According to my high school seminary teacher, Brother Hoffling.

"Since the earth is only thousands, not millions, of years old, then how did all these dinosaur bones get here, Brother Hoffling?"

"Well, it's really quite simple, young brainwashed student of mine. Before the Great Flood (Noah's Ark and all that) there was a floating ring of water above the atmosphere that surrounded the earth. Dinosaurs once lived on a planet very close to earth, but that planet exploded. The debris from this planet - all the bones and fossils - ended up orbiting our planet, and becoming suspended in the layer of water surrounding the earth. When God caused the Great Flood, all the bones came down with the rain. And that's how multi-million year old bones came to be on our several thousand year old planet."

"Wait, what? Brother Hoffling, that doesn't make any sense!"

"Moving on! Scripture Mastery!"

nothing about the supposedly High Q mormons with LAME excuses surprises me anymore; Nothing.

Only credit here is: Excellent job of indoctrination/innoculating/propaganda, ChurchCo.

It's stupid.
Actually I think the average mormon is more progressive about evolution that the average fundie christian...Romney for example raised his hand in the debate when they asked the candidates if they believe in evolution.

So for the ultra-fundie crowd who might visit the creationism "museum" that depicts Adam and Eve living with dinosaurs...

There is a clear progression in the geologic record of the evolution of dinosaurs right here on earth over millions of years. They didn't just fall out of the sky. They ruled the earth for 130,000,000 million years, twice as long as they have been extinct. Their rise and extinction are captured like a movie in the fossil record.

It's abundantly clear that the earth, as a planet, formed 4.5 billion years ago, and in rocks that capture that existence in progressive ages (that all have names and are well-known and backed-up) there are only dinosaur bones in the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, which occur progressively along a timeline of evolution and geology. Even the drift of the land the dinosaurs lived on is known.

And...some surviving dinosaurs are now birds.

And, the rise of humans is also captured, not only in geology/fossils, but in DNA, in the past 10,000,000 years.

Bro Hoffling just made that up. And he's wrong.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2012 05:03AM by amos2.

I think you are right about Mos picking up the viewpoints of the community around them. While I grew up in the south, my Home Ward serviced the more professional part of town, and included a number of college professors. Most of my friends tended to believe in evolution, and we just rationalized the creationist stuff as not being inspired. However, all the other wards in our stake were full of a bunch of creationist loons.

amos2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Actually I think the average mormon is more
> progressive about evolution that the average
> fundie christian...Romney for example raised his
> hand in the debate when they asked the candidates
> if they believe in evolution.

True, but they diss their own scripture to accept evolution & old earth age.

As a gospel scholar and a science student, I had MAJOR cog diss over this one.

The scriptures:

2 Ne 2:22
And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

(All things. not just the garden)

Moses 3:7 And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created; but spiritually were they created and made according to my word.

(first flesh, not just person/man. First mortal, dying being through the fall.)

Ether 13:2 For behold, they rejected all the words of Ether; for he truly told them of all things, from the beginning of man; and that after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof;

(Talking about Noah's Flood having wiped out all the Amerindians, leaving it clear. This is contradicted by scads of early migrations & human evolution. Moaps refer to them as pre-adamites.)

D&C 77:6

Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?
A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.

(Seven thousand years!!! Young earth age advocacy in the D&C)

and so on...

exploding planets make a huge mess with debris scattered everywhere in the vicinity, messes like that dont get tidied up in a mere 6000 years.

I love it. Even better than what I was told by our bishop when I was a deacon.

"The earth is made up of planets that have already served their purpose. So, when JC took all this matter from other planets to make ours there were some dinosaur bones that were millions of years old."

WTF? - how come they find complete sets of bones if our earth was peiced together and I thought earths were celestialized when their time was up

Chirp... Chirp... Chirp... Chirp... Chirp... Chirp...

Just my opinion,

the 'average member' probably picks up the view of those around him, so - in parts of USA, where fundie Xtians abound, there will probably be more creationist morg.
In Europe, where creationists are rarer, the morg will tend towards evolution.
It's telling that the GA's haven't come down on one side or the other - a deliberate ploy, IMO, so as not to alienate part of their client base

We had a Sunday School president that believed the earth was formed from other planets where the dinosaurs lived. The bishop at the same time, an M.D. no less, did not believe in evolution. Yep, undergrad premed at BYU, med school will remain unnamed, and he thought the earth was 6000 years old and evolution never happened. Memorizing and regurgitating facts on tests does not an educated person make. "Here is your degree young man. We are all praying to god that you manage to get an education sometime."

Matter unorganized contained dinosaur bones. That's my story and I'm stickin' with it. ;)

Ron

My grandpa, along with many people in my family, took the temple literally, just like Ron.

They believed that since the earth was created with matter that already existed, then the dinosaurs are from other planets.

If you remember the temple ceremony, god doesn't make earth out of nothing, he takes matter unorganized to create it.

So my grandpa told me that is where the dinos came from

I was told the same thing a couple of times, but dismissed it later in life due to the evidence of stratigraphic layering, and the bones' presense therein. Like most truly educated mormons, I went on to become a believer in the 4.5-billion-year age of the earth, along with evolution, and figured that the temple contained hidden truths about the creation of earth and man that weren't so apparent to the obvious observer.

I had all those dinosaur bones in a box in the top of my closet. When Dad told Big Brother and Michael "yonder is matter unorganized", he was talking about my room. Should have said something to me first. Threw out all my pre-existence baseball cards too! Little known fact--This is the incident that launched the war in Heaven.

Amos2 - hahaha, I KNOW that Bro Hoffling made it all up. I remembered it last night when I was browsing the forum, and it was just so hilarious that I had to share. I've always believed in evolution, even when I was a TBM.

nickerickson - that explanation is actually marginally more believable than the one Bro Hoffling gave us. Still complete bunk, but better than floating water alien dinosaur bones raining down on the sinners...lol.

I think the confusion most of us felt as tbm when coming across this information that conflicted with scriptures could have been, "then where did the BoM come from?"

Once I began seeing the possibility that someone evil created the BoM and then searched how they could do it, then I was convinced the BoM was no more than plagerism and a wild imagination.


For a long time I struggled with understanding geology and science classes growing up. The idea that we had neandrothal remains and tons of it as well as all the dinosaur fossils used to perplex me. The videos talking about 25 million years etc.. would make me so confused.

I think what it was is that my mind couldn't comprehend the contradiction in accepted facts in my mind. I think this is what most TBMers go through until they somehow break the mold and venture out of the delusional bubble to experience more.

The big eye opening event for me is to study the egyptians. They have been around a lot longer than the bible, had the same stories as the bible, and lived through the great flood without drowning. HINT!

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644330-evolution-christmas-and-the-atonement

This is at the core why Mormons can't really accept evolution completely.