KevinSim wrote:Chap wrote:Well, one minimum implication of the claim that the church is true, in the sense that this claim is made by members of the CoJCoLDS might appear to be that no major aspect of what the church habitually teaches is untrue.
Here are two examples of major aspects of what the CoJCoLDS habitually teaches that seem to me to be obviously untrue:
1. A colony of Jews came to the Americas around 600 BC, and their descendants became, for a while, a great Christian civilization. The Book of Mormon tells their history.
2. The Book of Abraham is an authentic ancient scripture.
Chap, are you saying that what the LDS Church teaches can be divided into
major aspects and
minor aspects, and that the minor ones might be untrue, in which case it would have no effect on the overall truthfulness of the Church? If so, how do you divide between
major and
minor?
Well, I suppose I might use the words of the prophet who led the LDS church at the time to get an idea of what he considered important.
Here's what Gordon Hinckley said in his PBS interview:Well, it's either true or false. If it's false, we're engaged in a great fraud. If it's true, it's the most important thing in the world. Now, that's the whole picture. It is either right or wrong, true or false, fraudulent or true. And that's exactly where we stand, with a conviction in our hearts that it is true: that Joseph went into the [Sacred] Grove; that he saw the Father and the Son; that he talked with them; that Moroni came; that the Book of Mormon was translated from the plates; that the priesthood was restored by those who held it anciently. That's our claim. That's where we stand, and that's where we fall, if we fall. But we don't. We just stand secure in that faith.
It sounds as if he considers the status of the Book of Mormon as a genuine ancient text as a major teaching of his church. Don't you agree?
And since the Book of Abraham is still in the canonized scriptures, how can its status as what it claims to be - an authentic ancient text - be a minor question?
KevinSim wrote:Are you also saying that, if we could move beyond (1) and (2) seeming "to be obviously untrue" to the definite conclusion that they certainly are untrue, would that make it impossible for God to use the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham to teach the readers about His will?
Why, if there is a deity resembling the one believed in by the CoJCLDS, then he could use the Simpsons to teach viewers about his will if he felt like it. Or even a book of cross-word puzzles. He could do anything he fancied doing.
But what kind of deity would it be who messed around with human beings in such a way?
KevinSim wrote:I am not saying the Book of Mormon account is in fact false, or that the Book of Abraham account is either. I'm just trying to understand what you mean by something being true or untrue, and why those labels are useful for someone who's trying to learn about God's will in her/his life.
In the religion I was brought up in, I was taught that if you found that something was not true, it was not likely to be the source of good things:
John 8:44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
That is a hard habit of thinking to change, even when you give up that religion. Does your religion teach you differently from that?