"Live by the lamp of their own conceit"

[_cinepro]

I think much of the problem stems from the fact that the 15 Apostles really believe that they are who they say they are. And the Church members really believe that the Apostles are who they say they are. So there is a natural respect and awe from the rank and file members that is almost impossible to overcome, since the knuckle-draggers don't get to rub elbows with the apostles. The Church is just too big.

We know them only by their words, and we generally see them only from a distance, standing behind a pulpit, or in a pictures wearing white suits and holding shovels.

The only solution I can think of would be to form additional Quorums of Apostles, to make the calling less special. In a church of 13 million+ members, maybe we should have 48 Apostles instead of just 15. There would always be a heirarchy and organization, but it would "equalize" the leadership and help avoid the cult-of-personality that can so easily form. It seems to work well for the Quorums of Seventies, since I don't see as much "Mormon Beatlemania" at the Stake Conferences where Seventies and Area Authorities are on the bill.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Why? Because I refuse to lie down and let our leaders walk all over me without ever saying anything? Because I see a spade and I call it a spade, and I don't pretty it up when it's covered with manure? Because I refuse to obey the Apostle Paul... and you?

No.

But I do find it fascinating that "our leaders," from the First Presidency and the Twelve on down, evidently feel the need to walk all over you. I've never heard of anybody else being treated that way by them so continuously and, it would seem, deliberately.

Our leaders are public people, and they have refused to hear any voice of criticism. That smacks of a huge hubris.

And you know this . . . how, exactly? From your intimate personal acquaintance with them? But I thought you said that General Authorities studiously avoid visiting your town. From your meticulous monitoring of their round of daily activities? Somehow, I think not. You're the one, aren't you?, who doesn't read much about Mormonism that isn't on message boards and who hadn't even heard of the massive, multi-year Joseph Smith Papers project.

No one is above criticism... not me, not you, not them. And yet you criticize me for criticizing them.

I criticize you for your routine, zestful, public, anonymous condemnations of people you don't know and haven't met -- including both me and the General Authorities -- on extraordinarily dubious grounds (that, for what it's worth, I personally know to be false).

I'm assuming, hoping, that you are not so harsh and uncharitable in your off-line interactions with family, friends, and neighbors.

It's scarcely surprising, incidentally, that Scratch, whose entire on-line life, so far as I've observed it, is absorbed with public, anonymous condemnations of people he doesn't know and hasn't met -- principally me -- on the basis of falsehoods, half-truths, and hostile spin, has rallied to your defense.

This thread isn't about me. It's about men who live by the lamp of their own conceit.

Right. You're not to be judged. Only those you choose to target should be judged and condemned.

"With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

I've had at least some dealing with every member of the current Quorum of the Twelve and the current First Presidency, and with several past members of those quorums. In some cases, I've had a fair amount of contact with them.

You have just proven that you are not a member of the rank and file. We in the rank and file don't have personal relationships with our leaders, we don't know them in any sense of the word, we have no dealings with them, we have no contact with them... so you can't say what it's like to be a rank and file member: you aren't.

I know it suits your purposes to portray the Brethren as arrogant elitists, out of touch with the rank and file, etc. And yet I could easily multiply stories from among my rather ordinary and mainstream neighbors and friends and relatives and acquaintances, in various states and countries, of humble kindness and charity on the part of the senior Brethren -- who, incidentally, haven't always been senior Brethren, just as I haven't always been a member of your mythical arrogant elite inner circle. (Most of my life has been spent as an unknown member of the non-elite, and it mostly still is. Most of the Brethren have spent most of their lives as members of the rank-and-file of the Church.)

I'm a reasonably decent judge of character, I think,

I don't think so.

Well, okay. I guess I'll just have to defer to your superior knowledge of my daily life and interactions.

I wonder if you jump so quickly and so hard because of who I am... a nobody with no influence and no connections. If I was a Marriott, would you deal differently with me? Our leaders would. If I was Mormon Royalty, would you speak more respectfully and hear what I say? Our leaders would. But I am neither of those things, so you feel free to land on me with both feet, and essentially try to muzzle me.

Wow. Try to muzzle you? How on earth would I accomplish that?

