Would You Teach A Historical Truth If You Knew It Would Cause Doubts?

[Robert F. Smith]

If people's faith is built on expectations of peers, prophets, pioneers or the Book of Mormon then for some people the full history will be too much. It nearly is/was for me.

Many people get the perception that a testimony should be built on the Book of Mormon or the prophet Joseph. But that's risky, and where I went wrong as that's what mine was built on. I've realised that I misunderstood the bricks in the building of faith. It's not a good idea to build on a keystone if the foundation is sand.

Christ is the cornerstone, the Book of Mormon is the keystone. Only one is good for using as a foundation.

It is certainly true that many people of all faiths build their beliefs on folklore and tradition. Even their use and abuse of the vernacular is conditioned by culture and tradition. That is why so many Utahns have so many major sets of beliefs in common, regardless of being Mormon or non-Mormon. When systematically compared with Mormons, say in California, the Utah Mormons have more in common with fellow non-Mormon Utahns than with their California brethren. This is even more true in foreign environs. Now that most Mormons live outside the USA, these differences will increase in amplitude. Narrow and superficial versions of Mormonism do not deserve to survive close scrutiny. This applies as well to your faulty comparison of "Christ is the cornerstone, the Book of Mormon is the keystone. Only one is good for using as a foundation." This simply misunderstands the way language is used and elevates a human statement about a book to sacred status.

The truth is that most people leaving one religion for another base than shift in faith on social comfort. Where do you feel most comfortable? High church, or low church? Charismatic, or middle of the road? Evangelical, or mainstream? Meditative, or service-oriented? Active or passive? I have had friends leave one religion for another, and I have always respected and supported their decisions.

[Kevin Christensen]

When I lived in San Jose in the 80s I met a lapsed LDS guy whose testimony had been blown apart by his encounter with the Tanners who took the role of "what I discovered on the Internet" back then. I read The Changing World of Mormonism and had no such problem. He was incredulous that I could have done so. "How can you know what you know, and believe what you believe?"

The whole "I ran across this information that I cannot reconcile" meme presumes that the information drives the acquirer to an inescapable conclusion. The facts speak for themselves. Truth is self evident. All a person has to do is point, gasp meaningfully, and let the inherent implications sink in.

One huge difference between us was my degree of preparation. I'd already read a bunch of Nibley, Richard L. Anderson, Kirkham, back issues of BYU Studies, Dialogue, Allen's Improvement Era article on the First Vision, Woodford's Ensign article on the Doctrine and Covenants changes, and so forth. I had a different set of expectations in which to process the facts offered. And I had an open-ended view that actually celebrates growth and change in understanding, rather than something so brittle as to be designed to shatter.

The approach is so fixed on "Not what I expected" that it never asks, "What should I expect?" So fixated on the appearance of motes that the necessary self-reflection on removing the beams in one's own eye, "then thou shalt see clearly..."

I remain struck by Jerald Tanner's personal account when he says that when he first read about David Whitmer's claim that revelations in the D&C had been changed, he literally threw the book across the room, insisting that CAN'T be right. Then he found out that it was, he presumed that it could only mean fraud. Because, after all, the word of God is always written in stone, and never ever changes ever. That premise sounds wonderfully logical and compelling, but it happens that there is no evidence for it anywhere, especially in the history of the Biblical texts.

The Tanner's entire life work was built on that premise. If the mote is never removed from an observer's eye, how can they ever see clearly? Their use of exclamation points and bold print, and famous selective focus on negatives emphasizes the sincerity of their emotional response, based on their vision. They weren't dishonest, but their approach was amazingly selective. They were not perceptive, being crippled by their perspective. John Dehlin is similarly stuck on negatives, convinced that he is bravely facing the cruel, hard, inescapable facts. The seed can produce only one harvest, and that is despair and doubt. Those who claim otherwise should be silenced for the good of all.

Really sad. A little introspection could go a long way.

I think it's also very interesting how certain key epistemological issues that I see in N. R. Hanson and Kuhn, for instance, reappear in the the later stages of the Parry Scheme for Cognitive and Ethical Growth, particularly how the knower contributes to that which is known.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

Edited July 27, 2013 by Kevin Christensen

[Hamba Tuhan]

When I lived in San Jose in the 80s I met a lapsed LDS guy whose testimony had been blown apart by his encounter with the Tanners who took the role of "what I discovered on the Internet" back then.

