In a discourse from July 24, 1870, Brigham Young said the following:
Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain. (Journal of Discourses 13:271)
Now, I think it is obvious that Brigham was offering his (fallible) opinion about the sun, and I will not defend the sun being inhabited (it is not). However, some critics have used this as a false prophecy, notwithstanding it not being a prophecy at all and it was never presented as being authoritative (e.g. he never said it in the name of the Lord; instead, Brigham simply offered his opinion [“I rather think”]). Additionally, the book of Revelation states that angels can stand in the sun, possibly offering biblical precedence for this belief:
And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God. (Rev 19:17; cf. 8:12; 10:1; 16:8)
Additionally, many great thinkers of previous generations believed that the sun was inhabited, including Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). As Nancy Pearcy and Charles Thaxton noted:
Like Copernicus, Kepler was attracted to a heliocentric astronomy at least in part because he attached religious significance to the sun. He appears to have thought of the sun as the physical seat of God's presence in the world. The sun alone, he says, "we should judge worthy of the most High God, should he be pleased with a material domicile and choose a place in which to dwell with the blessed angels." Again: the sun "alone appears, by virtue of his dignity and power, suited for this motive duty and worthy to become the home of God himself" (Cited in Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, p. 131) (Nancy R. Pearcy and Charles B. Thaxton, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy [Wheaton, Illin.: Crossway Books, 1994], 66)
For Further Reading:
Michael J. Crowe, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1986)
