Neither believe nor disbelieve

I neither believe nor disbelieve... but ponder and wonder in amazement of the possibilities.

Recently during a discussion with some members of the church, a few of them made it very clear of their disdain and opposition to the Big Bang and the Theory of Evolution as a whole. They were actually making fun of scientists and others who would believe such non sense, proudly stating that such things are false doctrine. These individuals seemed to indicate the only possible stance was creation 6000 years ago, done over a period of 7 days. I held my tongue for the most part passing off a "who knows exactly how it all happened" and then left it at that. I didn't wish to offend and realized these individuals were not yet ready to fully understand this more complex matter of the gospel as well as considering it's unimportance to personal salvation. It still remains in my mind that it's true no one does know for sure and maybe what they believe is a possibility. Some are still receiving milk while others are now capable of introducing some meat along with the milk. But it got me thinking more about the subject. When it comes to these types of truths that are merely still in theory form it is fun to discuss and debate the possibilities and how each can or can not apply to the pre-established truths and doctrines.

To set the record straight, I neither believe nor disbelieve the Big Bang or Theory of Evolution. I maintain the stance that it may be a possible explanation for creation and continuance. As I see it, if it does not contradict completely the pre-established revealed knowledge than I can not discard it as hokum. The same goes for other schools of thought on creation and timelines etc. I find many compelling views and opinions on the differing sides. The fact is, we do not currently know exactly 100% how it all happened as we have theories mingled with revealed truths and to state otherwise with a surety is the only hokum that exists. I do believe we need to look at both science and revealed religion to help us understand and put together the mysteries of which we may or may not figure out or get right. As I have stated I maintain a stance that what we have discovered thus far via science is a fair possibility of creation explanation and I think there is fair argument for it within the church as I see how it may fit nicely in explaining and bringing harmony of the two studies. What we know is, that God created the heavens and the earth and he created us in His image. How he did it we do not know. He gives us hints and insights throughout scriptures and science but this is where it ends. What we have left is speculation based upon the best information we can find. Some may lean one way and some another. This is completely ok with me. For now I don't think we need one stance or another but more of a middle ground of possibility, it is up to God to reveal to us in His own due time these certain mysteries.

One of my favourite books of all time is "Earth in the Beginning" by Eric Skousen. Many of the things he presents in his book do make a lot of sense to me as well. I can't say I align completely with his point of view, but he makes compelling arguments and tries to back things up with scriptural interpretation. He discusses such things as "Prophets providing the overview and science helps fill in the gaps". He talks about God's possible chronology, cosmology, earth's spiritual and subsequent physical creations. He delves into forms of evolution and possible future of our globe as well as many other things including a possible explanation for dinosaurs. I love how it tries to make sense and harmonize all information we have before us and theorise the possibilities. That is what I am all about. This is exactly why I love this book and recommend it as a must read, regardless of whether or not I agree with everything it purports.

I have including the following article just to show how there are some within our church who can look at a more non traditional view point of creation and be ok with it. The point I would like to make by all of this is we should not judge or put down another who may tend to side with one stance or another. Although I take the stance to not lean strongly one way or another at this point in time, I offer the freedom to others to believe and worship how, where or what they may. So some may choose to believe that evolution is not compatible with there religious beliefs while others do. Interesting to note that according to a 2004 Gallup poll, 45% of Americans stated that human beings had been created by God in their current form less than 10,000 years ago. In 2009, on the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, Gallup found that only 40% of Americans "believe" in evolution. It's funny how we choose to accept some theories of science over others without a second look, like Gravity, etc., while others are hotly debated. We need to remember that pure religion does not contradict true science and that true science does not contradict pure religion. This article is by BYU scientist Steven Peck, who can explain far better than I can possibilities that Mormonism is not only compatible with evolution, but why Mormons have unique theological reasons for embracing it. He does this with wit, humour, and style. His reasoning may not be doctrinal but it displays to me reasons enough to accept a possibility of this school of thought.

