The Shiftless, Lazy, Lying Smith Family

[rabanes]

... yada yada yada.

Have you, or have you not, read my discussion of D&C 132 and its history in One Nation Under Gods? If not, then before you presume to know my position, or my reasons for holding it, go and actually read it. If so, then feel free to point out where my discussion of the origins, concealment, and eventual release of D&C 132 is flawed. TY.

RA

[thesometimesaint]

Rabanes:

Then you undoubtedly agree that Christ in telling the Apostles that certain information was just for them, and not for others. Making Christ a liar.

[Bat-Man]

Have you, or have you not, read my discussion of D&C 132 and its history in One Nation Under Gods? If not, then before you presume to know my position, or reasons for it, go read it. if so, feel free to point out where my discussion of the origins, concealment, and eventual release of D&C 132 is flawed. TY.

RA

I haven't read your book, in particular, but without even reading your book I can honestly state that I'm very sure that I've seen the same ideas presented by other people, in their own words, throughout my thorough investigation of the truth on this issue.

... even though I'm sure you believe you have come up with some totally original ideas that nobody but you ever thought about before you graced those of us on this Earth with your presence.

[rabanes]

Then you undoubtedly agree that Christ in telling the Apostles that certain information was just for them, and not for others. Making Christ a liar.

Whatever you say, my friend. Whatever you say. Sure. Okay. No problem. Now, just eat your carrots and later on we'll go for a nice walk outside.

I'm sure you believe you have come up with some totally original ideas that nobody but you ever thought about before you graced those of us on this Earth with your presence.

Ohhhhh, now see, you had to go and say something like that. tsk tsk. Actually, I'm grateful I can put one foot in front of the other. I've not graced anyone with anything. And I know I'll get a hearty Amen for that one from everyone here!!!!!

[cksalmon]

I haven't read your book, in particular, but without even reading your book I can honestly state that I'm very sure that I've seen the same ideas presented by other people, in their own words, throughout my thorough investigation of the truth on this issue.

If you haven't read the book, you can only guess at its contents.

cks

[thesometimesaint]

Rabanes:

I actually enjoy raw carrots, but I'm not a big fan of the cooked kind. I try to take a nice walk with my wife every day.

Believe it or not I actually missed you from the old ZLMB days.

[rabanes]

Believe it or not I actually missed you from the old ZLMB days.

I do believe it. Me too. Good times. I actually had a blast coming out to Utah for the FAIR Conference. I wanted to get back but never could make it. Ah well.

RA

[William the Conqueror]

I haven't read your book, in particular, but without even reading your book I can honestly state that I'm very sure that I've seen the same ideas presented by other people, in their own words, throughout my thorough investigation of the truth on this issue.

Can I say that about Daniel Petersen's book Offenders for A Word, which I haven't read?

[Bat-Man]

Ohhhhh, now see, you had to go and say something like that. tsk tsk.

Something else you don't agree with, huh.

Oh well.

Actually, I'm grateful I can put one foot in front of the other.

Try going the right way, rabanes.

Anyone can keep walking, or do something else after they have done something.

If you want to know what is true you need to go to where the truth really is.

I've not graced anyone with anything.

No free doughnuts? No nice words about anything? Nothing?

I was responding to your suggestion that I should go read your book, as if without reading your book I won't see or won't have already seen the same thoughts from somebody else.

Do you realize that all I need to know about you is that you don't know Joseph Smith was really a true prophet of God?

The moment you gave me the impression you believe Joseph Smith was some kind of charlatan, rather than a true prophet of God as I know he was and still is, was the moment your credibilty went out the window.

... coupled with the fact that the reason you don't accept him as a true prophet of God is not because you have never heard of Joseph Smith or read his teachings, for which I could have overlooked your ignorance.

[juliann]

LOL!!!! Julianne, is that you?! HA! Good to see ya. yes, I'm sure you look to your LDS experts. As for HP, I've never really bashed it, but painting me that way, I'm sure, feels very good.

best wishes, J, long time no talk,

R.A.

P.S. I know you've missed me terribly.

