A New Smear Piece in "Mormon Interpreter"

[_Kishkumen]

OK, this made me LOL!!!

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

Yes, Mrs. Kishkumen is not to be trifled with.

[_Bob Loblaw]

I'm aware of that, although after only a short while in the Church I was warned by a perceptive member to "be wary of Mormon Doctrine". Initially that warning puzzled me, but I later learned why he was right. There have always been Mormon Doctrine skeptics in the Church, beginning with the GAs themselves. It was not even supposed to go to a second edition, and the references to that are in Steve Benson's article.

In my mission, we were explicitly told that Mormon Doctrine was not on the list of approved books. We were to stick with the scriptures, and Talmage's Articles of Faith and Jesus the Christ. It sounds as if reliance on McConkie's book varied by mission president. In our mission, we referred to MD as "Bruce's Believe It or Not."

[_RockSlider]

In our mission, we referred to MD as "Bruce's Believe It or Not."

Also heard it called "The Gospel according to Bruce"

[_sock puppet]

In our mission, we referred to MD as "Bruce's Believe It or Not."

Also heard it called "The Gospel according to Bruce"

Put downs of dead LDS apostles are okay in Mormondom, but don't dare put down one of the current ones.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Put downs of dead LDS apostles are okay in Mormondom, but don't dare put down one of the current ones.

McConkie was very much alive when I was on my mission.

[_Drifting]

Put downs of dead LDS apostles are okay in Mormondom, but don't dare put down one of the current ones.

McConkie was very much alive when I was on my mission.

The Church will not tolerate evil speaking of the Lord's anointed...unless they are dead, at which time it is expressly encouraged!

[_sock puppet]

Put downs of dead LDS apostles are okay in Mormondom, but don't dare put down one of the current ones.

McConkie was very much alive when I was on my mission.

And he was dismissed in that way by the missionaries?

[_Bob Loblaw]

And he was dismissed in that way by the missionaries?

Yep, in between jokes about Packer and the little factory.

[_sock puppet]

And he was dismissed in that way by the missionaries?

Yep, in between jokes about Packer and the little factory.

Well, while the physical circumstances of your mission were certainly tougher than mine, the control over the peer pressure among missionaries was tighter in mine.

[_Pahoran]

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.

As is your conscious misrepresentation of my position. Note that I did not say what you wish to attribute to me, which is why you have to lamely, vaguely and counterfactually say that I "write as if" that were my position.

Which it is not.

I'm simply pointing out that the Church has always taught that immoral behaviour leads to the loss of the companionship of the Holy Ghost, which in turn leads to abandonment of the faith. This was not a new discovery of Mr Jones, and your attempt to get rid of it by burying him in irrelevant epithets is as futile as it is fallacious.

And you know it to be fallacious.

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.

Pardon me for interrupting your boilerplate anti-Mormon propaganda, but the bigoted opinions of a few EV zealots are not "the Christian assessment of Joseph Smith." It is an established fact that Mormons are Christians (See Peterson and Ricks, Offenders for a Word) and our "Christian assessment of Joseph Smith" leads to different conclusions.

Unfortunately for you, that is not a "smearing by association argument."

Even more unfortunately for you, I am not to be distracted by verbal legerdemain. As you perfectly well know, you were equating anti-Mormon opinions about Joseph with the LDS doctrine under discussion, thus attempting to smear that doctrine by association with those anti-Mormon opinions.

Snip failed attempt to smear me by association with Falwell.

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.

Still obsessed about that, I see. I must have given you a thorough pasting that you keep harping on it.

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.

Mere assertion does not an argument make. Call for references that those passages mean something other than what I have cited them to support.

Because, Kish, I don't think you have an argument here at all. I think you are going to continue to rely upon posing and blustering in an attempt to dissimulate the weakness of your position.

Go ahead; prove me wrong.

Regards,
Pahoran