Is all truth useful?

[_beastie]

That we often do NOT learn from history is no excusing for not TRYING.

Yes, we come at this from opposite ends of the spectrum. I believe you have an authoritarian personality, which is why you’re so comfortable touting obedience and refraining from criticizing leaders.


While the theory of authoritarian personalities is not air-tight, I think it’s indisputable that, for whatever reasons, some people manifest these certain characteristics more than others:

A cluster of personality traits reflecting a desire for security and order, e.g., rigidity, highly conventional outlook, unquestioning obedience, scapegoating, desire for structured lines of authority.

http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd? ... ersonality

[_Jason Bourne]

COULD have been useful in the past is a totally dead subject. We can't change the past. Are you also in favor of a current tax to provide reparations for the descendants of slaves? How about a lump sum payment to each of us who had a Cherokee ancestor who suffered on the Trail of Tears? I will be in that line

.


As noted the past errors reflects on how much we can trust the prophets and apostles.

It also can teach us how to approach things better, a lesson that seems lost for the most part on how the LDS Church is still managed and run.

Believers have already been given the keys and the responsibility to determine what is reveleation for themselves. Whatever the prophet says, we are held accountable for searching out and confirming on our own. That has been within the Church from the beginning. If anyone does not do that, the resonsibility lies on his/her own shoulders.

This is not true. Believers are told to pray and find out that what the leader says IS the truth not if it is true. If the member comes back and says, no, what the prophet says is not of God then the member is in trouble. Just ask Lowell Bennion. He was vocal about the priesthood ban and some of the now not official doctrine that was being discussed to justify it and he was essentially put on the shelf.

I should hope that what the church leaders do and say have an impact on the lives of real people. That is the whole purpose. Now, whether that is negative or positive i

s entirely up to the person him/herself.

For a small example. President Hinckley has said that women should limit earrings to one per ear, males to none at all. This should have an impact. Can that have a negative impact on someone? Sure. She can get all hot under the collar, accuse the prophet of meddling, think he's just an old man who doesn't understand modern things, add another earring or two just to show how independent she is, get angry when the bishop speaks to her about it in a temple recommend interview (under the sustaining the leaders question), mutter and grumble and harbor ill feelings against the bishop, start to complaining to other people about the bishop, become critical of other things to bolster her own feelings of resentment, etc.

And thus you epitomize my points. One cannot determine that the two earing thing is ludicrous, Pharisaical, petty and more likely then not carried much further then perhaps it was ever intended. One cannot wear two or more earrings and not be frowned on and even be used as an example of not following the prophet in all things (even though we say the prophet has his own opinions it seems we still must follow in all things) as Elder Bednar had done a number of times.

[_Jason Bourne]

If, on the other hand, the priesthood ban was never inspired of God but rather was simply a "practice" that resulted from the basic racial bigotry of past leaders, then that "truth" is very useful.

Useful exactly how? Does this change anything in the past? Does it impact anything in the present? Or the future?

It bears directly on how reliable and credible those who say that God is directing them really are.

Brigham Young made a comment a lot earlier than Elder Packer did, that since the Gospel is true, it doesn't matter about the personal issues.

But BY made a a priori assumption that the LDS gospel IS true. Personal issues do matter when trying to decide whether the character of the person that says God is talking to him can be truster.

He even said this repeating some of the worst slanders against Joseph Smith, and said even if that were all true, it made no difference to the Gospel.

Yes it really does. Joseph says that God speaks to him. The only way we can really know is to trust Joseph. The way we can trust him is to look to what he does in other areas of his life. If these are overtly bad then we may have reason to question whether God is really talking to him.

We aren't supposed to look to men to determine if God speaks to them or not. We get that information from God.

So God has told me Joseph made a major error with polygamy, that the two earring deal is just Pres. Hinckley's opinion. Do you disagree with me?

[_Scottie]

Useful exactly how? Does this change anything in the past? Does it impact anything in the present? Or the future?

It could be useful in many ways. First and foremost, it could have been useful during the actual time period of the ban. When certain members agitated for this to be changed, they were treated as rabblerousers or worse. In reality, they apparently were simply one step ahead of the rest of the pack.

And today, it can be useful to fully admit and incorporate the idea that prophets can and do teach things that are false in order to allow for a climate in which believers can more successfully work to prevent this sort of problem occurring again.

You act as if nothing church leaders do or say has any possible negative impact on the lives of real people. The reality is the exact opposite.

COULD have been useful in the past is a totally dead subject. We can't change the past. Are you also in favor of a current tax to provide reparations for the descendants of slaves? How about a lump sum payment to each of us who had a Cherokee ancestor who suffered on the Trail of Tears? I will be in that line.

Really. Trying to re-engineer the past is a useless activity. And that is what the subject is. HISTORY. Nothing anyone can do or say TODAY can change one little thing about what happened years ago.

Believers have already been given the keys and the responsibility to determine what is reveleation for themselves. Whatever the prophet says, we are held accountable for searching out and confirming on our own. That has been within the Church from the beginning. If anyone does not do that, the resonsibility lies on his/her own shoulders.

I should hope that what the church leaders do and say have an impact on the lives of real people. That is the whole purpose. Now, whether that is negative or positive is entirely up to the person him/herself.

For a small example. President Hinckley has said that women should limit earrings to one per ear, males to none at all. This should have an impact. Can that have a negative impact on someone? Sure. She can get all hot under the collar, accuse the prophet of meddling, think he's just an old man who doesn't understand modern things, add another earring or two just to show how independent she is, get angry when the bishop speaks to her about it in a temple recommend interview (under the sustaining the leaders question), mutter and grumble and harbor ill feelings against the bishop, start to complaining to other people about the bishop, become critical of other things to bolster her own feelings of resentment, etc.

