Steven L Peck on Why Evolution and LDS Thought are Fully Compatible

It is funny how many negative comments there are here,.. are so meany member so uneducated or are just Utah people living in their little ancient bubble

"I believe in inches but not miles". Macro Evolution cannot be observed nor proven. Evolution is a Hypothesis not a theory. Fortunately science is turning on evolution because real scientists are making observations that disprove evolution. The Hypothesis will be thrown on the junk pile soon.

Evolution is troublesome for those of us who believe that MAN is in the image of GOD. If MAN is an ongoing project, from whence did he evolve? Did he evolve upon this earth and if so, why? If we are in the image of GOD, why is evolution necessary? Why did Brigham Young and other prophets teach that Adam and Eve were born elsewhere and brought here to this earth? Do you believe Lucy was man's common ancestor? Each animal that ever existed on Earth existed as a spirit in that image and, yes, this would include clones (which are only genetic copies, not spirit copies). Adam and Eve came here, we're taught, fully formed and developed, immortal but without glory. How, then, can they be descended from a lower life form? In fact, sir, you have not answered the question of how evolution is compatible with the gospel at all, but have only muddied the waters claiming on your reputation as a scientist that all is well. As I see it, you, as a latter-day saint, can choose between being a priest or a scientist, but how can you be both? I say this with no disrespect, but again, if we're in the image of God, why do we need to be designed as if from scratch? What if Lucy and the Taung Child were simply other creations and not at all related to MAN? Is this possible or has science proven positively that they're in our lineage? These are questions I'd hoped you would have addressed. As of now, you haven't shown how God can work through evolution on our Earth or why it would be necessary.

@BobMcDanielRobertson - he has decided to censure/remove my last post, here it is:

My apologies to other LDS for making a display of what your religion does to the human mind by engaging this particular poster. Is this really the level of intelligence you wish for your children and grand children?

In 6000 years of KNOWN and proven human life

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140515-skeleton-ice-age-mexico-cave-hoyo-negro-archaeology/

BTW, C14 dating has been calibrated using tree rings, dendrochronology, from three separate tree genealogies on opposite sides of the planet and they agree with one another.

You don't have Down Syndrome or something similar do you?
I ask so that I might establish the fact that there is no other excuse for your appalling level of ignorance other than the effect that the LDS religion has had upon your mind.

I thought stuff broke when it's run down and bent over as you have.
But the truth pops back because it's the truth. You however chose to try and strangle it by intermingling ideas you make up to desperately prove the falsehoods your suffering from are true. It's a cult. Run. Oh. Yeah. You are not really a scientist are you. Don't start lying now. Yes Steven L. Peck I mean you. RUN ITS a CULT!

This is a great topic and it is forever boggling my mind. I had come up with a decision for my self that evolution was engineered by the rich elite of the world to deceive us, and they would paying off scientists to make it fact. The huge basic argument about all this is Time. Has the world only been around for 13 thousand years, or in the bible in Genesis does the words "In the beginning" mean something else. O well we will all find out eventually but i wouldn't leave the church because of it. I wonder if science could come up with a way to save our brothers and sisters faster HeHe:). keep an open mind with hope and faith and progress.

Just Sunday the church doubled down speaking against gay marriage by stating that Adam and Eve are real. How does that work with the theory of evolution they teach at BYU, Steve?

you would think we could have an LDS discussion on the possibility that modern science is mostly witchcraft, full of lies to decieve the public and to brainwash and take god out of the world. in other words, use science to kill god. instead of humans being sacrificed, its god the father and all truth. the victory of 'evilution' is the victory of naivety and ultimate trust in the arm of flesh. don't trust science, its witchcraft, its ideas, and philosophy are anti god. so why would you trust its theorists?

Nope. If there was no death before Adam (see 2 Nephi 2:22; Moses 6:48; and LDS Bible Dictionary) evolution did not happen before the fall of Adam.

"Did the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints know that members are "leaving in droves?" a woman asked.

"We are aware," said Jensen, according to a tape recording of his unscripted remarks. "And I'm speaking of the 15 men that are above me in the hierarchy of the church. They really do know and they really care," he said."

(Reuters)

Steven, you're a traitor to science and a liar. Did you tell your Bishop and Stake President that you support the Prophets and Apostles to get your temple recommend? All your rationalizations fly on the face of what the leaders of the church have taught for years. Here's a question: The day you realize that there's no god, (and you will) will you give people who paid over a thousand dollars for your book their money back?

They're not compatible in the slightest.

No offence to any Mormons, since you are generally so polite and well turned-out, and your teenage daughters so skilled at giving blowies.

On his last point, recently they are developing video games and simulations with a design mechanism called "procedural generation", which is when a code or law is written, and the computer is capable of making a practically infinite number of variables based upon those laws.

It got me thinking into how God created the universe, considering that we now are about to have universes in our computers. Did he personally create everything, or did he set laws in place and matter organized itself?

What has this to do with SALVATION?

CHANGE SCRIPTURE? How do you do that. BYU is so full of misinformation it is a shame to education

Former Mormon here. Now Iron Deist.

Evolution as Atheists promote it is complete bs. EVOLUTION IS ABSOLUTELY ENTROPIC. NO EXCEPTION.*

THE FALL HAPPENED & IT NEVER STOPPED (there was only 1 true fall). Evolution is not static at all, in the least, in any way.

The only time Evolution is ever positive & results in Ascension/Exaltation, is when it is CONSCIOUS & WILLED.

The Linear-Minimalist Standard is the basis for both Moral Objectivity & The Scientific Method. Cause & Effect in ISOLATION applied to The Soul & The Universe are essential.

My position is that we inherit a degree of Order from The Creator & that Satan/Lucifer caused a Break/Fall in The Pattern of Creation.

In otherwords, we are experiencing Information Decay with our genetic material, & this information is struggling to hold to itself, resulting in the variation of species.

President Joseph Fielding Smith did not believe that evolution and LDS thought are FULLY compatible. In 1911 he said that "it is well known that evolution and the 'higher criticism'--though perhaps containing many truths--are in conflict on some matters with the scriptures, including some modern revelation" (Joseph F. Smith, “Theory and Divine Revelation,” 14 Improvement Era (no.6) 548-549 (April 1911)). If they are in conflict on "some matters," then they are NOT "fully compatible." In other words Peck is deceiving himself and others when he claims that they are fully compatible.

This is incredible; trying to make the idea of evolution compatible with mormonism. Has your faith degenerated to that stage? You are wasting time; evolution is simply impossible, looking at it from the viewpoint of mathematics and fysics. Science and religion fit together very well, as is said in the video, but unfortunately the science of today is still very limited in its scope. The creation is far too complicated to be the result of a cosmic accident. Ask any socalled scholar, who believes in the proces of evolution, how far he has studied in mathematics and the answer will probably be none; evolution is a philosophy, a beliefsystem, not a science. The fact that there are fossils in the ground does'nt prove that we are descendents from them, only that there was a former creation.
This creation proves there is a creator, there is no other way to explain our existence.

WHAT RUBBISH. This is no different than listening to Jerry Coyne or Richard Dawkins. The same old, tired, arrogant, specious arguments.
To top it all off his political correctness screams at us at full volume as he depicts a female scientist at 14:45, a female mechanic at 15:45, and a female computer programmer at 25:05. This guy's mind is corrupted, not only by political correctness, but by a science that is locked into an institutionalized, bureaucratic orthodoxy, which excommunicates any scientist who strays from that orthodoxy (witness his mocking of Michael Behe).
This self-replicating, animated matter we call "life" is overflowing with the hallmarks of design, from the molecular machines that service and support the DNA molecule to the complexity, diversity and interdependence of all lifeforms. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable and logical to deduce that it is designed unless proven otherwise.
Among competing hypotheses the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Neo-Darwinian evolution is built upon trillions and trillions of assumptions in the form of random genetic mutations that supposedly occurred, without forethought, in a specific sequence to invent the hardware that would bring to fruition concepts that never used to exist, like vision, flight, consciousness, and intelligence itself. If you want to "believe" in this astronomically improbable scenario that's fine, but don't pass off your creation myth as equally logical and equally probably as the self-evident truth that is staring you in the face day after day -- that life was designed by a supreme intelligence.
This guy is a pawn on the Master Deceiver's chessboard.

Wow, this was a poor attempt to reconcile science and evidence with religion.
I am an Ex-Mormon/Agnostic Atheist. So I might have a little bias. But I listened with the intention of being convinced and I never was.
Let's think something. This core of this problem is whether to take the book of Genesis as literal truth or metaphorical stories. It says in the bible that things were created as they are today. Well clearly that isn't possible if you understand science and furthermore understand evolution. So let's take it as metaphorical text, well where do you stop taking text as metaphor? Is the first sin metaphor? Well then why would Jesus die for a metaphor? So it has to be taken literally, but then that makes no sense with science and all evidence. Maybe the book is wrong? Well many would say "I feel it to be true"! So is the Koran true because Muslims say "I feel it to be true"! How can that be that multiple groups get the same feeling? Maybe they are all right, and this is some secret test of God, or maybe (and seems most likely) you get a chemical release in your brain when you think that someone greater loves you regardless of the existence of the loving person. Maybe the "holy spirit" is placebo and its "warmth" is what you feel when you think you are loved due to chemical releases in your head.
Not to mention how the reason why Jesus died is mostly glossed over.

Steven L Peck on Why Evolution and LDS Thought are Fully Compatible

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