For the critics... what do you say to missionaries?

[_MCB]

Their access to the internet is restricted, so they wouldn't be able to dig deeper or verify the things that you told them. They would probably just write off what you told them as anti-Mormon lies.

That is why I wouldn't. Number one, I don't like unpleasant one to one in real life interactions. Number two, I want to have the sources at my fingertips, so they can't say "you lie." I would rather write my refutations for those who want to read them, and provide plenty of documentation.

Internet debate with them is very revealing, because they give out much more information, not knowing that it is one of my research strategies.

[_KevinSim]

If they encounter someone who wants to argue about religion they should move on looking for more fertile (ignorant) grounds where what they say will be taken at
face value. There is a reason they are much more successful with the uneducated.

Fence Sitter, are you implying that being educated hinders someone from seriously considering being a part of the LDS Church? If so, why do you think so?

Granted if one is educated and therefore understands the reasons why scientists think life evolved on this planet over hundreds or tens of millions of years, and understands why geologists think the planet actually existed for billions of years, and then that one came across missionaries who told that someone the Earth is only six thousand years old, that might give that one pause. But it seems to me the reasons for believing in a good deity are there regardless of how old the Earth is, and the explanations the LDS missionaries give for how the investigator can find out the will of God simply make sense, once again regardless of how old the Earth is.

[_MCB]

the reasons for believing in a good deity are there regardless of how old the Earth is, and the explanations the LDS missionaries give for how the investigator can find out the will of God simply make sense, once again regardless of how old the Earth is.

So the Book of Mormon is still scripture, despite the fact that it was written to prove that Natives of the Americas are human (literal descendants of Adam and Eve within the 6000 year creation timeline)? If an ancient Earth is true, why is the story necessary? If the Natives of the Americas are human, yet proven to not be of Jewish ancestry, how are they fully human? (I have Native ancestry, so don't go pulling an ad hominem on me.)

[_KevinSim]

So the Book of Mormon is still scripture, despite the fact that it was written to prove that Natives of the Americas are human (literal descendants of Adam and Eve within the 6000 year creation timeline)? If an ancient Earth is true, why is the story necessary? If the Natives of the Americas are human, yet proven to not be of Jewish ancestry, how are they fully human? (I have Native ancestry, so don't go pulling an ad hominem on me.)

MCB, I find it odd that you equate being human with being a literal descendant "of Adam and Eve within the 6000 year creation timeline." I consider every single woman and man in this world human, whether s/he descended from Adam and Eve or not.

Earth being ancient has nothing to do with the necessity of the Book of Mormon story. God spoke to prophets in the Americas, and the things God told them are as relevant to our lives as many of the things God told the prophets in Judea and Israel back in the two millenia B.C.E.

Have you concluded that the "Natives of the Americas" are "proven to not be of Jewish ancestry"? If so, how have you concluded that?

The LDS Church recently changed a statement in its introduction to the Book of Mormon, from calling the descendants of Laman the principal ancestors of the Native Americans, to calling them among the ancestors of the Native Americans.

My father has, in fact, always believed that the Native Americans had other ancestors besides just the Lamanites. I personally have expanded on that to come to the conclusion that most of the ancestors of the Native Americans crossed the Bering land bridge into America from Asia a very long time ago, but that doesn't mean that Lehi's party didn't cross the oceans to America too, and that they didn't intermarry.

[_MCB]

Thank you. Perhaps you might want to preach that message to some of your co-religionists. Particularly those who believe that the color of a person's skin is a measure of the condition of a person's soul (or those of their ancestors).

[_KevinSim]

Thank you. Perhaps you might want to preach that message to some of your co-religionists.

Oh, I plan on it. In fact to some extent I already have. I used to team teach a Sunday School class for the fifteen-year-olds. One Sunday my partner asked a long-time stalwart member of the ward to teach his lesson for him, and Brother Genther somehow managed to work into his lesson some of the old ideas about blacks having been "less valiant" in the Pre-existence. The next Sunday when it was my turn to teach I told them that everything Genther had said the week before about blacks was not LDS Church doctrine. One of the girls in my class asked why I thought so and I said because that's a subject I've concentrated on.

Particularly those who believe that the color of a person's skin is a measure of the condition of a person's soul (or those of their ancestors).

It is my firm conviction that those people are growing smaller and smaller every day. I don't think they were in large numbers even in the years before Spencer Kimball's revelation in 1978.

For the record I didn't correct Brother Genther to his face on his views about blacks. Maybe I should have. Maybe I'll wait for him to make similar statements in the future and then talk to him about it then.

[_MCB]

You may eventually make your way out. I will pray that it happens with the least amount of pain possible.

[_Themis]

Roberts was very familiar with all of the controversies and challenges to his faith, and I suspect that he at least temporarily harboured some serious doubts, and his "devil's advocate" approach seems to be sustained in Max's article. He wasn't satisfied with the "simple approach" to Mormonism, but he also refused to accept that it was an "obvious" fraud.

We will never know how he may have really thought, but he certainly makes people wonder what he really believed.

[_Themis]

He wasn't satisfied with the "simple approach" to Mormonism, but he also refused to accept that it was an "obvious" fraud.

And he was right. Mormonism isn't an obvious fraud. People who would criticize it need to realize that the people who believe in LDS theology will never take those critics seriously until those critics take LDS theology seriously.

I doubt you understand what many critics really do understand.

[_MCB]

We will never know how he may have really thought, but he certainly makes people wonder what he really believed.

In reading his testimony in the Smoot hearings, I came to the conclusion that polygamy was his ticket to happiness.