I find it amazing (and concerning) that someone would actually ask someone who had dedicated his life to bringing life to history, "why do you read that stuff?"
But the belittling of intellectual pursuits is all to common in LDS settings. I was taken aback by Elder Nelson's straw-man belittling of The Big Bang Theory in the last conference.
From that, one young man in my Teachers quorum got the idea that belief in any part of evolution is against proper church doctrine.
I sruggled to find a way to set him straight without damaging his faith in an apostle who had expressed a tossed-off one-liner for attempted comedic effect.
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The Lord did NOT use evolution as part of the creative process. (period)
Yes, there is "natural selection",(and that is NOT evolution) but the Brethren (now) will tell you what Elder Nelson said. (and it wasn't in jest.)
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posted
Brother Allen, I have found that what you have written is the absolute truth. Very few members of the Church read about its history.
I find that when I can add an insight to the lesson in priesthood or Sunday School, at times I look around to see who is there, because if I do share that insight, there are those who are unread who will just shake their heads and whisper when they have no idea that what I am sharing is a rare gem that can help them understand and give added light and knowledge. And so I just continue to voraciously read. I love the biography of David O. McKay that came from items saved by his secretary. (I've read it more than once!) What great insights!
posted
James E. Talmage and B.H. Roberts accepted evolution. All BYU biology professors accept evolution. I fail to see the conflict between the plan of salvation and evolution.
I also agree that learning history, both secular and religious is vitally important for personal and societal growth.
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quote:James E. Talmage and B.H. Roberts accepted evolution.
I bet if we were enabled to ask them some pointed questions, we'd find that they were what are pejoratively called "creationists."
They most certainly would not have agreed that solely the combined forces of random mutations and natural selection produced the current state of biological complexity.
quote:I fail to see the conflict between the plan of salvation and evolution.
The Church has official doctrines. Among them is the canonized claim that God(s) intervened in the natural order of things to produce Man.
Evolutionary theory has official doctrines. Among them is the canonized claim that no Gods intervened in the natural order of things to produce Man.
The two claims are jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive.
The Plan of Salvation encompasses Father providing his children both a body and a world to live in where their needs would be met.
If you need further assistance in understanding the irreconcilable conflict between evolutionary theory and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I will be glad to help.
quote: Evolutionary theory has official doctrines. Among them is the canonized claim that no Gods intervened in the natural order of things to produce Man.
Umm... no. That's a cartoonish view of how the scientific method works; you can't gather evidence for a lack of divine intervention, and whether or not such intervention occurred is not the question that evolutionary theory is trying to address.
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quote:But reading history books, even Church history, does not seem to be among their priorities.
I think I know why, though I won't go into that right now.
It's not one of my priorities, but see nothing wrong with being one of someone else's priorities. There are many reasons it won't be a priority in everyone's lives. That's OK. We each have different missions.
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quote: Anyone who studies the workings of the human body has surely “seen God moving in his majesty and power.” Because the body is governed by divine law, any healing comes by obedience to the law upon which that blessing is predicated.
Yet some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical attributes happened by chance or resulted from a big bang somewhere. Ask yourself, “Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary?” The likelihood is most remote. But if so, it could never heal its own torn pages or reproduce its own newer editions!
He was speaking in context of the fact that our lives have purpose and meaning and were deliberately created by a loving Father in Heaven. He was not dismissing scientific evidence, but the mistaken divorcing of God from that equation.
quote:Umm... no. That's a cartoonish view of how the scientific method works; you can't gather evidence for a lack of divine intervention, and whether or not such intervention occurred is not the question that evolutionary theory is trying to address.
I hope you'll notice that none of what you have written here contradicts what I wrote.
That's why I'm at a loss as to the reason that you posted it in apparent response to my post.
quote:I think statements that they are absolutely and irreconcilably exclusive are at best premature.
I leave it to you to reconcile "no God created" with "God created."
Elder Nelson knows the score: "Yet some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical attributes happened by chance...."
And that's what's at issue here. Either it all happened by chance (and, in the event of so-called "natural" laws, the chance of particular events is 1), or it did not all happen by chance.
Evolution says the first. We are doctrinally and officially wedded to the second.
We are, in fact, more specifically wedded to the validity of the design argument.
quote:The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.
Either Alma was right that patterned events and phenomena imply intelligence, or he was wrong.
Now, it's possible Alma was speaking as a man, and not as a prophet. I personally take a dim view of that perspective, especially given what happened next in the narrative.
quote:46 And now it came to pass that Alma said unto him: Behold, I am grieved because of the hardness of your heart, yea, that ye will still resist the spirit of the truth, that thy soul may be destroyed.
