Shut Your Mouth and Fake It

[_Themis]

Let me explain something to you: it is not easy to be a faithful christian today, regardless of the faith. It is a tough field to hoe.

Actually it's not that hard. Maybe for some, and apparently for you since you don't seem to have been active as an LDS or Catholic. It's much easier you know if you actually commit to something. I did to Mormonism for many decades.

Faith also requires doubt since faith is believing in something that has no confirmed evidence.

Which is why these beliefs have almost no chance of being correct, because they are based on little to no evidence. If you read Monson's words he will tell you that one cannot have faith and doubt at the same time. Doubt is one of the best traits we can have. You also don't seem to be the person to talk about faith since I have never seen you display any. Belief sure, but since you are unwilling to act in the past or present that is all it is.

And so, we can go through our lives with various moments of faking it or not. It is just the way it is from the time of the founding of christianity with the 12 apostles who seemed to have been faking it at times.

Faking it is done in every group. Some groups like the LDS you will see a lot more, but you may be unaware of it becuase you don't attend. You do like to chastise Consig for it, yet he actually attends and interacts with the membership, so I think he may be much more of an expert then you.

[_DrW]

DrW,

Thanks for your response earlier to my question.
If I may ask, what were the LDS sources that you sourced the Joseph Smith information from that your wife read?

There is a fairly extensive file of such sources on my desktop computer at home. These have been gleaned from discussions on the various boards over the years. Right now, I am on vacation and only have my laptop with me.

If descriptions of the sites (in most cases without without specific URL's) would be on any help, they included the following:

- First on the list was a Church Family records site that lists many (29, I think) of the wives of Joseph Smith, including the dates of the "marriage" and sealing and deaths.

- The next site was "Remembering the Wives of Joseph Smith" http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/
where she could read short histories and personal statements (with original sources references) of the wives whose names she had just seen on the official Church records site. The stories and statements of Helen Kimball and Fanny Alger were two on this list that seemed to affect her as I pointed them out.

- I had queued up D&C 132 from the Mormon scriptures text site, and contrasted this to the Book of Mormon passage from the same site in which it is forbidden for a man to have more than one wife. I pointed out the relative approximate dates that the two were passages of "scripture" were written.

- Apologetics regarding the Book of Abraham from DCP over on MADB were also helpful. She was never told that the papyri from which the Book of Mormon was translated were common Egyptian funerary texts, which, far from being written "by the hand of Abraham upon papyri" had nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham and were, in fact, anachronistic to the biblical Abraham by millennia.

While this latter information is well known to those who have the curiosity to look, my wife was one who simply trusted what the Church told her and obeyed the admonition to not even look at "anti-Mormon" materials (i.e. factual materials that happen to not be "faith promoting" or properly "correlated".)

The realization that Smith had simply made this stuff up and then lied about it (a realization that she reached after reading apologetics on the issue, including some comments by DCP over on MADB to the effect that DCP does not care how the Book of Abraham came to be, but cares only about what it says). As I showed her DCP's apologetics on the issue, I reminded her that if one does not care that the author of a book lied about its provenance, one cannot trust the contents to be other than fiction. And when "inspired works" of truth turn out to be poor fiction (e.g. the sun gets its light from Kolob), one can be pretty sure that one is deep into the realm of, well, BS. (Being married to a scientist for several decades helped her to appreciate the significance of this kind of BS being passed off as "eternal truths".)

- As I recall, somewhere on the list was the Ensign article about Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon using a rock in a hat with the golden plates nowhere in site.
http://library.LDS.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1993.htm/ensign%20july%201993.htm/a%20treasured%20testament.htm

This little tidbit seemed to bother her as well because, like the rest of us, she had been taught through verbal lessons, painted images and the written word that Joseph Smith had used the U&T and physically worked with the golden plates leaf by leaf as he translated the book. This was just one more "little lie", along with hundreds of other little lies (and a few whoppers) that served to erode her trust.

Instead of waiting while she read these in order, I simply took her through each of the pages I had queued up and explained to her what was on them and why they were significant. I then left her alone to go back and read the details for herself.

This is what I can remember off hand of an event that took place more than a year ago. I have the complete list of sites on my computer at home and will post it once I return there. The list I post will contain live links that can be followed directly from the post.

The point is that when one starts to search, in earnest, the weight of evidence against the truth claims of the LDS Church becomes overwhelming in short order.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Apologetics regarding the Book of Abraham from DCP over on MADB were also helpful.

I've actually had remarkably little to say about the Book of Abraham over at MADB (now MDDB).

Did you, however, show her the few substantial things that I actually have written on the topic?

Daniel C. Peterson, "News from Antiquity," Ensign (January 1994), 16ff.

http://LDS.org/ensign/1994/01/news-from ... y?lang=eng

John Gee, William J. Hamblin, and Daniel C. Peterson, “'And I Saw the Stars': The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy,” in John Gee and Brian M. Hauglid (eds,), Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 2006),1–16.

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... chapid=161

She was never told that the papyri from which the Book of Mormon was translated were common Egyptian funerary texts

A disputed claim.

which, far from being written "by the hand of Abraham upon papyri" had nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham and were, in fact, anachronistic to the biblical Abraham by millennia.