As a matter of fact, for all I know, you may be a Marriott. I haven't the faintest idea, and I couldn't care less. You're simply an anonymous poster on a backwater message board on which I've rather oddly chosen to spend some time.

But, again, I'll have to bow, on the matter of the Brethren, to your superior personal knowledge of them, both as individuals and as a group.

Did you notice you didn't use the same adjectives I said I was looking for in our leaders? Honesty? You don't mention it. Compassion? You don't mention it. Empathy? You don't mention it. Tolerant? You don't mention it. Humble? You don't mention it. Perhaps I was right after all. I never said they weren't kind, modest, dedicated, hardworking or sincere. They aren't what I asked for though, and until they are, I see no reason to stop criticizing them.

You don't know that. You don't know them.

Honest? I've never experienced anything with any of them to suggest dishonesty.

Compassion? I've seen lots of it. And I mean lots of it.

Tolerance? Yep. I've traveled with some of them. I've seen them interact with people in and out of the Church. I've seen them specifically interacting with people of quite different religious backgrounds, or of no religious background at all. I've seen nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest intolerance.

Humility? That's been one of the most striking and notable things that I've picked up in my encounters with them, and observed in them.

Are they perfect? Neither I nor they would claim so. Are they good men? Yes. They're very good men.

This thread isn't about me. Stick to the subject please.

Which is your ardent condemnation of people you haven't met, don't know, and don't really know much about.

And you can't see anything problematic in this?



OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[_Rollo Tomasi]

I've had at least some dealing with every member of the current Quorum of the Twelve and the current First Presidency, and with several past members of those quorums. In some cases, I've had a fair amount of contact with them. I'm a reasonably decent judge of character, I think, and I've found them -- and I emphatically include President Packer in this; I've spent time with him in his home and elsewhere (my first personal encounter with him being all the way back in early 1974, in Switzerland) -- to be, in every case, kind, modest, dedicated, hard-working, and sincere men.

[DELETED: 2. No personal attacks allowed]

[_Rollo Tomasi]

I'm assuming, hoping, that you are not so harsh and uncharitable in your off-line interactions with family, friends, and neighbors.

We know this isn't the case for you ... hmm, GoodK and his father come to mind ....

[_Ray A]

I have no reason to doubt Dan's belief that as people many of the General Authorities are "good men". What I'm mainly focusing on is their disposition to become little dictators who should never be questioned. For example, Mc Conkie's reply to Eugene England:

This means, among other things, that it is my province to teach to the Church what the doctrine is. It is your province to echo what I say or to remain silent. You do not have a divine commission to correct me or any of the Brethren. The Lord does not operate that way. If I lead the Church astray, that is my responsibility, but the fact still remains that I am the one appointed with all the rest involved so to do. The appointment is not given to the faculty at Brigham Young University or to any of the members of the Church. The Lord's house is a house of order and those who hold the keys are appointed to proclaim the doctrines.

Now you know that this does not mean that individuals should not do research and make discoveries and write articles. What it does mean is that what they write should be faith promoting and where doctrines are concerned, should be in harmony with that which comes from the head of the Church.

In other words, shut up and sing along with the tunes we call. I don't find this to be an admirable character trait.

[_Daniel Peterson]

LOL! Wow! Look at this! The arrogance and hypocrisy of this are really mind-boggling. . . . What a rank hypocrite you are.

Newsflash: Scratch finds something to criticize about Dan Peterson!

The amount of harm you have doled out online---which has frequently spilled over into real life---is ten times anything Harmony--or any of us!---has done.

I imagine you have in mind such dogmas of your mythology as my destruction of Mike Quinn's career, etc.

I deny that, and I deny all of your other allegations of serious wrong-doing. They're your spin when they're not simply pure malevolent fiction.

As to the matter of GoodK and his stepfather and my alleged viciousness in that case, we've already discussed this for about 50-60 pages on five or six occasions. I'm content with what I've alread said about that, and I do not plead guilty. I realize that GoodK is angry, but I don't grant that his perspective on the matter is the final word on it. And I get along just fine with GoodK's stepfather -- a certified villain according to several on this message board, I freely grant, but, in my experience with him, a good, kind, and perceptive man -- who offers a very different account of things.