They really are the same thing, aren't they?

[cdowis]

Thanks for your experience, Kevin.

I started years ago in apologetics because I was disturbed by some of the things I read and heard. Instead of throwing books across the room, I decided to investigate more deeply. I could not answer all the questions, but I found most of them had very reasonable answers, including the discovery (gasp) that critics lie, misrepresent and distort the narrative. Other times thinking to myself, "you just don't get it" like a math teacher trying to teach calculus to a first grader -- they just don't have the knowledge and experience to understand it.

Some issues take advanced thought and research,such as DNA and the BOM, Book of Abraham, JS the money digger, polygamy, etc, while others take just a basic understanding and reflection, such as baptism and the thief on the cross.

Patience, not a temper tantrum, is the key to unlocking these issues. A basic rule is to question the assumptions of the critic, such as revising revelations.

In my experience dealing with these issues I ran across some interesting stuff -- a possible reason why BY taught Adam God based on a record of a discussion in a nursing home, the Smithsonian letter and its final revision.

Edited July 27, 2013 by cdowis

[Questing Beast]

When I lived in San Jose in the 80s I met a lapsed LDS guy whose testimony had been blown apart by his encounter with the Tanners who took the role of "what I discovered on the Internet" back then. I read The Changing World of Mormonism and had no such problem. He was incredulous that I could have done so. "How can you know what you know, and believe what you believe?"

The whole "I ran across this information that I cannot reconcile" meme presumes that the information drives the acquirer to an inescapable conclusion. The facts speak for themselves. Truth is self evident. All a person has to do is point, gasp meaningfully, and let the inherent implications sink in.

One huge difference between us was my degree of preparation. I'd already read a bunch of Nibley, Richard L. Anderson, Kirkham, back issues of BYU Studies, Dialogue, Allen's Improvement Era article on the First Vision, Woodford's Ensign article on the Doctrine and Covenants changes, and so forth. I had a different set of expectations in which to process the facts offered. And I had an open-ended view that actually celebrates growth and change in understanding, rather than something so brittle as to be designed to shatter.

The approach is so fixed on "Not what I expected" that it never asks, "What should I expect?" So fixated on the appearance of motes that the necessary self-reflection on removing the beams in one's own eye, "then thou shalt see clearly..."

I remain struck by Jerald Tanner's personal account when he says that when he first read about David Whitmer's claim that revelations in the D&C had been changed, he literally threw the book across the room, insisting that CAN'T be right. Then he found out that it was, he presumed that it could only mean fraud. Because, after all, the word of God is always written in stone, and never ever changes ever. That premise sounds wonderfully logical and compelling, but it happens that there is no evidence for it anywhere, especially in the history of the Biblical texts.

The Tanner's entire life work was built on that premise. If the mote is never removed from an observer's eye, how can they ever see clearly? Their use of exclamation points and bold print, and famous selective focus on negatives emphasizes the sincerity of their emotional response, based on their vision. They weren't dishonest, but their approach was amazingly selective. They were not perceptive, being crippled by their perspective. John Dehlin is similarly stuck on negatives, convinced that he is bravely facing the cruel, hard, inescapable facts. The seed can produce only one harvest, and that is despair and doubt. Those who claim otherwise should be silenced for the good of all.

Really sad. A little introspection could go a long way.

I think it's also very interesting how certain key epistemological issues that I see in N. R. Hanson and Kuhn, for instance, reappear in the the later stages of the Parry Scheme for Cognitive and Ethical Growth, particularly how the knower contributes to that which is known.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

The biggest factor in breaking out of the mold of a dogmatic religion is disbelief, or unbelief. The disbeliever is active, the unbeliever is trepidatious. He has the fear of losing his faith. The disbeliever has notions or alternate beliefs. The unbeliever is trying to believe the dogma as presented. That's why "not set in stone" makes the so-called word of God meaningless to the seeker: s/he discovers that all religious dogma has altered over time, sometimes rapidly, as in the case of the D&C/Book of Commandments changes, which occurred mostly at the same time as the "patriarchal blessings book" changes, i.e. under mainly the pen of Oliver Cowdery. Why change anything at all? That is the problem for Jerrald Tanner or myself or anyone else who has accepted that "the prophet" has received actual words from God and had them written down. Immutable they should remain. That you excuse alteration is incredible to me too.

