Don't be afraid of Gospel Questions. Build a shelf.

[_fetchface]

In a purely philosophical sense, if god is real, and if there are true prophets, and if god commanded or authorized them to commit genocide, it's plainly asinine for you to armchair quarterback all this from the 21st century and say, "nope, bad decision."

Wow. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that I am stupid to say that wholesale murder of an entire race (including infants) is unequivocally wrong in any context. Again: Wow. That actually makes me pretty sad that there are people out there that think there is a possible context where murdering babies is okay.

[_I have a question]

As I understand it, unless you know something for sure there is always an element of doubt.

I'll hand you that. There may be an element of doubt. Notice that previously I said 'dogmatic/entrenched doubt'. That excludes faith. An element of doubt doesn't negate having faith. Even if it's a degree/particle of faith described in Alma 32.

Can you point to where the article makes that distinction?
Can you articulate how much of an element of doubt is acceptable before you need to doubt your doubts?

If doubt didn't exist then Gods plan doesn't work.

If there aren't questions that exist then we are not able to make a choice between doubt and faith. Doubt and faith cannot coexist. For God's plan to work we have to move forward in faith. Doubt would be counterproductive. Questions are not...as long as one is moving forward in faith.

Doubt and faith totally coexist. With no doubt there needs be no faith. Doubt is exactly what Mormon God was going for when he wiped your memory of the pre-existence. It's part of the plan. Questions are a by-product of doubt. You don't question something you're certain about. The caveat of "moving forward in faith" is an attempt to draw the target around where the arrow fell. It's a case of "this is the answer, now go make your doubts and questions lead to that conclusion".

Doubt is the foundation of faith, because without doubt you don't need faith.

I think you are confusing questions with doubts. At least doubts that are dogmatic/entrenched. Again, if the doubts have taken hold to the point of not being able to exercise faith...how can you exercise faith in something that you don't even have a particle of belief/hope in(?)...then doubt becomes counterproductive to moving forward in faith.

No, what causes doubts to take hold is when the answers to the questions generated by those doubts are insufficient or which strengthen the doubt. A stand of "it's okay to have doubts as long as you conclude the Church is true" is symptomatic of cultish behaviour. If the Church was confident in its teachings it wouldn't fear rigorous examination of them. That it wants caveats and conditions and to control the answer before any questions and doubts are pursued is not the hallmark of an organisation built upon rock.

A Church saying members need to suppress doubt is also a Church displaying a lack of confidence in its members faith. You could say the Church doubts them....

With the line of reasoning I'm laying out, I don't know that this is a true statement. The church knows that questions and doubts may lead in different directions. But I don't think the church is discouraging questioning at all. How could they? It's a natural inclination that humans have.

Questions took Joseph Smith down a path that led to faith. Would dogmatic/entrenched doubt have led him in the same direction?

You're back to trying to redefine doubt in your terms rather than those terms used in the article.
Questions took Joseph Smith down a path that led to him committing adultery, financial wrongdoing and glass looking.
Questions took Brigham Young down a path that led to 124 years of apostate institutional racism.
There is no doubt that the Church would have benefitted from more vociferous doubters and less willing shelvers.

[_mentalgymnast]

You're back to trying to redefine doubt in your terms rather than those terms used in the article.

I don't think so. See my response on the other thread dealing with the March Ensign article.

Regards,
MG

[_fetchface]

Earth to Water Dog: If we take the Old Testament as literal (I don't, by the way, I think the early stuff is completely made up, but the morality taught there is horrible) we have to believe that the Israelites killed unarmed infants. Again, UNARMED INFANTS. You are really stretching to win this argument.

There is *no* context that makes that type of killing okay. I'm not thinking emotionally about this, I'm just shaking my head in sadness that there are people like you who could imagine that there must be some circumstance where it would be okay to kill an infant.

Are you going to get into apologetics of Old Testament slavery next?

This is sad, just stop. Now.

[_just me]

In a big picture sense genocide is not a big deal.

Sig worthy and disturbing.

[_Chap]

In a big picture sense genocide is not a big deal.

Sig worthy and disturbing.

Yup. I would certainly have backed away from the bar towards the door, nodding and smiling, by the time Water Dog got to this part of his mellifluous and elegant discourse.

