Are Mormonism and Human Evolution Compatible?

[_Runtu]

I can't fault you for that. I hope you never have to choose between the church and your own path. It's not much fun.

Honestly, I would be more worried about the repercussions within my family than anything else.

That would be the "not much fun" part. At least it has been for me.

[_Jason Bourne]

I will be more than happy to ask around as to who believes that Adam and Eve are symbolic, but I never said there wasn't a fall. The fall is symbolic as well. Please read what I said. I stipulated that Adam and Eve symbolize something else, as does the fall.

If there is nobody in paradise to commit sin and fall how was there a fall? If the fall is symbolic then is Jesus and the atonement symbolic? Do you think the writers of the Bible and Book of Mormon believed Adam and Eve and the fall were all symbolic myths?

However, since we are not talking about Adam and Eve or the Fall in GD this Sunday, it would be inappropriate for me to do as you ask.

So ask around or bring it up in your priesthood meeting.

Can do. Personally, I believe "the fall" is when man went from natural animal in the environment to un-natural human trying to control his environment (maybe with the discovery of fire?)... But that fall, the point when we went from innocent animal to non-innocent humans. Was it a decisive line drawn in the sand? Probably not, and occurred over a few thousand years, but there is a point where we were no longer of "natural" status, so to speak.

I doubt you would get far with your bishop or SP preaching that in a sacrament meeting talk.

[_Nephi]

I will be more than happy to ask around as to who believes that Adam and Eve are symbolic, but I never said there wasn't a fall. The fall is symbolic as well. Please read what I said. I stipulated that Adam and Eve symbolize something else, as does the fall.

If there is nobody in paradise to commit sin and fall how was there a fall? If the fall is symbolic then is Jesus and the atonement symbolic? Do you think the writers of the Bible and Book of Mormon believed Adam and Eve and the fall were all symbolic myths?

However, since we are not talking about Adam and Eve or the Fall in GD this Sunday, it would be inappropriate for me to do as you ask.

So ask around or bring it up in your priesthood meeting.

Can do. Personally, I believe "the fall" is when man went from natural animal in the environment to un-natural human trying to control his environment (maybe with the discovery of fire?)... But that fall, the point when we went from innocent animal to non-innocent humans. Was it a decisive line drawn in the sand? Probably not, and occurred over a few thousand years, but there is a point where we were no longer of "natural" status, so to speak.

I doubt you would get far with your bishop or SP preaching that in a sacrament meeting talk.

Actually, I did a talk about the fall shortly after joining the church, and I talked about a symbolic way to interpret the fall and Adam and Eve. I also went over the literal interpretation. No one came up to me to attack me, and many told me they were very happy to hear of other Mormons who understood the symbolism behind it. I never stipulated, though, in my talk of which way I interpreted the passage, and I spoke to my (then) bishop about the points of my talk prior to giving it. This is a different ward, now, though.

[_bcspace]

I am quite sure I believe all the doctrines of the Church 100% and I take great care to make sure that my opinions, which fill in where doctrine does not reach, does not conflict with existing doctrine. Seth calls this 'finding loopholes', but the reality is that either he does not know what LDS doctrine is or he has been stymied because his favorite attacks have no traction because they are strawmen.

I guess this is the difference in us. I do not allow a church define who I am.

Neither to I. I have examined the Church and found all it's doctrines to be correct. It is the pinnacle of Christianity.

I ponder and apply what truths I know to what is taught, but in the end, I am myself, and I believe what I know to be true. Just because the church I am a member of teaches something doesn't mean I change myself to align to it. That is dangerous, and robs one of their free agency.

Never happened to me.

by the way: to answer your call to find anti's who are not lazy in their research, if I were to find one, I believe you would tell me that the individual is not an anti. Kinda circular logic in a way.

Your own belief does not translate to circular logic on my part.

[_bcspace]

I do not think evolution is even remotely compatible with Mormonism unless....

