What do Mormons believe about science? - the fact and myth cheat sheet
This is part of the Mormon fact and myth cheat sheet on this website. The main list of Mormon facts and Myths can be found here. This section specifically discusses Mormon belief about science.
This is a compilation of facts and myths about Mormon beliefs compiled from comments and other resources. I add things to this list as I run into them so this list has more information on it than I have had time to write about in detail. Some of these can be uncommonly random.
Some of these comments may have been collected from someone that is trying to imply that Mormons won't tell you about these things. This is partially accurate simply because we don't actually believe in many of these things. On a similar note, I have pulled some of this information from several "campaigns" which claim that they just want to help us Mormons realize the error of our ways. However, most of these campaigns are not actually targeted to Mormons. They are targeted to those who are not Mormon and may be curious about what we really believe. In war and politics it is known as a "disinformation" campaign and it's used to keep other people in the dark or doubtful of factual information. If these campaigns were intended to target Mormons, they would talk to us directly, instead of referring to Mormons in the third person as "they," and they would use our real teachings to try and convince us of our error.
You may notice that after the first sentence, these descriptions are written in a way so that anyone can quote them if they need to. The disadvantage to this is that there are some things that get repeated in the explanations more than once. It should be noted that this site is not an official source for Mormon doctrine, so if you're going to quote from this site I would recommend that you point out the sources or link back to this page so readers can verify accurate sources for themselves. I have also bolded some things in each statement to help identify the key points.
Speaking of repeating stuff, this introduction is fairly standard on the other fact and myth pages so you can probably skip it on the next one without missing much.
Editing and referencing is still an ongoing process for this page.
Mormon belief about science
"Mormons believe that science and religion go together":
This is true.
Mormons believe that science is complementary to faith and serves as another testimony of God. They believe that God created a universe of order and natural rules and mankind should embrace and learn these things. They do not believe that knowledge of science is perfect, but that it will continue to change and progress and be redefined as new discoveries are found.
"There is no scientific evidence to support the Book of Mormon":
This is false.
There are many archeological discoveries that coincide with the claims of the Book of Mormon, however most archeologists are not looking for them. Those that are have a religious bias that cripples their input to the scientific community. This is expected. Are you really assuming that an atheist, Baptist, or Catholic archeologist would be publish a report confirming evidence claimed by the Book of Mormon? EvidencesOfMormon.org is a site dedicated to comparing non-apologetic research against the claims of the Book of Mormon if you want to compare notes. (It's also the source of this quote)
"Mormons believe in a star base called Kolob":
This is false. Has anyone seen my tinfoil hat?
Kolob is not of any specific significance within LDS church doctrine. The term Kolob is only briefly mentioned in one chapter in the book of Abraham in teaching the hierarchy of celestial bodies (meaning planets) and their relation to one another. Kolob is identified as a star near the throne of God, not a space port or star base. Whether this is a literal star within our time and space has not been doctrinally stated. The idea that Kolob is a science fiction star base originates from the God Makers which is a publication and movie that was deemed as "sensationalism" and "offensive" by the National Conference for Christians and Jews;[1] a group not affiliated with the LDS church.
"Mormons believe in a star called Elohim":
This made me do a double take. Yeah, it's false.
Elohim is the Hebrew word for God. It is not a planet.
References