Documenting a Paradigm Shift

This past summer saw the release of two dramatic motion pictures — “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon” — both dealing with fictional events surrounding the impact of an asteroid or comet here on our home planet, Earth. Additionally, the Learning and Discovery channels have recently presented numerous documentaries touching upon the same subject.

While all this is very entertaining and informative, the question arises: Why are we seeing this now? Such scenarios were unthinkable just a few short years ago. Reputable scientists of good standing in the scholarly community once ridiculed such ideas as fanciful and impossible — the wildest type of unsubstantiated speculation.

You may recall that the debate surrounding Dr. Velikovsky’s publication of Worlds in Collision was acrimonious. The mere suggestion that the Earth might be menaced by bodies from space caused a firestorm of derision and such antagonism that almost a half-century later the name Velikovsky is still a hiss and a byword in scholarly circles. Interestingly, various individuals who have published and promoted ideas that were first offered by the good doctor have built a number of academic and scientific careers in recent years. Yet, credit is never given to Velikovsky for his preeminence in this area. Instead, his name is judiciously avoided — seemingly at all odds — except to cast further aspersions on his name and his work.

Today we see well-respected scientists and scholars talking and writing about the reality of past and future impacts; Hollywood producers have certainly found valid story line material in the premise; even NASA has sought funding to track killer asteroids and comets, potential Earth impactors. What could have happened to instigate all this recent discussion of past and future impacts when only a few short years ago the mere mention of impacts in these circles would have brought forth defamation, ridicule and derision? Why is this suddenly being taken seriously? Something must have occurred to radically alter their point of view.

A celestial visual aid

The reason for this change of heart in the academic and scientific communities, as well as the newfound media interest in astronomical collisions, can be found in recent history. In July 1994, fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy, as predicted, repeatedly slammed into the planet Jupiter. At least one of those impact sites left a pockmark on Jupiter’s face that was larger than the Earth. Estimates were that the first fragment alone struck with the force of 200,000 megatons! Nineteen more followed, leaving visible impact scars around Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. This was an unprecedented, historic, celestial event. Nothing like it has occurred in our solar system since Galileo Galilei invented the telescope.

What crucial lesson did that impact teach scientists? Cosmic collisions do occur, and in the time frame of a human life. Moreover, if it can happen to Jupiter, it can happen to the Earth. Still more to the point, it most certainly will have happened in the past.

A major shift

Almost overnight the scientific community did a conceptual about-face that was as dramatic as it was sweeping. They had been treated to a celestial visual aid of cosmic proportions; the “impossible” had occurred before their very eyes. There was no denying the possibility of catastrophic impacts any longer.

Seemingly overnight, scientific sleuths discovered impact craters everywhere—not just on other planets and moons, but right here on Earth. Astronomers suddenly noticed that the space around Earth, indeed in the entire solar system, was littered with asteroids and comets — potentially devastating impacts in the making. Space scientists began talking about ways to use existing technology and space hardware to locate and divert any object on a collision course with Earth, thus avoiding the worldwide devastation of an impact. So it is that the Shoemaker/Levi event marked the beginning of a revolution in scientific thinking.

The gush of recent movies and documentaries is simply the media’s response to this dynamic new trend in scientific and academic circles. While all this media attention has the effect of raising the general public’s awareness, the realization is coming very slowly. Even with all this new evidence and conjecture, most people seem nearly oblivious to this conceptual revolution. The man on the street continues to generally disregard any possibility that space debris might bombard the Earth. For most people it is still little more than the premise for an entertaining “action flick.”

The fallout from a cosmic collision

Before the impact of Shoemaker/Levi on Jupiter, the only physical evidence of ancient impacts had been offered by geologist Walter Alvarez and his father, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, as well as a team of distinguished scientists. They were the first to cite geologic evidence of an impact that probably destroyed the dinosaurs. (See The Prophecy Trilogy, Vol. II, pp. 70, 71, for a discussion of the Alvarez’ discovery.) This was the beginning of a revolution in Geology and Paleontology. Almost overnight, long-held scientific views began to change. The process eventually accelerated to the point that science textbooks were obsolete before they came off the presses.

But, it took the impact of comet fragments with Jupiter to really blow the lid off the sciences. The very foundation of scientific thought — the concept of slow, gradual change — began to crumble. Where for almost two centuries scientists and scholars had seen only slow, uniform processes of change, now they saw catastrophe — sudden, tumultuous events — as the primary mechanism for change.

Oddly, these scholars and scientists try hard to leave the impression with the public that these revolutionary ideas are nothing new for them. They present their new arguments for catastrophic change with as much of a straight face and calm demeanor as they can muster, even though the subject matter is truly revolutionary and sensational compared to the orthodoxy of yesteryear. They seek to make it appear that this novel thinking represents no real shift of opinion at all, that they have always believed and taught catastrophism. Even though they are still loath to use the word “catastrophe,” this is at the heart of the revolution.

Rewriting history

Paleontologists have long recognized that there are clear divisions in the geologic record. Like pages in a book, the deposits of each age lay one atop another, the present epoch at the surface. Even to an untrained eye, when exposed to view they look like the layers of a cake. Each layer contains the fossils of the plants and animals that lived then — a record of stones and bones, if you will. The lines between those ages, between the pages of Earth’s book, are also clearly visible. Those divisions or boundaries, mapped out long ago, are clear lines of demarcation between distinct ages.

The layers were all given names now familiar to all first-year Geology students (Jurassic, Triassic, Permian, Devonian, etc.). The primary layers immediately above and below them define the boundaries. The well-known K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary, made famous by the Alvarez team and which divides the age of dinosaurs from the age of mammals, is only one such boundary.

Until the revolution began, the transition from one age to another — represented by these boundary layers — was thought to have been a slow, gradual process with one form of life gradually replacing another as global conditions slowly changed to favor certain forms of life over other, less adaptive species. Then the Alvarez team proposed that the iridium in the K-T boundary was persuasive evidence of a cataclysmic impact. They maintained that the dinosaurs did not slowly die out, as was previously thought; they were destroyed in a sudden, lethal event and its devastating aftermath.

While the Alvarez’ theory sparked heated debate and captured the public fancy (as with all things having to do with dinosaurs), most paleontologists were still unconvinced. Then the Shoemaker/Levi comet hit Jupiter, presenting for all to see exactly how an impact occurs and what are its effects. There was no mistaking its catastrophic signature. Almost immediately, most opposition was swept away. This event forced scholars to re-examine the Alvarez’ impact theory. Could this be the mechanism that changed the face of the Earth so many times in the past?

It was not long before paleontologists recognized that each of the boundaries in the geologic record represented a mass extinction caused by a cataclysmic event. They now recognize 24 noteworthy extinction events, 5 major and 19 minor. That represents one of the quickest opinion reversals in the history of science — even faster than those wrought by the work of Copernicus, Kepler or Newton!

Craters, schmaters!

