Comments on: Towards a Mormon Darwinism

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:06:22 +0000

#85: And you didn’t misspell a word; I honor you, and understand you.

By: Steven P

Steven P — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:30:32 +0000

What I find so interesting is not that any specific view on the questions I posed can be readily embraced, but there are so many ways the tension between evolution and our faith can be eased; and how easily possibilities come to mind. In exploring these tensions new ways of thinking about creation can be explored and we can open ways that science and faith can be allowed to be fully integrated. Too often I find we water down faith or science in our attempts to reconcile these two ways of knowing. I feel both can be fully embraced. We don’t need to choose. Now, we might not have everything neatly tied in a bow, but that’s ok. In fact, the attempts to tie things up in a bow suggest we may not understand how deep the problems run. Plus it’s OK to live without answers to everything. The fact is both evolution and faith are necessary ways of understanding the world. We are going to have to come to terms with that. I see here some great ways to start.

#84 So true.

#70 Some of the best evidence of evolution come from the hominid line. See the book: The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans by G. J. Sawyer, Viktor Deak, Esteban Sarmiento, and Richard Milner, for detailed forensic reconstructions from fossils of these twenty-two different species thought to be on our direct line or dead-end sister species. What’s been found will astonish you. It does me.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:56:56 +0000

#83: ” Nothing he says should ever be taken seriously by anyone, anywhere, at anytime.”

By: Chris P.

Chris P. — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:13:58 +0000

#82 – Bob: The author of this blog, Steve, has a site located at ’sciencebysteve.net’. He talks a lot on evolution, and religion. You should check it out.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:40:30 +0000

#80: You are free to believe God moved Texas to Canada. You are free to believe in Adam and Eve. You are not free to call one Geography and the other Evolution. These are hardwired Sciences that are not opened to your definitions.
There was not a big change in Man’s mind 5,800 years ago. Only, perhaps, it STOPPED changing 5,800 years ago. But Cultured Man was around before 6,000 BC.

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:41:24 +0000

Gary,

Re: Comment #69–

I find these verses from section 93 interesting:

38 Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.
39 And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.

These verses almost make it sound as if we were in need of some kind of redemption before we came here. And then, upon our arrival into this sphere we again start out innocent and begin a new process of fouling ourselves.

I don’t have the guts (yet) to hold fast to this idea–there may be other better interpretations–but I do think it’s something to consider.

By: divaqs

divaqs — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:16:08 +0000

The last known evolutionary step that has been discovered in man was in the brain about 5,800 years ago

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9258970/

To me, this correlates well with the approximate time of Adam.

I’ve made sense of it all by thinking of Adam as being the first spiritual son of God. With his progeny carrying on the same physical and spiritual aspects that made him so, be that brain chemistry or something else, I don’t know.

So, to me, there is no problem reconciling evolution with creation.

I look in particular to the Pearl of Great Price, which in my reading of it describes the planning phase of the earth. It clearly to me shows a foreknowledge of how things would turn out, and a final declaration that the plan was good.
In my simplistic view, this means that Intelligent Design isn’t even needed to make the plan work, since the very laws of physics could be framed in such a way to make evolution happen the way it needed to happen for the plan to be fulfilled.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:11:11 +0000

#78:”Author=Heavenly Father”. I am open to that, and so is Science, who begins it’s book with Chapter #2.

By: Ogan

Ogan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:41:32 +0000

#75 You are correct. The code for all carbon based life on this planet is indeed the four letters that compose DNA, ‘c’, ‘g’,'t’ and ‘a’.

I those terms we are relate to the Hominidae family, the flat worm and every other lifeform. It just depends on how the code is written.

Author=Heavenly Father

By: TonyD

TonyD — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:59:43 +0000

Am I the only one on this blog who has experienced contradictory miracles? God works in ways that are best for those involved. He is able to reconcile – or not – contradictory truths. All this analysis is just making simple truths more complicated.

And don’t underestimate God’s “golden rule”. My impression is that, spiritually, it justifies many actions that would otherwise be seen as inappropriate and “evil”.