Beck talk

[Solon]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Are you claiming that these Book of Mormon accounts are lies?

I'd say it's probably untrue, and that LDS leaders have since recognized that skin color has nothing to do with sin.

The original edition of the BoM:
2 Ne. chapter 12 (pg. 117):

and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and delightsome people."

1981 version:
2 Ne. 30.6:

and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and a delightsome people.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by woot

Well the implications of evolution include all of Genesis, much of the Book of Mormon, and the whole temple ceremony needing to be completely metaphorical, at best. What good was the atonement when there was no fall? Clearly, we've always been "natural men." etc, etc. I don't really expect answers, nor do I expect these to be problems for anyone else, but I thought I'd throw a few questions out there. There are many.

Evolution isn't even necessarily the main issue for me, so much as my reluctance to believe things without what I consider to be good reason. I'm not happy that there's no evidence for any of the events of the book of mormon, but I'm not surprised either.

Why? Evolution says nothing about whether Adam and Eve ever existed. Couldn't evolution have occurred until a certain point where God inserted the light of Christ into two beings (Adam and Eve) who then became the parents of all mankind (man being those who have the light of Christ)? This may require an understanding that Eve was not literally created from a rib (or perhaps she was for some strange reason even though evolution was also going on), but I haven't ever thought she was literally created from a rib anyways.

I just don't see how evolution (whether true or false) requires much of a shift of any gospel beliefs.

[woot]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

Why? Evolution says nothing about whether Adam and Eve ever existed. Couldn't evolution have occurred until a certain point where God inserted the light of Christ into two beings (Adam and Eve) who then became the parents of all mankind (man being those who have the light of Christ)? This may require an understanding that Eve was not literally created from a rib (or perhaps she was for some strange reason even though evolution was also going on), but I haven't ever thought she was literally created from a rib anyways.

I just don't see how evolution (whether true or false) requires much of a shift of any gospel beliefs.

I've heard it justified that way, but find such attempts quite futile. The whole Adam & Eve/garden of eden story was an attempt by a primitive mind to explain how humans came to be. I'm sure it seemed satisfactory at the time, but can't understand why anyone would want to believe it today.

The way it's explained in the Bible is that all humans are descendants of Adam and Eve, so that would mean that the rest of the humans, which had started civilizations all over the planet by that point, must have simply vanished, unless you are willing to believe that only the descendants of Adam and Eve have the light of Christ while the rest don't, which is absolutely counter to Mormon doctrine, as it states that everyone has the light of Christ. It would also mean that Christ's atonement would only apply to the progeny of Adam, a very small percentage of people. It would also make Christ's atonement pretty pointless, since the only reason it was necessary is because God interfered with the natural course of things in order to perfect a couple people and subsequently allowing them (forcing them?) to fall again. That doesn't make any sense.

Another interpretation would be that God inserted the light of Christ into Adam and Eve a long time ago when they were primitive proto-humans, but then that would falsify the rest of Genesis, and if one is willing to throw out most of Genesis, one should certainly be willing to throw out the most absurd part of Genesis, Adam & Eve. In this case, it also seems very arbitrary, and imagining Michael sitting up there asking "Are they evolved enough yet?" doesn't strike me as a rational belief.

Don't even get me started on the flood. It absolutely did not happen. Knowing this, why should we believe the rest of Genesis is anything other than metaphor/tall tales?

[Solon]

Originally Posted by woot

The whole Adam & Eve/garden of eden story was an attempt by a primitive mind to explain how humans came to be. I'm sure it seemed satisfactory at the time, but can't understand why anyone would want to believe it today.

I think it highly inaccurate to call the ancient mind "primitive." The writer(s) of Genesis wasn't writing history in the modern sense, with its pretense to objective fact. I don't think anybody can dispute that many of the stories in Genesis are myth - myth in the sense of how the story operates in a society, not (necessarily) how "true" it is. These myths served an important role in ancient Hebrew society, a role only tangentially concerned with anachronistic categories of "fact," "historicity," and "truth".