This kind of thing is one of the reasons why I suspect that believing in deities can sometimes be bad for people's grasp on reality.

[_just me]

This is sad, just stop. Now.

Dude, you're being a big emotional cry baby. If only the world were rosy simple as you see it. See WW2. Lots of unarmed infants killed, it's called war. Even in our modern context what you're saying is asinine. If a madman with his hand on the button surrounds himself with a building full of infant babies, well, I don't like it at all, but those babies are all going to die when I drop a bomb on his head.

Throughout the history of the world all people have associated their side with "good" and claimed divine providence. It happens right now today. Jihadists talk about Allah. Chris Kyle talks about God. Sam Harris claims the same position of superiority when he talks about eradicating Muslims only instead of using theist language he draws attention to himself and his superior intellect. All varying modes of expression which say more about the culture of the person making the statement than their morality.

You bring up slavery. No, I'm not going to defend slavery. Did you read my previous comment? I am happy to point out though that slavery is a generally misunderstood subject, very sensationalized, with depictions generally focusing on the most extreme of examples rather than an attempt to truly put the practice into context. It's amusing to me how modern "intellectuals" will criticize the Bible because of an antique culture where slavery is permitted, but then in the same breath promote laws in our own time that amount to financial slavery, perpetual indentured servitude to the state, peonism. Slavery is alive and well in all sorts of different modern forms. History is written by the winners. Do you think the Civil War was just? If so, on what basis do you conclude some war that maybe happened in the Old Testament wasn't? All of the history of the revolutionary war and civil war were laced with talk of divine providence and god, on both sides. The revolutionaries were terrorists according to the British.

OH MY GOD! STOP!!! You are seriously gone.

iCan't

[_Chap]

Earth to Water Dog: If we take the Old Testament as literal (I don't, by the way, I think the early stuff is completely made up, but the morality taught there is horrible) we have to believe that the Israelites killed unarmed infants. Again, UNARMED INFANTS. You are really stretching to win this argument.

There is *no* context that makes that type of killing okay. I'm not thinking emotionally about this, I'm just shaking my head in sadness that there are people like you who could imagine that there must be some circumstance where it would be okay to kill an infant.

Are you going to get into apologetics of Old Testament slavery next?

This is sad, just stop. Now.

Dude, you're being a big emotional cry baby. If only the world were rosy simple as you see it. See WW2. Lots of unarmed infants killed, it's called war. Even in our modern context what you're saying is asinine. If a madman with his hand on the button surrounds himself with a building full of infant babies, well, I don't like it at all, but those babies are all going to die when I drop a bomb on his head.

The kind of killing we are talking about in the Old Testament context, to which fetchface was clearly and explicitly referring, is the killing of infants who are involved in nothing more threatening than being baby Canaanites. And the killing had to take place by guys with swords picking up the said babies one by one and slitting their throats. Whatever we think of 'collateral damage', this was not it.

[_just me]

OH MY GOD! STOP!!! You are seriously gone.

iCan't

Can't debate the subject, so debate the person, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS. How original.

Was there a topic up for debate? Your rant was scary. I didn't see anything to engage.

[_Chap]

The kind of killing we are talking about in the Old Testament context, to which fetchface was clearly and explicitly referring, is the killing of infants who are involved in nothing more threatening than being baby Canaanites. And the killing had to take place by guys with swords picking up the said babies one by one and slitting their throats. Whatever we think of 'collateral damage', this was not it.

That's not accurate. How about we get into specifics? Cite the verses of holy warriors silting babies throats with swords please.

Well, I will grant you that in an instance like this one:

Deuteronomy 2:33-34

33 And the Lord our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.

34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:

... the Israelite warriors might have simply put the babies on the ground and stamped on their heads. Or they might have buried them alive in a big trench. Or they might have thrown them into burning buildings. Or ... well, if you don't like the throat cutting idea, you can imagine any other means you wish of 'utterly destroying .. the little ones'.

Personally, the throat cutting seems to me the most obvious and humane option in terms of speed, if you have remembered to resharpen your sword after killing all the adults. So it seemed to me the method of 'utterly destroying' that would cause you the least offense.

What's your personal favorite?

In another case, I am afraid that the stamping, burying or burning options are not available to you, since the Lord seems to have made his preferred method of massacre plain:

Joshua 6:21-27

21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.