A grossly misleading formulation of the issue.

In any case, those who have written on the papyri, both pro and con, have routinely discussed their date and provenance.

While this latter information is well known to those who have the curiosity to look

Yup.

my wife was one who simply trusted what the Church told her and obeyed the admonition to not even look at "anti-Mormon" materials (i.e. factual materials that happen to not be "faith promoting" or properly "correlated".)

A characteristically tendentious redefinition of "anti-Mormon materials."

Still, though, your wife wouldn't have had to look at actual "anti-Mormon materials" to learn about the date of the Joseph Smith Papyri. Pro-Mormon authors (i.e., to adopt your mode of definition, authors who happen to be faith-promoting because they base their work on fact) have openly discussed that subject for decades.

The realization that Smith had simply made this stuff up and then lied about it (a realization that she reached after reading apologetics on the issue, including some comments by DCP over on MADB to the effect that DCP does not care how the Book of Abraham came to be, but cares only about what it says). As I showed her DCP's apologetics on the issue, I reminded her that if one does not care that the author of a book lied about its provenance,

Your meticulous zeal for accurately representing my views does you real credit, and clearly signals your intellectual seriousness.

And when purportedly serious critics turn out to be purveyors of poor fiction, one can be pretty sure that one is deep into the realm of . . . well, BS.

[_Buffalo]

She was never told that the earth was billions of years old

A disputed claim.

Edited to provide clarity as to the nature of what Dr. Peterson means by "disputed."

[_Fence Sitter]

Dan,

In another thread you agreed that the Church needed to do a better job at educating its members regarding Joseph Smith's involvement in polygamy. (I hope that is fairly close to what you said.)

How do you think the church has fared educating its members regarding the issues involved with the Book of Abraham?

[_why me]

Dan,

In another thread you agreed that the Church needed to do a better job at educating its members regarding Joseph Smith's involvement in polygamy. (I hope that is fairly close to what you said.)

How do you think the church has fared educating its members regarding the issues involved with the Book of Abraham?

I wonder how well the christian churches have educated their members in the problems of the Bible. Probably not much. All books of faith can come under scrutiny and might not pass the test. That is why these books take faith to believe in.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Edited to provide clarity as to the nature of what Dr. Peterson means by "disputed."

Correction: Frivolously edited to misrepresent my view because, as is typically the case with Chip, he has nothing substantive to say.

Incidentally, just for the record:

I've learned at various places on the Internet that I'm a young-earth creationist, and, although my first university major was mathematics with an eye toward cosmology, opposed to science. This is fascinating. I never knew it.

I spent most of last week in Rocky Mountain National Park, where I bought two books on the geology of the area -- something I've done in several places -- and spent several days examining different formations and different kinds of rock there, the ages of which vary widely between 1.8 and 2.2 billion years for the Silver Plume granite and other types of rock over in the Longs Peak area on the east and a mere 25-30 million years for the volcanic phenomena over on the west (associated with the Never Summer Mountains and, specifically,

I believe the earth to be roughly 4.54 billion years old. That's fairly young compared to the age of the universe as a whole, which appears to be not quite fourteen billion years, and it's quite young compared to Chip's schtick. But, by most standards, its pretty old.

[_Fence Sitter]

I wonder how well the christian churches have educated their members in the problems of the Bible. Probably not much. All books of faith can come under scrutiny and might not pass the test. That is why these books take faith to believe in.

I suppose if our claim is to be just another Christian church that this is an adequate answer. If we are claiming to be the one true church it falls woefully short.

[_Daniel Peterson]

How do you think the church has fared educating its members regarding the issues involved with the Book of Abraham?

Reasonably well.

I think DrW's position on the Book of Abraham is essentially wrong, and that the ordinary teachings of the Church on the topic are essentially right.

[_why me]

Get out of my thread if you are just going to call people liars.

Your entire post is b***s***. You don't even know "most Mormons."

Although you do know the rhetoric well enough to jump to the conclusion that living authentically means "sex outside marriage, ass tatoo, drunk partying and viewing porn." How cliché.

Being christian is not authentic living for everyone. Being christian is not best done in Mormonism for all people. Mormonism is a whole hell of a lot more involved than following the New Testament.

YOU are doing the exact problem of prescribing a path and telling everyone that they must get on it and that will make them authentic. Foolishness!!!

I have never met a single person who believed that living authentically was to do whatever regardless of personal consequence. In fact, that is about the opposite of authentic living.

I just agreed with a previous poster. Where have I called people liars? My point was simple: what is an authentic life? An authentic life is the life that one wishes to live. Now as a tbm you had an authentic life because you believed in what you were doing and in how you were living life. That is authenticity. For others it is doing what one wishes: to have sex before marriage, getting a butt tattoo, getting drunk on friday, and jersey shoring it in real life. We all have differing interpretations of what authenticity is.

I have already shown just how many teenagers are living their authentic life. And it is not good for them or for the society in which they live. Amy Winehouse was an example of wrong authentic living.

I have been around Mormons for most of my life. I know them quite well.