Boycott 10,000 BC The Movie

“Should we boycott this movie on the sole premise that under the belief that the Church holds the earth is just over 6,000 years old. But that would make a 6,000 year gap between this movie and what we are to believe as Mormons.”

Jamie,

Where did you ever get the idea that the Church holds the earth is just over 6,000 years old? The Church holds no such view. We don’t know how old the earth is nor do we do know the method used by the Saviour to create the world. What we do know is that man and woman did not evolve from apes but were created by our Heavenly Father and placed upon this earth as His sons and daughters. Everything else remains unknown.

The word the Greek in the old testament uses for “days” actually just means “time period.” Based strictly on what we know, we have no idea how old the earth is.

My friends all saw 10,000. They said it was terrible.

I read this post, expecting at any moment the punchline would be delivered. It never came.

Prior comments have addressed the age of the earth issue, it’s really not one anymore, so drop the 6,000 year idea.

10,000 BC has bigger problems. Witness people using mammoths from the Ice Age to build the pyramids in the Nile Valley – the writers only missed that one by 7 or 8,000 years. 10,000 BC is when, at best, agriculture was being invented. No such cities or populations existed.

Steel weapons (even being kind to say copper is off by several millennia), sailboats, horseback riding. The list goes on.

If you can go to a movie and have fun watching Bruce Willis play an oil rigger and drill on an asteroid and still have fun, you should be able to enjoy this for what it is – escapist entertainment.

But, seriously, rethink that whole 6,000 year thing.

Wow. Just wow.

Jamie I don’t know hardly anyone in the church who thinks the earth is 6,000 years old. Period, end of story. Even my mom, who is about as stick-in-the-mud as a person that you can find doesn’t buy into that. She ALSO doesn’t buy into evolution, so what can I say?

Creative periods of the seven days? Cory (#4), OT was written in Hebrew, not Greek, FWIW, but otherwise your point is valid. If I remember this point correctly, Joseph Smith at point actually lectured on this (I could be mistaken), but essentially said that he didn’t know how old this planet was. I think Brigham Young said something similar.

My point? I don’t know how old the earth is, I don’t CARE how old the earth is, and I don’t really care that much about evolution. (I can hear people screaming now…).

Evolution & origin of life on earth are essentially pointless questions. Regardless of whether God:

1. Created the earth ex nihilo as claimed by some early idiot creationists;
2. formed the earth and all the creatures on it from existing materials but in just a few days as claimed by some other creationists;
3. formed the earth and all the creatures on it from existing materials over the course of 6,000 -7,000 years (based on 1 day in God’s time = 1,000 years to us) as claimed by some moonbats;
4. formed the earth and all the creatures on it from existing materials over the course of an undetermined time period split into several phases as claimed by several works of scripture with little specifics on the detail;
5. or found the earth existing with some life on it and simply modified it for His needs including a set of creatures close to humans that He could change according to what He wanted,

I don’t know. I also doesn’t matter except that I am asked to believe that God is the Creator of my Spirit and that I shall return to live with Him if I do what I’m told by exercising my agency to do good. This requires certain other beliefs. Fine. I don’t mind, but otherwise, as regards the creation, I don’t much care because I choose to believe that a sufficiently intelligent being with the right equipment is certainly capable of creating a planet and placing intelligent life thereon. It might be extremely difficult, but I accept it as possible. What actually happened, and what the fossil record say happened are of no concern to me. This is one of those areas I prefer to reserve judgment until we have further evidence. After all, nearly everyone of the sciences we use to tell the story of evolution is in its infancy. DNA, carbon dating, and numerous other sciences all may seem well established, but in comparison to how long we’ve been around as humans, and how long we’ve been doing things like watching the stars, these are VERY new toys, and I consider the probability of making a mistake with one of them very nearly 95% or higher. When you consider all the alternative theories that physics has considered and discarded to just get to electricity and we still don’t have a clue about gravity (we can’t even directly measure it!) and several other fundamental forces, it becomes fairly obvious that we are still flailing about in the dark.

Yes we know a lot, but I’d say our knowledge abuot science is still exceptionally crude, and will continue to be that way for a long time.

