New Type of Dinosaur Unearthed 160
MileHighScience writes to mention that a new type of sauropod has been discovered by scientists from Utah's Brigham Young University. Dubbed Abydosaurus mcintoshi, the new addition to the long necked dinosaur family was discovered at Dinosaur National Monument. "The circumstances of its discovery were both unusual and dramatic. The researchers stumbled on four skulls in a quarry at the preserve. Two were still intact. Sauropod skulls are rarely found in the fossil record because the soft tissue from which they are constructed is unlikely to be preserved after death. 'Their heads are built lighter than mammal skulls because they sit way out at the end of very long necks,' Brooks Britt, a BYU paleontologist said in a news release. 'Instead of thick bones fused together, sauropod skulls are made of thin bones bound together by soft tissue.' Of more than 120 known species of sauropods, there have been only eight instances in which scientists have been able to recover intact skulls."
Gary Larson inquires: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:BYU has a Paleontology department? (Score:5, Informative)
Does that not fit into what your science teacher told you about people who aren't your science teacher?
Actually (Score:4, Informative)
More specifically it was a U of M graduate student:
http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=7537 [umich.edu]
Right into the trap... (Score:5, Informative)
"I hope to see an Academy established in Provo that shall do honor to our Territory, and at which the children of the Latter-day Saints can receive a good education unmixed with the pernicious atheistic influences that are found in so many of the higher schools of the country." -Brigham Young
But, you got me on one point. There is a process for "beard exemption":
A student who wishes to obtain a beard exception must visit a BYU Student Health Center doctor by appointment (422.5156). The doctor will fax his recommendation. The student then needs to come to the Honor Code Office to fill out some paperwork and receive the letter allowing the growth of the beard, if approved. If a yearly beard exception is granted, a new Student ID will be issued after the beard has been fully grown, and must be renewed every year by repeating the process.
http://honorcode.byu.edu/content/what-process-obtaining-beard-waiver [byu.edu]
That's literally the funniest thing I have read in the last 24 hours.
But wait! There's more!
Are Mixed Gender Camping Trips allowed?
http://honorcode.byu.edu/content/mixed-gender [byu.edu]
Fear of Gays!
Homosexual behavior and/or advocacy of homosexual behavior are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings. Advocacy includes seeking to influence others to engage in homosexual behavior or promoting homosexual relations as being morally acceptable.
Fear of the Female Body!
A clean and well-cared-for appearance should be maintained. Clothing is inappropriate when it is sleeveless, strapless, backless, or revealing; has slits above the knee; or is form fitting. Dresses, skirts, and shorts must be knee-length or longer. Hairstyles should be clean and neat, avoiding extremes in styles or colors. Excessive ear piercing (more than one per ear) and all other body piercing are not acceptable. Shoes should be worn in all public campus areas.
Forced religion!
Students are required to be in good Honor Code standing to be admitted to, continue enrollment at, and graduate from BYU. In conjunction with this requirement, all enrolled continuing undergraduate, graduate, intern, and Study Abroad students are required to obtain a Continuing Student Ecclesiastical Endorsement for each new academic year. Students must have their endorsements completed, turned in, and processed by the Honor Code Office before they can register for fall semester or any semester thereafter. To avoid registration delays, endorsement should be submitted to the Honor Code Office by March 15. Those applying to BYU should use the new-student Admissions Application Part 3 endorsement and submit to Admissions, D-155 ASB.
I mean, this shit sounds like something you'd find the Taliban advocating. Read it for yourself:
http://saas.byu.edu/catalog/2009-2010ucat/GeneralInfo/HonorCode.php#HCOfficeInvovement [byu.edu]
Re:BYU has a Paleontology department? (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like you haven't read very much on the subject that was accurate.
Theologically, Mormons are not creationists in the same sense as evangelical Christians. Mormons do not believe in creation ex nihilo. Nor do Mormons hold to a literal 6 24-hour days creation, or that the earth is only 6000 years old. Creation came about over millions of years through natural processes, which science is doing an admiral job discovering. Since Mormons believe that human agency is the most important part of existence, then it makes sense that all of creation can come about and be explained without seeing or knowing God. There are no signatures on glaciers. No one is forced to believe in God. To say otherwise (like the intelligent designer folks) is to say that God is weak, meaning that if his works can be explained or understood through processes and principles, then he cannot be God.