Now, did President Hinckley cause that? No. She did it all herself. At the judgement bar, she is not going to be able to point any fingers at anyone else causing her to act the way she did. AGENCY. We all h ave the ability to choose.

You can't have it both ways, Charity. If you want to claim that history is in the past and it has no bearing on what happens today, then you can't teach about the first vision, or the translation, or anything having to do with Joseph Smith. You can't just say, "Well, polygamy is in the past and we can't talk about it, but here, let me tell you what a great man Joseph Smith was in all these other areas." That is exactly what BKP was talking about.

[_asbestosman]

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start

007-373-5963

Justin Bailey

That's not useless information. I still play the occasional 8-bit Nintendo game whether it's Contra, Punchout, or Metroid.

[_the road to hana]

Again, however, this seems to be doublespeak, because I doubt Elder Packer is applying the same standard to the history and/or leaders of other religions.

Are you preparedd to provide for us any, even one, occasion where Elder Packer has taught anything about any other leader of any other religion?

This kind of statement really angers me. If you find anything Elder Packer ever said exposing any character flaw or misdeed of the leader of any other religion I will eat my words. But if you just made that up out of your own mind, you really should apologize and retract it.

I clearly said history and/or leaders. Not just leaders.

Boyd K. Packer is part of an institution that is founded on the premise that the church which Christ established became corrupt. Not just that the church itself became corrupt, but that its followers and its leaders did. That's foundational to Mormonism. The endowment ritual has in the past contained disparaging references to Christian ministers and leaders, including a reference to Satan buying up "popes and princes," which is a specific reference to clergy.

Would it be important or even relevant for people to know that Martin Luther had various character flaws, or harbored sentiments that were anti-semitic? Would it be important or even relevant for people to know that some of the Catholic popes fathered illegitimate children? Would it be important or even relevant for people to know that a popular televangelist was having an extramarital affair?

Would it be important or even relevant for people to know that a religion had warts in its history?

Sure. Even Mormonism believes it's okay to look at the flaws in other religions, or their leaders, and that behavior goes to the foundation of Mormonism itself.

Just stay the heck away from their own.

Again, road to hana, you have made a completely false charge against the Church. You have conflated the Apostacy with history and leaders of other religions.

No, that's the workings of Mormonism.

To say that the doctrine of child baptism is a false doctrine is not the same as saying Pope Somebody had illegitimate children.

By that logic, it should be acceptable to say that LDS temple worship is false doctrine, that God was once a man is false doctrine, that baptisms for the dead are false doctrine, and as long as no one is saying anything disparaging about an LDS leader, past or present, it doesn't matter how much someone criticizes the doctrines or practices.

Indeed, to say that the LDS Church is a false and apostate religion, born of the devil and filled with evil, should be all right.

If that's your standard.

You will not find one Church book, pamphlet, one Ensign article, one General Conference talk, where a General Authority has talked about pope's murdering their predecessors, or about Martin Luther's anti-semitism or about any modern Protestant's infidelity.

Again, they don't have to specifically. They talk about leaders of other churches being "evil" and "corrupt," and the priesthood of God being removed because of the "wickedness of men," which is essentially a broad brush of the same.

[_karl61]

I agree that it is wrong for the church to be able to say there was an apostasy and A, B, and C, is evidence of this, but you can't put the same type of critical thought process on the church in the 1800's.

[_skippy the dead]

Heh. I figured this would be an interesting thread.

I do notice, however, that charity conveniently ignored the first two replies to her initial post, both of which pretty much illustrate the error of her premise. Not surprising.

[_solomarineris]

Skippy the Dead posted: If someone has a fat ass, and we call them a "fat ass", it is not insult BECAUSE IT'S TRUE! Or if someone is born of an unwed mother, and we call them a "bastard", it's not an insult BECAUSE IT'S TRUE! See how silly this position is?

I answered: Do I see this as a tacit admission that "not all truth is useful?" Maybe people will back off castigating Elder Packer for saying that when they see how much common sense is contained in that sentence.

Skippy came back with: Apples and oranges. Apples and oranges.

My question is: What is the difference? Is it really apples and oranges or is it more like Gravensteins and MacIntosh?

In your case (and all believers like you) skippy the dead should make an exception.
Skip the truth parts of anything you read.

[_The Nehor]

I thought that only Antis took things out of context...

When you are discussing extremely important and relevant parts of the history of your religion, then, yes, ALL truth is useful. These are apples.

When you are discussing people, then, no. Some things might not be useful. These are oranges.

I would disagree with this. While reading my g-g-grandfather's journal (a polygamist and early Mormon) I read some things that were useful. I also read what he liked for breakfast. One useful, one not so useful. My brain is filled with absolutely useless information.

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start

007-373-5963

Justin Bailey

If you know what any of these mean you're a geek. :)

So perhaps when Elder Packer made the remark that “Some things that are true are not very useful.”, he meant that Seminary & Institute teachers would be "giving equal time to the adversary" if they taught about what their g-g-grandfathers had for breakfast.

No, but read any journal and you'll find non-faith promoting information. Mine is chock full of it. I'd have no problem with someone reading the whole thing. However sharing some of it in isolation would give the wrong idea about me. I find Church History is similar. If someone is willing to sink their teeth into it and learn it all, I say go for it. If they intend to get the Cliff's Notes version then yes, some information should be left out.

This can be done in reverse too. I once had a pamphlet written about Nazi Germany extolling it's virtues through the entire era they governed. Nothing in it was inaccurate but it is a slanted view.