Nauvoo Sealings Adoptions and Anointings by Lisle Brown

[ttribe]

I stand by what I typed. Quote Eden*: "I do not believe a person can be exalted without receiving the ordinance of the Second Anointing, otherwise the ordinance would have no purpose. Likewise I do not believe a person can be exalted without entering into celestial wifery."

ttribe if you can fault the above belief of mine by providing evidence to the contrary I would be greatly interested. I honestly believe the above statement to be true, after thoroughly researching the topic for more than a decade.

As for being critical of the church, you are mistaken. What I do believe and I hold as my philosophy is that the apologetic approach held by the majority of the members of the church and it's apologists is dead wrong. I believe that being honest and open in apologetics is the best solution, while this may leave the church damaged and vunerable in the short term, I believe in the long term the wisdom of this approach would be beneficial and would leave the church in a better condition for futurity as the truth always shines through in the end, that is unchangeable immutable law.

While being contentious, covering up, engaging in endless polemical public relations and apologetic warfare is good and beneficial for the church in the "short term ", these victories are short lived wins of a endless ti.t for tat game that leave the church in a worsened condition in the long term albeit good tentative fix in the short term. As this strategy works until for example, expose's come out years later, internal leaks, internal church faxes as accidently sent to the wrong number and end up in the hands of the press or members drop their bundles and speak out, just a few examples. Then we are in a deep hole that not even our wisest apologists can build a ladder sufficiently tall enough to get us out of.

It's impossible to do effective apologetics in this fashion in fact it is an indefensible position to take and it resolves nothing for our apologists because technology can record everything and it's too easy today to count the cards so to speak and do cross checks and things. For example checking if inspired authoritative statements gel with other inspired authoritative statements. Trying to repair the mess all this creates is a bloody nuisance and only induces migraines for defenders. While the current strategy of apologetics was effective before the advent of the internet it fails in the internet age, where anyone can dig around.

True my approach of a no holds barred strict open honest policy would leave the church damaged, a number of members would be lost, wounds would be exposed, a heap of ground would be lost, if my strategy were adopted by every member of the church from tomorrow, however I believe in the long run, this honesty would reflect the light of truth to the fact this is the one true church and I believe that statistically in the long run the church would grow exponentially in membership, wealth and power exceeding what it is under the current approach if this approach was adopted.

This is my little soap box manifesto and philosophy on apologetics sorry to get off topic but you appeared to be confused by my posts. I do not see my radically new philosophic strategy being adopted any time soon for a number of reasons, however I believe %100 honesty is the only solution, as truth has a strange quality that seems to endure while it's opposite seems to be detected even if it takes a long time. I do not think members who prefer endless fighting and conflict to feed their misguided religious zeal, believing they are fulfilling their part as some kind of lds soldiers of Christ on a apologetic jihad crusade to feed their ego's would like my strategy, even though my philosophic strategy does not compromise on the truth of the restored gospel, it is peaceful and lacks macho intellectual muscle flexing which is evidently more appealing. Perhaps my philosophy is wrong, I see no reason why it may not be, however it's my little pop quack belief and I am sticking to it!

If I understand you correctly, you seem to believe that the current apologetic approach includes intentional misrepresentations and hiding information? If that is the case, can you please provide some examples of this?

[Eden*]

ttribe: If I understand you correctly, you seem to believe that the current apologetic approach includes intentional misrepresentations and hiding information? If that is the case, can you please provide some examples of this?

Yes that is what I believe the apologetic approach is and I disagree with it because I do not think that is necessary. As for providing examples I think I have already hijacked the thread down a tangent, I will not provide examples as I do not think that will be faith promoting. The church is hyper-true in every sense, why not act like it I say. If you would like to continue this and learn more of my toodle pip philosophy on this issue feel free to message me I am friendly. . .