Pre-Adamic civilizations?

[Anonymous]

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I like reading your views and how you balance a literal acceptance of the biblethath skepticism on the church and speculative doctrines.

Thanks Heber! I try to strike a balance. When I had my initial FC, I wanted to become atheist. I was so angry at God. I was ex’d for having a child out of wedlock yet there were many males who had committed fornication (including my brothers) who were not disciplined and were still going at it!

Of course I was given a copy of “The Miracle of Forgiveness” (SWK was still the prophet at the time) and reading it only made me feel more hopeless and angry. And I need not mention the being a woman in the church with the sexism, polygamy(I was not sheltered from it being in Baptist country–they made sure that any mormon in earshot knew), my childhood issues with my own father (pretty bad), plus the “equal pay for equal work” fight was still fairly fresh in my memory, and reading section 132 and how the Lord would destroy Emma if she didn’t accept all the other wives, made it very difficult to stay LDS in my mind or come back, rather. I didn’t see any benefits as a female. Working hard in a plywood factory to support my daughter and struggling to get by made me think there was nothing in this world or the next for me. But God showed mercy and let me rage at Him without being smitten. I have gotten In binds where nobody was around to help and had to humble myself and ask for divine help… and I got it. Miracles. Lots of them big, from small things. And I was nowhere close to being righteous. I also had many profound spiritual experiences, some negative some positive

I came back by reading just the gospels in the NT. just good milk parts. I discovered that Jesus advocated for women. I believe He advocates for me. All of us.

But back to science and Genesis. I may not be a PhD as some here but I have taken college science courses. I see that evolution has some demonstrable truths. But I don’t buy into the ape to man theory or any of the macro evolution stuff. There are no conclusive missing links and just because they dig up some bone fragments of an old hominid and name it Lucy doesn’t mean she is my ancestor.

To me these scientists are just as guilty of comfirmation bias as I am. I would rather join a biblical archaeological team to look for Solomon’s stables than find my monkey grandma. That is depressing. A quote I read long ago that said if evolution is completely true (given there is no God in the equation) means that life came from nothing, therefore means nothing, and is going nowhere. So my life would have no more cosmic significance than an earth worm.

[Anonymous]

rachael wrote:

To me these scientists are just as guilty of comfirmation bias as I am. A quote I read long ago that said if evolution is completely true (given there is no God in the equation) means that life came from nothing, therefore means nothing, and is going nowhere. So my life would have no more cosmic significance than an earth worm.

I’m sure there are many scientists that suffer from confirmation bias. New data that goes against a pet theory can threaten the value of research that may have taken a lifetime to accumulate. That kind of sounds like one of the negative emotions of a faith crisis that some people have to work through. What do we do in light of conflicting data?

Thomas Edison said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” For the record I think that’s much easier to say once you’ve achieved a few things but the point is that it illustrates that a lifetime of disproved research still has value. The spirit of inquiry and experimentation marches on. After a faith crisis we too can hold fast to the experiences that we’ve accumulated and use them to help us press forward.

I’ve been down that road, bear with me. There might be people out there that believe in god that feel like their lives mean nothing and that they are going nowhere. There might be people out there that believe in evolution but don’t believe that it was orchestrated by god and yet still find meaning and purpose in life. We can find meaning and purpose independent of our belief in specific things. If we lose belief in that specific thing we can suddenly find ourselves without meaning or purpose. We’re all experimenters with belief. I suppose the call is to press forward like a good “spiritual scientist.”

In my case I contemplated an ant as opposed to an earth worm. I may have set my sights too high by focusing on the ant.

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And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth;

It was a humbling experience. To see the miracle in all life, to feel compassion for the ant. Anthropomorphism on steroids.

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Do you think that you could ever,

Through all eternity,

Find out the generation

Where humans began to be?

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That little mental exercise where we ask: Who was heavenly father’s heavenly father? Who was his heavenly grandfather? Where and how did it all begin? I suppose entertaining thoughts on evolution allows us to do the same for the human family. We mirrored the concept.

[Anonymous]

Rachel, there are no hidden messages in any of my comments. If I mean to direct something to someone, I will use their name; otherwise, it’s just generic about people.

It’s all good.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Nibbler, I love your analogy about all of us being experimenters and the Edison quote. But now I must work on not being prideful since I just glorified myself by thinking I am as a mighty worm when I’m just the dirt the worms abide in! lol, Well worms do get to dine on us after death (unless we are cremated).

Repopulate… interesting. Im going to look that up and Karen Armstrong.

Ray, thanks. Its hard for me to read tone when we are all behind screens.

[Anonymous]

Here are some excerpts from Hugh Nibley’s “Old Testament and Related Studies, Before Adam”. Maybe there aren’t in Nibley fans in the house but I liked the book and its free to read here:

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/book/old-testament-and-related-studies/

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So we might well ask: What about those people who lived before Cain and Abel? What about those who disappeared from sight? What about those who were not even warned of the Flood? What about those many, many who visited the earth as resurrected beings? What about the Watchers? What about the sons of God who should not marry the daughters of men, and vice versa? And what about the giants they begot when they did marry? What about the comings and goings of Enoch’s day between the worlds? What about his own status as “a wild man, . . . a strange thing in the land”? (Moses 6:38.) Who were his people, living in a distant land of righteousness, who never appear on the scene? What about the Three Nephites, whose condition so puzzles Moroni, until he is told that they are neither mortal nor immortal? (Mormon 8:10—11.) What about the creatures we do not see around us? What about the Cainites? What about the nations among whom Noah will have surviving progeny?

Speaking of Noah, God promised Enoch “that he [God] would call upon the children of Noah; and he sent forth an unalterable decree, that a remnant of his seed [Enoch’s through Noah] should always be found among all nations, while the earth should stand; and the Lord said: Blessed is he through whose seed Messiah shall come.” (Moses 7:51—53.) Methuselah boasted about his line as something special. (Moses 8:2—3.) Why special if it included the whole human race? These blessings have no meaning if all the people of the earth and all the nations are the seed of Noah and Enoch. What other line could the Messiah come through? Well, there were humans who were not invited by Enoch’s preaching—not included among the residue of people not entering Enoch’s city. They were “the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain . . . had not place among them.” (Moses 7:32.)

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Do not begrudge existence to creatures that looked like men long, long ago, nor deny them a place in God’s affection or even a right to exaltation—for our scriptures allow them such. Nor am I overly concerned as to just when they might have lived, for their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared. God assigned them their proper times and functions, as he has given me mine—a full-time job that admonishes me to remember his words to the overly eager Moses: “For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me.” (Moses 1:31.) It is Adam as my own parent who concerns me. When he walks onto the stage, then and only then the play begins. He opens a book and starts calling out names. They are the sons of Adam, who also qualify as sons of God, Adam himself being a son of God.

If Sunday School manuals would focus on questions instead of the “answers” that overly simplifies the Genesis narrative, class would be much more interesting. And would help dispel YEC theory among Mormons that want to be spoon fed.

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