Hans Mattsson, A New Doubter

[Danzo]

I'm not saying it was deliberately timed to exclude those two. I'm observing that the two apostles who are on record as being opposed to racial equality were absent during the 2 hour session where people were invited to share their personal views.

Actually, you did.

Only because a portion of the 15 were not willing to ask. In fact the ban was finally lifted when the two apostles who are on record as being racist were out of town. They did endorse the lifting of the ban. But only once the decision had been made and they were called to effectively be told "the first presidency and 10 of the quorum have ratified this. Will you too?" They could hardly say no. Thankfully.

I think it is interesting how much you are willing to change your mind after saying something, however you do not ever give that privilege to Elders Stapley and Peterson. It is almost as if you wish to deny them the opportunity to learn, repent, and grow. It is as if they are more useful to you stuck in the past, so that is where you condemn them to stay.

[Tacenda]

I am grateful for my experiences of doubt. They have been a 'refiners fire' which have moulded my faith into something I have a far greater appreciation for. Partly because it is more my own, gifted to me by God. Rather than one that was adopted from another man.

Like! My crisis might very well be a "Refiners Fire" too, hoping it turns my heart to the Lord more than it ever was before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTm8vZ6Fbkw#at=18

Edited July 25, 2013 by Tacenda

[canard78]

Actually, you did.

(I said:

Only because a portion of the 15 were not willing to ask. In fact the ban was finally lifted when the two apostles who are on record as being racist were out of town. They did endorse the lifting of the ban. But only once the decision had been made and they were called to effectively be told "the first presidency and 10 of the quorum have ratified this. Will you too?" They could hardly say no. Thankfully.)

You asked if I said it was deliberately timed for when they were absent. I said I'm not saying it was deliberately timed. Then you offered the italic text above as evidence that 'actually you did.'

I can't see what you're pointing out? I make a statement of fact. The ban was lifted when the two apostles were out of town. They are the two apostles on record as having racist attitudes.

I think it is interesting how much you are willing to change your mind after saying something, however you do not ever give that privilege to Elders Stapley and Peterson. It is almost as if you wish to deny them the opportunity to learn, repent, and grow. It is as if they are more useful to you stuck in the past, so that is where you condemn them to stay.

I'm very happy if they changed their minds.

Edited July 25, 2013 by canard78

[Calm]

I have a joke I could say right now but probably would get me banned! hahaha!

Restraint is a sign of the wisdom of age.

[DBMormon]

I'll weigh in. Hans Mattsson's experience is is the same story to a T that many LDS encounter when exploring the internet and Books (if they read much)

It will continue to get worse as younger and younger folks are online more and more. The only way to combat it is to offer a faithful way in which to understand the informationa nd to be the first ones to get their ear with it. It is a new game and so we must confront it in new ways, specifically being more open about doubt and some form of innoculation throught out the Sunday curriculum. It doesn't have to take up a large chunck, just a little continuous sprinkle

[Calm]

If the church wanted accurate paintings of the translations they could have them in a month. They choose not to. They are not limited by the work of the artists. I've heard that answer several times before and it's probably one of the weakest I've heard.

I wouldn't accept as very valid either. My inlaws were used as models for a commissioned illustration of an Ensign article on Celestial Marriage. They do commission artwork and while they may not totally micromanage the artist, they can certainly tell him/her what they want portrayed. They even have gone so far as to take off the wings of angels in a classic master, IIRC (okay...that sounds rather sadistic written that way...like little boys who pull wings off of flies and such).

I think it is much more likely they don't use the head in the hat in general because it requires too much information for people who don't know the story already...their response will be more along the lines of 'what in the world is going on here' instead of 'he's doing something with the gold plates', but they could certainly use it on a few occasions here and there where there is enough detail being given that they could add a line or two about him placing the seerstone (or UandT however you want to refer to them) in a hat to block out sunlight and have an illustration to demonstrate how he did this.

Edited July 25, 2013 by calmoriah

[Danzo]

I'm very happy if they changed their minds.

If you really are happy then you will stop constantly defining them by their prior statements.

Most of us here would rather be judged on who they are now, not our statements in the past.

[cinepro]

Of course, this was a time ago. The ensign had much information in the past. I do think that the ensign needs to become the ensign of old. But what does this tell us? It tells us that the church is not hiding it but rather has decided to downplay it all.

I've said this over and over, but the Ensign in the 1970's and 1980's used to have some pretty good articles that discussed history and doctrine in a more scholarly direction. Now it's just the LDS version of the Watchtower.