Another rapid shift of opinion involves the craters left by impacts. Until the comet fragments hammered Jupiter, astronomers insisted that nearly all the cratering seen on other planets and moons in our solar system (they had spectacular photos of those planets and moons sent back to them by various space probes) were the result of volcanic activity or volcanism. They insisted that all the cratering from impacts was done early on, during the formation of the solar system and that very little had occurred since. After Shoemaker/Levi, they were no longer so cock sure! Once they looked with new eyes, they began seeing impact craters everywhere (as if they had suddenly appeared out of nowhere!). Volcanism, as the mechanism for cratering, died a quick death now that the idea of impacts carried the day. They even went so far as to point out that the Earth would look just like the pockmarked moon if it were not for erosion, which tended to erase the evidence of earthly impacts. It was not long before the impact site for the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs was found on the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. They gave the buried crater the exotic-sounding Mayan name for that region: Chicxulub (pronounced chic-shoe-lube).

Peaceful planet or cosmic shooting gallery?

Almost overnight, scientists began speaking of the threat posed by Earth-crossing asteroids and comets. NASA proposed a program and sought funding to find and track any object that might collide with the Earth. Most revealing were some recently declassified, top-secret data dating back to the days of the Cold War that was made public to bolster NASA’s claim of the danger posed to the Earth by near-earth objects, or NEOs.

As it turns out, the United States maintains a number of satellites in orbit as well as super-sensitive listening devices strategically placed around the surface, designed to detect the explosion of nuclear devices. These necessary measures were employed to verify compliance with nuclear treaties. Remarkably, those sophisticated surveillance devices detected several detonations each year in Earth’s upper atmosphere — some of them as large as 1 kiloton. Reports in the media of “mysterious explosions” in remote parts of the world went unexplained because the information was classified. Intelligence concerns prevented it from reaching the scientific community and the public. However, the intelligence community readily identified the mystery detonations as asteroids that entered Earth’s atmosphere and exploded.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the military began to declassify this information. The astronomers, geologists and planetary scientists were shocked by the figures. Still more stunning was the frequency with which the Earth is bombarded by space debris and by the size of those objects. Los Alamos scientists now estimate 10 or 11 objects explode in the atmosphere each year with the force of a one-kiloton nuclear warhead. One or more explode yearly with the force of a 15-kiloton explosion — about the same size as the nuclear detonation that vaporized Hiroshima! The largest meteorite struck south of Africa on August 3, 1963, producing a blast equal to a one-megaton nuclear explosion or one million tons of high explosive! It has become apparent that the Earth is constantly bombarded by a variety of “rocks,” ranging in size from a grain of sand to boulders twenty feet wide. Some are even larger.

A mystery, a solution

One of the most mysterious explosions in history occurred in 1908 over Siberia. Called the Tunguska Event after the area primarily affected, it has been the subject of intense speculation and conjecture right down to the present. An enormous fireball rent the early morning sky, as witnessed by hundreds of Siberians, producing a column of flame and clouds of thick, black smoke. A shock wave of epic proportions was felt in England some 5 hours later as it spread out across the globe. The immediate impact of that shock wave alone flattened more than 1,000 square kilometers of Siberian forests!

The mystery intensified when no evidence of an impact could be found — no crater, no meteorite. What could have caused a nuclear-class explosion long before there were nuclear devices? Numerous theories were advanced to explain the lack of a crater: Some thought it was a small comet made of ice that vaporized before impacting; one theory, advanced with a straight face, declared that a tiny black hole had passed through the Earth at that spot; many believed that an alien spacecraft — a UFO with an unstable power source — had exploded before it could land to effect repairs. Yet, now that we better understand the nature of these cosmic intruders, the Tunguska blast can be seen for what it truly was: a stony meteor, roughly 60 meters in diameter, which entered Earth’s atmosphere at an oblique angle and disintegrated in an explosion that virtually vaporized it at about 10 kilometers altitude, instantly converting nearly its entire mass into energy — about the same amount of energy as the Mr. St. Helens eruption in 1980. Had the meteorite fallen to Earth over a populated city, the devastation would have been nearly total.

Life from space

There is still one more noteworthy discovery in all this. Biologists now speculate that life may have been transported around the galaxy by catastrophic means. It is known that certain types of anaerobic bacteria can exist in extreme conditions — buried deep within the Earth where there are almost no nutrients or air, in the sub-zero cold and ice of Arctic glaciers, in the searing heat of Yellowstone’s geysers and hot pots, in deep ocean volcanic vents where no light ever penetrates. Speculation has it that these abilities would also allow this bacterium to survive the heat and pressure of an impact in the ejecta that is thrown free of the planet. Thus, an impact upon a life-bearing planet could throw small amounts of debris containing these sturdy bacteria into space. These bacteria would also be able, they conjecture, to survive the intense cold of space for a prolonged time period as well as the tremendous reentry pressure when their host rock crashed onto a new planet, perhaps millions of miles and centuries later, where these sturdy bacteria could begin the process of life anew.

By these catastrophic means, they speculate, life spreads to every hospitable niche and corner of the universe. It is for this reason that the so-called “Mars rock,” which shows microscopic structures that resemble fossilized bacteria, made such a sensation. If the early conclusions are correct, then this bit of ejecta from the planet Mars may be the best evidence for this dispersion theory, demonstrating how life is scattered throughout the universe. Once again, catastrophism carries the day. The pattern here is unmistakable. Science is turning more and more toward ideas they once thought to be laughable.

Just the beginning

One more element of this ideological revolution should be explored. Until now, it has primarily affected the sciences of Astronomy, Geology and Paleontology. The disciplines of Archaeology, Anthropology and Archaeoastronomy — the study of mankind’s history — have yet to feel the pressure of this revolution; but it will surely come, bringing sweeping change with it. It will force scholars to reconsider everything we believe about our world and our ancestors. It will become apparent that we live on a world that is swept with cosmic disaster on a periodic basis, leaving civilizations decimated and in ruin. Modern man will discover that he has failed to recognize the primary truth that the ancients endeavored to pass along. It will be seen clearly that man has survived numerous cataclysmic events, but only barely. Perhaps then Velikovsky will be acknowledged for his seminal work. More sobering still is the thought that we may succumb to our own cosmic disaster before we realize the truth about our past. Perhaps this is one lesson we will only learn by tragic experience.

So, this is, in every sense of the word, a revolution of ideas, a paradigm shift. It is most gratifying that each new step along this path of discovery brings the world closer to the catastrophist view. It would be encouraging if all Latter-day Saints could fully appreciate what this means to their understanding of the scriptures and prophecy. Joseph Smith would certainly be pleased at this turn of events.

© Anthony E. Larson, 1999

Religion, Science and Catastrophism

An odd thing happened in both religion and science on the way from the past to the present.

Historically speaking, it is well known and accepted that in the Middle Ages the Christian church was the principal sponsor of education in Western cultures. The church held a tight rein. If you wanted an education, you first became a cleric. Thus it was that most scientists and scholars, before the Renaissance, arose from among the clergy of the day. Their worldview was shaped almost entirely by church dogma.

The split

When the Protestant reformation movement began, which eventually gave us the plethora of modern religious sects we see around us today, its earliest leaders came from among those same clerical ranks — Martin Luther, for example. They sought to reform the institutions and dogma of Roman Catholicism.

