Mormonism and Evolution

[_sock puppet]

I listened for about a half hour in the garage while working on my latest guitar amp project, and then had to stop to go watch a movie with my wife. I'll finish it up tomorrow. So far I've heard a lot of interesting historical stuff, but nothing yet has really dealt with the problem of existing church doctrine that conflicts with how evolution occurs, eg: death before the Fall. I will return and report tomorrow the rest of the story.

I'm glad I've been able to reconcile it to the satisfaction of most who take the time to understand my hypothesis. And those who aren't are usually left with no adequate argument to cling to. I am looking forward to listening to the podcast, but first, my Sunday duties call and that includes some sleep beforehand.

Your overestimation of your arguments is, as usual, sad but funny. Your viewpoint contradicts both the science and Mormon theology, while advancing neither.

And there ladies and gentlemen, in just 12 words is explained the problem with mopologetics.

[_Buffalo]

A God with those qualities must have evolved from the same primate stock that gave rise to us. It is impossible for him to have the same origin as us, and still be called our Creator.

Why not? Why can't God, who created the Universe, guide evolution into creating bodies like His?

You obviously don't understand what evolution is. Intelligent guidance is in direct conflict with evolution, which is propelled by environment and natural selection.

[_Sethbag]

I finished the podcast. Dan Wotherspoon actually let his guests talk a lot, and I don't feel he stepped on them unreasonably at all.

I think the podcast is probably a success if its target audience is LDS believers who want to believe that continued belief in the face of evolution is justified. I don't really agree with that premise, but then I'm not a believer anymore, either.

I don't think that just any old believer could find this podcast satisfying though. A believer who has recognized that the apologetic arguments almost always end up making some excuses that they would not allow in arguments over any other topic will recognize that in the end, that is done here too.

The podcast contains many historical references to past disagreements among GAs of the previous century, and some professors from BYU in the early 1900s who got fired for teaching evolution, and the fallout from that. The short version is that after some initial anti-evolution statements, the First Presidency decided to try to take a more conciliatory approach and simply declare that the church had no official position on evolution, or on the age of the Earth.

Now, some church members would pump their fists in the air and yell out "See! The church has no stand on evolution! Science doesn't disprove Mormonism! Woooooooot! In your face apostates!"

They would be premature to do so, IMHO. Evolution and the science that goes along with it have some requirements that seem to conflict with long-established Mormon doctrines, and these were not adequately dealt with, either by the GAs of yesteryear, nor by these panelists.

For instance, I did hear one of the panel mention death before the Fall, but then it was never adequately resolved how Mormonism gets out of the obvious problem that science has demonstrated that things have been living and dying for billions of years. Maybe I need to listen to the podcast again, but I never heard this one being dealt with head-on and completely - it was merely mentioned, then forgotten as the conversation evolved elsewhere.

The panelists did recognize that some things the Mormons believe in pretty much have to be considered symbolic, and not literal. They seemed to believe that this was too easy. It was acknowledged that Mormons believe that Adam was a literal person, named Michael in the pre-existence, who actually existed. The most honest answer we got in the whole podcast was when it was generally agreed that the conflict between regarding Adam as figurative, and regarding Adam as Michael, a person who actually existed and did the things Mormons teach that he did, simply could not be resolved. They agreed that the best they could do was shrug and admit that the simply don't know.

One of the panelists, I forget his name, actually gushed about how evolution, in his view, really added a lot of richness to Mormon doctrine, and that he felt that of all religions, Mormonism was uniquely suited to fit hand in hand with evolution. I very much doubt that this gentleman has wrestled with the kinds of problems described by The Dude in his threads here on the nature of homo sapiens, and the evolutionary process that has lead to our existence. This panelist seems to look intently for any shred of an idea that can harmonize evolution and Mormon doctrine, while studiously ignoring the entire troop of 800 lb gorillas in the room. He makes a lot of parallels between evolution and eternal progression, for instance, but doesn't touch how it is that God is a homo sapiens, but who "guided" evolution for billions of years on Earth until homo sapiens existed.

Joseph Smith taught that Adam was a real person, that as Michael he helped create the Earth, that as the man Adam he was the first human being on Earth, and his "Fall" in the Garden of Eden caused the entire Earth to fall from a perfect, immortal state where nothing on Earth died nor procreated, to a "terrestrial" state where death entered the world for the first time, and procreation became possible. The Fall was necessary, as taught in Mormon doctrine. I recall this was important enough doctrine that it was part of the missionary discussions when I was out selling Mormonism to the Swiss.

