Pangea is the name given to the large unified landmass on earth before it split into the continents that we know today. It started to break about about 200 million years ago, and the movement is still happening today.
While the LDS Church does not have an official position on the age of the earth, BYU (owned by the Church) teaches the mainstream scientific consensus that the earth is billions of years old. But every once in awhile, Mormons got to be Mormon, and say things a little out there.
A recent example is Elder Rasband speaking at the BYU Patriotic Festival as part of the Freedom 250 festive, said the following as reported in the Church News
In the Garden of Eden — “in what today we consider the heartland of America” — God the Father and His Beloved Son visited Adam and Eve and taught them the gospel, said Elder Rasband.
Their posterity eventually became so wicked that the Lord cleansed the earth with water. The surface ”fractured into great continents separated by oceans, all to protect what was destined to be the promised land, ‘which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people’
There is a lot to unpack just in this short paragraph. It has been awhile since I’ve heard over the pulpit that the Garden of Eden was the heartland of America. We all know Joseph Smith taught that, but as the Church tries to become more mainstream Christen, it has kind of taken a backseat to some of our other goofy doctrines. But then he talks about a literal flood, which again has been taught by modern prophets since the beginning of the Church. But the part that was new to me was that when Adam and Eve where in the garden, there was only one landmass, and it didn’t separate until after the flood, plate tectonics be dammed.
Trying to figure out a timeline for this really gets confusing. If we believe in a lateral flood, which the Book of Mormon reinforces, then that flood happened about 6000 years ago. So according to Elder Rasband, Pangea split apart 6000 years ago, with the main reason being so that the Americas could be preserved for a righteous people (us!)
Maybe Rasband was just speaking as a man, but I don’t think he was speaking off the cuff at such an important event. Do you think the talk was reviewed by the correlation department? Could the Church News publish something that was not in harmony with what the Church believes? It might be significant that the Church has not published a transcript, or the full video of the talk. Are we just getting the less controversial excerpts? What did we miss?
What are your thoughts when a members the of Q15 says something like this? Is he playing to very unique audience?
Would he be allowed to say these same words in a General Conference address, which is a much wider and diverse audience?
Wheat & Tares 
In 1931, the LDS First Presidency directed a letter to all GAs telling them to focus on Church-related matters and to leave geology to the geologists (and other scientific questions to their respective scientists). That’s still good counsel, but not all current GAs get it. Only some GAs are worth listening to (Uchtdorf tops the list).
It sounds like Elder Rasband has been reading too much Skousen.
Rasband is the least educated of the Q15. My understanding is that he never got a college degree and rose up through the ranks of business and the church through his charm, strong sales skills, loyalty and connections. He is probably the least qualified of the Q15 to speak on matters of science and history.
But he may also be looking ahead to the inevitable lengthy tenure of Bednar as the church president, who is an authoritarian fundamentalist in the veins of Benson and Packer. So this might be some form of virtue signaling to curry favor for the future (see sales skills above).
I agree with JLM, Elder Rasband has very little education and less than a high school level understanding of science, social science, and history. I think he is a good hearted person but doesn’t seem to know what he doesn’t know.
Elder Rasband’s daughter Shannon is affiliated with American Heritage School, a private school funded by ultra-conservative and mostly LDS donors. The school also provides distance learning for students in other states. Cleon Skousen’s and Ezra Taft Benson’s ideas are part of the curriculum. Rasband spoke at the dedication of the Salt Lake campus.
Oh yeah, I heard that Pangea broke up in the days of Peleg, when “the land was divided.” I filed that under D for “dubious interpretations of scriptures.”
I used to work for a large corporation that all of you would recognize. And early on during my time there I noticed that our company leaders were saying very different things depending on the audience (internal vs external).
We aren’t going to see any Q15 member state to the outside world that Adam and Eve were in America’s heartland or that Jackson County Missouri is where the action will be. (The Church is a large corporation).
I’m sure we could have attended the recent FAIR conference and received a great defense of Rasband’s words.
It’s confusing to some folks and maybe even an apostle that words, concepts, and doctrine seem to NOT be unchanging in God’s only true church on this planet.
