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TheDiscipleMD

“NASA’s Kepler space telescope has discovered more than 700 new exoplanets, nearly doubling the current number of confirmed alien worlds.

The 715 newfound planets, which scientists announced today boost the total alien-world tally to between 1,500 and 1,800, depending on which of the five main extrasolar planet discovery catalogs is used. The Kepler mission is responsible for more than half of these finds…with thousands more candidates awaiting confirmation by follow-up investigations.” (AccuWeather.com, Feb. 2014)

These are the words of God spoken unto Moses as revealed through a latter-day prophet in June of 1830:

“For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them.” (Moses 1:35)

Reported in the Church News in 1998 is this:

“Half way through the year 1830, mankind’s knowledge of the universe was still fairly rudimentary, although dedicated astronomers were combining their knowledge of mathematics and their keen observations to lay the groundwork of modern astronomy…But people were limited by what they could see and, at best, someone with very sharp eyesight could see only about…five planets. Fierce debates, both theological and scientific, raged over where the earth stood in the cosmos…Photography, which would have a profound influence on astronomy, was yet to be invented, and no one could yet measure how far away even the closest star was. It was assumed that the solar system was at the center of the galaxy.

So it was in this setting, in June of 1830, that Joseph Smith began writing down a selection from the Book of Moses, a translation of Genesis as revealed to him. What emerged is a remarkably prophetic document that imparted knowledge far ahead of the scientific understanding of the time.

…The latest estimate is that some 50 billion galaxies exist, and our own Milky Way galaxy is estimated to hold 200 billion stars…Theologians are just beginning to grasp the concept of a God covering multiple worlds, and this comes more than a century and a half after the revelations to Joseph Smith.

It’s at this intersection of faith and science that the long-ago revelations to Joseph Smith offer their great insights and comfort for us. With each new secular discovery – and there will be many more – we gain a greater appreciation of the spiritual meaning of our life and the greatness of God’s works.” (“God’s Vast Creations”, 2-7-1998)