Some other strange ideas

[Jamie123]

Having asked about the "large bodies of water" thing, I've been racking my brains for other strange ideas I've heard about Mormonism. Three spring to mind:

• Heavenly Father (on Kolob) communicates with His spirit-children on Earth via streams of "tachyons" (hypothetical faster-than-light particles which lose energy as they accelerate). This supposedly explains how prayers can be answered instantaneously, despite the many light-years between Kolob and Earth.

• Heavenly Father has a physical body similar to ours, but has powder in his veins in place of blood.

• Joseph Smith claimed that the moon is inhabited by a race of tall humans who dress similarly to the early Quakers. During the 1960s and early 70's, Apollo astronauts were contacted by Church members and asked to look for signs of these people.

Any thoughts on where these ideas may have come from? (Please forgive my idle curiosity.)

[Lstinthwrld]

Having asked about the "large bodies of water" thing, I've been racking my brains for other strange ideas I've heard about Mormonism. Three spring to mind:

• Heavenly Father (on Kolob) communicates with His spirit-children on Earth via streams of "tachyons" (hypothetical faster-than-light particles which lose energy as they accelerate). This supposedly explains how prayers can be answered instantaneously, despite the many light-years between Kolob and Earth.

• Heavenly Father has a physical body similar to ours, but has powder in his veins in place of blood.

• Joseph Smith claimed that the moon is inhabited by a race of tall humans who dress similarly to the early Quakers. During the 1960s and early 70's, Apollo astronauts were contacted by Church members and asked to look for signs of these people.

Any thoughts on where these ideas may have come from? (Please forgive my idle curiosity.)

I have heard the kolob thing and the inhabited moon theory as well, this is going to get interesting.

[Elohel]

I've heard of all of them, mostly on my mission.

They are all rediculous.

I can explain the last one, though. Decades AFTER Joseph Smith's death, some guy said he heard Joseph say that he thought the Moon was inhabited.

What a joke. I heard President Regan loved catfood, seriously.

Just kidding.

Here's a nicely worded quote from LDS FAIR"

Finally, we consider a statement attributed to Joseph Smith that may prove to be the one most frequently cited by modern critics. An article in The Young Woman's Journal 3 (1892), 263-264, indicates that Joseph Smith, as early as 1837, had declared that there six-foot people living on the moon, who dressed like Quakers and lived nearly a thousand years. Because of its absurdity, some critics have included the article in their list of Joseph Smith's "false prophecies," though it is by no means prophetic in nature and despite the fact that the article does not attribute the belief to divine revelation. (Joseph may have been joking.) The statement regarding people on the moon is both second-hand and very late, and there are no known statements from Joseph Smith himself. The source is the Oliver B. Huntington Journal, Book 14, and is from a journal entry dated 1881, nearly forty years after Joseph Smith's death! It is hardly a reliable source.

Edited August 26, 2009 by Elohel
added a quote from LDS FAIR

[Gwen]

i've not heard any of those lol where is the laugh button?

missionaries here get requests from ppl wanting to feel the top of their head for horns..... i've always thought that was pretty funny.

[talisyn]

The horns is the only one I've heard. Believe me I was disappointed when my daughter was born and there were no little nubs, that would have been so cool

I think the 'tachyon beams' might be because of what Spencer W. Kimball said about interstellar travel and communications. I can't find the quote right now, but basically he said we already have interstellar travel (angels) and communication (prayer). I thought that was awesome.

[Hemidakota]

Having asked about the "large bodies of water" thing, I've been racking my brains for other strange ideas I've heard about Mormonism. Three spring to mind:

• Heavenly Father (on Kolob) communicates with His spirit-children on Earth via streams of "tachyons" (hypothetical faster-than-light particles which lose energy as they accelerate). This supposedly explains how prayers can be answered instantaneously, despite the many light-years between Kolob and Earth.

• Heavenly Father has a physical body similar to ours, but has powder in his veins in place of blood.

• Joseph Smith claimed that the moon is inhabited by a race of tall humans who dress similarly to the early Quakers. During the 1960s and early 70's, Apollo astronauts were contacted by Church members and asked to look for signs of these people.

Any thoughts on where these ideas may have come from? (Please forgive my idle curiosity.)

The term here is Celestial Light and not the usual physical laws we are applied by with anything do with our learning of light particles or anything that resembled this physical state. If Paul talked about the different states of glory, I hardly doubt our FATHER resides in our state. I would suspect HE would dwell in the highest state.

GOD does not dwell on Kolob but Kolob, is a governing world for us as to pertaining to time? I think Abraham stated this...If that being a fact, then Kolob itself obits the FATHER world. Now, what would call those two red giants in the center of our galaxy that is the size of 90au [scientist estimated]?

Didn't Joseph Smith and President Joseph Fielding Smith spoke about the Adam had Light in his veins? I am not referring too physical light either.