As far the movie goes? Who cares. Go see it or not if you like. The only reason I didn’t go see Phillip Pullman’s Golden Compass is because he’s a jerk about pushing Atheism. If he’d just write good books and say, ‘here’s a story, I’ll let you read and understand it the way you like, I’d have gone, even if the movie and book were completely the same as they are now. I watch Stargate after all, and the whole show is about killing gods. Not even subtly, either. They even take the idea of the Christian God to the mat a few times, though they never reject the Christian God outiright, they certainly do make it obvious that there are things to question about religion. In fact its one of the things I LIKE about the show.

So I got called to repentance by a fellow student who overheard me for stating that I thought McConkie was out of line. He said I was criticizing the brethren, although one could argue that I was merely taking sides in their argument.

Heh. I can only imagine then what that student would have thought about some of the things Dr. Duane Jeffry (who was my faculty advisor my freshman year at BYU, before I changed my major from microbiology to computer science) said about one or two of the Brethren regarding evolution.

Jamie, here are a few posts to consider: here, here, and here.

Also, humans and woolly mammoths did co-exist. ..bruce..

Don’t dump this on me now! I’m still trying to reconcile the Star Wars universe and Middle Earth with the gospel.

Bob H, Most members *might* believe that humanity is 6,000 years old, but I doubt that very many believe *the earth* is that young. There is a HUGE difference between the two.

As to evolution, I have argued about this extensively with some people, but all I will contribute here is that the Church’s ONLY official position (1909 – “The Origin of Man”) does not take a position on the physical creation of humanity as a species. It posits humans as a separate species, with an original ancestor known as Adam; it claims that “man” is not just an evolved ape – since the insertion of the spirit of a child of God into a physical body created a distinctly new creation; it does NOT reject evolution as the process of physical creation for Adam’s body, since it explicitly leaves open the possibility that Adam’s body began as an embryo.

I’m NOT saying the official Church statement teaches evolution as the source of our bodies; I’m saying the statement doesn’t take a position but, instead, explicitly mentions evolution as a possibility. It says, essentially, “We know Adam was the first “man”, but we don’t know how his body was created.” Most members don’t know that, but that’s what the official statement says – and it hasn’t been reworded by any subsequent statement.

I urge you to consider the fact that many many people have no issue with evolution/old earth and the LDS faith. The BYU biology department teaches evolution openly with the sanction of the Brethren. Don’t dismiss the scientific “facts” out of hand. Just realize that there is a tradition in the Church that was championed by Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie that was not the doctrine of the Church, that was not believed by many people such as Eyring, Talmage, Roberts, and even David O. McKay. YES! The prophet, seer and revelator of this church during all that time believed in Evolution in spite of Joseph Fielding Smith’s dogmatic declarations causing no doubt people like yourself to have crises of faith.

This doesn’t mean that evolution is the whole answer or THE answer. Just take into consideration the fact that these great men believed in it and it didn’t affect their faith.

How to reconcile this with “Church doctrine”? Well, if Joseph Fielding Smiths beliefs were never Church doctrine, and evolution/old earth was never Church doctrine either, then you have nothing to reconcile. It means that the Church never had an official doctrine and it leaves it open for you to have an opinion, whatever that might be, and you need not be disturbed by either side of the debate.

Carlos, I only would add that many Mormons believe the Fall narrative is figurative and that humanity could be much older than 6,000 years. Such a belief is not at odds with the temple ceremony, certainly not the one of my early adulthood. Those of us old fogies who blog have a slightly broader perspective of evolving Mormon symbolism than some of the young sprouts.

Jeff Spector (#12),

Aw, you beat me to the punch with the Raquel Welch reference. What’s a prehistoric thriller without a pterodactyl nabbing a fur-lined hottie? On the other hand, the fact 10,000 BC is trying to come across as credible while using a leading lady that looks more Victoria’s Secret than Zippy the Chimp offends my sensibilities.

Steve M (#7), don’t knock Independence Day. I totally bought into the idea that aliens use Mac technology.

Read Hugh Nibley’s 1980 talk, “Before Adam” and then find his “Abraham’s Creation Drama.”

http://www.farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=transcripts&id=73

And then search for David Bailey’s papers on the topic. Etc.

