Only part of the truth

[zeezrom]

Ah yes!

The proverbial "they"/"them"!

No names, no specifics, just assertion.

Vance, do you want me to put their real names here without their permission? Sorry.

One is the wife of EQ pres, another the wife of the ward clerk, and the other works in primary. The wife of EQP is in YW with my DW. Do you need a second witness?

Why is this story so hard to believe?!

[mfbukowski]

Do they really say that? Because it would fly in the face of the concept of a deposit of faith "which was once delivered unto the saints" as Jude puts it. Or "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away" as Jesus puts it.

So you don't like Cardinal Newman? Doctrine cannot "develop" to fit the times?

[zeezrom]

What are people's thought on Nelson's comment in the January 2010 Ensign:

The Gospel Principles manual will be used as the course of study for second- and third-Sunday Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society classes. It will also be used as the manual for the Gospel Principles Sunday School class for new members, investigators, and members returning to activity. Because of this, some of you may wonder if there won

[mfbukowski]

can you reference the opposing the church one? I don't remember it.

You are a bishop, how would you react to my posts at MD?

I am not your judge.

If you want to know what the questions are, ask your bishop

[Vance]

Why is this story so hard to believe?!

1) The source,

2) the convenient lack of important specifics,

3) the convenient timing of its appearance.

Just to mention a few.

[Scottie]

1) The source,

2) the convenient lack of important specifics,

3) the convenient timing of its appearance.

Just to mention a few.

Okay, I have to call you out here.

When has Zeez EVER been caught lying in any forum?? Why would you assume that just because he is questioning (or has decided not to believe) in the church, that he is automatically a liar??

That was a very insincere and rude thing to say.

[zeezrom]

1) The source,

2) the convenient lack of important specifics,

3) the convenient timing of its appearance.

Just to mention a few.

Have I lied to you before?

Oh, well. What matters is my DW does not feel so alone any more.

[mfbukowski]

One can hope. Which hope can go a long way.

Back when I lived in California, a lapsed member who had been done in by exposure to Tanner books, and who knew that I had read all of that material asked me, "How can you know what you know, and believe what you believe?"

Clearly it was not a matter of information speaking for itself, but of the perspective one has one it, especially including the rigidity or flexibility of background expectations. As Thomas Kuhn says, "anomaly emerges against a background of expectation." So whenever I find out anything I didn't expect, I not only look for more information to broaden my perspective, but I also re-examine my own background expectations, checking my own eye for motes.

To me "church" means what the original greek Ekklesia means. Assembly. That is, a bunch of people. I don't think of the institutional organizations, let alone a few people with titles, and who got jobs to write a manual or two, as "the church." Whether a manual was produced by a small committee or B. H. Roberts or Nibley, or J.F. Smith, no single manual encompasses the entire assembly. A manual is a pedagogical resource, written in a particular time and place to fill a particular need as perceived under specific conditions, which condition is NOT unlimited knowledge and resources. Not an official pronouncement for all time, let alone an omniscience pill to take once as directed. Keeping perspective on who said what and why, under what conditions, and why suppose that every manual is written by someone out to hide things, rather than someone with a finite perspective doing the best they can? That the institutional church is doing something like the Joseph Smith Paper's Project, and supported the Mountain Meadows book, among other things.

There was a very good article on the Institutional Church and the Individual in Sunstone that I found helpful. And subsequently, I've benefited from considering things like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in looking at divergent personalities in the church, and the Perry Scheme for Cognitive and Ethical Growth, which helps me see that different people are at different levels of development.

When I was a teenager, the Improvement Era spent years running a 29 part Nibley series on Book of Abraham issues. At the time, I didn't read a single one. Who is to blame for that? I remember walking through Deseret Book store on occasion, and seeing a shelf with The Mountain Meadows Massacre by Juanita Brooks. It was years before I got round to buying my own copy, but that is where I bought it. Just across the street from the temple. If I am honest with myself, I realize that the "church" never kept anything from me. Rather, as soon as I got some initiative and interest, I could find resources within the LDS community, eager and willing to share whatever information and opinions that had on a variety of subjects. For instance, left to myself, would I have ever thought to compare Process Theology with the ideas of Joseph Smith? Left to myself, could I have even imagined Nibley's An Egyptian Endowment, or Peterson's Nephi and his Asherah or Kevin Barney's take on the Documentary Hypothesis? Or much else that I treasure to this day. I'm more than a little in awe at how much LDS scholars have found to share, and notice their awe and wonder in looking back at Joseph Smith, whose brief life generates so much fruitful inquiry.

And I look at my own studies. Somethings, when I read, I realized that I had come across new information that helped me with open questions, and I have been eager to share. Suppose I'd bailed at the first shock. I would never have even known what I was missing. No NDE research and the Book of Mormon. No comparing Kuhn and Alma 32. No breathless encounter with Barker's The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God. I'd have just been a third rate skeptic who had imagined that I had taken the measure of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, when in reality, I'd not even penetrated the surface of the first outer wall, let alone passed to the inner court, and through the concealing veils.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Bump

(of this post)

As always, a voice of reason unheeded by the squabbling throng. I suggest we all read the references here before we continue.

I think that's about all I have to say.

[Scottie]

It is up for debate that JS ever practice polyandry. And no I am not ignorant of what the facts are. We should start a new thread on this just for the heck of it.

What is the defintion of a marriage vs a sealing?

And to the point of one believes in the bible a strong case can be made for God sanctioning polyandry.

