This is NOT related to astronomy, so I'll put the disclaimer up front. As a lifetime active LDS member I'll take a stab at your question. I'm not pretending to speak for the church in any official capacity, but I've been a Bishop, EQ Pres, taught seminary and multiple gospel doctrine classes, served in a high council, grew up in an active family with a dad who was a Stake Pres., Mission Pres, etc., so I'm not completely ignorant. The problem is that the LDS Church appears reluctant to take any firm, official position on the subject of Evolution, and into such a vaccuum steps the hard core and dogmatic among us. Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce McConkie and Boyd K Packer come to mind, among others. The Church has also seemingly purged its leadership of any with scientific backgrounds (very unfortunate in my mind) which also leaves the hard core to go mostly unchallenged. There's plenty of speculation among writings and sermons, but nothing in the canon. JSF's awful tome "Man, His Origin and Destiny" was officially declared NOT official doctrine, but enough fans of his ran with it anyway, and many of its ridiculous ideas persist today. The other problem is that there is so much of an emotional nature involved with this stuff, that it becomes difficult to carry on a civil dialog without the fur flying in short order. I never attended BYU (graduated from San Diego State U.), but I understand from Duane and others that there is often conflict in abundance between the religion dept. and the science dept. This of course is unfortunate, but also interestingly enough, the Church has been pretty careful to leave real scientists at the Y and let them teach their courses unfettered for the most part. Of course that doesn't preclude the religion teachers from challenging the science course material, which probably leaves many students confused, but there you have it. Personally, I'm disappointed in the Church leaders for not getting this matter settled once and for all, especially with the exponential flood of knowlege pouring in from all the scientific frontiers. We (members) should be embracing this stuff, not ignoring it or pretending it isn't relevant. The world is way too amazing. And I say "Fie!" on any members who teach the kind of baloney you referred to (earth made of parts of other worlds, etc.). Such a god who deliberately fools his children with mountains of fossil evidence simply to "test their faith" is an evil monster in my book, and is contradicted by NT scripture in fact ("what man among you, if your son asked him for a loaf of bread would give him a stone, or a fish would give him a serpent?", words to that effect). There are of course other reasons and topics where this could go, but I'll leave the "short" answer there. Hope I didn't offend anyone on the list with this. And I'll happily stand corrected if I missed something obvious... Rich --- South Jordan Mom <sjordanmom@yahoo.com> wrote:
Pope John Paul II was a wise man and he did a lot of really good things for the Catholic church, in my opinion.
I'm glad you posted that info about your friend the zoology professor. I think he needs to have a little meeting with some LDS neighbors of mine, however. Apparently there is some unofficial doctrine floating around among groups of LDS people that dinosaurs and other now extinct species found in the fossil record never existed on this planet. The story goes that since dinosaurs at least weren't ever mentioned in the Bible or the D & C, that means they weren't here. Their explanation for fossils is that God made this planet from remnants of other planets and the dinosaurs and these other extinct species lived on one or more of those other planets. That's why the earth carbon dates as so old even though it really isn't that old in its present form. I heard that the explanation for all the layers of rock, etc. working out so well is that God made it that way intentionally to test people's faith.
OK, I know this is not official LDS doctrine. I had checked this out with my close friends who are devout LDS a while back when another friend of mine was telling me that she has neighbors who believe this as official church doctrine and her own mom even believes it. One of my LDS friends in Arizona, when I asked her about it, said "oh my gosh, that's going around up there now too?" She said some kids at her children's schools were trying to tell the class teachers and non-LDS kids in their classes this stuff and her own children had come home from school wondering what the heck was going on. Anyhow, I recently spent about an hour with a non-LDS neighbor of mine defending the LDS church and explaining to her that no, this is not official LDS doctrine and no, LDS people are really not all a bunch of whackos. Even though I am not a fan of organized religion in general, I do believe in making sure that any organization's beliefs are not misrepresented whether I agree with their beliefs or not.
But anyhow, have you heard these stories going around at all? What about the human evolution element? When I was at BYU in the early 80s I remember being taught in an Old Testament class there by an LDS Professor that man has not evolved at all. Man was created and put on the earth the same as he is today. There was a quote in the manual from Ezra T. Benson saying that and the Professor said to us the teaching came directly from the prophet and so was unquestionable. Is that what is still taught now? I'm not asking to criticize or make fun, I'm simply curious.
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