Recently Homeless has raised some issues regarding evolution and age of the earth. While some conservative Protestant groups have rigid positions against evolution and for a young (6,000-year-old) earth, my understanding is that the Mormon Church in modern times is comfortable with evolution and a several billion-year-old earth. Is that correct?

they may be as of the year 2012, but when I was growing up, that # would have never been accepted into my little TBM world. Half a million years was the most I ever heard was "acceptable" And NEVER a billion or more. WTF? Maybe my family was just different but the word evolution was POISON to us growing up. The paragraph you just wrote is completely foreign to me and would have never been accepted or applauded by any TBM family member of mine. I'm not trying to be harsh here, but the more you post, the less I believe that you were ever a TBM. Your posts have been really TBM friendly and apologetic and your responses very robotic and controlled. Perhaps that's part of your gig? I really don't know but I am declining to comment any further :) Good Luck though!

oh yeah? why dont the two of u have a exmo competetiton to see who was the most tbm and now is the most exmo by competiting

+1

The temple movies talk about creation as "creative period" rather than days, don't they? At the time, I thought that was indicative of Churchco's fence straddling regarding the age of the earth.

I don't know what the LDS Church position is, but my father who was on the Stake High Council and my mother, who was Stake Relief Society president, were quite flexible on it. My father speculated that planets like Mars were in a developmental stage. He theorized (without data of course) that God might have made the earth from different planets that had artifacts in them already, like the dinasours--remember, in LDS theology matter is organized, and not created from nothing. He also theorized that perhaps the 6 periods of creation were millions or billions of years. My father might have been flexible because he was a doctor. I don't know. He's passed away now, so I can't ask him about it.

Whoever said 6000 years in the first place? And, did they mean EARTH years?

Judging by the materials still distributed to seminary students it's obvious the CES is clearly still holding to the idea that the human family has been here no more than 6000 years.

I think the age of the earth remains a mystery to the Mormons.

This is a huge embarrassment for them and, on its own, proves the church false. There is the official doctrine which they then spin to say something different.

Official doctrine is:-

1. There was no death of any kind on this earth prior to approximately 6k years ago. Evolution cannot occur without procreation and death (gene pool diversification) and a very lengthy time period.

BIBLE DICTIONARY DEATH
Latter-day revelation teaches that there was no death on this earth for any forms of life before the fall of Adam. Indeed, death entered the world as a direct result of the fall (2 Ne. 2: 22; Moses 6: 48). The Official Scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints © 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. Rights and use information. Privacy policy.

See also Alma 12:23, 24 and D&C states the Adam became mortal approximately 6k years ago.

2. The gods created life on earth in their variety of species (temple endowment and various scriptures). At the very least, the church believes in intelligent design with the designer using 'evolution' as a creative process. This is, in fact, the same position as the Catholic Church.

The duplicity and lying is this - their scriptures, teachings of their prophets and their official doctrine is (a) death has only happened during past 6k years and (b) creationism/intelligent design not evolution but, they know this is dumb so they 'spin' the truth and deny their own doctrines.

They say they take no position on evolution and allow apologists to spin all sorts of nonsense about their teachings. Joseph Smith is cited as saying the earth has been 'in this system' for 2.5 billion years. But then again he made all sorts of contradictory statements, most of which were nonsense. They say God has not revealed the creation process, yet teach a specific version in the temple and church manuals.

The truth is they are embarrassed by such doctrines in this scientific age. It was like extracting teeth for me to get them to admit the no death before 6k years ago is still official church doctrine.

So, per their doctrines they are creationists not evolutionists, but their face to the world makes them appear to accept evolution as the process God used (actually gods not god).

I seem to recall Elder Nelson gave a general conference talk in recent years in which he ( a medical doctor can you believe) taught creationism/intelligent design quite plainly.

Tom Phillips

It was in the April 2012 talk by Nelson:

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!