"We can not make what we find fit our interpretation, we must make what we find develop our interpretation" - Kent Wentzell

Why Mormons Should Embrace Evolution: BYU Biology Professor Steven Peck
By Steven Peck

I am a Mormon. And an ape. This pairing is not customary, notwithstanding most Mormons, as members of the human race, are. There is nothing terribly exceptional or unusual about my apishness, but I thought it necessary to point out, because I want to talk about this a bit. Like many Mormons, I am big on genealogy. Although, I must admit, my recent ancestry has captured me less thoroughly than my deep heritage. Still, let's not go too far back, I don't want to talk about my invertebrate, fishy, or even reptilian past. I want to natter about two of my ape-line grandmothers.
One of my grandmothers was a small thing, with a head about the size of a chimp. But here is the incredible thing--she walked upright. Her hands thus free allowed her to fashion rocks into a slightly more useful form. Take a chip off a stone here. Flake off a bit there. And voila! You have just the thing needed to hack open a bone with a little more panache. My grandmother was a lovely woman, and even if she and I are not in the same species, I owe much of what I am
My other grandmother, a little more recent, looked a lot like me. I've got her eyes and nose. And her braincase. This woman's ancestors, fully human for about 600,000 years, made remarkable stone tools. A stunningly brilliant act of functional craftwork and tool manufacture compared to my, and her, more distant über-great grandmothers. Even so, sadly, nothing had changed much for a few hundred thousand years. Same old same old stone paraphernalia. Then about 50,000 years ago something astonishing emerged. My grandmother's folk, living sometime around then, invented art! Her people started decorating things. Gear was made without a practical day-to-day function; fashioned just because it looked elegant. Her people painted cave walls. Established Rituals. Made music and likely danced (dancing has not fossilized well). The dead were honoured in new and elaborate ways. Grandmother's peeps suddenly were wildly inventive! What a woman.
Her tabernacle, I think, was almost ready for something extraordinarily special that God had in mind for his spirit children.
Mormon theology is uniquely positioned to embrace an evolutionarily-based theology. The first reason is that we believe in continuing revelation. We believe in updating our text. God continues to expand our views, deepen our understanding, and reshape and even radically change our current understanding. In an early revelation to Joseph Smith, the Lord revealed: "Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding." D&C 1:24. Therefore, we are open to new thoughts and views, because we believe God varies the manner of his message to our circumstance, understanding, and perspective. In addition, Mormonism has a history of being friendly to science.
In fact, Joseph Smith was called by some of his most thoughtful followers, "a scientist." Evolution by natural selection is the most important scientific discovery of modern times (I am stoically unapologetic about the lack of equivocation in that statement). The evidences for it are staggeringly abundant, detailed, and scientifically undeniable. Our perspective of an open canon allows us to accept this new revelation from the book of nature without getting stuck in past pre-Darwinian quagmires. Mormons are all about continuing revelation. It's what we do best.
Some will undoubtedly point out to me that there were apostles who once said that evolution was of the devil and all that. These men were, of course, the children of their culture. Anti-Darwinian fervor swept through America at the time they were living, and Christian fundamentalism waged a war on science that continues today. That they were caught up in this distraction is neither surprising nor disturbing. We are all the victims of our times. Hello! That is why the Lord speaks to us in our language (as broadly construed). I suppose if the apostleship had been, counterfactually, filled with scientists, the business-savvy mavens now would trace out how uninformed they were about modern corporate practices, and the tale would be about how, say, the church was driven into inefficiency, or even bankruptcy. You know scientists. But this needn't worry us. Things are getting straightened out now. Evolutionary thinking is on the way in, and static old creationism on its way out. Adieu. What about Adam and Eve? The Fall? Yes. We will keep all our essential doctrines. It will take some sorting out. Of course. But we are a patient people.
The second reason Mormonism is evolutionary theory friendly, is that it is deeply materialistic--in the respectable sense. Meaning there is something wonderfully essential about matter. We came to Earth from a preexistent, materialism-lite, to be made of this kind of matter--the kind of matter that we now see shuttling about the universe. There was something wildly vital about our connecting with this proton-neutrony stuff; necessary even to the point that we wanted to be hooked up with it eternally. Like God. We, as material . . . somethings, have the opportunity to change, grow and become something new and astonishing. Like my grandmothers did.
Of course, I've just sketched a wildly broad-brush, cartoonish view, and there are a lot of details to be worked out, but in short, Mormons believe in a flavor of eternal evolution. How wonderful that this is paralleled in the history of the Earth. This, also links me physically to all the creatures of the Earth. My physical body, formed in an evolutionary process, is part of the history of this Earth. This Earth that I believe is my final destiny. Mormons believe this will be our final home, along with the creatures that lived here. The very same creatures that evolved and emerged on this planet. Circles within circles. Worlds without end. What a breathtaking thought that I am connected to this Earth's physical processes in deep time--past and future.
I am a Mormon. And an Ape. On my way to something wondrous.

