Radio Free Mormon & Backyard Professor Take Elder David A. Bednar to the Limit

[wenglund]

Being lectured by a dopey Mormon on spirituality is akin to being lectured by an ancient astronaut theorist on history. The above is just pure hubristic B.S. written by a small man. The top-down egoism of the Mormon hierarchy is on full display right now. - Doc

Perfect. I needed some irony enrichment today.

Thanks, Wade Englund

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Being lectured by a dopey Mormon on spirituality is akin to being lectured by an ancient astronaut theorist on history. The above is just pure hubristic B.S. written by a small man. The top-down egoism of the Mormon hierarchy is on full display right now. - Doc

Perfect. I needed some irony enrichment today.

Thanks, Wade Englund

I’m sorry, but this is too rich. A literal cultist is larping a superiority complex because he’s proud he’s managed to ignore reality for however long he’s been at this Mormon infinity loop game of his. Wade Englund is shilling on behalf of a nepotistic multi-billion dollar conglomerate for free, using demonstrably fraudulent “scriptures” as his basis, created by a literal treasure-digging-scryer, and is inextricably caught up in a mental feedback recursion all the while eXhOrTiNg board members to “grow” and whatnot.

I don’t know if it’s fair to call someone like Wade stupid, because he can string a few words together coherently, but goddamn he’s definitely a brainwashed cultist. Like. That’s as obvious as the day is long.

My brother in Christ, there are only four lights.

eta:



- Doc

[malkie]

All that Telestial, Terrestrial, Celestial stuff - Swedenborg would have been so happy if he could have earned his daily food from them.

[dastardly stem]

Excellent question. The answer is: growth unto celestialization as opposed to growth unto terrestrialization or telestialization.

Ah yes, deciphering how high that cheese jumps on the other side again.

They don't claim the same. At best they may claim a terrestrial progress, though they wouldn't call it or know it by that name. Instead, they may refer to it as "being saved" or "nirvana" or something of the sort. Many of them don't propose a test like Alma 32. Instead, if they propose any tests at all, it is reliant on "the arm of flesh" rather than upon God--such as exegesis, biblical or systematic theology, etc.

Each type of progression is somewhat demonstrable externally to others by way of "fruits," but mostly it is demonstrated internally to oneself.

In a very rough sense, it is like a selection of health and wellness regimens. Some of the regimens claim to produce such and such results, while others claim to produce otherwise. They each can be tested to see if participants progress or not towards the respective claimed results. The progression can be somewhat demonstrated to others through external fruits (weigh loss, fitness, healthy complexion, etc.), but mostly it is demonstrated internally to oneself.

External fruits is a meaningless concept in this context. An atheist can help the neighbor too. And if you think more along the lines of how high cheese jumps again, then well, you’re speaking nonsense again. Your internal feelings may seem reliable and helpful to you, but that hardly means you’ve gotten special insight or have found something true. It goes back to you deciding what you think is right or ought to be right and feeling good about it.

As indicated above, your premise is incorrect, therefore your conclusion doesn't logically follow.

I don’t see how. Nothing you have said suggests my premise is incorrect from what I’ve seen.

This is exactly Bednar's point. The critics ask to "see" (i.e. observe or experience through the 5 physical senses) things that the physical senses aren't capable of observing or experiencing in their fallen state. In a rough sense, it would be like a blind man requesting to observe/experience colors through his other 4 senses than sight, when the other 4 sense aren't capable of observing/experiencing colors. Such requests are unreasonable.

Yet, when the critics don't observe/experience these things that aren't observable/experienced through the 5 physical senses, they assume that those things don't exist--not unlike were the blind man to assume that colors don't exist because he couldn't observe/experience them through the other 4 senses. This is unreasonable.

It is made all the more unreasonable when the critics have been offered a viable means for observing/experiencing spiritual things, and they decline or flunk and drop out of the process. The spiritually blind critics have rejected the means for spiritual sight. Their spiritual blindness can't be healed because of their lack of faith in spiritual things.

Thanks, Wade Englund

Again you seem to simply presuppose things like spirit realms and god. Until you provide reason we have nothing really to work from. Who cares if bednar thinks there’s a realm of spirits. The questions is what reason why might someone reasonably think there is such a realm? If you and bednar grade cheese based on how high they jump in another unseeable or unknowable place then good for you. But such hardly demonstrates anything reasonable.

[Rivendale]

Perfect. I needed some irony enrichment today.

