[Note: if you read nothing else, be sure to click through the slides in the presentation on the impossible gospel below. That is the most important part of this post.]
The LDS church has hired a slick PR firm which is making great strides towards polishing the Mormon Church image and making it palatable to the wider Christian world. This year for Easter, the church has rolled out a social media campaign designed for members to be able to share a slick modern video about Christ and pre-fabricated memes under the hashtag #BecauseOfHim. It has been a resounding success – achieving over 2.6 million views during the holy week. Christians taking a first look at Mormonism through the lens of this media campaign will see a faith that is Christ centered and has all the polish a sterling corporate entity for which public relations has been spared no expense.
But how genuine is this focus on Holy Week and Easter? Growing up as a Mormon, Easter was not celebrated with especially much fanfare. There might be a particularly good speaker asked to talk about the atonement and resurrection of Christ, but that only took place on the day of actual easter sunday. Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Lent, Holy Week – all these were things that the conventional Christian world did. It just seemed a bit too showy and ‘Catholic’ for Mormons to be involved with it. This has been observed by other bloggers as well. Those days are apparently past.
Easter Eggs on Astroturf?
Is this remarkable enthusiasm for Easter and Holy Week a genuine expression of LDS members or just the result of them being ‘encouraged‘ by the leadership of the church to share the pre-fabricated media to present a sort of astro-turf grassroots movement of Mormon social media activity? There is a way to test it out. Anytime you see a Mormon friend on Facebook share a #becauseofhim meme on facebook – click on their timeline and go back to a year ago. See if they were sharing memes and status updates talking about how special Easter was to them last year or the year before. Chances are you will find updates about crafts, or general conference talks or amazing pictures of cute kids – but if your experience is like mine you will not see the same effusive social media footprint centered on the passion, crucifixion or resurrection of Christ.
#BecauseOfHim
The Christian world will see a face of Mormonism that includes a blue-eyed actor portraying Christ and messages of peace, atonement and redemption that are all found in the New Testament. There is nothing in the Mormon Because of Him media campaign that is unique to Mormonism. If you look at their Main Website for the campaign, you will see that the only thing that alludes to a uniquely Mormon element is a single link at the bottom of the page inviting you to find out what the Book of Mormon Teaches about Jesus Christ.
Therein lies the Rub.
If you click on that link you will be presented with a page that talks about Christ in very appealing and attractive terms. The page is meant to encourage curious people to want to learn more and speak with the Missionaries – but they leave important aspects of Christ’s Gospel according to Mormonism out.
You see the Gospel of the Christ of Mormonism is altogether different from the Gospel of Christ in the New Testament. They are different Christs. It should be no offense to Mormons for me to state this. The Prophet Gordon B Hinkley made this very point:
“In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints ‘do not believe in the traditional Christ.’ ‘No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak. For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in this the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. He together with His Father, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in the year 1820, and when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of the ages.'”
(LDS Church News Week ending June 20, 1998, p. 7).
Those aspects of the Mormon Christ of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times which make it different from the Biblical Christ were brought to the world through Joseph Smith. They were brought by the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price which Joseph Smith claimed to translate “by the power of God.” They were brought by the revelations of God to Joseph Smith as recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith’s teachings about the Mormon Christ have been repeated and expounded upon by every succeeded prophet who bore the same Priesthood authority that Joseph himself first held in the latter-days. Everything that Mormons know about this new, uniquely Mormon Christ they owe to Joseph Smith. It is “Because of Him” – Joseph Smith – that Mormon’s have this view of Christ.
The Impossible Gospel of Mormonism
Knowing that the Christ of the LDS Church is a different Christ than the one that the Christian world worships – the most important thing to a curious Christian investigating the church should be the differences between them. Even Mormons themselves should be interested in these differences so that they can speak intelligently about it when speaking with Christians. It is in the differences between the Gospels of the Christ of Mormonism and the Christ of the New Testament that I found the most critical points that led me to see Mormonism in a different light.
These differences can best be examined by carefully assembling all the unique scriptures about salvation contained in the unique Mormon scriptures. Several Christians have done this before and found a great paradox. When you see the quotes from the Book of Mormon, D&C and LDS prophets all together – and hold the words of each up to the standard of a unified Gospel – you find that to achieve salvation in Mormonism is an impossible task. I don’t mean that it is impossible for people to be perfect and so they need the saving grace of Christ to rise to perfection. I mean that the Gospel of Christ according to Mormonism establishes requirements for that Saving Grace which render it impossible to reach.
I put together a presentation which shows you exactly what I mean. Please click through and read each slide and scripture quote. Ask yourself the questions posed and see what answers the LDS scriptures provide. It is a remarkable experience to put these pieces together and see what the system is truly setup as.
[iframe src=”https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1m1j4xnfNkn3k1sJ1rlbrHPEbRlI5kza85mms_DELe3k/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”true” mozallowfullscreen=”true” webkitallowfullscreen=”true”]
Here is a link to a fullscreen version.
Les Miserables
I watched Les Miserables with my daughters this evening and it is because of that story that I felt compelled to write this post tonight. I think it is a great Easter film. You see – the great event that takes place in the life of Jean Valjean is his transformation after experiencing the mercy of the Bishop who saves him from returning to the prison by telling the police that Valjean had been given the silver that he had, in fact, stolen. After experiencing this act of mercy, Valjean sees himself at a cross road. Following the admonition of the Bishop he is transformed through and by God and he devotes his life to God. He has what can only be described as a rebirth being born again into a new creature that we meet in the next scene as Monseigneur Madeleine, the mayor and businessman who is a far cry from the hate filled prisoner he once was. It was this change of heart, this rebirth by faith in God, that was the grace qualifying act of Jean Valjean. Through out the rest of the movie, he continues to sin, to lie to misrepresent himself and avoid the law. He holds true to the standard of Love however acting according to his conscience. His salvation found at the end of the film was not the product of his acts, good or bad, during his life – but by his transformed heart and devotion to God.
Javert represents the law, and strict obedience based system that is exemplified by the impossible gospel of Mormonism. Valjean’s original crime was stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving son. The illegal nature of this act in the system that Javert represents condemned Valjean to prison, despite it being an act motivated by love. Throughout the movie the contrast between the law and love are depicted. It is this very contradiction between the law of men and Christ’s commandment of Love that created the paradox within Javert leading him to suicide. He had devoted his life to the absolute keeping of the law. When his own life was spared by an act of mercy he was confronted by a higher law than that of men. One governed by mercy and forgiveness, frequently at odds with the demands of justice. His ignominious death was the consequence of his own standard of the law. He had allowed a convict to go free in violation of the law. He condemned himself and executed his own just punishment.
If Jean Valjean was Mormon, he would have been condemned at the end of the film. Every lie that he told, every misrepresentation he made would have brought back all his past similar sins to condemn him. Every little time he fell short of perfection, he proved that he had not “done all that he could do.” Every sin that was piled upon him would disqualify him for the Grace that God could offer. He would have been asking himself at every moment “have I done enough to merit God’s grace?” The answer could only be ‘No.’
People living under such a yoke and burden are miserable. They may not know it because they have not seen any other way – Just as Valjean had not known the love and hope that available to him before his experience with the Bishop. Mormons have been told that Christ is there to offer grace – but if they read the fine print it is clear that a Catch 22 is in play. As such, there is no peace. They have been told that the struggle to achieve this status of perfection is where the joy of God is found. This is a falsehood which betrays the very balm which Christ came to offer.
Mormons must constantly look to their leaders to discover what God’s commandments are so that they can make sure they are not in violation of them – or at least that they don’t show the outward appearance of such iniquity. How else would they know that drinking tea was a sin? How else would they know that two ear piercings would deny them the grace of God? Those things do not violate the commandment to love one another, but they violate the laws that the men of the Mormon church have established. In fact there are no less than 613 such laws given which Mormons are in jeopardy of being in violation of at any time. Remember in Mormonism that there is no repentance after this life and to die in any degree of sin is to be sealed to and under the power of Satan forever.
Obedience vs love
I can best articulate my own change of perspective by relating one of the most significant difference in my life since leaving Mormonism. While a Mormon, living under the yoke and burden of it’s laws and requirements – my daily prayers always included pleading with my God to help me to obey his commandments and overcome sin. The focus was on what I was doing which kept me from God’s grace and distanced me from his rest. I was always in the despair of knowing my shortcomings and feeling inadequate to the standard that I thought was expected of me. My most earnest pleadings were for God to help me to overcome my sin.
Since my change in perspective and understanding about the Gospel of Christ, my prayers have changed significantly. Now the focus of my communication with God is not compliance with laws but pleading to help me to be more loving to those that I encounter. To expand my heart and understanding of love so that I can express it more fully. This is paired with gratitude for the peace I experience from the hope and promise of God’s grace.
Where before I was focused on obedience, and I always fell short, now I am focused on love and gratitude and I can always find it’s expression in my life.
Conclusion
Because of him – Joseph Smith – Mormons are under a Gospel which demands the impossible and keeps members under the constant yoke of guilt and uncertainty. The Mormon Christ is there, smiling and waiting for all the Mormons to “deny themselves all ungodliness” so that they can enjoy his grace “after all that they can do.” But it can never happen.
This type of system of impossible rules and requirements is exactly the reason that Christ of the New Testament came to bring rest and peace to those that were suffering under such a yoke and a burden. It is Because of Him – Jesus Christ of the New Testament – that the message of the hope and peace of Christ has spread through out the world and brought peace to the hearts of all those who would have their hearts transformed by Love and find rest in his grace.
As a Mormon, I never really knew this Christ of the New Testament. I was taught a caricature of “born agains” who simply say ‘I’ve been saved!’ and then go on sinning without abandon or guilt. I never knew the true peace that the message of the Biblical Christ could bring until I cast off the demanding and impossible Gospel of Mormonism. Those born agains weren’t reveling in their sin – they simply acknowledged that we are all steeped in it. No matter how white your shirt in your sunday dress or how smooth shaven your face or clean-cut your hairdo – you will never be out of your sin. As a result, Christ has no option but to save you in your sin. To the Christian it is not your attempts to overcome sin which save you – it is your faith in and desire to follow Christ and His Gospel of Love.
It is because of him, Joseph Smith, that I wandered for so long, not knowing the rest that I was being denied. It is because of the HIM, Christ, that my heart is now at peace.
It’s easy to blame Joseph Smith; he’s blamed for everything, and it’s easy to do, because he died young, but maybe it’s time to see those who were around him, who survived him and call them what they were–
they were the ones who formed the church and used Joseph as the scapegoat for everything. I don’t adulate Joseph Smith; he was just a man and an imperfect one, but those who caused more of the blindness and heartache and suffering of subsequent generations went on to form the church *we* now know.
I was taught the Jesus of the New Testament and not the Jesus of the Book of Mormon; compare them; the Book of Mormon Jesus is even more full of power and grace and even less about the questionable doctrine that rose up around early Mormons–
Discovering the Book of Mormon for the first time after being ‘active’ in the church for over 6 decades, serving a full-time mission and graduating from BYU and serving in every possible calling–
has been really liberating.
That is what Joseph Smith was meant to do, and I believe he was sabotaged and revised after his death–
It was an evil plan, and it worked, and it has neutralized many people who would otherwise have come to know Jesus.
I do understand what you are saying. Believe me, I do.
But you’re blaming the wrong guy or at least laying all the blame at his feet, and he doesn’t deserve it.
The New Testament can be called out for ‘flaws’ every bit as much as the Book of Mormon can, but the Jesus of the Book of Mormon is very much alive–
I am coming to know the Jesus of the Book of Mormon, and, along with that, I am feeling convicted of my guilt as a member of the LDS church; the New Testament can’t do that for me, but if it has done it for you, fine.
I’ve known too many born again Christians who were not very Christlike to have rose-colored glasses on about them, but I am likewise able to see the unique flaws in Mormon culture and in Mormon living–in myself.
If you examine the post closely you will note that I was not vilifying Joseph – I was examining the theology that Mormon’s hold because of him and the scriptures and revelations that he produced.
This has nothing to do with who Joseph Smith was personally. He could have been a sterling man of impeccable reputation who did not secretly wed other mens wives or teenage girls without his first wife’s knowledge of consent and yet still have produced the gospel that Mormon’s hold to and it would be just as impossible to obtain salvation.
The problem is the message. The messenger has his problems too, but those are secondary to the message itself once you see the internal contradictions which produce an impossible demand of perfection in order to qualify for grace.
Make sure that you have clicked through all the slides in the presentation and read each of the scriptures closely.
Here is a full screen version:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1m1j4xnfNkn3k1sJ1rlbrHPEbRlI5kza85mms_DELe3k/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000#slide=id.p
I did.
I have spent much of my life with ‘born again’ Christians, and I don’t envy them or their religion.
I understand what you say when you talk about Mormonism being impossible, but so is Christianity. Even the Bible says that we are to love the Lord, our God, with all our hearts, etc.–
Even the Bible says that we are to be perfect, as Father in Heaven is perfect–
religion is impossible. God is not. I have faith that God will fill in the gaps, whether I am being commanded to be perfect in the New Testament or eschew sin in the Book of Mormon.
It is very hard for literal-minded people not to despair, whatever their religion.
I just know that evangelical Christianity didn’t ‘do it’ for me; I know that the Book of Mormon has led me to Jesus Christ.
What is so hard about having faith and enduring to the end? Of course, it is hard; everything is hard. It’s not easy being an atheist either, but I have chosen Jesus Christ. I have chosen to follow Him, and I don’t find that impossible when I read the Book of Mormon.
No, even the Bible doesn’t tell people they can be saved in their sins; everyone sins. That is what Jesus’ atonement is all about, but we have to believe in Him, and we have to repent, and repentance is a constant thing.
The Book of Mormon writers (prophets, teachers, whatever they were) were very concerned about people taking Jesus Christ lightly–
thinking they ony needed to say they believed to be saved. I can see that; I have known a lot of people who take God lightly. They wanted not to be misunderstood. You don’t play around with God. But God is love, and He wants to save us. He has saved us. I guess I see that in the Book of Mormon. If you don’t, I’m sorry. Life is hard. It really, really, really is. I don’t deny that. I don’t think the Book of Mormon is easy, but it’s no harder than the New Testament, and it’s more clear, in my opinion–
Maybe I really do have faith in God’s ability to save me; maybe I have felt that redeeming love. Maybe I have focused on Nephi’s ‘psalm’ where he talks about how wretched he is, but God has not abandoned him. Maybe I read between the lines. I don’t know, but I believe what I believe, and I believe the Book of Mormon is a blessing.
The Book of Mormon is a good time capsule of the faith vs works arguments of earlier centuries in America. From the Puritans onward this battle of two opposing views of Christianity has raged. On one hand you have Ann Marbury Hutchinson being exiled from the Massachusetts colony for subscribing to a doctrine of salvation by grace (including her insistence that little children were completely saved by grace regardless of their parents’ standing in the church). On the other hand you have the Book of Mormon emerging decades later with its strong Puritan emphasis on works (perfection by action and choice).
Both sides have their pros and cons. Even Peter and Paul appeared to differ on this matter. It is an endless argument in Christianity, in other words. Ultimately we fall back to the words of Christ, however, which unequivocally state that we are responsible for two actions alone: Love and forgiveness. Going anywhere beyond that in any Christian religious teaching is going beyond the mark.
Marginalized Mormon, you really should read the blog post and see the scripture slide show before commenting, since your comments do not address the blog post nor the slide show at all. You are merely communicating an emotional appeal that could just be regarded as spam.
Jon,
When I was on Heart of the Matter, Shawn displayed a NT scripture on the monitor and asked me to read it. Although I don’t recall now what passage it was, the intent was clear: It laid out requirements for salvation, but didn’t mention repentance and baptism. I was asked to explain why, but I asked Shawn to whom it was addressed and he admitted it was to those who were already baptized members.
Acknowledging this fact made all the difference in the world. It is the same here. Take the oft quoted passage in 2 Ne 25:23. The phrase “after all we can do” is wrested to imply that the difference between the Mormon doctrine of salvation and the creedal Christian doctrine is one of salvation by works versus salvation by grace, when the truth is that no man can earn salvation. It is the gift of God, which he gives to all those who believe that he sent his Son to redeem mankind.
But that belief must lead to faith in the Savior, or it is not really belief in him. For the early Nephites, it was especially important for them to understand this, since they were under the necessity to obey the law of Moses, knowing that salvation didn’t come by means of it. He goes on to explain to them in 2 Ne 25:
28 And now behold, my people, ye are a stiffnecked people; wherefore, I have spoken plainly unto you, that ye cannot misunderstand. And the words which I have spoken shall stand as a testimony against you; for they are sufficient to teach any man the right way; for the right way is to believe in Christ and deny him not; for by denying him ye also deny the prophets and the law.
29 And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowise be cast out.
30 And, inasmuch as it shall be expedient, ye must keep the performances and ordinances of God until the law shall be fulfilled which was given unto Moses.
Those followers of Christ, who believe in him, have perfect (complete) faith that his grace is sufficient for them unto salvation, if they continue in the path of righteousness all the days of their lives. Your slide presentation argues that they cannot do this, since no one has the power to walk the straight and narrow path perfectly. We all sin, even after we enter into the way.
But you do not understand. As we press forward in the path, feasting upon the words of Christ, purifying our hearts and minds, as he commands, repenting and renewing the covenant, as he has provided us the means to do, relying soley upon his merits at the last day, but proving our love and devotion to him, by keeping his commandments to love one another, praying in his name to the Father that his kingdom might come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, asking him for our daily needs and for the forgiveness we need, showing mercy and forgiveness to others at the same time, we are drawing nigh unto him and he is drawing nigh unto us, until the day comes when we are invited to enter into his presence.
None of it would be possible, without the gift of the Holy Ghost, which he only gives to those who enter in by the gate, which gate is entered into by means of repentance and following our Savior down into the waters of baptism.
This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, but not its fullness. The fullness of the good news of Christ, declared in the times of the fullness of the Gentiles, includes the declaration that he has not forgotten his people, that they are not cast off forever. This too is important to understand, for his fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem.
appreciate this–
I am grateful for the Book of Mormon, but I realize that not everyone wants the Book of Mormon–
I believe it is possible to find and follow Jesus with just the New Testament. I just happen to appreciate the Book of Mormon.
I don’t believe everyone has to be a Mormon, not at all.
I do believe everyone will want to accept Jesus Christ at some point; I believe there will be much regret for those who didn’t take Him seriously, whether they based their knowledge of Him on the Book of Mormon or the Bible.
It is impossible to take Jesus seriously and reject the Book of Mormon. He was commanded by the Lord to write it.
And, yet many do take Jesus seriously and reject the Book of Mormon proving your assertion false.
DBundy, nice emotional appeal. Would you deign to comment on the glaring issues brought forth in the blog post? The emotional appeals and testimony spam from professing Mormons in the comments section of this blog is looking increasingly like a dodge of a very good point in the blog post.
I joined the LDS church (was baptized) with my parents in 1956. After many years I came to the conclusion that what you have been eluding to in your post is something I call ‘check list Mormonism,’ which is akin to a type of Pharisaic religious modality (as well as other things).
There are a lot of aspects within Mormonism relating to perfectionism and striving for leadership approval (which is a form of idolatry). At the most fundamental level, though, it’s about ‘pay (your tithing, i.e., money to the Mormon church) and obey (its leaders no matter what they teach)’. It’s about all of the ‘busy work’ (temple attendance, home and visiting teaching, etc., etc.) to keep you in the game under the guise of gaining God’s approval, which is really all about the approval of this so-called church’s leadership at all levels for principal purpose of filling their coffers. It’s also about striving to become a ‘made man’ (akin to what happens in the Cosa Nostra) in the hope of having your second washings and anointing, which paradoxically then assures your salvation *no matter what you do* other than the shedding of innocent blood and denying the Holy Ghost.