What ever happen to the people of Enoch? Or those of the missing city called Salem? Where do you think before technology was sufficient for us to obit our planet or go to the moon would they reside and by what technology was Enoch or Melchizedek given to carry out such mode of travel? Why would Nimrod build a tower and to whom could he visibly see in order to build such? Something to think about....

Edited August 26, 2009 by Hemidakota

[Hemidakota]

The horns is the only one I've heard. Believe me I was disappointed when my daughter was born and there were no little nubs, that would have been so cool

I think the 'tachyon beams' might be because of what Spencer W. Kimball said about interstellar travel and communications. I can't find the quote right now, but basically he said we already have interstellar travel (angels) and communication (prayer). I thought that was awesome.

No but Charles Tate talked about it in his book, "Joseph Smith on Modern Science". :

Edited August 26, 2009 by Hemidakota

[Hemidakota]

I've heard of all of them, mostly on my mission.

They are all rediculous.

I can explain the last one, though. Decades AFTER Joseph Smith's death, some guy said he heard Joseph say that he thought the Moon was inhabited.

What a joke. I heard President Regan loved catfood, seriously.

Just kidding.

Here's a nicely worded quote from LDS FAIR"

Finally, we consider a statement attributed to Joseph Smith that may prove to be the one most frequently cited by modern critics. An article in The Young Woman's Journal 3 (1892), 263-264, indicates that Joseph Smith, as early as 1837, had declared that there six-foot people living on the moon, who dressed like Quakers and lived nearly a thousand years. Because of its absurdity, some critics have included the article in their list of Joseph Smith's "false prophecies," though it is by no means prophetic in nature and despite the fact that the article does not attribute the belief to divine revelation. (Joseph may have been joking.) The statement regarding people on the moon is both second-hand and very late, and there are no known statements from Joseph Smith himself. The source is the Oliver B. Huntington Journal, Book 14, and is from a journal entry dated 1881, nearly forty years after Joseph Smith's death! It is hardly a reliable source.

We need to understand there are mysteries we are not yet privy too and noting some secrecy Joseph Smith maintained in having the many opporunities with visitations of ministering spirits to translated beings. Then we have another opporunity of using Seer stones in seeing what Abraham and Moses saw. Even our accounting on what we perceived to hear and what was stated is not always accurate; we see this today in our own media.

[Mahone]

missionaries here get requests from ppl wanting to feel the top of their head for horns..... i've always thought that was pretty funny.

The horns are there to hold up the halo, surely?

[Traveler]

Having asked about the "large bodies of water" thing, I've been racking my brains for other strange ideas I've heard about Mormonism. Three spring to mind:

• Heavenly Father (on Kolob) communicates with His spirit-children on Earth via streams of "tachyons" (hypothetical faster-than-light particles which lose energy as they accelerate). This supposedly explains how prayers can be answered instantaneously, despite the many light-years between Kolob and Earth.

• Heavenly Father has a physical body similar to ours, but has powder in his veins in place of blood.

• Joseph Smith claimed that the moon is inhabited by a race of tall humans who dress similarly to the early Quakers. During the 1960s and early 70's, Apollo astronauts were contacted by Church members and asked to look for signs of these people.

Any thoughts on where these ideas may have come from? (Please forgive my idle curiosity.)

I have a bridge in the city of New York that I can sell to you - really cheep. From your posts on this web site it does appear that you are a prime cantidate.

The Traveler

[beefche]

Wow.

I always laugh when others who have never stepped foot into a chapel or opened a Book of Mormon tells me what I believe. (this isn't aimed at you Jamie...just a general observation about the things you've heard about Mormons.)

Thanks for a laugh, Jamie.

[Jamie123]

I have a bridge in the city of New York that I can sell to you - really cheep. From your posts on this web site it does appear that you are a prime cantidate.

The Traveler

I'll buy it! It's not every day you're offered a bridge that makes bird-noises!

[Maureen]

I'll buy it! It's not every day you're offered a bridge that makes bird-noises!

:lol:

[Just_A_Guy]

The horns are there to hold up the halo, surely?

There's an old story about an RM who was asked by an obnoxious anti-Mormon if he had horns.

RM: Sure. Wanna feel 'em?

AM: Uh . . . OK (starts feeling around RM's hairline).

[After a minute or two]

RM: Do you feel anything yet?

AM: No.

RM: Not even . . . stupid?

[Gwen]

about the horns... the story i heard was that j. golden kimball while in the southern states actually told ppl that mormons had horns. i don't remember the whole story, who knows if it's true, but i could see that being the start of the rumor. lol

[mnn727]

#3 has been dealt with accuratly already (tale told by 1 person about 40 years after J.S.'s death).

#2 however has SOME SMALL basis in our beliefs, about God being flesh and bone(notice not flesh and blood), not that we necessairly believe he has no blood, but again it's another example of someone picking up on a way of saying something and blows it way out of proportion. We know Jesus had blood, so by inference we should probably believe God the Father does also. But hey, it wouldn't bother me either way, its one of those unimportant things that doesn't make a bit of difference to anyones salvation.

#1 Never heard anything like that.

[mnn727]

The Church has a statement on their website that everyone should read from Approaching Mormon Doctrine - LDS Newsroom

Much misunderstanding about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints revolves around its doctrine. The news media is increasingly asking what distinguishes the Church from other faiths, and reporters like to contrast one set of beliefs with another.

The Church welcomes inquisitiveness, but the challenge of understanding Mormon doctrine is not merely a matter of accessing the abundant information available. Rather, it is a matter of how this information is approached and examined.

The doctrinal tenets of any religion are best understood within a broad context (see here and here), and thoughtful analysis is required to understand them. News reporters pressed by daily deadlines often find that problematic. Therefore, as the Church continues to grow throughout the world and receive increasing media attention, a few simple principles that facilitate a better understanding may be helpful:

• Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the second-highest governing body of the Church) counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture (the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price), official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Isolated statements are often taken out of context, leaving their original meaning distorted.
• Some doctrines are more important than others and might be considered core doctrines. For example, the precise location of the Garden of Eden is far less important than doctrine about Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice. The mistake that public commentators often make is taking an obscure teaching that is peripheral to the Church’s purpose and placing it at the very center. This is especially common among reporters or researchers who rely on how other Christians interpret Latter-day Saint doctrine.

[Captain_Curmudgeon]

No tachyons proposed until the 1960s and even they won't allow faster than speed of light communications:

Even if tachyons were conventional, localizable particles, they would still preserve the basic tenets of causality in special relativity and not allow transmission of information faster than light, contrary to what has been written in many works of science fiction. -- Wikipedia.

The only Charles Tate I know teaches English at BYU (or used to). Don't recall any physics guru of that name.

Hard to tell from what's said here, but I can't help think that Pres Kimball might have been kidding.

Horns. When I was a little kid, there was a really funny joke about hunters coming to Utah from California that turned on this, so the belief was common then -- at least in California.

PS. Moses was believed to have had horns but it might have been due to a bad translation.

Edited August 26, 2009 by Captain_Curmudgeon
PS

[Hemidakota]

His full name is Charles D. Tate. The other author who we do know was Susan Easton Black. Here is the statement -

[Page 159] Although most scientists believe that nothing can travel greater than the speed of light and still send out detectable signals, the search continues for such particles called "'tachyons'" (Hewitt 580). According to Einstein's relativistic equations, if a person were to travel faster than the speed of light, his space-time would be inverted relative to the space-time of an earth observer (Leighton 27-39; Bondi 129-46; Hewitt 360-86; Cook and Cook 77-80). In this high-velocity realm, space becomes time, and time becomes space. Joseph Smith was apparently familiar with this concept, since in the explanation of Fig. 1 for Facsimile no. 2 in the book of Abraham a situation like this occurs: "Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to celestial, or the residence of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit." This suggests the equivalence of time and distance and implies that one can be interchanged with the other

.

There is no talk that I have found having Kimball stating this phrase. I would welcome anyone to produce it for my own edification and collection of electonic documents.

[Traveler]

There are a few theories that allow for travel faster than the speed of light:

1. A drive system that does not propel a vessel or transfer energy to the mass to accelerate it.

2. Inter-dimensional methods. There are several such concepts which amount to “worm holes” and folding of space or quantum distortions (similar to science fiction reference to “warp” drives). My personal favorite is an additional dimension void of time (assuming that time is not continuous and therefore not an actual dimension).

3. Quantum wave. This relies on various interpretations of observable quantum anomalies associated with boson particles (such as photons).

The Traveler

[James_Fryman]

google mormon physics and youll come up with stuff crazyer than that. There was one that UFOs were from the lost tribes of Israel???

[hordak]

Having asked about the "large bodies of water" thing, I've been racking my brains for other strange ideas I've heard about Mormonism. Three spring to mind:

• Joseph Smith claimed that the moon is inhabited by a race of tall humans who dress similarly to the early Quakers. During the 1960s and early 70's, Apollo astronauts were contacted by Church members and asked to look for signs of these people.

Any thoughts on where these ideas may have come from? (Please forgive my idle curiosity.)

Brigham young claimed this, and that men lived on the sun. Never heard it attributed to Joseph Smith, but Brigham words are saved in the Journal of Discourse.

[JohnnyRudick]

Brigham young claimed this, and that men lived on the sun. Never heard it attributed to Joseph Smith, but Brigham words are saved in the Journal of Discourse.

I remember reading that in the J of D many years ago.

I just raised my eyebrows and read on:)

Edited August 26, 2009 by JohnnyRudick
fixed my smile

[Moksha]

[Moksha]

http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php?ACT=41&fid=5&aid=3259_7jfU2UEhlPON3djzNKhw&board_id=1