Evolution

Again, welcome today’s guest post by Wallace Haws. In this post, he explores an imaginary conversation between a devoted believer in the LDS tradition (Simon the Saint) and a person striving to find the truth (Dogwood) as they explore the topic of Evolution.

EVOLUTION

By Wallace Haws

A conversation between Simon the Saint and Dogwood.

Simon the Saint formed his ideas about the origin of man early in life based on the prevailing beliefs of his family and LDS religious community. Simon’s beliefs are part of his very being. He is not interested in exploring alternative explanations. His world is full of crisp lines and black and white distinctions. A threat to his beliefs amounts to an existential threat to his soul. He is best described as a zealot.

Dogwood is an imaginary person whose only goal is to find the truth and who expects to change his mind about things as new evidence emerges. He looks for evidence and is willing to follow it no matter where it leads, even if it conflicts with his own long-held beliefs.

Dogwood: (speaking to Simon the Saint) “What is the origin of man and what is his destiny? By “man” I mean the Homo Sapiens species.

Simon the Saint: “That is an easy question answered by the scriptures and words of latter-day prophets! Here is a quick summary.”

Origin of Man:

• The Church has no official position on evolution. Some leaders have/do take a more literal interpretation of the scriptural account of the creation of man and consider the idea of evolution as blasphemous. Other church leaders are more nuanced and find ways to accept evolution into their religious beliefs. Regardless, the church officially states: “the scriptures tell why man was created, but they do not tell how”.
• Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles summed it up like this in his talk “Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet,” Jeffery R Holland, April 2015 Conference:
  • “Though the details of what happened on earth before Adam and Eve, including how their bodies were created, have not been revealed, our teachings regarding man’s origin are clear and come from revelation. Before we were born on earth, we were spirit children of heavenly parents, with bodies in their image. God directed the creation of Adam and Eve and placed their spirits in their bodies. We are all descendants of Adam and Eve, our first parents, who were created in God’s image. There were no spirit children of Heavenly Father on earth before Adam and Eve were created.” In addition, “for a time they lived alone in a paradisiacal setting where there was neither human death nor future family. They fell from that state, and this Fall was an essential part of Heavenly Father’s plan for us to become like Him.”
• Simon then offered a bulleted list of what Elder Holland said:
  • Jesus Christ created the earth and all that is therein and the universe as direct by God.
  • Heavenly parents gave birth to countless spirit children who lived with them in a place we call the pre-existence. His spirit children were in his image and were either male or female. When a baby is born on earth, his premortal spirit enters his body and gives the body life. When the spirit leaves the body, the body dies.
  • There were no spirit children of Heavenly Father on earth before Adam and Eve, our first parents.
  • For a time, Adam and Eve lived alone in a paradisiacal setting, where there was no death, nor did they have children.
  • They partook of the forbidden fruit and “fell” from that state and began to have children, which eventually populated the entire earth. This was an essential step in Heavenly Father’s plan for us to become like him.
  • All human beings (homo sapiens) are descendants of Adam and Eve.

Destiny of Man:

• The purpose of our earth life is to gain a physical body that matches the sexual identity as male or female of our spirit body we brought from the pre-existence and to be tested whether we will obey God’s commandments on this earth.
• Every person will have the opportunity to accept saving ordinances (baptism, confirmation and temple endowment) and then God will judge them according to their works and they will receive a Celestial, Terrestrial or Telestial glory with a resurrected body to match or consigned to Hell where there is no glory but eternal torment.

Dogwood: “Wow, that is quite the plan. It appears you have everything figured out.”

Simon the Saint: “Yes. It is a wonderful plan. We call it Heavenly Father’s Plan of Happiness.”

Dogwood: “There are so many things I want to ask you about. But, to begin with, how do you know all of this is true?” 

Simon the Saint: “I know it is true because the scriptures and prophets declared it.”

Dogwood: “Do you have any evidence I can examine that shows it is true?”

Simon the Saint: “Sure. Here is a copy of the scriptures for you to read and you can go to the Church website and just type in the word ‘Evolution’ into the search bar and you will find everything I just presented.”

Dogwood: “I was expecting a little more than that. Do you mind if I present some basic facts about evolution and then ask you some questions?”

Simon the Saint: “Sure”.

Dogwood presents the following basic evidence for evolution:

• Evolution is the mechanism of natural selection by which species change over time by survival of the fittest; adaptation to environment; genetic drift; random DNA changes; bottleneck effect; mutations; etc. Life first appeared on the earth approximately 3.5 billion years ago, then evolved into the many different species we see today, including man.
• There were at least 27 different human-like species that evolved but became extinct, with only the Homo Sapiens species surviving.
• Evidence for Evolution include: fossil records including transitional fossils; patterns of extinction and diversification; comparative anatomy; molecular biology; DNA similarities; protein comparisons; biogeography; impact of continental drift; etc.
• Nothing in biology makes sense without accepting evolution as a reality.

