Tactics of a Mormon Apologist

[_Stormy Waters]

This video is a review of the speech given by Scott Gordon at UVU earlier this year.

[_Mary]

'Scott says that the members are wrong to expect the church to teach 'church history' in the 'church history' course. Again, the blame is being put on the members rather than the church.'

This video was excellent, and painfully correct. Spot on. Thanks. I remember watching this presentation and just wanting to throw something at Scott. Interesting that most of his references (which I didn't bother to check) don't support what he was arguing, particularly in the area of Polygamy.

There's no way the apologists should be getting away with this. They are going to have to 'up' their game if they want to be respected. Particularly if Mitt Romney wins the election and the interest in the church continues.

[_lulu]

Tell me again why this business instructor is giving a lecture on religion at a university.

'Scott says that the members are wrong to expect the church to teach 'church history' in the 'church history' course. Again, the blame is being put on the members rather than the church.'

This video was excellent, and painfully correct. Spot on. Thanks. I remember watching this presentation and just wanting to throw something at Scott. Interesting that most of his references (which I didn't bother to check) don't support what he was arguing, particularly in the area of Polygamy.

There's no way the apologists should be getting away with this. They are going to have to 'up' their game if they want to be respected. Particularly if Mitt Romney wins the election and the interest in the church continues.

[_Darth J]

Here is an Institute manual specifically about church history:

Church History In The Fulness of Times

In this course manual specifically dedicated to church history, here is what we get about the process of translating the golden plates. Notice the reference to "the Lord's testimony," when in fact these are Joseph Smith's words, and accepting this testimony as coming from the Lord presupposes a belief in Joseph Smith as a prophet---in other words, circular reasoning.

https://www.LDS.org/manual/church-histo ... d?lang=eng

Little is known about the actual process of translating the record, primarily because those who knew the most about the translation, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, said the least about it. Moreover, Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and Emma Smith, who assisted Joseph, left no contemporary descriptions. The sketchy accounts they recorded much later in life were often contradictory.

The Prophet was reluctant to give the details about the translation. In a Church conference held 25–26 October 1831 in Orange, Ohio, Hyrum requested that a firsthand account of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon be given. But the Prophet said, “It was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.” Joseph explained in an open letter to a newspaper editor in 1833 the heart of the matter, but he gave few particulars, stating that the Book of Mormon was “found through the ministration of an holy angel, and translated into our own language by the gift and power of God.” His explanation is consistent with the Doctrine and Covenants, which says that he was granted “power to translate through the mercy of God, by the power of God, the Book of Mormon” (D&C 1:29) and that the Lord “gave him power from on high, by the means which were before prepared, to translate the Book of Mormon” (D&C 20:8).

Clearly the most important feature of the translation, as the title page of the Book of Mormon states, is “the interpretation thereof by the gift of God.” Moroni, the last custodian of the ancient text, challenged every reader of the Book of Mormon to learn through prayer the truthfulness of the book; he promised that by the power of the Holy Ghost all people could know that it was true (see Moroni 10:4–5). The Lord’s own testimony of the Book of Mormon is that Joseph Smith “has translated the book, even that part which I have commanded him, and as your Lord and your God liveth it is true” (D&C 17:6).

Some critics have suggested that Sidney Rigdon was a principal author of the Book of Mormon. They say that he used a romance by Solomon Spaulding called either Manuscript Found or Manuscript Story as a guide for the historical portions of this work. There is no evidence, however, that Sidney Rigdon knew Joseph Smith before the Book of Mormon was published. Elder Rigdon’s own testimony is that the first time he heard of the book was in October 1830 when a copy was handed to him by Parley P. Pratt (see pages 80–81 of this text). Solomon Spaulding’s manuscript was discovered in the 1880s, and it bears no resemblance to the Book of Mormon. This obviously fabricated yet widely-propounded Spaulding-Rigdon theory is an attempt by Satan to discredit the word of God.

[_Darth J]

Here is the open, forthright history of Joseph Smith's practice of plural marriage from this course manual specifically dedicated to church history:

(I wonder why, if these were just dynastic, pro forma marriages with no sexual component---an idea that has no basis in LDS canon---people were so bothered when they first learned about the doctrine, and why it needed to be secret.)

https://www.LDS.org/manual/church-histo ... o?lang=eng

Later that summer Joseph recorded a revelation on marriage that incorporated principles that had been revealed to him as early as 1831 in Kirtland. In it the Lord declared, “If a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood … [it] shall be of full force when they are out of the world; and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever” (D&C 132:19).

The law of celestial marriage, as outlined in this revelation, also included the principle of the plurality of wives. In 1831 as Joseph Smith labored on the inspired translation of the holy scriptures, he asked the Lord how he justified the practice of plural marriage among the Old Testament patriarchs. This question resulted in the revelation on celestial marriage, which included an answer to his question about the plural marriages of the patriarchs.

First the Lord explained that for any covenant, including marriage, to be valid in eternity it must meet three requirements (see D&C 132:7): (1) It must be “made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.” (2) It must be performed by the proper priesthood authority. (3) It must be by “revelation and commandment” through the Lord’s anointed prophet (see also vv. 18–19). Using Abraham as an example, the Lord said he “received all things, whatsoever he received, by revelation and commandment, by my word” (v. 29). Consequently, the Lord asked, “Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation? Verily I say unto you, Nay; for I, the Lord, commanded it” (v. 35).

Moreover, Joseph Smith and the Church were to accept the principle of plural marriage as part of the restoration of all things (see v. 45). Accustomed to conventional marriage patterns, the Prophet was at first understandably reluctant to engage in this new practice. Due to a lack of historical documentation, we do not know what his early attempts were to comply with the commandment in Ohio. His first recorded plural marriage in Nauvoo was to Louisa Beaman; it was performed by Bishop Joseph B. Noble on 5 April 1841. During the next three years Joseph took additional plural wives in accordance with the Lord’s commands.

As members of the Council of the Twelve Apostles returned from their missions to the British Isles in 1841, Joseph Smith taught them one by one the doctrine of plurality of wives, and each experienced some difficulty in understanding and accepting this doctrine. Brigham Young, for example, recounted his struggle: “I was not desirous of shrinking from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse its situation, and to regret that I was not in the coffin.”

After their initial hesitancy and frustration, Brigham Young and others of the Twelve received individual confirmations from the Holy Spirit and accepted the new doctrine of plural marriage. They knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God in all things. At first the practice was kept secret and was very limited. Rumors began to circulate about authorities of the Church having additional wives, which greatly distorted the truth and contributed to increased persecution from apostates and outsiders. Part of the difficulty, of course, was the natural aversion Americans held against “polygamy.” This new system appeared to threaten the strongly entrenched tradition of monogamy and the solidarity of the family structure. Later, in Utah, the Saints openly practiced “the principle,” but never without persecution.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I love how the audience is given references to Joseph Smith's polygamous behavior, yet none of them contain references to Joseph Smith's polygamous activities (well, just one says he practiced the doctrine, whatever that means).

- VRDRC

[_sock puppet]

BS baffles brains.

Well, in this instance, BS assists the HG.

[_3sheets2thewind]

This video is a review of the speech given by Scott Gordon at UVU earlier this year.

Is it the same speech wherein Gordon gave false information about references to Joseph smiths polygamy and the face in the hat translation method?

[_Willy Law]

Gordon's explanation for the misleading translation art that shows up over and over again is priceless.
Seems he has officially crossed the Rubicon into lying of the Lord.