CWK: Becoming a god: deification in Mormonism and Orthodox theosis

[Markk]

You are a joke on this subject....do your basic homework.

OK, Markk. It’s clear that you are out to be an ass here. I don’t think studying Brian Hales’ position du jour is a high priority. Certainly not on a channel of this kind. Feel free not to watch. If you continue to be an asshole, I’m just going to ignore you.

You call me names here, and on your podcast....and I am the asshole? Go back and read our exchange from the beginning and you tell me who started it. You got butt hurt because I did not agree with your view....period

[Physics Guy]

Joseph Smith ... did have some interest in presenting a coherent revealed understanding of life.

Yes, and I expect he did a decent job of that, up to a point. Smith was a smart guy.

Even somebody who was a one-in-ten-thousand intellect, though, was only one of nearly hundred thousand such people alive in the 1840s. Those hundred thousand unusually smart people didn't produce a hundred thousand historically great ideas. Great ideas are much rarer than smart people.

A smart person like Smith can give you a slick spiel that sounds cool. Concepts that stay solid when you bore into them, though, are a lot rarer than fancy words that collapse into nonsense or meaninglessness when you try to take them seriously. This is especially the case with concepts like deification, that have a really low prior plausibility. I mean, any notion that humans can become anything like what most people mean by "God" has got a high bar to clear just to even make sense.

So to me this is one of those cases where the infamous argumentum ad hominem is too practical a strategy to ignore.

Smith was a smart guy, so for sure he's going to have a bunch of fine phrases. It's going to take work on my part to thresh through them to see whether he has a good point or is just snowing people. The a priori chance that this will not turn out to be a big waste of time is low, just given the subject, of deification.

If I was sure that Smith had nothing but the most sincere intentions in framing his doctrine, then maybe investing my time in his doctrine wouldn't be quite such a bad bet. But if there's a high chance that the main reason for his fine words was just the ulterior motive of manipulating vulnerable people for sex? That drops my motivation to invest time and thought in Smith's words below threshold.

With the time and mental energy that it would cost me to analyse Smith, I could do other things. I don't have infinite time and so I have to do triage. Teachings about deification by clever polygamous cult leaders won't make the cut.

What later Mormons made of Smith's words is a different topic for me, as I've said. Even if the doctrine itself were sheer nonsense, how millions of people coped with a nonsensical doctrine would be an interesting bit of history that might even be important. And if an idea was important to millions of people, then to me the prior likelihood that they somehow found something good in the idea is high, not low, no matter how absurd the idea might sound. Even if the words were all Smith's, the only profound meaning in them for which I'm willing to look is the meaning that later Mormons invested in them.

[Kishkumen]

You call me names here, and on your podcast....and I am the asshole? Go back and read our exchange from the beginning and you tell me who started it. You got butt hurt because I did not agree with your view....period

Dude! Are you serious? Ha!

I called you a smart aleck. Did that really upset you? I didn’t mention your handle. For all the grief you evidently want to give me, that should be viewed as remarkably restrained on my part.

I really don’t care that you disagree with me, Markk! I really don’t! The day I listen to your opinion about Mormon history over someone like Don Bradley will be a cold one in hell. If you don’t think I have done MY homework, I can tell you that compared to him you have no concept of homework on these topics.

From our exchange I take it you don’t like the framing of my channel and you caught me being mistaken on Hales’ current view of how much sex was involved in polygamy. Thank you so much for that! I will probably have episodes on these topics, so I really owe you one. We could have gotten to the same place without you being rude and overly sensitive, but I consider this a win.

[Kishkumen]

Yes, and I expect he did a decent job of that, up to a point. Smith was a smart guy.

Even somebody who was a one-in-ten-thousand intellect, though, was only one of nearly hundred thousand such people alive in the 1840s. Those hundred thousand unusually smart people didn't produce a hundred thousand historically great ideas. Great ideas are much rarer than smart people.

A smart person like Smith can give you a slick spiel that sounds cool. Concepts that stay solid when you bore into them, though, are a lot rarer than fancy words that collapse into nonsense or meaninglessness when you try to take them seriously. This is especially the case with concepts like deification, that have a really low prior plausibility. I mean, any notion that humans can become anything like what most people mean by "God" has got a high bar to clear just to even make sense.

So to me this is one of those cases where the infamous argumentum ad hominem is too practical a strategy to ignore.

Smith was a smart guy, so for sure he's going to have a bunch of fine phrases. It's going to take work on my part to thresh through them to see whether he has a good point or is just snowing people. The a priori chance that this will not turn out to be a big waste of time is low, just given the subject, of deification.

