Stick Of Joseph......?

[Palerider]

That's the real problem right there, isn't it? Geez, Palerider, you could've saved us all some time! Given that paradigm, the issue of to whom the Ezekiel scripture might be referring vis-à-vis the Book of Mormon is irrelevant! (Or do you simply enjoy [from your perspective] watching the adherents of your former faith chase their tails?! )

I've no hidden agenda regarding the BofM. I openly admit (and have in the past) that I think it is a human fabrication with no more "authority" as scripture than the poems of Emily ****enson.....maybe less.

My intent here is to give a plausible exegisis of Ezekiel's sticks, to those who might be wondering if the prophecy might be something different than what the Mormons say it is.

And frankly, considering the traditional Mormon approach, the apologists' defence has been rather wet noodle.

Tagriffy and Volgadon are the only reasonably responsive posters and I believe their academic (although informed) defences, would not fly in general conference.

Just can't see Monson going happily down this road.........

Edited June 20, 2013 by Palerider

[Palerider]

But growing and maturing occurs just like that: compelling forces. And yes, I would stand and look any of them in the eye and assert that my religious paradigm is just as valid as theirs, or even more valid, since I don't discount anybody's personal religion. All genuine efforts to contact "God" are valid, and I don't see "God" ignoring or disallowing any sincere believer. Nor do I see ONE dogmatic exegesis invalidating the rest....

40 years ago you would not have said this if you valued your membership.........

[Calm]

40 years ago you would not have said this if you valued your membership.........

Not only reading people's minds, but telling them what they would or would not do...in essence what they really believe since action is belief in motion is not credible.

[Palerider]

Not only reading people's minds, but telling them what they would or would not do...in essence what they really believe since action is belief in motion is not credible.

People say alot of things when there's no real pressure. Sometimes you have to actually be in the circumstances before you see how you truly perform.

[Palerider]

Say.....vacuous...? Bankrupt....?

Not appropriate.

And this is?

"Why would I adopt an earnest pose when you are so busy being satirical? Don't get bent just because I haven't bought into your jape-fest."

I find the moderation on this site leans significantly......

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

That's the real problem right there, isn't it? Geez, Palerider, you could've saved us all some time! Given that paradigm, the issue of to whom the Ezekiel scripture might be referring vis-à-vis the Book of Mormon is irrelevant! (Or do you simply enjoy [from your perspective] watching the adherents of your former faith chase their tails?! )

And that is why I largley ignore Palerider.

[tagriffy]

But the LDS perspective is (or was) we have a guy who's having a regular tete-a-tete with Christ himself. A truly "thin-veil" personal priesthood interview with the Savior of the world.

It isn't a matter of "historical-grammatical and historical-critical methodologies", it's a matter of "we have the corner on truth" because of our "special guy in the upper room" and so we have definitive answers that you can count on. The answers are what we say they are. "God wills it!" (For those of you who happen to have seen Kingdom of Heaven).

It can't be sold on that level to a number of generations and then altered to what the church is drifting towards today without somebody saying, "Wait a minute, this isn't what I signed up for........."

You're right, but this is true of any organiztion, religious or otherwise. When changes occur, individuals within that organization have to decide whether they can live with them. If the individual can't live with it, then the most I can offer them is sympathy and well wishes.

[tagriffy]

I've no hidden agenda regarding the BofM. I openly admit (and have in the past) that I think it is a human fabrication with no more "authority" as scripture than the poems of Emily ****enson.....maybe less.

My intent here is to give a plausible exegisis of Ezekiel's sticks, to those who might be wondering if the prophecy might be something different than what the Mormons say it is.

And frankly, considering the traditional Mormon approach, the apologists' defence has been rather wet noodle.

Tagriffy and Volgadon are the only reasonably responsive posters and I believe their academic (although informed) defences, would not fly in general conference.

Just can't see Monson going happily down this road.........

Does the site really censor Emily ****ensen? I'll have to be sure I don't refer to the original Robin by the name of his alter ego.

Again, I cheerfully admit that I'm a heretic when it comes to things Mormon, and I'm not horribly concerned with what will or won't fly at General Conference. Probably about half of my views wouldn't fly there either. The two sticks is hardly even the beginning.

