A New Smear Piece in "Mormon Interpreter"

[_Kishkumen]

Really? Self-awareness is not your strong suit, I take it.

Hey, if you want to flounder in your empty accusations and unsubstantiated claims, don't let me stand in your way. (I know you won't!)

It's at least as substantive as your fallacious, dismissive diatribe.

Hardly.

That's a very safe guess, since that is orthodox, revealed LDS doctrine, and Pahoran is a believing Latter-day Saint.

And yet devils believe. You write as though belief, in and of itself, were a sufficient virtue to save, or that disbelief were a sufficient vice to invalidate anything a person writes that you don't personally agree with (which is essentially Jones' standard). That's too bad, really, since it is absolutely false.

The fact that you have to resort to another example of smearing by association shows that you still don't have anything resembling a valid counter-argument.

I know you are a little slow on the uptake, Pahoran, but the argument is that one's personal assessment of another person's morality is not always a reliable guide, as the Christian assessment of Joseph Smith demonstrates clearly enough. Unfortunately for you, that is not a "smearing by association argument."

Or maybe he doesn't. Still relentlessly trying to smear by association, I see.

Well, you can always simply affirm or deny. You are, after all, so proud of your beliefs, always pugnaciously standing up to anyone who would criticize anyone who defends your professed views. I am surprised that you qualify this with a "maybe." Be loud and proud. If you think Falwell is correct, then don't be shy.

However, since what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and with far better justification: as the guarantor of the scholarly standards of "Cassius University," how do you explain MCB's ridiculous "reinterpretation" (actually a reinvention) of the Book of Mormon, found here?

Pahoran, unlike you, I am not in the habit of defending everything that everyone I associate with writes. But I will say this, MCB's take on the Book of Mormon is no less plausible than your theory regarding priesthood in Alma. The difference is that MCB is so much more, well, human than you are. It is tough to let that disagreement come between the two of us. Whereas you are a bombastic jackass in want of a large injection of human kindness and compassion.

I have little trouble giving you the straight dope, which is something your supposed friends should have done long ago, but may never do.

[_Darth J]

Incidentally, everyone, the other night I was pondering this very issue of why zealots like Pahoran hate critics of the Church so much.

As I prayerfully considered my thoughts, the eyes of my understanding were opened, and the voice of Poseidon spoke to my heart. The mighty Olympian revealed to me that the reason why Pahoran is so outspoken and nasty about critics of the Church is that Pahoran likes to wear women's underwear, but he's ashamed of this, and so he lashes out at critics of the Church as a distraction.

I was grateful that the deity of my choice gave me an explanation of why people who question my cherished beliefs act the way they do. It makes me feel better about myself to know that whenever a closet transvestite like Pahoran attacks my testimony of the power of critical thinking and acting like a rational adult, I have an unverifiable supernatural explanation for his behavior.

[Guest]

The mighty Olympian revealed to me that the reason why Pahoran is so outspoken and nasty about critics of the Church is that Pahoran likes to wear women's underwear, but he's ashamed of this, and so he lashes out at critics of the Church as a distraction.

I was grateful that the deity of my choice gave me an explanation of why people who question my cherished beliefs act the way they do. It makes me feel better about myself to know that whenever a closet transvestite like Pahoran attacks my testimony of the power of critical thinking and acting like a rational adult, I have an unverifiable supernatural explanation for his behavior.

Whew! And here I thought that Pahoran was a real drag! I mean...

In any case, yes, Darth, Pahoran is defending what amounts to an unreliable and idiotic standard for determining the causes of belief or unbelief, one that is not even consistently and clearly supported by the scriptures he proof-texts.

Obviously not all unbelievers have been sexually immoral, nor have all believers remained sexually pure.

It should also be noted that denying the beggar one's substance is just as likely to lead to denying the faith:

And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need—I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.

But he would insist, like Jones, that being gay or an adulterer is the primary cause, not being stingy to the poor.

And, if we follow George Q. Cannon's wisdom, we see that things get a little more complicated regarding belief:

“The Saints should not imagine that because they know the truth and the Work of God at the present time, that they will always know these things and therefore be able to stand. If they lose the Holy Spirit through their transgressions, from that moment their knowledge respecting the Work of God ceases to increase and becomes dead; a short time only elapses before such persons deny the faith. They may not deny that the Work was ever true, or that the Elders were ever the servants of God, but they will place a limit and say, ‘Up to such a time the work was true and the Elders were all right, but, after that, they went astray,’—that very period being the time at which they themselves had committed some act or acts to forfeit the Spirit of God and kill the growth of that knowledge which they had had bestowed upon them. This has been the case in numerous instances in the past. . . . It is plain that it is they who have transgressed, and thereby driven the Spirit of the Lord from them; and at the very time they say the Church of God strayed, they themselves were guilty of transgression.”