To be sure, Mormonism is NOT the Christianity of the New Testament in how I read it. Instead, Mormonism is the catalyst for either a lot of stress and guilt, or otherwise rationalization (cherry-picking) in how you ‘live the Gospel’ in order to maintain some semblance of sanity while at the same time appealing to the false ego of some sort of pseudo sanctimonious mantel of being ‘chosen’.
However, Mormonism is nothing more than a cult-like money making racket in the name of Jesus based upon slick PR, outward appearances, lies, obfuscations, whitewashing its history, threats, shunning, marginalization, etc., all of which is hardly the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Eventually there came a time in my life when the truth set me free.
As for all of the rhetoric with regard to grace vs. works put forth by either Mormons, non-Mormons and anti-Mormons there is no issue for me. The statement in 2 Nephi 25:23 is no more ‘wrong’ or problematic than the statement in James 2:14-2 (faith without works is dead), or any other like statement in the NT. *THE* issue is simply that a person does not need to be baptized into the Mormon church in order to be saved by goods works, belief in and the grace of Jesus. You don’t any ‘church’ although a community of like believers is quite helpful. Still, I could be a hermit living in a mountain cave, but as long as I believe and confess that Jesus of the NT is the Christ and that my heart is constantly being made pure with introspections and repentance in order to live my life according to the way He wants me to, which is commensurate to good thoughts, words and deeds (so-called ‘works’), then how is it even remotely possible that Jesus will not grant me entrance into His kingdom?! And as far as baptism by immersion I can manage that on my own notwithstanding that I don’t ever become a member of any denominational ‘church’. In fact many Biblical scholars have a LOT to say about the meaning of baptism (immersion in water). Nevertheless, sufficient for me is simply Acts 2:38 where Peter says, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Just my thoughts.
http://mansfieldsrus.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-impossible-gospel-of-mormonism.html?m=1
I was in it for 11 years. Your comments are spot on.
I was in it for 38 1/2 years – and this particular blog post is precisely accurate and a big reason why so much of Mormon scripture has to be carefully packaged (ie “correctly interpreted” by an “authority”). Because, when reading the Book of Mormon without supervision these contradictions and serious issues become a very large gorilla in the room.
I’m glad you watched Les Miserables, I agree that it is a very beautiful production.
I’ll share a few quotes, scriptures and church talks for your consideration…
[Proverbs 3:5](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/prov/3.5?lang=eng)
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
Once again, Elder E. Tanner’s excellent talk…
[The Laws of God] (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1975/10/the-laws-of-god?lang=eng)
Dallin H. Oaks’ very relevant talk…
[Love and Law](https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/love-and-law?lang=eng)
Richard G. Scott’s talk regarding questions we may ask ourselves when faced with adversity…
[Trust in the Lord](https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1995/10/trust-in-the-lord?lang=eng)
“Work precedes accomplishment” – Orson Scott Card
And Hebrews 12:6,10 “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth…that we might be partakers of his holiness”
Parable of the two sons…
[Matthew 21:28-31](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/matt/21.28-31?lang=eng#28)
I’ld offer a fist bump, but I really disliked it when I went to COMICON and the people who you didn’t pay money too, would only fist bump you and not shake your hand (If that). Though I did fist bump the original Hulk(Lou Ferrigno), Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) and “Q”(John de Lancie) from star trek. The best guy in the whole COMICON for me was Glenn Morshower, aka Agent Peirce from 24. He shook my hand and was really awesome to talk to. I can’t wait to see the 12 episode 24 that he was talking to me about at the time.
Crushing “Bear Hugs” from your brother (that means the harder I squeeze the more I love you!…but not too hard of course.),
Spencer
Regarding your shotgun of quotes and references:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding”
The members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are told that what is taught to them comes from the Lord. If they simply quoted this scripture anytime they were confronted with problems in their own internally inconsistent and contradictory theology or evidence of deception on the part of their leaders – then they would never escape their false religion to be able to be converted to be mormon.
Do not use this scripture to tell people to turn off their brains. in the case of both the JW’s and Mormons – it is men telling the members what God’s law is. you are equating trust in the Lord with trust in these men. They have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. the contradictory and impossible recipe for God’s grace and salvation outlined in the presentation above are just one example.
Regarding Tanners talk on laws:
Tanner is absolutely impeached as a person who can comment on God’s Law:
“The Church has no intention of changing its doctrine on the Negro. Throughout the history of the original Christian church, the Negro never held the priesthood. There’s really nothing we can do to change this. It’s a law of God.’”
– Apostle N. Eldon Tanner, Seattle Magazine, Dec. 1967, p. 60
According to his talk here “Law is simply the application of truth.” What truth changed in 1978 that lead to the blacks receiving the priesthood? The only truth which is revealed is that Mormon leaders speak from their own cunning and not with and authority, power or endorsement from God.
Any church can create a bunch of rules and say that they are “God’s Law” read about the history of the Worldwide Church of God… (interesting video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBU0nb2g448)
Regarding Oaks talk on “Love and Law”
His point is that God’s Law as contained in the scriptures is the ultimate arbiter:
“the kingdom of glory to which the Final Judgment assigns us is not determined by love but by the law that God has invoked in His plan to qualify us for eternal life”
If you examine the slideshow in the article – you see that that mormon scriptural law is a grand Catch 22 which renders the grace of God unattainable because no person can completely deny themselves of all ungodliness which is stated as a pre-requisite for God’s grace.
Regarding Scott’s talk “Trust in the lord”
His main point seems to be that even through adversity and personal shortcoming you must trust in the teachings of the lord:
“This life is an experience in profound trust—trust in Jesus Christ, trust in His teachings, trust in our capacity as led by the Holy Spirit to obey those teachings for happiness now and for a purposeful, supremely happy eternal existence. To trust means to obey willingly without knowing the end from the beginning”
My point is that if you look at that teaching as contained in unique mormon scripture – it is an impossible catch 22. You actually have to come up with some rationalization that contradicts the book of mormon and D&C in order to find the peace that is described by Jesus in the New Testament.
Church leaders have gotten very good at coming up with pleasant sounding rationalizations that betray those verses in the Book of Mormon outlined in the presentation above. When leaders have to coverup and distort old teachings because they have been discovered to be ridiculous and contradictory -then you need to examine the root of authority that brought those teachings into existence in the first place. In the Case of Joseph Smith – his root is rotten. lying to his wife about polygamy, marrying other mens wives against the Law given in D&C 132, altering revelations from the Book of commandments after the fact, plaigerism of the KJV bible in the Book of mormon – these are just other symptoms to add to the catch 22 of the impossible mormon gospel as proof of Joseph Smiths absent foundation as a prophet.
Religious movements love to create laws and restrictions for the members to follow. The more strict and severe the better. It creates hoops for members to jump through. When they have jumped through them, then they can look around and feel good for how they have managed to fulfill ‘God’s requirements. It set’s them apart and makes them feel in a different league than those other people in the world who are not a part of the movement. It is not surprising that joseph would create a set of hoops that is so impossible that the members cannot actually achieve it. The leaders have had to back pedal from this position – but the original requirements are still in the Book of Mormon. Again look at the experience of the Worldwide Church of God.
Work precedes accomplishment” – Orson Scott Card
And Hebrews 12:6,10 “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth…that we might be partakers of his holiness”
Both of these are not relevant to obvious contradictions in the Book of Mormon.
The BoM states that Works are required in order for Grace to be sufficient to save you from your sins. That work is to deny all ungodliness and endure to the end. It establishes that you shoudl be able to live up to EVERY commandment that God has given because he would never give a commandment that couldn’t be kept. You are also told that you have to do ALL that you can do. So works are required for grace and those works are to obey ALL god’s commandments ALL the time or else his grace cannot be sufficient. A total catch 22 – you can only qualify for God’s grace by not needing it in the first place.
The parable of the two sons also does not overcome the impossible contradiction in the Book of Mormon and so is not relevant.
JW’s again? Oh man! LDS vs. JW comparison = FAIL, even they would agree.
No, it means you work it out with him. Use your intellect, use your reason, present the best idea that your reason can obtain to the Lord and see if he agrees. In this way you are not “leaning” for support on your understanding, but you are “depending” on the Lords. If you patiently put forth your effort, on his terms of obedience and worthiness, you will obtain an answer, he has promised that.
Tanner is not impeached, here you are simply wrong. That is your judgement and you are not infallible in your judgements, nor are you allowed to judge another man. You may follow your conscience but if you haven’t proved it with the Lord, you’re going to reap the benefits of how well you applied yourself*. It is the Lord who can look on the heart and only HE can make that judgement. So whatever facts about Tanner that you consider unassailable, they are without merit since you have an imperative from the Lord to forgive ALL men, not just a few you choose. You also cannot judge the Lord and if you had a testimony of the church, you would perceive that that is what you are doing. I understand from your current perspective you don’t assert that the church is the Lord’s church, but you have not received a witness from the Lord that you have shared with me to that effect. I certainly cannot dispute your own testimony, but I can certainly lend my understanding and how I perceive the spirit has persuaded me. You talk of truth, but so called “truth” isn’t subject to new information to change it’s very meaning, and you have left that closed to the Lord but on some level you have to leave that door open to that possibility as a true scientist, perhaps seeking a sign to change your mind for you. Ask your Heavenly Father…and I wonder if you’ve considered who your Heavenly Father might send to answer your questions?
*Remember if stick your finger in a light socket, you get the shock even if your level of intelligence persuaded you it was safe.
No, (Worldwide Church of God clip) slippery slope fallacy argument style, once again this is your Achilles heel and it is how you lose credibility. Anyone can also make up a narrative and create a fictional conspiracy theory based on supposition and innuendo.
Regarding Oaks talk on “Love and Law”
I’m not sure what you’re beef was with Oaks’ talk, it was extremely relevant, I would encourage you to take a second look at what he says.
Regarding the “Catch 22”
This is an invalid argument because you assert that in the Church of Jesus Christ, God’s grace is unattainable. It is attainable, we have the pattern to obtain his mercy, and in order to achieve it nothing less than the terms to obtain it will deliver the promised blessings, you cannot rob justice, this God will not permit it for he is a just God. He is not filthy nor can he abide filthiness. If we are to abide by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god (not just the ones we like that sound pleasant) we have a work to do and it is to cleanse the inner vessel and then to help our brothers and sisters.
Regarding Scott’s talk “Trust in the lord”
I would add the following…
“When you face adversity, you can be led to ask many questions. Some serve a useful purpose; others do not. To ask, Why does this have to happen to me? Why do I have to suffer this, now? What have I done to cause this? will lead you into blind alleys. It really does no good to ask questions that reflect opposition to the will of God. Rather ask, What am I to do? What am I to learn from this experience? What am I to change? Whom am I to help? How can I remember my many blessings in times of trial? Willing sacrifice of deeply held personal desires in favor of the will of God is very hard to do. Yet, when you pray with real conviction, “Please let me know Thy will” and “May Thy will be done,” you are in the strongest position to receive the maximum help from your loving Father.”
…
“Our Father in Heaven has invited you to express your needs, hopes, and desires unto Him. That should not be done in a spirit of negotiation, but rather as a willingness to obey His will no matter what direction that takes. His invitation, “Ask, and ye shall receive” (3 Ne. 27:29) does not assure that you will get what you want. It does guarantee that, if worthy, you will get what you need, as judged by a Father that loves you perfectly, who wants your eternal happiness even more than do you.”
I understand you feel a contradiction as you have reasoned, but if you will take it to the the lord, he would find a way to teach you how it is possible if you ask him. This is not solely Mormon doctrine. I have provided you with some starting points to think through, but feel free to ask him, as the talks indicated, “the key is on your side of the door”.
Your assessment of Joseph Smith based on 180 year old accounts in a time of very questionable information gathering is fun gossip but I have told you before, I take a very dim view of accounts that are betrayed by those who knew him and revered and honored his character. I know of the accounts from his wife, but in the end it is not for me to judge, I must forgive and forget. Here again, I would remind you that even if you were to rebuke Joseph Smith for his purported behavior at the end of his life, you cannot deny the divinity of what he accomplished nor that he has not payed in full for whatever portion of guilt you may measure against him. Consider the following…
In the Bible, recall the story of David who as a young boy, loved Jonathan, who would not slay the Lord’s anointed — Saul (who sought to slay him many times), who made prophesies about the savior that came to pass, and who was highly favored of the Lord. He did falter, he cast his eyes upon another man’s wife and plotted and succeeded to cause her husband to lose his life, so be warned to not find such great confidence that Joseph was not a prophet of the Lord.
I have read the Book of Mormon, there is very powerful scriptural understanding in that book. You have no power to convince me otherwise. It honors my understanding from the Bible and it does not create hoops to jump through (I am curious what you imagine these “hoops” to be, not that it matters), it explains with sharp clarity and precision. The Doctrine an Covenants are also demonstrate a keen understanding of the gospel, but it is a different flavor than is found in the Book of Mormon and yet it has a similar understanding.
I would admonish you to take a step back and try to soften your preconceptions about the nature of revelation. What if, like words and phrases, it’s more like ideas that press against his mind looking for matching puzzle pieces that form a vocabulary from what is there? So as Joseph is peering into the stone in the hat, he sees the idea that Nephi is trying to convey through the words of Isaiah that he has read and so he uses it so as to communicate the idea?
Work precedes accomplishment” – Orson Scott Card
This is relevant because it is a true principle and it is one you can measure. When you garden, you know that if you do not tend the garden you will reap a very poor harvest. Think about the song “Come, Come Ye Saints.” The following verse is instructive, “Why should we think to earn a great re-ward If we now shun the fight?”
And Hebrews 12:6,10 “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth…that we might be partakers of his holiness”
This is also relevant, because first it shows that Heavenly Father is really like a Dad. And as a father, there is a real imperative to learn and obey his commandments, and the reason isn’t so that he can punish us, but so that we can be with him. His commandments assure us that outcome but because he loves and chastens us, they also are marked as a requirement. We are responsible to work out our salvation and there is no reprieve from our duty to continually seek to obey the Lords’ commandments, which is why the Lord chastens us so we can obtain salvation and “be partakers of his holiness”.
You say it is not possible for us to perfectly strive to obey the Lord, but I disagree, this is possible. Name one commandment the Lord has given that is not doable. The commandment to be perfect is what we strive for continually with all our heart, might mind and soul..repenting when we falter. So if we always repent, abound in good works, keep our thoughts pure, have an eye single to God, we will always obtain forgiveness through the savior, his grace is sufficient. QED. Remember though, that we must feast upon the word and use it, otherwise like language “if you don’t use it, you loose it”.
The parable of the two sons is relevant because it demonstrates that the Lord REQUIRES obedience, if we just say we believe but our works deny him, we are slothful servants and we have not demonstrated our love, for if we love him, we will keep his commandments.
With Love,
Spencer
You say:
“You say it is not possible for us to perfectly strive to obey the Lord, but I disagree, this is possible. Name one commandment the Lord has given that is not doable. The commandment to be perfect is what we strive for continually with all our heart, might mind and soul..repenting when we falter. So if we always repent, abound in good works, keep our thoughts pure, have an eye single to God, we will always obtain forgiveness through the savior, his grace is sufficient. QED. Remember though, that we must feast upon the word and use it, otherwise like language “if you don’t use it, you loose it”.”
I agree that this is the position of the Church – and it was part of my article above. The church teaches that each person should be able to follow all God’s Commandments. When you trip up and sin (i.e. allow ungodliness into your life) then you no longer qualify for the grace of God as per Moroni 10:32.
Are you making the case that Moroni 10:32 is wrong? that you don’t actually have to deny yourself of all ungodliness in order for His Grace to be sufficient? The argument you are making in the quote above is that Christ will grant you forgiveness of sins and perfect you, even if you have not denied yourself all ungodliness. You are saying that the Book of Mormon is wrong.
You say:
“JW’s again? Oh man! LDS vs. JW comparison = FAIL, even they would agree.”
I bring up other faiths (JW) because you have to apply the same standard of seeking truth to your own faith that you would expect people of other faiths to apply to their religion. If you can’t comprehend that this is the case, then this whole line of reasoning is lost to you. You think that simply stating that you can’t relate to JW’s because you aren’t one allows you to ignore these reasonings but that is false. If LDS is true, then JW is false – they are mutually exclusive. If something is true it will stand up to scrutiny from numerous different angles. If there are standards and arguments that demonstrate the JW’s faith and tradition to be false and those same standards also prove mormon faith and tradition to be false – then you cannot expect JW’s to leave their faith to join mormonism.
You cannot have 2 different sets of standards for truth – one for every other religion which would strictly show them to be false, and then one for you own religion which allows the founder to deceive the members of the church, lie to his wife about polygamy and induce women and girls to marry him by promising exaltation – things which anyone would say are major red flags if the leaders of other religions were found to be doing it.
If you applied this same standard for holding to the LDS Gospel to yourself if you were born a JW or a Moonie – then you would never leave those religions, because you would excuse all the doctrinal problems and historical problems with the same excuses you are using to protect Joseph Smith in your own mind!
You say:
“I have read the Book of Mormon, there is very powerful scriptural understanding in that book. You have no power to convince me otherwise. It honors my understanding from the Bible and it does not create hoops to jump through (I am curious what you imagine these “hoops” to be, not that it matters), it explains with sharp clarity and precision. The Doctrine an Covenants are also demonstrate a keen understanding of the gospel, but it is a different flavor than is found in the Book of Mormon and yet it has a similar understanding.”
The fact that you found scriptural understanding in the Book of Mormon does not demonstrate it to be true. People have been writing exegesis and explanation of scriptural content for ages. Just because someone thought to incorporate it into a fake history of a nonexistent people does not give it greater validity. The frank plagiarism in the BoM convict it on one point. (see http://mormonbookshelf.com/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount_in_the_Book_of_Mormon) and the fact that the D&C states that the BoM contains the fullness of the gospel, but does not include the Temple ordinances, baptism for the dead, tithing, polygamy (it actually condemns polygamy) and contradictory teaching on the Godhead all point to it being the first brick laid in a foundation of fraud that was ultimately revealed by the very actions of it’s “author” (that is how Joseph was listed in the first edition).
You have previously said that you know the gospel in the Book of Mormon is true because it has helped you to be a better person and you can feel its good influence in your life. People say the same things about the Koran, the Sealed Portion (did you know it has been translated? read it here: http://www.thesealedportion.com/), the Tipitaka or the Baghavad Gita. Just because people think or feel something is good does not make it true. Even the prayerful searching that results in the burning of the bosom is not reliable – that is the test that LDS offshoots use for their own prophet’s revelations and their own D&C revelations (see R145-R156 here: http://www.theremnantchurch.com/Library/dc/DandCIndex.htm)
You say:
“I would admonish you to take a step back and try to soften your preconceptions about the nature of revelation. What if, like words and phrases, it’s more like ideas that press against his mind looking for matching puzzle pieces that form a vocabulary from what is there? So as Joseph is peering into the stone in the hat, he sees the idea that Nephi is trying to convey through the words of Isaiah that he has read and so he uses it so as to communicate the idea?”
This is an absolute contradiction of contemporary descriptions of the translation process as well as the account repeated by Russel M Nelson, a living Apostle. If it was false, don’t you think God would make that known to apostle Nelson? You are so stuck on believing the system to be true that you are willing to assume that the leaders are wrong or lying in order to protect the edifice of the church that is built in your mind. You forgot that these leaders are supposed to have special powers as prophets, seers and revelators to distinguish truth from deception. It’s good to see that you have been reading FAIR.
You say:
“Work precedes accomplishment”
That is very true in this world. Being people in this world that is how we are compelled to few how something can be earned or merited. This is absolutely consistent with the wisdom of Man. Why would Christ and his apostles talk about their spiritual lessons not following the wisdom of man? (see 1 Corinthians 2) What lesson do you think was being taught by Christ in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard? (see Matthew 20)
You say:
“Tanner is not impeached, here you are simply wrong. That is your judgement and you are not infallible in your judgements, nor are you allowed to judge another man. ”
I provided an example where he declared something to be God’s Law in one year and it was totally changed a few years later. This demonstrates that he was not able to discern what constitutes God’s law. that is an argument with an example. You’re reply is that I am “simply wrong” and that I am not allowed to judge another man. This is extremely weak reasoning. I am not judging Tanner as a man – I am judging the contradictory things that he ascribed to God’s Law and drawing the conclusion that he has lost credibility in that regard.
Again, if you applied that same standard of scrutiny to your leaders if you were born as a JW or scientologist, then you would never leave those religions or discover their false nature because you could never judge the actions or statements of those men.
You say:
“No, (Worldwide Church of God clip) slippery slope fallacy argument style, once again this is your Achilles heel and it is how you lose credibility. Anyone can also make up a narrative and create a fictional conspiracy theory based on supposition and innuendo.”
You need to review what a slippery slope argument is. I am not making that argument. I am saying that other religions have found a following by requiring their members to conform to all sorts of commandments and edicts. In this way, the fact that Mormonism focuses so much on obedience to God’s laws and creates a whole new yoke and burden for men to exist under is nothing new. You could argue that all those other religions are just copying the one true set of laws and requirements, the Mormon set. I would at least acknowledge that you made an argument that expressed understanding of what I was trying to say. Then I would inform you that you are using a “no true scotsman” fallacy.
You say:
“In the Bible, recall the story of David who as a young boy, loved Jonathan, who would not slay the Lord’s anointed — Saul (who sought to slay him many times), who made prophesies about the savior that came to pass, and who was highly favored of the Lord. He did falter, he cast his eyes upon another man’s wife and plotted and succeeded to cause her husband to lose his life, so be warned to not find such great confidence that Joseph was not a prophet of the Lord.”
If you are claiming that Joseph was a fallen prophet, as King David was, then you need to be aware that you are contradicting the position of the main LDS church. You cannot defend the church by violating it’s positions. Then you are just defending your own distorted vision of what the church should be rather than what it is.
-Jon
[when migrating over to the new comment system, this comment from Spencer was lost i think because of the length. I have reposted it here – part 1]
Hmm…there has to be a way we can work together on this, Jon. You and I are brothers. I know I sound like a Grug the caveman, but be that as it may, I’m trying to work things out with you.
You say:
“When you trip up and sin (i.e. allow ungodliness into your life) then you no longer qualify for the grace of God as per Moroni 10:32.”
When you trip in real life, does it mean you can’t walk or get to your destination? If you *have* to walk to get to your destination (salvation), what do you do when you fall (sin)? You get up(repent/deny ungodliness) and try to walk again(be perfected in Christ). Now I realize my analogies aren’t perfect, so only apply them to your own life insomuch as the spirit confirms that what I am saying is right. Moroni 10:32 is a great scripture. The questions that come to mind are…
1. How do you deny yourself ungodliness?
2. How can you be perfected in [Christ]?
Perhaps if we can answer those 2 questions, we can clear the waters, unless you have some other question/point to add/insert here.
For part #1, “I” think the way to “deny ungodliness” is to do as Christ directs which is “…be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect…” [See 3 Nephi 48](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/3-ne/12.48?lang=eng) and the only way for someone who is not perfect to become perfect is to be pure inwardly and outwardly. This means when we aren’t pure in thought, word and deed, we repent, then we are forgiven and then by our deeds show. If we “continually” repent and “continually” keep his word, why would we not be eligible for his grace?
As for part #2 I found a lot of scriptures talking about perfected but verse 5 shown below was the one that spoke to me the most.
[1 John 2:3-5](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/1-jn/2.3-5?lang=eng)
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected:
This is speaking about the love of God, but do you think I am wresting the scriptures to look at this as an example as how we can be perfected in Christ? Could we draw the conclusion that being “perfected” is the result of “continual” effort on our part, i.e. enduring to the end? What do you think? Now “his word” is a rather loaded statement and I think we can explore that discussion if you think it would be helpful here, but it covers the spectrum of everything he’s ever counseled us to do.
Putting my personal thoughts aside, the Church has actually stated that “being perfected” is accomplished by the three fold mission of the church, which is now a four fold mission shown below…
1. to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people;
2. to perfect the Saints by preparing them to receive the ordinances of the gospel and by instruction and discipline to gain exaltation;
3. to redeem the dead by performing vicarious ordinances of the gospel for those who have lived on the earth.
4. to care for the poor and needy, to impart “to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants.”
(See Ensign, April 1982 “Remember the Mission of the Church”, May 1981, “Come unto Christ, and Be Perfected in Him” and January 1973, “Caring for the Poor and Needy”)
The church has clarified the words of Moroni in the April General Conference 1995 [Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness] (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1995/04/deny-yourselves-of-all-ungodliness?lang=eng) stating…
“…Moroni declared the need for us to deny ourselves “all ungodliness” (Moro. 10:32), thus including both large and small sins. While boulders surely block our way, loose gravel slows discipleship, too. Even a small stone can become a stumbling block…”
Concluding with…
“So it is that real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed! Such is the “sacrifice unto the Lord … of a broken heart and a contrite spirit,” (D&C 59:8), a prerequisite to taking up the cross, while giving “away all [our] sins” in order to “know God” (Alma 22:18) for the denial of self precedes the full acceptance of Him.”
You said:
“I bring up other faiths (JW) because you have to apply the same standard of seeking truth to your own faith that you would expect people of other faiths to apply to their religion”
The same standard does apply, that doesn’t mean that I (or anyone else) won’t stumble, it does mean we can always get up and eventually find our way.
Remember when Dad and all our family members died? Wasn’t it devastating? Why would it cause us grief if we know the plan of salvation? I won’t attempt to answer that other than to say we DO feel grief for the loss of loved ones. That grief never leaves us even if we are in the true church. But because we have the comforter we don’t despair, we don’t lose hope and we have the opportunity among many sources that we can look to for reassurance, be it knowledge, companionship, spiritual healing or whatever we stand in need of. The details about how that sets us apart from other religions is not spoken, it is only experienced.
A word about bringing up other faiths to draw out a point you want to discuss. First I don’t like pitting my beliefs against other religions. It sets me at variance with the people in those religions whom I regard as my brothers and sisters. I would rather let the truth stand on it’s own terms and allow people to recognize it as added strength and not a boulder that crushes their beliefs.
Furthermore, It would serve to clarify the discussion if you to make the example, then clearly draw the connections you want me to see so that we can both agree upon the commonality, because I think we both recognize there is a limit to similarity. Just saying A is like B creates a lot of work for the listener to untangle your arguments, because if A were equivalent to B than it would be synonymous. While I know this is appealing to your side of the argument when you’re drawing comparisons of the Church to the KKK, David Koresh and, in this case, the Worldwide Church of God, I think you need to do a more rigorous comparison if that is what you mean. Even then, it’s important to observe that there are levels of synonymity. For example consider the words “church” and “cult” which are grammatically synonymous and yet I think there remain important distinctions. (See [Link](http://thesaurus.com/browse/cult).
In response to your oft quoted mantra, “If something is true it will stand up to scrutiny”, I agree, but that’s a very gainsaying approach to the gospel. I would point out that in my experience, perfectly good computers are thrown away all the time. Hence, there is a casualty you always risk in “troubleshooting and diagnosis” or in this case “scrutiny”. If, due to incompetence, you conduct a poor examination of the Church or administer an ineffective analysis due to insufficient data or bad data or simply misinterpret your findings for any number of reasons or you reached your conclusions before considering something you should have, you will throw away something that is perfectly good.
Not too make too fine a point but it also sounds suspiciously similar to how Satan posed his temptations to Jesus when he said in Matthew 4:3
“If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”
Or Matthew 4:6
“If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.”
I would add “How is saying ‘if it’s true then…’ different from the Jews who looked for signs?
See [Matthew 12:38-39](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/matt/12.38-39?lang=eng#38)
Let me explain what I mean. In the study helps from the Church indicate
“A sign is an event or experience which people understand to be evidence or proof of something…The Lord will give signs as he sees fit to those who believe.”
See [Sign](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/sign.p2?lang=eng&letter=s)
“…faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe…”
See [D&C 63:7-11](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/63.7-11?lang=eng#6)
It’s a conditional approach to the scriptures and the Lord’s commandments when it is he who holds all the cards. If there is any party that needs to show a “sign” it is us and not him.
There was another point I wanted to make here but I forgot what it was so this is a placeholder until it comes to me.
Ok so I’m going to take 5 from my soap box and quote another type of conditional approach used in The Simpsons: Season 6, Episode 8
Lisa on Ice (13 Nov. 1994) that makes me grin.
See [Link] (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0778450/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt)
Scene 1
Lisa: Bart, just get out of here.
Bart Simpson: Hey, you get out out. It’s a free country.
Lisa: That doesn’t make any sense.
Bart Simpson: I know you are, but what am I?
Lisa: Get out, get out!
Bart Simpson: All right. But on my way, I’m going to be doing this…
[windmills his arms]
Bart Simpson: If you get hit, it’s your own fault.
Lisa: Okay, then I’m going to start kicking air, like this…
[kicks up her foot]
Lisa: And if any part of you should fill that air…
[kicks up her other foot]
Lisa: It’s *your* own fault.
[They shut their eyes and move toward each other, grunting as they flail or kick. Aaah-Aaah-Aaah-Aaah-Aaah]
Scene 2
[Cut to downstairs in the kitchen, where Marge and Homer are. Lisa and Bart can be heard grunting which soon turn to yells of pain, and sounds of fighting]
[Marge hears Bart and Lisa fighting upstairs]
Marge Simpson: Mmmm, I’d better go check on them. Now, Homer, don’t you eat this pie.
Homer: Okaaaay…
[Marge exits]
Homer: All right, pie. I’m going to start doing this…
[makes chomping motion Ahghm-ahghm-ahghm-ahghm]
Homer: -and if you get eaten, it’s your own fault.
[He shuts his eyes, and moves toward the pie, making chomping motions, but hits his head on the stove hood]
Homer: OW! AH! Oh, my… oh, to hell with it.
[eats pie, Ahghm-ahghm-ahghm]
In searching for answers to help you and me (esp. since sometimes my responses bristle, somewhat thickly, with sarcasm), I came across [Alma 7:23-27](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/alma/7.23-27?lang=eng). Here Alma instructs the members of the church in his day and teaches how we should be…
“23 And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.
24 And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.
25 And may the Lord bless you, and keep your garments spotless, that ye may at last be brought to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the holy prophets who have been ever since the world began, having your garments spotless even as their garments are spotless, in the kingdom of heaven to go no more out.
26 And now my beloved brethren, I have spoken these words unto you according to the Spirit which testifieth in me; and my soul doth exceedingly rejoice, because of the exceeding diligence and heed which ye have given unto my word.
27 And now, may the peace of God rest upon you, and upon your houses and lands, and upon your flocks and herds, and all that you possess, your women and your children, according to your faith and good works, from this time forth and forever. And thus I have spoken. Amen.”
And using this posture of questioning the servants of the Lord sets you on a path to contend with people, especially people who really are servants of the Lord. Consider Zacharias in [Luke 1:18-20](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/luke/1.18-20)
There is probably a better way to say this, but I’ll just try to get this out. I think giving people’s beliefs the benefit of the doubt is a better starting point than regarding their beliefs with extreme prejudice. The latter is a distrustful and hostile mindset that is taken in the same vein as “guilty before proven innocent”, while the former gives place for kinship and reciprocity (nourishing fairness and equality rather than breeding doubt, skepticism, fear and mistrust – we want to foster faith in a mutual engagement).
Science is full of research that is peer reviewed and yet phony research makes it to publication and theories get tossed out all the time, even long standing ones. I read somewhere that science is all about bucking common practice, whereas education is about establishing it. Under which banner do you think religion falls? Science or Education? Think about that before you say I’ve created a false dichotomy(which maybe I have) or that I am trying to pigeonhole the discussion. This is a topic that merits a longer conversation, but for now I will leave it. By brandishing the standard of “scrutiny” you’re not on a quest to find truth, your finding reasons to doubt whatever you find and there’s a difference.
As to Joseph Smith’s wives, I already told you, that yes, there are things I can’t answer about polygamy and a few other surprises you find in recorded accounts, but to speculate about what was in his heart, to assume we have all the relevant details, to assert that from our present vantage point we could see the facts in context and convict him on the information that’s available seems very presumptuous and unfair. Perhaps I am wrong but if trials are as idyllic as I would like to believe they are, they must be served without bias and neither you nor I could serve on such a trial. I know you talk about lying to his wife and we are quick to assume that in every circumstance “a prophet doesn’t lie or doesn’t withhold information” and I’ll confess this one’s a head scratcher for me, to be sure. What occurs to me is Peter actually denied knowing Christ 3 times, and he too was a prophet, but that really doesn’t tell me anything other than, ok here are 2 examples of what might look like some form “untruth”, which it may or may not be or be justified or be forgivable. But all I can tell for certain is that I have an incredible lack of context and I have too little information. You don’t know everything that the Lord told Joseph and neither do I. You can cast aspersions but the honest truth is what happened in the lives of Joseph Smith and his Wives 180-190 years ago…
a.) …cannot be fairly tried in the court of public opinion.
b.) …guilty or not we are charged to forgive all men that we may obtain forgiveness.
c.) …the outcome of Joseph Smith’s standing before the judgement bar of God is not relevant to my salvation especially if I have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
What he did there will be revealed when it needs to be. I know that you leap frog from this to Adam God theory, but, c’mon, if we receive revelation line upon line and prophets can make mistakes, I think there is room for a bit of latitude to accommodate the import of that reality. I’m sure from here you might go to the next slop in the gears and say how is a prophet better than any common man, to which I would reply, well in the eyes of god no one is better, but there is only one Prophet, seer and revelator to whom all the keys are given and the Lord has promised to speak through him. Returning to polygamy, I’m sure I’ve said it before, but my curiosity remains as to how you rectify the visions that some of these women witnessed? In any case, all I can say with confidence about polygamy is that it is a sealed book for now, as far as us learning more about it. I’ve often wondered about how marriage works in the celestial kingdom and I suspect it’s not what we think it is.
[continued in part 2 on next comment]
[This comment was lost on transfer to the new comment system. I have broken it into 2 parts and reposted. Here is Part 1]
Spencer,
There are a number of problems with your response:
We seem to agree that the church maintains that the members should be perfect. You cite several references attesting to this. Then, in describing how the members become perfect you state the following:
“Putting my personal thoughts aside, the Church has actually stated that “being perfected” is accomplished by the three fold mission of the church, which is now a four fold mission shown below…
1. to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people;
2. to perfect the Saints by preparing them to receive the ordinances of the gospel and by instruction and discipline to gain exaltation;
3. to redeem the dead by performing vicarious ordinances of the gospel for those who have lived on the earth.
4. to care for the poor and needy, to impart “to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants.””
This is incorrect recursive logic. Point #2 in the list of the mission of the church is to “perfect the saints.” You are saying that you perfect the saints by perfecting the saints. The rest of the sentence in point #2 above supports my argument that the church expects the members individually to be perfect before they can qualify for the redeeming grace of God (i.e. they have to have the discipline to gain exaltation).
The whatever-fold mission of the church is an organizational corporate mission statement – not a doctrinal exposition on how each individual gains God’s approbation. That you invoke it when discussing personal atonement for sin is a very weird thing indeed.
The fact that the church leaders left out caring for the poor and the needy when they first established the threefold mission of the church should tell you a bit about what the leaders have their eyes set on. The poor and the needy were just as poor and needy when the mission was first announced. Adding that on later as a fourth mission is a bit johnny come lately IMO.
Next, in discussing why I bring up other religions you go off on a tangent about Dad’s death stating:
“Remember when Dad and all our family members died? Wasn’t it devastating? Why would it cause us grief if we know the plan of salvation? I won’t attempt to answer that other than to say we DO feel grief for the loss of loved ones. That grief never leaves us even if we are in the true church. But because we have the comforter we don’t despair, we don’t lose hope and we have the opportunity among many sources that we can look to for reassurance, be it knowledge, companionship, spiritual healing or whatever we stand in need of. The details about how that sets us apart from other religions is not spoken, it is only experienced.”
You make biased and false assumptions in the statement. You claim that the comforter allows mormons facing grief to not despair or lose hope and to find assurance and assert that this sets mormon’s apart from other religions. That is very close minded thinking. People of other christian and non-christian faiths are able to find hope and assurance when faced with grief. It is not exclusive to Mormons. Your statement reveals a real need to look at how other faiths work in people’s lives rather than closing your mind to them and pleading ignorance.
Returning to the point, you then make the following statement:
“First I don’t like pitting my beliefs against other religions. It sets me at variance with the people in those religions whom I regard as my brothers and sisters. I would rather let the truth stand on it’s own terms and allow people to recognize it as added strength and not a boulder that crushes their beliefs.”
When I bring up JW and scientologists, etc. – I am not doing a comparative theological analysis. I am just using the fact that as claiming to be “the one true church” Mormons accept as given the idea that all other churches are corrupt. You may not like to think of it that way personally – but that is the bold pronouncement that Joseph Smith made when ushering forth this dispensation in mormon theology. Since mormons can assume that those faiths are corrupt, then they can look at why and how members of those faiths stay in them, when their founders and leaders can be assumed to be either deceivers or dupes themselves.
In the specific examples I used in this thread, I am stating that if members of these other faiths, which mormons know to be false, used the same logic when analyzing their own doctrine, history and leaders as you and other mormons use when looking at Mormon doctrine, history and leaders – then the members of these other faiths would never discover the error of their ways. This should point out to you and other members how bias can affect your own assessment of mormonism as a mormon. If your real goal was truth, rather than maintaining belief in a religion, then you would allow yourself to acknowledge that things which you would recoil from in other faiths, should also make you recoil in your own.
For example – David Koresh came up with theological justifications for inappropriate sexual relations with multiple women and children in his congregation. The branch davidians thought he was a holy man and that their religion was true, so they allowed it. As a mormon, you know that religion is false and that by extension Koresh was a deciever – so you can view that theological justification Koresh provided as a manipulation by a religious fraud to gratify his own lust and power.
If you study the history of Joseph Smith around the doctrine of polygamy, you can see that Smith also put forth a theological justification for sexual relations with multiple women and children (i consider 14 year old girls children). I bring up Koresh because I want you to see how your bias allows you to believe that your own favored religious leader is justified in something that you could not excuse in a leader in another faith. Joseph’s justification was different from Koresh’s – but that should not excuse the behavior. Koresh’s followers believed he was justified, just as you believe Joseph Smith was justified. If you can say that you would not accept koreshs actions if you were in his church and he started doing that stuff, then you should also reject Joseph Smith for the same reasons.
“But wait! Joseph Smith also gave all these beautiful new doctrines and was a powerful leader and brought forth new scripture and gave revelations with the first person voice of god and created a thriving city, etc. – all these things show that he was special! They show that his theological justification for sexual relations with other women and children was the correct one!” The followers of every other false religious leader who used doctrine to justify their heinous actions also defend their leaders because of the numerous other things they did, produced or said which showed that they had the authority to make those doctrinal claims. That is the very reason that the followers excuse it. It is the justification for their bias. Mormons are not special in this way.