Religion deals more with why, not how. Thus to Mormons, there should be no conflict between belief and science. And officially, the LDS church has no position on evolution either. Most LDS scientists recognize it as a principle of nature, and various leaders throughout the last 100 years or so have stated their personal opinions that evolution is not wrong.
Anyway, the bones are there and they have been dated. Mormons accept this and the science behind palaeontology, and study it, enjoy dinosaur museums, and even wonder what the Bonneville Lake was like back in the day.
Re:Right into the trap... (Score:5, Informative)
You must have some grudge against the LDS church to be trolling so much on this thread. Nevertheless, I'm going to respond to a couple of your points.
First point: the beard thing. I agree, this is pretty lame. The dress and grooming standards have changed over the years, and hopefully one day neatly trimmed beards will be allowed. I've heard that the anti-beard regulations came about in the 60's when the hippies wore beards, and were thought of as some sort of representation of the counter culture, which doesn't really jive with LDS doctrines. Times have changed. I must say, though, that if that's the funniest thing you've read in the last 24 hours, you must be starved for entertainment.
Second point: mixed gender field trips. They are allowed, you just need to make sure the men and women aren't sharing tents. As you probably know, premarital sex is against LDS doctrine. This is a small measure to ensure students aren't breaking the rules while on official business. Dress and grooming standards are along this same line.
Third point: "fear" of gays. BYU is a church school. LDS doctrine states that homosexuality is bad, so the church's school isn't going to allow anybody to encourage behavior that goes against church doctrine.
Fourth point: Ecclesiastical endorsements. BYU is a church school. They strive for a religious, education along side the more secular one. There is no requirement that you be a practicing member of ANY particular religion, just that you get "cleared" from your own ecclesiastical leader. If you don't belong to any particular church (presumably even if you're an atheist) you can meet with LDS leaders to get an endorsemnt. This is mainly to ensure that the students will abide by the school's honor code, which you find so humorous and offensive.
I'm a graduate of the BYU geology department. I got a fantastic education that prepared me well for grad school and a career in science. I am happy to see the department get this press. I'm less happy at douche bags like yourself using this platform to spread half-truths and misinformation about my alma mater. If you don't like the standards, nobody's going to force you to live them, or even go near the BYU campus.
Re:Where is the half-truth? (Score:4, Informative)
But the other two?
Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African Race? If the White man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. -Brigham Young
I am here to answer. I shall be on hand to answer when I am called upon, for all the counsel and for all the instruction that I have given to this people. If there is an Elder here, or any member of this Church, called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who can bring up the first idea, the first sentence that I have delivered to the people as counsel that is wrong, I really wish they would do it; but they cannot do it, for the simple reason that I have never given counsel that is wrong; this is the reason. -Brigham Young
Read on! Enlightenment awaits...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon_anachronisms [wikipedia.org]
Brigham Young's science quotes (Score:1, Informative)
For example, Brigham Young's lunatic ramblings about how he believes that minerals 'grow' like plants or hair on a person's head.
Also crazy stuff about his belief that adobe is vastly superior to stone as a building material because adobe will mature into something strong, but stone has already matured, so now that it's mature, the next step is for it to decay.
He tells us that the Egyptian monuments built of stone are all gone, but the ones built of mud and straw are still here.
Guess he's never been to Egypt.
"Let the practical chemist make his observations upon a portionof the matter of which this earth is composed; and he will find, that justas quick as it is at its perfection, that very instant it begins to decompose.We have proof of this. Go into Egypt, for instance, and you will find themonuments, towers, and pyramids, that were erected in the days of Joseph,and before he was sold into Egypt; they were built of what we call adobies,clay mixed up with straw; these fabrics, which have excited interest forso many ages, and are the wonder of modern nations, were built of this rawmaterial. They have bid defiance to the wear of ages, and they still remain.But you cannot find a stone column that was reared in those times, for theyare all decayed. Here we have actual proof that the matter which is thefurthest advanced to a state of perfection, is the first to decompose, andgo back into its native element, at which point it begins to be organizedagain, it begins to congeal, petrify, and harden into rock, which growslike a tree, but not so perceptibly."
"Gold and silver grow, and so does every other kind of metal, the sameas the hair upon my head, or the wheat in the field; they do not grow asfast, but they are all the time composing or decomposing."
-- Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol-1
http://journalofdiscourses.org/Vol_01/refJDvol1-36.html
Not content with proclaiming these brilliant pieces of geological wisdom, Brigham Young goes on to tell us that God plays hide-and-seek with gold and silver mines.
"Ask the brethren why they do this, and the ready reply will be, 'Is it not my privilege to find af gold mine or a silver mine as well as others?' As far as I am concerned I would say, 'Yes, certainly it is your privilege, if you can find one.' But do you know how to find such ha mine? No, you do not, These treasures that are in the earth are carefully watched, they can be removed from place to place according to the good pleasure of Him who made them and owns them.
He has his messengers at his service, and it is just as easy for an angel to remove the minerals from any part of one of these mountains to another, as it is for you and me to walk up and down this hall.
This however is not understood by the Christian world, nor by us as a people. There are certain circumstances that a number of my brethren and sisters have heard me relate, that will demonstrate this so positively, that none need doubt the truth of what I say." -- Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol-19 p36-37, 17 June 1877
http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/JournalOfDiscourses3&CISOPTR=9597&REC=19
After telling us how God moves gold and silver mines so that the wrong people don't find them, Brigham Young blathers on a bit about how his friends find buried treasure left behind by the 'Lamanites' and then he spins a yarn about Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith, and more treasure.
Brigham claims that Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith returned the gold plates of the Book of Mormon to the 'Hill Cumorah' in New York. He claims that the hill 'opend' for them and inside the hill is a huge cave that is stacked with piles of gold plates.
". . . I lived right in the country where the plates were found from which the Book of Mormon was translated, and I know a great many things pertaining to that country, and I know a great many things pertaining to that country.
I believe I will take the liberty to tell you of another circumstance that wi
Re:I'll be damned! (Score:1, Informative)
That depends on your definition of Depends.
In the words of Brigham Young (Score:1, Informative)
Does thjis sound like hate to you?
"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind....Cain slew his brother. Can might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin." (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, page 290).
"In our first settlement in Missouri, it was said by our enemies that we intended to tamper with the slaves, not that we had any idea of the kind, for such a thing never entered our minds. We knew that the children of Ham were to be the "servant of servants," and no power under heaven could hinder it, so long as the Lord would permit them to welter under the curse and those were known to be our religious views concerning them." (Journal of Discourses, Volume 2, page 172.)
"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." (Journal of Discourses, Volume 10, page 110.)
Speach by Gov. Young in Joint Session of the Legeslature.
Feby. 5th 1852 giving his veiws on slavery.
" But say some, is there any thing of this kind in the Constitution, the U.S. has given us? If you will allow me the privilege telling right out, it is none of their damned buisness what we do or say here."
" I am as much oposed to the principle of slavery as any man in the present acceptation or usage of the term, it is abused. I am opposed to abuseing that which God has decreed, to take, a blessing, and make a curse of it. It is a great blessing to the seed of Adam to have the seed of Cain for servants, but those they serve should use them with all the heart and feeling, as they would use their own children, and their compassion should reach over them, and round about them, and treat them as kindly, and with that humane feeling necessary to be shown to mortall beings of the human species. Under these sercumstances there blessings in life are greater in proportion than those who have to provide the bread and dinner for them."
Re:Right into the trap... (Score:2, Informative)
This is about as off-topic as off-topic can be. But nonetheless, that wikipedia article you cited to support your position that Mormons have a "violent history" doesn't support your position very well. When I got down to the section that discusses Brigham Young's involvement (and thus official involvement of "the Church") in the massacre, it appears that the massacre may likely have been merely the unsanctioned actions of several people who were Mormons. Just some angry Mormons. There is no solid evidence that "the Church" participated in the massacre at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre#Alleged_involvement_of_Brigham_Young
That's like saying the Mormon church sanctions bank robbery because a rogue Mormon--Butch Cassidy--robbed banks.
http://www.utah.com/oldwest/butch_cassidy.htm
Re:I'll be damned! (Score:2, Informative)
I'm an expert on Mormonism. I've been one all my life.
