Racist Book of Mormon Stories - Refuting the Mopologists

[_Sethbag]

I read somewhere, perhaps it was in Guns, Germs, and Steel that the Khoisan are further genetically removed from the blacks of northern Africa than the white people from Europe are.

So, Droopy, do you think this guy from southern Africa could have held the priesthood prior to 1978? If not, why not?

[_Darth J]

The problem is that while President Young was here speaking to the Church, he was not speaking for it, and could not have been unless his positions here had been placed before the Brethren and confirmed by their united consent and upheld by them as doctrine, and then placed before the membership as such. This never occurred, nor is the JoD a source of official church teaching.

Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants says that it is not a commandment. The modern LDS Church teaches that the parts of D&C 89 that pertain to the temperance movement are a commandment. The teaching that certain parts of D&C 89 are a commandment has never been placed before the Bretheren and confirmed by their united consent and upheld by them as doctrine, and then placed before the membership as such. Therefore, it is not the doctrine of the LDS Church that it is a commandment not to smoke or drink beer.

[_Drifting]

Will you please show me from the scriptures where the priesthood ban is clearly defined doctrinally?

It isn't, which is why GBH said we don't know the origin of it. The doctrinal basis in a lineage dispossessed of the right of the priesthood is found, of course, in the Book of Abraham (and there are some extracannonocal sources intimating such as well).

You are willing to accept GBH's informal statements on this subject as 'official' but yet you wish to discount BY's statements on the subject, even though he was clearly the Prophet when the ban started.

Space under the Droopy bus is quickly being filled with the official statements of dead Prophets...

You are also acknowledging that for 100 and something years, the Prophets of God's one true Church on earth have been sanctioning people based on race without having a clue about wether or not what they were doing was doctrinal. And that God never told them. Really?

[_Buffalo]

I wonder how much longer Droopy will maintain this charade. Truly, when you are in a 50 foot pit, it's time to stop digging.

[_Droopy]

Kicking against the pricks is better than dying every day because of depression caused by repressed anger.

Sorry you came from such a dysfunctional family background and could not (or would not) allow the teachings, blessings, and powers of healing available in the Church to help you work through that.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled anti-Mormon special pleading.

[_Droopy]

I wonder how much longer Droopy will maintain this charade. Truly, when you are in a 50 foot pit, it's time to stop digging.

About as long as you maintain the charade that you are old enough to drive.

[_Droopy]

I read somewhere, perhaps it was in Guns, Germs, and Steel that the Khoisan are further genetically removed from the blacks of northern Africa than the white people from Europe are.

So, Droopy, do you think this guy from southern Africa could have held the priesthood prior to 1978? If not, why not?

If the Llosa are homo sapiens sapiens, then they are descended from Adam. End of story. They are not a sub-species of human. The last of that kind were the Neanderthals (which, as this board is testament, may not all have died out as we are so convinced).

Secondly, I don't think you have the slightest idea what you're talking about, nor the intellectual honesty to present the evidence correctly. Dark skinned peoples, such as some Tongan's and Samoans, with skin darker than numbers of blacks, were and always have been admitted into the Priesthood. All your doing here is beating your breast and tearing up foliage. Its all a bluff and you and I both know it.

It was about lineage. Its always been about lineage, and that has always been the teaching of the Church on the matter, irrespective of theoretical/speculative explanations of the details of the ban. Amerindians were never denied the Priesthood. Indians (some of which are fairly dark skinned) were never denied the Priesthood. Thais, Malaysians, Malayans, Indonesians, etc. no one was ever denied the Priesthood, no matter what the skin color, unless the question of lineage came up.

Take the needle(s) out of your arm and enter the arena of ideas with a bit of substance, just to surprise me.

[_Droopy]

The First Presidency statement says it had to do with their "fathers rejecting the power of the priesthood," not a curse.

http://bycommonconsent.com/2004/04/21/a ... residency/

You know, John, you and methbag really need to attempt - just attempt, for once - an intellectually thorough, honest, and careful assessment of the evidence you bring to the table and the arguments/explanations of others and try to be just a bit more careful of the way you process it through your psychological filters, biases, and prejudices before posting it as a devastating counter-attack to someone else's arguments.

Let's just take a look at the salient assertions in that 1949 statement one more time:

It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to.”

This is lineage. Their fathers rejected the gospel, and a certain lineage was denied the priesthood. All who come through that lineage, and partake of even a portion of that "blood" (DNA) partake of the restriction.

There is no mention of "race" here. Race is an accretion and lens that the 20th century GA's worked through in their attempts to understand what was not fully revealed or understood, but the core of the policy is lineage - their fathers and their seed and their relationship to God because of that lineage. Lineage, in LDS doctrine, is just as centrally important to other groups as it is to those partaking of the restriction on priesthood. Others have had similar restrictions and barriers as well.

The following is intellectual dishonesty and snake oil peddling of a high order:

Being one of the group denied the priesthood is explained in this statement as a "handicap" based on "the kind of bodies" different humans have. In other words, morphological differences (i.e., race as you defined it) are the determining factors.

But that is not what the paragraph from which you carefully excerpted these terms says at all. Let's take a look at it in context:

The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.

"Morphological?" Yes, morphological handicaps, such as various kinds of birth defects, deformities, genetic disorders, and other assorted afflictions are common among human beings, and represent, in a plan of salvation sense, individually tailored conditions in which unique spirits are to undergo unique challenges and testing. The only handicapp mentioned at all with regard to black people is failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood. It is one handicap among many, and does not, in the text in question, appear to be limited to blacks. Black skin is correlated with the restriction. Nowhere does this text assert that black skin is the defining characteristic of the restriction. The defining characteristic is the primordial conduct of their "fathers."

It is a handicap similar to being born without arms or legs, or with neurological disorders, and spirits are "willing to assume" these handicaps "in order that they might come to earth."

What's so maddeningly addictive about these message boards is seeing people like you torture the words of General Authorities to the point of delirium and feeling required to point out the obvious clever restructuring of their statements to reflect your own biases.

So, Canaanites and Egyptians were denied the priesthood until 1978? Really? CFR.

Both the ancient Canaanites and ancient Egyptians partook of that DNA. Blacks also "partook," but apparently in a consistent manner over human history.

Someone once told me, "It isn't racist if Heavenly Father did it." That you can't find clear doctrinal support for the ban doesn't mean I have lost the spirit.

What are you doing here, in a red hot anti-Mormon environment, and always on the ant-church side of any argument, if you haven't "lost the Spirit?"

[_moksha]

The last of that kind were the Neanderthals (which, as this board is testament, may not all have died out as we are so convinced).

That better not be a slam against Hungarians or Provonians.

[_Darth J]

This is lineage. Their fathers rejected the gospel, and a certain lineage was denied the priesthood. All who come through that lineage, and partake of even a portion of that "blood" (DNA) partake of the restriction.

There is no mention of "race" here. Race is an accretion and lens that the 20th century GA's worked through in their attempts to understand what was not fully revealed or understood, but the core of the policy is lineage - their fathers and their seed and their relationship to God because of that lineage.

I'm sure glad we have intellectually serious people like Ron Lafferty here to explain that "lineage" and "race" are different things.

lineage: lineal descent from an ancestor; ancestry or extraction: She could trace her lineage to the early Pilgrims.

Synonyms for lineage: birth, blood, breed, clan, descendants, descent, extraction, family, folk, forebears, genealogy, heredity, house, kin, kindred, line, offspring, origin, pedigree, progenitors, progeny, race, stirps, stock, succession, tribe

race: a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.

racism: a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.