Isn't this rather cowardly and hypocritical, to pretend to be supportive of the church in your home stake, but attack it anonymously here?
Again with this tripe Bob?
I think he demonstrates admirable character traits for following the evidence where it leads him. It is far more admirable than the brain-dead “I know the Church is true and no amount of evidence will dissuade me” attitude that we so often see from the TBMs at MAD.
He isn’t attacking the Church. He has concerns and he knows the Church well enough to know it is best to post anonymously. He has already mentioned his bishop’s opinions,
which could actually get his bishop in trouble too, if he gave out information that enabled idiots from the SMC to track him down. You’re the only blowhard apologist who has problems with this. Nobody else from MAD seems to care, including Dan Peterson. Why do you always pop in with your opinion as if anyone gives a flying flip what you think?
This is just cheap tactics to attack people, nothing more. There is no logic behind your entire argument about posting anonymously.
I, by contrast, started studying anti-Mormon literature with the encouragement of my mission president while a missionary in Illinois. I had the great fortune of having access to the private collections of Kimball Young at Northwestern and Gerald Urban at Trinity College in Deerfield, as well as access to Mr. Urban and NIV translators expert in anti-Mormon theory. The Young collection had the earliest manuscripts of the Tanners' works, and this is where I was first exposed to it.
Since then, no priesthood leader has ever discouraged me from reading or writing anything about Church history. And, I use my own name when I post. And, my feelings and writings are as consistent here as they are in Church on Sunday.
Everything you just said here has destroyed whatever credibility you had left Bob. Everyone one of here knows the Church does not encourage independent research of LDS truth claims. If you were given access to anything, it was to act as an apologist with the intention, not to verify LDS truth claims, but rather to attack those who have made valid criticisms. It is established fact that you guys can only counter with your personal experiences that always seem to be completely opposite from what everyone else has experienced throughout the years in the Church. The reason nobody in the Church has problems with your independent research is because you’re a bishop who toes the party line. You don’t follow the evidence where it leads you. You look at it but then quickly run back to the party line and rehearse “I know the Church is true.” You present no threat to the Church, whereas people like us present an obvious threat. They don’t want Mormons criticizing anything about the Church. They’d rather excommunicate us all so they can dismiss us as apostates.
Again, this is hardly admirable of you to tell people something you know isn’t true.
What missionaries on planet earth would encourage their investigators to hit the libraries or the internet before baptism?
Simple question. You know the answer, but I want a quick “admirable” check to see how you will answer.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein