"the Things We've Taught In The Past Are Wrong"

[cinepro]

You may remember a few years ago, a group called "Mormon Challenges" made a 30 minute video dramatization about a husband who doubts the Church.

 

They recently came out with a new short video with Egyptologist Kerry Muhlstein called "How We Know Things."

 

It's a good video, but it's even more fun if you watch it and apply it to every truth claim made by the Church.

 

"I know that we are always figuring out that things we used to know, or used to think we know, are wrong." - Kerry Muhlstein

 

The video is more like a non-musical, less entertaining version of this.

 

Honestly, when I hear statements such as the ones in the video and think that (to them) this is the current best approach to dealing with the Book of Abraham, I'm a little sad, because that's really that last argument anyone can make about anything.  "Don't believe what they're telling you now because we might found out they're wrong in the future."

Edited March 9, 2015 by cinepro

[Rivers]

Haven't heard that song in a long long time. Thanks for sharing.

An institute teacher of mine once explained that since the church is a living church. And that living things change and adapt. So I'm totally comfortable with doctrines changing with additional light and knowledge.

[Calm]

We are human and mortal and incapable of ever imo fully comprehending in complete accuracy anything, even ourselves.  We are always wrong in some way about everything (which means I am wrong in some way about this, of course).  It may be very minor and insignificant in the long run, but given our inherent errancy at this time, we can always be trying to improve, looking for where we err and where there is enough knowledge to move forward in our understanding. 

 

I don't see this as something we should be reluctant to embrace, either as individuals or as a church.

Edited March 9, 2015 by calmoriah

[JLHPROF]

that's really that last argument anyone can make about anything.  "Don't believe what they're telling you now because we might found out they're wrong in the future."

 

An institute teacher of mine once explained that since the church is a living church. And that living things change and adapt. So I'm totally comfortable with doctrines changing with additional light and knowledge.

 

Additional light and knowledge is just that - additional.  It should always add to truth, never take away previously revealed truth.  I am completely uncomfortable with any doctrinal changes that give up previous revelatory knowledge.  Add more information, sure.  Tell me a previous revelation was wrong, no.

 

If previous revelation is wrong and current revelation is right then today's revelation can just be wrong tomorrow, and nothing is true or worth holding on to.  And then we might as well throw all revelation away.

[Guest]

Haven't heard that song in a long long time. Thanks for sharing.

An institute teacher of mine once explained that since the church is a living church. And that living things change and adapt. So I'm totally comfortable with doctrines changing with additional light and knowledge.

There are some things that if what we are taught change...forget a "living Church", it would be a "dead Church". I can think of many things that cannot change, that we believe to be true...things unique to "our" faith. Some the Church might survive and others we could not.

[theplains]

An institute teacher of mine once explained that since the church is a living church. And that living things change and adapt. So I'm totally comfortable with doctrines changing with additional light and knowledge.

 

I think the Jehovah's Witnesses have the same principle.  In some of their cases, the newer 

light actually corrected the false older light which was leading people astray.  When LDS

Church members were following Talmage's Articles of Faith (where it taught that there were

only two personages in the Godhead), some newer light (can't find the source for the

revelation) came to dispel the older light.

 

Regards,

Jim

[name]

With all of these new lights - shedding light on previous lights that no longer shine light - maybe it's time to consider a new source for light?

[Buckeye]

I've often thought that Israel rejected Baal way to soon. That whole Elijah fire thing threw them for a loop. They should have doubted their doubts and maintained faith in Baal for as many thousand years as it took for him to be right.

[Rivers]

With all of these new lights - shedding light on previous lights that no longer shine light - maybe it's time to consider a new source for light?

And what might that source be?

[Uncle Dale]

With all of these new lights - shedding light on previous lights that no longer shine light - maybe it's time to consider a new source for light?

 

An interesting term: "new light" -- we find it all through

American religious history, and probably also in the

"old countries" of Europe and adjacent areas.

 

But, for each innovative group, promising to shed "new light"

on the human situation, there was a precursor (and often a

successor) which also claimed marvelous illumination.

 

Freemasons traveled from the "West to the East" symbolically,

seeking "more light" in the realm of the rising sun.

 

Plymouth Pilgrims and Mormons traveled in the opposite

direction -- away from a hostile light they could not abide.

 

But there is an old biblical phrase that seems to preclude the

need for anything additional: "What doth the Lord require of thee

but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

 

Question is -- How best to do that?

Is there a better, brighter "source" than that simple advice?

