Only the primary questions matter. Stay in the boat.

[_I have a question]

Yet another waving of hands by a General Authority exhorting the young people to not worry about their questions...

Will you stand forever? Or will you go away?

These are questions Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge asked BYU students to ponder during his devotional address on Jan. 22.

As part of an assignment as a General Authority Seventy, Elder Corbridge needed to read through a great deal of material antagonistic to the Church, the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

“There may not be anything out there (of that nature) I haven’t read,” he said.

Reading this material always left him with a sense of gloom, which inspired him to write a response to these antagonistic claims.

The kingdom of God is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as described in the book of Daniel as standing for ever.

“The question is, will you and I stand?” Elder Corbridge said.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-a ... ssion=true
I’m pretty sure that isn’t the question Church members with doubts are asking. But when you’re a General Authority it helps to change the question to one you can answer in a faith promoting way. Never answer the actual question.

Answer the primary questions

Elder Corbridge explained there are primary and secondary questions when it comes to the Church. The primary questions must be answered first, as they are the most important. They include:

Is there a God who is our Father?
Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?
Was Joseph Smith a prophet?
Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?
In contrast, the secondary questions are unending. They include questions about Church history, polygamy, blacks and the priesthood, women and the priesthood, how the Book of Mormon was translated, DNA and the Book of Mormon, gay marriage, different accounts of the First Vision and so on.

“If you answer the primary questions, the secondary questions get answered too or they pale in significance and you can deal with things you understand and things you don’t understand, things you agree with and things you don’t agree with without jumping ship altogether,” Elder Corbridge said.

In other words, he doesn’t have good answers to your questions so he’s trying to Jedi mind trick you into thinking they don’t matter. “These aren’t the questions you’re looking for...”

[_fetchface]

I actually kind of agree with him, although I disagree with him on the conclusion he reaches.

My doubts in the church led me to slightly different versions of his top two questions:

1. Is the God of Abraham, as depicted in scripture, worthy of worship?
2. Is there any good reason to believe that a just and loving God would require his son to be sacrificed to forgive us?

My best efforts at answering those led me to 'no' for both questions. Therefore, all other questions regarding the truthfulness of the church's claims were moot.

The church tries to establish what looks like good deductive logic at first glance. We can get sucked into attacking the deductive steps, but almost always the starting premises are by far the weakest part of the argument.

[_DarkHelmet]

Answer the primary questions

Elder Corbridge explained there are primary and secondary questions when it comes to the Church. The primary questions must be answered first, as they are the most important. They include:

Is there a God who is our Father?
Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?
Was Joseph Smith a prophet?
Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?

That's a good strategy. Start with what would seem to be a couple obvious "yes" answers before the questions about Mormonism. It's called the "yes ladder" in sales. The assumption is the answers to the first 2 questions are obviously yes and then you can get the person to say "Yes" to the last 2 questions. But Elder Corbridge will be surprised to find those aren't guaranteed yeses anymore. Here's how I see the conversation going:

Is there a God who is our Father?
I don't know. Maybe.

Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?
There's no evidence for that.

Was Joseph Smith a prophet?
Not likely.

Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?
No.

[_Shulem]

Then there is the QUESTION about whether God has an anus or not and I've addressed that issue pretty heavily down in the telestial board.

Heavenly Father has an ANUS?

The General Authorities need to get off their asses and address that issue. Does God have an anus? It's either yes or no -- Goddamnit.

And who wants to worship a man with an anus? Any takers here?

[_Mormonicious]

Is there a God who is our Father?

Better asked "IF" Mormon man god is our Father, is he worthy to be our Father. For what good is a Father that abandons his children to wonder without answers, teaches that they are fallen and not worthy of his (her) presence, favors some over others, seeks after the riches of the world, deceives by ever changing the rules of the game and in all other practices is an enemy to his (her) children.

Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?

Nope, no he/she isn't. For what purpose do we need a jebus? If I have sinned against my god, what worth has this jebus to me IF I have to worship him to get to my "Father"? And what gives this jebus the power to redeem when there is no evidence that he/she existed in more that tradition. And if we are all the same to our "Father" why can't we redeem ourselves?

Was Joseph Smith a prophet?

F*** NO!

Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?

Define Kingdom. IF you mean a corporation that is more interested in Money than people, is more interested in the Praise of people than going about doing good works in silence (YELLOW F****G T-Shirts!!!!), is more interested in rules than action, is more interested in deception than truth, is guilty of lying for the Lard, is corrupt in every manner as judged by Biblical jesus, then okay it is the Kingdom of Evil Mormonism.

In contrast, the secondary questions are unending. They include questions about Church history, polygamy, blacks and the priesthood, women and the priesthood, how the Book of Mormon was translated, DNA and the Book of Mormon, gay marriage, different accounts of the First Vision and so on.