If I was sure that Smith had nothing but the most sincere intentions in framing his doctrine, then maybe investing my time in his doctrine wouldn't be quite such a bad bet. But if there's a high chance that the main reason for his fine words was just the ulterior motive of manipulating vulnerable people for sex? That drops my motivation to invest time and thought in Smith's words below threshold.

With the time and mental energy that it would cost me to analyse Smith, I could do other things. I don't have infinite time and so I have to do triage. Teachings about deification by clever polygamous cult leaders won't make the cut.

What later Mormons made of Smith's words is a different topic for me, as I've said. Even if the doctrine itself were sheer nonsense, how millions of people coped with a nonsensical doctrine would be an interesting bit of history that might even be important. And if an idea was important to millions of people, then to me the prior likelihood that they somehow found something good in the idea is high, not low, no matter how absurd the idea might sound. Even if the words were all Smith's, the only profound meaning in them for which I'm willing to look is the meaning that later Mormons invested in them.

For me, another fascinating question is exactly what role sex plays in these groups, if we try to understand the situation absent the lens of popular morality.

[Markk]

You call me names here, and on your podcast....and I am the asshole? Go back and read our exchange from the beginning and you tell me who started it. You got butt hurt because I did not agree with your view....period

Dude! Are you serious? Ha!

I called you a smart aleck. Did that really upset you? I didn’t mention your handle. For all the grief you evidently want to give me, that should be viewed as remarkably restrained on my part.

I really don’t care that you disagree with me, Markk! I really don’t! The day I listen to your opinion about Mormon history over someone like Don Bradley will be a cold one in hell. If you don’t think I have done MY homework, I can tell you that compared to him you have no concept of homework on these topics.

From our exchange I take it you don’t like the framing of my channel and you caught me being mistaken on Hales’ current view of how much sex was involved in polygamy. Thank you so much for that! I will probably have episodes on these topics, so I really owe you one. We could have gotten to the same place without you being rude and overly sensitive, but I consider this a win.

Focus....go back and read your post where you first lost is....Wed Oct 23, 2024 4:06 pm, notice your all caps.

And one more time please get my assertion correct, that Joseph used section 132, and offering the context of it women, promising them exaltation to them and in their families....if they married him. I believe that was the means to and end for his having a sexual relationship with these women. Also, section 132 is 100% about plural marriage in my opinion, and that there is no room for monogamous marriages in it in it's original context, as later leaders confirmed. This is important to my position.

So putting that behind....

As far as Bradley, he is a great researcher and most likely provided some of the information to Brian Hales, in that Hales hired him as his personal researcher as I understand it. I make no claims to be a expert, or close to it.... in any of this stuff.

I am a carpenter and do not know more than I know as the saying goes. Most of my early understanding of Mormon apologetics come from the Tanners, "the big blue book". These days from podcasters like RFM, Reel, and selected guests on Mormon stories. I particularly enjoy "Mike" from LDS discussions and his series on truth claims on Mormon stories. These guys do their homework and research and are more than prepared, RFM's memory blows me away. I am blessed with a 3 hour commute these days and when not burned out on this stuff, or LOL...listening to Fantasy Football Happy Hour or the Dan Patrick Show, I listen to these guys on topics that interest me.

If you do not believe that Joseph used the new and everlasting covenant for sexual satisfaction, what did he use it for?

And why didn't he canonize it?, is a question I ask myself if he truly believed it was from God, why did he keep it secret and only shared it with his inner trusts?

Do you believe that Joseph actually believed he could offer salvation (deification) to these women if they married him, and I guess that he was doing them an eternal favor so to speak, if they agreed to marry him?

These are fair questions.

[Kishkumen]

Focus....go back and read your post where you first lost is....Wed Oct 23, 2024 4:06 pm, notice your all caps.

Well, I didn’t “lose it,” to my recollection of how I felt when I typed that. I admit it was a bad tack to take in terms of politeness and diplomacy. I was baffled at how you could come to your viewpoint, other than the usual assumptions about cult leaders, which I find shallow and unhelpful.

And one more time please get my assertion correct, that Joseph used section 132, and offering the context of it women, promising them exaltation to them and in their families....if they married him. I believe that was the means to and end for his having a sexual relationship with these women. Also, section 132 is 100% about plural marriage in my opinion, and that there is no room for monogamous marriages in it in it's original context, as later leaders confirmed. This is important to my position.

Do I need to repeat what essentially is an overly complicated wind up to saying “the point was the sex”? Really?