 

For centuries the Catholics, and later the Protestants, placed

great emphasis on the fate of individuals after death -- the dire

necessity to avoiding hellfire -- the comfort of an eternal reward.

 

But, all along the historical path sects have sprung up, warning

people that they lived in a world of here-and-now, in addition to

their hopes for the "sweet by and bye" -- a world in which there

were families, and communities, and a necessity to make things

better -- to prepare for a future other than the hoped-for afterlife.

 

Perhaps it all boils down to what sort of illumination is sought --

light to understand and prevail in this tangible life; or light to

guide the way to something beyond the life we all share.

 

I'd suggest Science, for understanding this world and the human

condition. Its searchlights grow ever brighter.

 

What sort of dependable light Metaphysics can provide is a matter

of great controversy. Long and bloody wars have been fought over

such competing promises and threats. I'd say that metaphysics is

a dangerous and unknown path, and that the best it can offer would

be the old advice: Nosce te ipsum.

 

UD

[name]

Hi Rivers,

 

And what might that source be?

I'm not LDS so I don't know what source you should be considering.

All I was suggesting was - if your current source for light isn't shinning, perhaps you should consider a new source. After all, it can be dangerous (and a little scary) to go walking around, especially in the middle of the night, with limited vision.

Edited March 10, 2015 by name

[Teancum]

Additional light and knowledge is just that - additional.  It should always add to truth, never take away previously revealed truth.  I am completely uncomfortable with any doctrinal changes that give up previous revelatory knowledge.  Add more information, sure.  Tell me a previous revelation was wrong, no.

 

If previous revelation is wrong and current revelation is right then today's revelation can just be wrong tomorrow, and nothing is true or worth holding on to.  And then we might as well throw all revelation away.

Bingo! I think you have a dilemma.

[JLHPROF]

Bingo! I think you have a dilemma.

 

Nah, I just stick to the original revelations in my personal belief and as much in my actions as the current Church will allow.

[Teancum]

Nah, I just stick to the original revelations in my personal belief and as much in my actions as the current Church will allow.

You may. The church does not. It seems to me you stick to things the church has abandoned.

[JLHPROF]

You may. The church does not. It seems to me you stick to things the church has abandoned.

 

Yep.  At least as far as personal belief goes.  But I behave myself too.

[Freedom]

 

Honestly, when I hear statements such as the ones in the video and think that (to them) this is the current best approach to dealing with the Book of Abraham, I'm a little sad, because that's really that last argument anyone can make about anything.  "Don't believe what they're telling you now because we might found out they're wrong in the future."

Wow, you must hate science. 

[Pahoran]

I think the Jehovah's Witnesses have the same principle.  In some of their cases, the newer 

light actually corrected the false older light which was leading people astray.

Ah. Guilt by association.

All the best demagogues use it.

 When LDS

Church members were following Talmage's Articles of Faith (where it taught that there were

only two personages in the Godhead),

CFR, please.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Antoni]

I'm not a great fan of the term "new light". I was fortunate a few years back to spend some time with a world authority in astronomy. She also found the concept of "new light" an oxymoron astronomically and spiritually. Light just IS.

 

We need to get into right place (which can be our place in history or a more individual spiritual place) to see the light.

 

As JLHPROF said it's additional light.

 

Thanks for the link to that song cinepro - will have that going round my head all day now

[rongo]

CFR, please.

Regards,

Pahoran

This. x2, theplains.

 

I think you're confusing something you've heard about the Lectures on Faith (which Talmage pressed to remove from the D&C in 1921) with Talmage's Articles of Faith. I've never heard of Talmage arguing that there are two members of the Godhead.

 

Now, progression between kingdoms . . . (I have an original AoF, and it does have this) . . .

[rongo]

 

 

Honestly, when I hear statements such as the ones in the video and think that (to them) this is the current best approach to dealing with the Book of Abraham, I'm a little sad, because that's really that last argument anyone can make about anything.  "Don't believe what they're telling you now because we might found out they're wrong in the future."

I agree, cinepro. We're the gingerbread man on the fox's nose when this is the best argument we've got.

 

But thankfully, it isn't. 

[JLHPROF]

Now, progression between kingdoms . . . (I have an original AoF, and it does have this) . . .

 

That's because McConkie hadn't started labelling perfectly sensible doctrines as heresy yet. 

[Robert F. Smith]

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

I'd suggest Science, for understanding this world and the human

condition. Its searchlights grow ever brighter.

 

What sort of dependable light Metaphysics can provide is a matter

of great controversy. Long and bloody wars have been fought over

such competing promises and threats. I'd say that metaphysics is

a dangerous and unknown path, and that the best it can offer would

be the old advice: Nosce te ipsum.

...........................   

I'm very surprised that someone like yourself, Dale, has not seen the truth in the suggestion of physicist Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics) that both Western science and Eastern metaphysics have come to essentially the same conclusion about the nature of ultimate reality.  For Buddha's sake, Dale, what were you doing all that time in Nepal?

[Robert F. Smith]

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

They recently came out with a new short video with Egyptologist Kerry Muhlstein called "How We Know Things."

 

It's a good video, but it's even more fun if you watch it and apply it to every truth claim made by the Church.

 

"I know that we are always figuring out that things we used to know, or used to think we know, are wrong." - Kerry Muhlstein

 

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

Honestly, when I hear statements such as the ones in the video and think that (to them) this is the current best approach to dealing with the Book of Abraham, I'm a little sad, because that's really that last argument anyone can make about anything.  "Don't believe what they're telling you now because we might found out they're wrong in the future."

cinepro, you seem to have misconceived the message of that very short video with Egyptologists John Gee and Kerry Muhlstein.  They are speaking to issues in science, not religion, and what they say is all too true.  I corresponded with a woman back in the 60s and 70s who apostatized over minor Egyptological issues about which she knew nearly nothing.  However, she had taken one course at UCLA and absolutized some of the information garnered in that class.  For her, that was the end of the matter, and I have seen others unwisely do the same, without adequate study.  In one case, the thing which scandalized her the most turned out to be a mistranslation -- as Egyptologists now agree.

 

What Gee & Muhlstein are saying is not a Mormon claim, but an academic claim about the risk of absolutizing a particular datum in scientific research in the absence of historical perspective.  They are not saying that no knowledge is possible, but that particular issues are vulnerable to change in light of the latest discovery.  This is generally true, as all scientists are aware.

 

You seem to pooh-pooh such notions, as though scientists have not had to wrench their thinking on several occasions, in the shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian and then Quantum mechanics.  Pluto was declassified as a planet.  And now even the Big Bang has been called into serious question.

 

cinepro, what part of "science" don't you understand?

[Uncle Dale]

 

...Dale, what were you doing all that time in Nepal?

 

Fighting off cholera.

That, and dysentery, giardiasis, and constant skin infections.

Seems that using the steep hillsides for toilets is a bad idea,

when the village well is located at the foot of the same hills.

 

Merging tao and physics mostly works at the sub-atomic level.

But we can turn to an over-all cataloging of the varieties of

religious experience in order to come up for a definition of

Sister Katherine Smith Salisbury's claim to an angelic visitation

(also that of her more famous brother).

 

So, it kind of depends on whether we are discerning reality or

talking theory about why this common consensus world we live in

exists in the first place -- or whether we wish to discuss more

practical matters.

 

UD

(Such as how to differentiate delusion and reality)

Edited March 10, 2015 by Uncle Dale

[cinepro]

cinepro, you seem to have misconceived the message of that very short video with Egyptologists John Gee and Kerry Muhlstein.  They are speaking to issues in science, not religion, and what they say is all too true.  I corresponded with a woman back in the 60s and 70s who apostatized over minor Egyptological issues about which she knew nearly nothing.  However, she had taken one course at UCLA and absolutized some of the information garnered in that class.  For her, that was the end of the matter, and I have seen others unwisely do the same, without adequate study.  In one case, the thing which scandalized her the most turned out to be a mistranslation -- as Egyptologists now agree.

 

What Gee & Muhlstein are saying is not a Mormon claim, but an academic claim about the risk of absolutizing a particular datum in scientific research in the absence of historical perspective.  They are not saying that no knowledge is possible, but that particular issues are vulnerable to change in light of the latest discovery.  This is generally true, as all scientists are aware.

 

You seem to pooh-pooh such notions, as though scientists have not had to wrench their thinking on several occasions, in the shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian and then Quantum mechanics.  Pluto was declassified as a planet.  And now even the Big Bang has been called into serious question.

 

cinepro, what part of "science" don't you understand?

 

 

I may not understand everything about "science", but I know enough to know that if I'm discussing a particular claim with someone, and the "science" appears to be going against them, and they're telling me I should ignore "science" and re-evaluate "how I know things", they're probably at the end of their rope and they've tied a knot and are holding on for dear life.

Edited March 10, 2015 by cinepro