Why the church should open its archives (not what you think)

[_LifeOnaPlate]

If Mormonism were a fraud, BC, how would you - really - know?

Solipsism is the only answer for any of that, Tal. You and I are doomed to subscribe!

Again, out of curiosity, how many times have you requested access to anything in the archives? How often have you visited there, read anything there? What kind of things have you requested to which you have been denied access?

[_Tal Bachman]

Tal, out of curiosity, how many times have you requested access to anything in the archives? How often have you visited there, read anything there? What kind of things have you requested that you have been denied access to?

---Try not to be an idiot, Life...

You might pick up "Adventures of a Church Historian" one of these days.

And oh yeah - how'd you ever find out about Joseph Smith's Egyptian "Dictionary and Grammar"?

[_LifeOnaPlate]

---Try not to be an idiot, Life...

I'm asking an honest question, no hidden motive.

You might pick up "Adventures of a Church Historian" one of these days.

I got it for Christmas and finished it in January. This book has nothing to do with your activities in the Church archives.

And oh yeah - how'd you ever find out about Joseph Smith's Egyptian "Dictionary and Grammar"?

Not from anything Tal Bachman ever wrote.

So are you going to answer the question or not?

[_Loquacious Lurker]

The truth is that NOTHING is, or ever could be, a problem for a huge segment of believing Mormons - nor should this be surprising.
Paraphrasing Frank Kermode, for the "true believer" there can be no such thing as "disconfirming evidence", simply because his "true belief" was never based on evidence in the first place. Mormon belief, like all fanatical, false beliefs, only maintains a veneer of rational justification; underneath, it is virtually content-free. It is, in fact, merely a psychological state, distinguishable only by the particular totems it anchors itself with (the Book of Mormon itself, a man-as-true-prophet itself, etc.).

I think people do this in every aspect of their lives, not just in religion. People stay in a bad marriage. "Disconfirming evidence" in the form of their spouse cheating on them or treating them with disrespect isn't enough. People stay in a bad job by using similar mental gymnastics. They keep friends who are a bad influence. They live in a town they hate, refuse to admit their kids act like brats, etc., etc. There's probably not one thing we do that doesn't involve some kind of self-deception.

[_Tal Bachman]

BC is right, the Hinckster could have said almost anything to the media. It may have upset some folks, but it didn't change the doctrine. Essentially, what you have in Hinckley's waffling on eternal progression is a kind of wimpy dodge. Pretty damn disappointing, no doubt.

---But that was the point: Regardless of whether it was officially changed or not, Hinckley publicly denied the doctrinal status of the engine of all Mormon theology, and it didn't matter to believers. The "man who cannot lead the church astray" might as well have come out and said, "I don't know that we teach that Jesus Christ literally was resurrected". It wouldn't have mattered. Guys like BC would just say, "even the prophet gets things wrong sometimes", or "he'll have to answer for his own faith, and I'll answer for mine", or some other thought-terminating cliché. There's always some "out", some mindgame, some thought-terminating cliché which can do the job of keeping us in just that state I mentioned, no matter who says or does what. Smith lies to, and then deflowers, a fourteen year old? Smith EATS a fourteen year old? It wouldn't matter - there's always a new mindgame.

The church could open up its archives and publish letters from Smith confessing fraud, and it probably wouldn't matter. All we'd hear from the Johnnie Cochran types at FARMS is, "John the Baptist had moments of weakness in his faith; why shouldn't Joseph Smithhave had his moments, too? He was human", and then, "in the end, we don't know exactly why the prophet said these things. What we do know, however, is that God has told us, in an unmistakable way through the Holy Ghost, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Joseph Smith, for all his imperfections, was a true prophet of God". The confession of fraud wouldn't matter - why would it, when irrefutable evidences of fraud are already abundant, and they make NO DIFFERENCE to the BCSpaces of the world?

Consider Trevor, that IF Hinckley had issued a signed, joint First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve statement saying that "it is not necessarily true that God was once a man", that that WOULD have "changed the doctrine" - but that that wouldn't have mattered either, because all it would have done for the true believer is make him feel GREAT that "we have continuing revelation!". It would just be, "Joseph could get things wrong; he was allowed to speculate; thank goodness we have a living prophet now to reveal to us what the truth is". No problem.

See what I mean?

Even calling it "belief" is a misnomer, because "belief" implies subscription to some substantive proposition. Mormon "belief" is only just a psychological state anchored by substanceless, infinitely mutatable, imaginary totems.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Even calling it "belief" is a misnomer, because "belief" implies subscription to some substantive proposition. It is just a psychological state anchored by substanceless, infinitely mutatable, imaginary totems.

Everything can be reduced to a psychological state, aye? Like I said, solipsism is our only real answer. And it calls itself into question if you think about it long enough.

[Gadianton]

Let me see if correctly understand Tal's reasoning. Essentially he is suggesting:

1. Even though millions of sincere people have joined the Church and continued in good faith, and believe that they have received sufficient information upon which to base and grow their testimonies as to the truth and authority of the Church's claims, and do not view the Church as man-made; to Tal's mind (and some of his fellow ex/anti-Mormons), it is somehow "unjust" for the Church to secret away information in its vault that is wildly conjectured to be relevant to the Church's truth and authority claims. (I say "wildly conjectured" because, if the information has been withheld and kept secret in the dreaded vault, Tal has no way of knowing what the information is, let alone whether it is relevant to the truth and authority claims). In other words, Tal thinks it is unjust to withhold unkown information from sincere investigators and members because, presumably, the unkown information would cause them to disbelieve the Church's truth and authority claims, and would lead them to view the Church as entirely man-made.