What I struggled with for decades was my unbelief in the atonement story. I could not wrap my mind around God being bound to such a "plan". I tried to put all the revelations into context proving that the atonement was immutable, inescapable, cosmic and as necessary as the cause of existence. If the atonement is to be "infinite and eternal", then it has to be part of God, not transcend God. Yet Jesus said he did nothing but what the Father showed him. Mormon doctrine asserts that this means GtF also worked out "an" atonement, or else he could not have had the Son do a thing that the Father had never experience or done himself. That creates an instant inconsistency, not just a paradox or conundrum: If Jesus, "the Word" performs an "infinite and eternal" atonement, there is no need for another. One infinite thing does not allow for an equally infinite thing! So Mormon exegesis requires speculation to rectify the inconsistency: Jesus becomes the God of his creation, like his Father is the God of his creation, and infinite atonements have been performed for infinite creations. I tried to accept this too, but it all fell down by being too much protesting to make a theology work. Two thousand years of struggling to make a theology work! And it ends up too small. That's my problem.

Once I accept that "God Is Infinite", it transcends every dogmatic religion's theology on the planet, and infinite numbers of planets. If we somehow got together and combined our theologies they would still amount to not even a beginning of the Infinite. That's what finite and infinite mean: one has measurable quantity, even if only in theory, while the latter has no quantifiable trait that the finite can comprehend. And we will always be so.

No amount of exegesis deriving from a singular religion can begin to fill the void left by the discarding of dogma. The atonement in particular, the very core of Judeo-Christian faith systems, fails to measure up to the power of "God". It is unnecessary, because "God" requires no such game of hoops and ladders to "save" anyone....

Edited July 28, 2013 by Questing Beast

[Stone holm]

If you don't believe this just get a rendition of the Custer story from the Sioux and Cheyenne and compare it to what is written in history texts. I had that privilege. The native american version makes a lot more sense.

I believe that White America at the time would never have accepted the Native American version, regardless of the facts. Just like my generation as kids would never have accepted the idea that a Communist army was primarily responsible for destroying the German army in WWII regardless of the facts. Heck, the way history was taught in HS back then you could have missed that Russia was even in the fight.

[canard78]

It is certainly true that many people of all faiths build their beliefs on folklore and tradition. Even their use and abuse of the vernacular is conditioned by culture and tradition. That is why so many Utahns have so many major sets of beliefs in common, regardless of being Mormon or non-Mormon. When systematically compared with Mormons, say in California, the Utah Mormons have more in common with fellow non-Mormon Utahns than with their California brethren. This is even more true in foreign environs. Now that most Mormons live outside the USA, these differences will increase in amplitude. Narrow and superficial versions of Mormonism do not deserve to survive close scrutiny. This applies as well to your faulty comparison of "Christ is the cornerstone, the Book of Mormon is the keystone. Only one is good for using as a foundation." This simply misunderstands the way language is used and elevates a human statement about a book to sacred status.

The truth is that most people leaving one religion for another base than shift in faith on social comfort. Where do you feel most comfortable? High church, or low church? Charismatic, or middle of the road? Evangelical, or mainstream? Meditative, or service-oriented? Active or passive? I have had friends leave one religion for another, and I have always respected and supported their decisions.

I'm glad you have. I see all of that as more evidence for "personalised curriculum." I celebrate the diversity of Christian and non-Christian religion.

I see the gentle hand of God in my wife's decision to leave the church. I see it in my journey of my 'house of faith' tumbling and being rebuilt as something different.

And I still like my analogy of the different role of the building blocks of faith, even if you find it faulty

[canard78]

One huge difference between us was my degree of preparation. I'd already read a bunch of Nibley, Richard L. Anderson, Kirkham, back issues of BYU Studies, Dialogue, Allen's Improvement Era article on the First Vision, Woodford's Ensign article on the Doctrine and Covenants changes, and so forth. I had a different set of expectations in which to process the facts offered. And I had an open-ended view that actually celebrates growth and change in understanding, rather than something so brittle as to be designed to shatter.