You mean forget all that Google God stands for, truth, justice, honesty, integrity, accountability, full disclosure, holding those accountable for wrong doing, etc. Okay F*** YOU.

[_moksha]

Is there a God who is our Father?

Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?

Was Joseph Smith a prophet?

Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?

Are we the multigenerational result of the greatest hoax of the 19th Century?

[_I have a question]

Let’s examine one of Corbridge’s “primary” questions...

Was Joseph Smith a Prophet?

That’s not a simple question, even though Corbridge wants you to think it’s a simple yes or no based on how your tummy feels (and if it doesn’t feel good about “yes” then you were doing it wrong). First we need to understand by what criteria someone can be assessed as a “prophet”. Is Corbridge using the commonly held definition of “prophet” I.e. “a person who is believed to have a special power that allows them to say what a god wishes to tell people, especially about things that will happen in the future” https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... sh/prophet .

Let’s assume that he is. How can we assess whether or not Joseph Smith had a special power to foresee things that would happen in the future and to articulate what God wanted? What kind of hit rate would we expect there to be on such predictions that differentiates a “prohopet” from a good forecaster of events? What kind of longevity should those God-given articulations need to have remained valid for? Who should be in the control group of potential “prophets” at the time Joseph lived for us to assess whether he was more or less of a “prophet” than his peer group of claimants of prophetic ability? And indeed, this isn’t about whether Joseph was A prophet, this is examining the claim that Joseph Smith was THE prophet. An important distinction that Corbridge’s childish exhortations fail to point out.

But it doesn’t stop there, because the question isn’t “Was Joseph Smith a Prophet?” The question is “Has every President of the Church been a Prophet?” On the basis that even if Joseph was indeed what he claimed to be, for the Church today to be what it claimed to be, every single President of the Church since Joseph Smith has to pass the test of being the most prophetically accurate person on the planet for the period that they held the office.

One only need look at the flourish of MTC building activity to increase capacity that hastily followed Monson’s missionary age reduction and subsequent deflation of the number after the “bubble” period, and the difference between Monson and Nelson on the use of the name “Mormon” to say with absloute certainty that one or the other was most definitely not a prophet. And if even one prophet fails the test, the Church fails the test.

But we digress, back to Joseph and the question of him being a prophet.
- What was Joseph’s hit rate on predicting future events?
- What longevity did Josephs God-given articulations have?
- How does that compare to other claimants of prophetic ability at the time?

(I’m pretty confident that grindael will knock those questions out of the park)

Does the answer to those things make it likely that Joseph was THE prophet he claimed to be? If we cannot answer that in the affirmative then we needn’t examine any subsequent President. If we can answer that in the affirmative, then we need to subject every subsequent President of the Church, in order, to the same scrutiny. When one fails that scrutiny, the jig is up.

I think people mistook Corbridge’s use of the term “primary” - it appears from the narrative that he was talking to BYU students as if they were still in Primary.

[_krose]

The guy has a point.

His first question is the most important. I know that after I came to doubt that one and then eventually decided the answer is “probably not,” none of the other questions mattered at all.

[_I have a question]

The guy has a point.

His first question is the most important. I know that after I came to doubt that one and then eventually decided the answer is “probably not,” none of the other questions mattered at all.

I sort of disagree. You have to keep in mind who his audience is - People who already likely will answer “yes” to the first two questions without even blinking. He’s not interested in converting people to a belief in God, he’s attempting to innoculate young people who are already conditioned to believe in God (and Jesus) that all those other questions about Church History and the like are best left on the shelf because all that matters is that Joseph was a Prophet and therefore the Church is what it claims to be.

He is attempting to wrap all of the questions and doubts and concerns about the Church that members have into a Yes/No challenge about Joseph.

It’s a blatant example of flawed logic and reasoning. Even if the first 3 questions were beyond doubt a “Yes” to each, it doesn’t follow that the Church today is what it claims to be. He’s selling snake oil to people who already have been conditioned since birth to consume it, in an effort to stop them thinking about how it tastes.

[_Meadowchik]

It’s a blatant example of flawed logic and reasoning. Even if the first 3 questions were beyond doubt a “Yes” to each, it doesn’t follow that the Church today is what it claims to be. He’s selling snake oil to people who already have been conditioned since birth to consume it, in an effort to stop them thinking about how it tastes.

Yes, so they can go on to make life-altering decisions that change trajectories forever in support of a dogmatic, rigid system. How many young adults are struggling with mental health but making themselves more vulnerable by serving missions? They are often taught that such acts of faith will make them feel better, when it can actually make it much worse. (That's the bee in my bonnet today.)