Mormonism’s instincts definitely bend toward the literal. I think that’s in large part because the Church’s truth claims, and therefore its raison d’être, rely on certain people and events being historical. For example, leaving room for the Old Testament to be mythical is difficult because where do you drawn the line? Okay, maybe Esther and Job didn’t really live, but what about Jonah? His three days in the belly of the whale are a reference to Christ, right? Thus, suggesting that maybe Jonah’s story didn’t happen starts to look like a very small step toward denying Jesus’s divinity (and, for an even more significant example, how does the plan of salvation work if Adam and Eve weren’t literal people?). Better to try to treat everything in the scriptures as literal as possible but maybe just slightly mistranslated incorrectly, right? Right?
Interesting. I think there is broadly a slow, quiet shift toward less-literal interpretations among Latter-day Saints, since we keep watering down our own teachings and symbolism, and the prevailing culture demands more rational thinking from people. Do I really have to believe that all of modern humanity was literally descended from two people who lived an hour and a half outside of Kansas City a few millenia ago in order to be a good mormon? Or must I believe that every land animal species alive on earth today is descended from the inhabitants of a single floating zoo some 6000 years ago to keep a temple recommend? Please. We used to be taught that wearing garments can literally stop bullets. Nowadays Mormons look for excuses not to wear them, while having no shame about being seen in tank tops with iced coffee drinks and visible tattoos.
That said, I think interpretations vary wildly between apostles, and always have, not to mention there will be differences between their public-facing statements and what they say to internal audiences. But the long arc of belief is slowly bending away from literalism, which I welcome.
It’d be nice to have a transcript of the talk–because it’s difficult to tell what’s coming from Elder Rasband directly and what are interpolations from the writer of the article. That said, even if it turned out that the article represented his views perfectly I’d be OK with it–because this is the sort of fallibility that we’d expect the untrained to have; the sort that farmers and fishermen have.
Jack,
If you doubt the reliability of the Church News, how will you ever learn to have faith?
@ JLM and E:
I refer you to the Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet
“Fifth: The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time.” /s
I admire people who are self-taught, everyone does not require a University degree. However, if you do not know what you are taking about and given the spotlight at the pulpit, dig in the books and learn before you speak.
Rasband is the typical Mormon decision maker. He was promoted with charm and being a “yes man”. He is a salesman and nothing more. He was fortunate to be associated with the Huntsman corporation and was only promoted by his charm in place of fundamental ideas.
Half of the Q15, should be looking at Rasband and be thinking, “close your mouth”. How do the decision makers create controversy every week within the LDS institution. Now with Corbridge “you will stay even with Darth Vader as your bishop”. Most anti-Mormon rhetoric is self created from within.
I foresee in the future that 1/2 of the Q15, will look at the other half of the Q15 and say, you have gone off the deep end and no longer represent Christ or his message, self-creating their own schism. Many of these BYU talks or Stake conference talks are the warmup for GC. See Kyle S. McKay Yukon OK talk to which he had shared many times before on “Black hymns”. In addition, Brad Wilcox’s Alpine youth talk about “Why did white people and other races have to wait until 1829? had also been shared at prior firesides, until he was called out.
If we did not criticize the LDS decision makers with their “warm-up” talks without feedback, eventually some of these will their way into a GC talk for the masses to drop their jaws at the derangement.
I’m a bit sorry to see some people calling a church leadership position (in any church) an exercise in sales tactics. I do think there is more sincerity than that involved.
And
It’s helpful to have examples of “Um, well, that’s not really scientifically correct” on hand as we navigate the (treacherous?!) waters of realizing literally everyone in the church is human and says plenty of things that just aren’t the divine word of God, no matter how sincere the intent. Except for me when I was in a leadership position. Everything I ever said or did was surely absolutely correct … 🤔😬😆
It’s not so scary once you realize the equality is more fundamental than the misnomers.
@Jack,
I’m scratching my head over why this is finally a case where you’re willing to concede fallibility in a prophet, seer, and revelator. Assume the Church News reported accurately–which it probably did, since much of what Rasband said is in quotation marks, and I’d bet Church News reporters are under strict orders to print Q15 quotes verbatim. Here’s are some possiblities for this “farmers and fishermen” type of error:
1. Literal Adam and Eve. Modern prophets and the Book of Mormon, as you would say, “demand” this.
2. Literal Garden of Eden. Same as #1.
3. Literal Garden of Eden in Missouri. Joseph Smith taught it, and the D&C ties Adam to Missouri. This one is thoroughly embedded in Restoration scripture and teaching.
