Tal Bachman wrote:BCSpace
I just read all your comments...and I must say they're exactly what I predicted in my first post on this thread: the mindgames, the ad hoc explanations and word redefinitions...you've done the whole bit.
How can that be, BC? Am I magic? How could I have known that you would say just what you've been saying?
Tal Bachman wrote: ---Nice try, Moksha. Unfortunately, as everyone who can read will know, it wasn't me who claimed that that First Presidency statement presented "eternal truth", but the First Presidency members themselves in their official First Presidency statement. Those were THEIR words. So, if you're claiming that the First Presidency, speaking as the FP in an official FP statement to the church, was WRONG when they claimed they were presenting "eternal truth"...well then all you've done is admit that the Lord WILL permit the prophet to lead the church astray. There's really no other option for you.
Anyway...thanks for making my original point for me: it simply doesn't matter what their words are. It doesn't matter what "eternal truth" or "official LDS doctrine" is, to you or anyone else, when the bottom line is that you are no longer cognitively capable of believing it. Hence, you can believe in evolution just like other Mormons can believe it's okay to drink beer once in a while, vote for gay marriage, and whatever else they feel like. [/color][/size]
Hey, it wasn't me trying to make a pitch for Mormons not being allowed to believe in Evolution in the first place. This is a matter of understandings changing. Most people did not believe in evolution in the 19th Century. Its acceptance gradually caught on as the evidence mounted. People change their minds. What was presented as doctrine was later demoted to opinion. Stuff like that happens as we learn and grow.
Tal Bachman wrote:Hey, it wasn't me trying to make a pitch for Mormons not being allowed to believe in Evolution in the first place. This is a matter of understandings changing. Most people did not believe in evolution in the 19th Century. Its acceptance gradually caught on as the evidence mounted. People change their minds. What was presented as doctrine was later demoted to opinion. Stuff like that happens as we learn and grow.
Moksha - the original point of this whole thread (read my first posting) was that Mormons CAN "believe in evolution". They can, and they do - just like they can, and do, believe that government should permit gay marriages, should permit abortions through the third trimester, should repeal prohibition, and a dozen other things which contradict either current official church policy, or "eternal truth" as proclaimed in the most authoritative way by Mormonism's most authoritative voices. You're making my point, Moksha; and that point is, nothing beats the mindgame.
The right mindgame can do anything. It can make "yes" mean "maybe", and then make "maybe" mean "no". It can make "impossible" into "remotely possible", and then "remotely possible" into "possible", all the way up to "certain". It can do anything. It can certainly create a situation in which mutually exclusive propositions can both be held to be true, as you yourself have demonstrated by believing both that "the prophet cannot lead us astray", AND that President Joseph F. Smith did just that.
That's the whole point...the scriptures don't matter, the official FP statements don't matter, nothing matters but the mindgame which keeps you in that pleasing psychological state.
Enjoy it, amigo!
Nice try? Hey, it wasn't me trying to make a pitch for Mormons not being allowed to believe in Evolution in the first place. This is a matter of understandings changing. Most people did not believe in evolution in the 19th Century. Its acceptance gradually caught on as the evidence mounted. People change their minds. What was presented as doctrine was later demoted to opinion. Stuff like that happens as we learn and grow.
Tal Bachman wrote:
The right mindgame can do anything. It can certainly create a situation in which mutually exclusive propositions can both be held to be true, as you yourself have demonstrated by believing both that "the prophet cannot lead us astray", AND that President Joseph F. Smith did just that.
Gadianton wrote:The FP clearly denounced evolution. BC thinks it's compatible with the gospel, as most Internet Mormons do. One of the biggest problems with internet Mormonism is that it's basically a lot of effort for nothing. One can define "the gospel" as virtually anything they want, they can twist and misread their prophets to mean anything they want, and then they can proceed to reconcile all that with whatever they want to believe from science. What's so crazy about it, is that they didn't need to go through all the extra steps and effort to be any kind of Mormon at all, they could have just made up whatever they wanted to believe and believed it in the first place without jumping through all the hoops!
The whole point of buying into something like Mormonism is to get a pipeline to the truth that stands independent of man's theories. If you don't want to take a prophets word for things and figure it all out on your own, you can do that anyway, you don't need the gospel as the middle man.
moksha wrote:Tal Bachman wrote: ---Nice try, Moksha. Unfortunately, as everyone who can read will know, it wasn't me who claimed that that First Presidency statement presented "eternal truth", but the First Presidency members themselves in their official First Presidency statement. Those were THEIR words. So, if you're claiming that the First Presidency, speaking as the FP in an official FP statement to the church, was WRONG when they claimed they were presenting "eternal truth"...well then all you've done is admit that the Lord WILL permit the prophet to lead the church astray. There's really no other option for you.
Anyway...thanks for making my original point for me: it simply doesn't matter what their words are. It doesn't matter what "eternal truth" or "official LDS doctrine" is, to you or anyone else, when the bottom line is that you are no longer cognitively capable of believing it. Hence, you can believe in evolution just like other Mormons can believe it's okay to drink beer once in a while, vote for gay marriage, and whatever else they feel like. [/color][/size]
Nice try? Hey, it wasn't me trying to make a pitch for Mormons not being allowed to believe in Evolution in the first place. This is a matter of understandings changing. Most people did not believe in evolution in the 19th Century. Its acceptance gradually caught on as the evidence mounted. People change their minds. What was presented as doctrine was later demoted to opinion. Stuff like that happens as we learn and grow.