"These days I can smell the fear in Mormonism."

[_Tator]

My thought are that Nephites never existed in the real world.

Exactly, I was late in viewing your post and slow drafting my response so I duplicated your thought, I was watching the RNC comedy on CNN.

[_Kishkumen]

I was watching the RNC comedy on CNN.

LOL. Glad you can take it in good humor. I find it too frightening.

[_hagoth7]

Again. How are you so sure it was intentional deception? What's your basis for laying such a claim at the feet of the church?

You seem to be looking for some kind of written admission of being dishonest...

Not really. What might be nice is some semblance of motive.

So in response to your assertion that they're being dishonest, or intentionally deceptive, my question is...where's the motive? Why would a handful of retired gentlemen, who have given the bulk of their free time in previous decades to the church for zero compensation... then intentionally gild the lily in their later years? What would they have to gain? They're already retired?

I hear your argument. But as to the actual meat of the issue, where's the motive? Where's the beef?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0

[_hagoth7]

Yes, the influence of the belief in the novel Book of Mormon is part of my family history but I do not believe in any of it.

I wasn't talking merely about its theoretical influence. I believe the first half of the Book of Mormon directly tells many of us about our actual forefathers.

Oh and yes I agree with your kids....

[_hagoth7]

My thought are that Nephites never existed in the real world.

That's what having thoughts will lead to.

;0)

As the young teacher N. Eldon Tanner once said to his class on their first day together, "You and I are going to be together six or seven hours a day for the next year...I want to teach you only one thing this entire year...That one thing, the only thing I really care if you learn this year, the only thing that really matters is how to think - how to think for yourself, how to reason out a solution to a problem - above all, how to think." Then he turned to the blackboard and wrote in letters two feet high, "THINK! THINK! THINK!"

[_Tator]

I believe the first half of the Book of Mormon directly tells many of us about our actual forefathers.

Sorry, hagoth7, but my actual forefathers have real DNA and the first half and the last half of the Book of Mormon are a story about imaginary DNA.

[_Themis]

Not really. What might be nice is some semblance of motive.

So in response to your assertion that they're being dishonest, or intentionally deceptive, my question is...where's the motive? Why would a handful of retired gentlemen, who have given the bulk of their free time in previous decades to the church for zero compensation... then intentionally gild the lily in their later years? What would they have to gain? They're already retired?

I hear your argument. But as to the actual meat of the issue, where's the motive? Where's the beef?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0

Really? You think you are a critical thinker, but posts like this suggest otherwise. Packer directly says the motive which is to protect the testimony of members. This is what lying for the lord doctrine is all about. You justify the lie by thinking it is helping the greater good.

[_hagoth7]

I believe the first half of the Book of Mormon directly tells many of us about our actual forefathers.

Sorry, hagoth7, but my actual forefathers have real DNA and the first half and the last half of the Book of Mormon are a story about imaginary DNA.

I respect your right to believe and say that.

[_Chap]

What might be nice is some semblance of motive.

So in response to your assertion that they're being dishonest, or intentionally deceptive, my question is...where's the motive? Why would a handful of retired gentlemen, who have given the bulk of their free time in previous decades to the church for zero compensation... then intentionally gild the lily in their later years? What would they have to gain? They're already retired?

Because people like that hate even to begin thinking that they may just have wasted their entire life. To avoid that, they practise all the stratagems they teach others - putting issues 'on the shelf' and 'doubting their doubts'. Oh and of course "getting a testimony in the bearing of it" - they bear their testimonies pretty well every time the open their mouths in public. After many decades, they get really excellent at avoiding the obvious. And don't forget, they are in an environment where both their fellow Apostles and the people who admire them keep giving them massive reassurance that the Church is indeed True.

So they have erected giant mental barriers to avoid simply saying "Gosh, that piece of evidence proves that the Church Is Not True after all. Let's hide it because it will make us look really dumb, and all the members will quit." Instead - as you yourself have read in a talk by an Apostle we discussed recently - they say something more like "Well, we know the Church Is True. But that piece of evidence might cause people who were not ready for it to have serious doubts. So for the greater good of humanity, it is our duty to hide it as far as we can."

That is what the lawyers used to call suppressio veri "Suppressing truth", which is taken as equivalent to suggestio falsi "Suggesting falsehood".

http://thelawdictionary.org/suppressio-veri/

What is SUPPRESSIO VERI?
Lat Suppression or concealment of the truth. “It is a rule of equity, as well as of law, that a suppressio veri is equivalent to a suggestio falsi; and where either the suppression of the truth or the suggestion of what is false can be proved, in a fact material to the contract, the party injured may have relief against the contract.” Fleming v. Slocum. 18 Johns. (N. Y.) 405, 9 Am. Dec. 224. Suppressio veri, expressio falsi. Suppression of the truth is [equivalent to] the expression of what is false. Addington v. Allen, 11 Wend. (N. Y.) 374, 417. Suppressio veri, suggestio falsi. Suppression of the truth is [equivalent to] the suggestion of what is false. Paul v. Hadley, 23 Barb. (N. Y.) 521, 525.

In other words, they are lying by not telling people things which they know might cause them to doubt propositions they wish them to accept. Yup, deception. Of course they are sure that this deception is for the very best reasons. But it is still deception.

[_DrW]

In other words, they are lying by not telling people things which they know might cause them to doubt propositions they wish them to accept. Yup, deception. Of course they are sure that this deception is for the very best reasons. But it is still deception.

It is a personal and particularly pernicious form of Lying for the Lord. The "LftL-1" gene is in the DNA of Mormonism. It is a major Mormon meme.