In 2013 Russell M. Nelson opened a stake in Armenia, what happened next?

[Dr Moore]

You accuse me of ad hominem but do you have an example of me ever doing that here? Do you have an example of me ever being unkind at all to anyone here?

I know it's a waste of time, but as I clicked to read the comment, here's my last time reading or responding to anything written by Sledge. It's just like MG -- dodge addressing the real issues, while lobbing as many thinly veiled insults or sanctimonious grandstanding about how LDS leaders are prophets no matter what the outcome of their prophetic efforts. It's not even the entertaining kind of trolling.

To answer your question directly: you asked for an example, and here is one example of you lobbing a sanctimonious personal insult at all active board users here:

viewtopic.php?p=25232#p25232

[Sledge]

I know it's a waste of time, but as I clicked to read the comment, here's my last time reading or responding to anything written by Sledge. It's just like MG -- dodge addressing the real issues, while lobbing as many thinly veiled insults or sanctimonious grandstanding about how LDS leaders are prophets no matter what the outcome of their prophetic efforts. It's not even the entertaining kind of trolling.

To answer your question directly: you asked for an example, and here is one example of you lobbing a sanctimonious personal insult at all active board users here:

viewtopic.php?p=25232#p25232

Let me help you out here. That is not an example of ad hominem (you should look that word up if you intend to continue using it). It is not even an example of a personal insult. I did not insult anyone personally.

So I guess it's okay for you to stretch definitions to make a point, but when you perceive someone else doing it, you need to lob these kinds of attacks?

[Fence Sitter]

Dr. Moore,

You need to understand that, when it comes to discussing Mormonism, it is only okay to stretch the definitions of words like prophecy, revelation or translation. Other words like "ad hominem" retain their original definitions. I hope that helps.

[Sledge]

You need to understand that, when it comes to discussing Mormonism, it is only okay to stretch the definitions of words like prophecy, revelation or translation. Other words like "ad hominem" retain their original definitions. I hope that helps.

I looked up “prophecy.” The dictionary said “prediction.”

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Who knew that Richard Simmons was a prophet? He has been using this catch phrase decades before Russell M. Nelson.

[Rivendale]

It is obvious Russell M. Nelson is a Jack Lalane fan.

LaLanne filled his diet with vitamin supplements—40 to 50 of them, he once told Larry King—that spanned the alphabet “from A to Z,” plus various minerals and enzymes. “If you don't take vitamins on a regular basis it's like going to bed with a rattlesnake,” he declared, “it's going to get you.”

And look what it did for him.

[Dr Moore]

Dr. Moore,

You need to understand that, when it comes to discussing Mormonism, it is only okay to stretch the definitions of words like prophecy, revelation or translation. Other words like "ad hominem" retain their original definitions. I hope that helps.

Duly noted and acknowledged!

Today I also learned that it isn't "unkind at all" much less "ad hominem" to blanket label an entire discussion board comprised of accomplished scholars and researchers a "gossip/tabloid community based around SeN and Interpreter."

[Sledge]

Today I also learned that it isn't "unkind at all" much less "ad hominem" to blanket label an entire discussion board comprised of accomplished scholars and researchers a "gossip/tabloid community based around SeN and Interpreter."

You learn something every day. Please don't accuse me of engaging in ad hominem ever again unless I actually do it (which I won't).

[Lem]

Today I also learned that it isn't "unkind at all" much less "ad hominem" to blanket label an entire discussion board comprised of accomplished scholars and researchers a "gossip/tabloid community based around SeN and Interpreter."

You learn something every day. Please don't accuse me of engaging in ad hominem ever again unless I actually do it (which I won't).

ad hominem: (of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

How many new, low quality threads to you start per day, IHOP?

I love IHAQ, they have amazing strawberry-banana French toast.

But they create clickbait threads that have no real substance.

Can you point out where president Nelson put a timeline on his prediction?

Or is this just another of your low-quality threads?

[IHAQ]

Back to the OP - interesting find, IHAQ.

If you choose to empower Nelson with a prophetic mantle, then technically any outcome remains prophetically viable.

To use a stock price analogy, say Nelson gives prophecy that the stock will go up.
(1) If it goes up, excellent. Prophet.
(2) If it goes down, well no timeline was given, so wait on the Lord. Still a prophet.
(3) If the company goes bankrupt and stock goes to zero, just wait for the restructuring. Trials in the flesh bring faith. Still a prophet.

Nelson can do or say anything because he is the living prophet.

Ironically, that's really not true except for the most ardent believers. Thanks to his nonsensical claims to revelation, I believe Nelson has presided on more testimony losses than any other church president.

There is an interesting and relevant passage in the book "Black Box Thinking" (Matthew Syed)

A landmark three-year investigation published in the Social Science and Medical Journal revealed similar findings, namely that physicians {Russell M. Nelson's profession} cope with their errors through a process of denial. They 'block mistakes from entering conscious thought' and narrow the definition of a mistake so that they effectively disappear, or are seen as inconsequential'.

(Page 97, Black Box Thinking, Chapter 5 - Intellectual Contortions. By Matthew Syed)

Syed also gives another example of a doomsday group who's leader had predicted a spaceship was coming to rescue them at midnight on New Years Eve as the world had gone to pot. The group sold their houses, left jobs, took their kids out of school etc and gathered for the event. Of course, the leaders prophesy didn't materialise, no spaceship came, the world didn't end. The leader reframed his failure as a success - because the group had been so faithful they had saved the world, it wasn't going to end, no spaceship was needed. The group were delighted with their success and their leaders inspired guidance.

We see this same process of intellectual contortion in Mormon apologists and members - consider the reframing that went on following the leak about the hundreds of billions of dollars sat in Ensign Peak et al. And we've seen it in this very thread trying to reframe Russell M. Nelson's Armenia prophecy. Intellectual Contortion is how testimonies are maintained.