Racist Book of Mormon Stories - Refuting the Mopologists

[_Chap]

He makes it clear that this is the only difference: "on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather."

Without knowing the genetic background of the people in question, however, your argument is just polemical gesticulation for the sake of attacking the Church.

Since Kimball's explicit claim was that those who took part in the home placement program became lighter-skinned than those who stayed on the reservations, it seems that Droopy's way out would require that genetic screening played a significant role in selection for that program - if, that is, his attempted riposte is assumed to have any sense in it.

Frankly, it seems a lot simpler to do without the latter assumption. Droopy is just babbling.

[_Buffalo]

Must be another unique and pervasive "problem" in the Church Runtu.

Is there a book in the offing?

The reason you get guys using that line (not the stalking - most of them aren't stalkers) is because they come off their missions with absolutely no social skills and a one-track mind.

[_Runtu]

Now Johnnie is beginning, as he always does, to swerve and careen from one point and subject to another in search of a telling blow. This has been standard in anti-Mormonism for so long that long ago became somewhat akin to a kind of intellectual handball.

CFR on my changing the subject. I don't care about "telling blows." It's irritating when people see things in terms of scoring polemical points instead of actually discussing things. I have been consistent in saying that the church's insistence that race be a consideration is outdated and unhelpful. You are the one who has tried to change the subject to ethnicity, even though I've already agreed with you that cultural differences are a legitimate concern.

My wife comes from a very poor and uneducated family, and I come from an upper-middle class background, my father having two master's degrees and finished his PhD coursework. I have a master's degree, and my wife is still working on her first degree. None of that has been an issue at all for us. The biggest single issue was the abuse she endured growing up, and I had no way of knowing that. There isn't a race or ethnicity for "abuse victim."

[_Runtu]

Must be another unique and pervasive "problem" in the Church Runtu.

Is there a book in the offing?

Again, CFR on my saying anything is a "unique and pervasive problem in the church."

[_Darth J]

It is obvious that he thought the cause of the changes was the young American Indians believing in the Church, just like the Book of Mormon promises.

No, that's not at all obvious, nor is it a remotely strong logical inference for the text given. The Book of Mormon makes you assertions regarding the means through which such changes would occur, or if they would occur, in a morphological sense in all cases, as some of the statements are allegorical or symbolic in nature.

2 Nephi 5:21

And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

Why, that could mean anything!

And we just don't know what Spencer W. Kimball meant! Just because he went out of his way to point out that the only difference was joining the Church, and it was in a talk about fulfillment about Book of Mormon prophecies to the Lamanites, doesn't mean......stuff!!!!

He makes it clear that this is the only difference: "on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather."

Without knowing the genetic background of the people in question, however, your argument is just polemical gesticulation for the sake of attacking the Church.

Yep. As everyone Biology 101 student knows, there are some people whose DNA makes them change their skin color when they join the LDS Church as teenagers. Without genetic testing, there is no way of knowing if that applied to the people in Spencer Kimball's story.

Spencer W. Kimball did indeed have a great love for the American Indians, and he believed that their skin color was related to their faithfulness to the LDS gospel.

He may have. But the doctrine itself bears both a literal and symbolic meaning. It is also, Darth, hardly an oddity that intermarriage creates hybrid human beings being the morphological characteristics of the DNA of the parents. There are many very light skinned blacks among us here in North America and throughout the West - evidence of centuries of interaction between the sexes across ethnic lines. There are also numerous Amerasian children who are clearly a mixture of both Asian and Caucasian characteristics.

But the Church tells us not to marry people with different ethnicities, remember?

Oh, and Droopy, I don't want to get all technical about how DNA works and things like that, but intermarriage does not mean that two dark-skinned Indians give birth to dark-skinned babies who get lighter when they join the LDS Church.

The Priesthood ban was a matter of lineage, not "race" in the modern sense. All theological theories and speculations as to its origin have never had the imprimatur of established church doctrine, and have fallen by the wayside on that basis.

So when the First Presidency makes an official statement that the priesthood ban came from revelation, that is theory and speculation that is not church doctrine.

What do you think the First Presidency is currently saying in official statements that someday will not be official doctrine? Any bets? Or do you feel it's safer to just say so after the fact?

[_Runtu]

The reason you get guys using that line (not the stalking - most of them aren't stalkers) is because they come off their missions with absolutely no social skills and a one-track mind.

I was so socially awkward when I came home from my mission. I had to relearn how to date. But for a good year, dating was terrifying.

[_Runtu]

So when the First Presidency makes an official statement that the priesthood ban came from revelation, that is theory and speculation that is not church doctrine.

What do you think the First Presidency is currently saying in official statements that someday will not be official doctrine? Any bets? Or do you feel it's safer to just say so after the fact?

Don't forget that the 1978 revelation discusses race, not lineage. The ban was always race-based, as both the 1949 First Presidency statement and the 1978 revelation explicitly state.

[_Darth J]

I'm not Droopy, but here you go:

“We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally, and of somewhat the same economic and social and educational background (some of those are not an absolute necessity, but preferred), and above all, the same religious background, without question” (“Marriage and Divorce,” in 1976 Devotional Speeches of the Year [Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1977], p. 144).

Wait a minute!!! The Church is classifying people in terms of race, class, and gender?

THE CHURCH IS LEFTIST???

Now Johnnie is beginning, as he always does, to swerve and careen from one point and subject to another in search of a telling blow. This has been standard in anti-Mormonism for so long that long ago became somewhat akin to a kind of intellectual handball.

Where, by the way, do you see the church "classifying" anybody?

Well, Brother Lafferty, I guess we should look at what the Church has said and done about race, class, and gender.

Does the Church advise people to marry within their socioeconomic background? Yes/No

Did the Church prohibit black men from being ordained to the priesthood until 1978? Yes/No

Can females be ordained to the priesthood? Yes/No

[_Runtu]

Here's the 1978 revelation: "Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color." The ban was about race and color, not lineage, culture, or ethnicity.

[_Darth J]

Here's the 1978 revelation: "Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color." The ban was about race and color, not lineage, culture, or ethnicity.

But there's no such thing as race! Ron Lafferty told us, in this very thread! Race is a leftist construct!