It's also scary that a doctor believes that 'healing comes by obedience to the law upon which that blessing is predicated'? What on earth does that actually mean??

Mormonism backhandedly mocks evolution.
They claim to "accept" the empirical observations, up until it MATTERS...then they balk.
For example:
I've heard Mormons mock the observation that we evolved from a chimp-like ape. Possibly the MOST important fact of evolution to us is that WE evolved right along with everything else.
Mormons typically think everything else evolved, but that WE were PUT here by god.
I heard another mormon mock abiogenesis. He claimed he'd just read a science article that said abiogenesis is an impassible barrier to evolution...that SOMETHING HAD to creationally start evolution. I had myself just read a few articles that said the opposite, that candidate mechanisms of abiogenesis were actually kinda promising, and that there have been experimental leads since the 1960's.

As a TBM I believed in evolution and I had my own personal apologetic theories reconciling it with the gospel...but they were shallow and internally inconsistent when I look at them critically.

Like Tom said, mormons have to deny their own scriptures and the statements of several presidents of the church to force evolution and the gospel to BOTH be true. Worse, to me, is that they have a heretical version of evolution. They miss the point. To them, evolution is just more god-magic being controlled by god after all. Thinking there's magic control of evolution is NO DIFFERENT than thinking everything appeared magically in the first place or was magically handcrafted by our genie-god.
So mormons twist both their gospel and evolution to make them agree. It's utterly transparent in hindsight what I was telling myself as a TBM was contradictory.
And Nelson's explosion-making-a-printshop-a-dictionary is just another version of the utterly trite "watchmaker" fallacy that is generations old...invented back in the 1800's when evolution was first proposed.
Thus he mocks the Big Bang, for which there is empirical evidence and he betrays his bias as an "apostle" over a scientist (actually I work in medicine and I find many doctors are more socially driven than scientifically driven...not necessarily bad, but the last hard science many of them saw were their proverbial pre-med "weeder" courses in undergrad). He's been an apostle for a long time...does he still have a medical license anyway? Supposedly he was a reknowned cardiologist, heart surgeon...who claimed god guided him in surgery.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2013 11:44AM by amos2.

Excellent, Tom.

When I was a TBM in university at Berkeley and Ann Arbor, I associated with a few other TBM science students, and have also worked/associated after school with mormon scientists & mathematicians. One of these is presently head of a human genetics lab at a major pharmaceutical company. Another is a paleontologist at BYU, two are biochemists at BYU. Several others are physicists and mathematics professors around the country, with degrees from top-tier universities.

I've conversed with at least 10 of these about the issue of evolution. All of them accept it. When I ask them about the scriptures you mentioned (2 Ne 2:22, D&C 77:6, Moses, etc) they all have similar responses: “The scriptures aren’t teaching science and they are meant to edify the spirit not teach intricate details about the actual creation. Those verses were given to non-scientist who didn’t need to know the details that we have encountered.”

On the BoM-DNA issue. Most of them acknowledge that it is an issue. Most of these tell me that they deal with it by compartmentalizing the issues between science and religion in separate places in their mind. It's amazing to read/listen to them dissemble on the matter.

The biggest surprise was the BYU biochemist who has worked with Scott Woodward (the DNA anthropologist at BYU that was asked to work on lamanite DNA over a decade ago, but was “kicked out” by churchco when the results were less than what they wanted). This BYU prof as of 2009 was not aware of the DNA controversy. After I brought it up, he looked into it and decided that it wasn’t an issue since the brethren weren’t concerned.

Just like I would be highly concerned going to a doctor that refused to recognize evolution, I would be suspect of learning biochemistry from a professor that trusted religious indifference on DNA over the validated studies in same field. How can BYU keep accreditation?

'healing comes by obedience to the law upon which that blessing is predicated'?

Who knows what this means? It's clear that the body generally can heal itself naturally of minor ailments, which is true for everyone regardless of how obedient/evil they are. Yet it's also obvious that PH blessings are completely hit & miss - to the degree that the probability of a positive outcome is no different with or without the blessing. So Nelson's phrase doesn't really make sense and isn't evidenced empirically.

