Mormonismo e Ciências/Elas são compatíveis

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São mormonismo ea ciência são compatíveis?

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

Is there any conflict between science and religion? There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men.

—Henry Eyring, developer of the Absolute Rate Theory of chemical reactions: One of the most important developments of 20th-century chemistry. Henry Eyring, Reflections of a Scientist (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983), 2.

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In these respects we differ from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular...whether the Lord found the earth empty and void, whether he made it out of nothing or out of the rude elements; or whether he made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men unless he give revelation on the subject. If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant.

—Brigham Young, (May 14, 1871) Journal of Discourses 14:116.

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Latter-day Saints should strive to use both science and religion to extend knowledge and to build faith. But those who do so must guard against the significant risk that efforts to end the separation between scientific scholarship and religious faith will only promote a substandard level of performance, where religion and science dilute one another instead of strengthening both.

For some, an attempt to mingle reason and faith can result in irrational scholarship or phony religion, either condition demonstrably worse than the described separation.

—Predefinição:Book:Oaks:Life's Lessons Learned

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Perguntas

Science often appears to be at odds with faith.

• Does science discredit religious beliefs?
• Do Mormons believe that faith and science are mutually exclusive?
• If Latter-day Saints reject a scientific explanation, are they bing "intellectually dishonest?"
• Do Mormons believe that if there is a conflict between science and religion, that the science is incorrect?
• It is claimed that Mormonism reserves the right to identify scientific truth.

Conclusão

Science and religion are both dynamic, growing areas of human inquiry and knowledge. Neither knowledge set has yet arrived at a final form. This makes it impossible to judge whether science and religion are incompatible since we're not currently able to see the entirety of either of them. Instead of jumping to conclusions about incomplete data, the LDS approach is one of patience and confidence that, in the end after all truth has been revealed, whatever might now appear incompatible between science and religion will finally be resolved.

Latter-day Saints believe that God is, in essence, the greatest scientist of all. We also acknowledge that we are continually learning. To assume that we now have all the answers is simply naive.

Latter-day Saints are not required to discard science in favor of religion. Many Latter-day Saints are heavily involved in scientific research without suffering a loss of faith. Not only do we believe that science is continually being updated, but that Gospel knowledge will be updated as well. As the 9th Article of Faith states:

We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

We acknowledge that we do not understand everything regarding the manner in which God created the earth, but we have been assured through revelation that at some future time we will be allowed to understand these things. Neither religion nor science knows everything, but revelation provides us with sufficient knowledge to obtain salvation. In religion, as in science, all should be constantly seeking for the "further light and knowledge" that comes from God.

Perguntas e respostas detalhadas

Secular critics charge that Mormonism and science are incompatible. In fact, Dr. Simon Southerton, in his book Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church devotes 66 pages to a section titled "The Troubled Interface between Mormonism and Science." Critics point out that elements found in the scriptures are incompatible with current scientific beliefs. Southerton's work argues the Church considers science something "evil" which ought to be arbitrarily discarded whenever Church leaders speak.

In reality, Latter-day Saints in many ways have a more liberal view of science than some of their Christian brethren. We believe God operates according to certain laws. If there are things that God can do which seem to contradict what we know through current science, we assume there are scientific laws at work which are beyond our current understanding. The state of science is constantly changing. What science declared to be "true" in the 19th century is not "true" in the 21st century. It is reasonable to expect that some things that we consider to be scientifically "true" now may be revised according to additional knowledge that is gained in the future. Brigham Young recognized this when he said,

We differ very much with Christendom in regard to the sciences of religion. Our religion embraces all truth and every fact in existence, no matter whether in heaven, earth, or hell. A fact is a fact, all truth issues forth from the Fountain of truth, and the sciences are facts as far as men have proved them.

Latter-day Saints are content to accept that they do not understand everything God is capable of doing. The Lord has promised that these things will someday be revealed to us:

Yea, verily I say unto you, in that day when the Lord shall come, he shall reveal all things—Things which have passed, and hidden things which no man knew, things of the earth, by which it was made, and the purpose and the end thereof—Things most precious, things that are above, and things that are beneath, things that are in the earth, and upon the earth, and in heaven.(D&C 101:32-34)

Issues of a perceived incompatibility between science and religion are hardly unique to Mormonism. These issues are shared by all faiths. Failure to resolve scientific and religious contradictions in one's mind can bring into doubt one's very belief that there is a God. Complicating the issue for Latter-day Saints is the fact that living prophets have sometimes expressed their own views on scientific matters, thus causing some to doubt whether or not they could truly be prophets.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks advised:

Religious persons who pursue scientific disciplines sometimes encounter what seem to be conflicts between the respective teachings of science and religion and must work through how to handle these apparent conflicts. Others, such as I in my pursuit of business and law, can be less troubled. For me, that detachment ended when I was appointed president of Brigham Young University. This new position required me to search out, learn, and articulate answers to questions I had previously been privileged to ignore....

Colleges and universities must of course teach science--facts and theories--but Church educators, like the BYU faculty, refrain from substituting science for God and continue to rely on the truths of religion. In the study of science, teachers and students with religious faith have the challenge to define the relationship of science and religion in their thinking. They have the special advantage of seeing countless scientific evidences of the Divine Creator. In those exceptional circumstances where science and religion seem to conflict, they have the wisdom to wait patiently in the assurance that truth will eventually prevail. In doing so, most conclude that religion does not have the answers to all questions and that some of what science "knows" is tentative and theoretical and will be replaced in time by new discoveries and new theories.

Some try to deal with apparent conflicts by compartmentalizing science and religion--one in one category, such as Monday through Saturday, and the other in another category, such as Sunday. That was my initial approach, but I came to learn its inadequacy. We are supposed to learn by both reason and revelation, and that does not happen when we compartmentalize science and religion. Our searchings should be disciplined by human reason and also enlightened by divine revelation. IN the end, truth has only one content and one source, and it encompasses both science and religion....

Latter-day Saints should strive to use both science and religion to extend knowledge and to build faith. But those who do so must guard against the significant risk that efforts to end the separation between scientific scholarship and religious faith will only promote a substandard level of performance, where religion and science dilute one another instead of strengthening both.

For some, an attempt to mingle reason and faith can result in irrational scholarship or phony religion, either condition demonstrably worse than the described separation. This danger is illustrated by the case of an international scholar who was known as an expert in English law when he was in America and as an expert in American law when he was in England. Not fully distinguished in either field, he nevertheless managed to slip back and forth between the two so that his expertise was never properly subjected to qualified review in either. As a result, he provided a poor imitation in both. A genuine mingling of the insights of reason and revelation is infinitely more difficult....

Each of us should pursue...truth by reason and by faith. And each of us should increase our ability to communicate that truth by an inspired combination of the language of scholarship and the language of faith.

I am confident that when we progress to the point where we know all things, we will find a harmony of all truth. Until that time, it is wise for us to admit that our understanding--in religion and in science--is incomplete and that the resolution of most seeming conflicts is best postponed. In the meantime, we do the best we can to act upon our scientific knowledge, where that is required, and always upon our religious faith, placing our ultimate reliance for the big questions and expectations of life on the eternal truths revealed by our Creator, which transcend human reason, "for with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37).