn is related directly to the level of knowledge and understanding you have of some of the issues. Since I can't know what state of scientific maturity and knowledge you're at, you're actually correct that I really cannot know what you twist and turn to avoid. I would like to point out though, that resorting to "it works for me" arguments isn't exactly a very powerful argument for the church's ultimate truth. You could find utility, joy, and meaning as a Jehovah's witness, a Zen Buddhist, or a born-again Christian. It really would all come down to personality, what someone was born into, and personal preference, what was actually "true" on that basis. That's not exactly a good reason to regard the LDS church as God's Kingdom on Earth.

I often wonder how one can be so certain about things that are essentially unknowable. You do not know that evolution is like it claims. Sure there are evidences and theories but these change and shift often based on new discoveries. Are you so certain that you cannot let a bit of the mystical and metaphysical benefits that come through faith and religion come into your life.

I regard evolution as a fact. The specific mechanisms by which evolution works are being hammered out and pieced together, and their theories refined, but at this point I think the evidence is so overwhelmingly in favor of evolution as the basic means by which species came about, that I very much doubt that some new developments in the future will overturn it completely. Refine the theory, yes. Overturn it utterly in favor of some kind of God-based special creation, I doubt it.

You were a strong believer once. How is it that you are so certain a non believer now, as certain a non believer as perhaps you were a TBM before. So many of you have traded one dogma for another.

Actually, let me say a few words about this. I have never traded one dogma for another. It's not as if I used to believe my religion but not science, then I started believing science and not religion. I suppose for a short time in my very early teenage years I doubted evolution because those around me in the church doubted evolution, but I did it not really knowing what I was talking about. By my late teens, certainly before I had graduated from High School, I had already reached the point where I took science at face value, and didn't disbelieve it because of contradicting church beliefs.

I actually believed that the church was true, and I believed that science was true. So I believed that they didn't contradict each other, and that somehow, some way, they could be reconciled. But I didn't believe just one, or just the other, but in fact believed them both. What happened next was that over a period of years I began to realize more and more than they really couldn't be reconciled after all. This didn't stop me believing in science, but rather had me, to use the cliché, "putting things on the shelf", and excusing them as not important to my salvation.

By my late 20s, early 30s I would freely admit that the church leaders were simply wrong about some things, but I still believed the church was true, and had an attitude probably a lot like yours, where I concluded that it was simply not important that the church leaders were wrong about some of these things. I really, honestly, deeply believed that the church was true, so of course I had to find a way to be OK with the fact that the church leaders were wrong about some things, like the Flood, aspects of the Adam and Eve story, evolution, etc. In other words, I didn't see, and couldn't see, and wouldn't allow myself to see, that there was in fact a genuine threat to the church's being true, from these things. I literally could not take seriously the prospect that the church might not actually be true. Of course it was true, but there were some problems with some of the doctrine. None of them were important to my salvation, and were things that would some day be rectified by God, or I'd find out when I died, or whatever.

It wasn't until I was around 36 (I'm 38 now) that things came to a head, and there were simply too many things that I'd recognized the church had wrong, that when I learned more details about the Book of Abraham, and about Joseph Smith's rampant, serial adultery (I don't accept his "marriages" as having any legitimacy, so adultery is what we're left with as a term), his lying and deception about the polygamy, etc. I was forced to face up to the idea that the church might not actually be true. The day I actually accepted the church's not being true as a possibility was the turning point where I went from being a true believer, to being on the road to apostasy. I now am very confident in believing that the church is almost certainly not true. I use "almost certainly" in exactly the same sense Richard Dawkins uses it when he says there is almost certainly not a God. It's not an absolute knowledge that the church isn't true, but a recognition that the probability of its actually being true approaches zero.

So I didn't exactly trade in one dogma for another. I believed in both religion and science at the same time, and that worked for me because I truly believed that science was on the right track, and I also believed that the church was true, so I was convinced that there must necessarily be a way that they were reconciled with each other. I believe that this is essentially the state a lot of LDS educated people and scientists are in right now. If you went to BYU and interviewed professors in the biology or physics departments, for example, I believe that this is probably the attitude you'd find. I think the difference for me was that eventually I was willing to recognize that A) the church leadership did in fact have some things wrong, that would not be reconciled with science some day, and that B) in light of the evidence around Joseph Smith, the Book of Abraham, his rampant womanizing, etc. it was possible that the church wasn't actually true. It took almost a conscious effort of will to accept B, by the way. I was such a TBM my whole life that proposition B was something against which I was constitutionally inclined. I had to drag my mind, almost kicking and screaming, to the point where I was willing to take B seriously.

Me I am just happy to still have faith and doubts at the same time and understand there is a hell of a lot I just do not know.

Sure, there's a hell of a lot we don't know. But there's a hell of a lot we do know, too. And it's not really intellectually honest to discount what we do know, simply on the basis of what we don't know.

We can't ever really prove that Columbian drug lords weren't actually responsible for Nicole Brown Simpson's grisly murder, but that doesn't, and shouldn't stop us from taking seriously the evidence that, in fact, OJ really did do it.

[_Nephi]

I think what BCSpace and I are alluding to is that most LDS do NOT believe in the literal fall of Adam and Eve. We see it symbolically.

Nephi are you wacky??? Sorry but most LDS if not almost ALL active LDS believe Adam and Eve are literal and the fall is literal. No question on this one.

Strange because I have had this conversation with many individuals in the church, and I have found that literal is much fewer than symbolic.

[_Nephi]

How is it that you are so certain a non believer now, as certain a non believer as perhaps you were a TBM before. So many of you have traded one dogma for another.

God would rather his children be hot than lukewarm or cold.

[_Jason Bourne]

How is it that you are so certain a non believer now, as certain a non believer as perhaps you were a TBM before. So many of you have traded one dogma for another.

God would rather his children be hot than lukewarm or cold.

This from the believer that thinks the Adam and Eve are not literal and that most LDS believe the same?"

[_Jason Bourne]

I think what BCSpace and I are alluding to is that most LDS do NOT believe in the literal fall of Adam and Eve. We see it symbolically.

Nephi are you wacky??? Sorry but most LDS if not almost ALL active LDS believe Adam and Eve are literal and the fall is literal. No question on this one.

Strange because I have had this conversation with many individuals in the church, and I have found that literal is much fewer than symbolic.

I simply do not believe you. The LDS Church, as has been demonstrated, is built upon the scriptual accounts about this being literal. As McConkie notes, and his speech was quoted here, if Adam and Even did not really fall then we need no Christ. Do you view Jesus as figurative as well?

[_Nephi]

I think what BCSpace and I are alluding to is that most LDS do NOT believe in the literal fall of Adam and Eve. We see it symbolically.

Nephi are you wacky??? Sorry but most LDS if not almost ALL active LDS believe Adam and Eve are literal and the fall is literal. No question on this one.

Strange because I have had this conversation with many individuals in the church, and I have found that literal is much fewer than symbolic.

I simply do not believe you. The LDS Church, as has been demonstrated, is built upon the scriptual accounts about this being literal. As McConkie notes, and his speech was quoted here, if Adam and Even did not really fall then we need no Christ. Do you view Jesus as figurative as well?

Maybe this is how THE CHURCH is (the physical part and the scriptural part) but the members whom I speak with regularly tell me they believe that Adam and Eve was not literal. All I can say is sometimes what is in scripture, and what a CHURCH says is not what its members say. Maybe here in Kentucky things are quite different from Utah in regards to this matter.

[_Dakotah]

The CHRUCH is the one who claims to KNOW God is a man, there was no death until Adam and Eve, there was a war in heaven, God has a body of flesh and bones, etc. etc. etc

Oh no, that isn't quite right. GordieB of the Big 3 said 'I don't know that we believe that' about God was a man and all that old Joe Smith 'King Follet Discours' stuff.

Gordie is the top dude and he must be right!