4. Literal global flood that killed everything not on one boat. Here it gets interesting. You’d think anyone who says prophets and scripture demand #1 through #3 would have to take #4 as well. But a lot of members have quietly absorbed the philosophies of men taught by “so-called” scientists, so I suspect many don’t actually believe it. This is a good example of selective literalism. #1 through #3 are hard to disprove, so the orthodox stay literal. #4 doesn’t survive scientific scrutiny, so it drifts toward a local flood, or a story with a good moral that didn’t really happen.
5. Literal separation of the continents during or shortly after the flood. Scriptural support is thin–Genesis 10:25 on the earth being divided in the days of Peleg is about all there is, and Peleg comes several generations after the flood, not during it. This was taught quite a bit in early Mormonism, along with the idea that the continents will be reunited into a single landmass in the Millennium, but you rarely hear it now, and I’d guess most members today simply accept plate tectonics. Rasband seems to need it for two things: getting God’s people over to the Old World, and producing a pristine, uninhabited promised land.
6. Literal belief that the Americas were essentially empty when the Jaredites and Nephites arrived. Most members now know the Americas were populated long before that, and mostly shrug and say the Book of Mormon writers didn’t think it worth mentioning.
7. Literal belief that the people already in the Americas were wicked and depraved when the Europeans arrived. This is where the “preserved for a righteous people” framing leads. If the land was being cleared and kept for the righteous, what does that make everyone who was already living on it, and what does it make of the atrocities that were later done to them? Plenty of members have drawn exactly that conclusion over the years, and the ugliness of it is a large part of why the actual history is ignored.
So which of these seven is the farmer-and-fisherman mistake? That’s the part I can’t work out. If they’re all defensible, then Rasband said nothing wrong and there’s no fallibility to concede. If some are errors, I’d like to know the rule that sorts them, because from here the rule looks like: literal until the science gets embarrassing, then symbolic. And that rule only ever gets applied after the fact–which means the prophet isn’t telling us what to believe. Members are deciding which parts to keep and which to reject based on science.
The idea of the continents being all together in the time of Adam and Eve is new to me too.
Let me ask this. It’s there anything from the talks and writings of the Q15 that would leave you thinking that the conventional scientific explanations about the age of the earth and the history of humanity is generally correct? Is there anything they write and say that would leave us thinking that the Pentateuch is actually mostly a myth and that modern science have proven that those stores wouldn’t be at all possible?
I think the church’s general position on the earth’s and humanity’s histories is to not really say anything. Treat the OT stories as if they actually happened without insisting that they are literal or extrapolating from them ideas beyond what the text immediately says. On that basis I don’t think that Rasband’s words would pass GC review.
mountainclimber479,
It could be that the writer of the article got the gist of Elder Rasband’s talk close enough for all intents and purposes. Even so, the direct quotes seem to be embedded in a way that suggests (to my mind) that there may be some unintended poor contextualization.
The biggest problem I see is with the flow of ideas in Bill’s quotation of the second sentence–which would be your #4 & 5. I’m open to the basic elements that are set forth–but I don’t see them as being causal or connected to each other. And so that’s why I’m wondering about how the quotes might’ve been contextualized and all of that.
That said, if the article truly does a good job of representing Elder Rasband’s talk vis-a-vis those respective details–then that’s OK with me. I think the whys and wherefores of the earth’s geological history are for less important than the salvific principles of the gospel.
I should say Bill’s quotation of the second paragraph–not sentence.
Alice, as a firm believer in free speech, everybody should have the privilege of speaking on any subject regardless of expertise.
However, if someone confidently declares something that is clearly false, that tarnishes their credibility on all subject matters on which they may speak.
I think this accords with my belief that general authorities and other church officials try to be helpful, but that they share their own beliefs and testimonies. As a general matter, I do not believe God writes their talks for them. Anyway, and as we all know, we often get folklore mixed with doctrine, and one member’s folklore is another member’s doctrine.
Amenable to our own scripture, we may say a talk is inspired only when the Holy Ghost influences both the speaker and the hearer, and both are edified together.
Reading the Church News article was painful. Not because of the outdated (trying to be kind here) idea of the flood causing the separation of Pangaea, but because of the performative patriotism and the declaration of United States-ian exceptionalism. Granted, those two ideas often go hand-in-hand nowadays, but it always makes me cringe.
One of the things that I truly admire about science-based discovery and knowledge is how humble it is. Monumental discoveries are made, but they don’t try to stand on their own. Other scientists are invited and encouraged to perform their own experiments to see if the results are consistent. Any new fact comes with the knowledge that new evidence could add to or change what has been proven. Science allows for new discoveries; it expects there to be shifts and changes. It allows for further learning.
A religious leader who has the authority to speak for God makes a declaration of TRUTH. Faithful followers accept that TRUTH. Presented with actual evidence that said TRUTH is not factual the followers will perform highly complicated mental gymnastics to explain how and why the stated TRUTH actually makes sense and that the presented evidence really supports it. Or, if the statement made is quite simply not true, then doubt is cast upon the source reporting what was said. Because the leader cannot possibly have stated something so patently false.
And this has been going on for a long, long time. Easy example is Copernicus and Galileo both taught a heliocentric model of the universe that went against the catholic church’s geocentric teachings. They were punished for being correct (up to that point – the sun is the center of our galaxy and the universe doesn’t seem to have an exact center). In the years between then and now, their findings have proven to be facts upon which further discoveries can be built, while the catholic church’s response to them is rightfully condemned.
Personally I place more trust in the person who is humble enough to admit that they might be someday proven wrong. The gospel is at its best when it is inviting us to be the best we can be and to love those around us. We should be working to become good people who treat others well because we are all children of God rather than trying to claim that we’re blessed (read: better than others) because we’re living in the “promised land.”
Well, to be fair to Elder Rasband, if one believes in the omniscience of God then God is timeless and all things are in the present for God. So millions of year and a thousand years are all the same day to the Eternal.
My problem with a literal interpretation of the 1st half of the book of Genesis, and the LDS “Missouri” additions to it is these interpretations are presented as if there is no conflict with established scientific narrative. I personally believe there are flaws in the established scientific narrative and I especially believe there will be discoveries that will challenge established archeological and geological claims. But I don’t think it is helpful to make statements that are at odds with established narratives without recognizing there is a conflict. To do so is to promote ignorance and imply that faith is an acceptable cover for ignorance. I prefer that faith operate from the recognition that one lacks knowledge, not that faith is justification for dismissing knowledge exists.
Mountainclimber479: “This was taught quite a bit in early Mormonism, along with the idea that the continents will be reunited into a single landmass in the Millennium.”
I hadn’t heard that one before but what an awful idea! Goodbye Bahamas, goodbye Copacabana, goodbye Martha’s Vineyard. Did early Mormons hate beaches or something?
JLM: I completely agree that everyone should be allowed, nay, encouraged to say whatever they think. The better to determine who is full of crap and who is actually worth listening to. This puts Rasband pretty clearly in the former camp. Also, anyone who bases a home schooling curriculum around Skousen is too dumb to create a home schooling curriculum. Remember when we used to care about standards in education? Not just religious indoctrination? I’m not sure my kids believe me when I tell them that we used to have separation of church and state in school.
Jake, you said: “The biggest problem I see is with the flow of ideas in Bill’s quotation of the second sentence”. These are not my quotations. The whole section in white on the post was cut and pasted from the Church News. It is their quoting, not mine. Yes, it appears that may be trying to put what he said in the best light. There may never be a transcript of the talk if he said something even worse!
From the 2003 Old Testament manual, part 1. This is what I always remember from Answers to Gospel Questions, been a awhile since I read them all, but they do leave an impression. Interesting times.
(4-22) Genesis 10:25. Was the Earth Divided in the Days of Peleg?
“The dividing of the earth was not an act of division by the inhabitants of the earth by tribes and peoples, but a breaking asunder of the continents, thus dividing the land surface and creating the Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere. By looking at a wall map of the world, you will discover how the land surface along the northern and southern coast of the American Hemisphere and Europe and Africa has the appearance of having been together at one time. Of course, there have been many changes on the earth’s surface since the beginning. We are informed by revelation that the time will come when this condition will be changed and that the land surface of the earth will come back again as it was
in the beginning and all be in one place. This is definitely stated in the Doctrine and Covenants. [D&C 133:18–20 is then cited.]” (Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:73–74.)
