Can Darwinian Natural Selection Theory be Squared With Church Origin Doctrine?

[Mad Jax]

I know a lot of Christians who have no issue with current scientific theories and see the biblical texts as either stories that aren't really supposed to reflect reality or some sort of metaphor for the old earth hypothesis. As a member, I found this a bit more rare among the LDS population (although not entirely missing) and wonder if perhaps the Kolob explanation can be seen as metaphorical for accepted cosmic origin theory. Or is it simply too different to be squared?

I know that Mormons are not "creationist" in the classic sense but many accept the "Adam as first human on earth" explanation literally, and I find it difficult to square an atonement doctrine of any sort with a Darwinian evolution worldview. I know believers come in all stripes, so I don't doubt there are those who hold to a scientific worldview who are temple recommend holding true believers who support the GAs all the way and believe in Christ's atonement etc. I'm wondering how others do it, if there are any here, or if there's a foundational way to do so that I haven't considered.

[Hagoth]

Here's how I did it.

There is a spectrum of beings that we call "intelligences" that existed before the earth was created. They all needed physical bodies to fulfill the measure of their creation. So worlds we're created through a process that required billions of years and was performed by natural processes overseen by Gods. God prepared bodies for his spiritual children by using evolution to produce tabernacles for all of the lesser beings, including those who were very close to, but not quite human. When guided evolution finally produce the first bodies that were fully in God's image, he terrestrialized two of them, stuck Adam and Eve's spirits into them and whisked them away to a special place where he started the experiment.

Now I believe a somewhat similar story in which man created God in his image.

[Red Ryder]

I didn't even think about stuff like this except the fact that dinosaur bones were sprinkled in when God created the earth.

[wtfluff]

I didn't even think about stuff like this except the fact that dinosaur bones were sprinkled in when God created the earth.

YES! I LOVE the "Dinosaur Bones = Space Junk!" Theory...

[Just This Guy]

Back in my younger days, I used this logic:

The temple says that God commanded JC to do the various tasks for the creation and "to call your labors the 1st/2nd/3rd/etc. day." That applies the label after the fact and does not actually represent an actual set amount of time. In that, the creation happened on set laws and rules. The earth formed though natural means with only the need for the occasional nudge here and there for everything to achieve the designed outcome. Evolution is a natural part of that process. I took the whole thing of death as to only applying to humans. Animals have been living and dying for billions of our years as part of development of the world.

[Mad Jax]

I think that's a pretty common approach. I can't accept that humans are different though. Chromosome 2 just seems like such a strong piece of evidence for the divergence point of apes and hominids. I do know believers who think evolution is nudged and directed as you describe but also include human evolution in the mix. They tend to drift more toward deism than theism tho.

[MerrieMiss]

I didn't even think about stuff like this except the fact that dinosaur bones were sprinkled in when God created the earth.

I didn't think about it all. Honestly, evolution just didn't interest me much, either in a religious sense or secular. I was more interested in the development of language.

[1smartdodog]

I accept evolution, and I accept that God could have had a hand in it. Beyond that I see no evidence to drill down on the details.

[Corsair]

I certainly wrestled with evolution growing up. It was an unstated fact in my house since my father has a background in biological sciences. I just figured that God directed it and had not tried to square evolution against whatever Bruce McConkie and Joseph Fielding Smith were spouting off against it.

[Give It Time]

It has taken me a long time to reconcile myself to evolution and I'm still not entirely comfortable with it. Having said that, I think the Adam and Eve myth is one of the most dangerous and damaging myths out there and truly, truly needs to go down the memory hole.

[Hagoth]

I overheard a Mormon grandmother explaining the hominin skull display to her grandkids at the natural history museum. It turns out they were all diseased or deformed people who lived after Adam and Eve. That was a relief.

[Mad Jax]

It has taken me a long time to reconcile myself to evolution and I'm still not entirely comfortable with it. Having said that, I think the Adam and Eve myth is one of the most dangerous and damaging myths out there and truly, truly needs to go down the memory hole.

