FIRM Exults in "Firing" of Heartland Model Critics

[_sock puppet]

I realise that as an anti-Mormon, you'd love the so-called "heartland" model to become the accepted interpretation of Book of Mormon geography; it's such an easy target, after all.

Mormonism is a target-rich environment.

Why would it be such a coup for anti-Mormons if the standing of the Church matches Joseph Smith's interpretation?

I have always felt that the Book of Mormon took place in the US.

Wow, liz. That's much less NOMish, much more TBMish than anything the apologists stake claim to.

Forgive my Droopy-esque moment, but here is what Glen Campbell might have penned about Mormon apologists--

Rhinestone Apologist

I've been splainin' these claims so long
Singin' the same old song
I know every crack in the dirty history of Mormons
Confusion's the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like Michael Quinn and Palmer
There's been a load of compromisin'
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shinin' on me

Like a rhinestone splainer
Riding out on anger and feigned victimization
Like a rhinestone splainer
Getting cards and letters from people I don't even know
And offers comin' over the phone

[_Pahoran]

How? By posting a scan of a document you know perfectly well does not represent the actual position of the Church?

I don't know if you killed the conversation, but you certainly demonstrated that you're not interested in the facts of the matter.

I suppose hobo1512 knows perfectly well that the only Watson letter, the 1990 one, does not represent the actual position of the Church of Daniel Peterson and William Hamblin.

I rather suspect he knows perfectly well that it does not reflect the actual position of any church, anywhere.

However, that 1990, only Watson letter is the most recent, official pronouncement of the ecclesiastical mouthpiece for the FP of the LDS Church.

I also rather suspect that you know perfectly well that the secretary of any organisation in the Church is not that organisation's "ecclesiastical mouthpiece."

With your characteristic dishonesty, you are attempting to puff up the secretary's authority.

It has neither been rescinded or superseded. Anyone disputing that is spouting LDS heresies.

The Church does not establish doctrine by having secretaries write letters to individuals.

And when an anti-Mormon shyster tries to support a position he does not hold (which is about the most fundamentally dishonest form any argument can take) by pejoratively labelling the actual position of a believing Latter-day Saint a "heresy," that's pretty good evidence that the position of that Latter-day Saint is true.

Put more simply: Any position Sock Puppet supports vis-a-vis the Church is usually false.

Regards,
Pahoran

[_harmony]

Put more simply: Any position Sock Puppet supports vis-à-vis the Church is usually false.

Regards,
Pahoran

But can you prove that?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

[_sock puppet]

However, that 1990, only Watson letter is the most recent, official pronouncement of the ecclesiastical mouthpiece for the FP of the LDS Church.

I also rather suspect that you know perfectly well that the secretary of any organisation in the Church is not that organisation's "ecclesiastical mouthpiece."

With your characteristic dishonesty, you are attempting to puff up the secretary's authority.

Let's see. THE Secretary to the FP is a calling position, for which the called person (here, Watson) is 'set apart' before functioning in the role.

Carla Ogden, on the other hand, was simply a hired employee doing clerical, office work.

Now, Pahoran the Self Righteous, do you typically take the word of a staff employee that does not even sign a fax of wording fed to her by Matt Roper and Bill Hambone, out of Ludwig's Encyclopedia of Mormonism, over what a person with a set-apart calling with the FP subscribed his name, as such, to?

[_Yahoo Bot]

This second Watson letter story really really stinks.

Such an important letter lost? In this day and age people don't copy it? And why not ask the office of the FP for a copy?

It just never existed. Trust me. Absence of evidence is evidence that it ain't there.

[_Shiloh]

Thank you, Hush Puppy. Your attempt to pre-empt the use of the superseding document demonstrates that you know perfectly well that it eviscerates the discarded Watson letter.

Mr. Jedi Sheephumper,

We all know you value team loyalty over the truth but this is taking things too far. Why can't you simply admit that Hamblin is the author of the letter that contradicts the first Watson letter? Thus, we can conclude that Hamblin was desparately trying to change the Church narrative on Book of Mormon locations because it didn't fit with his pet LGT theory.

Amazing how you can go to such lengths to dismiss a letter written by the direction of the FP. Do you really think Watson is some rogue agent pushing his own doctrines? Oh wait, that describes Bill and Dan.

You are a shameful hypocrite and a disgusting excuse for a Latter-day Saint.

Shiloh

[_Shiloh]

How? By posting a scan of a document you know perfectly well does not represent the actual position of the Church?

Ummm.... so a non-existent 2nd letter Trump's an official letter on Church letterhead from the secretary to the FP.

Got it.

Loyalty over the truth.

I don't know if you killed the conversation, but you certainly demonstrated that you're not interested in the facts of the matter.

I think we all know who isn't interested in facts. Hint: it is you, the masterful Jedi Sheephumper!

It's ok to admit that Hamblin and DCP are dishonest. That doesn't make Jesus love you any less.

[_Tobin]

Ah, now the critics are saying that the Secretary to the FP is the mouth-piece of God (supposing the letter is legitimate at all)?!? I find this just as amusing as Paharon does and really has little bearing on the likely truth. And despite the assertions to the contrary, the local geography theory is undoubtedly accurate. The Book of Mormon, like the Bible, is about a people that primarly had to walk from location to location. They didn't have cars, trains, buses, superhighways, jet aircraft and so on. Mormons, and the critics, who think it spanned continents are just being ridiculous.

[_Chap]

Ah, now the critics are saying that the Secretary to the FP is the mouth-piece of God (supposing the letter is legitimate at all)?!? I find this just as amusing as Paharon does and really has little bearing on the likely truth. And despite the assertions to the contrary, the local geography theory is undoubtedly accurate. The Book of Mormon, like the Bible, is about a people that primarly had to walk from location to location. They didn't have cars, trains, buses, superhighways, jet aircraft and so on. Mormons, and the critics, who think it spanned continents are just being ridiculous.

Tobin is (as usual) a bit too obsessed with his own view of things and chuckling over the foolishness of all alternative views to notice what the discussion in recent posts is about. It isn't about where the events described in the Book of Mormon actually took place. (In any case, they didn't take place anywhere at all except in Joseph Smith's head. We might as well ask where Mordor really was.)

Pahoran and others are arguing instead about what the First Presidency has said or has not said about the location of the (for the FP real) events of the Book of Mormon. The Watson letter says the FP believes that the New York Cumorah is the one and only real one. The Ogden fax purports to pull back from that position, which is not a comfortable one for FIRM and its supporters. The question is whether the fax gives them what they need. And it fairly clearly doesn't.

[_Mormon Think]

I don't see how anyone could think that the idea the Book of Mormon took place in North America is some kind of recent innovation.

I was clearly taught that in Gospel doctrine class.