Ironically, at about the same time, the scholars and scientists as well sought to extricate themselves from the mother church and its orthodox religious dogma, which hindered real intellectual progress. Like their religious cousins, they sought a complete divorce from Roman Catholicism. So in a very real sense, science was simply another religion, a radical protesting faction born of the same milieu that gave rise to Protestantism.

Both catastrophist

The new religions turned to Bible fundamentals for their belief system, hence the term fundamentalism. The new sciences, however, had to invent their own catechism. Secular universities were founded to educate adherents in the new orthodoxy of science and scholasticism. Skepticism and empiricism replaced faith. Yet, not surprisingly, the two new offspring, science and breakaway religion, retained a considerable amount of dogma from the parent church. At the outset, they both shared the Creationist vision (Earth’s creation in seven days, Man’s creation from the dust, the Deluge shaped the world as we se it, etc.). They also shared a similar eschatology: The world would end in a new holocaust sent by the Creator. Thus, it can be said that both were catastrophist.

Ideological ‘drift’

Over time, science further refined its liturgy and its curriculum with doctrines such as Gradualism and Natural Selection. The two institutions — science and religion — drifted further apart over time, becoming more antagonistic and confrontational. In the 19th century, science eventually became patently uniformitarian and evolutionist while religion remained dogmatically catastrophist and creationist.

Ironically, an evangelistic spirit arose in both religion and science, each seeking to win disciples through proselytism. Naturally, a dissension emerged between the two that had not existed as long as the parent church dominated. While they were both trolling the same waters for believers, religion and science each won their own following or ‘congregation,’ if you will. Religion primarily held the hearts of the laymen, while science largely captured the hearts of the intellectuals. To begin with, there were few with feet in both camps.

Furthermore, science divested itself of any eschatology, while religion embraced it more fervently than ever. “Hellfire and damnation” were the watchwords heard from the pulpits of Christendom. On the other hand, if there were to be an end to the world, the scholars declared, it would come not by a god, but by slow, prolonged entropy, Earth’s life failing only when the life-giving light of the sun finally flickered and died. The religionists, on the other hand, retained the fervent belief in the penultimate holocaust, the final, catastrophic destruction of the world and all in it at its creator’s hand.

A revolution in thought

Then the nuclear age dawned, bringing with it a revolution in thought and an astonishing meeting of the minds in both camps.

The first nuclear detonations at the end of World War II brought some agreement between science and religion about the world’s end. Increasingly, they both saw doomsday as a world-devastating nuclear holocaust. Science predicted that mankind would ultimately destroy himself with his own malevolent invention, detonating megatons of nuclear devices in a superpower showdown that would plunge the Earth into a “nuclear winter,” eradicating all life. Science had finally found its own eschatological ‘sacrament.’

Oddly, this also brought and about-face in religionists. They suddenly seemed to agree with the scientists. They saw the atomic bomb as fulfillment of the Bible’s prophesied “fire and brimstone” at world’s end. A revolutionary reversal in Biblical exegesis saw the religionists proclaim that mankind, not God, would be Apollyon, the destroyer. Man now had the power to single-handedly bring about Armageddon. God could sit on the sidelines, a celestial spectator to the end of the world!

A new catastrophism

In the midst of this atomic age rapture, an iconoclastic scholar resurrected Catastrophism, to the horror of both science and religion. Immanuel Velikovsky preached the catastrophic nature of the universe to an unbelieving audience in both camps. Science reacted violently, damning him at every opportunity. Religion, more tellingly, simply ignored him.

Given religion’s catastrophist roots, one might have expected it to embrace Velikovsky and the new Catastrophism to some degree. Instead (and this is the odd thing), religionists have largely ‘shunned’ the Neocatastrophism Velikovsky preached.
Make no mistake, though. When pressed on the issues and worth of Catastrophism, most religionists tend to become even more shrill and acrimonious in their denunciation of it and its proponents than do scientists. Otherwise, they ignore it as if it did not exist.

A view from catastrophe

Catastrophists will see that the new Catastrophism is a litmus test for religion as well as science. In the last century or so, religion has cast off its catastrophist ‘vestments’ to such a degree that it rejects catastrophists and their theories as readily as does science. Thus, in today’s world, catastrophists find themselves ‘excommunicated’ from both science and religion.

Catastrophists will attest that the symbolism of religious imagery and the simple truths of science are all enriched by Catastrophism. Without it, both institutions are awash in ‘strange doctrine’ and ‘strange science.’ Modern religion no longer comprehends the origins of its traditional and scriptural symbolism, iconography, rites and rituals. Modern science turns a blind eye to revelations of fact that would overturn its sacred orthodoxy.

None the wiser

Yet, it is also clear to some catastrophists that both institutions would profit immensely were they to seriously consider Catastrophism and all it implies for the world we live in. Religion could rediscover the richness of it planetary traditions without threatening its faith and humanitarianism. Science would discover a whole new universe out there without sacrificing its empiricism and objectivity. Imagine what might be accomplished.

Sadly, both science and religion have created their own, modern mythology: science to avoid that which it cannot explain, and religion to deny the “paganism” and ancient mythology from which most of its traditions sprang.

The Mormon catastrophist

Mormons are no exception to this rule. Joseph Smith and the early brethren were catastrophists. They lived during the heyday of 19th century Catastrophism, before the concepts of Uniformity and Gradualism were popularized. One need only read their expressions on creation, Earth’s early history and the last days to realize that they believed that the planetary powers, guided by their creator, were responsible for past catastrophes as well as those predicted in scripture for the future. Yet, it is also clear that the Prophet’s views in all things were not shaped by the times in which he lived, but by his exposure to revealed truth.

Given Joseph Smith’s position on the subject, it is rather strange that most modern Latter-day Saints are uncomfortable with Catastrophism. Perhaps it is because they have not taken the time to adequately school themselves in the beliefs and teachings of their founding prophet. In addition, it may be due to the fact that formal gospel training fails to touch on the subject, except in passing. Catastrophism and its attendant hypotheses are studiously avoided in church teaching manuals, and it is never addressed over the pulpit.

Mormons are Christians

It appears to this author that most Saints have been seduced by the same delusion that has afflicted our Christian cousins. We have abandoned our catastrophist roots because they make us uncomfortable when discussed in the context of religion. It all sounds too pagan, too naturalistic and too material; it seems to lack the spiritual element that religion should espouse. Instead, we have adopted the uniformitarian view of the world that science espouses, simply because it is popular. In addition, it gives our antagonists less ammunition to use against us in our struggle to assert our Christianity. That is to say, if all Christendom is uniformitarian, then we should be too in order to appear equally Christian.

Our loss is … our loss

Yet, so much is lost in our present approach. If our scriptures were written by prophets who experienced great catastrophes and celestial displays, if they related those experiences to the gospel and to their visions of the future by creating a unique lexicon of iconographic symbols and written imagery, if our founding prophet was, indeed, a catastrophist, then denying and ignoring that element in their teachings leaves us with a rather sanitized understanding of their pronouncements, prophetic and otherwise.

The rich imagery and symbolism of the scriptures and the gospel can only be truly fathomed by first obtaining the same mindset as those who wrote them. Relating the prophets’ imagery to the unique symbols left everywhere by the cultures they lived in brings a remarkable depth of understanding to prophetic pronouncements. How can we say we understand the gospel if we ignore this vital element?