Mormonism has no actual doctrine/teaching on the topic;

This is indeed the case. The church has officially responded in answer to questions about evolution, but it has only reiterated doctrine which does not precluded evolution in any way.

the words of prophets (spoken as prophets), are just opinion; scripture is not to be taken as the word of God, (even if it is translated correctly);

the endowment is just dressing up for the entertainment, teachings on the topic are just guesses and interesting ideas, and believers can come up with whatever theories they want so long as they hold to the statement that the church is true.

There is nothing in the creation story that precludes evolution.

I have come to observe that so long as someone states that the church is true, it simply does not matter what one believes.

I have come to observe that when an antiMormon is confronted with such, they apply a strawman 'stereotypical' set of beliefs before finding out how one can believe what they actually do.

[_bcspace]

So it's crap if the intro to the BD itself says it's not doctrinal?

Of course. This is pure and simple trying to have it both ways. The church teaches something, but then disclaims it as "not doctrinal"?

It is not having it both ways when the BD has always been presented as nondoctrinal.

I use the Bible Dictionary entry just because it's the most accessible to me and I remember that it's in there.

No, you use it because it is your best argument. If only it were doctrine.....lol

You and I both know that the doctrine of nothing having died on Earth until Adam fell has definitely been taught a lot in the LDS church.

It has and that because the Church comes out of a time when creationism affects the way we read scripture when there is no official doctrine. However, I notice that even early in the last century, the Church avoided any pronouncement for or against evolution and it has always been that way.

So, when you latch onto the BD's disclaimer, which part do you think is not doctrinal?

Those parts not found in doctrinal works.

What about the line near the end of the entry where it says that these things being literally true are confirmed through modern revelation?

You have two things to worry about.

1. Is such repeated in a doctrinal work?
2. What is the context of 'forms of life'? Finished and placed in the garden or pre-garden?

Are you saying that the claim that these things are verified through modern revelation is one of the statements that might be wrong?

Not at all.

You are. You seem to be afflicted with the same delusion that haunts many older generation LDS who inccorectly assumed that the statement of any Apostle (contrary to D&C 107) is doctrine.

Ah, you mean, things taught by the Prophets, Seers, and Revelators? But I'm not even saying that any little word ever uttered by a given apostle must be church doctrine. I'm talking about widely taught, and widely accepted doctrines,

Such does not define what the official doctrine of the Church is.

and the "no death before the Fall" doctrine falls into that category. You can't now just disclaim this as one of Bruce R. McConkie's delusions; this doctrine precedes him by many decades in the church.

Not the standard of doctrine.

What haunts the younger generation then?

Nothing.

BCSpace, you are a perfect example of exactly what I'm talking about when I say there are members, and there are some on this board, who wish to believe in their own, personalized form of Mormonism.

You are the perfect example of a raving antiMormon who has been stymied in his favorite arguments because he did not know what the doctrine is. Lazy research......

You don't believe the same things that our grandparents and parents in the church believed.

Once again, not the standard for doctrine.

You've chosen to jettison, as you should, the false teachings of our past prophets as you've seen them become no longer viable,

The only thing I've jettisoned are opinions. Some of them very strong and very well reasoned, until now.

but you are missing the whole point, which is that this religion was, is, and always will be manmade in the first place!

I would agree that all religion except for the LDS Church is manmade.

You still want to believe that the church is somehow "true", but you don't want to deal with having to believe the kinds of things that the church has traditionally believed.

That only works against other christians. Tradition does not official doctrine make.

And you don't want to deal with the fact that LDS prophets have a long history of making statements of fact that turn out to be false, and have thereby shot their credibility all to hell.

You sound like one of those BAC's who believe that all the words spoken by the prophets are found in the Bible and that they never had any opinions nor expressed anything that turned out to be false. I understand that mortal men, even the prophets are fallible, you do not and hold us to a standard that is either higher than you hold others or to a standard that does not exist in rationality.

Somehow the church can be true, at the same time as the words of the prophets are meaningless,

Opinions are opinions.

and when the teachings of the church can be disclaimed at will.