It turns out that someone recorded Rasband’s talk and posted it to YouTube, so we don’t have to question the accuracy of Church News reporting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HniONk7kBy8. Here are some relevant quotes:
9:39: “This land mass has not always been named America. Nor has it had the configuration we know today. In the very beginning, as we read in Genesis, all the continents melded together in what God called Earth. Our father in heaven created our first parents, Adam and Eve, and placed them in a garden eastward in Eden in what today we consider the heartland of America. There, God the Father and his beloved son, Jesus Christ, visited our first parents and taught them the gospel. Adam’s posterity did not follow God’s laws. They became so wicked it said that they had they were without natural affection that the Lord cleansed the earth with water. The surface of the continent fractured into great continents separated by oceans. All to protect what was destined to be the promised land which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people.”
So…seems like the Church News reporting was 100% accurate after all. But wait, there’s more,
12:29: “In 1492, Seaman Christopher Columbus was divinely led to America, quote, kindled as with a fire from on high. The great prophet Lehi had prophesied, ‘There shall none come into this land, say they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord.’ By the 1600s, stalwart pilgrims and Puritans, essentially religious refugees hoping to worship freely, risked crossing the Atlantic to make new lives in America. 13 British colonies, part of the expanding British Empire, soon took hold on the Atlantic coast of North America.”
Zero mention of the peoples and cultures already living in the Americas–and the atrocities committed against them. Zilch. Nada.
17:20: “In Washington’s first address as president, he gave thanks to the Almighty, saying, quote, ‘It would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to the Almighty being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations.’ No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. In a moment of reflection, Washington described a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service. I shall hope that my undertaking of it is designed to answer some good purpose. That good purpose was the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.In the spring of 1820, 14year-old Joseph Smith prayed to God to know the truth. The restoration was set in motion. God the Father and his beloved son Jesus Christ appeared in vision and spoke to him as they had two prophets of old.”
Well, the Christian Nationalists would have totally been on board with this talk until we hit Joseph Smith. This reasoning for God’s involvement in the creation of the United States very much reminds me of Ballard’s reasoning for why God inspired the invention of the computer, “Now, why did, why do you think the devil… this is interesting, you oughtta think about this. Where do you think the computer came from, why did we, why did somebody invent the computer? I’ll tell you why. Because The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints needed it. Why did we need it? Because family history was moving, and the church was growing, and the temples were expanding, and we needed more capacity to do family history. That’s why, I believe, the computer came into existence.” (Ballard, Oct. 2015 Provo YSA Devotional) Sure, computers were invented so that Mormons could perform ordinances for dead people who almost certainly don’t need them, and the United States was formed so the Mormon Church could be founded–and take over the world…well, 0.2% of the world…in just 200 years.
22:35: Religious freedom, a cause that brought the early settlers to America, is under fire. As I have said before, if religion is not there to help with shaping character and mediating hard times, who will be? Who will teach honesty, gratitude, forgiveness, and patience? Who will exhibit charity, compassion, and for the forgotten and the downtrodden? Who will embrace those who are different yet deserving as are all of God’s children? Who will open their arms to those in need and seek no recompense? Who will reverence peace and obedience to laws greater than the trends of the day?”
Really? Who will exhibit charity for the forgotten and downtrodden again? Who will embrace those who are different yet deserving as are all of God’s children? Well, it’s certainly not the COJCOLDS if we consider how they’ve treated LGBTQ, blacks, and women throughout its history. I can’t even believe a Church leader would have the gall say that the Church is good at exhibiting charity to those who are different.
@Jack, “I think the whys and wherefores of the earth’s geological history are far less important than the salvific principles of the gospel.”
So the fallibility you’re willing to concede are #4 and #5, and the reason it doesn’t trouble you is that it isn’t “salvific”. Fair enough. But I have serious doubts about all seven items on that list. Can I achieve salvation if I also don’t literally believe #1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 either? Are those other five part of the salvific principles of the gospel?
Same question about the Book of Mormon. You say the Book of Mormon *demands* that Joseph really had plates, and therefore that the events really happened, including Christ’s visit to the Nephites. I have serious doubts about these things too. Is belief in Book of Mormon historicity, and in Christ’s visit to the Nephites, required for salvation? Can I achieve salvation if I treat the Book of Mormon as partly inspired fiction and partly uninspired fiction?
