Simple Utah Mormon Politics

Can life on earth have been created by some being higher than ourselves, yet continue on as a process of evolution? Sure. I think so. I don't think that God is some debauched Zeus atop a mythical Olympus. Nor do I imagine God as some mystical ethereal unquantifiable essence, as many religionists do. The God I imagine is a perfected human being who, because he is perfect, lives by natural law.

At the behest of a facebook friend, I am currently reading the book Finding Darwin's God . Besides being a delightfully written book, I enjoy the fact that the author, Kenneth R. Miller, as someone who believes in God, is not threatened by evolution. It's a stance that far too few of us take.

In 1906, Francis Galton was attending the West of England Fat Stock Fair when he came upon a surprising discovery that has since proven very accurate.  His discovery has since become known as "The Wisdom of Crowds". Later on it was proven that crowds are generally wiser the more diverse they become.

The question posed in the title of this article is one that was asked by Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion . To the religious person, at first glance, the question might seem preposterous.  But the more I think about the eternal nature of eternity, the more I think Dawkins is onto something.

Has the universe always existed?  Rather, did it have its beginning in a big bang?  Or did God create it?  Interestingly, no matter what your opinion is on the matter, it cannot be scientifically proven.  Every finite human opinion about the origin and purpose of the universe must rest on faith.

Other than the declaration that "Adam was the first man of all men", very little has been revealed to LDS Prophets about whether or not the theory of evolution is correct.  It has been promised that such truth will come in due time.  Latter-day Saints are encouraged, however, to accept truth from wherever it may come.  In that spirit, allow me to wantonly speculate on how religious and scientific truths may one day come into harmony. Feel free to speculate along with me. Updated May 10, 2010: Might there have been death before the fall?  YES! There might have...

If we could just get all the people who believe in Evolution to believe in God, and vice versa, we'd be in pretty good shape.  Maybe we could then agree that, through the evolution of mankind, our possibilities are essentially limitless. Evolution is all around us.  But so also are majestic creations.  It makes perfect sense to me that if things (and people) continue to evolve over the eons, that eventually at least one of them would reach perfection.  Evolution and creation can work together for our benefit.

I've read a couple of times The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Now, as I read The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel, I find myself going back and forth between Strobel's and Dawkins's books to see how they disagree. As you can imagine, the subject of the origin of life is something these men have virtually no agreement on. Interestingly, I think they are both a little bit wrong. Joseph Smith had a better idea. The Case for a Creator makes a pretty compelling case that for DNA and the various proteins of a single cell to work together in their complexity, an intelligent designer must have been involved. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer tells Strobel in an interview that ...to have reproduction, there has to be cell division. And that presupposes the existence of information-rich DNA and proteins. But that's the problem--those are the very things they're trying to explain. The Case for a Creator, p. 231 Meyer goes on to explain the quandary as equivalent to a man fall...

I've studied a bit about evolution, and: I can see how it is possible that animals evolved (in fact there's ample evidence of that). I wouldn't be too troubled to find out that man evolved from lower hominid forms. But I guess I'm not smart enough to figure out how solar systems--especially the planets in them capable of sustaining life--could have evolved. In other words, I have a sneaking suspicion that earth and our solar system is quite good evidence that there must be a God out there someplace. I'm in the middle of reading two very interesting and antithetical books. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins is one that I have read before. I am also reading the answer to Dawkins' claims-- The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions , by David Berlinski. Needless to say, I am immensely intrigued and entertained by my study in contrasts. In his defense of the claim that truth can emanate from both science and religion (a claim that I agree...

Christian scripture teaches that I will be judged out of the Book of Life. If this is true, am I the book out of which I am judged? Is there enough information inside me to form a basis for my own judgment relative to the laws of nature and nature's God? Do my behavior and desires help to determine my DNA? Near the end of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, John writes that ...I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. Could it be, metaphorically, that we are the books that John saw being opened? Do our actions in this life make an imprint on our beings? I think so. What about our thoughts and our feelings? Most definitely. DNA is distinguishing characteristic between living and non-living things. DNA "provides the information necessary to take a bunch of lifeless ...

