Seriously? Dark skin was a metaphor?

[_bcspace]

Everyone has shown that it's racist.

No one has shown that yet. Neither the doctrine or even the speculation has the cause of the ban being based on skin color or any inborn phenotype.

[_Doctor Scratch]

I suppose I can agree that the explanation "We don't know" is less racist than the other explanations that Church leaders, "scholars," and apologists have given. Then again, the ban itself and the various explanations for the reasons for the ban are two different things. I don't see how anyone can seriously argue that the ban itself was somehow not racist.

[_bcspace]

I suppose I can agree that the explanation "We don't know" is less racist than the other explanations that Church leaders, "scholars," and apologists have given. Then again, the ban itself and the various explanations for the reasons for the ban are two different things. I don't see how anyone can seriously argue that the ban itself was somehow not racist.

It is done by noting the cause of the ban, disobedience, and the basis for who is under the ban, lineage, have nothing to do with racism which is a judgement of inferiority based on some inborn phenotype.

[Guest]

It is done by noting the cause of the ban, disobedience (emphasis added)

Have you lost your ever lovin' freakin' mind bcspace, or just your testimony? You claimed you didn't know the cause of the ban

“It is not known precisely why . . . this restriction [on the ordination of African-American men] began . . .”
Official LDS Press Release officially published by the church on the church's Official Website, which is an Official Publication of the church, in the Newroom, the Official Source, that being the doctrinal standard, on February 29, 2012, emphasis added.

Meditate on your sig line, bro.

[_Morley]

It is done by noting the cause of the ban, disobedience, and the basis for who is under the ban, lineage, have nothing to do with racism which is a judgement of inferiority based on some inborn phenotype.

Racism against Jews often has to do with superiority: they are ruling the world though diabolic means, they own the banking system, etc. The disaffection with Jews in Nazi Germany had much to do with the extent it was perceived that they controlled commerce, industry, and education.

Racism is not always about theoretical inferiority.

Jews are a lineage. Not a race. Antisemitism is still a form of racism.



edit: BC, are you going to ignore this argument again? Or are you going to address it this time?

[Guest]

The "actual cogent evidential connections" are very simple: the ban excluded blacks. "Black" is a designation used to describe race. Therefore, the ban was racist.

1. Black is a designation used to describe race.
2. The priesthood ban excluded blacks.
3. Therefore, the ban was racist.

This deductive argument is neither valid nor sound. It is not valid because if the first two of Scratch's premises are assumed to be true. the conclusion does not necessarily follow from them. It is not sound because, although the premises are true, the logical connection between them and the conclusion is indeterminate.

Simply put, there is no reason to believe that just because the ban was focused on people of another "race," it follows that the ban was racist (generated by prejudice against that group because of innate,genetically determined morphological features). The claimed basis in lineage and culture (clearly elucidated in the Book of Mormon with another people), as over against "race" (a conept appearing nowhere in either the Book of Abraham or Book of Mormon) implies that black skin was never more than correlated with the ban. Further, the "curse" requiring restriction of priesthood was not the ban itself. The ban was a consequence of the restriction placed in primordial antiquity upon a specific lineage descending from Noah.

Its been pointed out ad nauseum that people in the Pacific Islands and others, much darker than many ethnic sub-groups of people of black African descent, have always had right to the priesthood, which means that skin color and expression of phenotype per se was not the relevant criteria.

The purely secularist, naturalistic assumptions being deployed against the apologetic argument here, however, positively guarantee a racist interpretation of the ban, irregardless of the cogency of the arguments brought to the table in defense of the Church. The contemporary ideological/psychological axioms in play with the secular critics can lead nowhere else (just as in secular, political matters, any disparate outcomes or discrepancies between ethnic groups of any kind are assumed to indicate, not sociocultural dynamics internal to the groups in question (so long as they are non-Caucasian minority groups) but to racial discrimination).

Even if you want to head down the rabbit hole of bizarre, scripturally-based, exegetical "explanations" for the ban, the fact remains that, in practice, it was racist.

Argument by assertion, and question begging. No serious critical argumentation here.

I don't know what additional "facts, or documentary evidence" you need:

Historical texts detailing the origin of the ban and its precise doctrinal basis. These do not exist. We do, however, have the case of the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon, which provides doctrinal precedent for the manner in which the Lord can and has dealt with various ethnic groups and cultural features of those groups in a spiritual sense.

there are mountains of statements from GAs, scripture, Church articles, news articles, and so on documenting all of this.

Most of it non-doctrinal theological theorizing and conjecture as to its meaning. I'm only interested in the far more narrow and precise official doctrine and position of the Church on the subject. Wandering to and fro in the JoD, in other words, will not do.

If you consistently refuse to speak with or look at people of a specific race, it doesn't really matter what your explanation is for doing so; the fact remains that your behavior is racist.

I don't even no what you're talking about at this point. But it probably doesn't matter.

You can say that you have a scriptural basis for shunning these people--that it actually has to do with lineage, or a message from God, or whatever.

They were never "shunned" in any doctrinal sense. The ban was a restriction in mortality, and we now know, given OD-2, for a lengthy but limited portion of mortality, of the authority to act in God's name and govern in the Church, but it was never understood as a restriction on salvation or exaltation, which was always just as open, in LDS theology, to righteous blacks as to righteous whites regardless of the ban.

You can say that you "don't know" why you consistently shun and exclude these people. Your explanation ultimately doesn't matter if your actions are demonstrably racist. And the same is true of the priesthood ban. Cook up whatever rationale you want: it's not going to change the practical facts of the matter.

This is just your typical polemical boilerplate. Nuff said.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Droopy,

If the ban was purely about "lineage" and "culture" or whatever, then why don't you provide just one example of a non-black person of "African descent" who was denied the priesthood? If this didn't have anything to do with skin color, then surely you can find just one example of a person of this lineage who happened to have light skin who was nonetheless denied the priesthood.

[_Morley]

The claimed basis in lineage and culture (clearly elucidated in the Book of Mormon with another people), as over against "race" (a conept appearing nowhere in either the Book of Abraham or Book of Mormon) implies that black skin was never more than correlated with the ban. Further, the "curse" requiring restriction of priesthood was not the ban itself. The ban was a consequence of the restriction placed in primordial antiquity upon a specific lineage descending from Noah.

The Jews are a culture and a lineage. Antisemitism is a type of racism. The lineage argument doesn't work.

[_Kishkumen]

Droopy,

If the ban was purely about "lineage" and "culture" or whatever, then why don't you provide just one example of a non-black person of "African descent" who was denied the priesthood? If this didn't have anything to do with skin color, then surely you can find just one example of a person of this lineage who happened to have light skin who was nonetheless denied the priesthood.

I believe that in Brazil people were asked whether they had African ancestry. Not that it matters. The doctrine and practice were clearly racist, no matter how many convoluted, obscure, and pseudo-sophisticated explanations these yahoos conjure.

[_Droopy]

I believe that in Brazil people were asked whether they had African ancestry. Not that it matters. The doctrine and practice were clearly racist, no matter how many convoluted, obscure, and pseudo-sophisticated explanations these yahoos conjure.

Raving:
n.
Delirious, irrational speech.