Mormon Quotes

Science

Brigham Young
The earth is a living creature and breathes as much as you and I do.
Brigham Young, Teachings of President Brigham Young, ed. and comp. by Fred C. Collier, v. 3, 1852‑1854, 1987, p. 241, also in Essential Brigham Young, p. 82
Brigham Young
There is life in all matter, throughout the vast extent of all eternities; it is in the rock, the sand, the dust, in water, air, the gases, and, in short, in every description and organization of matter, whether it be solid, liquid, or gaseous, particle operating with particle.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 3:277
Brigham Young
If [the sun] was made to give light to those who dwell upon it, and to other planets; and so will this earth when it is celestialized. Every planet in the first rude, organic state receives not the glory of God upon it, but is opaque; but when celstialized, every planet that God brings into existence is a body of light, but not till then.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 13:271
Joseph Smith
And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.
Joseph Smith, Mormon 9:32
Wilford Woodruff
Again Presdet Young said Joseph the Prophet told me that the garden of Eden was in Jackson Co Missouri, & when Adam was driven out of the garden of Eden He went about 40 miles to the Place which we Named Adam Ondi Ahman, & there built an Altar of Stone & offered Sacrifize. That Altar remains to this day. I saw it as Adam left it as did many others, & through all the revolutions of the world that Altar had not been disturbed. Joseph also said that when the City of Enoch fled & was translated it was whare the gulf of Mexico now is. It left that gulf a body of water.
Wilford Woodruff, Waiting for World's End: The Diaries of Wilford Woodruff, edited by Susan Staker, Signature Books, 1993, p. 305
Wilford Woodruff
The Lamanites [Native Americans], now a down‑trodden people, are a remnant of the house of Israel. The curse of God has followed them as it has done the Jews, though the Jews have not been darkened in their skin as have the Lamanites.
Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses 22:173
Joseph F. Smith
If our Church schools would confine their so-called course of study in biology to that knowledge of the insect world which would help us to eradicate the pests that threaten the destruction of our crops and our fruit, such instruction would answer much better the aims of the Church school than theories which deal with the origin of life. These theories may have fascination for our teachers and they may find interest in the study of them, but they are not properly within the scope of the purpose for which these schools were organized. Some of our teachers are anxious to explain how much of the theory of evolution, in their judgment, is true, and what is false, but that only leaves their students in an unsettled frame of mind. They are not old enough and learned enough to discriminate, or put proper limitations upon a theory which we believe is more or less a fallacy.... On the other hand we have abundant evidence that many of those who have adopted in its fullness the theory of evolution have discarded the Bible, or at least refused to accept it as the inspired word of God.... Even if it were harmless from the standpoint of our faith, we think there are things more important to the daily affairs of life and the practical welfare of our young people. The Church itself has no philosophy about the modus operandi employed by the Lord in His creation of the world, and much of the talk therefore about the philosophy of Mormonism is altogether misleading...
Joseph F. Smith, Juvenile Instructor, 46(4):208-209, April 1911, Philosophy and the Church Schools
Joseph F. Smith
It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth, and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declares that Adam was 'the first man of all men' (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; and whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.
Joseph F. Smith, Messages of the First Presidency, v. 4 p. 205
Joseph F. Smith
These are the authentic statements of the scriptures, ancient and modern, and it is best to rest with these, until the Lord shall see fit to give more light on the subject. whether the mortal bodies of man evolved in natural processes to present perfection, through the direction and power of God; whether the first parents of our generations, Adam and Eve, were transplanted from another sphere, with immortal tabernacles, which became corrupted through sin and the partaking of natural foods, in the process of time; whether they were born here in mortality, as other mortals have been, are questions not fully answered in the revealed word of God.
Joseph F. Smith, Improvement Era, Vol. 13, April 1910, No. 5(70), Priesthood Quorum's Table
Heber J. Grant
Diversity of opinion does not necessitate intolerance of spirit, nor should it embitter or set rational beings against each other. The Christ taught kindness, patience, and charity. Our religion is not hostile to real science. That which is demonstrated, we accept with joy; but vain philosophy, human theory, and mere speculations of men, we do not accept nor do we adopt anything contrary to divine revelation or to good common sense. But everything that tends to right conduct, that harmonizes with sound morality and increases faith in Deity, finds favor with us no matter where it may be found.
Heber J. Grant, Deseret Evening News, Words in Season from the First Presidency (Christmas message)
George Albert Smith
There are those in this audience who are descendants of the old 12 Apostles and, shall I say it, yes, descendants of the Savior himself. His seed is represented in this body of men.
George Albert Smith, A Ministry of Meetings: The Apostolic Diaries of Rudger Clawson (p71‑72)
George Albert Smith
Doubt has been thrown upon the Mosaic account of the creation, the whole religious world has been agitated and in many instances faith in the scriptures has been destroyed by this theory of the eminent philosopher [not scientist], Charles Darwin.
George Albert Smith, Collected Discourses, p. 5
George Albert Smith
Adam was no gorilla, no squalid savage of doubtful humanity, but a perfect man in the image of God. When placed on the earth, he was immortal. Eve was no degraded loathsome creature, but a lovely admirable being ‑ a suitable partner for an immortal man.... The most perfect men and women on earth today are physically far beneath their great progenitors, Adam and Eve. We are not the offspring of monkeys, but are the children of God, and Jesus is our brother.
