Why would God call Joseph Smith to restore the true church?

[_truth dancer]

Hi MG....

So great to see you! Glad you are having fun!

Maybe God chose Darwin to bring light and knowledge to the earth. (He had all the requirements to be used in such a way)

Maybe God preserved Ida so we would understand our human development? (How miraculous is it that she was found)?

Maybe God helped scientists create the Hubble to help us discover the universe? (All the right people with the right knowledge must have had divine intervention to come together at the right time).

Maybe God chose Obama to get the US to stop torturing. (What were the odds just a few decades ago that someone of African decent could be President)?

Maybe God chose Uncle Dale, Dan Vogel, and Brent Metcalfe to help bring truth to the LDS church. (Certainly this is obvious)!

Maybe God chose Gutenberg to help further human communication. (He most certainly changed the direction of human experience).

Maybe God gave Stephen Hawking his disability to help humans understand quantum gravity? (Would he have taken the route he did if he did not have a disability? His mother said no).

We could go on and on...

God, or the Gods, or angels, or fairies, or Satan, or leprechauns could be the cause of anything or everything.

Couldn't anyone pick anything and claim it exists because of divine intervention? Anything and everything exists because of billions and billions of past experiences, relationships, events, and choices.

Why claim God is at the helm of Joseph Smith's behavior, but no one else? Or is God at the helm of everything?

I don't get the argument here.



~td~

[_BishopRic]

There is a big, wonderful world out there! This place is truly a wee little speck on the canvas of humanity...

Funny, that's exactly what I said after leaving the LDS church!

[_mentalgymnast]

1. Intelligence
2. Zeal for Learning
3. Faith in a Living God
4. Power of Introspection
5. Love of People

Shades:
Uh, NONE of those qualities have anything whatsoever to do with leadership.

Yep. A good leader that people admire and respect is usually dumb, ignorant, faithless, unable to self-examine his or her own thoughts, and hates people.

Got it.

Would Joseph have been a better leader being absent of these qualities?

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

Can you stick around and give me a vacation from the board?

No.

Take a vacation anyway! Things will be pretty much the same when you drop in periodically. Just as belief requires an investment of time and resources, so does disbelief. Those that are disbelievers are typically heavily invested in standing their ground and have to keep a place like this going. It will still be here. Shades will see to it.

Regards,
MG

[_Gadianton Plumber]

Is MG a sock puppet ala Wheat? There is something in that tone...

[_mentalgymnast]

Why claim God is at the helm of Joseph Smith's behavior, but no one else?

Hi TD!

I don't think that claim has been made anywhere. But when you have stuff like:

http://scriptures.LDS.org/en/dc/1

being put out there you kind of have to sit down and take a really close look. Not that all these other guys you mentioned aren't special or anything...

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

I dare you to start out like this at the next LDS fast and testimony meeting:

"There is a big, wonderful world out there! This place, this church, is truly a wee little speck on the canvas of humanity. When you're hanging out here, and reading and praying day after day and week after week, it's easy to start thinking the Mormon Church is the summum bonum of all that is good in the world. Not so! It's kind of cool, though, if it's all you are used to.

Man, that would really dispel their illusions of grandeur, don't you think?

Totally dude!

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

1. Intelligence
2. Zeal for Learning
3. Faith in a Living God
4. Power of Introspection
5. Love of People

Shades:
Uh, NONE of those qualities have anything whatsoever to do with leadership.

Yep. A good leader that people admire and respect is usually dumb, ignorant, faithless, unable to self-examine his or her own thoughts, and hates people.

Got it.

Would Joseph have been a better leader being absent of those qualities which were laid out in my original post?

Regards,
MG

clarification of post made at 10:23 am

[_mentalgymnast]

Is MG a sock puppet ala Wheat? There is something in that tone...

Who is Wheat?

Regards,
MG

[_Doctor Scratch]

Hi, Mental Gymnast.

First of all, the article you linked to was quite dumb. I have to say: I don't much care for Church articles that rather sneakily hint at these anonymous authority figures, e.g., a "historian"---whose name the author quite conveniently manages to forget. Think about how far-fetched this is: here is this historian, studying U.S. history for a year, and the only "great American" he can identify is Joseph Smith? Come on, now. If I hadn't looked at the by-line, I would have expected this to have been written by Paul Dunn.

As to your OP... Well, what are you asking here? The qualities of Joseph Smith's that were listed in the article are about as banal as one can get. The author's imagination (in contrast to Joseph Smith's) is awfully lame.