Various Christian denominations teach unequivocally that organic evolution is a falsehood. Where do you think The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints stands on this issue? It might surprise you. Have you ever been taught in an Sunday School class that the theory of evolution is outright falsehood? Have you felt on a high school or college science exam about evolution that you would have to choose between your faith and science? If you're a Latter-Day Saint, you don't have to worry about these issues. Because your church's doctrine on this subject just might not be what you think it is. I've been rereading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, a book which fascinates me. While I don't think his understanding of early Christian history is anything to write home about, I have been impressed by his explanation of evolution--particularly Natural Selection . During reading, I have found myself--especially when I discovered that Natural Selection and Chance a...

On several different occasions as a child, I would sit on the living room couch, stare at the wall, and try to imagine what it would be like if nothing existed. I still remember vividly how the walls and doors in the entryway to my boyhood home faded to black in my imagination. And my head hurt. Later, I began to realize that I really could not imagine nothing , because the blackness that I had imagined was actually something . To this day I can instigate similar pain as I try yet again to comprehend the mortally incomprehensible. I must not be the only one in the world who thinks this way, because my wife had similar contemplations as a child, and every one of my children has had the same series of thoughts. Occasionally we traverse onto the subject in our Monday night Family Home Evenings, and their heads begin to hurt, too. Especially when put on my evil grin and remind them that their imagined blackness of nothingness is actually something. But that's just fine to have such ...

I recently cited a US Supreme Court decision to indicate that judges often do not make good scientists. Two cases do not a certainty make, but the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals went a great way toward substantiating my theory today. The State of South Dakota appeared in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals today to defend its requirement that a doctor remind a woman prior to her receiving an abortion of the following: That abortion takes a human life That women have a right to continue the pregnancy That abortion may cause psychological harm to the mother It might have been billed as an excellent waste of time brought on by the bullying of Planned Parenthood--who sees its main livelihood reduced as more and more women become more contemplative --simply because it can. Remind me again how Planned Parenthood has any standing in this case? But then the following conversation ensued (a recording of which I heard on the CBS radio news at 6:00 PM mountain time this evening): Chief Justice ...

Make no bones about it--I disagree with several of the sentiments brought up in Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion . But where is the productivity of accentuating the differences? It is much more beneficial to highlight the commonalities, because there are many of those, as well. I fully expect that, truth seekers as we both are, we will eventually come to an agreement on what is true. God Understands and Follows Nature's Laws Richard Dawkins makes this statement on page 104 of The God Delusion : "What if God is a scientist who regards honest seeking after truth as the supreme virtue? Indeed, wouldn't the designer of the universe have to be a scientist?" Exactly! If God indeed did create the earth upon which we live, he would have had to know an immense amount of science. It seems clear that if he exists, he does know science, as illustrated in this excerpt from the scriptures of the LDS church: And the Gods set the [sun, moon, and stars] in the expanse ...

Summary: After reading Richard Dawkins' excellent contribution to religious and scientific debate, I have come to the (to me surprising) conclusion that he and I agree on much more than I thought we would. I recommend The God Delusion to anyone seeking to further their understanding of life in general and how both religion and science can contribute to life in the fullest sense. I recently finished reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and I found it surprisingly refreshing (perhaps because I enjoyed his sarcasm at various religions that I interpreted not to include mine.) Obviously I disagreed with him on issues, but in probably more cases I agreed with his thesis (at least my interpretation of what he said). I was perhaps most surprised with his admission that he does not claim to 'know' that God does not exist, but rather rates the probability of such an existent entity as very low. Here are some ways that I agree with Richard Dawkins: We both think it is en...

No matter what world view we possess, no matter what we think is true, it requires faith to fill in the gaps. Religious people don't know everything about God, but neither do atheists know everything about science. I think we'd all be better off, if we accepted that faith is required, and stop trying to force one side or the other out of the public debate. Religious people will be better off to learn science, and atheists will be benefited from studying religion. When I was a young child, I would sit on my living room couch and look at the coat closet in our entryway, sometimes for almost an hour. My recurring thought was to try to imagine what it would be like if there were nothing (for me 'nothing' had the color of 'black', for some reason) and it would freak me out to no end to try to comprehend it. Alternatively, I would try to imagine how it all got here, and that would freak me out, too. Because of my mental limitations, it became comfortable (and logi...