Your use of *demands” is a perfect example of elevating scripture and prophetic statement above any other fact or evidence–no matter how overwhelming that evidence may be–that might indicate the claim is false. I think it’s important to realize that Rasband believes in #4 and #5 because he is doing exactly this. It’s just that he is willing to ignore more geological evidence that you are. How do we really determine what scripture/prophetic statements demand of us for our salvation and what parts we can ignore?
And what really are the salvific principles of the gospel anyway? Is it what we read that Jesus taught in the New Testament, or is it more than that? The Church kind of wants it both ways. It really, really, really wants to be accepted as Christian, which would imply New Testament Jesus’ teachings about salvation, but then applies all kinds of extra requirements: belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, belief that Adam and Eve were real people, following the current prophet, priesthood, temple, the Word of Wisdom, and at various points polygamy, excluding black members, excluding LGBTQ people, etc. Is all this other stuff part of “the salvific principles of the gospel,” or can I achieve salvation by following New Testament Jesus’ teachings and setting the mountain of Mormon extras aside?
“As I have said before, if religion is not there to help with shaping character and mediating hard times, who will be?”
Voltair, Gene Roddenberry, Kurt Vonnegut, Baron d’Holbach, Erasmus, Thomas Paine, Margaret Atwood, John Stuart Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft, Bill Nye, Bertrand Russell, Isaac Asimov, Boccaccio…
I could go on, but there are many, many writers, thinkers and advocates who have developed well thought out moral philosophies and frameworks that don’t require an incentive of a reward after death.
mountainclimber479,
I’m happy for people to do their best to live the gospel for the best reasons they can come up with.
Re: What is Salvific? My answer is: what ever is necessary for us to do in order to become like the Savior.
@Jack,
“Re: What is Salvific? My answer is: what ever is necessary for us to do in order to become like the Savior.”
That’s a cop out. I gave specific examples.
Sorry, mountainclimber–I didn’t mean for my comment to come across as off-putting.
Here’s a very specific list of things that the righteous must do in order to live with God–from Section 76:
50 And again we bear record—for we saw and heard, and this is the testimony of the gospel of Christ concerning them who shall come forth in the resurrection of the just—
51 They are they who received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his name and were baptized after the manner of his burial, being buried in the water in his name, and this according to the commandment which he has given—
52 That by keeping the commandments they might be washed and cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power;
53 And who overcome by faith, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, which the Father sheds forth upon all those who are just and true.
That said, there is actually more that we must do if we wish to participate in the Lord’s kingdom after the manner of Abraham and Sarah–which has to do with the ordinances of the temple (as I’m sure you already know).
@Jack,
Roger that. So, in order to receive salvation, I need to keep the commandments. So…do I follow NT Jesus’s commandments or LDS Jesus’s commandments? Do I have to believe in a literal Adam and Eve? Do I need to believe the continents separated during or shortly after a global flood like Rasband does? Do I have to believe God approved of the brutal treatment that Native Americans experienced under the hands of the Europeans so that the Restoration could occur? Do I have to believe Joseph Smith received real gold plates? Do I have to believe Jesus literally visited the Americas after His death. Can I drink tea and coffee? Can I choose my own underwear? Can I welcome married gay people into my local congregation and allow them to participate in the same ways straight couples do? Do I have to marry more than one woman in the afterlife?
Rasband can say what ever darn thing he wants. Wish it wasn’t so idiotic.
Seeing Answers to Gospel Questions, reminds me Joseph Fielding Smith won the longevity contest, so he was Church president in 1969. We kids had a lot of fun quoting him that man would never land on the moon.
I vaguely remember, in the early 80’s, running across an old Improvement Era article by Talmage on dinosaurs in Utah from millions of years ago. I showed it to a young earther, “Look an article by a apostle in a church publication.” They conceded that dinosaurs roamed the earth( an improvement on God using landfill from another world) but that was while Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. I’m thinking the Paleozoic is a long time to debate munching on an apple.
As for the Earth coming back together. How the heck are the Appalachians, Atlas mountains and Scottish Highlands gonna be put back together.(and when the City of Enoch plunks back down in the Gulf of Mexico, how is it going to fit?) What about all that erosion. All I got to say is the speed and force of those continents smashing together is going to make the Himalayas look like molehills. I hope to soak in the Blue Lagoon, before Iceland gets obliterated.