The approach is so fixed on "Not what I expected" that it never asks, "What should I expect?" So fixated on the appearance of motes that the necessary self-reflection on removing the beams in one's own eye, "then thou shalt see clearly..."

I remain struck by Jerald Tanner's personal account when he says that when he first read about David Whitmer's claim that revelations in the D&C had been changed, he literally threw the book across the room, insisting that CAN'T be right. Then he found out that it was, he presumed that it could only mean fraud. Because, after all, the word of God is always written in stone, and never ever changes ever. That premise sounds wonderfully logical and compelling, but it happens that there is no evidence for it anywhere, especially in the history of the Biblical texts.

I believe this is the best form of apologetics possible.

Some LDS apologists continue to insist on defending every action of all the modern leaders. 'He was right to do this because God said that etc etc.' They effectively try to play on the 'God breathed' paradigm and face a uphill struggle. I think that as long as people try to answer the issues in that paradigm their will always 'lose.'

Perhaps then, the best opportunity for the church in future is not to have detailed history of every event in our past combed through in Sunday School and instead focus on changing paradigms.

I used this in a sacrament talk yesterday and the congregation didn't grab the knives and pitchforks:

Hugh Nibley

"There's no office in the Church that qualifies the holder to give the official interpretation of the Church. We're to read the scriptures for ourselves, as guided by the Spirit. Joseph Smith himself often disagreed with various of his brethren on different points, yet he never cracked down on them, saying they'd better change this or that, or else. He disagreed with Parley P. Pratt on a number of things, and also with Brigham Young on various things."

(Temple & Cosmos, The Terrible Question)

I have a dozen more quotes like that from GAs saying pretty much the same thing. And there are very few that teach the "God breathed" idea.

I think it's significant that the one oft-quoted by critics, "when the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done," was not said by a general authority.

It really shouldn't have any currency in the church. And yet I still meet people who adopt that attitude. If that's the "absolute" they need in life, more power to them. If they are the type of person that needs simplicity and to just 'read and do' then I can't think of many better people to use than the LDS prophets to do that with. But I hope those people never read outside of the correlated curriculum. Because that's where it gets complicated a d needs different expectations.

I mentioned using the Nibley quote to a friend online yesterday who is also working through a lot of LDS questions. He was convinced that if he used that quote he'd get a hand on his shoulder and hauled into the SP's office for teaching apostate doctrine.

Depending on the SP's paradigm, he may be right about the reaction, but I hope in future he's wrong. And I hope that the church continues to lead this change of expectations.

[Robert F. Smith]

..................................................

And I still like my analogy of the different role of the building blocks of faith, even if you find it faulty

Socrates might very well urge you to examine the assumptions underlying your dependence on human language and what it means in different contexts. Attributing meaning to words and phrases which they do not in fact have is no way to carefully suss out what is meant, nor to set them at odds in some way which the authors might not appreciate or approve.

Over the years, prompted by just such claims, I have assembled thousands of biblical citations which many believe are in direct opposition to each other or which strain credulity. One finds atheists and evangelicals fighting tooth and nail over such issues, but it is sometimes helpful to step back and assess ancient literature on the basis of its immediate context, rather than as a measure of modern manners and customs. This may apply as well to not so ancient history.

[Robert F. Smith]

.......................................

I mentioned using the Nibley quote to a friend online yesterday who is also working through a lot of LDS questions. He was convinced that if he used that quote he'd get a hand on his shoulder and hauled into the SP's office for teaching apostate doctrine.

............................................

Your friend sounds somewhat paranoid, although the context in which such a quotation is used could be an issue. But to suggest that Nibley was an apostate, well, there are people out there who dislike Nibley (I have met them), but would not dare to call him an "apostate," and thus brand themselves as hoity-toity at best and extremists at worst.

[Robert F. Smith]

The biggest factor in breaking out of the mold of a dogmatic religion is disbelief, or unbelief. The disbeliever is active, the unbeliever is trepidatious. He has the fear of losing his faith. The disbeliever has notions or alternate beliefs. The unbeliever is trying to believe the dogma as presented. That's why "not set in stone" makes the so-called word of God meaningless to the seeker: s/he discovers that all religious dogma has altered over time, sometimes rapidly, as in the case of the D&C/Book of Commandments changes, which occurred mostly at the same time as the "patriarchal blessings book" changes, i.e. under mainly the pen of Oliver Cowdery. Why change anything at all? That is the problem for Jerrald Tanner or myself or anyone else who has accepted that "the prophet" has received actual words from God and had them written down. Immutable they should remain. That you excuse alteration is incredible to me too.

