An Interesting thread on astronomy at MADB

[Guest]

What wondrous rubbish ... I love the idea of the Ice Age being caused by the earth undergoing a period of interstellar travel. Don't these people have any idea of how crucially life on earth depends on our proximity to the Sun? Just see how the temperature drops during a clear desert night, and imaging that going on over the whole earth for days and days ... and years ... Even moving to an orbit a bit further out from the Sun would make an end of all living things: the surface temperature on Saturn is about -270 degrees Fahrenheit or -168 degrees Celsius.

Oh don't worry - God provides celestial patio heaters for planets in transit. And he also deals with the problem of the huge inertial forces that would come into play if the earth was to be displaced to even the nearest star in a short period time. Course he does.

Ray Callis Hatton III gives us the usual stuff about Kolob really being a version of the Arabic-derived star-name Kochab "which was the pole star in the time of Abraham". Hence (etc. etc.). Assuming that Abraham was a real person (which is in itself pretty doubtful), he usually gets dated somewhere around 2000-1700 BC. Anyone with decent planetarium software can easily check that during this period the bright star nearest to the north celestial pole was not Kochab (Beta Ursae Minoris) but Thuban (Alpha Draconis). In 2000 BC Thuban was only 4 degrees from the pole, whereas Kochab was twice as far away.

Can anyone think of a word with LDS associations that sounds like 'Thuban', please? Wikipedia says "The name comes from the Arabic ثعبان (θu‘bān, "the basilisk"), the Arabic name for the constellation Draco." That ought to give some creative apologist a running start ...

One reason for trying to avoid going near MAD is to avoid the degrading temptation to howl at these people "you are a bunch of ignorant philistine know-nothing HICKS". If "the glory of God is intelligence", these people do little to enhance the reputation of their favorite deity.

[_The Nehor]

If I were a God and wanted to move a planet, I'd teleport it rather then shooting it off into space. Less clean-up when you get to the destination.

[_SatanWasSetUp]

I love that Ensign article because it is fairly recent. There is a ton of this rediculous garbage in the JofD and old journals from the 1800s, but it is really nice to see it resurrected in the official church magazine as recently as 1997.

Mormons believe the Earth once orbited Kolob and was hurled through space after Adam fell and took up its present orbit around the Sun.
Those are anti Mormon lies! I've never heard of such a thing.
Well let me show you the anti-mormon rag I found it in. It's called the Ensign.

[_truth dancer]

What strikes me as interesting is that typically, when science proves some LDS doctrine/teaching incorrect the apologetic response is that the prophets were just speaking as men, just sharing their opinion etc. etc. etc.

In this case it seems some apologists actually believe the prophets concerning Kolob, the Earth, and its fall into our solar system.

I don't get it?

Why not just go with the..."just an opinion" response?

I only skimmed the thread at MAD but seems DCP doesn't believe the silliness... phew! ;-) I guess this is a doctrine one doesn't have to believe to be a "true" member.

:-)

~dancer~

[_moksha]

In defense of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, they were not trained in the sciences and were from a century where much magical thinking still occurred. So, if their speculations seem off by today's understanding, we should cut them some slack.

[_Sethbag]

I think this is beautiful. I believe it to be totally plausible and see no problem with it, and in fact it seems only natural since God is a being who uses symbols so often. Some questions:

When will the earth return?

When did the innitial move occur?

Was that the ice age?

I don't even know what to say about this. Is this poster serious?

Are there really adults in this country who somehow missed basic seventh grade earth science?~dancer~

Yes, there are. There is absolutely no end of people who haven't got the faintest clue about the most basic science you can imagine. In fact, there are probably way, way more of these people than you or I would possibly imagine. And California is one of those Mormons who goes through life with the absolute confidence that what LDS prophets say is somehow grounded in reality, and even if it conflicts with evidence and science, it just shows how much the scientists "don't get it".

I think she's being sincere here. I think in her mind it's entirely possible that the Ice Age was caused by the Earth being in the dark void of space and not near Kolob anymore, but rather on its way to its current location in our solar system. It makes perfect sense to her, because she hasn't got the faintest clue about science, geology, astrophysics, etc. Not the faintest clue at all. And she's overly credulous where it comes to LDS prophets.

[_Sethbag]

In defense of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, they were not trained in the sciences and were from a century where much magical thinking still occurred. So, if their speculations seem off by today's understanding, we should cut them some slack.

No we shouldn't. These guys represented themselves to people as Prophets of God, who received revelations from God, revelations with hidden knowledge, which man didn't know. When they taught, their followers believed what they said, and believed that they knew it from God himself.

If they were just pulling it out of their asses they should have said so, and saved a lot of people a lot of trouble.

I don't think they deserve one inch of slack. They set themselves up as men in the know, and now their reputations must suffer for their presumption and ignorance.

[_Dr. Shades]

In defense of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, they were not trained in the sciences and were from a century where much magical thinking still occurred. So, if their speculations seem off by today's understanding, we should cut them some slack.

Also in defense of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, they were not trained in the ethics of the marital covenant. So we should cut them some slack.

[_Chap]

In defense of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, they were not trained in the sciences

They were both of them well aware of that fact. Therefore one would have hoped that as responsible public figures they would have tried hard to avoid running off at the mouth on scientific subjects they knew that they knew nothing about. But no ... the admiring audiences of 'followers of the prophet' were too much of a temptation.

and were from a century where much magical thinking still occurred. So, if their speculations seem off by today's understanding, we should cut them some slack.

Yup. They were deluded, quarter-educated 19th century provincial hicks who believed in magic. But ordinary LDS in the 21st century are still programmed to treat their every utterance as gospel truth. And your point is?

[_moksha]

I don't think they deserve one inch of slack. They set themselves up as men in the know, and now their reputations must suffer for their presumption and ignorance.

But isn't that assuming all their stuff was prophecy rather than the times they were just men making incredible speculations?