Can Mormons Believe in Evolution? (Click here for the answer

[_moksha]

This thread has been very enlightening for me. It is a clear example of how TBMs can twist in your face reality to mean something quite different. We have an over the pulpit first presidency official statement. Every bit as official as the proclamation on the family, the 1978 change on the priesthood, the manifesto, etc. How more official can a statement be?

And when a later Church President says that there is no policy one way or the other, is that to be ignored?

[_Sethbag]

This thread has been very enlightening for me. It is a clear example of how TBMs can twist in your face reality to mean something quite different. We have an over the pulpit first presidency official statement. Every bit as official as the proclamation on the family, the 1978 change on the priesthood, the manifesto, etc. How more official can a statement be?

And when a later Church President says that there is no policy one way or the other, is that to be ignored?

No. That's just further evidence that they aren't consistent.

[_moksha]

No. That's just further evidence that they aren't consistent.

Inconsistent? So what's new?

[_Tal Bachman]

What you're arguing is that a prophet must be infallible, Tal. And you know LDS don't believe that. Joseph F Smith is allowed to be wrong. So is Joseph Smith. The only infallible man that ever lived was Jesus Christ; the rest of us all get to be wrong now and then. We get to see through a glass darkly.

If you expected LDS prophets, or even ancient prophets, to be right all the time, you were destined to be disappointed. But that's not our (meaning the faithful who do not require that prophets be 100% correct all the time) fault. It's not our problem that you didn't trust your own relationship with God enough to figure out when a prophet is right and when he is wrong. However, that doesn't mean that particular problem afflicts us all. Some of us are quite content to point out when the prophet is wrong... and when he's right. That you could not do that is not our problem

---Thanks Harmony, for demonstrating yet another mindgame.

In this case, the content of an official First Presidency statement to the church presenting "ETERNAL TRUTH" on the matter of man's origin, including an explanation of just what the relevant scriptures on this point mean, and republished in the official church magazine only a few years ago, is equated by you with any old flippant comment from a "prophet", like Brigham Young's comment on moonmen. But surely, not even you, when you are forced to be honest with yourself, can really equate those two things. How sad that it comes to this for us...

Not to put too fine a point on it: you have changed the question. The question isn't, and never has been, "can a Mormon prophet be wrong, and still be considered a prophet"?

A better question would be: "If a Mormon prophet, along with his two counselors, claiming to be pronouncing 'eternal truth' in their official capacity of prophets in an official statement to the church, while in fact teaching the entire church false doctrine on a matter relevant to their personal salvation, doesn't qualify as 'leading the church astray'.....what on earth would?"

Now, follow me here, Harmony.

If you say that Mormon leaders, speaking ex officio, can NOT "lead the church astray", then you're going to have to do more than insinuate that tens of thousands of people who have come to acknowledge the painful reality that Mormonism cannot possibly be what it claims, have a "problem".

You would, for example, have to present scriptural, doctrinal, or "official FP"-style evidence supporting your claim that belief that mankind evolved "from lower orders", is somehow reconcilable within the bounds of orthodoxy with an official FP statement saying that we absolutely didn't.

And by the way, if you can do that, then you've just announced your opinion that official First Presidency statements can be completely ignored at the discretion of any individual member. And if you do that, then you've just announced that in and of themselves, official FP statements are nothing more than blank screens on to which members may project whatever they want, based on what they "feel" God is telling them. And if you do that, then you've just announced your opinion that the Mormon Church - once a literalist, authoritarian fundamentalism - has become a religious parody of post-modernism. And if you do that, then you've announced your opinion that "Mormon belief", in the end, is exactly what I suggested it was in my very first post on this thread: a product of the human psyche - as opposed to the result of back-from-the-dead people living near a star called Kolob beaming messages to us. You would, in short, agree with me.

If you say that, in effect, they CAN lead the church astray when speaking ex officio, you are in no better shape. You would, for example, have to explain how this belief can be reconciled with this canonized point of doctrine from the D&C: "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray".

In answering this way, you would furthermore also have acknowledged that Mormon "prophets", even when speaking in their official capacity as "prophets", should be granted no more credibility than any other holy men in any other religion. This, too, would amount to a concession that you agree with me.

Now all of what I just said above, as far as I can tell, follows logically. Does it matter to you? NO - right now it doesn't. And why doesn't it?

