Do they know it's not true?
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_Sethbag
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That's pure nonsense. As someone endowed in 1988 I know what the endowment used to be, and it was all purely symbolic. The angels with the flaming swords were not there to disembowel people who revealed the tokens of the priesthood. They were there only to slay Joseph Smith if he wouldn't take some young teenager as his 27th wife. Duh.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
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_Scottie
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Sethbag wrote:That's pure nonsense. As someone endowed in 1988 I know what the endowment used to be, and it was all purely symbolic. The angels with the flaming swords were not there to disembowel people who revealed the tokens of the priesthood. They were there only to slay Joseph Smith if he wouldn't take some young teenager as his 27th wife. Duh.
Yeah, but you never sat face to face with Jesus as a prophet, now did you.
I'm sure flaming swords were mentioned once or twice...
:) (<----still hating my txt smilies)
If there's one thing I've learned from this board, it's that consensual sex with multiple partners is okay unless God commands it. - Abman
I find this place to be hostile toward all brands of stupidity. That's why I like it. - Some Schmo
I find this place to be hostile toward all brands of stupidity. That's why I like it. - Some Schmo
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_DonBradley
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I'm glad you started this thread, Runtu. (by the way, we all on for lunch this Wednesday?)
I have several reasons for believing the current LDS General Authorities to be sincere. Among them, the following:
1) Having read letters, diaries, quorum minutes, and other primary source materials by previous General Authorities, I know that many of them were quite sincere and devout, or gave every appearance of being so, in private as well as public.
2) The General Authorities are drawn from the local authorities, and the great majority of the latter (e.g., my dad) appear to be perfectly sincere. It's difficult for me to believe that being granted "General" authority status suddenly changes one from a sincere religionist into a self-serving hypocrite, or the like.
3) In my experience, religious people on the whole are quite capable of believing things that nonbelievers find extremely unlikely, even despite considerable evidence against these beliefs. And there's little or no reason to think LDS General Authorities are the exception to this rule.
4) The General Authorities are chosen for their administrative capacities and devotion, rather than for demonstrations of superb critical thinking, or impressive academic CVs. Why would one expect them to take a historian's or investigator's approach to the church they administer, rather than an administrator's approach? And how would administering the church show them that it wasn't true??
5) While the General Authorities are moderately more likely than average members to hear the latest critical arguments against the church, they are significantly more likely to hear all the local faith-promoting stories. Accounts of spiritual and miraculous experiences have a way of filtering up through the hierarchy, as evidenced by the many member letters and stories the General Authorities like to quote in Conference.
6) Average members and local leaders of the LDS church tend to have fairly frequent experiences, particularly in church contexts, that they take as divine witnesses of their faith. General Authorities, whose lives are largely lived in church contexts, would be likely to have these even more frequently and strongly, and therefore to believe with correspondingly greater strength.
7) LDS General Authorities appear to run the church in substantially the way that sincere religious leaders would. They take conservative stances in line with traditional LDS theology (e.g., the Proclamation on the Family), maintain rigorous moral standards--without evident exception for a secret few who get to practice polygamy or spiritual wifery or the like, etc.
8) Former Mormons can easily see how the LDS General Authorities can believe simply by casting their minds back on their own previous belief, and looking at the family, friends, and acquaintances around them who are able to reconcile faith with just about any state of the evidence. Given that the ordinary members tend to believe so 'stubbornly,' it's only natural to think the members at the top--who were chosen in part for their extraordinary devotion--could and would do the same.
Like Runtu, I also find Steve Benson's accounts persuasive on this issue. Even the best informed of the LDS Authorities are basically winging it, relying on the apologetics created by FARMS writers and the like. And Maxwell, for whom FARMS has been renamed, and who was known as one of the most intellectual of the General Authorities, wasn't even informed on what all the issues were.