What do you think of this article and this topic of discussion?

Behind the Singularity

In my third continuation on the idea of eternity being without beginning , I keep coming back to this whole "Time" thing being the real problem that trips us up over and over again. I want to throw it away and then take a look at our universe and beyond. We need to at least begin to look at it differently. We know for God time exists differently then as we know it. Past, present and future are all before him, a concept hard for us to comprehend. Did our universe in fact have a beginning? I think it's possible it may have. But what was the source behind all that creation? If we consider "the big bang theory" at all, what yet lies behind it's singularity?

I am of the belief that there is more than just our universe that exists. A multiverse or even something beyond the endless eternity we know as space in my mind seems to make some sense. I have of course no scientific proof to form any theories, it really is boiled down to pure speculation based on my current knowledge of science and religion. My question is, where did everything come from? Is it possible that it always existed in one form or another, and if so how is that possible? Good science says you can not create something out of nothing. So even if the big bang is plausible (God being the power behind it), where did it's singularity come from? Is it conceivable that somehow somewhere it's possible that there was an actual beginning to all things? Possibly a being or intelligence superior to all else discovered and laid the building blocks of all life and matter. Yet even with such a speculation, there still leaves an unanswered singularity problem of how even that being came to be! Further speculation beyond this requires twisting your brain till it hurts. It seems as those something must have always been present on a self existing principle. This however is impossible to comprehend at this time. Can something truly come from nothing after all? Or, behind all creation, beyond all we know does there exist something that exists on a self existing principle? We are taught by Joseph Smith that "Intelligences" fall into this category. I still don't understand how agency, laws and sin play such a large role? Do these originate with our Heavenly Father or are these laws self existing somehow as well or controlled by another force beyond all revealed religion?

If we say that God created everything from nothing, then we say he created the very problems that plague us and required the sending of his only begotten to pay a horrible price for sin and death. Why if he has all knowledge and wisdom and power and love would he do that? That doesn't make sense, therefore, this is why I believe he did not create it from nothing but in fact works with and overcomes the problems within the knowledge and wisdom of governing or self existing laws and principles. The Saviour was a response to problems that naturally occur based on self existing laws. Based on these laws and principles it leads me to believe there is more beyond what we know and there is more beyond the singularity. Behind the singularity we maybe able find out if there is truly a beginning or not, where time does not exist and is not a problem. Not to mention there we can understand, than look past the complexity of the whole "one eternal round" belief. We may never understand it, even in the next life either, but I'm sure we will. I believe Our Father knows all there is to know, beginning and end!

Time is not thought of as being a force. The fact of time is, it exists, it currently moves forward and we have no control over it. Space, before the Singularity, was possibly not just emptiness as we perceive it may have been. Logic dictates that in order for physical matter to exist in our Universe it must have existed before in another universe or realm/ dimension from where properties existed to create our Universe as we know it. How different was it, and how separate are we from that primordial state? It seems to reason that this existence was in a completely unknown form, in an unknown Universe or multiverse or Matrix or whatever we wish to call it. We just don't know what it is!

