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I asked this question before, but not in a way that I could expect a direct answer to it. The Nancy Rigdon letter that John W. started made me think about this some more, and so now I'm asking it directly.

Will, or any other TBM, if you were in a Bishopric or a Stake Presidency, and someone under your jurisdiction confessed to pre-marital sex, but said it was OK because they'd received a revelation from God that it was OK in that person's particular circumstances, would you be OK with that? How would you react?

Sethbag wrote:Will, or any other TBM, if you were in a Bishopric or a Stake Presidency, and someone under your jurisdiction confessed to pre-marital sex, but said it was OK because they'd received a revelation from God that it was OK in that person's particular circumstances, would you be OK with that? How would you react?

Revelation comes down the proper priesthood channels. The bishopric and Stake Presidencies are not the prophet.


Also, I'm wondering if any LDS will take a stab at my 10 questions in that thread.

asbestosman wrote:Revelation comes down the proper priesthood channels. The bishopric and Stake Presidencies are not the prophet.

Doesn't the church teach 'personal revelation'?

Also, I'm wondering if any LDS will take a stab at my 10 questions in that thread.

I don't think Will actually took any of the questions that we came up with. I don't think he ever intended to. He was just grandstanding.

Who Knows wrote:

asbestosman wrote:Revelation comes down the proper priesthood channels. The bishopric and Stake Presidencies are not the prophet.

Doesn't the church teach 'personal revelation'?

Not when it contradicts the prophet. See D&C 28 about Hyram Page's seer stone.

Also, I'm wondering if any LDS will take a stab at my 10 questions in that thread.

I don't think Will actually took any of the questions that we came up with. I don't think he ever intended to. He was just grandstanding.

I wasn't talking about Will. I just hoped someone would try to answer them. I think most of my questions can't be dismissed by a simple "it's anti-mormon lies" wheras many "chapel" Mormons will easily dismiss the other questions in that thread as lies. I think my questions are more fundamental and salient to what current "chapel" Mormons believe.

asbestosman wrote:
Doesn't the church teach 'personal revelation'?

There are people who've been excommunicated for personal revelation, or at least, for confiding it to a bishop and/or stake president.

So, just saying you've had "personal revelation" doesn't pass.

I don't think Will actually took any of the questions that we came up with. I don't think he ever intended to. He was just grandstanding.

How can you say that?

Granted, I reduced the number of questions I posed from ten to five, but I think all of them were based on suggestions that I received here and on the MAD board. Indeed, I thought they were really good, “tough” questions. Did you read them? If so, you certainly can’t be suggesting that I “soft pedaled” anything. Believe me, they were quite disturbed by them.

• Why do we sometimes use illustrations, depicting the translation of the Book of Mormon, that show Joseph Smith wearing a breastplate and some kind of “spectacles” while looking at an open set of golden plates, when in reality the Book of Mormon was dictated while he looked at a stone in the bottom of his hat? And the plates weren’t even around!

• Is it true that Joseph Smith married, as plural wives, a 14-year-old (Helen Mar Kimball), a 15-year-old (Maria Lawrence), and at least two women (Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner) who were already married to and living with their husbands?

• Is it true that the Egyptian papyri from which the Book of Abraham were “translated” were discovered in 1967, and that modern Egyptologists tell us they have nothing to do with Abraham?

• How do we explain the fact that the Book of Mormon mentions horses, steel, chariots, and many other things that (according to archaeologists) were not present in ancient America prior to the arrival of the Europeans?

• Is it true that Elder James E. Talmage smoked hashish, and that even during his time in the Quorum of the Twelve (and when he was writing Jesus the Christ) that he smoked tobacco? If so, how can we believe that he was an inspired apostle?

Oh, well. I guess no matter what I had done, someone would have complained. That’s how it goes . . .

As for Sethbag’s question:

Will, or any other TBM, if you were in a Bishopric or a Stake Presidency, and someone under your jurisdiction confessed to pre-marital sex, but said it was OK because they'd received a revelation from God that it was OK in that person's particular circumstances, would you be OK with that? How would you react?

I confess I would probably think they were “making it up.” And I’d probably be right.

