Popular BYU Randy Bott Takes Heat for Comments

[_Drifting]

Mak, why did the Church persecute black people before 1978? (officially)

[_Spurven Ten Sing]

Mak, read here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22842

Specifically this line: We are aware that some Higher Critics do not accept this, but the Church does. Your position seems to lose sight of the revelations of the Lord touching the pre-existence of our spirits, the rebellion in heaven, and the doctrines that our birth into this life and the advantages under which we may be born, have a relationship in the life heretofore.


Seems they are claiming some god told them this crap. I guess it isn't easy being a Higher Critic, eh Mak?

[_harmony]

Or maybe we supposed to think that Prof Bott has been teaching incorrect doctrine for the last 30 years, with the blessing of the Brethren?

So you're concluding that there's some kind of conspiracy going on? This is more likely to you than that Bott was just drawing from his own personal assumptions?

My point, obscure though it was, is clear: Prof Bott is a full professor of religion at BYU. He teaches this stuff every day. He passes his annual reviews. He is in good standing. The Brethren authorize him to teach RELIGION. Thus, it's not outside the realm of logic that HE KNOWS what the Brethren want him to teach. And he told the press what he KNOWS.

Unless you're saying the Brethren pay no attention to what BYU Religion professors teach?

Bump for Mak.

[_maklelan]

How you can dismiss a FP statement as simply folklore is beyond me.

Then stop making assumptions about how I'm supposed to respond. Stop trying to force Latter-day Saint ideology into a nice and neat little box that you can play with and you'll stop getting confused.

This is why LDS apologetics is so bad. The tactic is simply to dismiss anything that is not comfortable from the past as unofficial, speculation, or folklore.

How is it bad to acknowledge that racist comments from the past were based on folklore and not revelation? It's only bad if a critic wants to shackle the church to the ridiculous notion that every word that ever fell from a prophet's lips is official and unassailable doctrine.

Words mean something.

No s***? You just blew my mind.

It seems odd that the Church I grew up in that was so proud of having Prophets that speak to God and get his word directly now wants to back peddle and toss these Prophets on the trash pile of speculation, simple opinion and operating with limited light and knowledge.

Maybe the perspective you developed growing up was a bit too reductive and binary. The church and its leaders have acknowledged since the very beginning that there is disagreement, discord, and change between leaders of the church. It's a juvenile and uninformed position that tries to insist otherwise.

If that is the case what good are Prophets and apostles?

Just because something isn't infallible doesn't mean it does not have value. Now you're appealing to the same childish dichotomy to which fundamentalist Christians appeal when it's pointed out the Bible isn't inerrant. "Oh, what good is it, then? We should just hurl it in the trash if it's not inerrant!"

This was statement from the top leadership of the Church. It is a official as it gets. It cannot be classifies and simple opinion, speculation or folklore.

No, it's not as official as it gets. Canonization would make it as official as it gets. The statement claims there is a direct commandment from God. Where is that commandment? To whom was it sent, and when? You really think that that appeal is to something concrete, and not just an assumption they made about where the ban came from? You think that simply in virtue of appearing in a message written by the First Presidency, folklore suddenly is no longer folklore?

And the statement about pre earth life is not vague. It may not spell out details

The very definition of "vague."

but it does say in relation to the ban that the situations we are born into are a result of choices in the pre earth life. How is that vague.

It doesn't spell out details.

Hardly vague at all. Lacking some details I agree. But it make the point that choices in the pre earth life could have bearing on someone born into the race subject to the priesthood ban.

But which choices, specifically?

But as I have shown it was more than speculation.

No, you've just shown that the church in 1949 asserted without any evidence that it was more than speculation. That doesn't show it was more than speculation at all.

I just want the Church to own up to what its Prophets, Seers and Revelators taught the people.

It seems to me you want the ideology you espoused growing up to be acknowledged as the one you had no choice but to espouse so your position is validated and you can blame the church entirely.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

How can the Church denounce Bott's reasons for the priesthood ban pre-1978 without also denouncing the pronouncements of Church leaders pre-1978 to explain the priesthood ban?

It can't. It very clearly and very explicitly is denouncing the attempts to explain the ban.

