But there has been a recent thread at MADB that has surprised me like few have. In it, elgaunteloko innocently asks what I considered a somewhat naïve question:
Folks, in the last thread I opened, some people (quite more than I expected, actually) expressed that they took the creation story not as a hard historical fact but as a symbol. The obvious question now is, how literally do you take the genesis as accounted in LDS scripture to be? In particular, how much of the "Adam and Eve" story do you take as actually having occured?
(emphasis added)
Upon reading this question, I thought this would have to be the shortest, most one-sided thread in the history of discussion boards. As all LDS know, there are three events in the history of the Plan of Salvation that are so important, they are called "pillars". As described in this Sunday School lesson, the creation and Fall are two of them.
I'm long used to apologetic arguments that dance around admittedly peripheral issues like whether or not evolution was used to create Adam's body, or the scope of Noah's flood. But here, a questioner asks whether LDS could ever doubt the literalness of the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall. How could that be possible?!
But apparently, it is possible. Several LDS shared their doubts about the literal nature of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit/fall story (see posts #2, #3, #4...) Before the end of the first page, other LDS arrive to state the obvious: the story of Adam and Eve and the fall has to be literally true, or all of Mormon doctrine is in jeopardy. While the thread meanders off into discussions of evolution and Noah's flood, taken as a whole it becomes an excellent illustration of what happens when Internet Mormons meet Chapel Mormons, and how Chapel Mormons react when Internet Mormons go too far.