Kevin Christensen
Bethel Park, PA

I believe in evolution. I don’t think any rational, thinking person who examines the scientific evidence, pro and con, with a dispassionate eye, can come to any other conclusion. That is not to say there are some holes in evolutionary theory–but the vast weight of evidence comes out in favor of evolution. The genetic evidence I think is the most convincing–genetic analysis of different species has shown their familial relationships.

In spite of all this secular evidence, however, there are several LDS scriptures that directly contradict the theory of evolution, so I can understand why some LDS have trouble accepting evolution:

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.”

Alma 12:23

“23 And now behold, I say unto you that if it had been possible for Adam to have partaken of the fruit of the tree of life at that time, there would have been no death, and the word would have been void, making God a liar, for he said: bIf thou eat thou shalt surely die.”

Moses 6:48

“48 And he said unto them: Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death; and we are made partakers of misery and woe.”

All of these seem to plainly state that there was no death before the fall. Thus many Mormons say that if nothing died before the fall, then evolution can’t exist. This seems a pretty reasonable conclusion, if you take as a premise that no death existed on earth before 7,000 years ago (which according to D&C 77:6, is the temporal age of the Earth, “temporal age” being understood to mean the age of the Earth since the fall).

I think it is difficult to reconcile these scriptures with our current scientific knowledge. None of the explanations I have heard are particularly satisfactory. Here are the explanations I’ve heard:

1. The Garden of Eden was a small place set aside from the rest of the world that God created for Adam and Eve. There was no death in the Garden, but outside of it, death and the normal processes of life applied. Evolution occurred outside the garden, and then when God was ready to create man he put already-evolved animals into the Garden and made them immortal. Thus, these scriptures are only referring to conditions prevalent in the Garden of Eden. This seems very tortuous logic, plus the scriptures don’t limit themselves geographically and seem to be referring to the entire world’s state (e.g. “All things which were created”).

2. These scriptures only meant that humans are immortal, but death existed among all other animal species. Once again, the scriptures seem to contradict this: “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.” This seems to be referring to ALL living things and stating that they would existed forever, unchanged, but for the fall.

The only rational explanations that make sense to me are:

1. Joseph Smith made this stuff up, and got it wrong. This still leaves open the possibility that Joseph Smith was inspired, but that he interpolated his (incorrect) understanding of things into the inspired scriptures he produced.

2. The BoM and PoGP are historical documents, as they claim to be, but that the prophets who wrote in them were living in primitive, pre-modern ages, and thus had an imperfect understanding of natural processes and science. They thus misinterpreted what God explained to them about the creation, or God simplified things to a level that they could understand, and thus they explained doctrine in terms of their own understanding, and got some of the scientific details of creation wrong. Because of this, they misunderstood stories about the fall and creation that were meant to be understood symbolically as being literal.

3. The translation imperfectly captures what the prophets were trying to say.

4. I am misunderstanding these scriptures.

MoJim wrote:

“2. The BoM and PoGP are historical documents, as they claim to be, but that the prophets who wrote in them were living in primitive, pre-modern ages, and thus had an imperfect understanding of natural processes and science. They thus misinterpreted what God explained to them about the creation, or God simplified things to a level that they could understand, and thus they explained doctrine in terms of their own understanding, and got some of the scientific details of creation wrong. Because of this, they misunderstood stories about the fall and creation that were meant to be understood symbolically as being literal.”

I quite like that explaination. These people did not need to understand the details of HOW man, or the earth, came to be, but they were told WHY we are here. They had the correct sense of purpose even if they had invalid concepts of some of the details. We still do about some things, we just don’t know it.

Thank you for seeing this post for what it is ‘Humor’.

Heh. Of course, now I feel really stupid about my own post….

George Jackson (#20),

Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, in David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2005), state clearly that President McKay…

“…never made a public statement affirming his acceptance of biological evolution…. The closest he came … was [using] evolution as an argument in favor of resurrection [and going] so far as to borrow from Charles Darwin to make his point.” (p.46).

Likening evolution to the Resurrection was a rhetorical comparison that President McKay used more than once during his ministry. In reality, of course, Darwin’s theory is unrelated to the Resurrection. But unfortunately, such remarks are sometimes seen as evidence that President McKay believed in biological evolution.