One of the main explanations for Jesus' death and resurrection is that the Fall had brought death into the world, and Jesus' death and resurrection were necessary to overcome the Fall and conquer death. If you make the Adam/Michael and Eve, Garden of Eden, "Fall of Adam" story figurative, you've knocked out perhaps the primary argument for the Atonement of Jesus that the church offers. Make these arguments, and you are admitting that Joseph Smith was really just making it up as he went along. You can't have it both ways. Either Joseph Smith was talking with God and getting his information through revelation, as he claimed, or he was making it up as he went along. This strange fusion of making some of it up, and getting some of it through revelation, and yet teaching it all as if it was 100% revealed, is entirely unsatisfying on really any level.

[_Tarski]

A God with those qualities must have evolved from the same primate stock that gave rise to us. It is impossible for him to have the same origin as us, and still be called our Creator.

Why not? Why can't God, who created the Universe, guide evolution into creating bodies like His?

It you allow intelligent design, then the very thing that evolution is supposed to explain no longer needs explaining.

Once your figure out that Santa's elves are not really making toys at the north pole, it is silly to declare that he is still somehow deputizing the factory workers at Mattel as honorary elves to make the toys.

The changing environment guides evolution. The environment hasn't the slightest hint of purposefulness. That's the whole point of the theory. It is also why animals -including us--turn out to be cobbled, imperfect works in progress rather than an end result of a goal. We are a blindly cobbled bundle of sometimes comical compromises and often poor (pseudo) design. Even our upright posture causes problems for us.
We are in many ways a mess--a mess programmed to admire our messy selves. Our form is anything but God-like.
We are ugly slimy booger filled bags of guts squirming around selfishly on a ball of mud to which we are partially adapted. Matter has bumbled its way to this point.

[_Tarski]

I very much doubt that this gentleman has wrestled with the kinds of problems described by The Dude in his threads here on the nature of homo sapiens, and the evolutionary process that has lead to our existence.

I'm not sure but I think you might be thinking mostly of threads I wrote. While The Dude certainly made plenty of great posts on this topic and was on board with my rants way back when, this was originally my main soap box in the FAIR message board days.

It used to be those threads could be found by searching for "primates all the way back" or "turtles all the way down". Another issue was about Spirit body form and heavenly procreation etc. etc.
I've been on this hobby horse since I was 12. LOL

One such post:

There used to be a puzzle: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
One answer used to be "neither! There has always been chickens and eggs"
This seems deep at first until you put before your minds eye this eternal succession of ...egg, chicken, egg, chicken, egg, .... That is a very definite pattern there, one is led to ask why that pattern? Why that particular (and peculiar) pattern?
Now that we understand evolution the problem disappears. A fairly detail story can be told about how the egg system came about.

The chicken egg thing reminds me of an anectdote told by Steven Hawking:

Stephen Hawking in A Brief History Of Time starts with the anecdote.
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a
public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the
sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection
of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at
the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish.
The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant
tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is
the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever,"
said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

Now to me the idea of God having human form because his eternal father before him had that form etc. etc. is like the chicken egg thing (mentioned on another thread by Zak). It is also a kind of "turtling all the way down". Perhaps we can say "primate-ing all the way back". Stand back and look at this human form repeating itself since forever back in time. One sees a definite unexplained pattern. Why that pattern? Why the human form. Were there thumbs and toenail, eyebrows, and hair since forever? Why?
This puzzle is also solved by neatly evolutionary biology but we have to abandon the doctrine. Toenails and hair and so on are not eternal patterns. They are contingent of bio-historical accidents.
Evolution is indeed incompatible with this doctrine about God's alledged physical shape.

Most of the best old one's have been deleted:

Here is a snippet from the middle of a more recent (a year or so ago) thread:

I will address what you posted so we don't keep going in circles but let me point out that you still don't get my point.
I have to break this into two posts since I end up with more than the allowed number of quotes blocks so look for a follow up.