Here you confuse teachings of the Church with opinions.

[_bcspace]

Seriously, these are three references I found in just a few minutes on lds.org. There are a lot more teachings that make it clear that LDS doctrine is that Adam and Eve came about in a world in which there was no death, no blood in bodies, no ability to beget children, etc., and that is entirely incompatible with evolution. You can try to poke and prod and find more loopholes, but the bottom line is that the teachings of the LDS church with respect to the creation of Adam and Eve are simply not compatible with evolution. They only are compatible with evolution in the Gospel of BCSpace, Nephi, and Nehor.

2 Nephi 2:22 is no loophole. It is an actual scripture stating that this was the state they were created into. Therefore, there was a state previous (the creative) with no declaration as to what it was or how it occured. Therefore evolution can easily fit without being contrary to LDS doctrine.

[_bcspace]

Even if we allow for this, you have to convert a lot of words from normal usage into a spiritual jargon. That's the only way to make Adam the father of our race, or the first man, or the head of a lineage.

How so? If Adam was the first physical body to be fit for habitation by a human spirit, then Adam is the father of our race, the first man, etc. etc.

[_Sethbag]

Yes, it is a loophole. You're trying to stretch the words "after they were created" into this notion that God used evolution on earth, where things lived and died for billions of years, human beings came into existence, invented written language, the agricultural revolution, the wheel, fire, and had already created the first proto-civilizations some thousands of years before, but none of the human beings so existing were set up quite right to house a human spirit, then all of a sudden BAM the creative period was over, the earth suddenly changed from a mortal world, where things lived and died, had blood in their veins, had sex, bore children, etc. to a state where there was no blood in things, nothing died, nobody could have sex, nobody could bear children, etc.

Somehow a man Adam, who was himself the son of two of the existing homo sapiens, was just different enough that his body could house a human spirit, and he and his wife Eve, who miraculously also happened to have a body, unlike her own homo sapiens parents, which was configured right for the housing of a human spirit, found themselves alone and completely innocent in this paridisical Garden of Eden. A demon-god named Satan tempted Adam and Eve to eat a certain piece of fruit, and suddenly Adam knew right from wrong. Adam and Eve realized that they were naked, that they had genitals that liked to be touched and rubbed, and figured out how to have sex, and started giving birth to more homo sapiens whose bodies were configured to house human spirits.

Meanwhile, outside the Garden of Eden, all of the non-human homo sapiens had been stuck in some kind of stasis where all the activities, even the beating of their own hearts pumping real blood through their veins, had come to a screeching halt waiting for Adam to eat that fruit. Suddenly, after the Fall, they all continued on just as before, continuing to build their civilizations, of which we have some fleeting records, and ruins, and so forth, and continued giving birth to a great many homo sapiens that just happen to be the ancestors to a lot of the human beings on earth today. So, were all of these homo sapiens, who previously had not been set up right to house human spirits, somehow changed so that their offspring from that moment on started housing human spirits? No! And why not? Because they wouldn't have been descendants of Adam, that's why! And we all know that all real human beings are descendants of Adam.

Which leads us inexorably to the conclusion that there are a great many non-real human beings on earth today, whose ancestry goes back through all the homo sapiens on earth who didn't have human spirits, and who have no ancestors who came from Adam and Eve.

So, who are they? Are they the black folks? Maybe the Australian Aborigines? Maybe the eskimos? Maybe it's the Japanese? Is it the French?

Let's hear it, BCSpace. Who are the homo sapiens on earth today who aren't really human, because although they're genetically compatible with the rest of us people, their bodies, not having descended from Adam and Eve, but rather from the pre-Adamites, are not configured to house human spirits?