Dogwood: “Do you question whether organic evolution is a reality?”

Simon the Saint: “I believe in evolution as revealed by good science. As I explained earlier, the church has no argument or any official statement on the details of evolution. In fact, all LDS Church Universities teach all aspects of organic evolution. God has not revealed the process or mechanics of creation, so the church seeks to expand knowledge in this field until such time as God chooses to reveal more details to his prophets. In the meantime, we know where the spirit of man came from and what his ultimate destiny is.”

Dogwood: “I appreciate the Church having an open mind about scientific research, but how do you explain or deal with scriptures and prophetic statements which conflict with evolution and still maintain your faith in the church? If evolution is true, doesn’t that mean conflicting ‘dogma’ isn’t true? I will list only a few problematic concerns among many.

• D&C 77 states the earth will have a 7,000-year temporal existence.
  • There is no evidence for this statement and a ton of evidence to refute the claim.
  • DC 77 claims it was given by revelation from God. Geologists estimate the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. A literal interpretation of this scripture is utterly false. Any other interpretation is twisting revealed words from God. The evidence is that DC 77 isn’t a revelation at all.
• The Bible chronology published by the Church says Adam left the garden of Eden about 4,000 years BC. Adam and Eve began to have children at that time, and the entire human race is their descendants.
  • There is no evidence for the truth claim and logic suggests this truth claim cannot be true.
  • Archeological evidence shows Homo Sapiens covered the entire globe except maybe a few islands by 4,000 BC, so it is impossible all mankind are descendants of Adam and Eve beginning 4,000 BC.
• There were no spirit children of Heavenly Father on earth prior to Adam and Eve.
  • There is no evidence to support the claim or that Homo Sapiens have a soul.
  • There were millions of Homo Sapiens roaming the earth before Adam and Eve emerged from the Garden of Eden. The vast majority of people on the earth who descend from these Homo Sapiens therefore must not be spirit children of Heavenly Father and therefore have no soul. Humans have intermixed on a grand scale. Does a child born to one parent with a soul and one parent without a soul have a soul? If all Homo Sapiens have souls, did the spirit evolve with the physical body over millions of years also? If the spirit “evolved” then the idea of spirit children being born to Heavenly parents as male and female in the image of God doesn’t make sense.
  • There is almost no evidence people (including the children of Israel) in the Old Testament times believed in a soul that survived after death. The idea of a pre-existent spirit realm is a modern construct.
  • If you believe God was directing the evolutionary process, then this statement is saying that man was being developed from single-cell organisms to manlike creatures similar to the apes, then Homo Erectus, Neanderthals and finally Homo Sapiens. Even though these were all very much alive, the doctrine says that none of them had a spirit or soul identified as a spirit child of God until Adam and Eve came along. LDS doctrine also teaches a body without a soul or spirit is dead.
  • One explanation I have heard is that at some point in the evolutionary process God plucked Adam and Eve out of the population of Homo Sapiens roaming the earth, gave them their spirits and placed them in the Garden of Eden, blessed them to not die or have children until the fall happened. If that is true, what about the millions of Homo Sapiens who were roaming the earth during and after the time of the Garden of Eden? It doesn’t make sense.
  • If Adam and Eve were part of the evolutionary process and had parents who were alive on earth, with a soul, shouldn’t their parent’s and ancestor’s Temple work be done in the Temple?
  • Contrary to LDS doctrine, people are not born strictly as male or female. People are frequently born who cannot be identified at birth as strictly male or female. The concept of sex is not always as simple as binary categories. Some individuals may be born with variations in their sex chromosomes or anatomy, leading to an intersex condition, which is where the designation of male or female may not be clear.
• The spirit of man is in the image of God. The scriptures say God also created man’s physical body in His image.
  • There is no tangible evidence of God. We can explain things attributed to God in simpler ways.
  • There is no tangible evidence of a “spirit”.
  • Evolution occurred in fits and false starts. It was not a straight line linear process as you would expect if an omniscient, omnipotent being who knows all things from the beginning to the end was in charge of the process.
  • It is problematic to identify a specific instance on the timeline of millions of years of evolution when you can say the creation of man was complete and ready for the spirit to enter the body. Since the “spirit” did not evolve in the same way, evolution tends to rule out the possibility of a “soul” or “spirit”.
• God created the earth, animals and man.
  • There is no evidence that an intelligent designer guided evolution and plenty of evidence to the contrary.
