Lamanite only a political designation?

[_Dr. Shades]

What's the difference between a Mormon who doesn't believe what the prophets say, and an exmormon who doesn't believe what the prophets say? One is called an apostate and the other is called an apologist.

LOL!! So true! Into the signature line with ye!

Our good friend here is sadly misusing his talents. Here he is schilling for revisionist Mormon history at no compensation trying to argue with a straight face and in all feigned sincerity that what Mormon prophets and apostles have taught for over 150 years (and what Mormon scripture affirms with any reasonable reading of it) is not only not true but that they didn't actually teach it (and that it is not actually found in Mormon scripture) and how the vast majority of faithful Mormons who believe it are silly fundamentalist fanatics.

As I've stated, it's downright Orwellian. "Oceania is at war with Eurasia, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia," then along comes Winston Smith/William Schryver who, with the stroke of his pen, changes it to "Oceania is at war with Eastasia, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia." The fact that the human mind is capable of such doublethink is enough to make one lose one's faith in mankind.

But let's face it: Mormonism needs people like Will Schryver so that they can keep a tithepayer base whenever they need to do a 180° doctrinal flip.

I'm sure that somewhere there's some other fringe group who's willing to pay good money for a skilled dissembler to deny and distort. to proclaim the obvious to be false, and to twist history and common sense to fit some pre-determined fringist fantasy.

Agreed. Will should've been a lawyer.

Ten years from now Will may well be arguing that Mormons never actually believed the Book of Mormon to be scripture, that the inspired men of God who proclaimed it thus were wrong, and the members (and critics) who took the inspired men of God at their word are foolish fanatics. Anyone want to take bets?

Oh, I'm sure you're correct. I've noticed that all Mormon doctrines pass through five distinct stages:

• Inspired revelation from God,
• Doctrine, but not official doctrine;
• Only his opinion,
• Fringe interpretation believed only by fundamentalists, then
• Anti-Mormon lie.

Will is at the cutting-edge, blazing the trail as the Lamanites/Native Americans doctrine moves into its "fringe interpretation believed only by fundamentalists" phase.

Thanks to folks like Will leading the charge, within 50 years the Lamanite/Native American connection will be an anti-Mormon lie.

[_KimberlyAnn]

by the way, I've never met a single exmormon who thought the prophet spoke for God every time he opened his mouth. What we do tend to expect is that when the prophet addresses a congregation, functioning in his role as prophet, and speaking "in the name of Jesus Christ", he would actually take the time beforehand to seek inspiration and, you know, be accurately inspired in that talk.

I'm in agreement with your side note here, Beastie. As a Mormon, I never thought the "prophets" spoke on behalf of God every time they opened their mouths, but when they did claim to function as such, I expected them to be spot-on correct.

KA

[_guy sajer]

by the way, I've never met a single exmormon who thought the prophet spoke for God every time he opened his mouth. What we do tend to expect is that when the prophet addresses a congregation, functioning in his role as prophet, and speaking "in the name of Jesus Christ", he would actually take the time beforehand to seek inspiration and, you know, be accurately inspired in that talk.

I'm in agreement with your side note here, Beastie. As a Mormon, I never thought the "prophets" spoke on behalf of God every time they opened their mouths, but when they did claim to function as such, I expected them to be spot-on correct.

KA

Since Will seems to be so enthusiastic about outing doubters to ecclesiastical authority, perhaps someone should out Will to his ecclesiastical authorities viz his disdain for prophetic and apostolic utterance, his believing that he knows God's mind better and is more inspired than God's chosen mouthpieces, and his ridiculing of those who take prophetic and apostolic utterance seriously.

[_Dr. Shades]

Since Will seems to be so enthusiastic about outing doubters to ecclesiastical authority, perhaps someone should out Will . . .

GREAT POINT! As this thread has so thoroughly demonstrated, who counts as a "doubter" more than Will himself?

[_William Schryver]

Since Will seems to be so enthusiastic about outing doubters to ecclesiastical authority, perhaps someone should out Will . . .