Etiologies aren't always about believability or credibility. Rather, they perform some type of function in the society. Ancient Hebrews (or Greeks or Egyptians) didn't always have the same notion of "belief" in their myths that we seem to crave in ours. Sure, there were free-thinkers who questioned the mythic tradition (e.g. Xenophanes, Palaephatus), but their opinions were, for the most part, beside the point.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by woot

Don't even get me started on the flood. It absolutely did not happen. Knowing this, why should we believe the rest of Genesis is anything other than metaphor/tall tales?

You know it absolutely didn't happen because....

[MikeWaters]

I was reading an article in the NYT today about how all men and women alive today trace their ancestry to about 10 men and 19 women. about 140,000 years ago.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Solon

I'd say it's probably untrue, and that LDS leaders have since recognized that skin color has nothing to do with sin.

The original edition of the BoM:
2 Ne. chapter 12 (pg. 117):

1981 version:
2 Ne. 30.6:

"pure" and "white" were used interchangeably in the OT. You're deliberately withholding information.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by woot

The way it's explained in the Bible is that all humans are descendants of Adam and Eve, so that would mean that the rest of the humans, which had started civilizations all over the planet by that point, must have simply vanished, unless you are willing to believe that only the descendants of Adam and Eve have the light of Christ while the rest don't, which is absolutely counter to Mormon doctrine, as it states that everyone has the light of Christ.

just curious, you're not a scientist right? Scientists believe all species had a common ancestor.

Originally Posted by woot

From what I understand, finding the markers delineating general ancestry is infinitely easier, at least at this point, than finding the specific ones that would be necessary to find recent lineage.

I don't deny the possibility that Lehi and the gang showed up some 10,000 years after civilization had already arrived in the Americas, but it seems odd there's no mention of what would have been a fairly dominant population. At this point, such a hypothesis would be unnecessary at best.

BoM does mention other people; you need to read it more closely.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

That's the first I recall of you conceding that, my apologies. I fail, honestly, to see how this casts a negative light beyond what is already known as fact. They were products of their time, and I don't expect them to have made big decisions outside of their long held paradigms without a lot of thought and time. I also believe that an organization can be divinely led and take an uncomfortably long time to get things right sometimes.

I agree that they were some of this dispensation's greatest men. I don't think that pointing out the fact that they held opinions that are now seen as appalling changes that. They did what they thought was right, and that was their job. (And SU, before you tell me that they were way late on the issue compared to their contemporaries remember their ages and their geography. Their true contemporaries had ceded leadership roles in govt. years before).

I speak out when one of the following two points are made (or implied):

1. The priesthood ban existed in defiance of God's will.
2. Racism among the prophets is the only or primary reason the ban wasn't lifted sooner.

I don't know if you intended either one of those, but outside of that, I'm willing to entertain a broad set of possibilities about the dynamics of church leadership. To believe otherwise is, in my opinion, a direct challenge to the prophetic office.

Originally Posted by Solon

I'd say it's probably untrue, and that LDS leaders have since recognized that skin color has nothing to do with sin.

The original edition of the BoM:
2 Ne. chapter 12 (pg. 117):

1981 version:
2 Ne. 30.6:

How is it they caught that passage and not 2 Nephi 5:21? Oversight?

[Tex]

Originally Posted by woot

Fair enough. ... I'm married to a mormon and still go to church occasionally, and still pay attention to what's going on, etc., so don't hate me.

I understand. I don't have a problem with people who struggle with faith. I think we all fall into that category at one point or another, if not multiple times.

I think you will find on this board--and I don't mean this in a pejorative way--that you are not alone.

Originally Posted by woot

I've heard it justified that way, but find such attempts quite futile. ...

While not exactly representative of my beliefs, I think you've stated my problem with LDS explanations of evolution pretty succinctly. I have no problem believing in evolution as it touches animal creation, but I think there are severe difficulties trying to bring that into line with Adam and Eve.

Originally Posted by woot

Don't even get me started on the flood. It absolutely did not happen. Knowing this, why should we believe the rest of Genesis is anything other than metaphor/tall tales?

I really do find this surety amusing. You are absolutely convinced the flood didn't happen, as if it were truly within your power to divine.