47 But behold, it is better that thy soul should be blost than that thou shouldst be the means of bringing many souls down to destruction, by thy lying and by thy flattering words; therefore if thou shalt deny again, behold God shall smite thee, that thou shalt become dumb, that thou shalt never open thy mouth any more, that thou shalt not deceive this people any more.
48 Now Korihor said unto him: I do not deny the existence of a God, but I do not believe that there is a God; and I say also, that ye do not know that there is a God; and except ye show me a sign, I will not believe.
49 Now Alma said unto him: This will I give unto thee for a sign, that thou shalt be struck dumb, according to my words; and I say, that in the name of God, ye shall be struck dumb, that ye shall no more have utterance.
50 Now when Alma had said these words, Korihor was struck dumb, that he could not have utterance, according to the words of Alma.
It's also possible that Joseph Smith mistranslated the Book of Mormon at this point - except the witnesses to the translation seem to rule out the possibility of such error when they note that he could not proceed in the text until it was written correctly.
quote:Joseph Knight (autograph [between 1833 and 1847]):
But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous.
Emma Smith (Edmund Briggs interview, 1856):
When my husband was translating the Book of Mormon, I wrote a part of it, as he dictated each sentence, word for word, and when he came to proper names he could not pronounce, or long words, he spelled them out, and while I was writing them, if I made a mistake in spelling, he would stop me and correct my spelling, although it was impossible for him to see how I was writing them down at the time.
Martin Harris (Edward Stevenson's 1881 account):
By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say, "Written," and if correctly written, that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used.
David Whitmer (Eri Mullin interview, 1874):
. . . the words would appear, and if he failed to spell the word right, it would stay till it was spelled right, then pass away; another come, and so on.
So I'm not sure where we go from there. I guess we either believe it or we don't.
quote:Wouldn't that be putting words in the mouth of a dead person?
By saying "I bet," I am announcing that I believe a certain proposition about their beliefs is more probable than the negation of that proposition.
But, if you wish to make it an issue, then answer me this: do you believe it is more probable that B. H. Roberts and James Talmage believed matter, solely operated upon by the vagaries of chance, produced the current state of biological complexity?
Be it known that unless you affirm that solely undirected material forces produced the current state of biological complexity, you are a creationist.
quote: I hope you'll notice that none of what you have written here contradicts what I wrote.
That's why I'm at a loss as to the reason that you posted it in apparent response to my post.
It was because you're beating up on a strawman version of evolutionary theory that bears very little resemblance to the actual scientific discipline, and whose "canonized claim[s]" have even less resemblance to the kinds of questions people who work in the field actually study.
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quote:It was because you're beating up on a strawman version of evolutionary theory that bears very little resemblance to the actual scientific discipline, and whose "canonized claim[s]" have even less resemblance to the kinds of questions people who work in the field actually study.
Please demonstrate where I mischaracterized evolutionary theory - I would be most curious to see where, in evolutionary theory, there is acknowledged space for divine intervention in the natural order of things to produce Man.
To my knowledge, evolutionary theory asserts that for each event in the history of biology, that event was precipitated solely by blind material forces. The question is never whether these blind material forces did all the work of creation, but only how.
posted
Whether divine intervention happens or not isn't a question answerable by a scientific approach; the mischaracterization is in the insistence that a scientific theory has anything at all to say about this question.
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quote:Whether divine intervention happens or not isn't a question answerable by a scientific approach; the mischaracterization is in the insistence that a scientific theory has anything at all to say about this question.
Any theory which asserts that solely blind material forces have produced all of the phenomena which it concerns itself with has, in fact, made a negative statement on whether or not divine intervention has produced any of the phenomena with which it concerns itself.
When evolutionary theory asserts that solely blind material forces produced all of biology, that assertion negates the possibility that divine intervention produced any of biology.
Therefore, your claim that I have mischaracterized evolutionary theory is false. I would appreciate it if you were to retract your claim.
posted
what I think many get hung up about in intelligent design and similar arguments, is that in order for an intelligent being to predate the creation of man, for example, that intelligence needed a creator. SO it never solves the fundamental question of how did that guy get created.
The problem with Evolution by chance has a similar problem, however, in that it posits that despite the laws of our current fallen universe, that things just happened to work out in our favor so far.
Both theories really come down to putting aside natural laws of now to take a big leap of faith.
I really like that the PoGP talks about a spiritual creation prior to a physical creation. I find that it helps conceptualize creation. It could even work with a physical law like a big boom... God (and his children, the noble and great ones) maps out all the random chances that need to occur in spirit, then sets it all off. If it was all done by chance, God still designed it that way.
Done deal. Mormonism is super awesome! THanks Joseph Smith!
quote: When evolutionary theory asserts that solely blind material forces produced all of biology, that assertion negates the possibility that divine intervention produced any of biology.