GREAT POINT! As this thread has so thoroughly demonstrated, who counts as a "doubter" more than Will himself?

Or perhaps they will make me an official spokesman for the church, since my views seem to accord so well with theirs, as evidenced by this statement from 1997:

"As to whether these were the first inhabitants…we don't have a position on that. Our scripture does not try to account for any other people who may have lived in the New World before, during or after the days of the Jaredites and the Nephites, and we don't have any official doctrine about who the descendants of the Nephites and the Jaredites are. Many Mormons believe that American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites [a division of the Nephites], but that's not in the scripture."

Stewart Reid, LDS Public Relations, March 1997

[_Ten Bear]

I have no doubt that some people, including prophets and apostles, may have believed in extreme notions of the origins of native Americans -- that they were all 100% descended from Lehi. But I am aware of no formal dogma to that effect; no "teachings" per se along those lines. Yes, when Spencer W. Kimball speaks of the Navajo, his language may convey his assumption that they are 100% descendants of Lehi. But, again, I know of no "teachings" along those lines.

I challenge you to find something, anything, that will prove your assertion that "the Lord's mouthpieces ... consistently taught over the last 150 years that the Lamanites are the principal ancestors of the American Indians." That means you'll need to start with Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and continue on to our lifetimes.

Holy crap! When the new Book of Mormon version came out with "amoung" instead of "principle", I thought it'd take 10 or 20 years before apologists took this stand. But I was wrong. It's only taken a few months.

This is splitting hairs. Any active member will tell you that the American Native is supposed to be the lamanities.

And don't say, "we should know better". Who is the church for? It's not just for the scholars, historians and academic types who call themselves apologists. It was supposed to be everyone. That's right. Even us 8 -5 working stiffs who only know what we've been told. Even the LDS masses who now believe the Lamanites are the American Natives.

So what went wrong? Why do these people believe that? Were we all just stupid? Did we not get the memo? I can't believe what I'm reading - how the church is trying to do a complete flip-flop starting with our good friend Will. Stop calling us average Joes stupid. You're trying to mess with our heads. (...course, whats new.)

[_William Schryver]

I have no doubt that some people, including prophets and apostles, may have believed in extreme notions of the origins of native Americans -- that they were all 100% descended from Lehi. But I am aware of no formal dogma to that effect; no "teachings" per se along those lines. Yes, when Spencer W. Kimball speaks of the Navajo, his language may convey his assumption that they are 100% descendants of Lehi. But, again, I know of no "teachings" along those lines.

I challenge you to find something, anything, that will prove your assertion that "the Lord's mouthpieces ... consistently taught over the last 150 years that the Lamanites are the principal ancestors of the American Indians." That means you'll need to start with Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and continue on to our lifetimes.

Holy crap! When the new Book of Mormon version came out with "amoung" instead of "principle", I thought it'd take 10 or 20 years before apologists took this stand. But I was wrong. It's only taken a few months.

This is splitting hairs. Any active member will tell you that the American Native is supposed to be the lamanities.

And don't say, "we should know better". Who is the church for? It's not just for the scholars, historians and academic types who call themselves apologists. It was supposed to be everyone. That's right. Even us 8 -5 working stiffs who only know what we've been told. Even the LDS masses who now believe the Lamanites are the American Natives.

So what went wrong? Why do these people believe that? Were we all just stupid? Did we not get the memo? I can't believe what I'm reading - how the church is trying to do a complete flip-flop starting with our good friend Will. Stop calling us average Joes stupid. You're trying to mess with our heads. (...course, whats new.)