Regarding 'no death before the fall', I only have one word to say...... OIL!

It is also true that GAs are purposefully vague on this whole topic (far too easy for their BS to be exposed), which is a shame because as 'true mouthpieces for God', you'd think they could expound some wonderful truths. As it is however, we need to rely on the amazing work of scientists instead.

Science has given us so much understanding and progress over the centuries. Religion on the other hand....

...is a one word answer to the "no death before 6k years ago" doctrine.

Even Elder Harold G. Hillam used oil as an example to me that there had been death over millions (billions) of years. He also cited ancient skulls that he handled when training to become an orthodontist. So he unquestioningly accepted evolution.

However, to defend the church's doctrine he said Adam was the first man made in the image of God. Interestingly this is close to the position of the Catholic Church who state Adam was the first 'soul' i.e. God placed a spirit in a body created by evolution.

When I asked Elder Hillam what happened to all the other hominids who were living 6k years ago, he had no explanation. He'd either never thought about it or deliberately ignored it.

His successor as Area President, Elder Gerald N. Lund, just said the scientists were wrong, there was no death on this planet before 6k years ago. Oil was obviously placed in the planet as part of God's creation. Lund was obviously not a scientist. In fact, he described himself to me as a 'wordsmith'. At least he asserted the real church doctrine on the matter.

Tom

anointed one Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> However, to defend the church's doctrine he said
> Adam was the first man made in the image of God.
> Interestingly this is close to the position of the
> Catholic Church who state Adam was the first
> 'soul' i.e. God placed a spirit in a body created
> by evolution.
>
> When I asked Elder Hillam what happened to all the
> other hominids who were living 6k years ago, he
> had no explanation. He'd either never thought
> about it or deliberately ignored it.

While it is a very ridiculous patch--the souless pre-adamites--to bridge their crazy doctrine to actual science, This doctrine stating that humans before 6Kya were souless suggests that most humans descend from animals. If that is the case, then two things come to mind:

1) The abramaic covenant of a chosen people/family underscores that those descending from the non-chosen adamites are inferior, and it is a racist doctrine.

2) If god made all humans after adam as equals to each other, but just used the pre-adamite bodies to place souls in, then there is no need to reject evolution at all. If that is true, then why all this bluster about an atonement? Man was already fallen before he had a soul, and adding a soul didn't help matters. God created a fallen species to insert the soul into. He created corruption and put man's soul in it. Man didn't choose corruption, it was forced on him. So why is there an atonement predicated on repentence? I call BS. The whole game is up if evolution of humans is accepted.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2013 12:08PM by Jesus Smith.

Indeed.
And this is where the mormon gospel is, once again, racist.

There is a continuous 2-million-year record of occupation of the old world by fire-using, tool-making...people (primarily homo erectus, and other minorities of the time like neanderthals). The fossil record of fully modern humans, our direct ancestry, is only up to 250,000 years old, but that in NO WAY means the existing races weren't people. If you went back in time and met homo erectus, a fire-using tool-maker who likely spoke a protolanguage, 1 million years ago, what would he be to you if not a person?

There can ONLY be an arbitrary insertion of Adam and Eve into the human races.

It doesn't MATTER when you do it, it's arbitrary and racist. Whether 6,000, 60,000, or 600,000 years or more, anytime you just plop Adam and Eve into the world and call hominids after that "souls" and hominids before that "apes", you've arbitrarily cut-off entire races of people. That's racist.
And, if you go back 6,000,000 years and say Adam and Eve came then, well you're admitting they were chimps after all.
Either way, evolution backs you into a logical dead-end with Adam and Eve NO MATTER WHEN you think they lived.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2013 12:09PM by amos2.