Does evolutionary theory, in fact, assert this? The word "solely" carries a good deal of nonscientific excess baggage in that sentence.
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posted
I think reading is a very personal thing. I am a voracious reader, and I find the things I read important and a part of what is making me who I am.
But, that is personal to me. I wouldn't necessarily think that just because I read something that is interesting and important to me, that it must be so for everyone.
My patriarchal blessing actually gives me counsel about what to read. I find that pretty amazing. But again, I would not go to anyone else and say, "This is really what we should all be focused on."
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quote:Does evolutionary theory, in fact, assert this?
To my knowledge, yes.
quote:The word "solely" carries a good deal of nonscientific excess baggage in that sentence.
I agree evolutionary theory is unscientific. As it turns out, I'm not alone. As Karl Popper said, "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme...." That happened to be his last published word on the subject, as well.
posted
We appear to be talking about different things. To you, "evolutionary theory" means the combination of (A) scientific propositions about the nature of life (e.g. Roper's earlier list), and (B) metaphysical, unscientific statements about what (A) means. For me, it only means A.
ET=A is not incompatible with the gospel. ET=A+B may be incompatible with the gospel, or not, depending on how you're defining B. But ET=A+B is also not a scientific theory any more, and should not be mischaracterized as such, since the propositions in B are untestable by scientific means.
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posted
Perhaps we are talking about different things. I doubt it, though.
It is either a fact that man arose through Darwinian, Neo-Darwinian, evo-devo, or other as-yet-unidentified evolutionary processes, themselves subsumable by physics and chemistry, or it is not a fact that he so arose. Evolutionary theory asserts that man so arose.
Be it remembered, the full title of Darwin's book was "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."
As one need not go too far to find out that "Evolution is a fact, Fact, FACT!", and if it is a fact, then its negation is not a fact, then it becomes exceedingly unclear how one can separate the theory from its direct logical implications.
Nevermind that one can demonstrate that those logical implications were, in fact, the starting point of the theory, historically speaking - that natural selection and not some intervening designer-God produced the species.
If the statement "It is a fact that man arose through evolutionary processes" is scientific, then its negation is scientific as well - otherwise you have an unscientific theory, because your theory is unfalsifiable within science.
Again, I welcome your expected future retraction of your claim.
posted
Any chance someone wants to make a new evolution thread? i enjoy when threads get off track and the conversation meanders, but considering this is a response to an article it might be helpful to create a new thread for evolution.
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A few months ago, I brought a PDF file of the 1837-1838 Church newspaper The Elder's Journal to a local print shop in order to have a hardcopy made and bound for my ease of reading - and to put on my bookshelf.
When I picked up the final product, the employee asked me, very tentatively, if I was a Mormon. I answered , 'Yep. Sure am.' This was followed by a sigh of relief from the employee, who then said, "Good. I saw what you were printing, and figured you were probably an Anti-Mormon ... or maybe a member."
Yes, the employee was a Church member. Now keep in mind that the response, including the assumption that there was a good chance I was an anti-Mormon was because I printed a copy of an old yet official Church Newspaper that was edited by Joseph Smith himself.
I have noticed among many of the general membership of the Church that there is a massive distrust and level of discomfort associated with early Church history, and especially early Church historical documents. To some, if you were to mention something about Church History that differs from current Correlated Teaching and Practice, it will result in an askew glance, and perhaps concern that you are On The Road To Apostasy for even looking into "that stuff".
To a degree, it's understandable. Most primary early church historical documents and such related elements are not used and referenced in Modern Official Church settings, but they are often utilized by antagonistic sources, generally to point out some 'shocking' speculation or assertion of an early Church leader, or to 'expose' some practice or belief that has changed over time.
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posted
Yes. I apologize for having brought it up and thus having ruined the discussion of an excellent article.
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quote:I have noticed among many of the general membership of the Church that there is a massive distrust and level of discomfort associated with early Church history, and especially early Church historical documents.
For me, often it is the sheer number of all the historical documents etc. we have. Sometimes I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water with what we've been told by leaders we should be reading plus the other stuff I feel inspired to read. If I have to read historical things on top of that and other things to help clarify things that may or may not be doctrine it would overwhelm me.
But I do think you are right there is some distrust. Some of that comes from the stuff being put in anti-mormon writings and not knowing how to differentiate what is to be trusted and what not.
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posted
On this topic, I just made a blog post about the very first issue of the very first Church periodical, The Evening and the Morning Star: 180 Years Ago In Church Periodicals: June 1832.
I'm trying to make the general contents of these older documents a little more accessible Posts: 944 | Registered: Jan 2009
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that just showed up on my face reading that.
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