George Albert Smith, Juvenile Instructor, quoted in Bankhead, The Fall of Adam, p. 30
David O. McKay
Whole nations are declaring atheism to be the law of the land. Atheism has become the greatest weapon Satan has to use, and its evil influence is bringing degradation to millions throughout the world. Even at this moment as the sun throws warm, genial rays on snowcapped summits and frost‑covered valleys of this western land, the public press tells of increasing activity on the part of the evil one. Warlike activities and international misunderstandings prevent the establishing of peace and divert man's inventive genius from the paths of science, art, and literature, and apply it to human retardation and the holocaust of war.
David O. McKay, Peace Built Upon the Solid Foundation of Eternal Principles (David O. McKay, 1964 Semi‑Annual General Conference, Improvement Era)
Joseph Fielding Smith
After the people again forgot the Lord and dissensions arose, some of them took upon themselves the name Lamanites and the dark skin returned. When the Lamanites fully repent and sincerely receive the gospel, the Lord has promised to remove the dark skin. The Lord declared by revelation that, 'before the great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall flourish in the wilderness, and the Lamanites shall blossom as a rose.' The dark skin of those who have come into the Church is no longer to be considered a sign of the curse. Many of these converts and delightsome and have the Spirit of the Lord. Perhaps there are some Lamanites today who are losing the dark pigment. Many of the members of the Church among the Catawba Indians of the South could readily pass as of the white race; also in other parts of the South.
Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, v. 3, p. 123, 1953
Joseph Fielding Smith
When the Lamanites [Native Americans] fully repent and sincerely receive the gospel, the Lord has promised to remove the dark skin.
Joseph Fielding Smith, Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, v. 3, p. 123, 1953
Joseph Fielding Smith
The dividing of the earth [Genesis 10:25] 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.
Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, v. 5, pp. 73‑74
Joseph Fielding Smith
Many [Native American] converts are delightsome and have the Spirit of the Lord. Perhaps there are some Lamanites today who are losing the dark pigment. Many of the members of the Church among the Catawba Indians of the South could readily pass as of the white race; also in other parts of the South.
Joseph Fielding Smith, Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, v. 3, p. 123, 1953
Joseph Fielding Smith
It is the personal opinion of the writer that the Lord does not intend that the Book of Mormon, at least at the present time, shall be proved true by any archaeological findings. They day may come when such will be the case, but not now. The Book of Mormon is itself a witness of the truth, and the promise has been given most solemnly that any person who will read it with a prayerful heart may receive the abiding testimony of its truth.
Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 1998, v. 2, p. 196
Harold B. Lee
I somewhat sorrowed recently to hear someone, a sister who comes from a church family, ask, 'What about pre‑Adamic people?... Aren't there evidences that people preceded the Adamic period on the earth?' I said, 'Have you forgotten the scripture that says, 'And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also...' (Moses 3:7)... She wondered about the creation because she had read the theories of the scientists, and the question that she was really asking was: How do you reconcile science with religion? The answer must be, If science is not true, you cannot reconcile truth with error.
Harold B. Lee, First Presidency Message, Ensign, December 1972
Spencer W. Kimball
These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.
Spencer W. Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference, October 1960; Improvement Era, December 1960, pp922‑923
Spencer W. Kimball
In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos, five were darker but equally delightsome.
Spencer W. Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference, October 1960; Improvement Era, December 1960, pp922‑923
Spencer W. Kimball
The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.
Spencer W. Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference, October 1960; Improvement Era, December 1960, pp922‑923
Spencer W. Kimball
The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos; five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.
Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference, Oct. 1960
Spencer W. Kimball
At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen‑year‑old daughter were present, the little member girl‑sixteen sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents on the same reservation, in the same Hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather. There was the doctor in a Utah city who for two years had had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and delightsomeness.
Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference, Oct. 1960
Gordon B. Hinckley
Well, we're not anti‑gay, we're pro‑family. Let me put it that way...and we love these people [gays] and try to work with them and help them. We know that they have a problem. We want to help them solve that problem.
Gordon B. Hinckley, Gordon B Hinckley, interview with Larry King
Bruce R. McConkie
Appended to this command to multiply was the heaven‑sent restriction that the creatures in the waters could only bring forth "after their kind," and that "every winged fowl" could only bring forth "after his kind." There was no provision for evolvement or change from one species to another. (See Moses 2:20—23; Abr. 4:20—23.)
Bruce R. McConkie, Christ and the Creation, by Bruce R. McConkie
Bruce R. McConkie
Evolutionary theories assume that hundreds of millions of years were involved, first in the creation of the earth as a habitable globe, and again in the evolution of spontaneously generated, single celled forms of life into the complex and multitudinous forms of life now found on its face. We have rather specific scriptural indications that the creative period was of relatively short duration.
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 255
Bruce R. McConkie
The Joseph Smith Translation, or Inspired Version, is a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth.
Bruce R. McConkie, Restored Light on the Savior's Last Week in Mortality, June 1999
Bruce R. McConkie
There were no pre‑Adamites. Any assumption to the contrary runs counter to the whole plan and scheme of the Almighty in creating and peopling this earth.
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 254
Bruce R. McConkie
There are those who say that revealed religion and organic evolution can be harmonized. This is both false and devilish.
Bruce R. McConkie, June 1, 1980, BYU fireside address; quoted in Stephens and Meldrum, Evolution and Mormonism, p. 52
Bruce R. McConkie
There is no harmony between the truths of revealed religion and the theories of organic evolution.
