My parents offered to take my brother, Christopher & I (and our spouses) to the Tournament of the Kings at Excalibur for our birthdays. It turned out to be a lot of fun! Paul and I really got into the table banging, 'huzzah' shouting and eating without utensils. We sat in the 'dragon' section and enjoyed cheering for...the villain. (Paul was very good-natured about the inevitable, 'does this make you feel homesick?' teasing).
Afterwards, Paul and I wandered the Excalibur, as we'd never been in it before (we don't like being on the Strip), and the best we could find was the SpongeBob statue to take a picture with...so we did.
It was our last Sunday in Cimarron Ward, which is rough. The hardest part about moving (for me) is getting comfortable in a new ward. We had really enjoyed the strong spirit in the Cimarron Ward and all the friends we'd made, also the opportunity to teach Primary so we could spend all 3 hours of church together.
At our Sunday family dinner mom had a strawberry cake for me and Alec helped blow out the candles. Everyone wanted him to put his hand in and make a mess, but he hates being messy. Kelsey and I put some frosting on him and he did NOT like that.This brings me to an interesting subject Paul and I have been discussing (in jest) recently and Paul may have won-
maybe Alec will be a clean astrophysicist like his daddy, and not 'dig in the dirt' as my mother so elegantly describes my choice. Too bad, I had high hopes of training a little anthropologist/archaeologist like me.I've also noticed I only seem to take pictures of him in his little blue moose outfit lately...I'll work on that. Maybe it's because it makes his dark blue eyes stand out?
Alec had his 9-month old wellness checkup today (no shots-yay!) and he's now a staggering 20 pounds, 1 ounce and 27 inches long. The doctor was so happy, Alec's back on track, as far as his weight is concerned.
Classes began last week, and the first day was rough (partially because my textbook only arrived at the college 4 days prior- not much time to prepare), but Paul gave me great advice (and held me) afterwards, so Thursday went great and now I'm excited. I start teaching human evolution this week and am unsure exactly how I feel about it, so that should be interesting. Church leaders have all given very different personal viewpoints (McConkie's against it; Widtsoe, Eyring & Talmage all feel it has some merit), I guess I need to figure it out for myself. Any thoughts? Heavenly Father works with nature, not contrary to it and the outline in the Bible follows the fossil record. The more Paul and I use science to understand how Heavenly Father has created a natural order, the more my testimony increases (Paul can better comprehend how planets and galaxies are formed and I can better see species and ecosystems), we don't see science and religion at odds at all. I'm not sure why right-wing christians' hackles are automatically raised at the thought of evolution, but after discussing it with Paul several days now, we both feel the evolution of man definitely has some merits (we agree with the scientists in the Church), I have more specific ideas (since I've been studying it for over 10 years), but would love to hear others' thoughts on the subject. Obviously we don't have all the answers, all general authorities agree that the dating of the earth is better referred to in the POGP where it's explained as 'periods' rather than 'days'; as each one may have taken a different amount of time and radioactive half-life dating allows us to extract a date range from existing material when it was formed into our world of several billion years ago. As to man's spontaneous creation or evolution, we're just curious about opinions.
Everything is going ahead for our move on Thursday. My brother Kevie's been stopping by on his way home from work and carting boxes over for us, which has really helped. Moving down to one room is going to be tricky, but we're working really hard, so it should all fit. We're still concerned about the dogs in my parents' home, so we'll see how this first month goes, then work from there.
2 comments:
Ack! Moving already?!?!?! Sundays just won't be the same.
I'm with you on the thought that evolution and Christianity aren't mutually exclusive but am so fried after court this morning that I can't formulate any sort of intellectual thought. I'll get back to you on that.
Easy move vibes sent your way and please don't be a stranger!
Here's my twopence worth:
I have also been interested by evolution because I know one of my modules in September will be Darwinian evolution. I am by no means an expert but since you asked here is my take on it from what I have read and what I feel the Spirit witness to me.
I had two recurring thoughts (I always try to pay attention to these) after reading your request for opinions on evolution. They were so persistent that despite it being 1am I had to pursue them. They were to (1) see if a book my Mom gave me for my birthday years ago had anything on it and (2) find the statement by the First Presidency called "The origin of man".
The book my Mom gave me is called "Joseph Smith as Scientist" by John A. Widtsoe in which he agrees with the concept of evolution as stated by one Herbert Spencer i.e. "every object, no less than the aggregate of objects, undergoes from instant to instant some alteration of state." and "All things are growing or decaying, accumulating matter or wearing away, integrating or disintegrating." Indeed Widtsoe asserts that this definition of evolution is the "shadowing forth" of the gospel truth about eternal progression. Widtsoe qualifies his acceptance of this principle by saying "All things advance, but each order of creation within its own sphere. There is no jumping from order to order."
The First Presidency in 1909 in response to the growing acceptance of Darwin's theories published an official response titled "The Origin of Man" in which among other things they state:
"It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father. "
This statement has, to my knowledge, never been retracted. On the contrary I feel The Family : A Proclamation to the World reasserts the Church's position.
More important to me than all these is the quiet promptings of the Spirit that I have felt as I have studied, pondered, prayed and attended the temple which has born witness to me that these things are true. I feel as you do about the periods of creation and the temple has been enlightening in this regard. I marvel at how the Lord uses natural laws and processes, and love to see how man's knowledge little by little finally comes to be congruent with eternal truth. Truly "pure science is a part of pure religion".
Michael
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