The truth is already out, it just didn't come out from the Church. The Church isn't telling the truth, it is confirming it *lied.
*I'm using the Church's own definition of lying.
Lying is intentionally deceiving others. Bearing false witness is one form of lying. The Lord gave this commandment to the children of Israel: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16). Jesus also taught this when He was on earth (see Matthew 19:18). There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
cinepro wrote:The weird thing about this is something I've thought about for years.
While we look at the Church as a global, unified whole, with a "gospel" and scriptures and history, each individual member experiences the Church differently. We all have different experiences based on our local wards, our families, our tenure, our teachers and fellow class members, the talks we hear in Sacrament meeting. There are commonalities that you'll find everywhere, but there are also differences.
And ultimately, some peoples' personal construction of "The Church" doesn't include a Joseph Smith that was sealed in plural marriage to "almost 15 year old" girls, or sealed to other men's wives, or claimed to "translate" Egyptian papyri when in fact the words he was dictating weren't a "translation" and so on...
So that raises a dilemma for the Church, in that there may be some members who do not want to be a member of a Church who was founded by a person who did such things, and the only reasons they are members is because they don't know about it. So, if there are such members, is it better to get the truth out there, or to keep it quiet?
Better to get the truth out.
Agreed. And I am glad to see the Church doing just that. I was also glad to see the changes that were made in the temple ceremony making it more palatable for patrons. I think it was a wise move.
I think that changes will continue to be made. Women will continue to receive more leadership positions than in the past. I see the Church evolving into an organization that is more Christ-centered than it has been in the past. I also hope to see some of the older traditions such as bazzares, road shows, dance festivals, etc. return.
There is a rebranded LDS Church on the horizon, and I think it is a very positive move.
So you're chasing around a fly and in your world, I'm the idiot?
"Friends don't let friends be Mormon." Sock Puppet, MDB.
Music is my drug of choice.
"And that is precisely why none of us apologize for holding it to the celestial standard it pretends that it possesses." Kerry, MDB _________________
Jesse Pinkman wrote:I was also glad to see the changes that were made in the temple ceremony making it more palatable for patrons.
Removing the death oaths in the 90's?
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
Bazooka wrote:The truth is already out, it just didn't come out from the Church. The Church isn't telling the truth, it is confirming it *lied.
That's a silly rhetorical spin.
Bazooka wrote:*I'm using the Church's own definition of lying.
No, you're not. You're asserting intention where you have no idea what the intentions were.
"Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest."
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
Porque nadie tiene el tiempo. La historia completa de la Iglesia es un tema muy pero muy grande.
My Spanish isn't very good so I'll go back to English.
This just doesn't cut it for me. At any point in the last century or more, the church could have chosen to be more forthcoming with the facts which would have led to a membership base today that had a more accurate and comprehensive knowledge of the details of church history. They had the time to correlate church instruction that left so many in the dark. They had time to make movies like Legacy and Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. And yet, they had no time to give an official account of the details of Joseph Smith's polygamy until a few weeks ago. Attributing the lack to a lack of time is laughable when the time frame is measured in decades or more.
Porque nadie tiene el tiempo. La historia completa de la Iglesia es un tema muy pero muy grande.
Bull. A billion dollar organization can find the time to get this done. They can hire more people than they would know what to do with if they really wanted to. To say they didn't have the time is an excuse.
Sanctorian wrote:Bull. A billion dollar organization can find the time to get this done. They can hire more people than they would know what to do with if they really wanted to. To say they didn't have the time is an excuse.
I don't think you understand. What I meant was that no members of the Church have the time to learn the comprehensive history of the LDS Church. There's too much material. It would be the equivalent of a perpetual graduate degree.
maklelan wrote:No, you're not. You're asserting intention where you have no idea what the intentions were.
"Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest."
I can't speak for Mak, by my guess is that he would say it would be more accurate to say, "whenever we intentionally lead people astray..."
But as I've said before, intent is a side issue. Over the course of church history I'm sure there has been times when the church has misled people intentionally on one thing or another and unintentionally on something else. Getting bogged down on intent (which can be difficult if not impossible to ascertain) is a distraction, in my opinion.
Sanctorian wrote:Bull. A billion dollar organization can find the time to get this done. They can hire more people than they would know what to do with if they really wanted to. To say they didn't have the time is an excuse.
I don't think you understand. What I meant was that no members of the Church have the time to learn the comprehensive history of the LDS Church. There's too much material. It would be the equivalent of a perpetual graduate degree.
Yeah, and because few, if any, have the time and inclination for this, they rely mainly on the sources made available to them through church instruction materials. The problem was, far too often on far too many issues, it was garbage-in, garbage-out. The church has had plenty of time to fix the "garbage-in" part of that equation, but chose not to.