If I may, it really depends on whom you ask. You will probably get a whole range of opinions. I would probably phrase the opinion, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." I graduated from BYU, and we were taught taught evolution in Biology. Any modern study of biology without evolution would be incomplete at best and shoddy and fraudulent at worst.
As a Mormon when we study the different accounts of the creation, we come away with three fundamental main points:
1) Jesus Christ was the creator
2) The creation was planned, and was effected by "organizing" pre-existing materials, not "ex-nihlo"
3) Man was created in the image of God
There are some things that could be interpreted as contradictions between religious belief and scientific fact. I do think about them, but I don't let myself get carried away. My current understanding of both the mind of God and science as it truly is is unfortunately flawed.
Regardless I don't "throw out the baby with the bathwater" just because I don't understand some facet of science or religion.
What sense would that be? (Score:1, Informative)
As a Mormon I believe that:
1) Jesus Christ (then known as Jehovah) under the direction of his father created the earth.
2) Jesus Christ (then known as Jehovah) spoke to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah and other prophets in the Old Testament and gave those men His authority to act and speak in His name.
3) Jesus Christ was born to a virgin named Mary in Bethlehem around 1 AD.
4) Jesus lived a perfect life and taught his disciples through both word and deed to live a life of love and charity.
5) Jesus was baptized by immersion by someone with the authority to do so as a symbol of his mission, and that we would also do so. He gave His apostles this same authority.
6) Jesus took upon Himself the cumulative guilt of all people in this world in the garden of Gethsemane. He was then killed on a cross, but arose to live again the third day.
7) We believe that through His sacrifice our sins and guilt can be taken away. All I need to do is follow Him.
8) We believe that Christ continues to speak to prophets today and that someday He will return to earth.
That is a very basic summation of what Mormons believe about Christ. But while doctrine is interesting, the true proof of a Christian is conduct - how well the person lives the precepts that are taught.
Interesting how you left out all the Morom stuff (Score:1, Informative)
It's interesting to me how you left out all of the stuff that actually define Mormonism.
Stuff like,
1) God was once a human.
2) The universe is filled with Gods. Each one has his own planet to rule.
3) God has a holy harem composed of his sisters.
4) All humans are literally the children of God and his holy harem.
5) All humans can become Gods by following the special rules that only Mormons know. Once of those rules is that you must have multiple wives in heaven (your holy harem). This is detailed in Mormon scripture, Doctrine and Covenants Section 132.
6) When you graduate to godhood, you get your own holy harem and a planet of your own to rule.
7) To get into the cool part of heaven where you can go to school and learn stuff about becoming a god, you need to know the secret Mormon handshakes and passwords.
8) After Jesus died, he came to America and did all kinds of cool stuff.
9) Jesus is literally Satan's older brother. And Jesus and Satan are our older brothers.
Well, either brothers or half-brothers. Mormons aren't specific about which members of God's Holy Harem gave bith to each of us. But basically Mormonism is the Churck of Universal Eternal Incest.
There's tons more stuff that I could list but that's not a bad place to start.
Most of the stuff in this list comes directly from the teachings of Joseph Smith. Look at the sermon called "King Follett Discourse" for details:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/King_Follett_Discourse
And this stuff is not just crazy ramblings from 150 years ago that are now rejected. For example, about the "Infinite Gods", here's the official teaching. The guy being quoted is one of the past top dogs in the Mormon church.
The top dog is called the 'President'. He's officially a 'Prophet, Seer, and Revelator', as are the other 14 slightly-less-than-top dogs. This quote is from J.F.Smith but it's still taught to this day.
Item #143, "INNUMERABLE GALAXIES IN THE UNIVERSE"
"... Thus the great universe of stars has multiplied beyond the comprehension of men. Evidently each of these great systems is governed by divine law; with divine presiding Gods, for it would be unreasonable to assume that each was not so governed..." -- The Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers To Gospel Questions, vol-2, p.86
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14210472/Smith-Joseph-Fielding-Answers-to-Gospel-Questions-Vol-2