The Process....

Trying to harmonize science and the scriptures is a tricky undertaking. Many good members of the Church have lost their testimonies trying to harmonize the two. To date, though many fascinating correlations and coincidences have been discovered, there is no generally accepted theory in any of the branches of history or science that brings together even the basic events found in the scriptures or found by scientists. This is not to say that many have not proposed, only that all of these theories are highly controversial and none are generally accepted by scholars of science or the scriptures.

Researchers generally fall into two camps: gospel scholars whose theories ignore the bulk of scientific research, and students of science who try to pick and choose scriptural events to plug into the scientific framework. The first group writes many fascinating books that feel right to those who know the scriptures, but their theories are generally mocked or ignored by scientists because of the millions of observations of scientists that do not fit these narrow models. On the other end, many very good, very honorable, and very learned LDS members have completely discarded the major events described in the scriptures such as the Creation, the Flood, and the turning back of the earth in the days of Joshua and Isaiah. They have reasoned them away saying that 'it is not reasonable' that such things could have happened (Hel 16:18). In doing so they have adopted a rationalistic method of reading the scriptures in which they pick and choose which parts of the word of God are literal and which parts are not. They classify the parts they do not believe into different groups. Some they say are myth or legend, others they call the limited viewpoint of a mere mortal, while others they dismiss as exaggerations.

The goal of a scriptural scientist is to find facts—in the scriptures and in the world around us. Finding facts requires discernment and discernment requires us to have our hearts full of truth. Thus, in order to find the facts that God has revealed to scientists we must first have our hearts and minds full of the Word of God. This requires serious study of the scriptures and the writings of the prophets. A single light reading will not work. One must search throughout all four standard works and compare and contrast and take notes and build for themselves a mental image of what God says happened. they must create questions in your mind and you must seek for answers by study and by faith, all within God's word.

Once one has this image, they can go to the learning of man. As they read the learning of man certain revealed truths will stand out. They will feel a harmonizing in their heart rather like a radio being tuned you will feel a vibrating or clarifying of truth. The truth will resonate in their soul. At the same time other things that they read will not feel right and they will actually feel darkness coming from the ideas and concepts. Over time, as they continue to read the philosophies of man, mingled with truth, they will begin to drink in of their views and philosophies and their image of truth will become hard to remember or hard to believe. It is critical that they recognize this process occurring within themselves. When this occurs they must stop reading the philosophies of man and return to the scriptures. They must go back to the word of God and reinstate it as supreme in their heart. As they reread all of these scriptures they have found, the new truths that they discovered in the learning of man will bring new spiritual insight. They will be overjoyed to find that these truths and the new picture form this time round will not only help them to understand the natural world around them, or the scientific subject they are studying, but that it will also teach them eternal truths that will help them in their day to day walk with God. Truth is truth and no matter where it is found it will bless our lives. All subjects play together into our daily life because all truth testifies of Christ and when Christ is in our life our life goes better.

A final note. As you follow this process, one of the truths that you will find, one element of discernment that you will learn concerning facts, is that they fit the scientific process. Facts are repeatable observations. If a man finds an arrowhead in the dirt, that is a fact. If putting two chemicals together produces a certain outcome, that is a fact. A mans interpretation of that fact is a theory or a hypothesis or a philosophy and so forth. As you read in the manner before described, God will tutor you in recognizing what is a fact and what is a theory. The fossil record, meaning the actual fossils that were actually found in actual locations are facts. As we try to tie these fossils together to try and understand the history of the world we of a necessity must develop theories or hypotheses on how the fossil got there and how that relates to other findings the planet over.

We follow this same process in our daily spiritual lives. We do certain things, live in a certain way, read certain doctrines and as we do we have certain experiences. These experiences are real, they are facts. From our experiences we draw certain conclusions and we modify our philosophy on life and thus change how we act. Over time we become a certain person based on these experiences and our interpretation of them. Are we living in truth or have we been deceived? As with the science, the more we draw our hypotheses or our theories from the scriptures the more accurately we will be able to interpret our experiences, observations, etc. It is imperative that we hold the word of God as paramount in our life. We must search the word of God and live by his word. We must use his word fully in all our life's strivings- scholastic or personal. If we do this we will live in truth and follow truth and find truth.