Next you make a point about the dangers of being too hasty in my judgments and critical assessment of the church. You state:
” If, due to incompetence, you conduct a poor examination of the Church or administer an ineffective analysis due to insufficient data or bad data or simply misinterpret your findings for any number of reasons or you reached your conclusions before considering something you should have, you will throw away something that is perfectly good.”
I think this is a very good point. Please do not think that I have come to my position lightly or without giving the church and it’s leaders every benefit of the doubt that a reasonable person who is seeking for truth may allow. I agree that biases work in both directions. The recent retraction I made regarding the search engine at LDS.org is one example. I felt comfortable making the conclusions I first made when I thought that the search engine specifically excluded results for the journal of discourses. As soon as more data became available which provided a more reasonable explanation, I immediately made a retraction and change. I honestly critically assess everything that I write here on the blog. If I find more data which refutes something that I previously wrote, I will change my thoughts and writing. I have been blinded by bias before and even let it hold my mind onto something that reason and conscience dictates is wrong while I was a member of the church and suspending disbelief about Joseph Smith. I don’t want to fall into that error again. I encourage you to honestly assess your own bias.
One reason I was comfortable making that conclusion is that the attitude of the church towards truth is consistent with the notion of filtering a search engine. That was the whole point of Packers talk about the mantle being far greater than the intellect (https://byustudies.byu.edu/showtitle.aspx?title=5472). The point of the talk was that the church should not provide full and equal access to troubling things in it’s history. You have said before that you loved this talk. Read it again and imagine that it was a leader of Scientology speaking about scientologist historians and scholars publishing about L Ron Hubbard – how would you feel about these men who were engaging in deceptive practices to keep their members trapped in a religion that Mormon’s know is false? If it is wrong and deceptive for scientologists to do -then it should be wrong for Mormon’s to do. You don’t have to pit mormon theology against scientology theology to make this conclusion. The fact that it comes from an Apostle should be extremely alarming to any honest mormon reading that talk. I am astonished that you like it.
You next go on to talk about receiving a sign from God and quote several scriptures which seem to make the point that people who don’t believe are not going to see the signs that prove the truthfulness of the church. you include the following quote:
““…faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe…”
See [D&C 63:7-11]”
This is essentially restating the concept of confirmation bias. People will interpret evidence to confirm things which they already believe – independent of whether it is factual or actually logically proves their belief. I should go further to say that I am not looking for signs that the church is true to come to me. I am not seeking confirmation bias – I am seeking truth. You find truth by filtering out error. Once the error I had to filter included any notion that Joseph Smith was a real prophet of God – then the entire edifice that he built is filtered out as well. There are good things and good people that are a part of the church – those exist independent of the truth claims of the Gospel or the professed authority of it’s leaders. I still hold on to those things.
Next you describe a humerous set of scenes from the simpsons – I remember seeing it – funny! One day soon I am gonna introduce my kids to the simpsons and we are going to go on a binge spree of watching them.
Next, you quote a scripture which in summary tells people to be good, humble and not contend with one another. Okay. Let’s be clear. If I call you a poopyhead or engage in other ad hominem attack, then you could accuse me of falling into a contentious spirit. If I make reasoned and legitimate arguments based on valid assertions, which may happen to contradict your position – that is not contention. That is discussion and dialogue. Isaiah 1:18 includes the invitation “Come, let us reason together” This is the level of discussion which I engage in.
That discussion may get passionate and assertive. Scientologists who awaken to the false nature of their religion and passionately confront their leaders about it will, of necessity, be contentious from the perspective of the leaders. This is part of the awakened members path out of error so that they can pursue truth. Would you deny them that opportunity by condemning their “contentious spirit”?
The whole ix-nay on the ontention-cay concept in the mormon church is just a way to suppress dissent and keep everyone falling inline with the edicts of the leadership. Even when they make dramatic and glaring obvious mistakes and changes, such as the reversal on the priesthood ban on blacks, they villify people who struggle with such changing parts of “god’s law” Just read McConkies talk on people getting in line with the change in the priesthood:
“We have seen what the words say and have said to ourselves, “Yes, it says that, but we must read out of it the taking of the gospel and the blessings of the temple to the Negro people, because they are denied certain things.” There are statements in our literature by the early Brethren which we have interpreted to mean that the Negroes would not receive the priesthood in mortality. I have said the same things, and people write me letters and say, “You said such and such, and how is it now that we do such and such?” **And all I can say to that is that it is time disbelieving people repented and got in line and believed in a living, modern prophet.** Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.” (http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1570)
Here you have people who were following the teachings of the prophet before and then the prophet changes and does a 180 – and now they are mad at the people for not simply blindly following a complete reversal of God’s law. If they raise questions then they are being contentious or disbelieving. By condemning questioning or contention – they are simply maintaining a stranglehold on members to preserve their authority and power.
Truth does not fear contention. Contention is what proves truth to be what it is, because it survives all of the attacks against it. Truth is established when attempts to find fault fail. That is the scientific method. You don’t prove something is true by making a positive observation – you run multiple tests to try to prove it false – and they fail. The truth of something is established by repeated unsuccessful attempts to disprove it. (see this excellent video about this concept: http://youtu.be/SoCqftOYHX4?t=1m4s)
I know in the past you have refused to watch any videos I include. That is intellectually dishonest. Somethings are more concisely shown in video and truth and reason can be conveyed in all media formats. If I was linking to some video which supported the claims of the church, such as a general conference video, then you would certainly have no objection to watch it.
Next you talk a bit about belief saying “I think giving people’s beliefs the benefit of the doubt is a better starting point than regarding their beliefs with extreme prejudice.” This statement means that you start from a position of belief rather than a position of skepticism. That is not a way to establish truth, but goes a long way towards perpetuating error. Even if you accept this platitude – Mormons starting from a ‘benefit of the doubt’ about their own beliefs, automatically have a position of extreme prejudice against the beliefs of other faiths because Joseph Smith started Mormonism with the justification, as stated from God, that all other churches were false, their professors were corrupt and their creeds were an abomination. That is as extreme a prejudice that you could hold. Do you deny this position today? would you refute the words that Christ spoke to Joseph? Have all the other churches become more godly now than they were in the 1800′s and so now they aren’t all corrupt? Your statement is a plea for myself and other critics to go easy on mormonism, while mormonism takes an extremely prejudicial stance towards every other faith. Even if they have softened or refrained from that rhetoric over the recent years – it is utter hypocrisy.
You bring up some good points about science when you state that “Science is full of research that is peer reviewed and yet phony research makes it to publication and theories get tossed out all the time, even long standing ones.” Science makes the best conclusions it can based on observed data – and that data has to be reproducible. Science is not a static body of knowledge – it is a process of discovering truth. If new data is found which overturns the old – then it is tested and retested to confirm it’s validity. New confirmed discoveries will contradict old scientific authority no matter how esteemed or revered the prior conclusions. Contrast this with the authority of mormonism where one risks apostasy by contradicting church leaders. Re-read the account of Lowry Nelson to remind yourself of how this plays out. (http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/dr-lowry-nelson-on-racism/). As I stated above, truth is established and maintained by what remains after challenging and testing it’s validity. Mormonism holds that you must believe their truth despite evidence to the contrary.
You then state: “I read somewhere that science is all about bucking common practice, whereas education is about establishing it. Under which banner do you think religion falls?” you correctly identify this as a false dichotomy. It does nothing to advance the conversation. You go on to say “By brandishing the standard of “scrutiny” you’re not on a quest to find truth, your finding reasons to doubt whatever you find and there’s a difference.” I refer you to my above description of how truth is only established and maintained by standing up to scrutiny. To deny this is to set yourself up to be deceived. It is how the JWs,moonies, scientologists, branch davidians and heavens gate members were deceived. Why are mormons any different? because they have the real truth? each of those other faiths felt the same way. The impossible Gospel I described in the OP should at least be one crack in the veneer of this claim of truth that can make you give the whole thing a second look to test the possibility that it is a grand deception. You have to legitimately consider the possibility though and allow observations that point to that conclusion stand. You don’t have to accept just one or two points of evidence, but if the shelf of observations becomes heavier and heavier – you must honestly consider the conclusion. If it is really true – then it should hold up to that scrutiny.
[Continued in Part 2]
[This is part 2, continued from Part 1]
You then take some time to address polygamy and conclude by stating:
“You can cast aspersions but the honest truth is what happened in the lives of Joseph Smith and his Wives 180-190 years ago…
a.) …cannot be fairly tried in the court of public opinion.
b.) …guilty or not we are charged to forgive all men that we may obtain forgiveness.
c.) …the outcome of Joseph Smith’s standing before the judgement bar of God is not relevant to my salvation especially if I have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.”
Essentially you are saying that since we don’t have all the data, we can’t make any judgements. If this is true about critical or troublesome things in the prophets life – why is it not also true about the good things? Should we withold judgement on his doctrine of a restored higher priesthood because we don’t have all the data? your defense is simply an appeal to maintain your bias. The scriptures themselves are simply partial accounts of the lives of men of ancient times – should we also not act on any conclusions, good or bad, that we read from those accounts? We don’t have the whole story on korihor. recordkeeping was notoriously bad back in his day. why do mormon’s condemn him without the full story? Our account of Job and Noah is sketchy at best – perhaps they were really villians who just had the good parts recorded in history. we should hold off drawing any conclusions from their stories.
I forgive Joseph, not a problem. That doesn’t mean I have to subscribe to false traditions that he started. It also doesn’t mean that I won’t point out the things in the historical record which reveal his false nature so that others can escape or avoid that deception. Just as a person discovering a financial fraud may forgive the perpetrator, but continue to warn others of the crime.
The outcome of Joseph Smith is absolutely relevant to your salvation as a Christian. Christ himself said that there would be false Christs, false prophets and false Gospels. This means that there will be people following those false traditions. each person in those false traditions has an imperative to study the nature of the leaders, doctrine and history of their tradition, because if they discover it to be false, then they must remove themselves from it in order to pursue truth. The only reason Christ would give this warning is because it would be relevant to the salvation of those people. Believe me – from a Christian perspective – if Joseph Smith was a false prophet, it is absolutely essential and relevant to your salvation to discover that fact and act on it!
One point you make is this: “I’m sure I’ve said it before, but my curiosity remains as to how you rectify the visions that some of these women witnessed?” I can answer this with a separate question – how do you rectify the visions that Buddhists, hindi or muslim people have about their deity? how to you rectify the visions that people claiming to have been abducted by aliens have? If any of these groups could have been deceived by their own senses, confused dreams or hallucinations or the manifestations of strong psychological pressures with real visions – then mormons could have done the same.
You then go on to bear testimony of the Book of Mormon and cite russell nelsons list of remarkable things about the book of mormon. every one of the things on Nelsons list has been addressed by some other christian tradition at some point in time. most have come to different conclusions. Nelson is just committing the logical fallacy of presupposing that his tradition is the right one and all the others were lost in darkness and confusion. When you look at the contradictory things in the Impossible Gospel presentation as well as changing doctrine about the trinity in the Book of Mormon, lectures on faith and changing revelations, theology, etc. in the history of mormonism – it has no more integrity as a faith than any other man made institution.
You finally do answer a question that I have posed multiple times:
“You can know the church is true by working through it with a desire to believe and when you come to a point that you have an opinion, then you pray about it. I know you often pose to me that other religions use that exact same test and how do I explain that. I would say that you or they have just as much ability to find yourselves access to Heavenly Father as I do. Some people apply themselves better than others, but I can only speculate about their experiences and that isn’t a very productive exercise. I can offer my own experience, testimony and teach by example, that’s about all I can do. The rest is up to them or you and they guy upstairs.”
This is an excellent illustration of the “no true scotsman” fallacy. If anyone doesn’t get the same prompting that the mainstream LDS church is true, then they just didn’t apply themselves good enough. You’re answer evades the conclusion that the experience taught to mormons as feeling the spirit to testify of truth is **not reliable** by just shrugging your shoulders and admitting that it is reliable for you to confirm the truth of things that you already believe or want to believe is true. Confirmation bias again reveals itself.
You then give an impassioned defense of the good things that you see in the Book of Mormon. I understand that you find inspirational messages in the Book of Mormon. I read Les Miserables after seeing the movie last year. I found very inspirational messages in that book as well. The book did not demand that I then subject myself to the asserted authority of particular men who demand my time, devotion, money and family. The Book of Mormon contains an encapsulated view of protestant christianity from the 1800′s with some very unique liberties added in. That’s fine. Does it automatically follow that I should be required to subscribe to the church as well? Les Miserables has as much truth as a fairy tale, but I find its message inspirational. I don’t fault you for finding good meaning in the Book of Mormon. I disagree with the idea of it’s historical factuality. I believe it’s gospel sets up a pious and unachievable contradiction of demanding perfection as a pre-requisite for grace. That is enough for me to discard it. All of the good in the book does not overcome that glaring problem. As I have pointed out before (see the parable of the counterfeit coin) – a counterfeit will have many good things in it which make the bad less easy to spot. Once you identify the issue which proves the counterfeit, then noe of the good stuff matters and should actually be viewed with suspicion because it makes it easier for others to fall into the deception.
You next defend Joseph Smith being listed as the Author on the first edition of the Book of Mormon. I don’t think that this little bit of trivia proves or disproves anything. any of your explanations may account for it. I think the fact that he later tried to sell the copyright, which would give complete control of the text to another party, is much more revealing…
Your discussion of polygamy is handled with the deftness of an attorney looking for a way to justify his clients violation of the law by looking for technicality and vagaries of language. This is common in the course of mormon apologetics. Joseph Smith himself did this in justifying the destruction of the expositor (see the first update at the end of this article: http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/lds-tithing-in-a-word/). Try using this same tactic on your bishop to show that you technically did not violate the word of wisdom by having a beer last weekend – since mild barley drinks (beer) are allowed according to the scripture. He won’t buy it. You see, mormons only allow manipulating the scriptures or the law when it reflects favorably on the church or it’s leaders.
You evade the Godhead question. I encourage you to read/listen to this presentation which documents the changing view of the God head as reflected in Joseph’s Writings and revisions made in the Book of Mormon:http://mormonthink.com/grant12.htm
After you review that material I would really enjoy having a discussion about it. I think it is very important. In the King Follet Discourse Joseph Said that knowing the character and nature of God was the most important thing one could do. That mean’s mormons should find this very important.
I agree with your defense about the translation method. There is nothing which states that the head in the hat is the only way translation ever occurs. To me it is much more interesting to look at just how reliable translation is. that is where the “twice translated scripture” is very interesting. you never commented on that article or told me what you thought of it. http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/twice-translated-scripture/
Reading or not reading FAIR doesn’t really change anything. They are not an official arm of the church. Rather than having prophets actually provide explanation and revelation, they sit back and allow armchair apologists defend things for them, that way they never have to retract anything and if they want to change course then they can just throw the apologists under the bus and new ones will pop up to defend their new position. This happened with the black and the priesthood issue. It is disingenuous to expect mom to read explanations from apologists who have never been general authorities to dismiss concerns raised from statements of prior general authorities, if that is what the article you sent was doing.
You go on to state: “I don’t feel that challenging every decision made in the church is very helpful and it is a dangerous habit to form.” This pre-supposes that the church is true. If the church was in fact based on deception and fraud, then investigating and pointing it out would actually be a very important and helpful thing to do. You call it ‘tiresome’ for me to find and write about these things. I have had other people share with me their gratitude for making them aware of things that started them on their own journey for truth. It is a matter of perspective. Believing scientologists likely tire of former members always pointing out problems iwth L Ron Hubbard or their current leadership.
You then ask: “Do you believe you have a better system? I haven’t seen it.” Please read my article on the “Sweet Ride” (http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/a-sweet-ride/)
In defending the church s a bastion of moral truth you quote Neal A Maxwell:
“As prophesied, ethical relativism is now in steep crescendo: ‘Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world” (D&C 1:16).’”
Every false religion that ever popped up has always warned of people going after other religions or after their own notions of God. They have to do this in order to keep people attention focused on themselves as the true source of absolute truth. The changing moral laws of mormonism regarding monogamy/polygamy racism, gay and lesbian issues, women’s rights, not to mention the previously discussed doctrinal changes of Adam-God, blood atonement and changing temple endowment ceremonies show that the church itself walketh in its own way. I don’t subscribe to moral relativism. I think that there are things which are always wrong. There are things which the church says are wrong which. just. aren’t. I will never condemn someone for drinking coffee or tea. I may drink it myself sometimes. Does that make me a moral relativist?
It is the church which asks people to overlook and justify things which are otherwise considered to be wrong, except when church leaders command it. Read the letter that Joseph Smith wrote to Nancy Rigdon, the daughter of Sidney Rigdon, when she rebuffed his proposal of polygamy:
“That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be and often is, right under another. God said thou shalt not kill,—at another time he said thou shalt utterly destroy. This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted–by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.” http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=9569
This notion that the prophet can say God told him it was okay to violate something that is otherwise considered sin is the bastion call of the duplicitous and abusive theological charlatan. That is real moral relativism.
You gave an explanation of the parable of the workers in the vineyard which completely avoided the most astonishing aspect of the story – that the workers who arrived at the last hour received just the same as those who worked all day. the point of the parable is that it is the act of accepting the hire – accepting Christ which grants Christians the grace of Christ and the blessing of his atonement – not the work that they do afterwards. This flies in the face of the logic of men, which say that work precedes accomplishment, which you used to justify the “after all you can do” aspect of LDS theology. That is why I asked you about the parable.
Your defense of Elder Tanner ignored the central point. He and other of God’s messengers did’t say “oh we are waiting for an answer on that issue” they said, with the full weight of their priesthood authority, this is God’s law and doctrine. You really need to read the Lowry Nelson letters exchanged with the Prophet as well as the numerous quotes from general authorities (http://mormonbookshelf.com/wiki/Quotes_on_Race) you would stop making such flagrantly misinformed defenses.
I didn’t say you were claiming Joseph was a fallen prophet, I made a statement preceded with an “if” which you conveniently left out of your quote of me. You were positing a plausible scenario where Joseph Smith messed up and botched the celestial marriage and polygamy doctrine. Since other prophets have been messed up and still considered to be trustworthy men of God, then we should extend this same benefit of the doubt to Joseph. The problem with this argument is that the church does not allow or maintain in any way shape or form the idea that Joseph messed up in polygamy.
I understand your point of the undistributed middle. I agree that the fact that other religions make high demands of their members does not prove anything true or false about mormonism. My point was just that expecting church members to have high moral standards and ultra-piety is not a standard which determines the value or truthfulness of the religion.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my posts. I don’t usually pepper my posts with effusive proclaimations of my love for you as a brother because, I don’t want to make an emotional appeal. My statements should stand on their own regardless of my disposition towards you. I recognize that this may make my responses feel somewhat sterile and harsh. for that I am sorry. I am really very thankfull that you care enough to continue this dialogue. The whole reason I continue to write and think about these issues is because of my love for you and the rest of our family.
-Love Jon.
[This is Part 2 of Spencer’s reposted comment]
You said:
“If you can’t comprehend that this is [the case], then this whole line of reasoning is lost to you.”
[The case] being…
“…you have to apply the same standard of seeking truth to your own faith that you would expect people of other faiths to apply to their religion…”
First, it is not helpful to rail against what I can comprehend. I don’t think I’ve demonstrated any great inability to fathom ideas or put my own thoughts into words.
Second, I am not setting the stage for 2 standards of truth, I am simply unwilling to sustain rash accusations that vilify the leaders of the church without first giving them an equal opportunity to apply themselves to the accusations being made. I do not deny that researching history always produces questions, and I’ve no doubt that the way things came about are not always as rose-colored as we would like to believe. I don’t need to go to history to discover this because the same is true in my own life. Thankfully, there are such things as forgiveness, the atonement and paying your debt to society. I am also aware of how people can misjudge, and there are harsh lessons you learn from going too far with what you think you understand. I’m sure there are people out there who have come to regret being one of the unwitting participants to a mob.