In the case of President Hinckley, I think the claim that he was sure to have know the faith was false is particularly misguided. Gordon B. Hinckley was a man of significant practical knowledge. By all accounts, he knew a fair amount about electrical wiring, construction, and the like, and plainly knew a good deal about communications and public relations. But I've yet to see any assertions that the man was an academic, an intellectual, or a scholar. Having access to the First Presidency's Office Vault would not have made him an accomplished critical reader of its contents. This simply was not an area of his expertise. I see essentially no reason to think the man insincere in his professed beliefs, and plenty of reason to think otherwise. He dedicated his life to Mormonism for nealy a century, with no signs that he was guided by laziness, greed, lust, or anything else but sincere conviction and a willingness to serve.
Those former Mormons unable to believe the LDS General Authorities are sincere lack considerably in memory, logic, and imagination.
Don
I have several reasons for believing the current LDS General Authorities to be sincere. Among them, the following:
1) Having read letters, diaries, quorum minutes, and other primary source materials by previous General Authorities, I know that many of them were quite sincere and devout, or gave every appearance of being so, in private as well as public.
2) The General Authorities are drawn from the local authorities, and the great majority of the latter (e.g., my dad) appear to be perfectly sincere. It's difficult for me to believe that being granted "General" authority status suddenly changes one from a sincere religionist into a self-serving hypocrite, or the like.
3) In my experience, religious people on the whole are quite capable of believing things that nonbelievers find extremely unlikely, even despite considerable evidence against these beliefs. And there's little or no reason to think LDS General Authorities are the exception to this rule.
4) The General Authorities are chosen for their administrative capacities and devotion, rather than for demonstrations of superb critical thinking, or impressive academic CVs. Why would one expect them to take a historian's or investigator's approach to the church they administer, rather than an administrator's approach? And how would administering the church show them that it wasn't true??
5) While the General Authorities are moderately more likely than average members to hear the latest critical arguments against the church, they are significantly more likely to hear all the local faith-promoting stories. Accounts of spiritual and miraculous experiences have a way of filtering up through the hierarchy, as evidenced by the many member letters and stories the General Authorities like to quote in Conference.
6) Average members and local leaders of the LDS church tend to have fairly frequent experiences, particularly in church contexts, that they take as divine witnesses of their faith. General Authorities, whose lives are largely lived in church contexts, would be likely to have these even more frequently and strongly, and therefore to believe with correspondingly greater strength.
7) LDS General Authorities appear to run the church in substantially the way that sincere religious leaders would. They take conservative stances in line with traditional LDS theology (e.g., the Proclamation on the Family), maintain rigorous moral standards--without evident exception for a secret few who get to practice polygamy or spiritual wifery or the like, etc.
8) Former Mormons can easily see how the LDS General Authorities can believe simply by casting their minds back on their own previous belief, and looking at the family, friends, and acquaintances around them who are able to reconcile faith with just about any state of the evidence. Given that the ordinary members tend to believe so 'stubbornly,' it's only natural to think the members at the top--who were chosen in part for their extraordinary devotion--could and would do the same.
Like Runtu, I also find Steve Benson's accounts persuasive on this issue. Even the best informed of the LDS Authorities are basically winging it, relying on the apologetics created by FARMS writers and the like. And Maxwell, for whom FARMS has been renamed, and who was known as one of the most intellectual of the General Authorities, wasn't even informed on what all the issues were.
In the case of President Hinckley, I think the claim that he was sure to have know the faith was false is particularly misguided. Gordon B. Hinckley was a man of significant practical knowledge. By all accounts, he knew a fair amount about electrical wiring, construction, and the like, and plainly knew a good deal about communications and public relations. But I've yet to see any assertions that the man was an academic, an intellectual, or a scholar. Having access to the First Presidency's Office Vault would not have made him an accomplished critical reader of its contents. This simply was not an area of his expertise. I see essentially no reason to think the man insincere in his professed beliefs, and plenty of reason to think otherwise. He dedicated his life to Mormonism for nealy a century, with no signs that he was guided by laziness, greed, lust, or anything else but sincere conviction and a willingness to serve.
Those former Mormons unable to believe the LDS General Authorities are sincere lack considerably in memory, logic, and imagination.
Don
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_Inconceivable
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I imagine all of the letters from frantic members pleading for some consoling explanation for the adulterous relationships of Joseph Smith Jr, prophet, seer and revelator (among the mountainous indiscrepancies concerning church history).