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 256
Bruce R. McConkie
Adam and Eve and all forms of life, both animal and plant, were created in immortality; that is, when first placed on this earth, all forms of life were in a state of immortality. There was no death in the world; death entered after the fall.
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 252
Orson Pratt
We have the general characteristics of the human form, and we do not look like the original of man according to Darwin's idea; we do not look like the monkey or baboon from which Darwin said we originated.
Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 17:32
Orson Pratt
Now to prepare them against these contingencies, and that they might, have fresh air for the benefit of the elephants, cureloms or mammoths and many other animals, that perhaps were in them, as well as the human beings they contained, the Lord told them how to construct them in order to receive air, that when they were on the top of the water, whichever side up their vessels happened to be, it mattered not; they were so constructed that they could ride safely, though bottom upwards and they could open their air holes that happened to be uppermost.
Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 12:340
Orson Pratt
What! is the earth [alive] too? If it were not, how could the words of our text be fulfilled, where it speaks of the earth's dying? How can that die that has no life?
Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 1:281
Boyd K. Packer
There is a falsehood that some are born with an attraction to their own kind, with nothing they can do about it. They are just 'that way' and can only yield to those desires. That is a malicious and destructive lie. While it is a convincing idea to some, it is of the devil. No one is locked into that kind of life. From our premoral life we were directed into a physical body. There is no mismatching of bodies and spirits. Boys are to become men ‑‑ masculine, manly men ‑‑ ultimately to become husbands and fathers. No one is predestined to a perverted use of these powers.
Boyd K. Packer, 1976 General Conference, speech entitled To Young Men Only
Boyd K. Packer
Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, God is our Heavenly Father.
Boyd K. Packer, General Conference 2010, Cleansing the Inner Vessel
Russell M. Nelson
Generally speaking, the disease selectively destroys those engaging in homosexual and adulterous activity prohibited by the Lord. Looking at it through the eyes of our priesthood perspective, we can see that, just as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were eliminated, so today infections limit the procreative powers and perpetuation of those who are disobedient to the commandments of God that deal with moral purity.
Russell M. Nelson, Twenty questions for Elder Russell M. Nelson during an address to religious educators
Gerald N. Lund
So how do we deal with these false philosophies? Fortunately, Mormon not only gave us Korihor's doctrines, he also gave us an inspired answer to them. This is the real value of the Korihor account. The first thing to note is that Alma does not get into philosophical debate with Korihor. He doesn't allow himself to be pulled onto the ground that Korihor tries to define as the area of debate. There is a great lesson in that. We combat false philosophies with revelation and true doctrine, not academic debate.
Gerald N. Lund, Ensign, Countering Korihor's Philosophy, July 1992
Gerald N. Lund
President Ezra Taft Benson has taught that "the Book of Mormon exposes the enemies of Christ. It confounds false doctrines and lays down contention. (See 2 Ne. 3:12.) It fortifies the humble followers of Christ against the evil designs, strategies, and doctrines of the devil in our day. The type of apostates in the Book of Mormon are similar to the type we have today. God, with his infinite foreknowledge, so molded the Book of Mormon that we might see the error and know how to combat false educational, political, religious, and philosophical concepts of our time." (Ensign, Jan. 1988, p. 3.)
Gerald N. Lund, Ensign, Countering Korihor's Philosophy, July 1992
Gerald N. Lund
Today, the world is permeated with philosophies similar to those taught by Korihor. We read them in books, see them championed in the movies and on television, and hear them taught in classrooms and sometimes in the churches of our time. Note just a few examples drawn from modern writings: "We believe that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species. ... Traditional religions often offer solace to humans, but, as often, they inhibit humans from helping themselves or experiencing their full potentialities. ... Too often traditional faiths encourage dependence rather than independence." ("Humanist Manifesto II," The Humanist, Sept./Oct. 1973, pp. 5—6; compare Alma 30:14, 16, 27—28.) "Science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces. As far as we know, the total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context." (Ibid; compare Alma 30:17.) Here we see clear evidence of Mormon's inspiration to give us a full account of Korihor and his teachings. Korihor's teachings are old doctrine, and yet they are ideas as modern as today's high‑speed printing presses and satellite dishes.
Gerald N. Lund, Ensign, Countering Korihor's Philosophy, July 1992
Heber C. Kimball
Where did the earth come from? From its parent earths.
Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses 6:36
Alexander Campbell
This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in N. York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies ‑ infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the rights of man. All these topics are repeatedly alluded to.
Alexander Campbell, Millennial Harbinger, p. 13, Feb. 7, 1831
First Presidency
The Church strongly discourages the donation of sperm.
First Presidency, Church Handbook of Instructions, section 21.4.13
First Presidency
The Church strongly discourages surrogate motherhood.
First Presidency, Church Handbook of Instructions, section 21.4.16
Julie Hamilton
Now the new assault on science comes in the form of the equally fallacious argument that attempts to help those with unwanted homosexuality are "dangerous". This is completely false! This is particularly exasperating coming from a media totally unwilling to acknowledge the tremendous health and emotional toll that homosexual activities exact on those caught up in the lifestyle. They will spend thousands of hours searching for one individual who claims to have been injured by therapy, but seldom mention the thousands of broken lives that are the legacy of homosexual behavior.
Julie Hamilton, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Julie Hamilton
We believe the reason reorientation therapies are under attack is because the campaign to deceive society into believing that people are "born that way" is beginning to fail. The science won't support the rhetoric, and even the American Psychological Association has had to modify their position to reflect the research. The small but persistent voice of NARTH members and our allies has made a difference.
Julie Hamilton, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
John A. Widtsoe
Latter-day Saints know, through modern revelation, that the Garden of Eden was on the North American continent and that Adam and Eve began their conquest of the earth in the upper part of what is now the state of Missouri. It seems very probable that the children of our first earthly parents moved down along the fertile, pleasant lands of the Mississippi valley."
John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, three volumes in one, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft 1960, p. 127
John A. Widtsoe
Any theory that leaves out God as a personal, purposeful Being, and accepts chance as a first cause, cannot be accepted by Latter‑day Saints ... That man and the whole of creation came by chance is unthinkable. It is equally unthinkable that if man came into being by the will and power of God, the divine creative power is limited to one process dimly sensed by mortal man.
John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, v. 1, p. 155
John A. Widtsoe
Without going into further details, it is readily seen that the teachings of Joseph Smith, in 1833, in relation to the value of tea and coffee in human drinks, harmonizes with the knowledge of today. Moreover, he was in advance, in the certainty of his expressions, of the scientists of his day. It is true that caffeine had been found in coffee and tea a few years before the revelation of 1833, but the physiological action of the drug was not known until many years afterwards.
John A. Widtsoe, Joseph Smith As Scientist by John A. Widtsoe, 1908
Erastus Snow
So far as the history of this earth is known, whether written or unwritten, or whether written in volumes of books, whether engraven upon metallic plates, or whether found impressed in rocks, neither geologists, nor any other scientists have ever been able to show us any great exploits of any of these inferior grades of being to indicate that there was any such vitality in them, as to develop in their future progress, the present order of beings we call man.
Erastus Snow, Journal of Discourses 19:40
Erastus Snow
And how much satisfaction these philosophers have in the contemplation of their grandfather monkeys, we are left to conjecture; but such are the theories put forth by some of our modern philosophers. But we find nothing on the earth, or in the earth, nor under the earth, that indicates that any of these monkeys or apes, or any other orders of creation below man have ever accomplished any great exploits.
Erastus Snow, Journal of Discourses 19:40
James E. Talmage
The decision reached by the First Presidency, and announced to this morning's assembly, was in answer to a specific question that obviously the doctrine of the existence of races of human beings upon the earth prior to the Fall of Adam was not a doctrine of the Church; and, further, that the conception embodied in the belief of many to the effect that there were no such Pre‑Adamite races, and that there was no death upon the Earth prior to Adam's fall is likewise declared to be no doctrine of the Church.
James E. Talmage, Stephens and Meldrum, Evolution and Mormonism, p. 45
Fawn Brodie
In more recent times the half‑dozen leading Egyptologists who have been asked to examine the facsimiles agree that they were ordinary funeral documents such as can be found on thousands of Egyptian graves.
Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History, Fawn Brodie, p. 175
David Whitmer
The record of the Jews and the record of the Nephites are one.
David Whitmer, Inscription on David Whitmer's tombstone
Janice Graham
What is going on at BYU is incongruent and inexplicable. Unless we are instructed to turn in our Standard Works for new gay‑affirming scriptures and clean out our ward and home library shelves of all our LDS Church manuals, books, and magazines, homosexuality should still be officially, courageously, and correctly shown as sinful and harmful in both thought and deed in every ward, stake, and Church‑owned or endorsed group, business, or education entity.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
Apart from mental illness, it takes humility and repentance and an abandonment of sinful desires possible through Christ in order to change and improve ourselves. This can happen to everyone. In fact, thousands of people with homosexual tendencies and lifestyles have left it all behind.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
Interestingly, we don't have to worry about Soulforce anymore because now BYU has a very vocal home‑grown student advocacy group of its own called USGA, Understanding Same‑Gender Attraction. It meets every Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. in room 111 of the TMCB on the BYU campus with BYU's permission. Call this group what they will, from what we've seen firsthand, it's really about affirming out‑of‑bounds sexual lust.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
Prof. Morgan related that the BYU counseling center no longer works with students on overcoming homosexual attractions, but merely on learning how to deal with them. So, according to this professor, young people are being told, without the benefit of knowledge and understanding as to how this came about and the spiritual, mental, and physical health dangers, that gay is the way they are, and here's how to accept it. There is no concern for the mortal testing, temporal future, or eternal soul of the young person, no understanding of their impressionable, impulsive, and fallen human nature, no interest in past or future suffering, and no cheering for righteousness, excellence, and nobleness, only what appears to be a perverse motivation to advance the current worldly whim. Can this travesty be true? Perhaps partly. But we happen to know there are still some right‑thinking people at BYU, including at the Counseling Center and send them our prayers.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
By the way, the only defense of the social experiment called gay parenting students could come up with was to compare it as better than foster homes, orphanages, and bad traditional parents. Besides having no information on which to base this comparison, and besides respectable foster parents, honorable orphanages, and imperfect but striving traditional parents rightly taking umbrage at this comparison, the issue is not about comparing these situations. The issue is that gay parents are modeling sinful and highly harmful and risky sexual ideas and behaviors to innocent, untaught children.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
Our book Captain of My Soul, the true story of a young man's dark past experience during his freshman year at BYU ten years ago getting initiated into homosexual behaviors by older men via chat rooms and phone calls, shines the light on the grim reality of these covered sins.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