Do you realize just how stupid this all is? And that utter stupidity is what you're trying to preserve, or something like unto it, with your "loophole" in 2 Nephi 2:22. Trying to keep human history the way we now know it looks like, and evolution, and all the rest, and yet maintain a literal Garden of Eden story with Adam, the father of all of us "real" humans, is just stupid. It's a complete and total non-starter. Dude, you're trying to justify, and defend, and hold onto, a completely discredited belief system. Can't you see this? What is it about this belief system that it has such a hold on you that you're willing to go to just plain old stupid lengths to help it maintain, in your mind, some modicum of viability?

Why does your belief system have to maintain a modicum of viability? Why can't you just be wrong about your religious beliefs? It's not like you'd be the first one. In fact, according to the beliefs of your church, almost everyone on earth who exists today, or who ever has existed, has been wrong in their religious beliefs. Why is it that you can't allow yourself to follow the exceedingly common human trait of having been convinced, and yet been wrong, about your religious beliefs?

[_bcspace]

Yes, it is a loophole. You're trying to stretch the words "after they were created" into this notion that God used evolution on earth, where things lived and died for billions of years, human beings came into existence, invented written language, the agricultural revolution, the wheel, fire, and had already created the first proto-civilizations some thousands of years before, but none of the human beings so existing were set up quite right to house a human spirit, then all of a sudden BAM the creative period was over, the earth suddenly changed from a mortal world, where things lived and died, had blood in their veins, had sex, bore children, etc. to a state where there was no blood in things, nothing died, nobody could have sex, nobody could bear children, etc.

No stretch at all as 2 Nephi 2:22 simply speaks of the state into which man was created. It says nothing that puts up any time limits. Again you are grasping because your favorite argument is destroyed.

Somehow a man Adam, who was himself the son of two of the existing homo sapiens, was just different enough that his body could house a human spirit, and he and his wife Eve, who miraculously also happened to have a body, unlike her own homo sapiens parents,

LOL! Only a scientific illiterate would be opposed to evolution.

which was configured right for the housing of a human spirit, found themselves alone and completely innocent in this paridisical Garden of Eden.

There has to be some point when a body is ready to house a spirit.

A demon-god named Satan tempted Adam and Eve to eat a certain piece of fruit, and suddenly Adam knew right from wrong.

I don't think there was anything magical here. When consequences are applied, one begins to know the difference between good and evil.

Adam and Eve realized that they were naked, that they had genitals that liked to be touched and rubbed, and figured out how to have sex, and started giving birth to more homo sapiens whose bodies were configured to house human spirits.

Who said anything about not having sex?

Meanwhile, outside the Garden of Eden, all of the non-human homo sapiens had been stuck in some kind of stasis where all the activities, even the beating of their own hearts pumping real blood through their veins, had come to a screeching halt waiting for Adam to eat that fruit.

Says who?

So, who are they? Are they the black folks? Maybe the Australian Aborigines? Maybe the eskimos? Maybe it's the Japanese? Is it the French?

Sure. No prob.

Let's hear it, BCSpace. Who are the homo sapiens on earth today who aren't really human, because although they're genetically compatible with the rest of us people, their bodies, not having descended from Adam and Eve, but rather from the pre-Adamites, are not configured to house human spirits?

Who said I believe any of the words you are putting in my mouth?

Do you realize just how stupid this all is? And that utter stupidity is what you're trying to preserve, or something like unto it, with your "loophole" in 2 Nephi 2:22. Trying to keep human history the way we now know it looks like, and evolution, and all the rest, and yet maintain a literal Garden of Eden story with Adam, the father of all of us "real" humans, is just stupid.

Since it fills in details that are not revealed by God, it's not stupid at all.

Why does your belief system have to maintain a modicum of viability? Why can't you just be wrong about your religious beliefs?

Whenever you show any dregree of wrongness, I will agree. But you have yet to do so.

It's not like you'd be the first one. In fact, according to the beliefs of your church, almost everyone on earth who exists today, or who ever has existed, has been wrong in their religious beliefs. Why is it that you can't allow yourself to follow the exceedingly common human trait of having been convinced, and yet been wrong, about your religious beliefs?

I have followed said human trait. I am convinced that I am right.