Next is the tricky part of time. Almost every physicist today will agree, when what they call the "Big Bang" occurred, it only required a few microseconds to create our Universe. It seems to them that "Time" did not exist until the Big Bang occurred (this is the current idea). From this scientific view point, Time only begins when the Big Bang occurs. There is no thought given on the time that the Primordial Singularity may have existed. It is as if nothing before the Big Bang is worthy of any investigation or thought. How can anyone ignore that fact of there having to be a force behind the singularity that created all that we know? The possible singularity and it's big bang is not our starting point. I believe the driving force behind all of creation is God of course. How he chooses to accomplish his creations is still mostly not revealed. But I believe good science is true religion. This is what Joseph Smith taught us in the 1840's.

We will never understand our universe until we learn how it came to be from the beginning. To learn this secret, we must look beyond theories in science. There is in fact room for theology. There is place for a Divine creator. I don't believe science will ever figure it out. But we will one day know all that God knows as he reveals it to us. We cannot blindly accept the logic that time did not start until the moment of the Big Bang. Using that logic, the Big Bang could not occur. Without Time, there could not have been a big bang. How time existed before that point or beyond in God's reckoning is not understood but it must have existed in some form. This I think is important but like I've said, thinking about it only gives you a headache. Forget Time as we understand it! Then think of the endless possibilities that await us in the next life.

Obviously, time had to exist in some form before the big bang. Where else did the singularity come from? Without this prior existence of time, the Universe could not have been created. This prior existence of time allows (something) to exist in a point of time preceding the singularity.

The Trick of Time may also possibly allow us to live separate from God for a long time according to us, yet in his reckoning we are not gone for very long from his presence. This is what we believe. How this is achieved is of course unknown. What we know of Kolob and surrounding stars is that their reckoning of time differs from ours on earth and we understand that one day in God's reckoning equals a thousand years for us. Is this achieved through the confines and laws of our universe or through mere connection to our universe through black holes, dimensions, or a multiverse etc.? I'm not a scientist, I am a theologian that uses some science as reference.

So why is Time so important? Without Time, there can be no motion, no reactions, and no energy. Without time, we could not have a Universe. What is time? It is nothing less than the Universe's equivalent to hydraulic fluid. The lubricant that allows motion to occur and determines at what rate this motion will continue. Next, I think we need to consider time existing in different forms. It can not be only linear based, if past present and future are all before God, not to mention the fact that his reckoning of time differs from ours. Time is one eternal round. To me this suggests that time is not in one form by itself. It can be manipulated in many ways. This is a very exciting idea. With that frame work, possibilities are absolutely endless. God has said time is endless and Endless is his name. What an estimable idea. What or who created time as we know it in this previous universe is a question to be forgotten by scientists and placed in the hands of theologians. We believe it is in God's hands to reveal these things to us in His own due time. All we know now based upon science is that the basic nature of time is that it moves in only one direction. If past, present and future all before God and one in the same, either time does not exist at all for him and he calls it something else or time travel in some sense is possible. What is faster than the speed of light? Nothing we know of, but is it possible outside the limitations of our universe? Is this how God can jump from planet to planet in little time or possibly all things considered, no time at all? This manipulation of time has baffled humans for centuries.

Could our universe be caught between the past and future of time and perhaps frozen in "real time" within this universe by the limitations put upon it at the beginning of it's creation? What we presently regard, as forward time, always looking into the future, could be in reality just a state or point in God's "real time". Could it be that we are now separate from real time. Like I've said before, are we possibly living at point zero eternally, with everything before us and ahead of us existing together. We move with time and in time without affecting anything else, thus we live in one eternal round. If that even makes sense, because I'm not sure it even makes sense to me. Our reckoning of time flows from the point of Singularity. At this point this is all we may be able to say. Where our universe is currently positioned, with respect to time, is the present point between past and future. It is here in the present that our universe may possibly always remain from the point of it`s creation, unless it has another destiny which is yet to be unfolded. We may be able to say that something has always existed due to the fact that something existed before time as we know it was ever created. Interesting twisted thought no doubt. Therefore, I say "Time" is the mystery that science and religion has yet to discover. I one day hope to obtain the truth of all things.