This meeting, where young people with homosexual attractions will talk about how okay SGA [same‑gender attraction] is, and how bad they have it at BYU, is ill‑conceived. Not only will it not be helpful, it will be harmful, harmful to the souls of those giving the talks, harmful to those young minds listening who will be supported in covering both inward and outward sins and initiated further into homosexuality, and harmful to all those these people come in contact with.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
[We] called and spoke with Professor Morgan and Renata Forste, the department chairman. When asked why the meeting was being held, we were told that BYU students need a greater understanding of homosexual attraction in order to be kinder and more accepting of students who experience it. We were told these gay students are keeping the law of chastity and are not acting out sexually, so there is no honor code issue involved. We wondered how Prof. Morgan could know this, if all students who will attend the meeting have been screened for sexual abuse done to them or by them, or for wrong ideas and attitudes about sex and sexuality, or for current sexual impurity, how this is being defined, and if the gay students have told the truth. Homosexual behaviors are by nature practiced and spread in secret, BYU being no exception.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
Most recently, the media reported student outrage about a series of letters supporting traditional values in The Daily Universe concerning gay parenting/adoption, prompted by the TV show "Modern Family." A group of gay activist students who took especial offense to one letter to the editor made up an accusatory flyer and without permission stuffed a number of them in the next day's edition. Joe Campbell, the managing editor of the paper, faculty member, and also a columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, catered to the lawless gay activists by printing an apology and affirming the Church's understanding and respect for homosexually‑attracted people, at the same time removing the offending letter from the online version of The Daily Universe, a letter that unequivocally expressed the timeless Biblical truth that homosexuality is sinful. SoL wonders, what about the person who wrote the letter that got removed? There seems to be no understanding and respect for him — or the Bible for that matter. Shouldn't he now be offended? Shouldn't God be offended? Apparently not. To quote the Salt Lake Tribune article, "BYU has no interest in pursuing or punishing the students who produced or distributed the flyer, Campbell said. 'We count this as a learning experience.'" And what has BYU learned? Never to publish scriptural doctrine in its paper because it might offend gay activists?
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
Suicidal feelings and attempts, and depression are always mentioned by those promoting the social acceptance of youth homosexuality. Our conversation with Prof. Morgan was no exception; these serious problems are always ridiculously simplified to putting the blame on others. A victim mentality passes off personal responsibility and never helped anyone. Young people who feel suicidal or depressed are immature and easily persuaded, distracted, and recruited into all sorts of escapist causes and addictions. These problems may have less to do with sexuality than with the terrible conflict between right and wrong raging in the soul. There may be mental illness, as in the famous but misrepresented case of Stuart Matis. Many may desperately need clinical and medical attention. Tragically, the deep core issues are not being emphasized or even addressed. Instead, all is focused on the popular and politicized, self‑identified gayness of the sick person.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
If you think BYU upholds traditional family values, think again. Certain department heads, professors, guest lecturers, and students have become a law unto themselves, regularly preaching all manner of progressivism including socialism, radical feminism, anti‑Americanism, revisionist history, outdated Darwinism, and popular homosexualism, and continue to be supported, employed, and welcomed.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
Gay activism has done a great job presenting homosexuality as harmless, equal to heterosexuality, even virtuous, honest, praiseworthy. But homosexuality is not harmless, natural to the human body, chaste, pure, or wholesome in any form. The very nature of homosexuality is out of bounds.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
[We remember] that just a couple of years ago, being openly gay and advocating for homosexuality was considered against the honor code. Apparently it's perfectly fine now, no matter what the honor code still states about unchastity. This shows that rules and codes and laws don't matter so much as the popular consciousness does. Where is our will? Is it with God, with teaching His timeless correct and saving principles no matter how unpopular, or is it with the sycophantic political correctness of the day?
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Janice Graham
If there really are any innocent, clueless students jumping on the now public gay bandwagon for the novelty, youthful rebelliousness, sense of belonging, special attention, or politics of it, they had better find out quick what gayness really is —and so had Prof. Morgan — or they won't be innocent or ignorant for long. They will be recruited in earnest.
Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham
Michael Coe
I haven't changed my views about the Book of Mormon since my 1973 article. I have seen no archaeological evidence before or since that date which would convince me that it is anything but a fanciful creation by an unusually gifted individual living in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century.
Michael Coe, correspondence between Bill McKeever and Michael Coe
Michael Coe
As far as I know there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing the historicity of The Book of Mormon, and I would like to state that there are quite a few Mormon archaeologists who join this group.
Michael Coe, On the archaeology of the Book of Mormon
Michael Coe
Let me now state uncategorically that as far as I know there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing the foregoing to be true, ... nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever shown up in any New World excavation which would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of Mormon... is a historical document relating to the history of early migrants to our hemisphere.
Michael Coe, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1973, pp. 42, 46
Vern Bullough
Obviously, members of the society would take exception to the attempts of the LDS Church to claim scientific backing for their stand on masturbation; their science is about 80 years out of date, and it was questionable even 80 years ago.
Vern Bullough, Dr. Vern Bullough of State University College at Buffalo, New York
Armand Mauss
The pedagogical posture of the CES has become increasingly anti‑scientific and anti‑intellectual, more inward looking, more intent on the uniqueness and exclusiveness of the Mormon version of the gospel as opposed to other interpretations, whether religious or scientific. Lesson manuals still occasionally take gratuitous swipes at scientists, intellectuals, and modernist ideas, which are blamed for jeopardizing students' testimonies. Non‑Mormon sources and resources are rarely used and highly suspect.