Joseph Smith did not ignore it. He embraced it. He dedicated considerable time to understanding the Egyptian culture, religion and symbolism because it was closely related to those same elements employed by the Hebrew prophets. Like Abraham, Joseph, sought to restore the cosmological knowledge of our forefathers. That invaluable knowledge is composed of a discussion of planets, stars and the heavens.

Like the Joseph Smith, the creators of Egyptian documents were obsessed with a combination of gods and heavenly bodies, embellishing and re-illustrating them in countless repetitions and variations. The Pearl of Great Price is loaded with such stuff. What is more, the iconography of the ancient world has adorned every temple constructed in this dispensation. Its imagery may look and sound pagan, but the Prophet dedicated considerable time and effort to its exposition. That must mean that it has significant relevance to the restored gospel. If it were unimportant or unrelated to the gospel, why is it in the scriptures and the temples he left us? Is it not reasonable to assume that if Joseph Smith thought a study of these things important, we should as well?

Ignoring Joseph's approach to religious symbolism leaves us in an untenable position. We utterly fail to understand the significance of these things to our comprehension of the gospel.

Is that what we want?

© Anthony E. Larson, 2004

A Modern Myth

It is hard to conceive that in this age of enlightenment and scientific advancement that there could be any myths left in modern man’s paradigm. We believe ourselves to be smarter, more inventive and certainly more knowledgeable than our predecessors. After all, we ride where they walked, eat where they hungered, fly where they could only gaze and live a life of ease and comfort they could not envision in their wildest fantasies. It is almost preposterous to think that we might harbor notions as foolish as those embraced by our ancestors.

The ancients believed such foolishness as: the world was flat, the brain was useful only to cool the blood, life emerged spontaneously from swamps and ponds of stagnant water, idols answered prayers and the Earth was the center of the universe. Is it possible that we, the enlightened ones, still have similarly silly skeletal notions in our cultural closet?

A tale of oil and dinosaurs

A number of years ago, a large oil company advertised its gasoline product with an animated television commercial, explaining how ancient plants and animals gave their all so we could have gasoline for our cars today. The animators depicted a cartoon dinosaur poking its head out of a car’s filler pipe, making a somewhat comical growling sound as the car sped off.

This amusing commercial illustrated the modern view, held by geologists and paleontologists, that Earth’s petroleum deposits came from the remains of long dead plants and animals — a cleaver portrayal of orthodox science’s theories that Earth’s petroleum deposits and its many byproducts originated in the distillation of hydrocarbons from the decaying remnants of massive, ancient flora and fauna accumulations, buried by successive deposition in enormous subsidence zones. Over great expanses of time, they opine, these deposits were compressed in geological processes, squeezing out the hydrocarbons, which then collected in great pools beneath impermeable layers of rock. Hence the term “fossil fuel.”

Old ideas die hard

A century ago, this idea seemed logical. Probably since time began, man has mined coal for energy from great seams layered in the earth. Those same coal beds, and the strata adjoining them, hold the fossils of ancient plants and animals. Since the only things on this planet seen to contain appreciable amounts of hydrocarbons were the flora and fauna that proliferate on its surface, scientists naturally assumed that this was the source for buried hydrocarbons. Deep peat beds found in some locations seemed to support that idea. Those peat beds were thought to be simply an early step in a process that eventually would create coal and hydrocarbon deposits. Thus, it seemed reasonable to assume that coal and oil were the byproducts of some ancient biomass.

While such thinking may have been acceptable in the past, it is no longer viable. This is one of the great myths of modern science. What is more, it serves to demonstrate how intractable scientists are about their pet theories when faced with evidence that does not fit their paradigm.

A new age

This explanation for the existence of crude oil and natural gas — hydrocarbons — beneath Earth’s crust may have been useful up until the mid-twentieth century, but it has no meaning in light of the preponderance of evidence that has accumulated in the last 40 years — especially that gathered since mankind entered the space age.

For decades, we have launched unmanned probes to other planets and moons in our solar system. These have sent back pictures and data sufficient to teach us the true origin of Earth’s hydrocarbons. We have learned that hydrocarbons are present almost everywhere in the solar system, not just on Earth. Sophisticated spectrographic analysis has detected hydrocarbons in the atmosphere of many major planets and many large moons.

An oil world

Most notable for its concentration of hydrocarbons (scientists cautiously use the word “methane”) is great Titan, a moon nearly the size of Mars that circles Saturn. Data suggests that the atmosphere of this planet-sized moon is composed primarily of hydrocarbons in one form or another. Scientists say that so great is the concentration of hydrocarbons in its atmosphere that when it rains on Titan, condensed hydrocarbons fall in droplet from clouds of methane rather than water as on Earth. In fact, where Earth is a water planet with streams, lake, rivers and oceans of water, Titan is an oil planet with streams, lakes, rivers and oceans of flowing hydrocarbons in one form or another ranging from light, volatile oils to heavier forms.

Earth’s true history

What seems likely from the evidence collected to date is that Titan and Earth represent two distinct phases of similar planetary evolution. The oil deposits deep in Earth’s crust betray the unarticulated truth that this planet once passed through a phase like that which persists on Titan today. At some time in Earth’s long, ancient history, our atmosphere was so charged with hydrocarbons that they naturally accumulated in great concentrations on the surface. Some of the heavier oils — some almost tar-like — were deposited in layers and then buried in seismic events. Some of the lighter hydrocarbons, like naphtha, would have seeped deep into the ground to accumulate in vast pools, just as water concentrates in great, deep aquifers today. Those great pools of oil, gas or petroleum remained entombed in Earth’s crustal rock, insulated from the chemical and catastrophic processes that ultimately reduced our atmosphere to its present composition.

If not there, why here?

No one speculates that these newly discovered hydrocarbons found elsewhere in the solar system came from any kind of decayed biomass. The environment on most other planets — most notably the gaseous giants — is far too harsh to support any life, much less generate anything approaching the quantity needed to produce massive amounts of hydrocarbons. So, why assume that oil elsewhere — on Earth, for example — came exclusively from life?

This beg the question: Since there are massive amounts of hydrocarbons elsewhere in the solar system, might it be that Earth’s hydrocarbon deposits originated in the same way as those others? Of course, the only logical answer is yes! If it is impossible that hydrocarbons found elsewhere in the solar system are the byproducts of life, then it stands to reason that the same likelihood holds true for Earth.

Modern myths cling to life

Ironically, even though the newest evidence seems to suggest another source for Earth’s hydrocarbons, no one in the orthodox scientific or scholastic community speaks or writes of it. Indeed, the latest textbooks written and used by academia in classes on geology, paleontology and astronomy intended to “educate” the young, perpetuate this absurd fiction. Although the truth is as plain as the nose on our collective face, we persist in teaching a fabrication, a fraud. Once again, as in the days of Copernicus and Galileo, we see the establishment academia clinging like grim death to an absolute myth!