Why Does Scriptural Science Matter?

We must provide our kids with other theories on history and the natural sciences.

We have a quote on the wall at the office that says: "Though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced, but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish."

This quote was given by Austin Farrer, an early twentieth century philosopher and English theologian. He was defending C.S. Lewis' work as an apologetic. He is quoted by Elder Neil A. Maxwell and Elder Dallin H. Oaks. We do not claim that our theories are the doctrinal truth—the reality of how it all happened. We do not seek to portray ourselves as prophets. We do know however, that the educational system created by Dewey, the father of modern education, was specifically designed to separate parents and siblings and to create new words that would create a disconnect between education and the scriptures and between parents and their kids. This education created a generation gap among the first generation raised under the new system. It has since created a great divide between science and religion and taken the Bible out of schools.

There is a great body of evidence that God has allowed man to amass, because he sought it. This body of evidence, when examined by anyone in earnest, is found to be broad, expansive and impressive. Currently, there is only one explanation being put forward by those who teach our children, Darwin's explanation. Current statistics show that we are losing a lot of our kids as they leave high school and go to college. Stats of kids’ views before college and after are very different. Also, liberal bias, religious views, and belief in miracles, God, and the Bible all show the same thing: as we fail to give our kids an alternate viewpoint they leave the view of the Church.

This is a big deal. In the coming generation if we cannot provide our kids with a viable, alternate explanation for the great body of facts being amassed, we will lose most of our children. They are not ignorant of these viewpoints. They usually know more than their parents about science and the history of the world. Their parents’ complete ignorance to anything outside the scriptures and there relative ignorance to even the things taught in the scriptures is hurting the kids. They want answers, they even need answers, and nobody will help them. Meanwhile we send them through a system completely committed to indoctrinating them. Most of those who make it through the college years without losing there testimonies have had to create a divide between there religious views and their views on all other subjects. They believe the business models they are being taught regarding consumer economics. They believe the views they are being taught concerning survival of the fittest in business, in sports, in life. They believe the views they are being taught regarding global warming and why the climate changes.

We must give our children ideas and theories that are founded in the truth of the scriptures and that can be supported by scientific findings. They must be intelligent and well thought out.

The Church has now adopted FARMS into the Church funded BYU arm. They have recently changed the name to the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. In addition to collecting and copying ancient texts there mission statement calls for "Describe and defend the Restoration through highest quality scholarship" and to "Provide an anchor of faith in a sea of LDS Studies". When President Hinckley invited FARMS to become a fully funded part of BYU he said: "FARMS represents the efforts of sincere and dedicated scholars. It has grown to provide strong support and defense of the Church on a professional basis. . . . I see a bright future for this effort now through the university."

These things do matter.

Scriptural Science: What is it and why should I bother?

Hello and welcome to the Weaver Research Blog! My name is Lorin. I will be maintaining this blog for a while. With these first few posts, I want to give our readers an introduction to the Weaver Research Institute (WRI), some of our goals, and a little bit about what our research is finding. The concepts and truths we are finding are very exciting. Some of the research can be quite technical, but the goal of this blog is not to be technical at all. I will present several topics of general interest to beginning students of the scriptures and science.

As we continue our research, many of the topics will be presented just as I understand them currently. I promise to continually be learning more, and therefore refining my understandings of topics. I will try however, to present a coherent picture of the topics for all to see, read and discuss. Any sources and documentation that I refer to will be done very informally, and in a way that lay readers will easily understand all the concepts.

Scriptural Science: What is it and why should I bother?

Scriptural science is a term that the WRI coined to describe our charge from God.

Really? A charge from God himself to become a scriptural scientist? Yes. That is what the scriptures teach. Let me explain. Section 93 of the Doctrine and Covenants talks about truth. It defines truth as, things as they really are, as they really were and as they really will be. In other words, we cannot understand ourselves, others, or the world around us unless we have a proper view of history and prophesy.