Read the Church's statements again -- although they denounce Bott by name, they are carefully drafted NOT to denounce past prophets, seers and revelators.

I do not know of any instance where the Brethren have officially denounced the reasons for the priesthood ban given by a Church leader pre-1978. Why does Bott merit special treatment?

Special treatment? Are you joking? When you have to extend this idiotic "it has to be official!" standard to the academic study of Mormon doctrine by BYU professors you just make a mockery of any claims to objective or rational thought on the part of critics.

C'mon, BYU puts this long tenured professor out to the public as having "expertise" in Church doctrine. Bott is not some rank-and-file member, and you know it.

As an academic, Bott should very well know what the church has and has not taught over the last 30+ years, as well as what has been published consistently over that time period by BYU professors, other LDS scholars, and non-LDS scholars.

Again, you fail to see that Bott was NOT speaking to the Church's position for the past 30 years, but the Church's position during the previous 150 years. He was talking history, not present day. And the Church's "we don't know" position of the past 30 years does NOT change the historical positions held by the Church during the previous 150. It's as simple as that, my friend.

It has all been the same thing. To assert the legitimacy of his regression to a position unilaterally denounced for 30+ years on the grounds that nothing "official" has taken place is just stupid. I can think of no other word for it.

Again, let me try to be as simple as I can for you -- Bott was speaking of the historical reasons posited by Church leaders for 150 years for the priesthood ban -- he was NOT speaking of the Church's position during the most recent 30 years.

[_maklelan]

Mak, I do hate the church, but that doesn't matter.

Of course not.

Look at the facts. "Prophets" made very specific assertions about the nature of the ban. There was great detail. They asserted, they did not speculate or offer an opinion. Where did their details come from? Well your choices are some kind of god or their own racist brains. I am rooting for their brains, are you rooting for god?

So you can show no specific claim to revelation, and you're just inventing facts.

[_maklelan]

Mak, why did the Church persecute black people before 1978? (officially)

Don't waste my time with these games.

[_maklelan]

Bump for Mak.

I've already addressed this. The assumptions you're making are just asinine, and you've shown yourself incapable of addressing my concerns with your rhetoric. All you do is ignore my concerns and reassert yourself.

[_maklelan]

Mak, read here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22842

Specifically this line: We are aware that some Higher Critics do not accept this, but the Church does. Your position seems to lose sight of the revelations of the Lord touching the pre-existence of our spirits, the rebellion in heaven, and the doctrines that our birth into this life and the advantages under which we may be born, have a relationship in the life heretofore.


Seems they are claiming some god told them this crap. I guess it isn't easy being a Higher Critic, eh Mak?

They're claiming (1) that God told them there was a preexistence, and our state here is influenced by that preexistence, and (2) that the ban began with Joseph Smith. The second claim is demonstrably false. The first is not a claim to revelation about the priesthood ban, but a suggestion that, by inference, because we have revelation about the preexistence, the priesthood ban must be the result of something done in the preexistence. You simply cannot point to a specific claim to revelation regarding the origins of the priesthood ban. You can only point to tradition and inference. Feel free to attempt to prove me wrong, but this has been thoroughly investigated by Mormon and non-Mormon scholars for decades. Even David O. McKay and Spencer W. Kimball had a committee try to track down the origins of the ban, and they couldn't find any revelation or scripture about it.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Mak, read here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22842

Specifically this line: We are aware that some Higher Critics do not accept this, but the Church does. Your position seems to lose sight of the revelations of the Lord touching the pre-existence of our spirits, the rebellion in heaven, and the doctrines that our birth into this life and the advantages under which we may be born, have a relationship in the life heretofore.

They're claiming (1) that God told them there was a preexistence, and our state here is influenced by that preexistence, and (2) that the ban began with Joseph Smith. The second claim is demonstrably false.

In connection with your statement that "the second claim is demonstrably false" (i.e., that the ban began with Joseph Smith), would you agree, then, that the First Presidency led the Church astray when it stated in 1949 (emphasis mine):

It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time.

It is clear from this official statement that the priesthood ban was instituted by a direct commandment from God during the "days of [the Church's] organization [i.e., when Joseph was alive]."