One has to ask: What sort of punishment is suitable for a character like yourself?

Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised if luscious fantasies on that question occupied a fair proportion of your waking time.

I've had at least some dealing with every member of the current Quorum of the Twelve and the current First Presidency, and with several past members of those quorums. In some cases, I've had a fair amount of contact with them.

Of course you have. You have to get your Mopologetic marching orders from them.

Actually, I don't think I've ever received even a single "order" from them related to apologetics. Most of my interactions with them have come in connection with my work on Islam.

I'm a reasonably decent judge of character, I think,

Well, obviously you think wrong.

Well, that settles it, I guess!

Try showing a bit of contrition and humility first, and then maybe we can begin to take you seriously.

It must be the very stuff of your dreams to imagine me pleading guilty to every ludicrous accusation you've fantasized against me, and then abasing myself before you to plead for your mercy and forgiveness.

As for being "taken seriously" by the Scratch/Gadianton/Kishkumen Tri-Unity, your faithful acolyte Rollo Tomasi, TAK, poor antishock8, Pokatator, collegeterrace, and Some Schmo . . . I could never realistically hope for approval from so august and fair-minded a group of judges. Endorsement by that vast throng is simply beyond my reach, I fear.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I have no reason to doubt Dan's belief that as people many of the General Authorities are "good men". What I'm mainly focusing on is their disposition to become little dictators who should never be questioned. For example, Mc Conkie's reply to Eugene England:

I freely grant that Elder McConkie, whom I never met, could be somewhat imperious. (I do know his son, who would not disagree with that.) I've also been told by people who had encounters with him, or even knew him well, that he had a tremendous sense of humor and could be very kind.

But Bruce McConkie is not Jeffrey Holland is not Dallin Oaks is not Joseph Wirthlin is not James Faust is not Dieter Uchtdorf is not Russell Nelson is not Richard Scott.

General Authorities are human, and are not flawless. But, in my experience, they have, each and every one of them, been good, kind, unassuming, sincere men.

To condemn them as individuals is problematic. To condemn them as an entire group as unkind, arrogant, intolerant, and dishonest -- as if they constituted some kind of different species, rather than simply being humans called out of the rank-and-file believing membership to specific church responsibilities -- seems to me essentially indefensible and very unchristian.

[_Pokatator]

This thread isn't about me. It's about men who live by the lamp of their own conceit.

Right. You're not to be judged. Only those you choose to target should be judged and condemned.

"With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

And what are you doing here but judging?

I'm a reasonably decent judge of character, I think,

And here you go judging again.

Of all your titles; Dr., prof, Bishop, father, elder, husband, apologist, etc., can I now add Judge?

[_Daniel Peterson]

See? Pokatator disapproves. And he's one of very, very many. Vast hordes, in fact. I count at least seven on this board who regularly and strongly (even harshly) disapprove of me, my poor character, my defective personality, and my innumerable deeds of unspeakable darkness.

And what are you doing here but judging?

I'm certainly not judging harmony's life off-line. She may be the finest, kindest, most selfless person in her region of North America, for all I know, and an everlasting credit to the Marriott line.

I'm criticizing some of what she's posted here.

I'm a reasonably decent judge of character, I think,

And here you go judging again.

Of all your titles; Dr., prof, Bishop, father, elder, husband, apologist, etc., can I now add Judge?

That's already part of my titles.

We all have to judge. All the time. Should I Ioan him the money? Can I trust her with the car keys? Do I believe this salesman's promises? Do I feel comfortable hiring this guy? Should I marry her?

The call is not to cease judging altogether. To do so would be both unwise and effectively impossible. The call is to judge charitably, as we ourselves would hope to be judged.

[_Pokatator]

That's already part of my titles.

We all have to judge. All the time. Should I Ioan him the money? Can I trust her with the car keys? Do I believe this salesman's promises? Do I feel comfortable hiring this guy? Should I marry her?

The call is not to cease judging altogether. To do so would be both unwise and effectively impossible. The call is to judge charitably, as we ourselves would hope to be judged.

I agree with you, but you don't what to grant Harmony the right to judge or have an opinion. That is the point.