I find it interesting that it was claimed Nancy Rigdon received divine counsel that she would "deny the work," at least according to the heavily-edited History of the Church:

“Sidney Rigdon had a remarkable experience some months after this Revelation was received. His daughter Eliza took sick and was pronounced dead by the physician. Some time after her departure, she rose up in the bed and said she had returned to deliver a message from the Lord. She then called the family around her. To her sister Nancy she said, It is in your heart to deny this work; and if you do, the Lord says it will be the damnation of your soul! To her sister Sarah she said, We have but once to die, and I would rather die now, than wait for another time. After having spoken for some time she fainted, but recovered again. The following evening she called her father and said to him that the Lord would make her well, if he would cease weeping for her. Sidney Rigdon related this manifestation of the power of God, in a public meeting on the 20th of August, 1842, and added a strong declaration of his allegiance to the Prophet Joseph and the Church. On the same occasion, Hyrum Smith cited Sidney Rigdon’s mind back to this Revelation, in which the Lord promised that if he would move into the City and defend the truth he would be healed, and showed that Rigdon’s improvement in health was a fulfilment of this Revelation (History of the Church, Vol. V., pp. 121–3).

We must remember, of course, that Joseph Smith's proposition of a plural marriage to the young Nancy was rebuffed by Nancy herself. Did that make her an adulteress? Did she deny the faith by denying Joseph's proposition? I think it is a little more complicated than that.

[_Darth J]

Obviously not all unbelievers have been sexually immoral, nor have all believers remained sexually pure.

By the way, Reverend, how many 14 year-old girls have you gotten to marry you behind your lawful, adult wife's back by telling them that their family would go to heaven if they did it?

My count is at zero. How about you?

[_Kishkumen]

By the way, Reverend, how many 14 year-old girls have you gotten to marry you behind your lawful, adult wife's back by telling them that their family would go to heaven if they did it?

My count is at zero. How about you?

Let me count my testicles and I'll get back to you.

ETA: Both present!

I guess that makes the answer "zero."

[_Darth J]

By the way, Reverend, how many 14 year-old girls have you gotten to marry you behind your lawful, adult wife's back by telling them that their family would go to heaven if they did it?

My count is at zero. How about you?

Let me count my testicles and I'll get back to you.

ETA: Both present!

I guess that makes the answer "zero."

Oh, well. If you ever happen to do such a thing with, say, a pair of sisters, then at least you can re-marry them in your wife's presence if she approves of your clandestine polygamy after the fact.

Anyway, I believe we were talking about the relationship between faith and sexual morality.

[_Kishkumen]

Anyway, I believe we were talking about the relationship between faith and sexual morality.

Let's just say that it takes a lot of faith to depart from Biblical standards of morality.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Based on things I was told by an "informant," I happen to think that Pahoran is best explained via certain musings from Eric Hoffer in The True Believer. In that book, Hoffer singles out a specific type of person as being especially prone to developing into the absolute worst, most vicious kind of "true believer." In that respect, Pahoran has a lot in common with Droopy, believe it or not.

[_Kishkumen]

Based on things I was told by an "informant," I happen to think that Pahoran is best explained via certain musings from Eric Hoffer in The True Believer. In that book, Hoffer singles out a specific type of person as being especially prone to developing into the absolute worst, most vicious kind of "true believer." In that respect, Pahoran has a lot in common with Droopy, believe it or not.

Believe it or not? What's not to believe? The only distinguishing characteristics that Droopy possesses are his obsession with fringe politics and his chronic logorrhea. Otherwise the two are remarkably similar.

[_Yoda]

By the way, Reverend, how many 14 year-old girls have you gotten to marry you behind your lawful, adult wife's back by telling them that their family would go to heaven if they did it?

My count is at zero. How about you?

Let me count my testicles and I'll get back to you.

ETA: Both present!

I guess that makes the answer "zero."

OK, this made me LOL!!!

I think your wife and I would get along great, Kish! LOL