There are explanations that do not require the destruction of what appears to be a fossil record and anthropological origins through evolution.

What fossil record evidence? Last I knew, there was pretty much zero evidence of evolution in the fossil record.
Besides, even if evolution appeared to be true from the fossil record, gospel evidence should win out over apparent physical evidence. As Beldar pointed out, we have been wrong many times before about science.

How so?

Was not Enos the son of Seth?
Was not Seth the son of Adam?
Why all of a sudden does it change for you when it says that Adam is the son of God?
What makes it any different?

Joseph F. Smith took it literal. So do I.

Debate within the Church

Despite the fact that the Church has no official position on evolution beyond those expressed by the First Presidency (above), some general authorities and lay members have considered evolution to be at variance with scriptural teaching. This view is well summarized by Elder Bruce R. McConkie's statement, "There is no harmony between the truths of revealed religion and the theories of organic evolution."^[1] Other authors, including Joseph Fielding Smith, held similar views.

Other Church authorities and members have seen much of value in evolutionary theory, even if they have not endorsed every aspect of it. Examples include James E. Talmage, John A. Widtsoe, and LDS chemist Henry Eyring.

Summary

The Church has no official position on evolution, and each member is entitled to his or her own personal views on the subject. In the evolution debate, difficulties have arisen when readers assume that statements by certain leaders represent an official position beyond that expressed by the First Presidency as a body.

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The above pretty much sums up what I've been attempting to communicate throughout this thread. . . It seems to me, to push for a dismissal of one or the other opinion is to push beyond the realm of currently revealed doctrine... 

Why can't we be content to know that some things will be revealed later and happily wait for that time?

--Ray  

Welcome Organist! I welcome your opinions on this matter. I think it's great we belong to a church that can accomodate both creationist and evolutionist methods which God used to make this world what it is... Hopefully we can all agree that it is a good thing we can all share our opinions without need of an inquisition of truth or burning of heretics. :)

--Ray

Arbilad I understand that you have the same view as Elder McConkie on this, but can you at least acknowledge that there were other general authories that had or have a different position?

I don't remember your strict view declared as official doctrine or canon. In order for that to happen it needs to be approved by both the Council of the Twelve and the Council of the First Presidency which make the highest council in the church. It is then put forward to be sustained by the members of the church. This is what happened when the Pearl of Great Price was declared canon.

If I have a testimony in the core doctrines of the church, why do you care what I believe about aspects of evolution?

-- Edited by Pt314 at 16:53, 2007-05-19

I respect you very much as well and likewise disagree with your position. I hope you realize I am not trying to be overly confrontational. I also hope you realize that I have put a lot of thought, meditation, and prayer on the subject matter.

It is sad that there are many people who treat the Theory of Evolution as a religion. It should be treated as what it is, a model that tries to explain the world around us, just like the Theory of Relativity, Quantum Theory, Plate Tectonics, etc. Those who treat it as proof of the nonexistance of God are absolutely wrong.

When we discovered the scientific reasons why there is lightning, or why the sun rises and sets, why there are seasons, how chemistry works, did any of that change the fact that there is a God?

I just feel that if you take your position on the matter, you would have to believe that God is intentionally trying to decieve us by creating a world that appears in every scientific experiment to be billions of years old, and to hold fossils of more and more complex organisms in just the right sedimentary layers. Having the DNA between different animals and ourselves corrispond the way they do to prediction.

Evolution is not a theory on the origin of life, only a theory on how life changes over time. Personally there are many aspects of Evolution that I can't see could not be true. If something is more likely to survive and reproduce, of course it is more likely to live and reproduce.

We just don't know what it really means to say that death didn't exist before the fall. Couldn't Adam and Eve eat fruit off of trees while they were still in the Garden? Wouldn't that imply that the cells on the fruit of a tree could die? How did the garden or the other animals get created? I think that DNA could be one of the best ways God could organize matter into life.

Obviously as a member of the church I don't think life is an accident, I have explained myself previously in this thread.

No hard feelings.

If the disagreement is Macroevolution I have less to disagree with you about. I acknowledge the fruitfly experiment.

Look I feel that there are many MANY problems with evolution, but I do except that species change over time. Speciation, I can't really say, It isn't my field of research.

Oh well, lets just move on on this issue for now. I need to be going.

Hi all,
There's not much left to say without being redundant. The important points have been made and are there for you to take or leave.
But I would like to comment on a couple things that have been said.

As far as RayB's point on tolerance:
Yes, we must have tolerance for every belief, as it says in the 11th Article of Faith.
And we try to, just as we try to keep all the commandments.
But that does not make those other beliefs right.
It is our responsibility to offer the truths we have to as many as will receive it, even if that means we are perceived as being intolerant.
As some (notably Arbilad, Historian, and Mahonri) have so valiantly been trying to offer the truth in this thread (well done folks, especially Arbilad who really kept up with it, you've said it well, and you've had more patience than I - I tend to move on after I see people reject good sound reasoning a few times).

Not all will receive the truth, and that's fine.
I am glad that it is up to the Lord, not me, to hold people accountable for when they reject truth. But He will hold them accountable.

In RayB's last post, he said "...encouraging each soul (which is precious to us) to grow and embrace the truth at their own rate and in their own way".

I agree, unless by "in their own way" you mean embracing their own version of the truth. There are several conflicting versions of the truth, but only one is right. It is up to us to discern what is really true, from the many counterfeits. Embracing a counterfeit, in whatever way you do it, will only hurt you.
And so we have discussions like this, in order to share what insights we've had, that others may not have had, so that between us, we all have a chance to come to a better understanding of truth.
At least, those who are willing.