Welcome back, Richard. Have you worn out your welcome on every other board? You obviously know me well enough to know exactly what I mean when I say experts...and why I use experts. You especially know that I don't mean "LDS" experts. That is why you lose your credibility on message boards and leave rather quickly.

You don't accept our theology....we don't accept yours. So let's stick with the credentialed academics from real universities to maintain a level playing field. Again, what constitutes a prophet? Like CI says...if you know what a false prophet is why are you so reluctant to establish what a true prophet is and substantiate it by using credible scholars who study these things without resorting to Bible school tales?

[juliann]

If you haven't read the book, you can only guess at its contents.

cks

And a very accurate guess it would be, too. All one has to do is go to the reviews to get a taste of the "historical" method used to reach the conclusion he started with. The errors themselves could constitute a book. One can only read so much....or have to.

[Zakuska]

Did anyone else catch this...

First, for David to have been given the "wives" of Saul would have been extremely difficult since we know: a ) Saul had only one wife and one concubine (1 Sam. 14:50); and b ) Abner appropriated Saul's concubine for himself (2 Sam. 3:7). So where are all of the wives? Answer: They don't exist. There is no documentation that indicates: a ) Saul had all these so-called "wives"; or b ) David took any wives from Saul.

So Richard is questioning the veracity of the Bible then....?

ahinoam (Wife)

Rizaph (one of the ConcubineS)

So there are at least 3, 2 named, 1 unamed.

Are all of Sauls wives, concubines, widows listed in the scripture?

[juliann]

Here is a question (notice it is not an "LDS" question) that I have been asking for years and not one critic has answered it. I dont' even think a critic has acknowledged it. But we will see...

What makes a prophet true or false? Can a true prophet speak lies or a false prophet the truth? Were prophets ever completely assured of their own claims? Or do their very efforts at persuasion and declarations of legitimacy using all the tools available to them suggest that they were less sure of themselves than it first appears. Can true or false prophets, regardless of their title, motivation, or call, be assured of permanent status, no matter what the historical hour in which they are read? That is, might a true canonical prophet be false today?

James E. Brenneman, Canons in Conflict: Negotiating Texts in True and False Prophecy (New York: Oxford Press, 1997), p 8.

[Bat-Man]

You don't accept our theology....we don't accept yours. So let's stick with the credentialed academics from real universities to maintain a level playing field.

Why leave out the big guns... namely our Lord's apostles and prophets?

Are you doing so simply because Richard doesn't accept them or their word, or teachings?

I'm pretty sure Richard is not going to accept the word or teachings of our academians either... which should be in agreement with what our apostles and prophets have told us... so why not just blow Richard out of the water with our best shots... or possibly under the water, maybe, which could conceivably happen while using our big guns?

Again, what constitutes a prophet?

Are you seriously asking him ?

Some people need to be taught, juliann.

Some people don't know the right answers.

Why ask someone who really doesn't know what a prophet really is?

... as evidenced by the fact that he doesn't know Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.

That is ridiculous.

Joseph Smith is the most clear example we have of a prophet of God in these latter days, complete with all of the bells and whistles. If Richard can't accept Joseph Smith as a true prophet of God, what makes you think he will accept anyone else as a true prophet of God... in these latter days?

Like CI says...if you know what a false prophet is why are you so reluctant to establish what a true prophet is and substantiate it by using credible scholars who study these things without resorting to Bible school tales?

I think he doesn't know a better way to do things, other than to point to the old prophets mentioned in the Bible and say that's it because some other people have told him that's it.

... and he just doesn't believe what any other prophet of God was or is trying to teach him.

[Phinehas]

And a very accurate guess it would be, too. All one has to do is go to the reviews to get a taste of the "historical" method used to reach the conclusion he started with. The errors themselves could constitute a book. One can only read so much....or have to.

WOW!

When DP asked if I had read His book and said no, I got jumped from here to SLC

I was a scoundrel for NOT reading it first. Like it was required. Yet the old double standard applies to you guys too I see.

You just KNOW what the book says without even reading it.

I guess I should use the same excuse?

[cksalmon]

And a very accurate guess it would be, too. All one has to do is go to the reviews to get a taste of the "historical" method used to reach the conclusion he started with. The errors themselves could constitute a book. One can only read so much....or have to.