Immanual Velikovsky, the author of Worlds in Collision, speculated over 50 years ago that hydrocarbons were introduced into the Earth’s atmosphere anciently, but within historic times, when errant planets in our solar system passed devastatingly close to the Earth. Scientists mocked and criticized his theory on the strength of their conviction that hydrocarbons existed nowhere else in the solar system but on Earth. Such criticism was rather persuasive then since mankind knew so little about other worlds. Even the best telescopes did little to reveal the conditions that truly existed on other planets. However, now that the recently discovered evidence supports Velikovsky’s early assertion, there is still no re-evaluation of his theories forthcoming from establishment science.

Velikovsky’s theory was not just a lucky guess, as some charged. He asserted that hydrocarbons are plentiful in the atmospheres of other planets, based on ancient eyewitness accounts of fire falling from the sky and burning over the ground when one or more of those planets passed perilously close to the Earth, mixing their volatile atmospheres with our own. Given recent evidence, it appears that Velikovsky was actually more accurate than his detractors.

The success of Velikovsky’s predictions regarding the existence of extraterrestrial hydrocarbons should have caused the scientific and scholarly institutions to reassess their scathing criticisms of the good doctor’s other theories, but they did not. Likewise, once mankind entered the space age, the orthodox myth of crude oil’s origin in ancient biomass should have been dispelled immediately. But it was not. Instead, today’s science textbooks parrot the same tired myth of yesteryear.

The answer to why this old tradition was not summarily dismissed and why science refuses to reconsider Velikovsky’s theory reveals much about our culture and our intransigence — something Book of Mormon prophets would have called “stiffneckedness.”

As it is with science, so it is with religion. Whenever people who have embraced a myth are confronted by truth, they seldom relinquish the myth — ‘impartial’ scientists and ‘truth-seeking’ religionists included. Indeed, they continue to embrace the myth in the face of all evidence to the contrary, either completely ignoring the evidence for the truth or viciously attacking it with spurious logic and an utter absence of common sense. Not only do we see evidence of this time and again in the biblical record, as in the book of Mormon, we see it all around us today.

© Anthony E. Larson, 1999

The Great and Abominable Church

Many surprises await the serious student of scripture and ancient history — revelations about our past and the true nature of the world we live in. Most surprising, however, is the revelation that all is not as it seems in our culture and its most fundamental institutions.

For example, in the Book of Mormon we read about “a great and abominable church” seen by Nephi in his great revelation to emerge after the time of the original apostles and continue on up into the time of the Gentiles. (Nephi 13:26.) This vile institution is named disparagingly in both the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. The natural conclusion is that Latter-day Saints should be able to identify it and thus avoid its dastardly influence.

However, as it turns out, the exact identity of this “church” is a matter of some conjecture and confusion among Latter-day Saints. Most interpret Nephi’s statements to refer to the Catholic church. However, that assessment may not be accurate since the great and abominable church was said by him to have “dominion over all the earth,” something well beyond the dominance of the Catholic church. Others have argued that governments in general fill the bill of the “great and abominable church” for reasons that will become clear further on.

On the one hand, a careful reading of these scriptures indicates that Nephi simply spoke is general terms with the intent of depicting the division between good and evil in the world as churches. “Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil …” — a point well made and easily understood. (1 Nephi 14:10.)

On the other hand, it appears that Nephi also intended to warn us of a specific institution in the world that would have a recognizable history and agenda. He indicated that it would evolve as a religion. Hence, it would be in a position to do considerable spiritual damage so that it would “blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.” (See Nephi 13:26.)

Seemingly, any institution with such a history, sweeping influence and a despicable agenda should be easy to spot. But the confusion among Latter-day Saints regarding this “church” indicates that this is simply not the case.

This begs the following questions: How are we to guard against the wicked influence of an institution we cannot readily identify? Is it possible, even likely, that this “church” is working its vile influence among the Saints today? Does Nephi’s warning to us, the Gentiles, that we should avoid the trap, “that great pit,” that this institution might present to us goes unheeded since we do not seem to know which institution and ideas to defend ourselves against?

Clearly, a more careful analysis is in order so as to determine what this “church” might be and what harmful doctrines it may be imposing upon us.

To begin with, we must go back in history to see if we might thereby learn the nature and origin of this “church” and how it manages to “blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men” in order to understand how it might insinuate its distorted ideas and values into our lives.

Additionally, what the Book of Mormon prophet foresaw as a “church” may appear to be an entirely different institution in our eyes. Thus, the organization we seek may not appear to us to be a church at all, judging by a reading of all references to it, even though that word used by Nephi to designate it might also be appropriate, given its historical development from the true church.

Let’s look at history to possibly learn more about this “great and abominable church.”

It is well understood by Latter-day Saints how the primitive church ceased to function in its purity when revelation ceased after the death of the early apostles. History indicates that what was once the true church metamorphosed into the Catholic church, still preaching some tenets of the true church, but having denied much that is “plain and most precious.” Hence, many have sought to show that the Catholic is the “great and abominable church,” but that may be an oversimplified, partial truth, as we shall see.

Moving forward in time, we see that the Catholic church grew to dominate Western cultures. It came to be the universal church that largely governed the Holy Roman Empire. Thus, it can be correctly argued that the church also became a form of shadow government, ruling all the empires of the West for centuries thru the Papacy.

This condition endured for centuries until a handful of reformers decided to challenge the precepts and practices of the mother church. The Reformation, as this confrontation and religious schism came to be known, gave rise to numerous protesting groups or churches in Christianity, hence the term Protestant. These new churches, even when taken together with the Catholic, fall short of the malevolent church we seek since they still fall short of a worldwide institution.

Yet, there was one institution born during the Reformation that deserves our special attention, one that declined to call itself a church yet has all the earmarks of a religion. The tactic employed by this group was to denounce religion as anathema to logical, rational thinking and investigation. This group proclaimed that all religion was misguided, that it was a blight on the quest for knowledge since religion employed faith rather than intellect. Their group, they proclaimed, would avoid any such stigma by distancing itself from religion altogether.

Ironically, this newly born institution, which refused to call itself a church, took on many characteristics of a religion, or church, as we shall see. As its adherents went about organizing this new institution, it evolved much as the other protesting religions with its own dogma, catechism and priesthood.

This institution is orthodox science.

Naturally, the implication that science might be part of Nephi’s “great and abominable church” might be shocking and outrageous to some. Nevertheless, as we shall see, such may well be the case. Normative science, as an institution, fits Nephi’s description in that it pervades all societies and cultures worldwide and it contradicts and disparages all the basic tenets of the true religion, all the while making it difficult for the faithful to understand vital parts of the restored gospel. And while the search for knowledge is noble and proper, what passes as science, in too many instances, is actually institutionalized ignorance.

More analysis is necessary to establish the case in point.

History reveals that science began in the Renaissance as an alternative philosophy to religion, a reactionary rebellion opposed to the intellectual repression of the dominant orthodox church. Galileo’s struggle with ecclesiastical authorities to prove that the Earth was not the center of the universe is a quintessential example.

In effect, it can be said that science was simply one of several Protestant movements, born in the Reformation, all of them giving rise to modern religious institutions.

Science, however, sought to convince the world that it was not a religion but a philosophy. However, in practice, as an institution, science began to operate much like a church. When one looks closely at science as a belief system and at its satellite institutions, it looks remarkably like a religion. Hence, Nephi’s decision to call this new institution a “church” was accurate.