I don’t know JS personally and that is the end of my ability to criticize or exonerate him. I can’t do anything about what he did. What would you have me do? On the one hand I have an incomplete rendering of the history of the church that I don’t really know what to make of and on the other I have my own impressions from reading the Book of Mormon. Those impressions are more real to me than something I couldn’t or wouldn’t rate any better than half-truths and gossip. I have a real growing testimony from personal experience of the truth of the Book of Mormon. I am still learning and the people in the Book of Mormon don’t read like any fiction I’ve ever read. There is simply too much that touches what I would consider is my spirit, too many of my questions are answered, too much detail, too much understanding, too much witness of who I want to become esp. from examples described in the BoM and too much continuity in the Book of Mormon for me to see it as a work of fiction.
Elder Russell M. Nelson makes an impressive list from the Ensign July 1993 entitled [A Treasured Testament](https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng) that shouldn’t be missed, I’ve provided an edited and tailored list of a few of them here…
“It refutes the ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) idea of creation.
It refutes the false but pervasive notion of original sin.
It refutes the fable of faith without works.
It refutes the practice of infant baptism.
It refutes the arbitrary restriction that revelation from God ended with the Bible.
It affirms the sublime status of man’s moral agency and sets forth stern standards of accountability and responsibility for our choices.
It affirms the reality and inevitability of our impending judgment, which will be done with a perfect blending of the justice and mercy of God. (See Alma 12:15.)
It deepens our understanding of the Master’s statement once made near Galilee’s shore: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48.)
It affirms the reality of premortal life.
It reveals the state of the soul between death and resurrection.
It reveals the important interrelationships between the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement.
One cannot fully comprehend (3) the Atonement without first understanding (2) the Fall; and the fall of Adam cannot be fully understood without first understanding (1) the Creation. These three great doctrinal pillars sustain each other in God’s eternal plan.”
You can know the church is true by working through it with a desire to believe and when you come to a point that you have an opinion, then you pray about it. I know you often pose to me that other religions use that exact same test and how do I explain that. I would say that you or they have just as much ability to find yourselves access to Heavenly Father as I do. Some people apply themselves better than others, but I can only speculate about their experiences and that isn’t a very productive exercise. I can offer my own experience, testimony and teach by example, that’s about all I can do. The rest is up to them or you and they guy upstairs. (Ok now I’m thinking of a Studio C skit I saw the other day [Studio C – Message From Above] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofW4-xePKVA)).
You Said:
“The fact that you found scriptural understanding in the Book of Mormon does not demonstrate it to be true.”
What a pessimistic sentiment, especially since I do not understand how any statement that you’ve quoted in the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible to any spectacular degree. The Book of Mormon is a very good book. I’m your brother and we tell each other things that we like or enjoy or that we think are worth examining. It teaches me, no really! I have come to respect it by reading it. It helps me to experience a closer relationship with my Heavenly Father. It is so good to read when you want to find peace and rest from inner turmoil. It has done more to help me a change for the better than any other book I have ever read. The feelings that it gives me as I read it, how it helps in understanding the scriptures, and much more. How can you put something that has such great value as worthless and call it a fairy tale?
You said:
“the fact that the D&C states that the BoM contains the fullness of the gospel, but does not include the Temple ordinances, baptism for the dead, tithing, polygamy (it actually condemns polygamy) and contradictory teaching on the Godhead all point to it being the first brick laid in a foundation of fraud that was ultimately revealed by the very actions of it’s “author” (that is how Joseph was listed in the first edition).”
I’m going to start my answer here with some speculation to the speculation that Joseph Smith listed as author betrays the Book of Mormon as a work of fiction. I’m going to guess that Joseph attributed the title of Author as what he was since if there are many circumstances that could explain this, such as if the owner of a printing press asks, “Who wrote this?” the answer becomes a little ambiguous especially to someone with a poor education and/or with a very singular circumstance. (Maybe the source of the misinformation was not Joseph but someone else. perhaps it was more like “‘Ew ‘Rote ‘dis, eh? …Eh?! Angel ‘ov de Lord!? Sack ‘ov rubbish, that is. I’ll be puttin’ *Joseph Smith* down as author I will, it’s ee’ s what’s payin’ fer it.” Yes, I’m aware that this IS total fiction, but I couldn’t resist.)
I wouldn’t put any stock in who’s name is placed as the “author”, especially since I wonder how many times you can count on one hand that a book that came to light in the same manner that the Book of Mormon did and sought publication. What you have here is a lack of information, a very unique set of circumstances and the need for an explanation.
Touching on polygamy, I’ll pass. I feel like you know the answer here. From my own reading of Jacob 2:27-30, I would not dismiss the import of verse 30. It’s contextually ambiguous which detail the lord determines is an abomination, is it to be applied to “many wives and concubines” or to the many wives and concubines they “had”. Remember “…they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.…” Are you trying to say that many wives and concubines are never sanctioned of the Lord? I think you would quickly find a problem with this. What do you think is the part of the scriptures they did not understand? The key is to listen to the counsel offered in verse 29…
“29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.”
I could say a few things about the Godhead, but I think we’ve been over this ground before. I think there is enough scripture and information to settle this. If you disagree, we can return to this.
You Said:
“This is an absolute contradiction of contemporary descriptions of the translation process as well as the account repeated by Russel M Nelson, a living Apostle.”
You are referring to an article in the Ensign July 1993 entitled [A Treasured Testament](https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng) I assume. I think you’re correct in stating that what really happened is more relevant than what didn’t happen. I don’t think you can go so far as to say that it is “contradictory”. The reason you can’t is that you’re reading about a few example translation experiences. He himself states, “The details of this miraculous method of translation are still not fully known.” The type of pitfalls this reasoning can lead to are Hasty Generalization, Anecdotal Evidence, or False Dilemma.
My “spidey sense” is tingling with some of these later remarks (chuckle). To be fair, I probably deserved a few zingers…some of the ways I start my responses I probably could have handled a little bit better. I regretted how I started this posting originally, but there was no “edit” once I sent it so I apologize, it was a little more impromptu than I usually do. When I feel pushed or hurried, I sometimes let some sarcasm slip into my deliberations. I’ll try to work on that.
In response to your FAIR remark, no, I haven’t been reading FAIR, at least not since the CES letter you sent me sometime ago, though I did send Mom a link to an article a couple of days ago that was hosted there. Does that change anything? You weren’t specific about the relevance of this observance.
I don’t feel that challenging every decision made in the church is very helpful and it is a dangerous habit to form. The leaders are not the “bad guys”. Just as you or I do, they try to work out how to best fulfill their callings. This narrative you continue to push about “red flags” and second guessing what sustained (appointed by the voice of it’s members) and ordained (appointed as having authority from God) leaders do is a little tiresome. Do you believe you have a better system? I haven’t seen it. I wonder how you’ve taken your “Religious Testbench” and been able to verify it’s accuracy. I’m not sure how reducing church to a congregation of one helps you do anything but put ALL the burden on your shoulders. While you’re not exactly flying blind, you’re much more likely to miss something, a detail of which you must be aware. I say this because you mentioned in one of your blog reedit postings, “Everybody has their blind spots…you are not aware of them because they are part of your own psychological character. Like the card stuck to your own forehead in indian poker – you can see everyone else’s bias but your own. I have my own as well.” I would caution you with the words of Neal A. Maxwell who quoted the scriptures, “As prophesied, ethical relativism is now in steep crescendo: ‘Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world” (D&C 1:16).’”
You said:
“What lesson do you think was being taught by Christ in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard?”
Well this is Jesus’s response about the kingdom of heaven applied to Peter’s declaration, “Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?” remembering the other declarations made by the disciples who said “Who then can be saved?” in astonishment to Jesus declaration ” It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” I’m not sure if this is a correct but my best guess is below.
It’s a parable about the kingdom of heaven likened to a vineyard (the world or rather the children of the house Israel in this time of probation here on earth or something else), a steward (Jesus), a goodman of the house (God, the father), and laborers (those called to the work) who all work for the same wage regardless of the hour of their hire.
In the 12th hour, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, [the hire that Peter and the disciples of Jesus will receive is salvation which is the same wage every laborer called in each generation of our time here in the vineyard shall receive; remembering that this wage will not be paid to all, because many are called but few are chosen] (adding to that) ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
You said:
“I provided an example where he (N. E. Tanner) declared something to be God’s Law in one year and it was totally changed a few years later.”
Yes, you did, but if the leadership of the Church had been praying about this and they had not received an answer yet. Answers to prayers can take time. They are applied line upon line and wouldn’t those answers to prayers be done in order? see [D&C 43:1-7](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/43.1-7?lang=eng#0).
Did you listen to his talk? Here *you* need to discern between God’s “Law” and restrictions (real or by virtue of misunderstanding) to the authority to bestow the keys of the priesthood. You will recall that on May 15, 1829, when John the Baptist restored the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, he told them, among other things, that, while the authority he gave them authorized them to baptize, it did not include the authority to bestow the Holy Ghost. At that time, he indicated that another order of the priesthood was necessary for this, and that it would subsequently be given to them by Peter, James, and John.
The restrictions to whom we were “given authority” to bestow the keys of the priesthood did change or were clarified for the Church. Answers take time even for leaders of the Church. (See [D&C 1:24-28](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/1.24-28)). I do understand your skepticism about blacks and the priesthood, but I hope you’ll reconsidered discrediting President Nathan Eldon Tanner.
You said:
“…you are claiming that Joseph was a fallen prophet…”
No, I am not defending Joseph on the church terms here, I was taking the “Devil’s Advocate” approach and pursuing it from a point of view that embraces an unfavorable circumstance, but a possible one closer to your own in the absence of critical missing information. I can defend the church by demonstrating that the version of events to which you ascribe are not as unsurmountable as you believe, particularly because my example demonstrates that you have drawn the lines too rigidly. Under your terms people who are blameless receive no justice by reason of the narrow view you have taken. The fact that I do this with the scriptures that you find more palatable to your current beliefs should be beneficial to making my point. Because this is different than what the church claims, it is also an important demonstration that the “actual explanation” is worth something and that all the speculation that has been manufactured is worth nothing and that is the answer we must have patience to wait for and to give place for.
You said:
“…You need to review what a slippery slope argument is…”
You are right. Boy! I really slaughtered that! My memory of the fallacy classes sometimes betrays me when I am shooting from the hip, let me try again. I think I should have said is it was the fallacy of the undistributed middle.
For example…
All Z are B – i.e. All students carry backpacks.
Y is B – i.e My grandfather carries a backpack.
Therefore Y is Z – i.e. Therefore, my grandfather is a student.
Converted to [Z:other religions such as the Worldwide Church of God] have found a following by [B: requiring their members to conform to all sorts of commandments].
[Y:Mormons] [B:require their members to conform to all sorts of commandments]
Therefore [Y:Mormons] are no different from [Z:other religions such as the Worldwide Church of God]
Do you see the problem now?
Love as always, your brother,
Spencer
[This is Part 2 of Spencer’s reposted comment]
You said:
“If you can’t comprehend that this is [the case], then this whole line of reasoning is lost to you.”
[The case] being…
“…you have to apply the same standard of seeking truth to your own faith that you would expect people of other faiths to apply to their religion…”
First, it is not helpful to rail against what I can comprehend. I don’t think I’ve demonstrated any great inability to fathom ideas or put my own thoughts into words.
Second, I am not setting the stage for 2 standards of truth, I am simply unwilling to sustain rash accusations that vilify the leaders of the church without first giving them an equal opportunity to apply themselves to the accusations being made. I do not deny that researching history always produces questions, and I’ve no doubt that the way things came about are not always as rose-colored as we would like to believe. I don’t need to go to history to discover this because the same is true in my own life. Thankfully, there are such things as forgiveness, the atonement and paying your debt to society. I am also aware of how people can misjudge, and there are harsh lessons you learn from going too far with what you think you understand. I’m sure there are people out there who have come to regret being one of the unwitting participants to a mob.
I don’t know JS personally and that is the end of my ability to criticize or exonerate him. I can’t do anything about what he did. What would you have me do? On the one hand I have an incomplete rendering of the history of the church that I don’t really know what to make of and on the other I have my own impressions from reading the Book of Mormon. Those impressions are more real to me than something I couldn’t or wouldn’t rate any better than half-truths and gossip. I have a real growing testimony from personal experience of the truth of the Book of Mormon. I am still learning and the people in the Book of Mormon don’t read like any fiction I’ve ever read. There is simply too much that touches what I would consider is my spirit, too many of my questions are answered, too much detail, too much understanding, too much witness of who I want to become esp. from examples described in the BoM and too much continuity in the Book of Mormon for me to see it as a work of fiction.
Elder Russell M. Nelson makes an impressive list from the Ensign July 1993 entitled [A Treasured Testament](https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng) that shouldn’t be missed, I’ve provided an edited and tailored list of a few of them here…
“It refutes the ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) idea of creation.
It refutes the false but pervasive notion of original sin.
It refutes the fable of faith without works.
It refutes the practice of infant baptism.
It refutes the arbitrary restriction that revelation from God ended with the Bible.
It affirms the sublime status of man’s moral agency and sets forth stern standards of accountability and responsibility for our choices.
It affirms the reality and inevitability of our impending judgment, which will be done with a perfect blending of the justice and mercy of God. (See Alma 12:15.)
It deepens our understanding of the Master’s statement once made near Galilee’s shore: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48.)
It affirms the reality of premortal life.
It reveals the state of the soul between death and resurrection.
It reveals the important interrelationships between the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement.
One cannot fully comprehend (3) the Atonement without first understanding (2) the Fall; and the fall of Adam cannot be fully understood without first understanding (1) the Creation. These three great doctrinal pillars sustain each other in God’s eternal plan.”
You can know the church is true by working through it with a desire to believe and when you come to a point that you have an opinion, then you pray about it. I know you often pose to me that other religions use that exact same test and how do I explain that. I would say that you or they have just as much ability to find yourselves access to Heavenly Father as I do. Some people apply themselves better than others, but I can only speculate about their experiences and that isn’t a very productive exercise. I can offer my own experience, testimony and teach by example, that’s about all I can do. The rest is up to them or you and they guy upstairs. (Ok now I’m thinking of a Studio C skit I saw the other day [Studio C – Message From Above] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofW4-xePKVA)).
You Said:
“The fact that you found scriptural understanding in the Book of Mormon does not demonstrate it to be true.”
What a pessimistic sentiment, especially since I do not understand how any statement that you’ve quoted in the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible to any spectacular degree. The Book of Mormon is a very good book. I’m your brother and we tell each other things that we like or enjoy or that we think are worth examining. It teaches me, no really! I have come to respect it by reading it. It helps me to experience a closer relationship with my Heavenly Father. It is so good to read when you want to find peace and rest from inner turmoil. It has done more to help me a change for the better than any other book I have ever read. The feelings that it gives me as I read it, how it helps in understanding the scriptures, and much more. How can you put something that has such great value as worthless and call it a fairy tale?
You said:
“the fact that the D&C states that the BoM contains the fullness of the gospel, but does not include the Temple ordinances, baptism for the dead, tithing, polygamy (it actually condemns polygamy) and contradictory teaching on the Godhead all point to it being the first brick laid in a foundation of fraud that was ultimately revealed by the very actions of it’s “author” (that is how Joseph was listed in the first edition).”
I’m going to start my answer here with some speculation to the speculation that Joseph Smith listed as author betrays the Book of Mormon as a work of fiction. I’m going to guess that Joseph attributed the title of Author as what he was since if there are many circumstances that could explain this, such as if the owner of a printing press asks, “Who wrote this?” the answer becomes a little ambiguous especially to someone with a poor education and/or with a very singular circumstance. (Maybe the source of the misinformation was not Joseph but someone else. perhaps it was more like “‘Ew ‘Rote ‘dis, eh? …Eh?! Angel ‘ov de Lord!? Sack ‘ov rubbish, that is. I’ll be puttin’ *Joseph Smith* down as author I will, it’s ee’ s what’s payin’ fer it.” Yes, I’m aware that this IS total fiction, but I couldn’t resist.)
I wouldn’t put any stock in who’s name is placed as the “author”, especially since I wonder how many times you can count on one hand that a book that came to light in the same manner that the Book of Mormon did and sought publication. What you have here is a lack of information, a very unique set of circumstances and the need for an explanation.
Touching on polygamy, I’ll pass. I feel like you know the answer here. From my own reading of Jacob 2:27-30, I would not dismiss the import of verse 30. It’s contextually ambiguous which detail the lord determines is an abomination, is it to be applied to “many wives and concubines” or to the many wives and concubines they “had”. Remember “…they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.…” Are you trying to say that many wives and concubines are never sanctioned of the Lord? I think you would quickly find a problem with this. What do you think is the part of the scriptures they did not understand? The key is to listen to the counsel offered in verse 29…
“29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.”
I could say a few things about the Godhead, but I think we’ve been over this ground before. I think there is enough scripture and information to settle this. If you disagree, we can return to this.
You Said:
“This is an absolute contradiction of contemporary descriptions of the translation process as well as the account repeated by Russel M Nelson, a living Apostle.”
You are referring to an article in the Ensign July 1993 entitled [A Treasured Testament](https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng) I assume. I think you’re correct in stating that what really happened is more relevant than what didn’t happen. I don’t think you can go so far as to say that it is “contradictory”. The reason you can’t is that you’re reading about a few example translation experiences. He himself states, “The details of this miraculous method of translation are still not fully known.” The type of pitfalls this reasoning can lead to are Hasty Generalization, Anecdotal Evidence, or False Dilemma.
My “spidey sense” is tingling with some of these later remarks (chuckle). To be fair, I probably deserved a few zingers…some of the ways I start my responses I probably could have handled a little bit better. I regretted how I started this posting originally, but there was no “edit” once I sent it so I apologize, it was a little more impromptu than I usually do. When I feel pushed or hurried, I sometimes let some sarcasm slip into my deliberations. I’ll try to work on that.
In response to your FAIR remark, no, I haven’t been reading FAIR, at least not since the CES letter you sent me sometime ago, though I did send Mom a link to an article a couple of days ago that was hosted there. Does that change anything? You weren’t specific about the relevance of this observance.
I don’t feel that challenging every decision made in the church is very helpful and it is a dangerous habit to form. The leaders are not the “bad guys”. Just as you or I do, they try to work out how to best fulfill their callings. This narrative you continue to push about “red flags” and second guessing what sustained (appointed by the voice of it’s members) and ordained (appointed as having authority from God) leaders do is a little tiresome. Do you believe you have a better system? I haven’t seen it. I wonder how you’ve taken your “Religious Testbench” and been able to verify it’s accuracy. I’m not sure how reducing church to a congregation of one helps you do anything but put ALL the burden on your shoulders. While you’re not exactly flying blind, you’re much more likely to miss something, a detail of which you must be aware. I say this because you mentioned in one of your blog reedit postings, “Everybody has their blind spots…you are not aware of them because they are part of your own psychological character. Like the card stuck to your own forehead in indian poker – you can see everyone else’s bias but your own. I have my own as well.” I would caution you with the words of Neal A. Maxwell who quoted the scriptures, “As prophesied, ethical relativism is now in steep crescendo: ‘Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world” (D&C 1:16).’”
You said:
“What lesson do you think was being taught by Christ in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard?”
Well this is Jesus’s response about the kingdom of heaven applied to Peter’s declaration, “Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?” remembering the other declarations made by the disciples who said “Who then can be saved?” in astonishment to Jesus declaration ” It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” I’m not sure if this is a correct but my best guess is below.