1) Here is what I asked for: "Tell me clearly what the appeal to design or the complexity of life can do to provide evidence of a God that Mormons can accept--one consistent with traditional interpretation of the King Follet discourses and the resulting common beliefs in Mormonism. I am addressing those that believe God was once a man who had his own God etc. How are they served by appealing to complexity and apparent design? How???"

2) Here is what you mysteriously think I asked for: "Please explain how there can be a mammal God without there having been a designer God above our God.

I do not claim Mormons are forced into a original super-God. I merely claim the following:

3) My claim: Appeal to notions complexity/design are said to provide evidence for God. However, they specifically are thought to provide evidence for a ddesigner of life etc! Such a God who would be the designer of even the human form does not fit well with the most common version of Mormon theology (what you called the classical picture).
Please focus on just the claim for a minute!

Now I can add the observation that your evo-God theory also has no designer and so one holding to your theory would also have no evidential use for the observed complexity and apparent design of nature. (And you never claimed that it did--you are trying to promote your theory as a way around the super-God which is fine. Just fine. I have a way around the super God too (and any God at all) and it is called biological evolution. OK? Now look at my clam (3) again. See? You cannot refute it by inventing Mormon friendly theologies that have no designer God. It is a different topic. I only claimed what I claimed. I did not every say that that Mormons are forced into a super-God. I only say that Mormons who appeal to 'complexity" etc. as evidence for something divine end up with a designer God and must find a way to fit this with classical Mormon theology or just abandon classical Mormon theology or any variation of it that does not include a designer God. Either that or abandon the idea that complexity is evidence of a designer.

[_The Dude]

Tarski, although I already though Mormonism and evolution were incompatible, your posts on FAIR opened my eyes to this particular issue.

I gave you some credit earlier in this thread when I used your comparison to lawnmowers existing before lawns. I like this one because it points to the subtle issue of things existing for a survival purpose, and how their existence without functional need is very illogical. I think it is a more subtle and elegant issue than "turtles all the way down", but just as deadly.

[_Sethbag]

Yes, of course, Tarski you did post the things on MAD back in the day that really got me going about the ridiculousness of the primate god. Absolutely. The Dude has also posted his take on similar arguments. I didn't mean to exclude you from my post. I was focused more on the opinion that the panel members who were so in love with evolution and Mormonism on the podcast have simply not really examined the full ramifications of evolution on Mormon doctrine. Rather, they focus on loose parallels such as "evolution->change over time" and "eternal progression->change over time".

Well, yes, they are both change over time. But evolution has the early mammals (themselves descended from earlier life-forms going all the way back to single cells) going to early hominids, eventually evolving through the ancestor species of genus homo, finally to what we see now as homo sapiens. Mormonism has things becoming more glorified over time, but still the same "species", as it were. Ie: we were human spirits, then human bodies, then resurrected human beings, then exalted human beings. But it was always humans, not change into humans from some more primitive species of life form. The parallel is only on the surface.

And they never even seem to recognize that as you have pointed out, Tarski, and the Dude as well, it's quite ridiculous that the Mormon concept of God is as a human being, however glorified.

[_Buffalo]

Tarski's posts really helped me to see how illogical the LDS concept of God is. Thanks Tarski!

[_Tarski]

Tarski, although I already though Mormonism and evolution were incompatible, your posts on FAIR opened my eyes to this particular issue.

I didn't mean to be a credit hog. ;)
I am just pissed that they seem to have deleted all of that old stuff. I put a lot of effort into some of that (except the spelling etc. LOL). I am lucky I found the tower of turtles one and I could never find the post with the lawn mower analogy.

By the way, biologist Lewis Held just sent me some material that is really an eye opener. Take a look at his book:
Quirks of Human Anatomy: an Evo-Devo Look at the Human Body.
http://www.amazon.com/Quirks-Human-Anat ... 0521732336

Lewis is not a Mormon or an ex-Mo and as far as I know has no idea about King Follet style Mormon theology but his book is perfect to drive home the point of the ridiculousness of the primate god and his endless string of predecessors.

I can't imagine how anyone could read that book and still think that the "all being master of time space and dimension" (as Steve Martin would say) has a human form.

[_The Dude]

By the way, biologist Lewis Held just sent me some material that is really an eye opener. Take a look at his book:
Quirks of Human Anatomy: an Evo-Devo Look at the Human Body.
http://www.amazon.com/Quirks-Human-Anat ... 0521732336

Thanks for the tip. Looks like a good read for me.