What we are seeing is the raw material of evolution. Random mutations that every now and then give a subtle change that may, or may not, give an advantage to future generations. By looking at these sequence changes in related eucalyptus species we are finding that some spelling variants are shared, while each new species also has its own unique spelling variants. Thousands of scientists working on many other plant and animal species see the exact same trend. These findings are perfectly in step with modern evolutionary theory (not read hypothesis). Without an understanding of the principles of evolution, my work would be a meaningless pile of data screaming out for an explanation. Dr Simon Southerton, board post 16th March 2009, ‘Why I Think Evolution is a Fact’
In the end, it simple. Evolution selects for people who are predisposed to the pathology just noted because throughout most of human history keeping the group together conferred greater survival and reproductive advantages than any individual ‘being right’. If you were right, the group would eventually figure it out and it was more important that the group remain intact than you be right. So, our brains developed to tend to consciously acknowledge the kind of realities that threatened group cohesion when most of the group was ready to come to the same conclusion. Anonymous, board post 21st June 2005, ‘Comparative Apologetics’
... if the hypothesis of evolution be true, if a man is only a product evolved from lower forms of life ... then it is evident that there has been no ‘fall’ such as the revelations of God speak of; and if there was no occasion for a Redeemer to make atonement for man ... then the mission of Jesus Christ was myth, the coinage of idle brains. B H Roberts, The Gospel and Man’s Relationship to Deity
Although, I do not care much for a Negro, still I have a warm spot in my heart for those beautiful singers. David O McKay, ninth president
Dear Brother, In your letter to me of October 28 1947, you say that you and some of your fellow students ‘have been perturbed about the question of why the negroid race cannot hold the priesthood’.
In reply I send to you the following thoughts that I expressed to a friend upon the same subject:
Stated briefly, your problem is simply this:
Since, as Paul states, the Lord ‘hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth’, why is there shown in the Church of Christ discrimination of the colored race?
This is a perplexing question, particularly in the light of the present trend of civilization to gain equality to all men irrespective of race, creed or color. The answer, as I have sought it, cannot be found in abstract reasoning, for, in this case, reason the soul is ‘dim as the borrowed rays of the moon and stars to weary, wandering travellers’.
I know of no scriptural basis for denying the priesthood to Negroes other than one verse in the Book of Abraham; however, I believe as you suggest, that the real reason dates back to our pre-existent life.
This means that the true answer to your question (and the only one that has given me satisfaction) has its foundation in faith – (1) Faith in a God of Justice, (2) Faith in the existence of a plan of salvation for all of Gods children ...
That because God is Just, the negro is given the opportunity to have a body, and therefore qualify for the blessings of some future state.
... Sometime in God’s plan, the negro will be given the right to hold the priesthood. In the meantime, those of that race who receive the testimony of the Restored Gospel may have their family ties protected and other blessings made secure, for in the justice and mercy of the Lord they will possess all the blessings to which they are entitled in the eternal plan of Salvation and Exaltation.
Nephi 26:33, to which you refer, does not contradict what I have said above, because the negro is entitled to come unto the Lord by baptism, confirmation and to receive the assistance of the Church in living righteously. David O McKay, Home Memories 1947
It was agreed that the necessary corrections are so numerous that to republish a corrected edition of the book [McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine] would be such an extensive repudiation of the original as to destroy the credit of the author; that the republication of the book should be forbidden and that the book should be repudiated in such a way as to save the career of the author as one of the General Authorities of the Church. It was also agreed that this decision should be announced to the Council of the Twelve before I talk to the author. David O McKay, official journal 7th January 1960
We thank thee that thousands and tens of thousands of the descendants of Lehi in this favored land have come to a knowledge of the gospel. David O McKay, New Zealand temple dedication 20th April 1958
We are in the midst of a survey looking toward the possibility of admitting Negroes. Believing as we do in divine revelation through the President of the Church, we all await his decision. Hugh B Brown, The New York Times 7th June 1963
Women who have large families generally live longer than the unmarried or the childless ... Latter-day Saints believe in large families wherever it is possible to provide for the necessities of life, for the health and education of their children, and when the physical and mental health of the mother permits. Hugh B Brown, You and Your Marriage pp.133-135
The Church has no intention of changing its doctrine on the Negro. Throughout the history of the original Christian church, the Negro never held the priesthood. There’s really nothing we can do to change this. It’s a law of God. N Eldon Tanner, Seattle Magazine December p60 1967
... [We] learned from a source within the Church that Church leaders were very concerned that they were going to lose their tax exempt status on property they own in the United States.