Seth, I’m fine with your conclusion that Joseph Smith was a lecher, pedophile, etc. I suppose I can see why someone could come to that conclusion. However, I don’t share your conclusion. That said, I’m not interested in defending the reasons for my conclusions in the context of this message board. It would be utterly futile.

• Why do we sometimes use illustrations, depicting the translation of the Book of Mormon, that show Joseph Smith wearing a breastplate and some kind of “spectacles” while looking at an open set of golden plates, when in reality the Book of Mormon was dictated while he looked at a stone in the bottom of his hat? And the plates weren’t even around!

• Is it true that Joseph Smith married, as plural wives, a 14-year-old (Helen Mar Kimball), a 15-year-old (Maria Lawrence), and at least two women (Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner) who were already married to and living with their husbands?

• Is it true that the Egyptian papyri from which the Book of Abraham were “translated” were discovered in 1967, and that modern Egyptologists tell us they have nothing to do with Abraham?

• How do we explain the fact that the Book of Mormon mentions horses, steel, chariots, and many other things that (according to archaeologists) were not present in ancient America prior to the arrival of the Europeans?

• Is it true that Elder James E. Talmage smoked hashish, and that even during his time in the Quorum of the Twelve (and when he was writing Jesus the Christ) that he smoked tobacco? If so, how can we believe that he was an inspired apostle?

I must have missed this. What were the questions for?

asbestosman wrote:

Who Knows wrote:

asbestosman wrote:Revelation comes down the proper priesthood channels. The bishopric and Stake Presidencies are not the prophet.

Doesn't the church teach 'personal revelation'?

Not when it contradicts the prophet. See D&C 28 about Hyram Page's seer stone.

You just contradicted every Mormon whose ever defended the idea that the Prophets can sometimes make mistakes and utter their opinions, even when they thought they were relaying revelation from God, by saying that each person is entitled to their own, personal revelation of what the Prophet has said. Now you're saying that a person is not entitled to receive personal revelation if it contradicts the Prophet?

Which is it, Abman? When the Prophet speaks, has the thinking been done? Or are you entitled to receive a heads up from God when the Prophet is just uttering his own personal opinion?

If it doesn't throw up a giant red flag in a person's mind that the same "channels" through which revelation is received in the Church, ie: Joseph Smith the Prophet, is also the same guy who is being given permission from God to sleep with dozens of other women, there's something wrong with that person. I can hardly imagine a greater, more obvious, and more egregious conflict of interest.

"I'm the Prophet of God. Only I have the authority to receive revelations. And I just got one now [in my pants], which says that the Lord has given you to me, and after the performance, by Brigham Young, of a farcical, secret ceremony, the Lord has commanded me to take you to Brother Benjamin Johnson's house and have sex with you. But you mustn't tell anyone about this, and you must deny it if asked, because it's our little secret."

Guys, either Joseph Smith was right in the Nancy Rigdon letter, or he was wrong. Pre-marital sex may indeed be wrong in almost all circumstances, but how do you know that it isn't, in fact, right in the circumstances this particular couple find themselves in? If they claim to have received a spiritual witness that what they did was right, who are you to contradict them and say they didn't?

It's like me and the other critics saying you didn't really get a witness from God that the LDS Church is true. You'd take umbrage at that, wouldn't you? Who the hell am I to tell you what you did or did not receive.

asbestosman wrote:
Revelation comes down the proper priesthood channels.

True, but according to the LDS Revelation Flowchart, the prophet receives revelation for the church, the stake president recevies revelation for the stake, the bishop for the ward, etc. Individual LDS receive revelation for themselves. I don't think any apologist or TBM wants to argue that a church authority can receive revelation for their member's personal lives. That would be too cultish. If someone received personal revelation to engage in pre-marital sex, and their sex partner also received personal revelation it does not contradict revelation given to the leaders because the leaders only receive revelation for church matters and for themselves, not for other people. Does their personal revelation to engange in pre-marital sex contradict church doctrine? That depends if a ban on pre-marital sex is doctrine or just opinion. And if someone's personal revelation says it is okay, it is probably not doctrine.

SatanWasSetUp wrote: True, but according to the LDS Revelation Flowchart...

LMAO

I had to comment that this struck my funny bone just right.