[Calm]

People say alot of things when there's no real pressure. Sometimes you have to actually be in the circumstances before you see how you truly perform.

I would agree which is one of the reasons I think your comment is ludicrous. That you think you can predict what someone will do better than they themselves in a situation that is unpredictable for them when you don't even know them beyond reading some comments on a message board is absolutely absurd.

[Calm]

Does the site really censor Emily ****ensen? I'll have to be sure I don't refer to the original Robin by the name of his alter ego.

Charles ****ens too....it is a automatic censoring glitch that causes some amusement and more frustration.

[Palerider]

I would agree which is one of the reasons I think your comment is ludicrous. That you think you can predict what someone will do better than they themselves in a situation that is unpredictable for them when you don't even know them beyond reading some comments on a message board is absolutely absurd.

Are you really going to get spun up about this in view of the huge amount of assumptions that people have made about myself and what I would or wouldn't do if given the opportunity.

I don't recall your ever coming to my defence Calmoriah, so I'm sorry if your indignation has a bit of a tin can ring to it.....

[Calm]

Are you really going to get spun up about this in view of the huge amount of assumptions that people have made about myself and what I would or wouldn't do if given the opportunity.

I don't recall your ever coming to my defence Calmoriah, so I'm sorry if your indignation has a bit of a tin can ring to it.....

I have reported posts I felt were abusive of you. I don't feel the need to promote myself by telling everyone 'look, I told the mods that someone was being offensive'.

Mindreading is however a pet peeve of mine so I tend to speak out rather than just report it. And I tend to do it whenever I see it...though i don't guarantee I see it everytime it occurs. I make assumptions about what others say just as much as the next guy and may fill in a gap to make it appear to myself that someone isn't 'mindreading' when they really are.

Edited June 20, 2013 by calmoriah

[Palerider]

You're right, but this is true of any organiztion, religious or otherwise. When changes occur, individuals within that organization have to decide whether they can live with them. If the individual can't live with it, then the most I can offer them is sympathy and well wishes.

At first glance I would tend to agree with you but, one thing you might be forgetting is the investment factor.

The church would really like it if people like me just diappeared with a smile. Forget that I have invested time and effort helping them to build the "kingdom". Forget that I defended their racist policies regarding priesthood, in spite of what my gut told me. Forget that I obeyed my Stake President and told a sister in the ward in a temple recommend interview that even though her inactive husband wouldn't allow her to pay any of the family income towards tithing (threatening divorce) that she still couldn't have the temple recommend she desired so much because she was after all a non-tithe payer.

Forget the literally tens of thousands of dollars our family has paid in tithing annually. No, the thing that really matters the most to me, was that I placed my trust (which is the thing I value most) in a group of leaders who, I believe, knew the truth behind the whitewashed foundational stories and did their best to quietly tamp it down.

If I had done in a temple recommend interview, discussing my worthiness, the fine job they have done in being completely forthright regarding the church's past, I may have attended the temple but I believe it would have been fraudulantly.

Do I sound angry?

Yeah......I'm still a little upset with what they have stolen in my estimation........

Edited June 21, 2013 by Palerider

[Palerider]

I have reported posts I felt were abusive of you. I don't feel the need to promote myself by telling everyone 'look, I told the mods that someone was being offensive'.

Mindreading is however a pet peeve of mine so I tend to speak out rather than just report it. And I tend to do it whenever I see it...though i don't guarantee I see it everytime it occurs. I make assumptions about what others say just as much as the next guy and may fill in a gap to make it appear to myself that someone isn't 'mindreading' when they really are.

Let's change it to this:

"40 years ago you might (rather than would) not have said this if you valued your membership........"

Can you live with that?

[tyler90az]

It may even be better to look at this prophecy a different way. The Bible, OT & NT, were written for the Jews. After all the NT clarifies what is in the OT. It is one stick that was written to convert the Jews. Then you have the Book of Mormon, written as another testimony of Jesus Christ or the Bible. That is the stick intended to convert the whole house of Israel.

The problem with the OT being the stick of Judah is that it solely brings nobody to Christ. It takes the NT to clarify and bring people to Christ. That would mean it is one stick, not two.

[Calm]

Let's change it to this:

"40 years ago you might (rather than would) not have said this if you valued your membership........"

Can you live with that?

Yes...

[Palerider]

It may even be better to look at this prophecy a different way. The Bible, OT & NT, were written for the Jews. After all the NT clarifies what is in the OT. It is one stick that was written to convert the Jews. Then you have the Book of Mormon, written as another testimony of Jesus Christ or the Bible. That is the stick intended to convert the whole house of Israel.

The problem with the OT being the stick of Judah is that it solely brings nobody to Christ. It takes the NT to clarify and bring people to Christ. That would mean it is one stick, not two.

Yeah.....I think you need to go back and read the original posts. The New Testament was definitely not written to the Jews as It's primary audience.

And the Old Testament definitely did bring people to Jehovah (Christ) as much as they would hearken to it. It is the first great testament of the coming Messiah.

[tyler90az]

Yeah.....I think you need to go back and read the original posts. The New Testament was definitely not written to the Jews as It's primary audience.

And the Old Testament definitely did bring people to Jehovah (Christ) as much as they would hearken to it. It is the first great testament of the coming Messiah.

Did Jesus Christ walk among his people in the OT?

[Stone holm]

Did Jesus Christ walk among his people in the OT?

Define what you mean by "walk among"?

[Palerider]

Did Jesus Christ walk among his people in the OT?

Did he walk among them on a common level from after his ascencion until now?

Tell me exactly, what is it that has brought people (especially the gentiles) unto Christ since.....oh let's say 75 a.d. until 1800 a.d.? just to keep it interesting.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Palerider

[Kenngo1969]

... The problem with the OT being the stick of Judah is that it solely brings nobody to Christ. It takes the NT to clarify and bring people to Christ. That would mean it is one stick, not two.

Hmmm. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you ... just thinking out loud here. (And of course, remember that I'm a proponent of the idea that the Ezekiel passage at least could speak of The Book of Mormon.)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes more use (and more interesting use) of the Old Testament than perhaps any other Christian group (other than maybe Messianic Jews—about which group I know almost nothing except that, interestingly, apparently a small group of them meets every Saturday right here in little old Tooele, Utah. Whodathunk?). While nearly every other Christian group on the planet seems to have thrown the “Messiah baby” out with the “Old Testament bathwater,” we have the Angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith and quoting passages from Isaiah, and Malachi, and Joel, and elsewhere. We have Nephi “delighting in the words of” Isaiah.

Just because the Jews hearkened to teachers who obscured and obfuscated the true meaning and intent of the Law (which is why Christ is so scathing in His condemnation of those teachers in the New Testament), that did not necessarily obviate the need for the law itself—only for the superfluous scaffolding that had been built up around it. Paul said that the law, properly understood, would bring people to Christ: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24 KJV).

Then we have this from Jacob (I believe) in The Book of Mormon, in 2 Nephi 25:24-25:

24 And, notwithstanding we believe in Christ, we keep the law of Moses, and look forward with steadfastness unto Christ, until the law shall be fulfilled.

25 For, for this end was the law given [What end? To bring people to Christ]; wherefore the law hath become dead unto us, and we are made alive in Christ because of our faith; yet we keep the law because of the commandments.

Food for thought, for what it’s worth. (Oops! I think Kevin Christensen copyrighted the latter phrase—or maybe he just has dibs on the shortened “FWIW”? )

Edited June 21, 2013 by Kenngo1969

[tagriffy]

At first glance I would tend to agree with you but, one thing you might be forgetting is the investment factor.

The church would really like it if people like me just diappeared with a smile. Forget that I have invested time and effort helping them to build the "kingdom". Forget that I defended their racist policies regarding priesthood, in spite of what my gut told me. Forget that I obeyed my Stake President and told a sister in the ward in a temple recommend interview that even though her inactive husband wouldn't allow her to pay any of the family income towards tithing (threatening divorce) that she still couldn't have the temple recommend she desired so much because she was after all a non-tithe payer.

Forget the literally tens of thousands of dollars our family has paid in tithing annually. No, the thing that really matters the most to me, was that I placed my trust (which is the thing I value most) in a group of leaders who, I believe, knew the truth behind the whitewashed foundational stories and did their best to quietly tamp it down.