  • Evolution took millions of years. It was not a linear process. It involved steps forward and backward with many species not surviving the process. Either God is not an all knowing, all powerful being who makes a lot of mistakes, or he spends a lot of time on vacation, or he doesn’t exist. Science provides evidence that evolution or the creation of man could happen just fine without an intelligent designer. Even BYU acknowledges evolution is a fact of science. There is no discussion in scientific circles of evidence suggesting the aid of or even the need for an external intelligent designer.
  • Man shares much of his DNA with other animals and the basic building blocks for life are identical in all forms of life, including animals and plants. This suggests a more or less common primal parentage for both plants and animals, including man. Scriptures or prophets’ words do not accurately reflect man’s origins; man’s creation was not independent of other living things.
  • The fundamental principle of evolution is survival of the fittest. This has been a violent world with every life form preying on every other life form since the dawn of history. If a kind, loving, omniscient and omnipotent God was directing the affair, he could have accomplished the task much quicker, without false starts, constant violence or loss of species and ended up with a human body without the many weaknesses and flaws inherent in the modern human body.
  • Man is still undergoing evolution.
• God created ALL THINGS spiritually before he created them physically upon the earth.
  • There is no evidence of this.
  • Did God create the bubonic plague, cholera, mosquitoes, ants, mites, and a million other species “spiritually” before physically creating them? Did he create millions of kinds of plant life spiritually? If all these living things have spirits which last forever, where do they all go on the day of resurrection when their spirit is combined with physical elements? Do they all go to the Celestial Kingdom because God created them in the form they are found on the earth and they fulfilled the measure of their creation? If so, the Celestial Kingdom is going to be a very crowded and ugly place given we are to understand that this earth is to become the Celestial Kingdom upon which all those who abide by a celestial law in this life will reside in the next. Multiply this by the millions of years creatures have lived and died on this earth since life came to be 3.5 billion years ago. The whole idea is ridiculous.
• The scriptures suggest Adam was the first living thing to be created on the earth, i.e. the first “flesh” and then the animals were all brought to him to be named.
  • There is no evidence for this claim.
  • Nothing makes sense in biology without accepting the evolution of things from simple life forms to more complex things. There is a mountain of evidence man did not come to be until very late in the evolutionary clock.
• 2 Nephi 2: 22 “And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. 23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.”
  • There is no evidence to support any part of the above true claim and plenty of evidence to refute it.
  • According to scientific evidence, life appeared on the earth about 3.5 billion years ago. There is no evidence that the process of survival of the fitness (birth, sex, violence and death) among humans or animals ever stopped anywhere on the earth during that time period.
  • All Homo Sapiens share nearly identical DNA, which suggests severe bottlenecking happened in our species, but the evidence also suggests a much more complex process of evolution than a single set of parents. There is no evidence that the entire population of the earth descends from a single parentage, especially a pair that emerged from a garden a mere 6,000 years ago.
  • Homo Sapiens share about 98.8% DNA with chimpanzees. This suggests mankind has a common ancestor somewhere in the distant past with the chimp. Which one was made in the image of God—man, the chimp or the original single celled creature?
  • If God snatched Adam and Eve out of the rest of the population of homo-sapiens and put in the Garden of Eden where they would live forever, how do you reconcile the claim that all humans on the earth are descendants of Adam and Eve?
  • What evidence exists that death did not start happening until Adam and Eve partook of the fruit? There is no evidence to support this statement and plenty to refute it.
• The Temple ceremony, revealed by God, teaches that God created man from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him. God created Eve by taking a rib from Adam.
  • There is no evidence the Temple ceremony was received by revelation and plenty of evidence Joseph Smith simply borrowed from the Free Masons.
  • It takes faith to believe in a literal interpretation of the Temple ceremony depiction of the creation of man which defies the reality of scientific evidence showing man evolved over millions of years. There were 5 to 7 million Homo Sapiens roaming the earth when Adam and Eve supposedly left the Garden of Eden.

Simon the Saint: “Those are great questions. This is my answer:

• We have no argument against science and the theory of evolution.
• The apparent conflict in ideas isn’t between science and religion, the problem is with our narrative. You can interpret all the scriptures you quote creatively to allow for science and essential church doctrine concerning the purpose of creation. Interpretations provided by past church leaders were their opinion only. There are more creative current interpretations for both scriptures and the temple ceremony.
• The important thing is, science will never discover the purpose for creation, but the revealed word of God has. That is the important thing to remember as we continue our scientific research.