The similarities between the science church and normative religion are striking. Consider, for example, that this new movement ultimately copied the organization it diverged from when it established its education and training arm: universities.

Education had formerly been the responsibility of the church clergy. One had to be educated to become a clergyman and vice versa. Today's universities, the incubators for our young scientists and scholars, began life in the Renaissance as the educational arm of the church — seminaries, in effect — and they still carry remnants of those religious trappings.

Indeed, seen from this perspective, the role of the university is to indoctrinate or inculcate the precepts of the science church.

As the result of its origins in arcane religious orders, the terminology used in modern universities still hearkens back to its roots.

For example, graduates don the robes, caps and gowns that can be traced back to ancient monastic and sacerdotal orders. It is for this reason that Dr. Hugh Nibley, a former BYU religion instructor once asked in his opening prayer in a convocation exercise that God might forgive those attending for wearing “the robes of false priesthood.” Additionally, upon graduation, universities bestow ‘degrees,’ a term still used in many religious orders today, such as Masonry, to designate the rank or status of practitioners.

We call those who teach in these institutions of higher education ‘professors’ rather than teachers because they originally did far more than teach; they professed a belief and faith in things metaphysical or spiritual to the initiates or students.

Those who enroll in universities are said to ‘matriculate,’ the word coming from the Latin ‘mater’ or mother, meaning that initiates had enrolled in the ‘mother’ church.

The science church established its own dogma or doctrine, which it promulgates through the universities. It found its ‘catechism’ in Uniformity or Gradualism as well as Natural Selection or Evolution. Its sacrament is Rationalism and Empiricism; the tenets of the Newtonian universe became its articles of faith.

Latter-day Saints should readily recognize that all of the above named theories stand in direct contradiction to many tenets of the restored gospel.

As a further example of science as a church, those who fail to adopt or contradict the science church dogma find themselves shunned or excommunicated from the scientific community, just as in religion, no matter how inspired or workable their theories. The example of Halton Arp, a Nobel Prize winning astronomer, demonstrates the process. In spite of his elevated status in the scientific community, when Arp brought forth evidence that contradicted some of the fundamental tenets of astronomy he was systematically denied telescope time and barred from teaching his views in any effective forum.

Oddly, since science rejected the Catastrophism of religion, it had no eschatology until the nuclear age dawned. The atomic bomb and the nuclear holocaust it foreshadowed became science’s eschatological vision of a world-ending cataclysm and nuclear winter brought on by mankind’s super technology.

Still more odd, the religionists immediately agreed, thus abandoning their historic Catastrophist views, rooted in Holy Scripture, wherein God was said to be the agent of latter-day destructions.

The “Big Bang” hypothesis is simply the science church’s version of creation. The Unified Field Theory is science’s Holy Grail, which is just as elusive and ephemeral a prize as the religious/mythical grail.

An objective examination of history thus reveals that the religion of science, having spread its influence world-wide, crossing every cultural and ethnic boundary, is clearly a candidate for the scriptural “great and abominable church.” But the primary reason it qualifies is because it contravenes and contradicts the precepts of the restored gospel at almost every turn — much more so than the tenets of any other religious denomination. Additionally, as we have seen, it emerged from the Reformation along with most of the other Christian sects.

As alluded to earlier, the basic doctrines of science are badly flawed. Many scholars have delved somewhat into these faulty theories. Catastrophism teaches us that gravity is not a constant, that the sun is not a thermonuclear engine, that there was no ‘big bang’ to start creation, that the galaxy and the universe are organized and powered by electrically charged plasmas, that our solar system did not coalesce out of raw matter circling the sun, that geologic history did not occur over “billions and billions” of years, as we have been taught, and that the world and its heavens have changed dramatically in historic times, just to name a few precepts. Any Latter-day Saint who fully embraces the fundamental doctrine of the restored gospel knows that Evolution or Natural Selection is a flawed concept. Thus we see, in summary, that on almost every count the fundamental doctrines of the science church are false.

By holding on like grim death to baldy flawed axioms in the face of mounting evidence against them, orthodox science does great harm to all mankind. As in Galileo’s case where the Catholic church opposed a truly enlightened view of the evidence, holding on instead to its flawed dogma, now it is orthodox science that impedes progress by creating vacuous, ad hoc theories to explain phenomena that do not fit its doctrine while either utterly ignoring evidence that contravenes its doctrine or summarily dismissing it without consideration. It is the science church that now stands in the way of progress.

Thus, the science church fulfills the scriptural prediction that it would “pervert the right ways of the Lord” and “blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men,” fully qualifying it as the great and abominable church of which Nephi wrote.

Sadly, modern Mormons have been largely reconciled to science, generally accepting the doctrines of the science church as fact — something that would have horrified early Saints. Mormons have accommodated the apparent conflict between science and revealed religion by living with a glaring dichotomy to which most turn a blind eye — a clear case of doctrinal denial.

On the one hand Latter-day Saints profess a belief in the gospel while at the same time accepting as fact the dogma of the science church that contradict those beliefs, leaving modern Mormons with a kind of intellectual and spiritual schizophrenia that blinds their eyes and hardens their hearts, just as Nephi said it would. No wonder he warned us so stridently about this “church.” It has done precisely what he warned us it would do, corrupting the Saints’ understanding of the gospel, causing them to disregard, to one degree or another, the revelations from God.

Make no mistake. This is not a diatribe against learning or discovery, nor is it a condemnation of the restored gospel and the religion that champions it. It is a denunciation of Saints who allow themselves to fall into the trap laid by the science church. This is a harangue against science as an institution, an obdurate organization that enshrines tenure and the status quo which that practice promotes, that uses a peer review system that stifles new approaches to problems and new ideas. Not only does it not promote the dispassionate inquiry it so mightily proclaims, it works diligently against it by suppressing anything beyond its established, but flawed, paradigm.

That is not the way to enlightenment.

True science can have no conflict with revealed religion, as so many latter-day prophets and apostles have declared. Yet, orthodox science continues to wage war with the Saints, demeaning and contravening gospel precepts at every turn. The science church has become as intractable and detrimental as the church from which it disengaged. It certainly qualifies as Nephi’s “great and abominable church” in every respect. Clearly it is a fraud perpetrated on the entire world.

So, Nephi was right.

As “children of the light,” Latter-day Saints would do well to heed Nephi’s warning, to oppose the “great and abominable church” now that we have identified it. We may oppose it by not letting it mould and shape our paradigm, by opposing its dogma and criticism of us. Rather, we should test all theorems by the standard of the revealed gospel.

© Anthony E. Larson, 2002

Children of the Light?

Latter-day Saints' opinion on the subject of potential planetary near impacts, past and present, differs little from that of the general public. Sadly, most Mormons seem as indifferent to this concept as their secular and sectarian contemporaries. Yet, it probably should not be so.

