Notice From Area Presidency (Japan) - LDSChurch.jp

[_why me]

Let us look at the portion I quoted (bolding mine):

The outcome today really is a miraculous result orchestrated by the Lord. We have been uplifted to have observed all that has taken place leading to this result. We give our thanks to Heavenly Father for his mercy and blessings this day and pray that we now find our members throughout Japan alive and well.

To say explicitly that Missionary safety and survival of a disaster was a ‘miraculous result orchestrated by the Lord’ implicitly suggests that those who didn’t survive were either ignored by God or that God intended them to die the way they did.

To say explicitly ‘We give our thanks to Heavenly Father for his mercy and blessings this day’ is also to implicitly suggest that God withheld his mercy and blessings from those who did not survive.

Elders Stevenson, Choi, and Aoyagi, may be paragons of humanity, but to release such a statement is both heartless and foolish for senior ecclesiastical leaders to make.


ETA: While the statement disgusts me, it also fascinates me on a different level. The Elders have a total disregard for epistemic humility that both impresses me and entertains me. I’m amazed that these men were able to discern God’s will during a global disaster of such an epic scale. Where most thoughtful and nuanced theologians would express dismay and claim no understanding of why such events happen, these gentlemen have been able to ascertain parts of God’s own OP-ORDER, where they discovered provisions where God himself orchestrated the survival of each and every Mormon missionary.

I think that you are making a mountain out of a molehill. To have the missionaries in Sandei okay is a miracle and one can look to the lord for this miracle if one wishes. We just have to see the scenes from that city to see what a miracle it is that the missionaries were not killed. The chances of them being on a bike tracking in that city is quite high. And to survive such an event would be low if they were tracking away.

But the critics will latch onto anything if they think that it shows the LDS church in a bad light.

[_why me]

Heaven forbid we hold men accountable for public statements they made.

First there are young men or women serving a LDS mission in that area and the LDS church is responsible for those young people. To show thanks that all are safe is a normal thing to do. And to look to god for such a miracle is a perfect okay thing to do.

Second, many people give thanks to god when they suvive a plane crash or if their family survive a house robbery etc. There is nothing wrong with that.

[_Chap]

I think that you are making a mountain out of a molehill. To have the missionaries in Sandei okay is a miracle and one can look to the lord for this miracle if one wishes. We just have to see the scenes from that city to see what a miracle it is that the missionaries were not killed. The chances of them being on a bike tracking in that city is quite high. And to survive such an event would be low if they were tracking away.

But the critics will latch onto anything if they think that it shows the LDS church in a bad light.

A classic 'why me' piece of confused and slithery thinking.

Is he is using 'miracle' simply to mean 'very fortunate event that occurred against the odds' without claiming divine intervention? if so, he is not talking the same way as the people who said their deity 'orchestrated' the survival of the missionaries.

Or is he using it to mean that the LDS deity intervened to save his missionaries while letting the rest drown? In which case, see the critical observations above.

This stuff is hardly worth analyzing, is it?

But what annoys me (no doubt quite unreasonably) is that why me can't even be bothered to spell the name of the devastated town right. It's SENDAI . Pay it at least that respect.

And this great defender of all things Mormon doesn't seem to know that the missionaries do TRACTING, not TRACKING. Yet another Mormon defender who didn't serve a mission?

[_MrStakhanovite]

A classic 'why me' piece of confused and slithery thinking.

I don't know what he said, but there is a good reason why I don't know.

[_why me]

A classic 'why me' piece of confused and slithery thinking.

Is he is using 'miracle' simply to mean 'very fortunate event that occurred against the odds' without claiming divine intervention? if so, he is not talking the same way as the people who said their deity 'orchestrated' the survival of the missionaries.

Or is he using it to mean that the LDS deity intervened to save his missionaries while letting the rest drown? In which case, see the critical observations above.

This stuff is hardly worth analyzing, is it?