In the months just prior to the revelation, Church leaders were carefully watching developments in a case in Wisconsin in which an organization was about to lose its tax exempt status because of racial discrimination.
The Church leaders finally became convinced that the tide was turning against them and that they would lose their tax exempt status in Wisconsin and eventually throughout the United States because of their doctrine of discrimination against Blacks ...
[It] may very well have been the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’. Jerald & Sandra Tanner, ‘Death of the Anti-Black Doctrine’, The Salt Lake City Messenger no 41 December 1979
[A]nti-Mormons urged for boycotts of recordings of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the cancellation of vacations to Utah.
The NAACP initiated several lawsuits against Mormon Boy Scout troops, charging that Church policy was foisting racism on minority Scouts ...
Several professional consulting firms which the Church had previously hired for other matters suggested to Church leaders that they reconsider the status of Blacks in the Mormon Church as part of a major overhaul of church policy ...
Worst of all, the IRS suggested that the racial policies of the Mormon Church might justify a suspension of its tax-exempt status. Lorraine Hewlett, board post 17th June 2004, ‘The Second Great Accommodation’
Salt Lake City – The man who cast the first vote in modern history against a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been excommunicated and fired as chapel janitor.
Byron Marchant, 35, of Salt Lake, is the second opponent of the church policy withholding the priesthood from blacks to be excommunicated in the last two years.
All faithful Mormon males 12 years and older except blacks are trained to hold priesthood offices.
Marchant, who is white, said he will appeal the excommunication by the High Council Court in his stake (diocese), and a church spokesman said Saturday the appeal would go to the First Presidency – the three top leaders.
Marchant was called to a church court before the church’s semi-annual conference two weeks ago after he announced a demonstration questioning the church policy. Associated Press 16th October 1977
To whom it may concern: You should be aware that Don Jesse, official spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is telling journalists and non-mormon inquirers that the Church ‘has never taught that black people were cursed nor the descendants of Cain. Some members of the church may have held that view in the past, but it was never sanctioned by church leaders’. When asked why black men could not hold the Priesthood before 1978, Mr Jesse responded: ‘Now that’s a good question! We really don’t know the answer. Many people have speculated or tried to provide answers, but we really don’t know the reason’. Life After online article, ‘Curse of Cain’
The late sixties found the Brigham Young University the focal point of militant protests. Sports events provided the context for protests, boycotts, disrupted games, mass demonstrations, and ‘riots’. At one point the conflict among schools within the Western Athletic Conference became so intense that the conference almost disbanded. Administrators, already embroiled in student demonstrations over Vietnam, began to separate themselves from the Mormon school. Stanford University, for instance, severed all relations with Brigham Young University. O Kendall White junior & Daryl White, Sociological Analysis vol 41 p233 (Fall 1980), ‘Abandoning an Unpopular Policy: An Analysis of the Decision Granting the Mormon Priesthood to Blacks’
[A Negro] looks as though he has been put in an oven and burnt to a cinder ... His hair baked crisp, his nose melted to his face, and the color of his eyes runs into the whites. Some men look as if they had only been burned brown; but he appears to have gone a stage further, and been cooked until he was quite black. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Spring p45 1973, ‘From Caucasian to Negro’, cited Bush’s ‘Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview’ pp.57-58 endnote #99