If I had done in a temple recommend interview, discussing my worthiness, the fine job they have done in being completely forthright regarding the church's past, I may have attended the temple but I believe it would have been fraudulantly.

Do I sound angry?

Yeah......I'm still a little upset with what they have stolen in my estimation........

That is where the sympathy part comes in. I understand what it is like to invest time and energy in to something you feel liked you've been tricked into believing. That's my experience with Evangelicalism. To this day, nearly twenty years later, I find it hard to overcome my feelings of bitterness and anger. I'll even go so far as to admit that one of the reasons I demand a proverbial "Welcome to Zarahemla" sign in order to accept Book of Mormon historicity in part stems from my experience with the Evangelicals. I've been fooled once; I'm not going to be fooled again.

So when I say that all I can do is to offer sympathy and well wishes, I'm not trying to dismiss your feelings. I mean it literally.

[Palerider]

That is where the sympathy part comes in. I understand what it is like to invest time and energy in to something you feel liked you've been tricked into believing. That's my experience with Evangelicalism. To this day, nearly twenty years later, I find it hard to overcome my feelings of bitterness and anger. I'll even go so far as to admit that one of the reasons I demand a proverbial "Welcome to Zarahemla" sign in order to accept Book of Mormon historicity in part stems from my experience with the Evangelicals. I've been fooled once; I'm not going to be fooled again.

So when I say that all I can do is to offer sympathy and well wishes, I'm not trying to dismiss your feelings. I mean it literally.

Thankyou, I appreciate your honesty. I'd be interested in hearing your story sometime should decide to share it.

[Kenngo1969]

I've no hidden agenda regarding the BofM. I openly admit (and have in the past) that I think it is a human fabrication with no more "authority" as scripture than the poems of Emily ****enson.....maybe less.

My intent here is to give a plausible exegisis of Ezekiel's sticks, to those who might be wondering if the prophecy might be something different than what the Mormons say it is.

And frankly, considering the traditional Mormon approach, the apologists' defence has been rather wet noodle.

Tagriffy and Volgadon are the only reasonably responsive posters and I believe their academic (although informed) defences, would not fly in general conference.

Just can't see Monson going happily down this road.........

Well, as much as I appreciate Tagriffy and Volgodon's erudite contributions to the thread (indeed, I appreciate most of their contributions to the Board in general) If you're simply going to object to everything else as nonresponsive (or as not up to whatever idiosyncratic definition of "value" you hold), attempting to engage you on the issue still seems like a waste of time and bandwidth ...

[Robert F. Smith]

At first glance I would tend to agree with you but, one thing you might be forgetting is the investment factor.

The church would really like it if people like me just diappeared with a smile. Forget that I have invested time and effort helping them to build the "kingdom". Forget that I defended their racist policies regarding priesthood, in spite of what my gut told me. Forget that I obeyed my Stake President and told a sister in the ward in a temple recommend interview that even though her inactive husband wouldn't allow her to pay any of the family income towards tithing (threatening divorce) that she still couldn't have the temple recommend she desired so much because she was after all a non-tithe payer.

Forget the literally tens of thousands of dollars our family has paid in tithing annually. No, the thing that really matters the most to me, was that I placed my trust (which is the thing I value most) in a group of leaders who, I believe, knew the truth behind the whitewashed foundational stories and did their best to quietly tamp it down.

If I had done in a temple recommend interview, discussing my worthiness, the fine job they have done in being completely forthright regarding the church's past, I may have attended the temple but I believe it would have been fraudulantly.

Do I sound angry?

Yeah......I'm still a little upset with what they have stolen in my estimation........

Yes, you do sound a little bit upset, and that is understandable, and it explains a lot about your attitude and general approach to issues raised on this board. However, the constant snarl in your message is probably more of a disappointment with yourself in not quite measuring up to your own expectations when confronted by what you know is wrong. For, more than tithes & offerings, you feel that some of your integrity has been stolen as you knuckled under to group think and to policies which seemed opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

You are not alone in this. It isn't only a Mormon phenomenon, but part of the human condition. All of us make compromises with what our better judgment tells us. Doing what is right and letting the consequence follow can be a tough row to hoe, and going along to get along constantly eats at us.

That you should have adopted the Palerider persona is very fitting under those circumstances. One question though: Do you really mean it?