Hi Juliann--

If you wish to defend this sort of (non)engagement as legitimate--"without even reading your book I can honestly state that I'm very sure that I've seen the same ideas presented by other people"--feel free.

------------

Hi all--

I would just hope that other LDS are able to recognize that the making of blanket statements about a book one hasn't read (since, after all, one has seen it all before) is hardly a cogent argument against the book itself.

No responsible thinker does this, folks. Certainly, scholars don't. Now, one certainly might conclude that one shouldn't waste one's time on an author one regards (on reliable grounds) to be unreliable. But, to jump from an impression like that to actually purporting to authoritatively pronounce upon the contents of the unread work itself is just silly. And anti-scholarly. And, ultimately, self-defeating.

I hardly think I'd get a pass here if, in answer to a Latter-day Saint's query, "Have you actually read the book?," I answered "No, and I don't need to. I've read it all before elsewhere." If you happen to think that such would be a manifestly, even abjectly, poor response, then let's get together on a single standard.

Best.

cks

[Phinehas]

Here is a question (notice it is not an "LDS" question) that I have been asking for years and not one critic has answered it. I dont' even think a critic has acknowledged it. But we will see...

I would have to say Prophecy

Making true prophesies and not making ANY false ones should do it.

Do you agree?

[juliann]

WOW!

When DP asked if I had read His book and said no, I got jumped from here to SLC

I was a scoundrel for NOT reading it first. Like it was required. Yet the old double standard applies to you guys too I see.

You just KNOW what the book says without even reading it.

I guess I should use the same excuse?

Do you belong to an organization that went through that book page by page and pointed out every error for everyone to see? How many pages of outrageous inaccuracies, misquotes and just plain messing with the evidence do you require before rejecting a book? Ten? Fifty? Hundred? Very few books got the attention that this one did so this is not the place to be pulling this old canard. It is one thing to read opinion on the book and reject it...but it is quite another to read the errors themselves, page by page.

[juliann]

I would have to say Prophecy

Making true prophesies and not making ANY false ones should do it.

Do you agree?

So you are taking the stand that there are prophets who have been verified as making only true prophecies?

[Phinehas]

Do you belong to an organization that went through that book page by page and pointed out every error for everyone to see? How many pages of outrageous inaccuracies, misquotes and just plain messing with the evidence do you require before rejecting a book? Ten? Fifty? Hundred? Very few books got the attention that this one did so this is not the place to be pulling this old canard. It is one thing to read opinion on the book and reject it...but it is quite another to read the errors themselves, page by page.

I am not pulling anything

How come so many here talk as if they are better than those who don't accept mormonism?

It makes one not want to discuss anything with them.

[thesometimesaint]

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol...um=1&id=527

Abanes's Revised History - Michael G. Reed - FARMS Review - Volume ...

... FARMS Review: Volume - 16, Issue - 1 A review of "One Nation Under Gods: A History

of the Mormon Church" by Richard Abanes Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 2004 ...

A Dancer/Journalist's Anti-Mormon Diatribe - Davis Bitton, and ...

... FARMS Review: Volume - 15, Issue - 1 A review of "One Nation under Gods: A History

of the Mormon Church" by Richard Abanes Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 2003 ...

Abanes's Revised History (Modern Church

[Bat-Man]

Hi Juliann--

If you wish to defend this sort of (non)engagement as legitimate--"without even reading your book I can honestly state that I'm very sure that I've seen the same ideas presented by other people"--feel free.

------------

Hi all--

I would just hope that other LDS are able to recognize that the making of blanket statements about a book one hasn't read (since, after all, one has seen it all before) is hardly a cogent argument against the book itself.

No responsible thinker does this, folks. Certainly, scholars don't. Now, one certainly might conclude that one shouldn't waste one's time on an author one regards (on reliable grounds) to be unreliable. But, to jump from an impression like that to actually purporting to authoritatively pronounce upon the contents of the unread work itself is just silly. And anti-scholarly. And, ultimately, self-defeating.

