Catastrophism
- Catastrophism - Wikipedia
- Anthony E. Larson, "...And the Moon Shall Turn to Blood...: The Very Last Days", Zedek Books, 1983
- A book about the signs of the second coming as interpreted through the catastrophist lens of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, who has posited that Venus is a relatively new planet, which was somehow ejected from Jupiter and had close encounters with Earth (resulting in the miracles of The Exodus, among some other events) before ejecting Mars from its original orbit and taking up orbit in its place. (I have heard echoes of this idea before. I'm not sure what evidence could possibly be found to support or contradict the idea, as our data about the planets involved in mostly modern and sparse, though Velikovsky has thoughts on how timelines are wrong that might be fruitfully investigated. Additionally, the idea seems to hinge on the assertion that Venus, which is quite visible, is somehow missing from the astronomical records of old.)
Notes
Catastrophism is not principally a religious concept. It is a philosophy or bias applied towards interpreting history and explaining geological features. It is opposed by the idea of uniformitarianism, which holds that catastrophes don't occur and that everything we see today has resulted from the slow plodding forces which we are generally accustomed to. Obviously, however, catastrophes do occur; Dams break; volcanoes erupt; stars do go supernova; and asteroids collide with planets. I don't see there being much of a debate between catastrophists and uniformitarians today. Modern thinking seems to be a fusion of the two schools of thought, however, people do have biases and catastrophist and uniformitarian traditions influence what we accept to be true or untrue about the natural world.
My purpose in creating this section is to document some of the ways in which catastrophist thought has influenced LDS religious thinking.