None of this is stupider than what comes out of the mouth of that very stable genius.
mountainclimber479,
You’re a smart cookie–and I think you know the path that believers take as per the scriptures.
–We receive the witness of the Lord’s servants.
–We repent and turn to the Lord.
–We are baptized as a sign of entering the gospel covenant.
–We receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
–We endure in the gospel covenant and eventually receive the Holy Spirit of Promise.
That is the basic pattern.
As it has to do with the more “peripheral” elements of the gospel–I think the key to sorting through all of that is to focus on how it informs us vis-a-vis our covenant relationship with God. And so, for example, while it may not matter too much to know the precise location of the Garden of Eden–it could be very helpful to understand the goings on there as per the garden story.
“I think you know the path that believers take as per the scriptures.” No, I don’t. Religions, and individual members within those religions, negotiate their own interpretations of scripture and requirements for salvation. Mormons are no different. For you, a global flood accompanied by a division of the continents is something you don’t take literally. Rasband does. You are negotiating the meaning of scriptures differently. Sure, you can dismiss this case because it’s not salvific, but that’s your interpretation. I can find you plenty of Christians, including some Mormons, who would argue that you won’t qualify for salvation if you don’t take the Bible literally and accept the global flood just as its written there.
If you need some more examples, one of McConkie’s 7 deadly heresies was belief in organic evolution. His point was that organic evolution is incompatible with the gospel–including believe in the Atonement itself–so if you believe in evolution, you aren’t going to obtain salvation.
Brigham Young based his racist doctrine on the seed of Cain ideas from the Old Testament. “Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.” I can only assume he means spiritual death here because he was well aware that no one physically dies just for marrying outside their own race.
Then there’s coffee. Julie Beck in General Conference taught, “Though she knew it was contrary to the Word of Wisdom, she developed the habit of drinking coffee and kept a coffee pot on the back of her stove. She claimed that ‘the Lord will not keep me out of heaven for a little cup of coffee.’ But, because of that little cup of coffee, she could not qualify for a temple recommend, and neither could those of her children who drank coffee with her.” According to Beck, coffee drinkers lose their salvation.
As I mentioned before, Church leaders like to speak out of both sides of their mouths, which is what you are doing, too. When pressed on what is required for salvation, they’ll generally give the “faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, endure to the end” answer. That seems reasonable. Yes, the teachings of New Testament Jesus are, in large part, quite beautiful and wise. But the Church also likes to speak out of the other side of their mouths and put all sorts of stumbling blocks in people’s way: McConkie with evolution, Brigham with interracial marriage, Beck with coffee, and the list just goes on and on and on.
Your being coy with me now, but so many of your comments–which echo Church leaders–here are in support of all of these extra requirements for salvation that go beyond faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, endure to the end.
“and I think you know the path that believers take as per the scriptures”
Almost entirely literally, word for word. And they judge other believers as weak for not holding a similar view.
mountainclimber479,
As I say, those five elements are the basic pattern. We can zoom in a little closer and see that the gospel covenant requires that we take the name of the Savior upon ourselves, and keep his commandments, and always remember him. And if we want to zoom in even closer we can get a basic sense of what the commandments are when we see the Bishop for a temple recommend interview. And if we want to zoom in yet even closer–then we listen to the whisperings of the Holy Ghost which “will tell [us] all things what [we] should do.”
The gospel covenant is a beautiful thing, brother. It enables us to get our feet on the path that leads to eternal life and then continue forward in a step by step process of preparation. You’re a good soul, mountinclimber, and I plead with you to stay in that path and continue to move forward towards the perfect day.
Looks like I’m a little late on this, sorry. But anyway, I was taught this exact same thing growing up in the 80s and 90s: The Garden of Eden (which literally existed) was in Jackson County, Missouri and the Bible took place, you know, where the Bible took place. So “obviously” the continents separated sometime after Adam and Eve were kicked out, and they kind of floated east, I guess. No one worried too much about Geologic time vs Biblical time, it just had to have happened that way. I’m not sure where specifically this idea came from, though it would not surprise me if it was from Skousen, Nibley, BRM, or ETB, whom all the adults in my life venerated. My guess is that Rasband learned this from an authority figure when he was young hasn’t questioned it since.