Just a couple other points I want to make:

Organist, thank you for bearing your testimony of the Theory of Evolution.
You prove my point.

You are, of course, welcome to follow any religion you like, just as the 11th Article of Faith says.

You said:
"supernatural tweaking of the genetic code isn't evidenced and probably wasn't needed by God"
You give away your priorities here, where you basically say that Scientists, in studying the genetic code, haven't seen anything they could not explain in some way or another, and that therefore God probably was not involved.


Pt314 said:
"...you would have to believe that God is intentionally trying to decieve us by creating a world that appears in every scientific experiment to be billions of years old, and to hold fossils of more and more complex organisms in just the right sedimentary layers. "

Is God necessarily trying to fool us when we fail to understand something, make mistakes, or get misled by our own pre-conceptions?
Indeed, we have no reliable way to date really old rocks. The methods often amount to guesswork, along the lines of "how long would it take to lay down this layer of limestone, which is X feet thick if Y critters had to die to deposit each inch & those critters lived an average of Z years, reproduced at rate V, and so on... well, that's be W years, so then this layer Must be W years old, at least."
That doesn't Prove anything. It is reasonable speculation, if its assumptions are right.
And then others come by and say that, since that layer of limestone is proven to be W years old, the fossils in it must be that same age, and we find those same kinds of fossils in this other layer of rock over here, so it must be W years old too, and this layer of rock under it must be older, and so on.
They build a wonderfully complicated structure, but it all depends on certain assumptions which may or may not be right.

And then we say God must be trying to fool us if we are wrong?

BTW, I know we could quibble endlesly about the exact mechanisms of dating rocks, but I believe the above captures the spririt of the usual approaches, and highlights the assumptions upon which it is all based. My point is that they base their methods on assumptions & that not all of those are testable & not even all the testable ones necessarily applied as they think they did.

And regardless of all that, remember how science is supposed to work: when you test a theory and find major holes in it, you do not concentrate on the parts that it got right and say "well, it's close enough", as many evolutionists tend to do.


Cat Herder said many things. I will let most of it go. I don't want to be mean, and after a certain point, highlighting someone's self-contradictions serves no further purpose and is therefore just mean.
One of the things he said is:
"The dare was to prove or disprove a scientific theory's relevance to anything beyond the philosophical."
And that is exactly what I tried to do. I tried to show its relevance to basic Faith in God.
If he chose to take that as questioning his testimony, I am sorry that he misunderstood it so.
But he also said:
"My dare was a bold statement that I can't be swayed one way or the other..."

I just want to say that, when you declare that you cannot be swayed by argument, reason, logic, evidence or anything else (you didn't list most of those specifically, but they are implied), you are effectively saying that your position is not based off of any of those things.
What is left is Faith.
You may not realize it, which is why I point it out, but you have effectively just said that you have Unshakeable Faith in your position (which was that evolution is not materially relevant).
Having Faith in things that are not true is not a good thing. You may want to reconsider that.

But that said, it's up to you to believe how, where, or what you may.

Beldar: We don't all end up lopping off the head of Laban in our journey towards Christ. Lopping Laban's head was Nephi's challenge, not mine. Some may come to Him through science, others may come to Him through pondering a more literal interpretation of the scriptures leaving no room for symbols or allegory, but either way the mission and truth of Christ as our savior, we as divinely originated beings, and that we have agency come through and all are edified and made partakers of the divine gift.

I don't think that Organist's beliefs are any less credible to him than yours are to yours. If Christ's first commandment to the Nephites was to avoid contention on points of doctrine "as there have hitherto been" then certainly on points of speculation we should be all the more respectfully sensitive.

I am responsible for the blasphemies I embrace... and with all the beams sticking out of my eye, I just don't know that I need anymore (hence I have deliberately and purposefully chosen no side on this issue. In fact the fact that it exists as a point of dispute fascinates me, and imo, reveals to me something about the nature of man and his ability to make up his own mind.) Spiritual truths are spiritual truths but to the man to whom it has been revealed. 

--Ray

-- Edited by rayb at 10:16, 2007-05-20

I am putting on the moderator hat here.

Warning: I will lock this thread if people do not disengage and stop to reflect how they are treating one another. Stop the brow beating now. For the record everyone, contention arises whenever anyone tries to force their interpretation as the only viable understanding on others.

The fact is there are a number of folks who do not appreciate or do well with this sort of back and forth arguing, and you all are responsible for letting it devolve to this. People get up and walk out of gospel doctrine classes for this sort of thing. The Spirit, if He was ever in this particular discussion, got up and left long ago... Does anyone honestly think that The Lord is proud of you for coming to written blows over this?

We all know the paradigm of how great our joy will be in the kingdom of our Father should we labor all our days and bring but one soul unto Him, but has anyone considered the converse? How great shall be our pain before our Father if we, by our idle talk, drive but one soul away from Him.

Any chance either side had at bringing some spiritual edification into this was lost as soon the brow-beating began. This has gotten absurd.

This discussion is quickly turning into nothing more than a set of ad hominem attacks along the lines of "you really don't have much of a testimony or can't be very faithful unless you see it my way -- which yes is not official stated Church policy but is nevertheless the only right interpretation" and "you are an intolerant, close-minded person if you can't at least be open to the fact we don't really know the details".

Has anyone learned anything spiritually meaningful from the discussion thus far? Has anyone's spirit been edified? Have we come closer together as brother and sisters?

Yes, Polly... it does seem strange things are afoot at The Circle K...