Fun Anti-Mormon "Facts" Refuted: Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and "Moonie Men"

A friend sent me the following youtube video:

Fun Mormon Facts #1: Moonie Men (John Chambers)

Let us examine such claims:

Brigham Young:

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)

Joseph Smith

Gilbert W. Scharffs has done an excellent job of answering this question in his book The

Truth about “The God Makers,” accessible from FairMormon:

No original sources verifying [that Joseph Smith declared that the moon was inhabited] have been found of which I am aware. The book [The God Makers] quotes from an 1881 journal entry, published in 1892 by Oliver B. Huntington, who claimed Joseph Smith said there were moonmen. Huntington would have been eleven years of age at the time, if he heard this from Joseph Smith personally, or even if the idea came from someone else. In fact, indications are that he heard it second-hand at best.

Van Hale answered this criticism against this assertion in his pamphlet, “How could a

prophet believe in moonmen?” One excerpt that is apropos:

Did Joseph Smith believe in an inhabited moon? From the historical evidence now available the answer must be: Not proven. But, all things considered, the possibility, or probability, that he did cannot reasonably be denied. For all others of that era the question seems quite insignificant, especially given contemporary beliefs. But in the case of Joseph Smith, he claimed to be a prophet. Some extremists contend that his claim demands that his knowledge in every area be superior to that of others in his era. If he believed any false notion of his day, so these critics say, his credibility must be doubted. Others, not so demanding of infallible insight in a prophet, would be more comfortable with a description of God’s revelation which allowed for human and the divine. As Rev. J.R. Dummelow so aptly described the authors of the Bible, so might one say of Joseph Smith:

Though purified and ennobled by the influence of His Holy Spirit, these men each had his own peculiarities of manner and disposition – each with his own education or want of education – each with his own way of looking at things – each influenced differently from one another by the different experiences and disciplines of his life. Their inspiration did not involve a suspension of their natural faculties; it did not even make them free from earthly passion; it did not make them into machines – it left them men. Therefore, we find their knowledge sometimes no higher than that of their contemporaries…(J.R. Dummelow, One Volume Bible Commentary, p. cxxxv).

Dummelow, who is not LDS, is considered to be one of the foremost commentators on the Bible. Biblical prophets sometimes apparently erred, but that does not detract from their being men of God…Latter-day Saints do not believe prophets are infallible, not every word they utter always true…(pp. 119-20).

For Further Reading:

FairWiki,  Brigham Young taught that the moon and sun were inhabited

Ibid, Question: Did Joseph Smith state that the moon was inhabited, and that it's inhabitants were dressed like Quakers?

Michael J. Crowe, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1986)