Thanks, Wade Englund

I’m sorry, but this is too rich. A literal cultist is larping a superiority complex because he’s proud he’s managed to ignore reality for however long he’s been at this Mormon infinity loop game of his. Wade Englund is shilling on behalf of a nepotistic multi-billion dollar conglomerate for free, using demonstrably fraudulent “scriptures” as his basis, created by a literal treasure-digging-scryer, and is inextricably caught up in a mental feedback recursion all the while eXhOrTiNg board members to “grow” and whatnot.

I don’t know if it’s fair to call someone like Wade stupid, because he can string a few words together coherently, but goddamn he’s definitely a brainwashed cultist. Like. That’s as obvious as the day is long.

My brother in Christ, there are only four lights.

eta:



- Doc

This is spot on. Mormonism constantly uses tactics like the four lights. Bednar does it all the time. Have the faith not to be healed. Or Nelson claiming that having faith is hard but doing it makes it easy. Things that just do not reflect the world we live in. It must be exhausting to keep running on that spiritual treadmill that constantly demands strict adherence to invisible entities. I know it is exhausting just watching how believers can extract a spiritual meaning out of a head on collision that decapitated one of their relatives.

[consiglieri]

Here's another thought for your cheesy analogy.

When I was growing up in Scotland, my mother often sent me to the shops a few hundred yards (pre-decimalization & pre-metrication) away.

An item on my list might be "cheese": not "cheddar", not "mozzarella" - just "cheese".

My parents were not well educated, and not well traveled, and I have no idea how aware they were of the hundreds of varieties of cheese that existed, but as far as I can gather, our little local grocery store didn't stock anything other than cheddar. As a child I might have disputed that anything other than medium cheddar was real cheese, because that is all I knew. It didn't even require any indoctrination: this was the only cheese my family knew, and so was also the only one in which my family believed.

ETA: I have since been exposed to a wide variety of cheeses, and have found several that I like. But I'm still a fan of cheddar, albeit with a preference for old, strong cheese.

If I had grown up in France, for example, I expect I would have known a number of different cheeses, and suspect that, even as an older person, my favourite might be one I was exposed to as a child.

Holy Christ!

That was beautiful, malkie!

[wenglund]

Again you seem to simply presuppose things like spirit realms and god. Until you provide reason we have nothing really to work from. Who cares if bednar thinks there’s a realm of spirits. The questions is what reason why might someone reasonably think there is such a realm? If you and bednar grade cheese based on how high they jump in another unseeable or unknowable place then good for you. But such hardly demonstrates anything reasonable.

I can see now, in part, why you and others flunked the course on spiritual faith. There are none so blind that will not see. Have a nice day.

Thanks, Wade Englund

[Gadianton]

First, I took your assertion about vindication to be specific to my statement: "What some of us mistook for thesis statements, were simply declarations of beliefs intended to prepare the soil of the heart, mind, and soul, into which the seeds of faith were planted."

As such, my response to you was specific to that statement, rather what you mistook as a general assumption about my supposedly thinking I had "achieved that godly level of understanding where [I'm] always right about everything, communicate perfectly, and can sit back and the failure is always the reader should they disagree with [me]." I said nothing of the sort.

Again, it is a mystery how it is that you interpreted my response as some sort of dogmatic claim to being right and omniscient,

Your response I believe is representative of your thinking in general. For you to only allow the possibility of your interlocutor to be wrong if anything short of agreement with you is manifest on such an abstract question with so much room for subjectivity indicates a God complex on your part. If the question were 2+2 or even something technical and difficult though with a likely clear answer, and you had responded similarly, and if you were known to have a certain level of expertise in that area, then that would be different.

I had admitted to the mistake

Right, a mistake material to nothing. Something those with a God complex do -- admit possible error on a minor detail to appear fair-minded but with no intent of giving an inch on the bigger picture, no matter what anyone can possibly say.

You've done a lot of expository work on how important talks like these from Bednar are, but do you really believe any of this? All these insights you've come up with, such as Alma 32 fitting a falsificationism -- over all your decades of learning, are any of these insights actually dependent on Bednar or the Book of Mormon? Would you not know how to test something if it weren't for Alma 32?

From what I recall you're a pretty educated guy, did some grad school even -- what you seem to be doing is similar to a lot of true believers, and that's recasting the pablum of talks by CEO-turned-apostles into something deep and serious. I don't think you sit down and read talks such as Bednar's for their own sake, enamored by the power of the ideas and by golly, you're glad to be paying 10% of your income to be drinking from that well because you can't get water like it anywhere else.

I think you could go the rest of your life without ever reading another word from a GA and be just fine -- the most likely scenario to ever need to consult the brethren is when critics are dismissing them and it's a chance to be argumentative.

[consiglieri]

And judgmental.

[consiglieri]

And supercilious.