Mormon "agency" to support Evolution?

[moksha]

Mormons need not shy away from evolution, says BYU biologist

Mormons believe in “eternal progression,” for example, and that the universe was organized from pre-existing matter, Steven L. Peck told a packed audience Thursday on the Utah Valley University campus. Those are ideas embraced by evolutionary biologists, too.

Peck delivered the Eugene England Memorial Lecture at a two-day conference, “Heaven & Earth: Mormonism and the Challenges of Science, Revelation and Faith,” organized by the Orem school’s Mormon studies program.

However, better not let your Stake President hear that you have anything to do with those so-called "homo sapiens" or you will likely be called into a disciplinary counsel. "It's our religious liberty to fight them homo sapiens with all of our might and to keep them from marrying", said President Stirling V. Holtzwenger of the Millcreek 19th Stake.

https://www.sltrib.com/pb/religion/2018 ... -biologist

Talk about a mixed message!

[Hagoth]

I've been trying to find the excellent Farms Review of a Stephen J. Gould book that convinced me of the undeniable reality of evolution. Oddly enough, the BYU professor who wrote the review said he wasn't convinced and would hold his judgement until a better theory came along. ?!?!

[el-asherah]

Mormons need not shy away from evolution, says BYU biologist

Mormons believe in “eternal progression,” for example, and that the universe was organized from pre-existing matter, Steven L. Peck told a packed audience Thursday on the Utah Valley University campus. Those are ideas embraced by evolutionary biologists, too.

https://www.sltrib.com/pb/religion/2018 ... -biologist

Talk about a mixed message!

Totally mixed message from a scientist - "the universe was organized from pre-existing matter", this conflicts with modern cosmology . This statement is from a biologist who doesn't seem to understand the nuances of physics!

D&C states that the elements/matter are eternal. "Conservation of Matter" was a formalized scientific principle developed by the early 1800s, and was in Joseph Smith's environment. However, Mormon theology is entirely missing the concept of "Matter Energy Equivalence" later formulated by Einstein.

We now know that matter can be created and destroyed all the time by converting matter into energy and vice-versa. In modern cosmology - time space and energy originated out of the Big Bang singularity with energy eventually coalescing into matter. Matter is MOST definitely not eternal nor pre-existing! Whether, the Big Bang energy came from pre-existing energy or zero sum energy (i.e Stephen Hawking) is an unresolved question.

In the Mormon view, esp. the early prophets such as Brigham Young, the universe was eternal and static and the God(s) organize pre-existing chaotic eternal matter to form planets etc. These theme is reflected in the temple. The God(s) are a product of matter and are made out of matter. The God(s) did not create matter. A view that is exactly opposite of general Christianity where God is the first cause. In Mormonism matter itself is the first cause.

Orson Pratt “The materials out of which this earth was formed, are just as eternal as the materials of the glorious personage of the Lord himself. … This being, when he formed the earth, did not form it out of something that had no existence, but he formed it out of materials that had an existence from all eternity: they never had a beginning, neither will one particle of substance now in existence ever have an end. There are just as many particles now as there were at any previous period of duration, and will be while eternity lasts. Substance had no beginning; … the earth was formed out of eternal materials, and it was made to be inhabited and God peopled it with creatures of his own formation.”