Joseph Smith clearly held a catastrophist view of history and prophecy that included disasters originating in the heavens, which would have had devastating effects here on Earth. Speaking of the Second Coming, he said, "It is not the design of the Almighty to come upon the Earth and crush it and grind it to powder . . . ." (History of the Church, 5:337.) These words are not those of a gradualist or uniformitarian. They bespeak a catastrophist point of view. It is well established by this author that Joseph Smith's teachings on past and future events are patently catastrophist. (See The Prophecy Trilogy, Vol. 3, Ch. 1.) Given that fact, why are so many Latter-day Saints loath to accept this interpretation of history and prophecy? For the answer to that question, we will have to examine history.

Abandoning our roots

The restoration of the gospel began at the same time as a revolution in geology and biology. Popular opinion in Joseph Smith's day held that the Creation and Noah's Flood had largely shaped the world. Today they would be called creationists. Geologists like Hutton and Lyell disputed that view, noting that a rational interpretation of the geologic record argued for a very old planet altered only by slow processes over eons of time. They were gradualists.

In Joseph Smith's day, the gradualists were a minority, but by the latter half of the 19th century, the scientific and academic communities had spurned creationism and catastrophism to embrace gradualism completely. The general public was somewhat slower to shift opinion. Still, by the turn of the century, gradualism dominated the thought of the general public since it was, by that time, the only way the subject was taught in almost all academic settings.

Mormons in flux

This ideological shift presented a problem to Mormons who were in the process of trying to integrate with the larger American culture. Historically, the church and the government had been at odds, as any student of early church history knows. The Saints' exodus to the Great Salt Lake Valley originally put them outside the confines of the United States. However, they eventually found themselves once again within its boarders due to the westward expansion of the nation. This left the Saints with a difficult decision: move yet again, just as they had left Jackson County and then Nauvoo, leaving behind another city and temple erected from raw land, or accommodate the laws and cultural standards of the United States so they could keep their new desert home. The decision to remain and conform prevailed, and the Saints undertook the daunting task—-as history records that painful adversarial process—-of qualifying for statehood and citizenship.

To diminish tension and facilitate the process, Mormons sought to emphasize cultural similarities with the rest of America and suppress dissimilarities in hopes of reducing the antagonism of earlier days. This, they trusted, would help avoid further confrontations—-like the Johnston's Army incident, for example—-and ease tensions so that the church could finally put down permanent roots and better carry out its revealed mandate to preach the gospel.

Like the larger American population, the Mormons eventually embraced gradualism and for much the same reasons. Even though the position of the Prophet and early church members had been catastrophist, Mormons eventually found the idea of gradualism irresistible.

As a result, a new generation of Mormons did not entirely share their forefathers’ worldview because of the pressures from the greater society around them to conform to the common precepts taught by almost all educational institutions, including gradualism.

This ideological reversal on the Saints' part produced the desired effect. It opened doors to Mormons in American society that had formerly been closed, allowing them to pursue careers in politics, science and education; some eventually even attained tenure in prestigious institutions. There was now one less difference between Mormons and their American contemporaries.

A split personality

Yet, all this progress came at a price. The Saints' ideological shift to gradualism created an intellectual dichotomy in the 20th century. Their scriptures—-especially those new revelations that came with the restoration—-tell of a catastrophic Earth history. They also proclaim, emphatically and dramatically, a catastrophic future. Yet, the cultural beliefs Mormons had adopted to "fit in" with the rest of the Americans precluded such notions, categorically denying any such possibility.
This produced an intellectual dichotomy in the Saints’ worldview, creating a spiritual and academic scotoma that has only grown larger in the many years since.

This resulted in church members shifting ideological gears on a consistent basis. In a religious setting, they read and mouthed an ideology with catastrophist underpinnings; in a secular setting, such as the public and private educational system, they espoused the opposite ideology of gradualism. This has endured, strangely, to the present. It has become institutionalized, resulting in a sort of intellectual and religious schizophrenia.

In addition, there may have been one other, even more profound loss: Mormons no longer understood their scriptures as they were meant to be understood. While Joseph Smith's interpretation of prophecy and history may not seem essential to our salvation, it performs a vital function in our interpretation of revealed knowledge. Revelation regarding past or future events comes from a perspective that acknowledges the role of planetary catastrophes in Earth's past, present and future. The language of the prophets is steeped in it. So, if our paradigm does not include this perspective, we have no frame of reference with which to completely understand the revelation.

This is what the Apostle Peter meant when he wrote, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:20,21.) If the parties involved in any exchange do not share a common understanding—if one is a gradualist and the other a catastrophist—there will be a fundamental misunderstanding in the exchange of information. They do not share a common view, background or experience. Therefore, they do not interpret the data, information or truths, in the same way. Hence, there can be no "private interpretation" of the scriptures or prophecy. Both parties must have the same frame of reference. The fallible "will of man," or opinion of man, will only lead to misunderstanding.

To correctly understand the scriptures, prophecy or revelation itself, one must have the same frame of reference as the text itself, which is catastrophist. Thus, it may be that this paradigm shift in the last century left Mormons incapable of properly interpreting what had been given them by revelation regarding historic and prophetic events.

A systematic method of interpretation

The systematic method for interpreting historic and prophetic events, given us by Joseph Smith, is based on symbolism. (See The Prophecy Trilogy, Vol. 1, Ch. 3, for a list of such metaphors and their origins.) This puts the prophet squarely in the center of ancient prophetic tradition. In both the revelations he communicated to us and in the sermons he gave, Joseph used these symbols correctly and consistently.

For example, history speaks of water turning to blood, of stars falling from the heavens, of migrating seas and oceans. Knowing what has occurred in the past to give birth to such descriptive metaphorical phrases, one can determine what is meant by the same metaphor in another context—-prophecy, for example. That knowledge allows a consistent system of interpretation, rather than the extravagant guesswork and speculation engaged in by most scriptural exegetes. It also acknowledges a celestial origin for most religious iconography, ritual and metaphor.

The two faces of symbolism

Such symbolism has two aspects or facets: one literal, the other metaphorical. The literal aspect in the water-turned-to-blood example refers to a time in the past when Earth's waters were polluted by exogenous, ferriferous dust. Its use in prophecy refers to a repeat of this phenomenon. Its metaphorical aspect is simply a rhetorical, poetic representation of a physical event or phenomenon. The water does not turn into anything, much less blood. Such is the nature of all metaphor.

This aspect is also a reflection of the ancient mind that turned to dramatic imagery in order to describe the inexplicable. This does not imply that the ancients were somehow less intelligent, that they could not discern the reality in what they saw. Indeed, some—-Plato, for example, or Mormon—-clearly grasped the true nature of catastrophic events and so described them. (See Helaman 12: 8-17.) However, the extraordinary nature of the events ensured that most of the time they would be characterized in symbolic terms, as opposed to analytical terms. The colorful nature of metaphor is always more dramatic and appealing than cold, dispassionate analysis. In any case, the imagery of past catastrophes captured the imagination of the masses, leading to its widespread adoption and use.

The past is the key

It is vital that one have a firm grasp of the events and conditions in antiquity that produced gospel symbolism. The Lord alluded to that fact when he revealed that ". . . truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come." (Doctrine & Covenants 93:24.) The intimate relationship between past, present and future events implied here must be recognized in order to correctly understand the truth when it is presented. This tripartite concept (past = present = future) is often repeated in the scriptures, especially in prophecy.