I had a letter written two years ago at the request of my wife. It seemed like the only way I could put things to rest, seeing that my stake president was woefully unqualified at the time to discuss these matters.
But after reading several letters posted on the internet I recognized that the suits were fully aware of each of the issues.
They know
They know
They know.
I had a letter written two years ago at the request of my wife. It seemed like the only way I could put things to rest, seeing that my stake president was woefully unqualified at the time to discuss these matters.
But after reading several letters posted on the internet I recognized that the suits were fully aware of each of the issues.
They know
They know
They know.
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_Coggins7
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In my experience, religious people on the whole are quite capable of believing things that nonbelievers find extremely unlikely, even despite considerable evidence against these beliefs. And there's little or no reason to think LDS General Authorities are the exception to this rule.
This two edged sword cuts deep. Turning this around and on its head is not a particularly difficult task and one that would make for a nice thread if its derailment by the usual suspects could be impeded.
Believers, as well, find many, many things believed in Babylon to be utterly fantastic, but this doesn't stop them from being believed even when the Babylonians have mountainous evidence stacked against them.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
- Thomas S. Monson
- Thomas S. Monson
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_DonBradley
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A couple points:
Did President Hinckley show he didn't believe by equivocating on whether God was once a man?
No more than late 19th century LDS leaders had by refusing to 'cast their pearls before swine' in withholding the Adam-God doctrine.
Hinckley's comments to the media on this topic and related topics were simply clever PR. He didn't want the doctrines used against the church as weapons, so he soft-pedaled them. But when push came to shove, he was willing to acknowledge the doctrines. For instance, when interviewed several years ago in Australia, the interviewer asked him about the doctrine of a Heavenly Mother. Hinckley attempted to dodge and equivocate, but when the interviewer pressed the point, Hinckley responded, "Of course we have a Mother in Heaven," and went on to defend the doctrine.
Wouldn't President Hinckley have known something was not right in the church because he did have meetings with Jesus, visitations of angels, and the like?
Not at all. Hinckley grew up in a church where such experiences were overwhelmingly a thing of the past. The church in which revelation came primarily by "the still small voice" was the only one he'd ever known. Joseph Smith was the only president of the church who had claimed such experiences as a regular occurrence, and he is clearly seen as exceptional--as "the" Prophet and the founder of the faith. No LDS president since Joseph F. Smith has publicly reported a vision.
What's more, the LDS scriptures yield numerous prooftexts for the notion that it is, in fact, "the still small voice," and not the dramatic experience, that matters. God was not in the wind, or the mountain, but in that voice. The word is like a seed that grows within you, gradually illuminating your mind. When something is right your heart will burn within you.... There's no need in LDS doctrine for the church president to receive visitations, even if that's how it reportedly happened for Joseph Smith. Less dramatic, and more common, forms of revelation are seen as working just fine. The issue, for the LDS authorities, isn't whether they have dramatic experiences, but that they do have experiences, which they take to be divine guidance. That is seen as enough.
Joseph F. Smith said as much in the Reed Smoot hearings, before Gordon B. Hinckley was even alive, much less a General Authority.
Don
Did President Hinckley show he didn't believe by equivocating on whether God was once a man?
No more than late 19th century LDS leaders had by refusing to 'cast their pearls before swine' in withholding the Adam-God doctrine.
Hinckley's comments to the media on this topic and related topics were simply clever PR. He didn't want the doctrines used against the church as weapons, so he soft-pedaled them. But when push came to shove, he was willing to acknowledge the doctrines. For instance, when interviewed several years ago in Australia, the interviewer asked him about the doctrine of a Heavenly Mother. Hinckley attempted to dodge and equivocate, but when the interviewer pressed the point, Hinckley responded, "Of course we have a Mother in Heaven," and went on to defend the doctrine.
Wouldn't President Hinckley have known something was not right in the church because he did have meetings with Jesus, visitations of angels, and the like?
Not at all. Hinckley grew up in a church where such experiences were overwhelmingly a thing of the past. The church in which revelation came primarily by "the still small voice" was the only one he'd ever known. Joseph Smith was the only president of the church who had claimed such experiences as a regular occurrence, and he is clearly seen as exceptional--as "the" Prophet and the founder of the faith. No LDS president since Joseph F. Smith has publicly reported a vision.
What's more, the LDS scriptures yield numerous prooftexts for the notion that it is, in fact, "the still small voice," and not the dramatic experience, that matters. God was not in the wind, or the mountain, but in that voice. The word is like a seed that grows within you, gradually illuminating your mind. When something is right your heart will burn within you.... There's no need in LDS doctrine for the church president to receive visitations, even if that's how it reportedly happened for Joseph Smith. Less dramatic, and more common, forms of revelation are seen as working just fine. The issue, for the LDS authorities, isn't whether they have dramatic experiences, but that they do have experiences, which they take to be divine guidance. That is seen as enough.
Joseph F. Smith said as much in the Reed Smoot hearings, before Gordon B. Hinckley was even alive, much less a General Authority.
Don
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_Inconceivable
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DonBradley wrote:I have several reasons for believing the current LDS General Authorities to be sincere. Among them, the following:
1) Having read letters, diaries, quorum minutes, and other primary source materials by previous General Authorities, I know that many of them were quite sincere and devout, or gave every appearance of being so, in private as well as public.
..Those former Mormons unable to believe the LDS General Authorities are sincere lack considerably in memory, logic, and imagination.
Don
Don,
You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you write in your letters, diary, minutes and other primary source materials will MAKE YOUR LEGACY. I have left some of my deapest concerns from my journals - just as you have. Journals are for your posterity. They are your "win one for the Gipper" game face for those that go on after you die.
They knew.
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_DonBradley
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- Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 6:58 am
Don,
You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you write in your letters, diary, minutes and other primary source materials will MAKE YOUR LEGACY. I have left some of my deapest concerns from my journals - just as you have. Journals are for your posterity. They are your "win one for the Gipper" game face for those that go on after you die.
They knew.
Adding layer upon layer of incoherence doesn't make a good case for anything, Inconceivable.
Arguing (however poorly) against one of the several arguments for their sincerity hardly leads to your closing conclusion: "They knew."
Your argument also assumes a vast conspiracy in which hundreds of LDS leaders past and present left a trail of insincere personal diaries, family letters, letters to one another, etc., etc., etc., affirming what they all knew to be false, but without ever breaking ranks or even hinting that it was false.
It would be infinitely easier to believe that you yourself are the pretender--a TBM posing as an ex-Mo to make the rest of us look like fools who will believe any outlandish thing that makes the LDS church look bad.
Don
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_Inconceivable
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Coggins,
If I were still a TBM and had the curse of being your bishop, I would release you from any calling that required any semblance of a Christ-like countenance.
You are here for the contention, aren't you? You treat the Mormon church as if it were simply your favorite soccer team - GOOOOOOOOAL!! - merely a spectator on a couch living vicariously through those you think represent you.
Where in the hell is Jesus, Coggs?
What is it that you truly live?
If I were still a TBM and had the curse of being your bishop, I would release you from any calling that required any semblance of a Christ-like countenance.
You are here for the contention, aren't you? You treat the Mormon church as if it were simply your favorite soccer team - GOOOOOOOOAL!! - merely a spectator on a couch living vicariously through those you think represent you.
Where in the hell is Jesus, Coggs?
What is it that you truly live?
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_DonBradley
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- Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 6:58 am
You're not seriously suggesting one should live the religion they're defending, are you, Inconceivable?
Have you considered that Coggins might be an ex-Mo bent on embarrassing the church by (self-)portraying the saints as mean-spirited, dogmatic bigots who rage like the devil in the name of Jesus? Forget the "couplet," salvation by good works, or Jesus being the brother of Lucifer, and all that jazz--what could better call into question the Christianity of the Latter-day "Saints" than Coggins calling himself one?
Don
Have you considered that Coggins might be an ex-Mo bent on embarrassing the church by (self-)portraying the saints as mean-spirited, dogmatic bigots who rage like the devil in the name of Jesus? Forget the "couplet," salvation by good works, or Jesus being the brother of Lucifer, and all that jazz--what could better call into question the Christianity of the Latter-day "Saints" than Coggins calling himself one?
Don
Last edited by Guest on Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.