2. However, without being cognizant of the apparent contradiction, Tal then went on to inanely assert, in brief, that the Church will benefit from openning the vaults because the information won't matter anyway. (Which begs the question of how, exactly, the Church or anything else would benefit from information that doesn't matter?)

In other words, Tal is suggesting that it is unjust to withhold unknown information that doesn't matter (though wildly conjectured to be relevant to the truth claims and would cause people to disbelieve the Church's truth and authority claims), and that disclosing the unknown information that doesn't matter will benefit the Church precisely because it doesn't matter--the Church is benefitted by disclosure of conjectured testimony-altering information that doesn't matter.

Can anyone beside Tal make sense of this?

With "thinking" like this, is it any wonder that Tal left the Church?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_The Nehor]

BC is right, the Hinckster could have said almost anything to the media. It may have upset some folks, but it didn't change the doctrine. Essentially, what you have in Hinckley's waffling on eternal progression is a kind of wimpy dodge. Pretty damn disappointing, no doubt.

---But that was the point: Regardless of whether it was officially changed or not, Hinckley publicly denied the doctrinal status of the engine of all Mormon theology, and it didn't matter to believers. The "man who cannot lead the church astray" might as well have come out and said, "I don't know that we teach that Jesus Christ literally was resurrected". It wouldn't have mattered. Guys like BC would just say, "even the prophet gets things wrong sometimes", or "he'll have to answer for his own faith, and I'll answer for mine", or some other thought-terminating cliché. There's always some "out", some mindgame, some thought-terminating cliché which can do the job of keeping us in just that state I mentioned, no matter who says or does what. Smith lies to, and then deflowers, a fourteen year old? Smith EATS a fourteen year old? It wouldn't matter - there's always a new mindgame.

The church could open up its archives and publish letters from Smith confessing fraud, and it probably wouldn't matter. All we'd hear from the Johnnie Cochran types at FARMS is, "John the Baptist had moments of weakness in his faith; why shouldn't Joseph Smithhave had his moments, too? He was human", and then, "in the end, we don't know exactly why the prophet said these things. What we do know, however, is that God has told us, in an unmistakable way through the Holy Ghost, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Joseph Smith, for all his imperfections, was a true prophet of God". The confession of fraud wouldn't matter - why would it, when irrefutable evidences of fraud are already abundant, and they make NO DIFFERENCE to the BCSpaces of the world?

Consider Trevor, that IF Hinckley had issued a signed, joint First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve statement saying that "it is not necessarily true that God was once a man", that that WOULD have "changed the doctrine" - but that that wouldn't have mattered either, because all it would have done for the true believer is make him feel GREAT that "we have continuing revelation!". It would just be, "Joseph could get things wrong; he was allowed to speculate; thank goodness we have a living prophet now to reveal to us what the truth is". No problem.

See what I mean?

Even calling it "belief" is a misnomer, because "belief" implies subscription to some substantive proposition. Mormon "belief" is only just a psychological state anchored by substanceless, infinitely mutatable, imaginary totems.

Such a statement may or may not 'officially change' doctrine but I'll walk if that comes over the pulpit too.

[_Tal Bachman]

---Try not to be an idiot, Life...

I'm asking an honest question, no hidden motive.

---I don't think there's any question that you're asking an honest question. I actually think, that you think that's a great, relevant, "gotcha!"-style question.

You might pick up "Adventures of a Church Historian" one of these days.

I got it for Christmas and finished it in January.

---Then you know perfectly well that the Mormon church has enlisted spies to report on official church historians, has imposed pressure on those historians to basically whitewash church history, and has restricted access to many of its documents; and this makes your questions look even dumber than they did originally. Way to go.

And oh yeah - how'd you ever find out about Joseph Smith's Egyptian "Dictionary and Grammar"?

Not from anything Tal Bachman ever wrote.

---No - knowledge of its existence preceded my birth, didn't it? And however did its existence come to be known about? Tell me - was it a special article in "The Ensign"?

So are you going to answer the question or not?

---You still don't get it, do you?

[_Mister Scratch]

I agree wholeheartedly with your OP, Tal. I really cannot think of any reason why the Church ought to carry on with all of this bizarre secrecy and guardedness. TBMs such as Wade are always flipping out when critics suggest and damning evidence is hidden somewhere in F Vault, and, of course, were the vault to be opened, this criticism would go away. (I have always found it funny when apologists argue that nothing could possibly be hidden in the archives, because if there was anything truly bad, the Church would have burned or destroyed the evidence. Yup. That sure goes a long ways towards increasing my trust in the Church).

In all seriousness, I doubt that anything truly earth-shattering would be found in the archives---at least nothing that would undo the faith of Wade- and Nehor-types. I *do* kind of suspect that there is more Kinderhook stuff squirreled away in the off-limits William Clayton Collection.

Another area in which I believe the Church should be less secretive is in the realm of finances. The Brethren really ought to open the books.