But what annoys me (no doubt quite unreasonably) is that why me can't even be bothered to spell the name of the devastated town right. It's SENDAI . Pay it at least that respect.

And this great defender of all things Mormon doesn't seem to know that the missionaries do TRACTING, not TRACKING. Yet another Mormon defender who didn't serve a mission?

I still don't think that it is a problem that chuch leaders give thanks to heavenly father for the safety of the missionaries. It is normal to do so. I have seen it done before with other people in various churches. No problem. Aren't there miracles in the Bible where people have been killed and yet, a select group were saved? I think so.

[_Chap]

I still don't think that it is a problem that chuch leaders give thanks to heavenly father for the safety of the missionaries. It is normal to do so. I have seen it done before with other people in various churches. No problem. Aren't there miracles in the Bible where people have been killed and yet, a select group were saved? I think so.

Most religious groups tend to give thanks to their deity or deities when things happen that they are pleased with. We are used to that, and philosophically and morally dubious as the act may be, we let it pass.

However, it takes a monumentally insensitive religious group to do the following:

You are in a country where many thousands have died appalling deaths in a natural disaster, and their relatives are grieving and asking 'why?'.

You find out that your missionaries in the affected area have survived.

You state that your deity explicitly 'orchestrated' things so as to bring about the 'result' that your missionaries survived - thereby drawing proud attention to your claim that he went out of his way to something for them that he did not bother to do for the other innocent victims. The implied answer to the grieving people around you is 'your loved ones died because they were not LDS, so our deity did not save them. He only looks after his own!'

That is an act bone-headed enough to embarrass even some LDS, I would think. But not why me!

(The fact that such things are said to happen in the Bible is just a sign how morally flawed are many of the stories it contains).

[_Infymus]

The professor-prophet from Provo has spoken. And everyone in Mormondum knows that once Peterson has spoken - the thinking has been done.

Someone get on the phone with Tommy and get him in line with Dan, quick.

[Guest]

Such statements are not at all uncommon. On Friday morning at work we received an email expressing relief that all the employees in our Tokyo office were accounted for and safe.

Your company e-mail said that your fellow employees in Tokyo were singled out and protected by God? It's one thing to express relief, it's another to ascribe survival to God playing favorites with fellow humans.

No, the email made no reference to God or miracles. Of course, I don't work for a religious institution.

I agree with you that the wording of the this statement is problematic due to its implications. However, I very much doubt that you if you were to ask the Japanese area presidency "did God "play favorites in the recent Japanese disaster?" I very much doubt that their response would be "yes." I imagine that their position would be more nuanced than that

[_Themis]

We just have to see the scenes from that city to see what a miracle it is that the missionaries were not killed. The chances of them being on a bike tracking in that city is quite high. And to survive such an event would be low if they were tracking away.

Ah whyme. We all love the wild assertions you make without a shred of evidence except your say so. Just like all those same wild assertions with Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon, etc. Can you admit you do not have a clue to what the odds are, where they might be, and what warnings from non-divine sources they had?

[_Chap]

I very much doubt that you if you were to ask the Japanese area presidency "did God "play favorites in the recent Japanese disaster?" I very much doubt that their response would be "yes." I imagine that their position would be more nuanced than that

Imagine away. But if one takes the statement actually made, as opposed to a different one that was not made, it is clear that the LDS deity was explicitly thanked precisely for having played favorites. And that is a pretty repellent idea, as you seem to acknowledge.

Of course, if the person making the statement was informed that it was not productive of a good image of the LDS church, I have no doubt that given time he could construct some kind of 'nuanced' escape route from the embarrassment. Anyone can do that kind of thing, at least to the satisfaction of his own side.

But here we see what an LDS leader actually said when faced with a vast mass of human suffering around him. What is interesting about this kind of statement, made no doubt without much deep thought, is that it reveals the kind of stupidly magical thinking that passes for normality in some religious minds. When we are asked to 'respect' religious belief, is this kind of thing included in the deal? If so, it is a tall order.