Because Mormon belief never had anything to do with facts, or logic, or any constraint on thinking or knowing or believing whatsoever, in the first place. And therefore, it is impervious to facts or logic now.

Mormon "belief", it appears, is actually only a particular pleasing psychological state. It's one in which we feel belonging, and rightness, and certitude, and a hundred pleasing things. It is no wonder we fight so hard to keep ourselves in it.

Now...I can hardly imagine that anyone would leave a religion they loved believing in, and which they considered "the one true religion", simply because of what appears to be an isolated "anomaly" like the one presented on this thread (to wit, an official FP statement which identifies the theory of evolution as false). I certainly wouldn't - in fact, I didn't.

But a few more interesting questions go beyond any one or five or ten anomalies, and ask things like this:

Would you leave your religion if you found out it was false?

Religious certainty being so common to so many religious believers, how would you even know if your religion was false?

If, by some unfathomable chance, it were false...would you want to know? Even if it were excruciatingly painful?

If you found out you were in The Matrix, would you even want to leave?

Just asking.

[_Sethbag]

No. That's just further evidence that they aren't consistent.

Inconsistent? So what's new?

Nothing. They've been making it up as they went along since the days of Joseph Smith.

[_Jason Bourne]

This thread has been very enlightening for me. It is a clear example of how TBMs can twist in your face reality to mean something quite different. We have an over the pulpit first presidency official statement. Every bit as official as the proclamation on the family, the 1978 change on the priesthood, the manifesto, etc. How more official can a statement be? Any yet we have people on this thread twisting this to be just opinion? If it is opinion, then the whole church and everything ever said by a prophet is opinion, including (shudder) the modern prophets GBH and TSM. Tell me, how is this any different than something Billy Grahm or any other religious leader would say?

I have to agree. I need to go back and see if anyone is saying the FP statement was simply opinion. But I do not see how it can be called as such. Earlier inthe thread I commented about the problem believing that man evolved causes for the doctrine of the fall and atonement ( and will again note it causes a problem for all Christians) and I think that is the point the FP statement makes about this. But it is problematic. How can we as LDS so simply set aside so much of what apostles and prophets of old say when it becomes difficult and/or unsavory yet teach that we must follow the brethren and we will not be led astray. This has been one of the most troublesome issues for me and the main reason I decided apologetics just did not really work for me any more.

[_bcspace]

The FP clearly denounced evolution.

CFR

[_Tarski]

The FP clearly denounced evolution.

CFR

You would like to avoid the obvious it seems. But lets look again

"It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race."

Now my question to you is this. If this is not meant to rebut the idea that man evolved from lower forms then what is it?? Why even take the time to make this statement? And which theories of man do you think they are refering to? I would guess that everyone to the person hears a reference to evolutionary theory here. But if that s the case, once again God's prophet can't seem to make himself clear! He has a habit of saying things in a way that makes 99.9% of his listeners misunderstand.
I don't think so. This is a statement to rebuke the notion that humans evolved from "lower" life forms. Its a plain as it could be.

You have apostles and prophets repeatedly coming out against evolution, calling it heresy, a theory of man, etc. etc. and you still can't see it?
You may as well claim that the church is not officially opposed to homosexual activity.

So I repeat, in your world, what the heck was the FP trying to say? And, why would it be so important to bring up if it doesn't really contradict any of the theories of man that people might be wondering about?

[_Chap]

The FP clearly denounced evolution.

CFR

The Ensign article referenced in the OP introduces itself as follows:

In the early 1900s, questions concerning the Creation of the earth and the theories of evolution became the subject of much public discussion. In the midst of these controversies, the First Presidency issued the following in 1909, which expresses the Church’s doctrinal position on these matters.

So what follows is doctrine, and refers to the theory of evolution.

And the First Presidency statement contains the following explicit rejection of the evolution of mankind ‘from lower orders’:

It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.

True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man.

What more evidence does any faithful LDS need?

[_bcspace]

It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth

How does evolution preclude Adam from being the first man on earth? LDS defines a man as a physical body with a spirit child of God.

and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men.

That the physical body was devolped from lower orders is indeed a theory of man. Where is the LDS rejection of that theory?

The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.

Amen! How does this preclude evolution?

True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man.

Amen! How does this preclude evolution?

What more evidence does any faithful LDS need?

Some doctrine that precludes evolution. So far, there is none.