Armand Mauss, Armand Mauss, Mormon scholar, The Angel and the Beehive, p. 102
Daniel C. Peterson
The Book of Abraham is a lesser‑known text in the Mormon canon of Scripture. It's part of what's called the Pearl of Great Price, and it purports to be a document written by the hand of Abraham that was recovered by Joseph Smith, translated [from] a group of papyri that he recovered while living in Kirtland, Ohio. The papyri were lost for a long time, ... and eventually the papyri came back to the church, and people were saying, now this is a real chance to test Joseph Smith's claims as a translator, as a prophet: Do the papyri match up with what Joseph Smith gave us? And the answer is no; ... they don't, if you translate them in a conventional Egyptological way, give you the text of the Book of Abraham.
Daniel C. Peterson, PBS, The Mormons
Daniel C. Peterson
We have possibly about 11 or 12 percent of the papyri that belonged to that collection, ... so it's very possible that there was a text that would be translatable, even by a conventional Egyptologist, into the Book of Abraham, but we don't have it now. But even that seems to me not altogether necessary. We know that Joseph didn't translate in the way that a scholar would translate. He didn't know Egyptian, ... so he was getting it by revelation. That even opens up the possibility to me that even if Joseph thought he was getting it from the papyri, he may not have been. How would he have been able to know? I'm not saying he wasn't. My own preferred solution to this is to say that he was, and the papyrus is missing. ...
Daniel C. Peterson, PBS, The Mormons
Orson Hyde
Here let me say again, according to the Book of Mormon, many of those great islands that are found in the Indian Ocean, also in the great Pacific Sea, have been planted with colonies of Israelites. Do they not resemble each other? Go to the Sandwich Islands, to the South Sea Islands, to Japan‑‑go to the various islands of the Pacific Ocean, and you find a general resemblance in the characters and countenances of the people. Who are they? According to the Book of Mormon, Israelites were scattered forth from time to time, and colonies planted on these islands of the ocean.
Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses 14:333
Lucy Mack Smith
During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelings, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them.
Lucy Mack Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, mother of Joseph Smith, quoted in Studies of the Book of Mormon, p. 243
Hugh B. Brown
We are grateful in the Church and in this great university that the freedom, dignity and integrity of the individual is basic in Church doctrine as well as in democracy. Here we are free to think and express our opinions. Fear will not stifle thought, as is the case in some areas which have not yet emerged from the dark ages. God himself refuses to trammel man's free agency even though its exercise sometimes teaches painful lessons. Both creative science and revealed religion find their fullest and truest expression in the climate of freedom.
Hugh B. Brown, Huge B. Brown Speech at BYU, March 29, 1958
B. H. Roberts
Accepting this statement of Joseph Smith relative to our planet in its present state being created or formed from the fragments of a planet which previously existed, one may readily understand how the supposed differences between scientists and believers in revelation have arisen. Scientists have been talking of the earth's strata that were formed in a previously existing planet; they have considered the fossilized flora and fauna imbedded in those strata.... If scientists shall claim that the fossilized remains in the different strata of the earth's crust reveal the fact that in the earlier periods of the earth's existence only the simpler forms of vegetation and animal life are to be found, both forms of life becoming more complex and of a higher type as the earth becomes older, until it is crowned with the presence of man — all that may be allowed. But that this gradation of animal life owes its existence to the processes of evolution is denied.... The claims of evolution as explained by the philosophers [not scientists] of the Darwin school, are contrary to all experience so far as man's knowledge extends.
B. H. Roberts, LDS Historian B.H. Roberts, The Gospel and Man's Relationship to Deity, pp. 281‑282
B. H. Roberts
If from all that has gone before in Part 1, the view be taken that the Book of Mormon is merely of human origin... if it be assumed that he is the author of it, then it could be said there is much internal evidence in the book itself to sustain such a view.
B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, by B.H. Roberts, p. 251
B. H. Roberts
In the first place there is a certain lack of perspective in the things the book relates as history that points quite clearly to an underdeveloped mind as their origin. The narrative proceeds in characteristic disregard of conditions necessary to its reasonableness, as if it were a tale told by a child, with utter disregard for consistency.
B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, by B.H. Roberts, p. 251
Thomas Ferguson
After many years of careful study, the real importance of Book of Mormon archaeology has dawned on me. It will take but a moment to explain. The Book of Mormon is the only revelation from God in the history of the world that can possibly be tested by scientific physical evidence.... To find the city of Jericho is merely to confirm a point in history. To find the city of Zarahemla is to confirm a point in history but it is also to confirm, through tangible physical evidence, divine revelation to the modern world through Joseph Smith, Moroni, and the Urim and Thummim. Thus, Book of Mormon history is revelation that can be tested by archaeology.
Thomas Ferguson, Thomas Ferguson to the First Presidency, April 10, 1953, Ferguson Collection, BYU
Thomas Ferguson
The real implication of the paper is that you can't set the Book of Mormon geography down anywhere ‑‑ because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt‑archeology. I should say ‑‑ what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book.
