Reconciling Genesis and Evolution

[_Stormy Waters]

Even as a believer, why be constrained to hold onto the most impossible portions? Why not regard it as sacred fiction and refuse to let it impose on the worthwhile things you believe?

As usual, I agree with the penguin.

I see no reason why we should try to impose an understanding of evolution on the ancient authors of Genesis. There is nothing in the creation account there to imply such an understanding.

I also think it a mistake to impose modern ideas of cosmology on the account, where it is obvious the author thought of the earth and the heavens in a very different way from current conceptions.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

I should clarify. I do not see a textual conflict in the book of Genesis with evolution. The creation account provided in Genesis is clearly not meant to be a explanation on how the world was created. I'm arguing that a God who is omnipotent would not likely utilize a method that takes 3.8 billion years and millions of generations to reach the end result.

[_Stormy Waters]

I defy anyone to honestly tell me that this does not read exactly like something from the FAIR wiki:

I think they should recruit the writer. He seems to be pretty experienced in arguing over fiction.

[_moksha]

I'm arguing that a God who is omnipotent would not likely utilize a method that takes 3.8 billion years and millions of generations to reach the end result.

To paraphrase a recent science fiction movie, "... that's the way it has been done for billions of years".

God has time to spare and a very long attention span. The evolutionary process yields many interesting results, especially if you are into a large variety of trilobytes.

[_Morley]

I'm arguing that a God who is omnipotent would not likely utilize a method that takes 3.8 billion years and millions of generations to reach the end result.

To paraphrase a recent science fiction movie, "... that's the way it has been done for billions of years".

God has time to spare and a very long attention span. The evolutionary process yields many interesting results, especially if you are into a large variety of trilobytes.

God evidently liked trilobites a lot more than He likes us humans. They were dominant for a quarter of a billion years. Modern man hasn't had even one hundredth of that time. Much less, if one calculates in Eden Daylight Time from Daviess County, Mo.

[_krose]

... evolution is not compatible with the Plan of Salvation...

I agree with this completely, and always have. That is a major reason I am no longer a Mormon.

[_krose]

God evidently liked trilobites a lot more than He likes us humans.

Not to mention getting a kick out of insects that torture other insects for their own benefit (like the wasp that lays its eggs inside a caterpillar), as well as many other cruel facets of nature.

That is one sick and twisted creator.

[_Chap]

J.B.S. Haldane is credited with various versions of the following statement, printed in his 1949 book What is Life? The Layman's View of Nature, p. 248:

The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals.

Other sources quote Haldane as saying that if one was asked what could be deduced about the characteristics of a supposed creator of the world from what we see around us. he replied "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles".

That and trilobites of course.

[_honorentheos]

J.B.S. Haldane is credited with various versions of the following statement, printed in his 1949 book What is Life? The Layman's View of Nature, p. 248:

The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals.

Other sources quote Haldane as saying that if one was asked what could be deduced about the characteristics of a supposed creator of the world from what we see around us. he replied "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles".

That and trilobites of course.

Ever take a pottery class where you learn to turn clay and everyone ends up making a simple clay bowl of varying degrees of symmetry? I wonder if the beetle is the clay bowl of Mormon partisipation-style creation?

[_Buffalo]

I have proposed such a difference, a different spirit. But never spiritless or soulless. It happens to be an excellent hypothetical explanation as to why homo sapiens big-brained never developed civilization after all those years until relatively recently.

The happy fact remains that evolution does not conflict with LDS doctrine. Speaking of pre-Adamites, the Church itself has stated that it is not doctrinally opposed to their existence in the 1931 Heber J Grant First Presidency statement which was the culmination of debate over the 1909 statement (which also does not preclude evolution but merely re-states LDS doctrine).

It's a terrible hypothesis, and completely superfluous. We already know why it took so long to develop civilization, and it has nothing to do with your kookie different souls idea.

[_bcspace]

“Of course, I think those people who hold to the view that man has come up through all these ages from the scum of the sea through billions of years do not believe in Adam. Honestly I do not know how they can, and I am going to show you that they do not. There are some who attempt to do it but they are inconsistent—absolutely inconsistent, because that doctrine is so incompatible, so utterly out of harmony, with the revelations of the Lord that a man just cannot believe in both.

“. . . I say most emphatically, you cannot believe in this theory of the origin of man, and at the same time accept the plan of salvation as set forth by the Lord our God. You must choose the one and reject the other, for they are in direct conflict and there is a gulf separating them which is so great that it cannot be bridged, no matter how much one may try to do so. . . .

“. . . Then Adam, and by that I mean the first man, was not capable of sin. He could not transgress, and by doing so bring death into the world; for, according to this theory, death had always been in the world. If, therefore, there was no fall, there was no need of an atonement, hence the coming into the world of the Son of God as the Savior of the world is a contradiction, a thing impossible. Are you prepared to believe such a thing as that?” (Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:141–42.)

Old Testament Student Manual, Genesis--2 Samuel, "Genesis 1-2---The Creation" Points to Ponder (2-18)

Amen. Considering the Gospel definition of "man", evolution does not propose that man has come up via the "scum of the sea", just his physical body. It is after all, the spirit that animates the body, not the other way around.

You would indeed lose that battle.

I've seen Darth J provide the quotes for you before and he has provided them again. I leave it to the reader to determine who is correct.

Sure. In this case, the doctrine doesn't really address evolution.