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Of all the Christian Faiths out there, mormonism should have the most room to say something like this. Yet, somehow I don’t see this happening 
I think most of us here adjust our faith in the light of scientific reason, but is this a good path for religions to walk? What would religion lose, if anything, by taking this route?
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I am thinking this one through. I have long been a strange Mormon because I can see the creation and the Big Bang Theory working side by side. I will give other questions some brain time and get back to you. It’s a good topic. And yet E. Nelson mocked the big bang theory openly in 2012 General Conference, one of several things that convinced my son that Mormonism, being anti-science, wasn’t for him. It’s hard when people are expected to believe in spite of what they’re taught. Quote:And yet E. Nelson mocked the big bang theory openly in 2012 General Conference, one of several things that convinced my son that Mormonism, being anti-science, wasn’t for him.
D–n.
mom3 wrote:I have long been a strange Mormon because I can see the creation and the Big Bang Theory working side by side.
I’m with you. I can look at a picture of a nebula and fathom the stars and planets being created there – and it fits so perfectly with the idea of a Creator God for me. When physicists speak of us being made of star stuff, it rings true to me.
hawkgrrrl wrote:And yet E. Nelson mocked the big bang theory openly in 2012 General Conference, one of several things that convinced my son that Mormonism, being anti-science, wasn’t for him.
DBMormon / Bill Reel just released a podcast where I think it was a Christian ‘philosopher’ was talking about the flood and he was making the point that if Christianity requires that people believe the flood story as literal, then real true scientists will have to reject Christianity. I think the same is true in the church.I am fully in the camp of God and nature/science are beautifully intertwined. I feel the most like telling God, “Cool!” when I look at the night sky on lake Powell.
Watch your mouth mom!
What must we give up? Lieteralism
Not much, if anything, else.
hawkgrrrl wrote:And yet E. Nelson mocked the big bang theory openly in 2012 General Conference
What?? He probably doesn’t even watch it!!!!
Sheldon is officially nominated for comment of the week. There have been some other really good ones, but spit takes exist because of comments like that last one.
:thumbup: 😆 Quote:Watch your mouth mom!
Unfortunately, we were listening to conference (streaming onto the TV), so he heard it directly. It was one of those rare times when I couldn’t shield my kids from stuff that I know is not going to fly. I had to try to defend the indefensible, but c’mon. Nelson didn’t exactly give me much to work with. His tone was incredibly derisive against a well-accepted scientific theory, and he clearly didn’t understand that theory he was mocking. It was not good.
hawkgrrrl wrote:It was one of those rare times when I couldn’t shield my kids from stuff that I know is not going to fly. I had to try to defend the indefensible, but c’mon. Nelson didn’t exactly give me much to work with. It was not good.
Ah yes, the infamous Elder Nelson wardrobe malfunction of ’07. One of the many dangers of live conference streaming [emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]
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Quote:“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality
This shows maturity, and wisdom.
Heber13 wrote:Quote:“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality
This shows maturity, and wisdom.
I like this, but then you do get into a lot of area that science does not prove – it just gives evidence. One study does not “prove” something. It can come to the point where the evidence is overwhelming though.hawkgrrrl wrote:And yet E. Nelson mocked the big bang theory openly in 2012 General Conference, one of several things that convinced my son that Mormonism, being anti-science, wasn’t for him.
See, I think the pursuit of truth requires unity between religion and science — where there are discepancies there is a need for reconciliation — out comes truth from that tension.
As religion appears to rely much more on human intuition and “feelings” and unverifiable facts than science, there is a need for the tempering influence of science. After all, doesn’t truth come from many sources? And aren’t religions in the “truth business”? Our Mormon missionary discussions used to harp constantly about distinguishing truth from error, so I have no qualms about considering “the pursuit of truth” as a core mission of the church..
So, as a high ranking LDS leader (if i was one), I’d never knock science or theories as Elder Nelson is reported to have done — unless such criticism was based of objective evaluation of scientific method or other scientific justification.
If I were to pattern my life after someone, it would be Ben Franklin. He seemed to have figured out his own middle way regarding secularism and religion. He tried church, but found ministers were more interested in making people good Protestants, Methodists (in our case, good Mormons) and entrenching their organization than seeking truth. So, he gave religions respect (donated to them), but spent Sundays giving himself and education at home.
Here is something else he wrote about the Dunkers, who he approached about printing their creed. The discussion was prompted about the Quakers who at one time indicated they would not support War. Yet, they wanted to support the revolutionary war, and had to do “flips” to preserve their dogmatic approach to war, while still supporting the war at the same time…read on….you could draw the same parallel between doctrine and science…
Quote:
These embarrassments that the Quakers suffer’d from having establish’d and published it [that war was wrong] as one of their principles that no kind of war was lawful, and which, being once published, they could not afterwards, however they might change their minds, easily get rid of, reminds me of what I think a more prudent conduct in another sect among us, that of the Dunkers.I was acquainted with one of its founders, Michael Welfare, soon after it appear’d. He complain’d to me that they were grievously calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions, and charg’d with abominable principles and practices to which they were utter strangers. I told him this had always been the case with new sects, and that, to put a stop to such abuse, I imagin’d it might be well to publish the articles of their belief, and the rules of their discipline. He said that it had been propos’d among them, but not agreed to, for this reason: “When we were first drawn together as a society,” says he, “it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, which we once esteemed truths, were errors; and that others, which we had esteemed errors, were real truths. >From time to time He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing.
Now we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear that, if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confin’d by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive further improvement, and our successors still more so, as conceiving what we their elders and founders had done, to be something sacred, never to be departed from.”This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, tho’ in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them. To avoid this kind of embarrassment, the Quakers have of late years been gradually declining the public service in the Assembly and in the magistracy, choosing rather to quit their power than their principle.
I wish we were more open about truth, as Franklin implies. Unfortunately, the claims of divine inspiration of our leaders, the divine commission, prophets who can “never lead the church astray” prevents us from being that way.
That is why the Priesthood Disavowal Essay is such a double edged sword with me. On one hand, it is very Ben Franklin-like. The church acknowledged that the racism of the past was not truth. Congratulations LDS Church!!!!
On the other hand, it damages a key premise of my baptism, ongoing involvement and payment of retirement savings over my lifetime, as well as a substantial use of my time in activities I would not have otherwise dedicated (like setting up chairs, visiting less actives).
Yet another problem, is that people WANT literalism. They are not comfortable with ambiguity, with changing truth etcetera. They cling to tradition. Religions that take a stand, that entrench absolute statements and live by them, appear to last. The Dunkers dwindled to the point they are almost non-existent now — one sect has about 200,000 members worldwide…
Humans appear to see the acquisition of truth as an event, not a process.
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