Trevor wrote: Ah, yes, "official." The last refuge of the LDS apologist. So few things are official that one is left with the dessicated skeleton of Mormonism, barely a shadow of itself, by the time everything is pared down to "official." It is a fine category to excuse the LDS Church from many an embarrassing thing, but the little circle of "official" teachings bears small resemblance to the Mormonism we grew up with.
Hey, Trevor, just because it was taught for years in Sunday School and general conference, that doesn't mean it was officially taught by the church. Don't you know that?
Runtu wrote:Yep, if a publication bearing the church's copyright is not official, nothing is. If you think about it that nothing is official except the canonized scriptures, prophets, seers, and revelators are superfluous. After all, they can't be counted on to give anything but opinion, and you and I could do that just as well.
Well, they just about are superfluous, except as the Board. Until they canonize something else, there is almost no reason to pay attention to what they do.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
Runtu wrote:Hey, Trevor, just because it was taught for years in Sunday School and general conference, that doesn't mean it was officially taught by the church. Don't you know that?
Well, you know the old saying about the baby and the bathwater. It was nice to have a category of "official" so they could weasel out of the institutionalized racism of the past. Now it is applied to a complete, tortuous reworking of the teachings of Joseph Smith, so that Mormons can look as Protestant as the next congregation down the street. Kinda takes the raison d'etre of Mormonism away, if you ask me.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
Trevor wrote:Well, you know the old saying about the baby and the bathwater. It was nice to have a category of "official" so they could weasel out of the institutionalized racism of the past. Now it is applied to a complete, tortuous reworking of the teachings of Joseph Smith, so that Mormons can look as Protestant as the next congregation down the street. Kinda takes the raison d'etre of Mormonism away, if you ask me.
Heck, when the prophet's opinion is that we don't teach a core doctrine described in the Gospel Principles manual, they've lost their raison d'etre (I always hear that spoken in the same voice as Trey Wilson in Raising Arizona). I'm kind of glad that people like Paul Osborn exist because they aren't afraid of standing up for what the church teaches. Too many apologists (and I count myself as having been one of them) tend to back off from the tougher stuff and claim it's "not official."
Runtu wrote:Heck, when the prophet's opinion is that we don't teach a core doctrine described in the Gospel Principles manual, they've lost their raison d'etre (I always hear that spoken in the same voice as Trey Wilson in Raising Arizona). I'm kind of glad that people like Paul Osborn exist because they aren't afraid of standing up for what the church teaches. Too many apologists (and I count myself as having been one of them) tend to back off from the tougher stuff and claim it's "not official."
That's what I loved about the Toscanos' book. It took Mormon doctrine and returned it to its former wacky glory. Of course, it was their own opinion, and it was modernized and had a good dose of feminism added, of which I totally approve, but at least it kept the idiosyncratic nature of Mormon religious thinking alive. These days it's all, "what can we say to sound more acceptable to the Evangelicals? Geez, I hate to look weird to those guys, especially when we both fear gays in the same way."
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
Trevor wrote:That's what I loved about the Toscanos' book. It took Mormon doctrine and returned it to its former wacky glory. Of course, it was their own opinion, and it was modernized and had a good dose of feminism added, of which I totally approve, but at least it kept the idiosyncratic nature of Mormon religious thinking alive. These days it's all, "what can we say to sound more acceptable to the Evangelicals? Geez, I hate to look weird to those guys, especially when we both fear gays in the same way."
I've been rereading Compton's book, and it's interesting to hear about women getting together to speak in tongues and sing in tongues, excursions made to wash and anoint the sick (by nonpriesthood-holding women, no less). They saw the dead, saw angels, had visions, and believed in the imminent return of heavenly glory.
Runtu wrote:I've been rereading Compton's book, and it's interesting to hear about women getting together to speak in tongues and sing in tongues, excursions made to wash and anoint the sick (by nonpriesthood-holding women, no less). They saw the dead, saw angels, had visions, and believed in the imminent return of heavenly glory.
Makes you wonder what happened to that church.
Sadly, I must confess that I was one of those people who was embarrassed by Three-Nephite tales and Lost-Ten-Tribes speculations. Now that they are gone, church has become an unadulterated snooze fest.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
Trevor wrote:Sadly, I must confess that I was one of those people who was embarrassed by Three-Nephite tales and Lost-Ten-Tribes speculations. Now that they are gone, church has become an unadulterated snooze fest.
I think you just hit the nail on the head. The Three Nephites and visions and speaking in tongues are embarrassing. To modern sensibilities, they are the marks of an uneducated and superstitious people. And no Latter-day Saint wants to be associated with that.
Runtu wrote:I think you just hit the nail on the head. The Three Nephites and visions and speaking in tongues are embarrassing. To modern sensibilities, they are the marks of an uneducated and superstitious people. And no Latter-day Saint wants to be associated with that.
It would have been nice, however, if a little room had been left for doctrinal speculation, and combing through the old teachings of the past. Sure, when it comes to racist doctrines and such, Mormonism is better off without it, but there is plenty of interesting stuff still there. With apologetic standards of what is "official," however, nothing survives except in whispers and private conversations. Try to bring it up in public, and the hue and cry of "that's not doctrine!" ruins all the fun.
Last edited by Guest on Thu Nov 01, 2007 12:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
That is likely the case. But it doesn't change the fact that the Church doesn't consider it to be official by it's own definitions of what is and is not official.
My immediate response to this is: So?
The distinction between official and unofficial doctrine is a relatively recent phenomenon made for apologetic purposes. It was designed to “officially” distance the Church from embarrassing statements and beliefs by former Apostles and Prophets.
If a modern prophet expresses an opinion I get lambasted for saying it his opinion. Allen Wyatt at FAIR tore me a new butthole for saying this. I’m told I have to accept and respect the “Lord’s anointed” because they are set apart to receive revelation for the Church. With this happened there was never any concern as to whether or not what the “Lord’s anointed” said was “officially” binding doctrine or not. The fact that they believed X meant a lot to the membership and nobody dared argue with it.
So I have problems with this apologetic two-step. The traditional LDS understanding about Indians and Lamanites, has been shot out of the water. Most Mormons don’t care what can be tied down as “official” because most know it is just an apologetic charade that was never an issue in the early Church. The fact that the Lord’s anointed had led the Church astray for so long is enough to give most Mormons the creeps. As recently as the 1970’s Spencer Kimball was speaking at conference, addressing the entire Church as Prophet of God, propagating not only the traditional Lamanite = Indians falsehood, but that Indians who had been joining the Church were experiencing pigmentation changes in their skin.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein