DiscussMormonism.com

Anti-science folks often accuse atheists and other rational people of worshiping science. I guess they can't imagine anyone who doesn't want to debase themselves, as one must necessarily do in any act of worship.

However, what, in all the history of humanity, would be more deserving of worship than science, when it comes down to it? What religion promises, science actually delivers.

In a recent sacrament meeting I attended, believers were audacious enough to try to steal credit from science and give it to god, in the case of a young man who got better from a grave illness after weeks of treatment from highly trained professionals using advanced medical science. There was no hallelujah moment where he rose up from his bed and walked. He got better slowly with treatment. But no credit whatsoever was given to the advanced medicines, equipment and highly trained professionals directly and demonstrably responsible for his recovery.

In the Biblical fable, Elijah proves which god is greater, Baal Zəbul or Yahweh, by testing them directly in a literal trial by fire. Which god actually delivers the goods? If science is a god, as some believers sneeringly suggest, it has metaphorically burnt all the priests of Yahweh and Jesus and Muhammad and Joseph Smith and Vishnu to a crisp.

In what religion would it be the very highest honor and achievement to publish new work convincingly showing that the previously accepted doctrine was wrong, and result in all the priests and bishops and apostles of the religion chucking the old views and jumping on board with what this upstart developed?

Sethbag wrote:In what religion would it be the very highest honor and achievement to publish new work convincingly showing that the previously accepted doctrine was wrong, and result in all the priests and bishops and apostles of the religion chucking the old views and jumping on board with what this upstart developed?

Typically such developments only occur in religion when accompanied by a massacre of adherents to the old model and then a systematic revision of history to demonize the losers.

Sethbag wrote:In what religion would it be the very highest honor and achievement to publish new work convincingly showing that the previously accepted doctrine was wrong, and result in all the priests and bishops and apostles of the religion chucking the old views and jumping on board with what this upstart developed?

Mormonism.

In the First Vision, God told Joseph that all the other churches were wrong, and that vision was highest honor. That and the vision of D&C 76--another overturn.

asbestosman wrote:

Sethbag wrote:In what religion would it be the very highest honor and achievement to publish new work convincingly showing that the previously accepted doctrine was wrong, and result in all the priests and bishops and apostles of the religion chucking the old views and jumping on board with what this upstart developed?

Mormonism.

In the First Vision, God told Joseph that all the other churches were wrong, and that vision was highest honor. That and the vision of D&C 76--another overturn.

Really? What has the church typically done with Mormon studies scholars who have found that traditional understandings of church history are wrong?

Buffalo wrote:Really?

Yes.

What has the church typically done with Mormon studies scholars who have found that traditional understandings of church history are wrong?

So, church history is doctrine? Uh, yeah.

asbestosman wrote:

Buffalo wrote:Really?

Yes.

What has the church typically done with Mormon studies scholars who have found that traditional understandings of church history are wrong?

So, church history is doctrine? Uh, yeah.

In Mormonism it is, yes.

Abman, you surely must be joking. There's no other way I can take your words in this thread so far.

About the only example I can think of that even remotely, even with just a surface resemblance, approaches what I'm talking about is when McConkie said to forget whatever he'd said in the past about the blacks and the priesthood. And that doesn't even count because the church has never followed up with any kind of honest accounting for what was previously taught as truth, and now is dishonestly dismissed as old folklore.

Sethbag wrote:Abman, you surely must be joking. There's no other way I can take your words in this thread so far.

About the only example I can think of that even remotely, even with just a surface resemblance, approaches what I'm talking about is when McConkie said to forget whatever he'd said in the past about the blacks and the priesthood. And that doesn't even count because the church has never followed up with any kind of honest accounting for what was previously taught as truth, and now is dishonestly dismissed as old folklore.

Plus, it is only the REASONS behind the ban that are supposed to be dismissed. The actual ban is still doctrine.

Sethbag wrote:Abman, you surely must be joking. There's no other way I can take your words in this thread so far.

I may be--shall we say--trolling to a degree, but I think there's some serious food for thought there. The problem is where you draw the line in religion to demarcate one group from another so as to embrace or reject change. Generally what happens in religion when someone has a discovery / revelation that the old guard is wrong, a new movement or group is born. As Jesus said, new wine in new bottles.

Now, what you're likely to say is that this is where science is different from religion. I disagree. Someone famously said science progresses one death at a time. I really don't see that as much different than religion.