When a child is learning to walk, they daily come face to face with a reality that they do not understand. The reality is, that they do not understand gravity, even though it may seem obvious to an adult. They start experimenting with their bodies and with gravity. They drop things and watch them splash. They climb places and fall down. They really do not get it. There are also eternal laws at work, but they cannot see them. They are experiencing them and sometimes they get very frustrated, sad or angry as they interact with them. But they just don’t get it. Over time they begin to see the truth. They begin to see how these laws operate in their lives, and they begin to understand themselves and their abilities to operate in this new world. As they see things correctly—the things as they really are and were and will be—they succeed.

This is true in all areas of life. There are real laws that God has established and which govern this planet. Laws of physics, laws of chemistry, laws of human interaction, laws of retribution; thousands and thousands of laws. All of these laws are established to testify of Christ and to help us see things as they really are. God’s goal is to help us live in light and truth because he knows that in light and truth we will be happier. God gives us the scriptures to help us understand these truths so we can learn to operate within them. If we love God, then He will also tutor us, shape us and help us experience the consequences of these laws more quickly than others might, so we can grown and become like Him.

This is one of the primary lessons of D&C 88. God has natural laws, and these laws govern all His creation. If we live by these laws we can grow and progress, but if we do not, we will have to continue crawling so to speak.

Now, truth is the reality around us, but it is also the reality of the past and the future. All of these realities are necessary to really know the truth. If we want to understand why we keep running into the same problems in our lives, we need to step back and assess. We need to study our own past, and we need to read the scriptures, and we need to consider God’s eternal goals for us and our future. As we look, listen and feel we will have a picture of truth grow within our hearts. As we live according to that picture, or act, the picture will grow more. If we act against that picture it will diminish. This is an obvious reality with atrophy or entropy, but it is also an eternal principle (Alma 12).

Some might argue that they can figure it out themselves and that they don’t need their scriptures. They very may well be able to, but it is going to hurt a lot more and take a lot longer. Heavenly Father does want us to learn by our own experience and as we watch the baby bump their head and fall off the couch we can all glory in the reality that learning by our own experience is really the only way. But don’t we all appreciate the help of a loving parent who helps us avoid the really big falls—like slipping off a second story balcony?

Some lessons of gravity are just bigger than any child should have to experiment with. That is why we have parents. Being taught to look both ways before you cross the street, for example, is one of these principles and very few of us, if any, would make it to adulthood if it weren’t for parents. My point: the scriptures are just books of instructions from a loving parent who wants to help us get along in this world without experiencing too much pain. He has already taken care of the big stuff, like asteroids, solar collisions and greedy interplanetary aliens. He has given us lots of space to learn and grow, but without His scriptures, we as humans still make quite a mess.

Now, others might say, I can just read my scriptures, I do not need science. It seems though that they do not really understand what science is. Science—true science—is not a class you take in school. It is not a book you read. True science is a process of exploration. It is a mindset where you say “I don’t understand everything. I don’t know everything. But I believe that through observation, reason, open mindedness, and experimentation I can probably figure a lot of things out.”

A child learning to walk is performing science. He or she is experimenting with his or her body and mind, trying to see if they can copy the behaviors of the big people around them. The more true that child is to the scientific process, the more quickly he or she will acquire the desired outcome.

Science says: “What is your question? Now devise a method to guess how it works. Set up an experiment, and then stop when you finish and assess how it went. Then modify your original thoughts according to your results and try again. Continue until you have it figured out.” That is science. It is practical life. It is solving problems, answering questions, finding solutions and verifying ideas. Science is the practical day-to-day living, coupled with real thought, so you can really understand what is going on and act instead of just being acted upon.

How can one just read their scriptures without going out and trying out what they have learned? The only way Home is to read the Word and then go experiment on the Word. That is scriptural science.

If you have followed the discussion up until now, you have seen that scriptural science is a process that all of us are doing every day. Every person that lives is considering ways of living, making choices, and living by those choices. As scriptural scientists we seek to use the most pure sources we can in where we search for truth and how we apply that truth.

We all do this, but are we using the best methods available to us to get results? If one has never tried using the scriptures to acquire ideas on how to live, they may be surprised at how much better the results are when they use these books as their guides. Similarly, if one has read their scriptures but never made a serious attempt to apply the teachings, they may be surprised at how much better life goes when they take the time to ponder, pray about how to apply it, and then go on to experiment upon the Word, and then return to their closet to search, ponder and pray again to repeat the process.