It’s a parable about the kingdom of heaven likened to a vineyard (the world or rather the children of the house Israel in this time of probation here on earth or something else), a steward (Jesus), a goodman of the house (God, the father), and laborers (those called to the work) who all work for the same wage regardless of the hour of their hire.
In the 12th hour, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, [the hire that Peter and the disciples of Jesus will receive is salvation which is the same wage every laborer called in each generation of our time here in the vineyard shall receive; remembering that this wage will not be paid to all, because many are called but few are chosen] (adding to that) ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
You said:
“I provided an example where he (N. E. Tanner) declared something to be God’s Law in one year and it was totally changed a few years later.”
Yes, you did, but if the leadership of the Church had been praying about this and they had not received an answer yet. Answers to prayers can take time. They are applied line upon line and wouldn’t those answers to prayers be done in order? see [D&C 43:1-7](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/43.1-7?lang=eng#0).
Did you listen to his talk? Here *you* need to discern between God’s “Law” and restrictions (real or by virtue of misunderstanding) to the authority to bestow the keys of the priesthood. You will recall that on May 15, 1829, when John the Baptist restored the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, he told them, among other things, that, while the authority he gave them authorized them to baptize, it did not include the authority to bestow the Holy Ghost. At that time, he indicated that another order of the priesthood was necessary for this, and that it would subsequently be given to them by Peter, James, and John.
The restrictions to whom we were “given authority” to bestow the keys of the priesthood did change or were clarified for the Church. Answers take time even for leaders of the Church. (See [D&C 1:24-28](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/1.24-28)). I do understand your skepticism about blacks and the priesthood, but I hope you’ll reconsidered discrediting President Nathan Eldon Tanner.
You said:
“…you are claiming that Joseph was a fallen prophet…”
No, I am not defending Joseph on the church terms here, I was taking the “Devil’s Advocate” approach and pursuing it from a point of view that embraces an unfavorable circumstance, but a possible one closer to your own in the absence of critical missing information. I can defend the church by demonstrating that the version of events to which you ascribe are not as unsurmountable as you believe, particularly because my example demonstrates that you have drawn the lines too rigidly. Under your terms people who are blameless receive no justice by reason of the narrow view you have taken. The fact that I do this with the scriptures that you find more palatable to your current beliefs should be beneficial to making my point. Because this is different than what the church claims, it is also an important demonstration that the “actual explanation” is worth something and that all the speculation that has been manufactured is worth nothing and that is the answer we must have patience to wait for and to give place for.
You said:
“…You need to review what a slippery slope argument is…”
You are right. Boy! I really slaughtered that! My memory of the fallacy classes sometimes betrays me when I am shooting from the hip, let me try again. I think I should have said is it was the fallacy of the undistributed middle.
For example…
All Z are B – i.e. All students carry backpacks.
Y is B – i.e My grandfather carries a backpack.
Therefore Y is Z – i.e. Therefore, my grandfather is a student.
Converted to [Z:other religions such as the Worldwide Church of God] have found a following by [B: requiring their members to conform to all sorts of commandments].
[Y:Mormons] [B:require their members to conform to all sorts of commandments]
Therefore [Y:Mormons] are no different from [Z:other religions such as the Worldwide Church of God]
Do you see the problem now?
Love as always, your brother,
Spencer
Hmm…there has to be a way we can work together on this, Jon. You and I are brothers. I know I sound like a Grug the caveman, but be that as it may, I’m trying to work things out with you.
You say:
“When you trip up and sin (i.e. allow ungodliness into your life) then you no longer qualify for the grace of God as per Moroni 10:32.”
When you trip in real life, does it mean you can’t walk or get to your destination? If you *have* to walk to get to your destination (salvation), what do you do when you fall (sin)? You get up(repent/deny ungodliness) and try to walk again(be perfected in Christ). Now I realize my analogies aren’t perfect, so only apply them to your own life insomuch as the spirit confirms that what I am saying is right. Moroni 10:32 is a great scripture. The questions that come to mind are…
1. How do you deny yourself ungodliness?
2. How can you be perfected in [Christ]?
Perhaps if we can answer those 2 questions, we can clear the waters, unless you have some other question/point to add/insert here.
For part #1, “I” think the way to “deny ungodliness” is to do as Christ directs which is “…be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect…” [See 3 Nephi 48](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/3-ne/12.48?lang=eng) and the only way for someone who is not perfect to become perfect is to be pure inwardly and outwardly. This means when we aren’t pure in thought, word and deed, we repent, then we are forgiven and then by our deeds show. If we “continually” repent and “continually” keep his word, why would we not be eligible for his grace?
As for part #2 I found a lot of scriptures talking about perfected but verse 5 shown below was the one that spoke to me the most.
[1 John 2:3-5](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/1-jn/2.3-5?lang=eng)
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected:
This is speaking about the love of God, but do you think I am wresting the scriptures to look at this as an example as how we can be perfected in Christ? Could we draw the conclusion that being “perfected” is the result of “continual” effort on our part, i.e. enduring to the end? What do you think? Now “his word” is a rather loaded statement and I think we can explore that discussion if you think it would be helpful here, but it covers the spectrum of everything he’s ever counseled us to do.
Putting my personal thoughts aside, the Church has actually stated that “being perfected” is accomplished by the three fold mission of the church, which is now a four fold mission shown below…
1. to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people;
2. to perfect the Saints by preparing them to receive the ordinances of the gospel and by instruction and discipline to gain exaltation;
3. to redeem the dead by performing vicarious ordinances of the gospel for those who have lived on the earth.
4. to care for the poor and needy, to impart “to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants.”
(See Ensign, April 1982 “Remember the Mission of the Church”, May 1981, “Come unto Christ, and Be Perfected in Him” and January 1973, “Caring for the Poor and Needy”)
The church has clarified the words of Moroni in the April General Conference 1995 [Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness] (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1995/04/deny-yourselves-of-all-ungodliness?lang=eng) stating…
“…Moroni declared the need for us to deny ourselves “all ungodliness” (Moro. 10:32), thus including both large and small sins. While boulders surely block our way, loose gravel slows discipleship, too. Even a small stone can become a stumbling block…”
Concluding with…
“So it is that real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed! Such is the “sacrifice unto the Lord … of a broken heart and a contrite spirit,” (D&C 59:8), a prerequisite to taking up the cross, while giving “away all [our] sins” in order to “know God” (Alma 22:18) for the denial of self precedes the full acceptance of Him.”
You said:
“I bring up other faiths (JW) because you have to apply the same standard of seeking truth to your own faith that you would expect people of other faiths to apply to their religion”
The same standard does apply, that doesn’t mean that I (or anyone else) won’t stumble, it does mean we can always get up and eventually find our way.
Remember when Dad and all our family members died? Wasn’t it devastating? Why would it cause us grief if we know the plan of salvation? I won’t attempt to answer that other than to say we DO feel grief for the loss of loved ones. That grief never leaves us even if we are in the true church. But because we have the comforter we don’t despair, we don’t lose hope and we have the opportunity among many sources that we can look to for reassurance, be it knowledge, companionship, spiritual healing or whatever we stand in need of. The details about how that sets us apart from other religions is not spoken, it is only experienced.
A word about bringing up other faiths to draw out a point you want to discuss. First I don’t like pitting my beliefs against other religions. It sets me at variance with the people in those religions whom I regard as my brothers and sisters. I would rather let the truth stand on it’s own terms and allow people to recognize it as added strength and not a boulder that crushes their beliefs.
Furthermore, It would serve to clarify the discussion if you to make the example, then clearly draw the connections you want me to see so that we can both agree upon the commonality, because I think we both recognize there is a limit to similarity. Just saying A is like B creates a lot of work for the listener to untangle your arguments, because if A were equivalent to B than it would be synonymous. While I know this is appealing to your side of the argument when you’re drawing comparisons of the Church to the KKK, David Koresh and, in this case, the Worldwide Church of God, I think you need to do a more rigorous comparison if that is what you mean. Even then, it’s important to observe that there are levels of synonymity. For example consider the words “church” and “cult” which are grammatically synonymous and yet I think there remain important distinctions. (See [Link](http://thesaurus.com/browse/cult).
In response to your oft quoted mantra, “If something is true it will stand up to scrutiny”, I agree, but that’s a very gainsaying approach to the gospel. I would point out that in my experience, perfectly good computers are thrown away all the time. Hence, there is a casualty you always risk in “troubleshooting and diagnosis” or in this case “scrutiny”. If, due to incompetence, you conduct a poor examination of the Church or administer an ineffective analysis due to insufficient data or bad data or simply misinterpret your findings for any number of reasons or you reached your conclusions before considering something you should have, you will throw away something that is perfectly good.
Not too make too fine a point but it also sounds suspiciously similar to how Satan posed his temptations to Jesus when he said in Matthew 4:3
“If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”
Or Matthew 4:6
“If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.”
I would add “How is saying ‘if it’s true then…’ different from the Jews who looked for signs?
See [Matthew 12:38-39](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/matt/12.38-39?lang=eng#38)
Let me explain what I mean. In the study helps from the Church indicate
“A sign is an event or experience which people understand to be evidence or proof of something…The Lord will give signs as he sees fit to those who believe.”
See [Sign](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/sign.p2?lang=eng&letter=s)
“…faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe…”
See [D&C 63:7-11](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/63.7-11?lang=eng#6)
It’s a conditional approach to the scriptures and the Lord’s commandments when it is he who holds all the cards. If there is any party that needs to show a “sign” it is us and not him.
There was another point I wanted to make here but I forgot what it was so this is a placeholder until it comes to me.
Ok so I’m going to take 5 from my soap box and quote another type of conditional approach used in The Simpsons: Season 6, Episode 8
Lisa on Ice (13 Nov. 1994) that makes me grin.
See [Link] (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0778450/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt)
Scene 1
Lisa: Bart, just get out of here.
Bart Simpson: Hey, you get out out. It’s a free country.
Lisa: That doesn’t make any sense.
Bart Simpson: I know you are, but what am I?
Lisa: Get out, get out!
Bart Simpson: All right. But on my way, I’m going to be doing this…
[windmills his arms]
Bart Simpson: If you get hit, it’s your own fault.
Lisa: Okay, then I’m going to start kicking air, like this…
[kicks up her foot]
Lisa: And if any part of you should fill that air…
[kicks up her other foot]
Lisa: It’s *your* own fault.
[They shut their eyes and move toward each other, grunting as they flail or kick. Aaah-Aaah-Aaah-Aaah-Aaah]
Scene 2
[Cut to downstairs in the kitchen, where Marge and Homer are. Lisa and Bart can be heard grunting which soon turn to yells of pain, and sounds of fighting]
[Marge hears Bart and Lisa fighting upstairs]
Marge Simpson: Mmmm, I’d better go check on them. Now, Homer, don’t you eat this pie.
Homer: Okaaaay…
[Marge exits]
Homer: All right, pie. I’m going to start doing this…
[makes chomping motion Ahghm-ahghm-ahghm-ahghm]
Homer: -and if you get eaten, it’s your own fault.
[He shuts his eyes, and moves toward the pie, making chomping motions, but hits his head on the stove hood]
Homer: OW! AH! Oh, my… oh, to hell with it.
[eats pie, Ahghm-ahghm-ahghm]
In searching for answers to help you and me (esp. since sometimes my responses bristle, somewhat thickly, with sarcasm), I came across [Alma 7:23-27](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/alma/7.23-27?lang=eng). Here Alma instructs the members of the church in his day and teaches how we should be…
“23 And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.
24 And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.
25 And may the Lord bless you, and keep your garments spotless, that ye may at last be brought to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the holy prophets who have been ever since the world began, having your garments spotless even as their garments are spotless, in the kingdom of heaven to go no more out.
26 And now my beloved brethren, I have spoken these words unto you according to the Spirit which testifieth in me; and my soul doth exceedingly rejoice, because of the exceeding diligence and heed which ye have given unto my word.
27 And now, may the peace of God rest upon you, and upon your houses and lands, and upon your flocks and herds, and all that you possess, your women and your children, according to your faith and good works, from this time forth and forever. And thus I have spoken. Amen.”
And using this posture of questioning the servants of the Lord sets you on a path to contend with people, especially people who really are servants of the Lord. Consider Zacharias in [Luke 1:18-20](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/luke/1.18-20)
There is probably a better way to say this, but I’ll just try to get this out. I think giving people’s beliefs the benefit of the doubt is a better starting point than regarding their beliefs with extreme prejudice. The latter is a distrustful and hostile mindset that is taken in the same vein as “guilty before proven innocent”, while the former gives place for kinship and reciprocity (nourishing fairness and equality rather than breeding doubt, skepticism, fear and mistrust – we want to foster faith in a mutual engagement).
Science is full of research that is peer reviewed and yet phony research makes it to publication and theories get tossed out all the time, even long standing ones. I read somewhere that science is all about bucking common practice, whereas education is about establishing it. Under which banner do you think religion falls? Science or Education? Think about that before you say I’ve created a false dichotomy(which maybe I have) or that I am trying to pigeonhole the discussion. This is a topic that merits a longer conversation, but for now I will leave it. By brandishing the standard of “scrutiny” you’re not on a quest to find truth, your finding reasons to doubt whatever you find and there’s a difference.
As to Joseph Smith’s wives, I already told you, that yes, there are things I can’t answer about polygamy and a few other surprises you find in recorded accounts, but to speculate about what was in his heart, to assume we have all the relevant details, to assert that from our present vantage point we could see the facts in context and convict him on the information that’s available seems very presumptuous and unfair. Perhaps I am wrong but if trials are as idyllic as I would like to believe they are, they must be served without bias and neither you nor I could serve on such a trial. I know you talk about lying to his wife and we are quick to assume that in every circumstance “a prophet doesn’t lie or doesn’t withhold information” and I’ll confess this one’s a head scratcher for me, to be sure. What occurs to me is Peter actually denied knowing Christ 3 times, and he too was a prophet, but that really doesn’t tell me anything other than, ok here are 2 examples of what might look like some form “untruth”, which it may or may not be or be justified or be forgivable. But all I can tell for certain is that I have an incredible lack of context and I have too little information. You don’t know everything that the Lord told Joseph and neither do I. You can cast aspersions but the honest truth is what happened in the lives of Joseph Smith and his Wives 180-190 years ago…
a.) …cannot be fairly tried in the court of public opinion.
b.) …guilty or not we are charged to forgive all men that we may obtain forgiveness.
c.) …the outcome of Joseph Smith’s standing before the judgement bar of God is not relevant to my salvation especially if I have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
What he did there will be revealed when it needs to be. I know that you leap frog from this to Adam God theory, but, c’mon, if we receive revelation line upon line and prophets can make mistakes, I think there is room for a bit of latitude to accommodate the import of that reality. I’m sure from here you might go to the next slop in the gears and say how is a prophet better than any common man, to which I would reply, well in the eyes of god no one is better, but there is only one Prophet, seer and revelator to whom all the keys are given and the Lord has promised to speak through him. Returning to polygamy, I’m sure I’ve said it before, but my curiosity remains as to how you rectify the visions that some of these women witnessed? In any case, all I can say with confidence about polygamy is that it is a sealed book for now, as far as us learning more about it. I’ve often wondered about how marriage works in the celestial kingdom and I suspect it’s not what we think it is.
You said:
“If you can’t comprehend that this is [the case], then this whole line of reasoning is lost to you.”
[The case] being…
“…you have to apply the same standard of seeking truth to your own faith that you would expect people of other faiths to apply to their religion…”
First, it is not helpful to rail against what I can comprehend. I don’t think I’ve demonstrated any great inability to fathom ideas or put my own thoughts into words.
Second, I am not setting the stage for 2 standards of truth, I am simply unwilling to sustain rash accusations that vilify the leaders of the church without first giving them an equal opportunity to apply themselves to the accusations being made. I do not deny that researching history always produces questions, and I’ve no doubt that the way things came about are not always as rose-colored as we would like to believe. I don’t need to go to history to discover this because the same is true in my own life. Thankfully, there are such things as forgiveness, the atonement and paying your debt to society. I am also aware of how people can misjudge, and there are harsh lessons you learn from going too far with what you think you understand. I’m sure there are people out there who have come to regret being one of the unwitting participants to a mob.
I don’t know JS personally and that is the end of my ability to criticize or exonerate him. I can’t do anything about what he did. What would you have me do? On the one hand I have an incomplete rendering of the history of the church that I don’t really know what to make of and on the other I have my own impressions from reading the Book of Mormon. Those impressions are more real to me than something I couldn’t or wouldn’t rate any better than half-truths and gossip. I have a real growing testimony from personal experience of the truth of the Book of Mormon. I am still learning and the people in the Book of Mormon don’t read like any fiction I’ve ever read. There is simply too much that touches what I would consider is my spirit, too many of my questions are answered, too much detail, too much understanding, too much witness of who I want to become esp. from examples described in the BoM and too much continuity in the Book of Mormon for me to see it as a work of fiction.
Elder Russell M. Nelson makes an impressive list from the Ensign July 1993 entitled [A Treasured Testament](https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng) that shouldn’t be missed, I’ve provided an edited and tailored list of a few of them here…
“It refutes the ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) idea of creation.
It refutes the false but pervasive notion of original sin.
It refutes the fable of faith without works.
It refutes the practice of infant baptism.
It refutes the arbitrary restriction that revelation from God ended with the Bible.
It affirms the sublime status of man’s moral agency and sets forth stern standards of accountability and responsibility for our choices.
It affirms the reality and inevitability of our impending judgment, which will be done with a perfect blending of the justice and mercy of God. (See Alma 12:15.)
It deepens our understanding of the Master’s statement once made near Galilee’s shore: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48.)
It affirms the reality of premortal life.
It reveals the state of the soul between death and resurrection.
It reveals the important interrelationships between the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement.
One cannot fully comprehend (3) the Atonement without first understanding (2) the Fall; and the fall of Adam cannot be fully understood without first understanding (1) the Creation. These three great doctrinal pillars sustain each other in God’s eternal plan.”
You can know the church is true by working through it with a desire to believe and when you come to a point that you have an opinion, then you pray about it. I know you often pose to me that other religions use that exact same test and how do I explain that. I would say that you or they have just as much ability to find yourselves access to Heavenly Father as I do. Some people apply themselves better than others, but I can only speculate about their experiences and that isn’t a very productive exercise. I can offer my own experience, testimony and teach by example, that’s about all I can do. The rest is up to them or you and they guy upstairs. (Ok now I’m thinking of a Studio C skit I saw the other day [Studio C – Message From Above] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofW4-xePKVA)).
You Said:
“The fact that you found scriptural understanding in the Book of Mormon does not demonstrate it to be true.”
What a pessimistic sentiment, especially since I do not understand how any statement that you’ve quoted in the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible to any spectacular degree. The Book of Mormon is a very good book. I’m your brother and we tell each other things that we like or enjoy or that we think are worth examining. It teaches me, no really! I have come to respect it by reading it. It helps me to experience a closer relationship with my Heavenly Father. It is so good to read when you want to find peace and rest from inner turmoil. It has done more to help me a change for the better than any other book I have ever read. The feelings that it gives me as I read it, how it helps in understanding the scriptures, and much more. How can you put something that has such great value as worthless and call it a fairy tale?
You said:
“the fact that the D&C states that the BoM contains the fullness of the gospel, but does not include the Temple ordinances, baptism for the dead, tithing, polygamy (it actually condemns polygamy) and contradictory teaching on the Godhead all point to it being the first brick laid in a foundation of fraud that was ultimately revealed by the very actions of it’s “author” (that is how Joseph was listed in the first edition).”