George Jackson (#35),

Yes. David O. McKay’s exact words were “I believe in evolution.” And Gordon B. Hinckley’s exact words were “I believe in evolution”:

“I believe in evolution, not organic evolution, as it is called, but in the evolution of the mind, the heart, and the soul of man. I believe in improvement. I believe in growth. (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, p.298.)

Hinckley and McKay used the same words “I believe in evolution.” Did they disagree?

R. Gary,

Yes, they did disagree. Don’t be absurd. What are you trying to prove? You simply have no foundation to your argument.
President Hinckley never believed in organic evolution. David O. McKay’s meaning of his words in the context of the discussion that took place with Sterling McMurrin are absolutely clear. Don’t try to bamboozle us with semantics, because I think that any intelligent and honest person reading about it, or hearing McMurrin’s testimony about it cannot mistake the meaning of what was said, just as any intelligent person reading president hinckley’s words know what he means.

I find that offensive. Its enough to say that you don’t agree with me and that I don’t agree with you. Why don’t you just state that?

While it is true that Hinckley did not believe in organic evolution, it is also true that the church does not take an “official” position on the subject. Even if it did, that would not change the reality of evolution. The truth is what it is and popular opinion or voting cannot change it. It is unimportant what Hinckley or McKay or Smith or whoever said about evolution. Their opinions do not change or influence reality.

It is interesting that the “one true church” whose gospel contains “all truth” cannot even tell us where our species came from. This leads me to start to ask some questions.

Why do the brotheren refuse to take a stand on the subject?

Is it not important for us to know if Genesis is literal or figurative, and if it is literal how it fits in with the evidence that we do have?

If the fall of Adam is as important as we teach, do we not need to know if he was a real historical figure?

If we as a species have existed for 200,000 years or so, why did God only decide to reveal himself to us in the last 6,000 years after ignoring us for the previous 194,000?

“I thought we had a long ways to go… that there is still all sorts of things we’ll learn, and new things to be revealed.”

Very true. I was being somewhat facecious.

Still, this is an important subject in our times and culture. One only needs to look at the actions of the Dover, PA school board, or the creation museums being built to see the growing “attack on science” movement. This is a very confusing issue to many people and some light and revelation on the subject would be nice to have. Why should Gods one true church be silent on the issue?

I wondered how long it would take for R. Gary to show up on this thread. Welcome, Brother.

Your answer is the same I’ve given you previously: It’s important because too many people – inside and outside the Church – mis-state what “The Church” states about evolution. That’s all – to establish that the possibility of physical evolution of the body is left open.

MoJim, you left out one possibility that many members believe:

The Fall narrative is figurative and allegorical. If it refers to our pre-existence, for example, and the choice we all had to make (remain in the presence of God or leave and face all the crap of this life – ironically, by going where Lucifer had influence and power), then the verses you quoted make perfect sense (including there being no death before the Fall).

R. Gary, I don’t feel like going the rounds on this one again with you here. What I just wrote is sufficient for this thread.

“Why do the brotheren refuse to take a stand on the subject?” Maybe it hasn’t been revealed yet, and maybe if it were it would be so easy to create life that we’d all say, “Oh, is that all?” and go start the genesis project on Mars. Then, it would be sheer chaos, cats & dogs, living together . . .

“The fact remains that some really, really, really don’t (or didn’t) like evolution.” Since there’s no official stance, I wish they wouldn’t be outspoken on this. I really, really, really wish they would not talk about matters that neither revelation nor the public education system have illuminated for them. And I say that fully prepared to own the limits of evolutionary theory.

Calling evolution a theory among theories doesn’t bug me, but touting creationism as an equal competing theory to be taught in public school just seems like wishful Biblical-literalist thinking. In what class would that be taught? Science? By whom? Using what text with what interpretation?

The Church has long prided itself on embracing all truth, no matter what its source. Impliedly, this means adjusting our beliefs in order to accommodate new truth, whether it come through revelation or the scientific method. However, as the prominent LDS leader-scientists (such as Talmage) died in the early- to mid-20th century, more conservative minds like Joseph Fielding Smith filled the vacuum of their influence. Whatever contributions he and other conservatives made to the Church, they also introduced into Mormondom a cynicism about science and intellectualism that persists to this day. Rather than adjusting pre-existing beliefs to accommodate new discoveries from the scientific field, Latter-day Saints now tend to simply discount those areas of science that don’t fit nicely into their religious worldview. This may be changing, but if it is, it’s a very gradual change.