I asked Dr. Shades to provide us with the "teachings" of the church that you claim made you believe what you do. I'm still waiting on him. In the meantime, I thought I might provide a short list of things taught through the years:

Elder Levi Edgar Young in General Conference in 1928:

There must be a clear distinction, it grows every year more evident, between the origins of America's ancient people and the sources of their culture. The human material of the pre- Columbian societies probably came from Asia by way of Alaska, the orthodox route long accepted for the American Indians…Among many social belongings abandoned along the route seem to have been most of the things called intellectual. The men and women who peopled America arrived, intellectually, with the clothes they stood in…Dr. Uhle urges an alternative [theory for how high culture arose in the Americas]…Occasional cultured mariners from India, China, Japan or other lands may have landed, he believes, few in numbers, but full of ideas, to bring to the rude American societies…just the hint that culture was possible. Small numerically as this source of inspiration must have been, it may conceivably have been the seed from which sprouted the great achievements of Peru and Central America…

Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report (October 1928): 103–106, italics added.

The 1927 Book of Mormon study guide:

All Indians Are Not the Descendants of Lehi Students of the Book of Mormon should be cautioned against the error of supposing that all the American Indians are the descendants of Lehi, Mulek, and their companions, and that their languages and dialects, their social organizations, religious conceptions and practices, traditions, etc., are all traceable to those Hebrew sources.

Because the Jaredite record is very brief we are apt to forget that it embraces many centuries—how many, we have no means of ascertaining—and that it gives an epitome principally of the history of Moron, where the Jaredites first established themselves. It stands to reason that the Jaredites gradually settled in favorable localities all over the American continents, and that both Nephites and Lamanites came in contact with them, and that an amalgamation took place everywhere as in the case of the Nephites and Mulekites in Zarahemla. If so, the Jaredite culture must have become a factor in the development of the institutions and languages of the country. But the Jaredites came from some center of population in Asia.

Janne M. Sjodahl, "Suggested Key To Book of Mormon Geography," Improvement Era (September 1927)

The 1938 Book of Mormon study guide:

Indian ancestry, at least in part, is attributed by the Nephite record to the Lamanites. However, the Book of Mormon deals only with the history and expansion of three small colonies which came to America and it does not deny or disprove the possibility of other immigrations, which probably would be unknown to its writers. Jewish origin may represent only a part of the total ancestry of the American Indian today.

William E. Berrett, Milton R. Hunter, Roy A. Welker, and H. Alvah Fitzgerald, A Guide to the Study of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: LDS Department of Education, 1938), 47–48

Sure looks like the Church has been teaching this for all of our lives. Where were you?

[_Ten Bear]

"William Schryver
Sure looks like the Church has been teaching this for all of our lives. Where were you?

No the church has not and you know it. Non of these ever made it into our sunday school guides and into the common belief of the general LDS public and you know it. You're cherry pickin' a couple of obscure articles to make your point.

I still stand with what I said. Most LDS believe that the Native Americans are the Lamanites. Now where do they get that from? Certainly not these paragraphs that you've dug up and dusted off. Nice try.

[_Who Knows]

I asked Dr. Shades to provide us with the "teachings" of the church that you claim made you believe what you do.

Well, it's getting harder now, especially with the white-washed wentworth letter presented in the new Joseph Smith manual.

Heh, what did Joseph Smith know about Book of Mormon geography anyways...

[_dartagnan]

Well we know a prophet is only a prophet when speaking as prophet. So when are folks like Levi Edgar Young, Janne M. Sjodahl and William E. Berrett speaking as prophets?

These are just opinons, and minority ones at that. They hardly represent the official Church position or the general understanding among Church leaders.

The overwhelming view among Mormons is that Indians are Lamanites and Lamanites are Indians. This was part of the sales pitch that made conversions in South America so successful. I know. I live there. "This is a history about your ancestors!" is a common sales pitch by missionaries even today.

Try telling a Brazilian any of this stuff Will is suggesting and they get all pissed off at you for being a "fundy" or "apostate." Yet, Will assures us that the Church has taught this to us "all our lives."

Right.

The Church teaches what people need to hear. And right now, more than ever, in light of DNA evidence, the LDS people need to hear about how the Indians aren't necessarily Lamanites. It is all about apologetics and distancing the church from a possible coffin nail.