Well, personally, until someone can show me how polygamy/polyandry changed from JS to BY, I have to believe that they practiced it exactly the same way... minus the secrecy.

There is no dispute (that I know of) that BY engaged in polyandry. Why should I believe that JS practiced it any differently than BY did?

[MorningStar]

What are people's thought on Nelson's comment in the January 2010 Ensign:

Do you believe it was a move in the right direction to go back to the gospel principles manual for added repetition?

Yes. I think a lot of people still don't grasp basic doctrine or like to go off on wild tangents.

[Vance]

Okay, I have to call you out here.

When has Zeez EVER been caught lying in any forum?? Why would you assume that just because he is questioning (or has decided not to believe) in the church, that he is automatically a liar??

That was a very insincere and rude thing to say.

When has he EVER told the COMPLETE truth?

I never called him a liar, I am questioning his story. I don't believe it.

If you don't like it, you are free to go pound sand.

[Vance]

Have I lied to you before?

Oh, well. What matters is my DW does not feel so alone any more.

Have you EVER told me the COMPLETE truth?

Ah, yes,

FEELINGS wow oo oo FEELINGS . . .

[zeezrom]

I never called him a liar, I am questioning his story. I don't believe it.

Are you really having a hard time believing that some women are troubled with Joseph Smith's polygamy history?

Interesting.

Anyway, I was thinking maybe the church should offer times for discussions on this and other hairy subjects so that the members get the story you give people rather than the story Google or ISL or Mormon Enigma or Nauvoo Polygamy provides.

This would not benefit me, but it might help them:

Hold a class where you show that we don't really know what happened between Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith. That way, these members won't be left in the dark wondering and second guessing and reading material by Compton and others.

Hold a class to show that Joseph Smith was different than Brigham Young in that he likely did not have sexual relations with most of his wives.

Hold these kinds of classes and you will not have problems like the ones my DW is seeing.

[Vance]

Are you really having a hard time believing that some women are troubled with Joseph Smith's polygamy history?

Interesting.

Anyway, I was thinking maybe the church should offer times for discussions on this and other hairy subjects so that the members get the story you give people rather than the story Google or ISL or Mormon Enigma or Nauvoo Polygamy provides.

This would not benefit me, but it might help them:

Hold a class where you show that we don't really know what happened between Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith. That way, these members won't be left in the dark wondering and second guessing and reading material by Compton and others.

Hold a class to show that Joseph Smith was different than Brigham Young in that he likely did not have sexual relations with most of his wives.

Hold these kinds of classes and you will not have problems like the ones my DW is seeing.

Let me work through the irony here. (Or is it hypocrisy?)

You told a story. You withheld important facts and details that would allow me to independently verify it.

In other words you told "only part of the truth".

I don't believe it.

And now you are upset.

If I were like you, I would be upset that you told "only part of the truth".

Oh the irony. (Or is it hypocrisy?)

[zeezrom]

Let me work through the irony here. (Or is it hypocrisy?)

OK Vance, what details would you like? I refuse to provide real names. I will not reveal the name of my ward and stake.

PS - I admit it. I'm a hypocrite, but I'm trying to change that.

[MorningStar]

If that kind of class wouldn't work for you, why would it work for them? What's the point in holding a "we don't know what really happened" class? How is that helpful to someone who is shaken by Joseph Smith's possible behavior?

[wenglund]

I don't know what they think about it.

You mean they didn't fully disclose that to you, and are thus, by your inane standard, dishonest?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Vance]

OK Vance, what details would you like? I refuse to provide real names. I will not reveal the name of my ward and stake.

PS - I admit it. I'm a hypocrite, but I'm trying to change that.

I see that you continue to stonewall. Why don't you just tell the whole truth. Maybe you could hold a class where you go into detail. Why do you continue to tell "only part of the truth".

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

What I related is truth.

Is it? It came 2nd hand to me. I don't do 2nd hand sorry.

[Vance]

You mean they didn't fully disclose that to you, and are thus, by your inane standard, dishonest?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Watch out!!!

When I questioned "the source" I was accused of being very insincere and rude as well as calling zee a liar.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Vance, do you want me to put their real names here without their permission? Sorry.

One is the wife of EQ pres, another the wife of the ward clerk, and the other works in primary. The wife of EQP is in YW with my DW. Do you need a second witness?

Why is this story so hard to believe?!

Do they even want you talking about them behind their backs? Why don't you suggest they come here. Otherwise it is called gossip.

[zeezrom]

I give up folks.

What a crazy idea that some women might have a really hard time with this stuff.

[Binah]

So you don't like Cardinal Newman? Doctrine cannot "develop" to fit the times?

Changing doctrine to fit the times is how you end up with apostasy.

"...because of these things which are taken away out of the gospel of the Lamb, an exceedingly great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them." (1 Nephi 13:29)

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Well, personally, until someone can show me how polygamy/polyandry changed from JS to BY, I have to believe that they practiced it exactly the same way... minus the secrecy.

There is no dispute (that I know of) that BY engaged in polyandry. Why should I believe that JS practiced it any differently than BY did?

I never once ventured into how JS practices differed from BY. That seems irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I smell some herring here.

I brought up 2 points. One is an idea that what one thinks is polyandry is not and the other is assuming that it is polyandry.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I give up folks.

What a crazy idea that some women might have a really hard time with this stuff.

I am glad you give up it's called gossip and it is rude to talk about poeple behind their backs. Notice that I didn't ever question the veractity of your/their claims.