It would be great to see a return of the scholarly articles. Even just one or two articles in each issue could be a huge improvement.

[Calm]

As a Norwegian, I would expect 100 % honesty back, by same standards.

Thank you for the perspective. It is very helpful to understand how different cultures respond to different aspects of not only doctrine and scripture, but church culture and policies.

I don't know why the Church discontinued the cultural lessons in RS, where they'd often have native born or missionaries who had been to foreign countries come give lessons about other countries, including history, government and economy, and cultural aspects. I don't remember if I remember from attending with my mom or if I got in a few classes before they switched to the three hour schedule, but I do remember thinking they were the most interesting thing that was being taught in RS.

IIRC, Hugh Nibley talks about some Arab students who were shocked to find out that Americans tended to have a problem with Nephi killing Laban in the way he did. Their reaction, according to him, was that it was the most logical and right thing to do and why in the world did it take him so long to get to it.

It must be impossible for the church leadership to be able to prepare a complicated coherent lesson plan for the whole world while taking into account the variety of assumptions that different cultures (and that ignores the individual experience that adds even more confusion into the act) bring to the interaction. That is the main reason why I believe lesson manuals have become in general so simple...simpler text means less assumptions popping up unannounced creating confusion.

I am glad they are making teacher adaptation to the individual needs of their class more visible in importance (as they have done with the new YW/YM programs). I am hoping someday that they will have enough resources that there will be a church curriculum department for each country (or rather significant ethnic group as some countries share enough commonalities they could use the same while some countries have multiple ethnicities that probably could use their own style of teaching) that can adapt the global curriculum to a more localized setting to help with members engaging with the material in more effective and lasting ways.

[Calm]

it talks about his love for a black family named Hope in Ohio. When the Petersen family lived in Ohio this black family attended Church in Elder Petersen's ward and he befriended them, later when they moved to Utah because of racial discrimination they contacted him and he continued his association for them and according to his daughter/biographer, "demonstrated to his daughters that each person in the world is a child of God" pg 174

Was this the occasion where the apostle took the Sacrament directly to the family that had been shamefully turned away from the local congregation?

People are such complicated creatures, so unpredictable.

[Danzo]

I wouldn't either. My inlaws were used as models for a commissioned illustration of an Ensign article on Celestial Marriage. They do commission artwork and while they may not totally micromanage the artist, they can certainly tell him/her what they want portrayed. They even have gone so far as to take off the wings of angels in a classic master, IIRC (okay...that sounds rather sadistic written that way...like little boys who pull wings off of flies and such).

I think it is much more likely they don't use the head in the hat in general because it requires too much information for people who don't know the story already...their response will be more along the lines of 'what in the world is going on here' instead of 'he's doing something with the good plates', but they could certainly use it on a few occasions here and there where there is enough detail being given that they could add a line or two about him placing the seerstone (or UandT however you want to refer to them) in a hat to block out sunlight and have an illustration to demonstrate how he did this.

What kind of portrait shows someone with a face in the hat that would deny the artist the ability to portray Joseph Smiths face.

Also, the evidence that the hat was the only method of translation is pretty weak.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Danzo

[Rivers]

I've said this over and over, but the Ensign in the 1970's and 1980's used to have some pretty good articles that discussed history and doctrine in a more scholarly direction. Now it's just the LDS version of the Watchtower.

It would be great to see a return of the scholarly articles. Even just one or two articles in each issue could be a huge improvement.

The church doesn't want to put any meat in a magazine that is for every member in a global church. So the Ensign is full of nothing but milk. All of the meat eaters have to go out of their way to find the scholarly stuff.

[Calm]

I've heard both of those before as excuses/justification for the priesthood ban.

The Levites aren't a race. So that's not racist. Maybe tribalist!

Not only that, but the cultures of the day had priests that were fulltime appointees...at least in areas where such could be supported by the local group. For the Israelites, there were issues of ritual purity that would have made it difficult for just any Israelite to walk off the street and perform an animal offering. It made sense to have a specific group of people assign to carry out the rituals that required if not complicated preparation, at least a thorough and pretty comprehensive one.

The Priesthood of the early LDS Church, otoh, did not have such involved ritual purity laws attached to its performance nor was there a need for fulltime appointees...at least not in the sense of a fulltime job. Even today, only a few callings in the Church require this level of commitment outside of missionary work and such callings are not lifelong commitments for most of those.

