“John saw curious looking beasts in heaven, he saw every creature that was in heaven, all the beasts, fowls, & fish in heaven, actually there, giving glory to God. I suppose John saw beings there, that had been saved from ten thousand times ten thousand earths like this, strange beasts of which we have no conception <all> might be seen in heaven.” -Joseph Smith, 8 April 1843 That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God. -D&C 76 About two days ago the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope was launched. It’s a pretty big deal; in a few months we’ll be able to peer almost to the moment of creation itself (plus we’ll get some killer “worlds without end” shots). Because of recent events I’ve been lately thinking about big, existential questions that are still amenable to scientific testing, and the likelihood that neighboring solar systems harbor life is one such question. My personal interpretation is that cosmological research has a part to play in D&C 121:30-31, which prophesies that big picture questions are going to be answered in the last dispensation. Unlike most other Christian faiths, extraterrestrial life was built into our fundamental cosmology almost from the beginning; it’s not the domain of speculative theologians trying to weld the concept onto frameworks that weren’t built with them in mind. (A very-informed-about-the-Church…
Tag: science and invention
Literary Lorenzo Snow #20: A Marvel and a Wonder
We often use the phrase “a marvelous work and a wonder” to describe the restoration and subsequent spread of the gospel across the earth. And this work is marvelous and wonderful, as lesson 20 of the Lorenzo Snow manual discusses. As a story it has conflict and drama and surprise. And it is, I think, easy to see the hand of God moving the work forward. It may be, however, that the work doesn’t move forward in a straight line, continually growing and improving. Our history shows, I think, some steps back, times when problems led many to leave the Church and the number of active, participating members diminished. So, given that, what does “a marvelous work and a wonder” mean? The following poem is an excerpt, the first four stanzas of a longer, politically-oriented poem describing the Mormon situation in the 1880s—one of the most dramatic times in Mormon history. Still, despite the difficulties, its author opens the poem with the view that the Church is “a marvel and a wonder.”