Dogwood (A little exasperated): “Let me blunt. The glaring implications of evolution is that there is no “soul” to put in the physical body of man, or if there is a soul, God limited those who had souls to a select few.  There was no Garden of Eden where death did not exist, no primal parents of humanity who ate the forbidden fruit and then started having children. Because there was no “fall” there is no need for a redeemer and if no redeemer or soul, there is no need for a restoration of a gospel. If evolution is true, there was no God required to create all living creatures including man, no need for a soul, no afterlife and religion is a fable we have all agreed to tell each other to make us feel better and hold our community together. Doesn’t that bother you?”

Simon the Saint: “Calm down! You are jumping to conclusions?  I suggest you need a little humility and faith. Scientists have not yet discovered all of science, and God has not yet revealed all truth. Be patient. You don’t know everything and more is being discovered every day. If you keep in mind the purpose of creation, i.e. the fact you are a spirit child of God, then you will come out all right.”

Dogwood: Dogwood could tell he had hit a brick wall but dared to ask one more question. “I want to ask one more question if that is OK. But first let me remind you that science has a mountain of evidence for evolution and though the concerns I have raised are logical, meaningful and legitimate, you have answered none of them. 

You stated you know these things are true because of scriptures and the words of prophets, which are highly subjective with no basis in solid, measurable evidence. By your own admission, scriptures are being reinterpreted, and words of prior prophets are being relabeled as their personal opinion instead of the revealed word of God, and the temple ceremony narrative of the creation of man is now being called ‘figurative.’ So, how do you know the scriptures, words of prophets, or your creative reinterpretation of things is true?”

Simon the Saint: “First of all, what you are seeing is evidence of the ongoing restoration of all things. But the fundamental reason I know what I told you is true is by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

Dogwood: Dogwood was tempted to give Simon the Saint the white paper he had written titled “The Gift of the Holy Ghost”, but Dogwood was getting frustrated and he figured he had pushed Simon the Saint far enough for one day. Instead, he said, “Nice talking to you, Simon. Have a good day!”

Simon the Saint: “You too!”

Dogwood and Simon the Saint parted company.

 I had these thoughts as I listened to their conversation.

1. There is no amount of evidence or reasoning that will change Simon the Saint’s mind about any of this. Once upon a time, I thought exactly like Simon the Saint, yet I changed my mind about the creation of man.  There is the possibility Simon will change his mind in the future.  Unfortunately, no amount of evidence will change Simon’s mind until there is some catalyst that causes him to re-examine the evidence objectively and the humility to accept the possibility he is wrong about long-held beliefs based on faith alone.  The catalyst is different for everyone, but for me, it was the emotional trauma of a loved one leaving the Church.
2. Before even thinking seriously about evolution I was losing confidence in the LDS Church because of a deep dive into Church History. I tried to come up with faithful answers to perplexing questions, but I realized there was always a long list of other possible explanations for historic events and truth claims that I could never resolve.
3. When I finished reading “The Evolution of God” by Richard Wright, a couple of books written by Bible Scholars such as “Authoring the Old Testament” by David Bokovoy, “Big Gods” by Ara Norenzayan, and “This is My Doctrine”, by Charles R Harrell I lost confidence in scriptures and the words of prophets.
4. The final straw that broke the back of my faith was studying evolution. I came to realize there are logical evidence-based reasons to explain the difficulties of church history and which refute all LDS Church truth claims. Evolution is the linchpin of my loss of faith in the Church and my conclusion the LDS God doesn’t exist. If the LDS Abrahamic God doesn’t exist, then the obvious and simplest answer to LDS Church truth claims is that it is simply a fable people have agreed to tell each other. The myth keeps the community together that is so important for survival.
5. This paper is not an argument as to whether there is benefit for a person to belong to the LDS community or not, but rather my attempt to show how the fact of organic evolution shows that none of it is “true” in the sense the Church would have you believe.
6. Even though the LDS doctrine of the creation and destiny of man is so fantastical, why is it believed by millions? That is a subject for many books. I believed it myself because I was indoctrinated in it from the cradle and throughout my life. I did not break free from the clutches of superstition until I lost confidence in church prophets and apostles. When I finally started to think objectively and with a critical mind about these things, the implications of evolution pulled back the curtain of the rest of the false beliefs and traditions I was clinging to. Rather than clinging to “feelings” or emotions, I was finally able to recognize truth supported by evidence and sound reasoning.
7. It is no wonder that the Church has no opinion about evolution because if they tried to address the implications discussed here and many others not mentioned, they would not have good answers.
8. The Church’s inability to be honest about itself and science is sad to me because I believe the Church could continue to thrive even though they were to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about its own history and God as well as the fact the universe cares nothing about man or his destiny. The church could be a healthy place where critical thinking is encouraged yet provides a community to love and support one another as we seek our own brand of spirituality. We would work together to get through this life with purpose and meaning instead of perpetuating fables and myths.