What I struggled with for decades was my unbelief in the atonement story. I could not wrap my mind around God being bound to such a "plan". I tried to put all the revelations into context proving that the atonement was immutable, inescapable, cosmic and as necessary as the cause of existence. If the atonement is to be "infinite and eternal", then it has to be part of God, not transcend God. Yet Jesus said he did nothing but what the Father showed him. Mormon doctrine asserts that this means GtF also worked out "an" atonement, or else he could not have had the Son do a thing that the Father had never experience or done himself. That creates an instant inconsistency, not just a paradox or conundrum: If Jesus, "the Word" performs an "infinite and eternal" atonement, there is no need for another. One infinite thing does not allow for an equally infinite thing! So Mormon exegesis requires speculation to rectify the inconsistency: Jesus becomes the God of his creation, like his Father is the God of his creation, and infinite atonements have been performed for infinite creations. I tried to accept this too, but it all fell down by being too much protesting to make a theology work. Two thousand years of struggling to make a theology work! And it ends up too small. That's my problem.

Once I accept that "God Is Infinite", it transcends every dogmatic religion's theology on the planet, and infinite numbers of planets. If we somehow got together and combined our theologies they would still amount to not even a beginning of the Infinite. That's what finite and infinite mean: one has measurable quantity, even if only in theory, while the latter has no quantifiable trait that the finite can comprehend. And we will always be so.

No amount of exegesis deriving from a singular religion can begin to fill the void left by the discarding of dogma. The atonement in particular, the very core of Judeo-Christian faith systems, fails to measure up to the power of "God". It is unnecessary, because "God" requires no such game of hoops and ladders to "save" anyone....

You may want to review elementary set theory, Beast, then go on to examine some of the paradoxes of modern astrophysics.

I say this because you pose issues the way Heinrich Olbers might, but without recognizing their paradoxical nature: Why is the night sky black if there is an infinity of stars? The unspoken assumption here is that the universe is static and unchanging. And, anyhow, some say, since the universe is not infinitely old, it cannot be infinite in extent. Nor could it be the work of an infinite God.

To judge from Zeno’s Tortoise & Achilles paradox dealing with a race over a finite distance, the sum of an infinite number of actual distances (each a fraction of the last) = an infinite distance, but that is incorrect, since the sum of an infinite series of this sort = a finite number. The infinite series is summable. In set theory generally, we find this feature of infinite sets which can be multiplied to infinity, e.g., the infinite set of prime numbers, the infinite set of fractions, the infinite set of whole numbers, etc., to include any transfinite set.

Stephen Wolfram states a similar notion in saying that “by making simple algebraic changes to the way that time enters a differential equation one can often arrange, . . that processes that would normally take an infinite time will actually always occur over a finite time.” Wolfram, A New Kind of Science (2002), 732.

Russell’s Paradox: Does the set of all those sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?

Burali-Forti paradox: If the ordinal numbers formed a set, it would be an ordinal number that is smaller than itself.

Cantor's paradox: There is no greatest cardinal number: the set of cardinal numbers is infinite yet limited.

Galileo's paradox: Though most numbers are not squares, there are no more numbers than squares. (cf. Cantor's diagonal argument)

Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel: If a hotel with infinitely many rooms is full, it can still take in more guests.

Skolem's paradox: Countably infinite models of set theory contain uncountably infinite sets.

This does not even begin to account for the three infinities allowed for in Quantum electrodynamics (QED), nor for other effects in Quantum chromodynamics (QCD). As Georg Cantor pointed out long ago, there are different orders of infinity. (see Wolfram 1057, 1127, 1162) This likewise does not account for why measured quantum particles do not satisfy mathematical probability theory (Bell’s Theorem).

Finally, this does not take into consideration the consequences of String Theory or Foam Theory, and does not begin to account for the unknown energy and matter which make up 96% of the known universe, but which we cannot detect or measure directly (Dark Matter & Dark Energy). Your notion of infinity needs to address all these issues before it is ready for prime time.

Bob