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Possibly heeding the advice of some who hope to see the Church introduce "unfavorable" facts to members rather than leaving them to be blindsided by these facts at some point later (i.e., when doing internet research for a Sunday School lesson), in the January "Friend" magazine, the Church published a cartoon illustration that may be found here:

LINK

The part I found to be, perhaps, an interesting example of the inoculation strategy is the following:

Joseph’s father was also religious. Several years before his son’s vision, Joseph Smith Sr. had visions preparing him to receive the truth. He saw a vision like Lehi and Nephi saw.

Last night I dreamed about a tree with wonderful fruit.

People inside a spacious building were making fun of us for eating the fruit.

I was told that the fruit represents the love of God.

Certainly correct me if this is this is an old article and illustration that was in the Friend when I was a kid and I was just too lazy to read and understand it, but I have to think this is a new article that is part of a new strategy to begin presenting unfavorable facts at a young age.

After all, Dallin Oaks stated in his PBS interview:

[W]e’re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesn’t deal with anything that’s unfavorable, and we’re coming into a period of “warts and all” kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things — there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.
...
The best I can say is that we’re moving with the times, we’re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn’t.

Emphasis supplied.

It was an interesting interview. The full interview is found here: LINK

Somebody feel free to tell me how to shorten those links. I seem to have forgotten.

MODERATOR NOTE by Shades: To shorten links, enclose the URL in "url tags." Type the following without any spaces:

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Very interesting MMS. Oaks is saying that at one time, Mormons could define in advance what they wanted to belive yet could only maintain that belief by lies and deceptions about the facts related to those beliefs but now, since they've become accustomed to the lying, they can lie to themselves and maintain belief while accepting many true facts related to their fraudulent heritage. But in the future, the facts might have to be restrained as there is no way even the most self-deceiving Mormon's Mormon could maintain belief in light of all the truth. Let the practice of history be variable so long as the blind, head buried in the sand belief remains constant.

What profound, wise advice from a prophet of God.

mms,

I don't know. This isn't an issue for me. People dream all kinds of stuff. If jr.s dad dreamed about a tree that ended up in a fictitious book or a dream that ended up in a real book - it doesn't do anything for me either way. The dream is pretty wacked out anyway.

Besides, if there was a perfect God that wanted to be perfectly understood, why would he continue to bombard us with nebulous symbolic dream language anyway?

Obviously, this Mormon God character really likes puzzles. I don't.

I've concluded that if any God wants to convey a legitimate message to me he's going to have to start using the language I was born with.

I don't put any faith in dreams anymore.

(edited to fix a double negative etc)

Innoculation is most definately the smartest thing the church could do.

Give them the "wart", right along with the current apologetic explaination and all will be well in Zion. Faith is maintained.

Think about it... I knew about BY polygamy for years, along with the apologetic excuse that it was only practiced because so many men died crossing the plains.

Scottie wrote:Think about it... I knew about BY polygamy for years, along with the apologetic excuse that it was only practiced because so many men died crossing the plains.

So essentially, you've got a truth, surrounded by lies.

harmony wrote:

Scottie wrote:Think about it... I knew about BY polygamy for years, along with the apologetic excuse that it was only practiced because so many men died crossing the plains.

So essentially, you've got a truth, surrounded by lies.

Which, of course, is the definition of deceipt.