Edited July 25, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

Polyandry was practiced in the Bible...

Do you mean polygyny? If polyandry (wife with more than one husband at the same time), where is this in the Bible? Edited July 25, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

I've said this over and over, but the Ensign in the 1970's and 1980's used to have some pretty good articles that discussed history and doctrine in a more scholarly direction. Now it's just the LDS version of the Watchtower.

It would be great to see a return of the scholarly articles. Even just one or two articles in each issue could be a huge improvement.

There have been a few in more recent years, here's hoping it has a cascade effect...sooner rather than later.

[Calm]

What kind of portrait shows someone with a face in the hat that would deny the artist the ability to portray Joseph Smiths face.

Also, the evidence that the hat was the only method of translation is pretty weak.

However, it was one of the ways used so why not have illustrations of it? There is an illustration of Joseph copying down characters off of the plates and as far as we know, that*** only happened a few times at the very beginning IIRC as it took way too much time besides the one time he did it for the Anthon excursion. They used to have Joseph portrayed in the breastplate with the UandT for a Primary lesson as well as in the older Scripture Stories books (one can find the image on Mormonthink if anyone is curious). They've removed that as well. I haven't been able to find an image for that on lds.org which was surprising to me when that happened, but perhaps they preferred to leave such portrayals to people's individual imaginations...perhaps because we don't have enough accurate details, or perhaps they want people to think of it as less of a mechanical translation (plug in one word and out comes another) and one more dependent on the Spirit and pure revelation.

***My memory says at the very beginning he would translate off the characters he had copied rather than the plates...this would have been in conjunction with him wearing the breastplate and looking through the spectacles, but it was too awkward and time consuming of a process, using both of the stones in the spectacles hurt his eyes for one thing. My memory could be wrong on this though, it is not something I have diligently studied, the mechanics not being that important to me.

Edited July 25, 2013 by calmoriah

[cinepro]

What kind of portrait shows someone with a face in the hat that would deny the artist the ability to portray Joseph Smiths face.

Also, the evidence that the hat was the only method of translation is pretty weak.

As far as I know, after the loss of the 116 pages, everyone who saw the translation process (i.e. was actually in the room while he was translating) described the face-in-a-hat method, and nothing else. This includes David Whitmer, Emma, Isaac Hale, Michael Morse (Emma's brother in law), and Joseph Knight Sr.

Oliver Cowdery and Joseph himself never described the physical conditions under which Joseph dictated.

[Danzo]

However, it was one of the ways used so why not have illustrations of it? There is an illustration of Joseph copying down characters off of the plates and as far as we know, that*** only happened a few times at the very beginning IIRC as it took way too much time besides the one time he did it for the Anthon excursion. They used to have Joseph portrayed in the breastplate with the UandT for a Primary lesson as well as in the older Scripture Stories books IIRC. They've removed that as well. I haven't been able to find an image for that on lds.org which was surprising to me when that happened, but perhaps they preferred to leave such portrayals to people's individual imaginations...perhaps because we don't have enough accurate details, or perhaps they want people to think of it as less of a mechanical translation (plug in one word and out comes another) and one more dependent on the Spirit and pure revelation.

***My memory says at the very beginning he would translate off the characters he had copied rather than the plates...this would have been in conjunction with him wearing the breastplate and looking through the spectacles, but it was too awkward and time consuming of a process, using both of the stones in the spectacles hurt his eyes for one thing. My memory could be wrong on this though, it is not something I have diligently studied, the mechanics not being that important to me.

I am just wondering how an artist would show someone with a hat on his face, which would obscure the face.

Some images are better suited to artists than others.

Perhaps one possibility would be to have a hat on the table next to Joseph, or have him looking in to the hat (might appear like he was praying to the hat)

[Alvino]

I have a simple problem. Here we have a good guy who has been a leader in the lds church. I am sure that he had many spiritual experiences while in the lds church in his positions or callings and as a mormon in general. How can a member who most likely had the feelings of the spirit often suddenly chuck it all away? And how can a member of his standing who most likely had countless spiritual experiences throw it all away because he did not know this or that. This is what I just don't get. Like i said, a lds testimony is built on sand. But why?

Because LDS folks still don't get that testimonies are built, not so much on experiences, but on an interpretation of those experiences; and those interpretations on principles of rationality and whether somethings are facts or not. Plus, it doesn't happen suddenly at least for those of us who were in the Church for a long time. Which one you take to be the sand in "built on sand", whether rationality and what we can see are facts or on unreflective experiences hurried by feelings, matters tremendously.