My current ward is full of young doctors, scientists, and graduate and professional students, yet the scorn for science and intellectualism is remarkably strong. Personally, were I in need of surgery or some medical treatment, I would hope that my doctors trusted science more than some of the doctors in my ward appear to.

I think that, in many cases, the failure of evolution to gain traction with many Latter-day Saints is attributable to their willful ignorance of the facts. Superficially, the theory appears to contradict their religious beliefs, so they write it off without further consideration, because “revealed truth” (and their subjective interpretations of it) apparently trumps everything else. I recently read a blog post elsewhere in the blogging world in which the author, a Mormon, began by admitting that he knew very little about evolution or “Darwinism,” but then proceeded to detail why he did not believe in it. In my opinion, this is paradigmatic; many Mormons that do not accept evolution simply do not understand it.

Don’t boycott this movie (I haven’t seen it though) on the basis that it places man before 6000 years ago. It is a proven and accepted fact among almost all mormon theologians that the earth is about 4 billion years ago and that humanoid (or prehistoric man) lived before 6000 years ago.
(If you really want a good book to read on the matter, read “Mormon Scientist” or “Faith of a Scientist”).
But just because the earth is old and prehistoric man existed does not in any way affect your religious belief in a supreme creator who is your Heavenly Father and a Jesus Christ who atoned for your sins and that you lived as a spirit before you came here and you will live as a resurrected being after you die and that glories will be assigned to based on your righteousness to God’s commandments as they have been taught to you both in this life and the next. Nothing changes. It is just like everyone thought the world was going to end when Galileo said that the earth was round and orbited around the Sun. Everyone freaked and the Catholic Church put him on house arrest until his death. No that seems silly because after all was said and done, we came to find out and prove that the earth really did revolve around the sun. But you know what, nobody’s faith was weakened by that. A lot of human philosophy changed but the core of the gospel remains the same.
The mormon religion is the perfect religion for any scientist and for the 21st century space age. We believe in studying above,beneath, and in the earth and seeing all of God’s creations. Science is trying to explain the how in the absence of the Why and religion does exact opposite. Why? Well science wants to be completely amoral and not tell you how to live your life but just give you plain facts. And religion wants to change your life to give you new and profound meaning to why we live. They are completely complementary like ying and yang. In fact, they synergize each other. When learning deep mysteries about religion, science becomes more interesting and when learning about new things in science, religion because more interesting. There are lot of gaps and neither one can really can be completely connect to earh other although they do connect on many levels. However, what’s more important between the how and the why is definately the why. So don’t lose faith when someone comes out with a new earth-shattering scientific discovery. When all is said and done, its the why that is the most important and the how is usually speculative anyway and will probably be proven wrong. In my opinion, however God wanted to create the earth and all of its creations and prepare a place fore his children could gein a mortal experience is just fine by me. It doesn’t change anything. Its interesting as a intellectual inquiry but that is about it.

Another talk by a Mormon leader that the age of the earth is only 6,000 years…

Elder Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1920, p. 123

A day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” According to our Prophet’s teachings, God gave to this planet, Mother Earth, seven thousand years as the period of “its temporal existence;” and four thousand years, or four of those great days, had passed before Christ was crucified, while nearly two thousand years, or two more days, have gone by since. Consequently, we stand at the present moment in the Saturday Evening of Time, near the close of the sixth day, at the week’s end of human history. Morning will break upon the Millennium, the thousand years of peace, the Sabbath of the World.

My friends, let us not take ouur selves to seriously. here is a lenk witch I think all of us should read and ponder on.
(Lds Last Days.com
by Joseph filding MCConkie ) June 1987
Let us not Judize our selfs.
his Lecture will enlighten all of us. I read this and felt that this post was compleatly described in it. Thankd you
DJBowl

It sounds like some cheese fell of your cracker.

6000 years old! I guess you believe everything that church tells you.