This I Believe

1. The earth was not created out of nothing. I believe that it was created out of existing materials brought together and organized by God, the Creator.  (Abr. 3:24).
2. The earth was not created in a 24-hour day, nor in a 7-day week as we know them. One day in God's time is as 1,000 years to man.  (Abr. 3:4, 5:13).  When the scriptures speak of the seven days of creation, they are symbolically referring to periods of time that might have been thousands or millions of years long.
3. The creation of the earth followed a logical sequence. If the earth was originally a molten blob, time was needed for it to cool and to solidify.  More time was needed for water and oceans to form.  More eons were necessary for water to form soil through the process of erosion of the rocks.
4. At some point, perhaps when the materials were first brought together, or perhaps later, the earth was placed in an orbit around the sun at the exact distance from the sun to be best conducive to life. The fact that the earth is at that optimal distance is one of the best evidences of the creation having been masterminded by a supreme intelligence.  That placement didn't take place by chance.  No other planet in our solar system is able to support life because they don't orbit in that prime band of space.  I think it quite likely, however, that planets such as Venus and Mars are currently in an early state of preparation to eventually become habitable worlds.
5. After water and soil were created, the earth was ready for plants, the first life.
6. We know that Adam, as a premortal being, helped in the creation of the earth. I think it likely that Adam was not merely an individual, but also a generic term including many or all of the future inhabitants of the earth.  I believe it likely that I helped plant the seeds and the trees.
7. Eons of time were necessary for plants to grow and to die and to form the deposits of coal and of oil and of natural gas that would be necessary for modern, mortal man to carry out the latter-day activities that would precede the Millennial era.
8. After plants were growing and flourishing, the earth was ready for animal life.
9. I believe that the first seeds and first animals were brought here from worlds that were ahead of ours in terms of development.
10. God has created worlds without number. (Moses 1:33-35).  What would life on other worlds look like?  Like ours.
11. The preparatory eons of time included the age of the dinosaurs. How and why those species fit into the plan, I don't know, but they were part of the process.
12. I do not believe that man evolved from those early species. Neither do I believe that mortal man existed a million years ago.  Adam was the first man placed upon the earth. I think that was 6,000 years ago.  I believe that there is something wrong when scientists say that the fossil record says that man existed before that time.  Either the fossils were not those of true men, or there is something wrong with the dating system.  It is also possible that the materials used to make this earth came from previously-existing worlds where those creatures existed.
13. The temporal (or temporary) existence of the earth is 7,000 years. (D&C 77:6).  I interpret that to mean that Adam and his posterity would inhabit the earth for that length of time before the earth dies, is resurrected, and becomes our celestial kingdom.
14. Animals, largely as we know them today, were on the earth before Adam was placed here. They may have evolved from earlier, inferior species; or those earlier species may have been wiped out, like the dinosaurs were, previous to making the world ready for modern species.  Eohippus may have been an ancestor of the horse, but an amoeba was not.
15. The theory of evolution raises more questions than it answers. To say that the great order that we observe in nature and in the universe happened by chance is akin to saying that a dictionary could happen as the result of an explosion in a print shop.
16. Man did not evolve from the lowest forms of life, but from the highest.
17. Species do undergo changes. Mutations do happen.  Irradiation of fruit flies has been shown to be able to produce fruit flies with multiple wings and other abnormalities, but the end results are still fruit flies.  Amoebas can't become horses.  Flies can't become birds.  Through breeding programs man has changed many physical characteristics of cattle, but the end results are still cattle.  One species cannot become another.  God ordained that each species should reproduce itself “after its kind.”  (Abr. 4:12).
18. Man was created “in the image of God.” We look like Him.  (Gen. 1:27).