I saw various changes in the temple ceremony regarding creation. It was, when I first went (1981), a "similitude" leading me to believe that TSCC accepted evolution. Wrong. They dropped "similitude". How anyone can accept the idea of dinosaur bones etc. being from prior uses of the material reused for the earth is incredible but I know a Mormon judge who believes it!

LDS materials still have Adam about 6,000 years ago and the Tower of Babel with the Jaradites

Old Testament Timeline
http://lds.org/gospellibrary/materials/OT_Timeline_000.pdf

Book of Mormon Chronology
http://lds.org/gospellibrary/materials/BofMChart000.pdf

Religion absent true science leaves superstition and mumbo-jumbo theology.

I think they're getting a little wobbly on the age of the earth lately, but they still have to believe that from the Garden of Eden to the beginning of the Millenium is 6,000 years, because it's in their scriptures.

If I ask any of my Mormon friends, or even my Christian friends for that matter, they still adamantly refuse to believe in Evolution.

They can make it jibe with science all they want to, but still will get in huge trouble with their absolute belief in a literal Adam and Eve. And, of course, what Anointed One said above.

You raise a larger question: what is the Mormon position on anything? For they are free to "believe" anything they want until it makes them look stupid and leaves them standing all alone sociologically, at which time they never taught that. There is no "official" Mormon position on anything. Mormonism is a bunch of egos all trying to be top dogs, and those on the bottom must preach whatever those on the top say. This status holds until those on the top are replaced by another set of top dogs.

My main point with Mormons who claim that the LDS Church is not a head in the sand creationist church is this: find me a PUBLIC statement from an LDS General Authority offering an ardent defense of the earth being billions of years old, and organic evolution.

I don't think you'll find it. But you can find a number of statements from General Authorities condemning evolution.

Joseph F. Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce McConkie, Ezra Taft Benson, and Boyd Packer have all made statements in talks, books etc. decrying organic evolution. There are probably others.

The jabs nowadays are a little sneakier, but they are still there. Remember Thomas Monson's jab at not letting so called science get to his testimony. Or Russell Nelson's famous print shop explosion thing mentioned earlier.

I can't think of any General Authority saying publicly and explicitly that organic evolution is a fact, or fact based theory if you like, and that LDS people ought to accept it. Or at the very least they don't need to feel like they are less than faithful if they do.

If there is such a statement, please let me know. Remember David O. McKay's private talks with Sterling McMurrin don't count, because they are not public.

...seem to make the argument cloudy with regards to evolution.

If the church really believed that a multi-billion year old earth is consistant with LDS beliefs, why did they publish in the Ensign (January 1998, Donald W. Parry) that LDS believe in the literal flood? That shoots holes in all the other aspects of evolution, fossil record, etc.

The one caveat I have heard from Mormons who accept evolution stops when human beings are concerned. God created man and later woman exclusively - humans did not evolve. Animals, maybe or probably, but not human beings.

Thanks for the information. That's very helpful. All I have been able to find is the "BYU Packet" on Evolution and the Origin of Man at http://biology.byu.edu/DepartmentInfo/EvolutionandtheOriginofMan.aspx As some people have noted, although it purports to give the "official position" of the Mormon Church on evolution, it really takes no position at all. I wondered what other people were hearing.

As for the age of the earth, I have not seen anything since the Henry Eyring (the father) story:

“When President Joseph Fielding Smith’s book, Man, His Origin and Destiny, was published, someone urged it as an Institute course. One of the Institute teachers came to me and said, ‘If we have to follow it exactly, we will lose some of the young people.’ I said, ‘I don’t think you need to worry.’ I thought it was a good idea to get the thing out in public, so the next time I went to Sunday School General Board meeting, I got up and bore testimony that the world was four or five billion years old, that evidence was strongly in that direction.”

I was thinking about this as I hear some people in other churches say unusual things about the dinosaurs being fake and the earth being 6,000 years old. I wondered if any of that craziness made its way into the Mormon Church. It sounds like it does, occasionally, but in a muted fashion compared to other churches.