Curious to hear both reasons; why the discomfort with evolution and why the disdain for the Eden myth (don't get me wrong I have my reasons for dissuading the Eden myth but I want to hear yours).

[Dravin]

My thought process was a meticulous four step process that went like this:

1. Creation
2. Evolution
3. ???
4. Belief

Though really you have to pin down just what the church's doctrine is on the subject. There are statements by leadership that pretty clearly put church doctrine at odds with accepting evolution and others that leave wiggle room (some more than others).

[Give It Time]

It has taken me a long time to reconcile myself to evolution and I'm still not entirely comfortable with it. Having said that, I think the Adam and Eve myth is one of the most dangerous and damaging myths out there and truly, truly needs to go down the memory hole.

Curious to hear both reasons; why the discomfort with evolution and why the disdain for the Eden myth (don't get me wrong I have my reasons for dissuading the Eden myth but I want to hear yours).

I had a co-worker who believed in evolution. He was the first openly atheist I ever met. He treated everyone terribly. No one was exempt. This was the late '80s and the debate was still pretty furious, with the evolutionists still the decided underdogs​. No pun intended. Anyway, I and people I knew, would still ponder the question, every now and then. After dealing with this guy, I came to the conclusion that the reason he treated everyone like pond scum was because he believed we all evolved from pond scum. To put it bluntly. I decided that, no matter what I would choose to believe we are descended from divinity, because that sets up a paradigm for us all to treat each other better. Plus, I never really liked the idea of people excusing bad behavior by saying we're all essentially animals.

As for the creation myth, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the snake and the fruit of the tree are all elements of pagan religion in ancient Mesopotamia. So, Eve, a female, listens to the snake (a symbol of the goddess) to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil to gain wisdom (become like the mother goddess, especially). This got men kicked out of paradise and entering a world full of troubles. All thanks to women and their confounded goddess. Add to that, that Eve was created from Adam, for Adam and her purpose in life is to be essentially an extension of him, rather than her own independent being. Adam names her, essentially taking on the role of her father. Additionally, none of our scriptural accounts have Eve being in the room when the commandment was given not to eat the fruit. So Eve is punished for a rule we have no record of her knowing existed.

The temple version has her present, but everything else is the same. But the temple ceremony adds the new, fun twist that, every though Eve was the wise one, she now gets to obey Adam for the rest of her life. Not only that, her daughters do, too. Not only that, but Adam's punishment ends with this life. Eve's punishment continues on into the eternities. More fun wrinkles from the temple ceremony include Eve not being able to show her face in the prayer circle and her husband, not the Savior, pulls her through the veil. This makes her husband her Savior, not Christ. This means celestially married women aren't even Christian and they don't know it, because no one ever explicitly tells them.

Basically, the Adam and Eve myth is misogyny's origin story.

[Thoughtful]

It has taken me a long time to reconcile myself to evolution and I'm still not entirely comfortable with it. Having said that, I think the Adam and Eve myth is one of the most dangerous and damaging myths out there and truly, truly needs to go down the memory hole.

Curious to hear both reasons; why the discomfort with evolution and why the disdain for the Eden myth (don't get me wrong I have my reasons for dissuading the Eden myth but I want to hear yours).

I had a co-worker who believed in evolution. He was the first openly atheist I ever met. He treated everyone terribly. No one was exempt. This was the late '80s and the debate was still pretty furious, with the evolutionists still the decided underdogs​. No pun intended. Anyway, I and people I knew, would still ponder the question, every now and then. After dealing with this guy, I came to the conclusion that the reason he treated everyone like pond scum was because he believed we all evolved from pond scum. To put it bluntly. I decided that, no matter what I would choose to believe we are descended from divinity, because that sets up a paradigm for us all to treat each other better. Plus, I never really liked the idea of people excusing bad behavior by saying we're all essentially animals.