Thomas Ferguson, Thomas Ferguson, Mormon founder of LDS‑sponsored New World Archaeological Foundation
Thomas Ferguson
One cannot fake over 3000 years ... of history and have the fake hold water under the scrutiny given the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is either fake or fact. If fake, the cities described in it are non‑existent. If fact — as we know it to be — the cities will be there. If the cities exist, and they do, they constitute tangible, physical, enduring, unimpeachable evidence that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and that Jesus Christ lives.
Thomas Ferguson, Thomas Ferguson to the First Presidency, March 15, 1958, Ferguson Collection, BYU
Thomas Ferguson
I'm afraid that up to this point, I must agree with Dee Green, who has told us that to date there is no Book‑of‑Mormon geography...
Thomas Ferguson, Thomas Ferguson, Mormon founder of LDS‑sponsored New World Archaeological Foundation
Stanley P. Kimball
A recent electronic and chemical analysis of a metal plate... brought in 1843 to the Prophet Joseph Smith... appears to solve a previously unanswered question in Church history, helping to further evidence that the plate is what its producers later said it was — a nineteenth‑century attempt to lure Joseph Smith into making a translation of ancient‑looking characters that had been etched into the plates.... As a result of these tests, we concluded that the plate... is not of ancient origin.... the plate was etched with acid; and as Paul Cheesman and other scholars have pointed out, ancient inhabitants would probably have engraved the plates rather than etched them with acid. Secondly, we concluded that the plate was made from a true brass alloy (copper and zinc) typical of the mid nineteenth century: whereas the 'brass' of ancient times was actually bronze, an alloy of copper and tin.
Stanley P. Kimball, Stanley P. Kimball, Mormon scholar, The Ensign, Aug. 1981, pp. 66‑70
Dee F. Green
The first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists.... If one is to study Book of Mormon archaeology, then one must have a corpus of data with which to deal. We do not. The Book of Mormon is really there so one can have Book of Mormon studies, and archaeology is really there so one can study archaeology, but the two are not wed. At least they are not wed in reality since no Book of Mormon location is known with reference to modern topography. Biblical archaeology can be studied because we do know where Jerusalem and Jericho were and are, but we do not know where Zarahemla and Bountiful (nor any other location for that matter) were or are. It would seem then that a concentration on geography should be the first order of business, but we have already seen that twenty years of such an approach has left us empty‑handed.
Dee F. Green, Mormon archaeologist, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1969, pp. 77‑78
Ray T. Matheny
While some people chose to make claims for the Book of Mormon through archaeological evidences, to me they are made prematurely, and without sufficient knowledge. I do not support the books written on this subject including The Messiah in Ancient America, or any other. I believe that the authors are making cases out of too little evidences and do not adequately address the problems that archaeology and the Book of Mormon present. I would feel terribly embarrassed if anyone sent a copy of any book written on the subject to the National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution, or other authority, making claims that cannot as yet be substantiated.... there are very severe problems in this field in trying to make correlations with the scriptures. Speculation, such as practiced so far by Mormon authors has not given church members credibility.
Ray T. Matheny, Mormon scholar and BYU professor of anthropology, letter dated Dec. 17, 1987
Ray T. Matheny
The Book of Mormon talks about ferrous and non‑ferrous metallurgical industries. A ferrous industry is a whole system of doing something. It's just not an esoteric process that a few people are involved in, but ferrous industry.., means mining iron ores and then processing these ores and casting [them] into irons.... This is a process that's very complicated...it also calls for cultural backup to allow such an activity to take place.... In my recent reading of the Book of Mormon, I find that iron and steel are mentioned in sufficient context to suggest that there was a ferrous industry here.... You can't refine ore without leaving a bloom of some kind or impurities that blossom out and float to the top of the ore... and also the flux of limestone or whatever is used to flux the material.... [This] blooms off into silicas and indestructible new rock forms. In other words, when you have a ferroused metallurgical industry, you have these evidences of the detritus that is left over. You also have the fuels, you have the furnaces, you have whatever technologies that were there performing these tasks; they leave solid evidences. And they are indestructible things.... No evidence has been found in the new world for a ferrous metallurgical industry dating to pre‑Columbian times. And so this is a king‑size kind of problem, it seems to me, for the so‑called Book of Mormon archaeology. This evidence is absent.
Ray T. Matheny, Speech at Sunstone Symposium 6, "Book of Mormon Archaeology," August 25, 1984
Ray T. Matheny
I really have difficulty in finding issue or quarrel with those opening chapters of the Book of Mormon [i. e., the first 7 chapters which only relate to Lehi and his family around the area of Jerusalem]. But thereafter it doesn't seem like a translation to me.... And the terminologies and the language used and the methods of explaining and putting things down are 19th century literary concepts and cultural experiences one would expect Joseph Smith and his colleagues would experience. And for that reason I call it transliteration, and I'd rather not call it a translation after the 7th chapter. And I have real difficulty in trying to relate these cultural concepts as I've briefly discussed here with archaeological findings that I'm aware of.... If I were doing this cold like John Carlson is here, I would say in evaluating the Book of Mormon that it had no place in the New World whatsoever. I would have to look for the place of the Book of Mormon events to have taken place in the Old World. It just doesn't seem to fit anything that he has been taught in his discipline, nor I in my discipline in anthropology, history; there seems to be no place for it. It seems misplaced. It seems like there are anachronisms. It seems like the items are out of time and place, and trying to put them into the New World. And I think there's a great difficulty here for we Mormons in understanding what this book is all about.