I hardly think I'd get a pass here if, in answer to a Latter-day Saint's query, "Have you actually read the book?," I answered "No, and I don't need to. I've read it all before elsewhere." If you happen to think that such would be a manifestly, even abjectly, poor response, then let's get together on a single standard.

Best.

cks

You don't seem to have all of your lights turned on.

It's not as if I know nothing at all about Richard's book.

For one thing, I know it's an anti-book... against Mormonism... which I already know isn't true.

For another thing, I know it wasn't written by a true prophet of God.... because this guy... Richard... claims there are no true prophets on the Earth today, and if Richard can claim there are no true prophets on Earth today, as there were in the past, that automatically means Richard is not a true prophet of God and that Richard's book is a collection of his own thoughts and the thoughts of others from whom he is borrowing ideas to write about what he is writing about.

Thus, it would be a waste of my time to read his book because, for one thing, Richard is writing against something on which I know is true, and for another thing, Richard isn't saying anything worth reading because he isn't, and he isn't claiming to be, a true prophet of God.

... and if you don't know this already, without hearing from a prophet of God, we're not going to be hearing anything new or original that we haven't already heard before... because, surely, God will do nothing without revealing His will through His prophets.

Why should anyone waste their time reading something that wasn't written by a prophet of God?

... I mean, beyond a recreational value, as something which might be amusing to read.

Sheesh.

Does someone really have to tell you all of this stuff?

Hmm. Okay. Yes. I suppose someone does. After all, you guys who are raising a stink don't know what true prophets of God are when you are hear from one of them, which explains why all of your lights are not on.

[rabanes]

So let's stick with the credentialed academics from real universities to maintain a level playing field.

Yes, like you'd actually accept the words of any evangelicals "credentialed academics from real universities", anyway. Right. As if they would make any difference. Go to amazon and get a few books by "credentialed academics from real universities" who discredit Mormonism........yeah, that's what I thought.

Besides you just made an appeal to authority. Logical Fallacy. Beep! Some of the biggest idiots in the worlds are "credentialed academics from real universities." Let's count up atheists and agnostic "credentialed academics from real universities." And unless I am seriously mistaken, I can't think of any of the 12 disciples who were 'credentialed academics from real universities." Nor can I think of very many early Mormons (least of all JS) who were "credentialed academics from real universities."

R.A.

[juliann]

I am not pulling anything

How come so many here talk as if they are better than those who don't accept mormonism?

It makes one not want to discuss anything with them.

We've been at this too long to bother with these kinds of books. Abanes was a little late to the anti-Mormon party. From the time he began, the field was almost exclusively those like him...untrained and unable to interact with the academic environment that LDS scholars traffic in. With the advent of evangelicals Mosser and Owens who made it embarrassingly obvious that the traditional anti ministries were losing the battle and didn't even know it because of their utter inability to address the growing sophistication of Mormon apologetics and number of scholars Mormonism was producing.

As is evident to anyone who has been on message boards for years, the fundamentalists have pretty much been replaced by secularists and exmos. That is because the EVs can't compete on a level playing field where Mormons engage mainstream liberal scholarship while EVs have to stick with inerrancy. Add the emergence of Mormon Studies and those who rely on mangling or misusing sources have arrived a day late and a dollar short.

Enjoy http://www.fairlds.org/apol/onug/

[juliann]

Yes, like you'd actually accept the words of any evangelicals "credentialed academics from real universities", anyway. Right. As if they would make any difference. Go to amazon and get a few books by "credentialed academics from real universities" who discredit Mormonism........yeah, that's what I thought.

Besides you just made an appeal to authority. Logical Fallacy. Beep! Some of the biggest idiots in the worlds are "credentialed academics from real universities." Let's count up atheists and agnostic "credentialed academics from real universities." And unless I am seriously mistaken, I can't think of any of the 12 disciples who were 'credentialed academics from real universities." Nor can I think of very many early Mormons (least of all JS) who were "credentialed academics from real universities."

R.A.

The bravado isn't going to work anymore Richard. No one is going to argue that Mormonism isn't going to have to fight for respect, but this is still what you are going to have to engage:

http://www.cgu.edu/pages/5932.asp