I’m going to start my answer here with some speculation to the speculation that Joseph Smith listed as author betrays the Book of Mormon as a work of fiction. I’m going to guess that Joseph attributed the title of Author as what he was since if there are many circumstances that could explain this, such as if the owner of a printing press asks, “Who wrote this?” the answer becomes a little ambiguous especially to someone with a poor education and/or with a very singular circumstance. (Maybe the source of the misinformation was not Joseph but someone else. perhaps it was more like “‘Ew ‘Rote ‘dis, eh? …Eh?! Angel ‘ov de Lord!? Sack ‘ov rubbish, that is. I’ll be puttin’ *Joseph Smith* down as author I will, it’s ee’ s what’s payin’ fer it.” Yes, I’m aware that this IS total fiction, but I couldn’t resist.)
I wouldn’t put any stock in who’s name is placed as the “author”, especially since I wonder how many times you can count on one hand that a book that came to light in the same manner that the Book of Mormon did and sought publication. What you have here is a lack of information, a very unique set of circumstances and the need for an explanation.
Touching on polygamy, I’ll pass. I feel like you know the answer here. From my own reading of Jacob 2:27-30, I would not dismiss the import of verse 30. It’s contextually ambiguous which detail the lord determines is an abomination, is it to be applied to “many wives and concubines” or to the many wives and concubines they “had”. Remember “…they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.…” Are you trying to say that many wives and concubines are never sanctioned of the Lord? I think you would quickly find a problem with this. What do you think is the part of the scriptures they did not understand? The key is to listen to the counsel offered in verse 29…
“29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.”
I could say a few things about the Godhead, but I think we’ve been over this ground before. I think there is enough scripture and information to settle this. If you disagree, we can return to this.
You Said:
“This is an absolute contradiction of contemporary descriptions of the translation process as well as the account repeated by Russel M Nelson, a living Apostle.”
You are referring to an article in the Ensign July 1993 entitled [A Treasured Testament](https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng) I assume. I think you’re correct in stating that what really happened is more relevant than what didn’t happen. I don’t think you can go so far as to say that it is “contradictory”. The reason you can’t is that you’re reading about a few example translation experiences. He himself states, “The details of this miraculous method of translation are still not fully known.” The type of pitfalls this reasoning can lead to are Hasty Generalization, Anecdotal Evidence, or False Dilemma.
My “spidey sense” is tingling with some of these later remarks (chuckle). To be fair, I probably deserved a few zingers…some of the ways I start my responses I probably could have handled a little bit better. I regretted how I started this posting originally, but there was no “edit” once I sent it so I apologize, it was a little more impromptu than I usually do. When I feel pushed or hurried, I sometimes let some sarcasm slip into my deliberations. I’ll try to work on that.
In response to your FAIR remark, no, I haven’t been reading FAIR, at least not since the CES letter you sent me sometime ago, though I did send Mom a link to an article a couple of days ago that was hosted there. Does that change anything? You weren’t specific about the relevance of this observance.
I don’t feel that challenging every decision made in the church is very helpful and it is a dangerous habit to form. The leaders are not the “bad guys”. Just as you or I do, they try to work out how to best fulfill their callings. This narrative you continue to push about “red flags” and second guessing what sustained (appointed by the voice of it’s members) and ordained (appointed as having authority from God) leaders do is a little tiresome. Do you believe you have a better system? I haven’t seen it. I wonder how you’ve taken your “Religious Testbench” and been able to verify it’s accuracy. I’m not sure how reducing church to a congregation of one helps you do anything but put ALL the burden on your shoulders. While you’re not exactly flying blind, you’re much more likely to miss something, a detail of which you must be aware. I say this because you mentioned in one of your blog reedit postings, “Everybody has their blind spots…you are not aware of them because they are part of your own psychological character. Like the card stuck to your own forehead in indian poker – you can see everyone else’s bias but your own. I have my own as well.” I would caution you with the words of Neal A. Maxwell who quoted the scriptures, “As prophesied, ethical relativism is now in steep crescendo: ‘Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world” (D&C 1:16).'”
You said:
“What lesson do you think was being taught by Christ in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard?”
Well this is Jesus’s response about the kingdom of heaven applied to Peter’s declaration, “Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?” remembering the other declarations made by the disciples who said “Who then can be saved?” in astonishment to Jesus declaration ” It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” I’m not sure if this is a correct but my best guess is below.
It’s a parable about the kingdom of heaven likened to a vineyard (the world or rather the children of the house Israel in this time of probation here on earth or something else), a steward (Jesus), a goodman of the house (God, the father), and laborers (those called to the work) who all work for the same wage regardless of the hour of their hire.
In the 12th hour, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, [the hire that Peter and the disciples of Jesus will receive is salvation which is the same wage every laborer called in each generation of our time here in the vineyard shall receive; remembering that this wage will not be paid to all, because many are called but few are chosen] (adding to that) ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
You said:
“I provided an example where he (N. E. Tanner) declared something to be God’s Law in one year and it was totally changed a few years later.”
Yes, you did, but if the leadership of the Church had been praying about this and they had not received an answer yet. Answers to prayers can take time. They are applied line upon line and wouldn’t those answers to prayers be done in order? see [D&C 43:1-7](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/43.1-7?lang=eng#0).
Did you listen to his talk? Here *you* need to discern between God’s “Law” and restrictions (real or by virtue of misunderstanding) to the authority to bestow the keys of the priesthood. You will recall that on May 15, 1829, when John the Baptist restored the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, he told them, among other things, that, while the authority he gave them authorized them to baptize, it did not include the authority to bestow the Holy Ghost. At that time, he indicated that another order of the priesthood was necessary for this, and that it would subsequently be given to them by Peter, James, and John.
The restrictions to whom we were “given authority” to bestow the keys of the priesthood did change or were clarified for the Church. Answers take time even for leaders of the Church. (See [D&C 1:24-28](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/1.24-28)). I do understand your skepticism about blacks and the priesthood, but I hope you’ll reconsidered discrediting President Nathan Eldon Tanner.
You said:
“…you are claiming that Joseph was a fallen prophet…”
No, I am not defending Joseph on the church terms here, I was taking the “Devil’s Advocate” approach and pursuing it from a point of view that embraces an unfavorable circumstance, but a possible one closer to your own in the absence of critical missing information. I can defend the church by demonstrating that the version of events to which you ascribe are not as unsurmountable as you believe, particularly because my example demonstrates that you have drawn the lines too rigidly. Under your terms people who are blameless receive no justice by reason of the narrow view you have taken. The fact that I do this with the scriptures that you find more palatable to your current beliefs should be beneficial to making my point. Because this is different than what the church claims, it is also an important demonstration that the “actual explanation” is worth something and that all the speculation that has been manufactured is worth nothing and that is the answer we must have patience to wait for and to give place for.
You said:
“…You need to review what a slippery slope argument is…”
You are right. Boy! I really slaughtered that! My memory of the fallacy classes sometimes betrays me when I am shooting from the hip, let me try again. I think I should have said is it was the fallacy of the undistributed middle.
For example…
All Z are B – i.e. All students carry backpacks.
Y is B – i.e My grandfather carries a backpack.
Therefore Y is Z – i.e. Therefore, my grandfather is a student.
Converted to [Z:other religions such as the Worldwide Church of God] have found a following by [B: requiring their members to conform to all sorts of commandments].
[Y:Mormons] [B:require their members to conform to all sorts of commandments]
Therefore [Y:Mormons] are no different from [Z:other religions such as the Worldwide Church of God]
Do you see the problem now?
Love as always, your brother,
Spencer
Spencer,
There are a number of problems with your response:
We seem to agree that the church maintains that the members should be perfect. You cite several references attesting to this. Then, in describing how the members become perfect you state the following:
“Putting my personal thoughts aside, the Church has actually stated that “being perfected” is accomplished by the three fold mission of the church, which is now a four fold mission shown below…
1. to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people;
2. to perfect the Saints by preparing them to receive the ordinances of the gospel and by instruction and discipline to gain exaltation;
3. to redeem the dead by performing vicarious ordinances of the gospel for those who have lived on the earth.
4. to care for the poor and needy, to impart “to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants.””
This is incorrect recursive logic. Point #2 in the list of the mission of the church is to “perfect the saints.” You are saying that you perfect the saints by perfecting the saints. The rest of the sentence in point #2 above supports my argument that the church expects the members individually to be perfect before they can qualify for the redeeming grace of God (i.e. they have to have the discipline to gain exaltation).
The whatever-fold mission of the church is an organizational corporate mission statement – not a doctrinal exposition on how each individual gains God’s approbation. That you invoke it when discussing personal atonement for sin is a very weird thing indeed.
The fact that the church leaders left out caring for the poor and the needy when they first established the threefold mission of the church should tell you a bit about what the leaders have their eyes set on. The poor and the needy were just as poor and needy when the mission was first announced. Adding that on later as a fourth mission is a bit johnny come lately IMO.
Next, in discussing why I bring up other religions you go off on a tangent about Dad’s death stating:
“Remember when Dad and all our family members died? Wasn’t it devastating? Why would it cause us grief if we know the plan of salvation? I won’t attempt to answer that other than to say we DO feel grief for the loss of loved ones. That grief never leaves us even if we are in the true church. But because we have the comforter we don’t despair, we don’t lose hope and we have the opportunity among many sources that we can look to for reassurance, be it knowledge, companionship, spiritual healing or whatever we stand in need of. The details about how that sets us apart from other religions is not spoken, it is only experienced.”
You make biased and false assumptions in the statement. You claim that the comforter allows mormons facing grief to not despair or lose hope and to find assurance and assert that this sets mormon’s apart from other religions. That is very close minded thinking. People of other christian and non-christian faiths are able to find hope and assurance when faced with grief. It is not exclusive to Mormons. Your statement reveals a real need to look at how other faiths work in people’s lives rather than closing your mind to them and pleading ignorance.
Returning to the point, you then make the following statement:
“First I don’t like pitting my beliefs against other religions. It sets me at variance with the people in those religions whom I regard as my brothers and sisters. I would rather let the truth stand on it’s own terms and allow people to recognize it as added strength and not a boulder that crushes their beliefs.”
When I bring up JW and scientologists, etc. – I am not doing a comparative theological analysis. I am just using the fact that as claiming to be “the one true church” Mormons accept as given the idea that all other churches are corrupt. You may not like to think of it that way personally – but that is the bold pronouncement that Joseph Smith made when ushering forth this dispensation in mormon theology. Since mormons can assume that those faiths are corrupt, then they can look at why and how members of those faiths stay in them, when their founders and leaders can be assumed to be either deceivers or dupes themselves.
In the specific examples I used in this thread, I am stating that if members of these other faiths, which mormons know to be false, used the same logic when analyzing their own doctrine, history and leaders as you and other mormons use when looking at Mormon doctrine, history and leaders – then the members of these other faiths would never discover the error of their ways. This should point out to you and other members how bias can affect your own assessment of mormonism as a mormon. If your real goal was truth, rather than maintaining belief in a religion, then you would allow yourself to acknowledge that things which you would recoil from in other faiths, should also make you recoil in your own.
For example – David Koresh came up with theological justifications for inappropriate sexual relations with multiple women and children in his congregation. The branch davidians thought he was a holy man and that their religion was true, so they allowed it. As a mormon, you know that religion is false and that by extension Koresh was a deciever – so you can view that theological justification Koresh provided as a manipulation by a religious fraud to gratify his own lust and power.
If you study the history of Joseph Smith around the doctrine of polygamy, you can see that Smith also put forth a theological justification for sexual relations with multiple women and children (i consider 14 year old girls children). I bring up Koresh because I want you to see how your bias allows you to believe that your own favored religious leader is justified in something that you could not excuse in a leader in another faith. Joseph’s justification was different from Koresh’s – but that should not excuse the behavior. Koresh’s followers believed he was justified, just as you believe Joseph Smith was justified. If you can say that you would not accept koreshs actions if you were in his church and he started doing that stuff, then you should also reject Joseph Smith for the same reasons.
“But wait! Joseph Smith also gave all these beautiful new doctrines and was a powerful leader and brought forth new scripture and gave revelations with the first person voice of god and created a thriving city, etc. – all these things show that he was special! They show that his theological justification for sexual relations with other women and children was the correct one!” The followers of every other false religious leader who used doctrine to justify their heinous actions also defend their leaders because of the numerous other things they did, produced or said which showed that they had the authority to make those doctrinal claims. That is the very reason that the followers excuse it. It is the justification for their bias. Mormons are not special in this way.
Next you make a point about the dangers of being too hasty in my judgments and critical assessment of the church. You state:
” If, due to incompetence, you conduct a poor examination of the Church or administer an ineffective analysis due to insufficient data or bad data or simply misinterpret your findings for any number of reasons or you reached your conclusions before considering something you should have, you will throw away something that is perfectly good.”
I think this is a very good point. Please do not think that I have come to my position lightly or without giving the church and it’s leaders every benefit of the doubt that a reasonable person who is seeking for truth may allow. I agree that biases work in both directions. The recent retraction I made regarding the search engine at LDS.org is one example. I felt comfortable making the conclusions I first made when I thought that the search engine specifically excluded results for the journal of discourses. As soon as more data became available which provided a more reasonable explanation, I immediately made a retraction and change. I honestly critically assess everything that I write here on the blog. If I find more data which refutes something that I previously wrote, I will change my thoughts and writing. I have been blinded by bias before and even let it hold my mind onto something that reason and conscience dictates is wrong while I was a member of the church and suspending disbelief about Joseph Smith. I don’t want to fall into that error again. I encourage you to honestly assess your own bias.
One reason I was comfortable making that conclusion is that the attitude of the church towards truth is consistent with the notion of filtering a search engine. That was the whole point of Packers talk about the mantle being far greater than the intellect (https://byustudies.byu.edu/showtitle.aspx?title=5472). The point of the talk was that the church should not provide full and equal access to troubling things in it’s history. You have said before that you loved this talk. Read it again and imagine that it was a leader of Scientology speaking about scientologist historians and scholars publishing about L Ron Hubbard – how would you feel about these men who were engaging in deceptive practices to keep their members trapped in a religion that Mormon’s know is false? If it is wrong and deceptive for scientologists to do -then it should be wrong for Mormon’s to do. You don’t have to pit mormon theology against scientology theology to make this conclusion. The fact that it comes from an Apostle should be extremely alarming to any honest mormon reading that talk. I am astonished that you like it.
You next go on to talk about receiving a sign from God and quote several scriptures which seem to make the point that people who don’t believe are not going to see the signs that prove the truthfulness of the church. you include the following quote:
““…faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe…”
See [D&C 63:7-11]”
This is essentially restating the concept of confirmation bias. People will interpret evidence to confirm things which they already believe – independent of whether it is factual or actually logically proves their belief. I should go further to say that I am not looking for signs that the church is true to come to me. I am not seeking confirmation bias – I am seeking truth. You find truth by filtering out error. Once the error I had to filter included any notion that Joseph Smith was a real prophet of God – then the entire edifice that he built is filtered out as well. There are good things and good people that are a part of the church – those exist independent of the truth claims of the Gospel or the professed authority of it’s leaders. I still hold on to those things.
Next you describe a humerous set of scenes from the simpsons – I remember seeing it – funny! One day soon I am gonna introduce my kids to the simpsons and we are going to go on a binge spree of watching them.
Next, you quote a scripture which in summary tells people to be good, humble and not contend with one another. Okay. Let’s be clear. If I call you a poopyhead or engage in other ad hominem attack, then you could accuse me of falling into a contentious spirit. If I make reasoned and legitimate arguments based on valid assertions, which may happen to contradict your position – that is not contention. That is discussion and dialogue. Isaiah 1:18 includes the invitation “Come, let us reason together” This is the level of discussion which I engage in.
That discussion may get passionate and assertive. Scientologists who awaken to the false nature of their religion and passionately confront their leaders about it will, of necessity, be contentious from the perspective of the leaders. This is part of the awakened members path out of error so that they can pursue truth. Would you deny them that opportunity by condemning their “contentious spirit”?
The whole ix-nay on the ontention-cay concept in the mormon church is just a way to suppress dissent and keep everyone falling inline with the edicts of the leadership. Even when they make dramatic and glaring obvious mistakes and changes, such as the reversal on the priesthood ban on blacks, they villify people who struggle with such changing parts of “god’s law” Just read McConkies talk on people getting in line with the change in the priesthood:
“We have seen what the words say and have said to ourselves, “Yes, it says that, but we must read out of it the taking of the gospel and the blessings of the temple to the Negro people, because they are denied certain things.” There are statements in our literature by the early Brethren which we have interpreted to mean that the Negroes would not receive the priesthood in mortality. I have said the same things, and people write me letters and say, “You said such and such, and how is it now that we do such and such?” **And all I can say to that is that it is time disbelieving people repented and got in line and believed in a living, modern prophet.** Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.” (http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1570)
Here you have people who were following the teachings of the prophet before and then the prophet changes and does a 180 – and now they are mad at the people for not simply blindly following a complete reversal of God’s law. If they raise questions then they are being contentious or disbelieving. By condemning questioning or contention – they are simply maintaining a stranglehold on members to preserve their authority and power.
Truth does not fear contention. Contention is what proves truth to be what it is, because it survives all of the attacks against it. Truth is established when attempts to find fault fail. That is the scientific method. You don’t prove something is true by making a positive observation – you run multiple tests to try to prove it false – and they fail. The truth of something is established by repeated unsuccessful attempts to disprove it. (see this excellent video about this concept: http://youtu.be/SoCqftOYHX4?t=1m4s)
I know in the past you have refused to watch any videos I include. That is intellectually dishonest. Somethings are more concisely shown in video and truth and reason can be conveyed in all media formats. If I was linking to some video which supported the claims of the church, such as a general conference video, then you would certainly have no objection to watch it.
Next you talk a bit about belief saying “I think giving people’s beliefs the benefit of the doubt is a better starting point than regarding their beliefs with extreme prejudice.” This statement means that you start from a position of belief rather than a position of skepticism. That is not a way to establish truth, but goes a long way towards perpetuating error. Even if you accept this platitude – Mormons starting from a ‘benefit of the doubt’ about their own beliefs, automatically have a position of extreme prejudice against the beliefs of other faiths because Joseph Smith started Mormonism with the justification, as stated from God, that all other churches were false, their professors were corrupt and their creeds were an abomination. That is as extreme a prejudice that you could hold. Do you deny this position today? would you refute the words that Christ spoke to Joseph? Have all the other churches become more godly now than they were in the 1800’s and so now they aren’t all corrupt? Your statement is a plea for myself and other critics to go easy on mormonism, while mormonism takes an extremely prejudicial stance towards every other faith. Even if they have softened or refrained from that rhetoric over the recent years – it is utter hypocrisy.
You bring up some good points about science when you state that “Science is full of research that is peer reviewed and yet phony research makes it to publication and theories get tossed out all the time, even long standing ones.” Science makes the best conclusions it can based on observed data – and that data has to be reproducible. Science is not a static body of knowledge – it is a process of discovering truth. If new data is found which overturns the old – then it is tested and retested to confirm it’s validity. New confirmed discoveries will contradict old scientific authority no matter how esteemed or revered the prior conclusions. Contrast this with the authority of mormonism where one risks apostasy by contradicting church leaders. Re-read the account of Lowry Nelson to remind yourself of how this plays out. (http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/dr-lowry-nelson-on-racism/). As I stated above, truth is established and maintained by what remains after challenging and testing it’s validity. Mormonism holds that you must believe their truth despite evidence to the contrary.