Ray T. Matheny, Speech at Sunstone Symposium 6, "Book of Mormon Archeology," August 25, 1984
Duane R. Aston
Our testimony of the Book of Mormon remains a matter of faith, and not based upon external proofs found from archaeology.
Duane R. Aston, Return to Cumorah, 1998
M. T. Lamb
It is not necessary here to repeat the passages in the Book of Mormon which describe such civilization.... It is only needful to show that nothing could be wider from the truth, unless all ancient American history is a lie, and its ten thousand relics tell false tales. It may be stated in a general way that there never has been a time upon this western hemisphere within the historic period, or within three thousand years past when a uniform civilization of ANY KIND prevailed over both continents. We are to learn now: First, that a Christian civilization has never existed in Central America, not even for a day. Second, the people of Central America, as far back as their record has been traced (and that is centuries earlier than the alleged beginning of Nephite history), have always been an idolatrous people.... The entire civilization of the Book of Mormon, its whole record from beginning to end is flatly contradicted by the civilization and the history of Central America.
M. T. Lamb, The Golden Bible, by M. T. Lamb, p. 366, 370, 373
Hal Hougey
We conclude, therefore, that the Book of Mormon remains completely unverified by archaeology. The claims Mormon missionaries have made are fallacious and misleading.
Hal Hougey, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, pamphlet by Hal Hougey, p. 4‑6, 1976
Steve Johnson
In 1949 [actually 1946] California lawyer, Tom Ferguson, rolled up his sleeves, threw a shovel over his shoulder, and marched into the remote jungles of southern Mexico. Armed with a quote by Joseph Smith that the Lord had 'a hand in proving the Book of Mormon true in the eyes of all people,' Ferguson's goal was: Shut the mouths of the critics who said such evidence did not exist. Ferguson began an odyssey that included twenty‑four trips to Central America, eventually resulting in a mountain of evidence supporting Book of Mormon claims.
Steve Johnson, Transcript of the advertisement for The Messiah in Ancient America by Thomas Ferguson, 1988
A. H. Sayce
It is difficult to deal seriously with Joseph Smith's impudent fraud.... Smith has turned the Goddess [in Facsimile No. 1] into a king and Osiris into Abraham.
A. H. Sayce, Joseph Smith as a Translator, F.S. Spaulding, p. 23
Richard Packham
In light of the many linguistic blunders and erroneous translations made by this man who claimed to be a divinely inspired "translator," it is difficult to see why anyone with any understanding of linguistic phenomena would accept his claims. Joseph Smith was quite ignorant of languages, in spite of his boasting of his abilities and divine inspiration, and when one examines his linguistic claims and his supposedly divine linguistic accomplishments, one must conclude that if his god inspired him, his god was as poor a linguist as he was. Mormonism's claims fail on many other fronts besides linguistics. But even a few of the gross linguistic errors as discussed here should be sufficient to show that Smith's claims are no more than the boastings of an ignorant (although charismatic) human being.
Richard Packham, A Linguist Looks at Mormonism
Michael R. Ash
For the first 85 years of the church, the accepted geographic model among most Mormons was the hemispheric model — the whole of North and South America. It was also commonly believed (as noted in a previous installment) that Joseph Smith had received revelation that Lehi landed in Chile.
Michael R. Ash, Deseret News, "Challenging Issues, Keeping the Faith: True scholarship vs. wishful thinking"
Michael R. Ash
"Ox" or "oxen" is mentioned six times in the Book of Mormon (Ether 9:18; 1 Nephi 18:25; 2 Nephi 17:25; 2 Nephi 21:7; 2 Nephi 30:13; Mosiah 13:24). Some critics charge that this is an anachronism because, they claim, an "ox" is a castrated bull — something that would be impossible to find in the wild (see 1 Nephi 18:25). Ox, however, also refers to members of the subfamily Bovinae, in the Bovidae family, which includes Asiatic buffaloes, African buffaloes, cattle, and bison. A glance at a good encyclopedia will reveal the listing of other "wild ox" such as the yak, banteng, and the wild North African ox. Some LDS scholars have suggested that the Book of Mormon "ox" may refer to the tapir, camelidae, or perhaps bison.
Michael R. Ash, Animals in the Book of Mormon
Michael R. Ash
There have been a number of horse bones discovered in America that might date to Book of Mormon times. The surviving remains from such finds are currently undergoing testing to determine their antiquity.
Michael R. Ash, Animals in the Book of Mormon
Michael R. Ash
Could the Nephites have used the term "horse" for deer or some other animal? It is not impossible considering the above examples. Figurines, for example, of the pack bearing South American alpacas — which is related to the camel — have been unearthed as far north as Costa Rica. An early pre‑Spanish incense burner discovered in Guatemala shows a man riding on the back of a deer. A stone monument dating to 700 A.D. shows a woman riding a deer. Another similar figurine was found in central Mexico, and until recently, many people in Siberia rode on the backs of deer. In such cases the deer served as "horses."
Michael R. Ash, Animals in the Book of Mormon
J. Reuben Clark
It has been my feeling that if someone, who could get the confidence of the Indians, could get out among them, he would find in their [oral] traditions other and better evidences as to the accuracy and truthfulness of the Book of Mormon than will be found even in the ruins. But that would be a work practically of a lifetime by someone who would be willing to put up with all the inconveniences of living among the Indians, of gaining their confidence, and of practically becoming one of them, and that is a big order.
J. Reuben Clark, Letter to J. Willard Marriott
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