Undoubtedly, one of the functions of the School of the Prophets, if not the primary function, was educating the brethren in the many prophetic metaphors and symbols employed anciently, their variations, elaborations, their proper application and interpretation. By teaching the systematic interpretation of scriptural metaphors, religious rituals and iconography, the prophet ensured that the priesthood brethren understood their proper use and interpretation. They could interpret this symbolism wherever they came across it and not be misled by doctrinal distortions.

Equipped with this knowledge, any Latter-day Saint can also see that temple and religious iconography is the physical counterpart to rhetorical metaphor. That is to say, the metaphor reflects the meaning of the icon and the icon reflects the meaning of the metaphor. Those things depicted in religious art, architecture, rite and ritual, can also be found in religious rhetoric.

Knowledge: a key to discernment

Indeed, this is one of the keys used to discern a false prophet in a day and age when the meaning of these symbols and metaphors is largely unknown. Because a false prophet is not schooled in the knowledge of these things, he or she lacks the ability to properly use and interpret such symbolism and metaphor. Thus, the pretender's "revelations" and teachings lack these elements. They fail to properly employ the time-honored literary devices known to all true prophets because they are ignorant of the iconography of antiquity. Hence, they interpret prophecy no differently than any run-of-the-mill evangelical exegete.

For much the same reason, the apostate who has turned against the true religion can be a threat. Once intimately schooled in this knowledge of symbolism, the perpetrator has the power to do tremendous damage because he or she can deceive even the "elect," or those who know these symbols and their proper use.

This, too, is an excellent test for a true prophet: He will employ this symbolism properly and in a manner consistent with ancient tradition. While only the whisperings of the Spirit can completely confirm a prophet's claim to revelation, this is additional, intellectual confirmation, if you will. A true prophet will easily and correctly employ traditional, scriptural symbolism in his teachings, and that symbolism will certainly be present in all revelation he passes along to the Saints. In this respect, as in every other, Joseph Smith passed the test successfully.

Left to their own devices

Once the Saints had abandoned Joseph Smith's symbolism-based interpretation of scripture and prophecy, a vacuum appeared in their theology. They no longer had a yardstick or touchstone for interpreting most gospel symbolism. Since nature abhors a vacuum, a ready replacement was soon found in the eschatological thinking of sectarian Christianity. Mormonism, therefore, has largely adopted the prophetic interpretation of sectarian Evangelism, epitomized today by the writings of Hal Lindsay in his book, The Late, Great Planet Earth, or the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong, a popular millennialist and radio evangelist of the 1950s, in his radio program, "The World Tomorrow." One can see evidence of this when comparing the views of the aforementioned evangelists with those of recent Mormon writers Cleon Skousen and Dwane Crowther. As one aphorism has it, "There ain't a dimes bit of difference between 'em."

Hence, we find Mormons generally interpreting prophetic utterances, ancient and modern, in remarkably similar ways to their evangelical, Christian cousins: metaphor is made literal and symbol is made modern. This leads to gross distortions in the interpretation of prophecy. For example, consider the unfounded interpretation of the year 2000 as the date for the second coming or the obsession with the number 666. It also leads to the creation of fictitious characters such as the Antichrist and fictitious events such as the Rapture. It seems apparent to this author that we may have allowed harmful sectarian notions to find their way into our catechism, just as Elder McConkie repeatedly warned before his death.

Time to reevaluate

Given all the recent discoveries coming out of the sciences regarding impacts and the prophetic warnings that repeatedly forewarn us of spectacular celestial events before the Second Coming, would it not be prudent for Latter-day Saints to reexamine our views? Would it not be wise for us to acknowledge, as modern science already has, that such things may happen? Should we not want to return to our roots in catastrophism, given us by Joseph Smith? If it was once our desire to conform to a trend that led us to abandon our catastrophist base, then why not conform to the newest trend of science, neocatastrophism, in order to return to our former beliefs?

Signs, ancient and modern, in the heavens

When we consider the magnitude and import of seeing the Shoemaker/Levi comet impact giant Jupiter in our own time, one wonders if this astronomical visual aid might not have been God's way of making a point. Was it done merely to amaze or amuse us? Was it done to keep the astronomers, scientists and scholars busy? Or was it, indeed, a sign, meant to awaken us from our apathetic complacency about the times we live in and the planet we live on? Should not Latter-day Saints be the first to recognize this?

The Nephites were given a sign of the Savior's birth. “. . . for behold, at the going down of the sun there was no darkness; . . . . And it came to pass that there was no darkness in all that night, but it was as light as though it was mid-day. And it came to pass that the sun did rise in the morning again, according to its proper order; and they knew that it was the day that the Lord should be born, because of the sign which had been given. . . .

“And it came to pass also that a new star did appear, according to the word.” (3 Nephi 1:15, 19,21.)

Thus, we see that God used the heavens, a celestial canvas, upon which to paint the sign of his Son's advent.

Recent history has given us a rather remarkable sign of our own. “On July 16, 1994, the first fragment of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 entered Jupiter's stratosphere traveling at the speed of 60 kilometers per second—-that's about 134,000 miles per hour. Seconds later it exploded. A plume of shock-heated cometary material mixed with hot gases from Jupiter's atmosphere soared more than two thousand miles above the tops of Jupiter's clouds. As material from the plume fell back into the stratosphere of Jupiter, it left a large, crescent-shaped dark spot partly surrounding a smaller intense dark cloud that formed along the entry path of the comet.

“Two days later, Fragment G hit Jupiter with such force that its plume was, in some wavelengths of observation, fifty times brighter than the entire planet. By the end of impact week, Jupiter was bruised with the markings of 21 impacts, dark scars larger than Earth. Not in the 400-year history of the telescope has any planet displayed such dramatic new features. Nine months after the impact ended, Jupiter's southern hemisphere was graced with a belt of dark material, still easily visible through small telescopes.

“We are only now beginning to grasp the magnitude of what has happened.” (Cosmic Collisions, pp. 6, 7, from the foreword by David H. Levy and Carolyn & Eugene Shoemaker.)

Was the impact of a comet with Jupiter in our time any less of a sign than that given to the Nephites? The intent of that sign was to verify that, as Samuel the Lamanite had prophesied, the Son of God had been born. Could it be that the Shoemaker/Levi event was a demonstration to a disbelieving world—-Mormons in particular—-that such things can happen—-indeed, will happen—-to us?

Certainly, it was a verification of assertions by this author, the scriptures, the prophets and a multitude of modern catastrophists that such things do happen; that we live in an uncertain solar system that has seen numerous cosmic disasters in historic times; that old assumptions about a steady-state Earth wherein ". . . all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation . . ." (2 Peter 3:5.) are flawed; that we have been "willingly ignorant" in this enlightened, modern age, of the truths that the ancients sought to preserve in ritual and stone; that ". . . the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the Earth, which are now . . . are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment . . . ." (Ibid. 3:5, 6.)

As Latter-day Saints who have been given the restored gospel, we have a greater obligation to recognize and receive these things than does the rest of the world. Are we not designated as the “children of the light?”

© Anthony E. Larson, 2003