As far as Bradley, he is a great researcher and most likely provided some of the information to Brian Hales, in that Hales hired him as his personal researcher as I understand it. I make no claims to be a expert, or close to it.... in any of this stuff.

He’s a lot more than Hales’ hired hand. If you would like a bibliography of his published works, I can put one together for you.

I am a carpenter and do not know more than I know as the saying goes. Most of my early understanding of Mormon apologetics come from the Tanners, "the big blue book". These days from podcasters like RFM, Reel, and selected guests on Mormon stories. I particularly enjoy "Mike" from LDS discussions and his series on truth claims on Mormon stories. These guys do their homework and research and are more than prepared, RFM's memory blows me away. I am blessed with a 3 hour commute these days and when not burned out on this stuff, or LOL...listening to Fantasy Football Happy Hour or the Dan Patrick Show, I listen to these guys on topics that interest me.

If you start with the Tanners, you start with a skewed polemical view of Mormonism, period. They are sharp researchers who did the valuable service of publicizing documents the LDS Church sought to hide. They also have great intuition on some things. They have been right on things like the Salamander Letter where others were wrong.

But their agenda gets in the way. I refuse to give that agenda support. But I really liked both of the Tanners as decent, nice people. Sandra still is. RIP Jerald.

RFM is simply the best. I stan RFM.

If you do not believe that Joseph used the new and everlasting covenant for sexual satisfaction, what did he use it for?

And why didn't he canonize it?, is a question I ask myself if he truly believed it was from God, why did he keep it secret and only shared it with his inner trusts?

Do you believe that Joseph actually believed he could offer salvation (deification) to these women if they married him, and I guess that he was doing them an eternal favor so to speak, if they agreed to marry him?

These are fair questions.

They are. And I will get to them. But, I have to finish helping my son with his college apps, go to a play, and prepare to be on BYP. I promise I will get back to these, and I promise not to be rude toward you for the balance of this discussion.

[Physics Guy]

For me, another fascinating question is exactly what role sex plays in these groups, if we try to understand the situation absent the lens of popular morality.

I wouldn't want to throw away that lens. Stepping back and summarising the big picture is part of what I want as understanding, and with some things I think part of that summary has to be, "This was bad." Perhaps few things are all bad, but sometimes the badness has to be the headline.

Even bad things may be worth examining in more detail than it takes just to recognise them as bad, though, even if only to find out how they got to be that bad and yet managed to last however long they lasted. It's no substitute for that kind of analysis just to keep repeating that this was bad. So in that sense I can be willing to put the moral lens down for a while.

[Markk]

If you start with the Tanners, you start with a skewed polemical view of Mormonism, period.

Well, given I was born and raised in the church 5th and 6th polygamous pioneer stock. Understanding LDS theology I couldn't disagree with you more. Exposing truths and putting them out there for folks to make discissions on in not polemical to me. Their journey out of Mormonism was hardly abrupt. It was a step by step journey out uncovering truth after truth that was hidden or forgotten.

[Kishkumen]

I wouldn't want to throw away that lens. Stepping back and summarising the big picture is part of what I want as understanding, and with some things I think part of that summary has to be, "This was bad." Perhaps few things are all bad, but sometimes the badness has to be the headline.

Even bad things may be worth examining in more detail than it takes just to recognise them as bad, though, even if only to find out how they got to be that bad and yet managed to last however long they lasted. It's no substitute for that kind of analysis just to keep repeating that this was bad. So in that sense I can be willing to put the moral lens down for a while.

So, in Classical antiquity people engaged in sex with children. Horrific stuff and difficult to stomach working on. Once, I gave a talk on this subject, and a prestigious scholar came up to me and said, “I sure hope you are wrong about this.” Well, I don’t think I am. At the same time, I would never recommend abandoning our values of respecting and protecting the rights of others, especially the less powerful.

That said, if I seek to understand an alien culture, I cannot be focused primarily on my own values when trying to figure out what is completely different from my own culture. It is not that I have to agree with it or adopt it as my own. I would be horrified, in some cases, at they very suggestion.

[Kishkumen]

Well, given I was born and raised in the church 5th and 6th polygamous pioneer stock. Understanding LDS theology I couldn't disagree with you more. Exposing truths and putting them out there for folks to make discissions on in not polemical to me. Their journey out of Mormonism was hardly abrupt. It was a step by step journey out uncovering truth after truth that was hidden or forgotten.

They didn’t just bring facts to light. That is the good side of what they did, sure. Instead, they sought to frame things in a prejudiced light. I should know since they approached me about writing on Joseph Smith and magic. Their negative and biased views on the topic were very clear. I did not accept the invitation.