[Calm]

I am just wondering how an artist would show someone with a hat on his face, which would obscure the face.

Some images are better suited to artists than others.

Perhaps one possibility would be to have a hat on the table next to Joseph, or have him looking in to the hat (might appear like he was praying to the hat)

I have seen about five different versions (just do a google for "urim" "joseph smith" and "hat" and then click on images option), all obscure the face save one that looks like it is a shot from a video demonstration. All of them look like someone who is getting sick in a hat. All of them look like he would be in agony after a few minutes from bending over....though I suppose he had a much stronger back than most people these days due to the farm work he did.

They are not artistically pleasing pictures either, even in the one where the technique is appealing itself and not more of a 'technical drawing' and that one is hard to tell what he is doing anyway.

[Calm]

I am just wondering how an artist would show someone with a hat on his face, which would obscure the face.

Some images are better suited to artists than others.

Perhaps one possibility would be to have a hat on the table next to Joseph, or have him looking in to the hat (might appear like he was praying to the hat)

It is definitely not one of those images where one can say "a picture is worth a thousand words", it is more along the lines of 'a thousand words are needed to get the picture'.

[ERayR]

Just to warn you ahead of time. You may have people who reply to this by telling you that the church has hidden nothing. That they have been entirely honest in every way and have only presented to real picture. Even though their pictures are not accurate pictures.

You may have people tell you its your fault for not studying hard enough or suggest you are lazy. Or maybe even a 'yokel.' Let it slide. Like water off a duck's back. The less you take the bait the sooner they'll leave you alone Others on here are very helpful and collaborative. It's a good place to be - and I appreciate a few more Europeans! My family is also Swedish about 6 generations back. But I'm British.

Some will point out that the church can only use the art that artists create for them, so given there are no paintings of his head in a hat they have to use the innacurate one of Joseph and Oliver at a table with the Gold plates between them.

This is in spite of the fact that the 1st Presidency and Quorum of the 12 are heavily involved in setting the direction and tone of church media.

For example: when the recent New Testament videos went into production, the prospective actors for the key roles (Jesus, Mary, Peter, John the Baptist among others) were first interviewed by a General Authority and then their audition tape was reviewed by the 1st Presidency and quorum. There was a long debate about certain roles. Others were approved unanimously on first view of the audition tape. There were several European actors involved in the production as they wanted the New Testament videos to reflect the global church as much as possible. I think they've done an excellent job. I won't be able to answer a CFR on this paragraph as it's from personal conversation and knowing people who acted in key roles in the production.

They spent $millions on the New Testament videos and spend $millions more on other church media. My brother-in-law was paid $10,000 for a Mormon Messages video that never even got onto youtube.

If the church wanted accurate paintings of the translations they could have them in a month. They choose not to. They are not limited by the work of the artists. I've heard that answer several times before and it's probably one of the weakest I've heard.

I would like to know would it have made any difference who told you about these issues or when, would you have reacted any different? If so why? Please give it some thought and be honest. Don't just say yes. Look at it this way: Critic says Joseph married other guys wives. Sunday school teacher says Joseph married other guys wives? I can't see any difference.

[Calm]

Which one you take to be the sand in "built on sand", whether rationality and what we can see are facts or on unreflective experiences hurried by feelings, matters tremendously.

Or maybe, it's not an "either or" situation.

And if something is interpreted, how can it also be "unreflective"?

Edited July 25, 2013 by calmoriah

[ERayR]

I'll weigh in. Hans Mattsson's experience is is the same story to a T that many LDS encounter when exploring the internet and Books (if they read much)

It will continue to get worse as younger and younger folks are online more and more. The only way to combat it is to offer a faithful way in which to understand the informationa nd to be the first ones to get their ear with it. It is a new game and so we must confront it in new ways, specifically being more open about doubt and some form of innoculation throught out the Sunday curriculum. It doesn't have to take up a large chunck, just a little continuous sprinkle

Same question

I would like to know would it have made any difference who told you about these issues or when, would you have reacted any different? If so why? Please give it some thought and be honest. Don't just say yes. Look at it this way: Critic says Joseph married other guys wives. Sunday school teacher says Joseph married other guys wives? I can't see any difference.

[Duncan]

Was this the occasion where the apostle took the Sacrament directly to the family that had been shamefully turned away from the local congregation?

People are such complicated creatures, so unpredictable.

oh, I don't know! I have never heard of that episode but I could believe it!