Science and Religion

I'm in the process of writing a book that is based on ancient times. Very ancient times. Times in which we have no real documentation other than the scriptures.

Yesterday, I was at a writer's conference and I had the opportunity to talk to some anthropologists about how to research for my book, given the fact that the worldly views on what the world was like back then don't mesh up with what we learn in the scriptures. I should mention here that the conference was at BYU and these were anthropologists studying at BYU.

The answer they gave me was something along the lines that "it depends on whether you think the scriptures are literal or symbolic" and that if I want to represent them as being literal, I only have scriptural and religious documents to turn to for information.

Well, the second part is pretty much true. No worldly documentation is going to be very helpful, although I do feel I need to do some research into how the ancient people lived, at least as far back as we know for sure. But the part about whether the scriptures are literal or symbolic bothered me. Everything we hear from prophets, in the temple, etc. all represent those events as being literal.

During the general discussion, something was said repeatedly that bothers me greatly and always has. They were talking about how "carbon dating is reliable back as far as about 30,000 years, but potassium-argon dating, though not as reliable in more recent times, can be fairly reliable back about 50,000 years." I looked it up on the internet just now, and one website claims that it is reliable as far back as 100,000 years.

Here's the part I want to know. How in the world do we know how accurate it is that far back? Things are stated in the scientific community and presented as absolute fact. But things like this seem like absolute guesses to me. Just because something follows a pattern that they can cross-check back 1,000 years, or 4,000 years, how in the world do we know that that same pattern will continue on ten times that long?

It reminds me of something similar that really bothered me recently as well. We were watching a show at the Clark Planetarium. It was extremely fun and interesting, presented on a dome ceiling that somehow made it look 3-D, so I'd still recommend people go to see it. But so many things were presented as fact that just absolutely can not be known. For instance, "Sometimes two galaxies will cross over each other, and this process takes billions of years." Okay, we know this HOW? How long have we been able to observe the movement of those two galaxies that seem to be intersecting each other? How many different angles have we been able to observe them from? I'll tell you the answers: we've been watching them for a few years (nothing near a billion, I'll tell you that! LOL) and we've seen it from exactly 1 angle.

They were also asked about what the human race may look like a million years from now, based on the evolution we have gone through over the years. They said that there are an infinite number of possibilities, but maybe we will have high foreheads and protruding jaws. Maybe it'll be something else.

It's sad to me that even members of the church can believe that the scriptures are only symbolic and that those events didn't ever take place. It's sad to me that they can look at the world's answers for how we were created and believe them rather than believing the word of God, as given to us in the scriptures and through the voice of our prophets.

I'm going to write my book, and I'm going to do the best research I can, relying heavily on the scriptures and the teachings of the prophets. I'm going to pray as I write that I will be able to write this book in a way that is pleasing to Him and in a way that may help people believe and understand the scriptures. I hope you will all pray for me as well, because I believe the book I am trying to write is extremely important and I don't feel capable of writing it on my own merits. I'm only doing it because I feel prompted that it is the right thing to do.

I know that the scriptures are true. I know that the teachings of the prophets are true. I know that God really did create us in His image. I know that we can never understand the mysteries of God unless He reveals them unto us. I know that we will not evolve to look differently, but that God's creation of man is perfect. I'm grateful we have the scriptures and living prophets to show us the way and that we don't have to rely on man's limited abilities in order to understand the universe and our place in it.