You then state: “I read somewhere that science is all about bucking common practice, whereas education is about establishing it. Under which banner do you think religion falls?” you correctly identify this as a false dichotomy. It does nothing to advance the conversation. You go on to say “By brandishing the standard of “scrutiny” you’re not on a quest to find truth, your finding reasons to doubt whatever you find and there’s a difference.” I refer you to my above description of how truth is only established and maintained by standing up to scrutiny. To deny this is to set yourself up to be deceived. It is how the JWs,moonies, scientologists, branch davidians and heavens gate members were deceived. Why are mormons any different? because they have the real truth? each of those other faiths felt the same way. The impossible Gospel I described in the OP should at least be one crack in the veneer of this claim of truth that can make you give the whole thing a second look to test the possibility that it is a grand deception. You have to legitimately consider the possibility though and allow observations that point to that conclusion stand. You don’t have to accept just one or two points of evidence, but if the shelf of observations becomes heavier and heavier – you must honestly consider the conclusion. If it is really true – then it should hold up to that scrutiny.
You then take some time to address polygamy and conclude by stating:
“You can cast aspersions but the honest truth is what happened in the lives of Joseph Smith and his Wives 180-190 years ago…
a.) …cannot be fairly tried in the court of public opinion.
b.) …guilty or not we are charged to forgive all men that we may obtain forgiveness.
c.) …the outcome of Joseph Smith’s standing before the judgement bar of God is not relevant to my salvation especially if I have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.”
Essentially you are saying that since we don’t have all the data, we can’t make any judgements. If this is true about critical or troublesome things in the prophets life – why is it not also true about the good things? Should we withold judgement on his doctrine of a restored higher priesthood because we don’t have all the data? your defense is simply an appeal to maintain your bias. The scriptures themselves are simply partial accounts of the lives of men of ancient times – should we also not act on any conclusions, good or bad, that we read from those accounts? We don’t have the whole story on korihor. recordkeeping was notoriously bad back in his day. why do mormon’s condemn him without the full story? Our account of Job and Noah is sketchy at best – perhaps they were really villians who just had the good parts recorded in history. we should hold off drawing any conclusions from their stories.
I forgive Joseph, not a problem. That doesn’t mean I have to subscribe to false traditions that he started. It also doesn’t mean that I won’t point out the things in the historical record which reveal his false nature so that others can escape or avoid that deception. Just as a person discovering a financial fraud may forgive the perpetrator, but continue to warn others of the crime.
The outcome of Joseph Smith is absolutely relevant to your salvation as a Christian. Christ himself said that there would be false Christs, false prophets and false Gospels. This means that there will be people following those false traditions. each person in those false traditions has an imperative to study the nature of the leaders, doctrine and history of their tradition, because if they discover it to be false, then they must remove themselves from it in order to pursue truth. The only reason Christ would give this warning is because it would be relevant to the salvation of those people. Believe me – from a Christian perspective – if Joseph Smith was a false prophet, it is absolutely essential and relevant to your salvation to discover that fact and act on it!
One point you make is this: “I’m sure I’ve said it before, but my curiosity remains as to how you rectify the visions that some of these women witnessed?” I can answer this with a separate question – how do you rectify the visions that Buddhists, hindi or muslim people have about their deity? how to you rectify the visions that people claiming to have been abducted by aliens have? If any of these groups could have been deceived by their own senses, confused dreams or hallucinations or the manifestations of strong psychological pressures with real visions – then mormons could have done the same.
You then go on to bear testimony of the Book of Mormon and cite russell nelsons list of remarkable things about the book of mormon. every one of the things on Nelsons list has been addressed by some other christian tradition at some point in time. most have come to different conclusions. Nelson is just committing the logical fallacy of presupposing that his tradition is the right one and all the others were lost in darkness and confusion. When you look at the contradictory things in the Impossible Gospel presentation as well as changing doctrine about the trinity in the Book of Mormon, lectures on faith and changing revelations, theology, etc. in the history of mormonism – it has no more integrity as a faith than any other man made institution.
You finally do answer a question that I have posed multiple times:
“You can know the church is true by working through it with a desire to believe and when you come to a point that you have an opinion, then you pray about it. I know you often pose to me that other religions use that exact same test and how do I explain that. I would say that you or they have just as much ability to find yourselves access to Heavenly Father as I do. Some people apply themselves better than others, but I can only speculate about their experiences and that isn’t a very productive exercise. I can offer my own experience, testimony and teach by example, that’s about all I can do. The rest is up to them or you and they guy upstairs.”
This is an excellent illustration of the “no true scotsman” fallacy. If anyone doesn’t get the same prompting that the mainstream LDS church is true, then they just didn’t apply themselves good enough. You’re answer evades the conclusion that the experience taught to mormons as feeling the spirit to testify of truth is **not reliable** by just shrugging your shoulders and admitting that it is reliable for you to confirm the truth of things that you already believe or want to believe is true. Confirmation bias again reveals itself.
You then give an impassioned defense of the good things that you see in the Book of Mormon. I understand that you find inspirational messages in the Book of Mormon. I read Les Miserables after seeing the movie last year. I found very inspirational messages in that book as well. The book did not demand that I then subject myself to the asserted authority of particular men who demand my time, devotion, money and family. The Book of Mormon contains an encapsulated view of protestant christianity from the 1800’s with some very unique liberties added in. That’s fine. Does it automatically follow that I should be required to subscribe to the church as well? Les Miserables has as much truth as a fairy tale, but I find its message inspirational. I don’t fault you for finding good meaning in the Book of Mormon. I disagree with the idea of it’s historical factuality. I believe it’s gospel sets up a pious and unachievable contradiction of demanding perfection as a pre-requisite for grace. That is enough for me to discard it. All of the good in the book does not overcome that glaring problem. As I have pointed out before (see the parable of the counterfeit coin) – a counterfeit will have many good things in it which make the bad less easy to spot. Once you identify the issue which proves the counterfeit, then noe of the good stuff matters and should actually be viewed with suspicion because it makes it easier for others to fall into the deception.
You next defend Joseph Smith being listed as the Author on the first edition of the Book of Mormon. I don’t think that this little bit of trivia proves or disproves anything. any of your explanations may account for it. I think the fact that he later tried to sell the copyright, which would give complete control of the text to another party, is much more revealing…
Your discussion of polygamy is handled with the deftness of an attorney looking for a way to justify his clients violation of the law by looking for technicality and vagaries of language. This is common in the course of mormon apologetics. Joseph Smith himself did this in justifying the destruction of the expositor (see the first update at the end of this article: http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/lds-tithing-in-a-word/). Try using this same tactic on your bishop to show that you technically did not violate the word of wisdom by having a beer last weekend – since mild barley drinks (beer) are allowed according to the scripture. He won’t buy it. You see, mormons only allow manipulating the scriptures or the law when it reflects favorably on the church or it’s leaders.
You evade the Godhead question. I encourage you to read/listen to this presentation which documents the changing view of the God head as reflected in Joseph’s Writings and revisions made in the Book of Mormon: http://mormonthink.com/grant12.htm
After you review that material I would really enjoy having a discussion about it. I think it is very important. In the King Follet Discourse Joseph Said that knowing the character and nature of God was the most important thing one could do. That mean’s mormons should find this very important.
I agree with your defense about the translation method. There is nothing which states that the head in the hat is the only way translation ever occurs. To me it is much more interesting to look at just how reliable translation is. that is where the “twice translated scripture” is very interesting. you never commented on that article or told me what you thought of it. http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/twice-translated-scripture/
Reading or not reading FAIR doesn’t really change anything. They are not an official arm of the church. Rather than having prophets actually provide explanation and revelation, they sit back and allow armchair apologists defend things for them, that way they never have to retract anything and if they want to change course then they can just throw the apologists under the bus and new ones will pop up to defend their new position. This happened with the black and the priesthood issue. It is disingenuous to expect mom to read explanations from apologists who have never been general authorities to dismiss concerns raised from statements of prior general authorities, if that is what the article you sent was doing.
You go on to state: “I don’t feel that challenging every decision made in the church is very helpful and it is a dangerous habit to form.” This pre-supposes that the church is true. If the church was in fact based on deception and fraud, then investigating and pointing it out would actually be a very important and helpful thing to do. You call it ‘tiresome’ for me to find and write about these things. I have had other people share with me their gratitude for making them aware of things that started them on their own journey for truth. It is a matter of perspective. Believing scientologists likely tire of former members always pointing out problems iwth L Ron Hubbard or their current leadership.
You then ask: “Do you believe you have a better system? I haven’t seen it.” Please read my article on the “Sweet Ride” (http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/a-sweet-ride/)
In defending the church s a bastion of moral truth you quote Neal A Maxwell:
“As prophesied, ethical relativism is now in steep crescendo: ‘Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world” (D&C 1:16).’”
Every false religion that ever popped up has always warned of people going after other religions or after their own notions of God. They have to do this in order to keep people attention focused on themselves as the true source of absolute truth. The changing moral laws of mormonism regarding monogamy/polygamy racism, gay and lesbian issues, women’s rights, not to mention the previously discussed doctrinal changes of Adam-God, blood atonement and changing temple endowment ceremonies show that the church itself walketh in its own way. I don’t subscribe to moral relativism. I think that there are things which are always wrong. There are things which the church says are wrong which. just. aren’t. I will never condemn someone for drinking coffee or tea. I may drink it myself sometimes. Does that make me a moral relativist?
It is the church which asks people to overlook and justify things which are otherwise considered to be wrong, except when church leaders command it. Read the letter that Joseph Smith wrote to Nancy Rigdon, the daughter of Sidney Rigdon, when she rebuffed his proposal of polygamy:
“That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be and often is, right under another. God said thou shalt not kill,—at another time he said thou shalt utterly destroy. This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted–by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.” http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=9569
This notion that the prophet can say God told him it was okay to violate something that is otherwise considered sin is the bastion call of the duplicitous and abusive theological charlatan. That is real moral relativism.
You gave an explanation of the parable of the workers in the vineyard which completely avoided the most astonishing aspect of the story – that the workers who arrived at the last hour received just the same as those who worked all day. the point of the parable is that it is the act of accepting the hire – accepting Christ which grants Christians the grace of Christ and the blessing of his atonement – not the work that they do afterwards. This flies in the face of the logic of men, which say that work precedes accomplishment, which you used to justify the “after all you can do” aspect of LDS theology. That is why I asked you about the parable.
Your defense of Elder Tanner ignored the central point. He and other of God’s messengers did’t say “oh we are waiting for an answer on that issue” they said, with the full weight of their priesthood authority, this is God’s law and doctrine. You really need to read the Lowry Nelson letters exchanged with the Prophet as well as the numerous quotes from general authorities (http://mormonbookshelf.com/wiki/Quotes_on_Race) you would stop making such flagrantly misinformed defenses.
I didn’t say you were claiming Joseph was a fallen prophet, I made a statement preceded with an “if” which you conveniently left out of your quote of me. You were positing a plausible scenario where Joseph Smith messed up and botched the celestial marriage and polygamy doctrine. Since other prophets have been messed up and still considered to be trustworthy men of God, then we should extend this same benefit of the doubt to Joseph. The problem with this argument is that the church does not allow or maintain in any way shape or form the idea that Joseph messed up in polygamy.
I understand your point of the undistributed middle. I agree that the fact that other religions make high demands of their members does not prove anything true or false about mormonism. My point was just that expecting church members to have high moral standards and ultra-piety is not a standard which determines the value or truthfulness of the religion.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my posts. I don’t usually pepper my posts with effusive proclaimations of my love for you as a brother because, I don’t want to make an emotional appeal. My statements should stand on their own regardless of my disposition towards you. I recognize that this may make my responses feel somewhat sterile and harsh. for that I am sorry. I am really very thankfull that you care enough to continue this dialogue. The whole reason I continue to write and think about these issues is because of my love for you and the rest of our family.
-Love Jon.
Perhaps Spencer allows too much emotion to cloud his thoughts. I see blind emotional appeals (strongly reminiscent of Heartsell™) and rambling about personal details suggesting a lack of understanding of appropriate boundaries. Further, the poster “Spencer” does not seem to have a very good grasp of the intellectual issues at hand and you might want to advise him on continuing to publicly embarrass himself, Jonathan, if he is actually your biological brother (as opposed to just using the Mormon familiarity of “brother”).
One point that is worth making on Spencer’s last post: The excusing of God’s pronouncements in Mormonism baring remarkably imperfect, mortal bigotries and resulting problems comes through brilliantly in his assertion on Tanner and the throwing about of the “line upon line” dismissal.
That dismissal ignores the issue of God reversing the constant of truth and, inevitably accuses God of being dishonest in the name of teaching and/or having the ends justify the means. It is a common problem in Mormonism as that group’s leaders also introduced the concept of “lying for The Lord”. In the end the only true test for a prophet is to see if their pronouncements prove true. The convenience of reversing pronouncements proves the ineffectiveness of someone claiming prophetic abilities in a particular matter. To bring it down: Claiming “Thus sayeth The Lord!” And, following it with, “Never mind!” disqualifies anything that person has claimed as coming from a being of absolute Truth. But, again, in Mormonism this is excused as it was in the days of the Greek worship of multiple gods by assigning a human form and personality to Deity – by proclaiming that Deity is just a perfected man.
The Tanner issue exposes a great many of the more hypocritical and distasteful aspects of Mormonism.
Good blog post, Thinker of Thoughts. You know you’ve hit a nerve when the emotional appeals, attempts to change the subject, and testimony spam start up as I see have in the comments after this particularly excellent blog post. Keep it up. Houses of cards only need the stiff wind of truth to knock them down.
Dearest member,
Thank you for your “thoughts” pertaining to this most important matter of righteousness. I must warn you, as a humble servant of the Lord, that you are gravely mistaken regarding your section on love vs. obedience. Please remember that obedience to the Lord’s chosen and anointed General Authorities must always take precedence over the principle of love, as our prophets have reiterated:
http://generalauthority.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/obedience-the-first-law-of-heaven/
May you be abundantly blessed as you obey the Lord’s prophets, seers, and revelators upon the earth.
Elder Delaney
I was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1972. Some commentor wanted members of the Church to refrain from making an emotional plea for the Church and instead directly address your slide presentation. For their sake, I will do so.
However, I must first tell you that I understand how easily one could get caught up in competitive religious observance as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The commandments become a point of contention and competition – where people are trying to ‘save’ themselves and exalt themselves above others which is not the spirit in which the commandments were delivered. Mormons are not the only religious group to be plagued by this.
It’s evident that you got caught up in this false way of thinking while you were in the Church and blame the Book of Mormon and the teachings in the Church for your misunderstanding of Jesus Christ and grace. Congratulations on stepping back, relaxing yourself and coming to the sweet understanding of what the Savior did for you so that you might feel His peace – that peace that is indescribable to anyone who has not felt it. However, you seen to still be caught up in in the spirit of religious contention by making something so simple seem so confusing.
Now, to your slide presentation. The very teachings that you lightly examine in the Book of Mormon and seem to offend you are taught by the Savior himself and re-iterated in the writings of his original apostles in the New Testament. So, I have no idea where you got the idea that the teachings about grace and works taught by Jesus in the New Testament are different than the teachings about grace and works as taught in the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants.
Slide 6 says : In the LDS Church, what must I do to be saved.
You give the following points as if they are not part of Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament. So, let me show you some scriptures in the New Testament where Jesus teaches these things. I will mostly pull from John 3.
1. Believe –
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
This seems to be the only teaching you agree with? However, you seem equate the word ‘believe’ or ‘believer’ with a feeling of love in your heart for Jesus or a confession that He lives or an acceptance that He is the Savior of the world and that it requires no further action on your part. Jesus Himself defined a ‘believer’ much differently.
What Book of Mormon prophets and Joseph Smith taught was merely repeating what the Lord Himself showed to unto them. He also taught these precious principles Himself in His earthly ministry.
Define believer — first, Jesus talks about what a non-believer is:
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
Then He teaches us what a believer is:
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
He then teaches us that a believer will ‘deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me’.
24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
He then teaches us that we will be judged and rewarded according to OUR works.
27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
So – what are WORKS? How does Jesus define works?
2. Perfect Faith – Two stories of Jesus that illustrate Faith – what it is and how we
can attain it
Mark 10
51 And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.
52 And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.
We know that this man was healed through the power of Jesus Christ – but here Jesus teaches us that He will not heal us until we assert faith. What if we don’t have faith? How do we get it?
Mark 9 – a man brings his afflicted son to Jesus and asks that his son be healed. Jesus answers him:
23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
The man wants to believe, but he is afraid that his faith is not perfect enough – so he asks the Lord to help his unbelief – and the Lord does so.
Jesus goes on the heal the boy – and teaches the Apostles that in order for them to do such a work, they must pray and fast. They must DO something to exercise their faith. Being a believer is so much more than just a feeling. If we lack faith, we can ask the Lord to help us and He will not deny His help. If we lack faith, we can pray and fast for it.
3. Repentance – I’m not sure what your belief about repentance is. Is it a teaching of Jesus or not? And if so, what does it mean. Jesus teaches several significant
principles of repentance in Luke chapter 13.
3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Jesus then explains what he means by ‘repent’ by telling the following story. Jesus is the dresser of the vineyard. He is trying to cultivate us. If we do not improve and bear good fruit – we will be cut down. This is what He said – not anyone else.
6 He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.
7 Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?
8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:
9 And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.
Luke then illustrates this point further in the same chapter by telling us of another occasion where Jesus spoke about repentance.
23 Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them,
24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
25 When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:
26 Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.
27 But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.
4. Baptism – these are Jesus’ words as quoted by His apostles
John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
5. Endure to the End – A lovely catch phrase for saying that we must continue being believers by loving the Lord and keeping His commandments until we die. We can’t just ‘confess’ Jesus and not keep His commandments. We cannot ‘confess’ Jesus, then give up or grow complacent. This principle is illustrated clearly in the parable of the Ten Virgins and again in the parable of the Fig Tree.
It’s just true – that a person who is living in variance with the Gospel teachings of Jesus Christ will either come to the Lord to figure out why they feel uncomfortable, or something will crop in life to drive them to their knees. But here is where the principle of Grace takes over – a principle which is simply stated in the Book of Mormon and blown completely out of proportion by you.
Jesus is the originator of ‘the impossible gospel’, not Joseph Smith. Jesus taught us to believe. He taught us we must have faith and how to get it. He taught us about repentance and how to do it. He taught us that we must be baptized. He taught us that we must keep the commandments and bear good fruit or we will be ‘cut off’. He taught that we need to do this all of our lives.
The scripture you quoted from the Book of Mormon is this:
2 Nephi 25:23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.
Jesus laid out the conditions of Salvation Himself in the New Testament, but He also knew that we would fall horribly short ‘after all we can do’.
What if ‘all’ a person can do is fall on their knees and ask the Lord to come into their heart – to help their unbelief? For that person – the Grace and mercy of Jesus Christ steps in and covers every imperfection as it does for any other person who may have lived a more ‘exemplary’ life.
You are the one putting exact conditions on whether or not someone will be saved, showing little faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. You are required by the Lord to live up to what you’ve been given, but Jesus makes up for where you fall short. Your inability to see this as a Mormon shows that you were totally caught up in the culture of saving yourself. I’m so glad you broke free from that culture – but I am sad that it disassociated you from the teachings of the Church as well and instead of being an advocate – you have become an adversary.
I’m glad you put this out there – because really – I never understood what other denominations meant by saying that we Mormons believe in a ‘different’ Jesus. Yes, we do have beliefs about Jesus that vary from other denominations. However, it’s been fun to dig in and see what was recorded about what Jesus said during his mortal ministry concerning belief, faith, repentance, baptism, works and enduring to the end. I found what we’ve been taught in the Book of Mormon and by the Prophets in our Church line up wonderfully. I expected more discrepancy, quite honestly – because we know that a lot of precious truths have been lost or perverted in some way. However, these basic principles have remained the same.
Best of luck in your continued walk with God.