As for the creation myth, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the snake and the fruit of the tree are all elements of pagan religion in ancient Mesopotamia. So, Eve, a female, listens to the snake (a symbol of the goddess) to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil to gain wisdom (become like the mother goddess, especially). This got men kicked out of paradise and entering a world full of troubles. All thanks to women and their confounded goddess. Add to that, that Eve was created from Adam, for Adam and her purpose in life is to be essentially an extension of him, rather than her own independent being. Adam names her, essentially taking on the role of her father. Additionally, none of our scriptural accounts have Eve being in the room when the commandment was given not to eat the fruit. So Eve is punished for a rule we have no record of her knowing existed.

The temple version has her present, but everything else is the same. But the temple ceremony adds the new, fun twist that, every though Eve was the wise one, she now gets to obey Adam for the rest of her life. Not only that, her daughters do, too. Not only that, but Adam's punishment ends with this life. Eve's punishment continues on into the eternities. More fun wrinkles from the temple ceremony include Eve not being able to show her face in the prayer circle and her husband, not the Savior, pulls her through the veil. This makes her husband her Savior, not Christ. This means celestially married women aren't even Christian and they don't know it, because no one ever explicitly tells them.

Basically, the Adam and Eve myth is misogyny's origin story.

This all really infuriates me.

[Give It Time]

This all really infuriates me.

In what way?

[Thoughtful]

This all really infuriates me.

In what way?

The way women are treated, and the way our doctrines support it.

[Give It Time]

This all really infuriates me.

In what way?

The way women are treated, and the way our doctrines support it.

Thank you. I agree. This was my tipping point.

[Give It Time]

I know your question was specifically about evolution and creation, but I see the essence of it as posing the question of science and religion being happy together.

To further answer your question, Jax, I am coming to accept and not mind the idea of evolution. I wrote of the pack mentality on Merrie Miss's thread and I do think that is why the knee jerk reaction of so many is to shun someone who is hurting, or worse, feed them to the wolves or destroy them. I was reading in the Tao Te Ching that nature is pragmatic. When misfortune falls, it's nothing personal, it's how nature needs it. At first, this was difficult to read and the Tao Te Ching continues this statement by saying that because nature is pragmatic, it's important for us to be compassionate.

You know I've developed an interest in martial arts. When I first came to NOM, I was very much about compassion and still am, yet I found that society has a tendency to see someone who is compassionate as a doormat. Yet, I still see compassion as one of the most important traits a person can have. Just recently, I read for the first time that compassion and courage are two sides of the same coin. It's not possible to have courage without compassion. I think that's right and if "the pack" doesn't see that, it's not my problem. I have a friend of my who makes competition "swimwear" for fitness competitors. She's a fitness competitor, herself. Even if she wasn't, I thought of her walking down the street with a group of her sister-in-iron friends and I'm sure very few people would give them a hard time.

What does all this have to do with marrying religion and science, you ask? The Shaolin monks with their martial form of Buddhism came to mind. As you know, Buddhism has metta, lovingkindness, as a central part of it's belief system, yet the Shaolin monks are totally kick ass. But the whole thing just kind of made sense when I stepped back and considered the duality as a whole. In this very pragmatic world where the weak are winnowed out, it's that strength and formidability of the martial that actually makes it so the compassion (something viewed as weak) can exist in the world and it's that strength that can be called upon when that compassion compels someone to act with courage. Make sense? So, I think it's possible, and possibly necessary, to take a pragmatic view of ethical and moral behavior and finding a way to be able to keep it alive in a pack mentality society.

Finally, I am someone who believes in some spiritual/unseen something is at work behind the scenes. I'm not quite sure what I call it, these days, but I do consider myself a spiritual being. I don't try to reconcile my spiritual side and the scientific understanding I've come to accept. It's not something I'm leaving for the millennium. Believing in as much evolution as I do and being spiritual as I am just works for me and I leave it at that.

[achilles]

I definitely have more to say about this topic, but I wanted to share a billboard I saw today in Ogden, UT:

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