"Infected With Doubt" - Jana Reiss Poll (part 2)

[Scott Lloyd]

10 hours ago, cinepro said:

They explain in the article that the phrase comes from a talk by President Eyring:

And they felt the phrase was apt because their research shows that doubt can spread like an "infection", because people with friends who doubt and leave the Church are much more likely themselves to doubt and leave.

 

Referring to it as an infection is consistent with the imagery of innoculating our members against it by transparently providing information on potential controversy they might encounter. 

I think doubt is an infection that, if allowed to become aggravated or chronic, can insidiously leave a person at least as closed-minded as orthodox believers are accused of being. 

[mrmarklin]

On 12/11/2017 at 11:37 AM, Darren10 said:

I don't wear mine for home teaching even on Sundays.

I don’t wear a jacket or tie at all. 

Quit wearing ties at work in 2000 and I’ve never looked back. I don’t own a suit anymore. 

[blueglass]

On 12/12/2017 at 5:47 PM, mfbukowski said:

On the other hand you do not show porn to a child who wants to know where he came from.

Is porn "the truth"?

What is missing in each example?

POINT OF VIEW and understanding of context.  That is not included in either example.  There are no "facts" only interpretations, and comparing porn to loving spiritual marital relationships is a prime example of exactly that point.

Besides that, unlike others, I was never in Joseph's bedroom once when any of this was taking place.

In other words no one even knows the "truth" unless you are Joseph or one of the women he was sealed to.  And what "really happened" may not be even close to what anyone "SAID" what "really" happened.

It seems we complain about different versions of the first vision, similarly to this in my opinion, yet everyone THINKS they know precisely what happened.

I don't think this is a case of john9 "who sinned" joseph or fanny, emma or oliver, stake president or blueglass.  Studying history has value when we can apply the principles god has taught to individuals over time and incorporate these into our own lives and circumstances in our pursuit of happiness.  So yeah, history can be a rorschach test but to use the essay's words, that "Little is known about this marriage, and nothing is known about the conversations between Joseph and Emma regarding Alger." - includes an historical assumption which immediately stands out, "this marriage".  When I responded to the video i felt i used the best scholarship available at the time and I stand by that.  I hope joseph spoke with Emma before proposing to fanny and was intimate with her.  I hope this early polygamous marriage with no sealing authority, or legal authority, somehow was solemnized by god.  However, I have left open the possibility that I'm wrong.   If someone so close to the founding events of mormonism could call this an "adultery scrape", when speaking with David Patten - I have to consider that statement and incorporate it in my view or dismiss it.  All of us at some point will be faced with the possibility considering the historical evidence that Joseph may have committed adultery multiple times.  I was not in attendance at the far west high council meeting when Joseph "gave a history respecting the girl business."   As for Oliver's point of view, I think he was clear on his statement of "the truth" in his letter to his sister Phebe in 1846 1)  "Has sister Phebe written us the truth?", 2) "I can hardly think it possible that you have written us the truth", 3) "no people professing to be governed by the pure and holy principles of the Lord Jesus, can hold up their heads before the world at this distance of time, and be guilty of such folly - such wrong - such abomination."  As for Emma's point of view, I don't agree with what the essay says, "she left no firsthand accounts, making it impossible to reconstruct her thoughts".  Emma burned section 132 and threatened divorce.  We also have from Chauncey Webb (through Wyl) the family who took Fanny Alger in after Emma drove her out the following, "Emma was furious, and drove the girl, who was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet out of her house."  On points of truth respecting pre-Nauvoo marriages, don bradley wrote, "the reported Fanny Alger relationship is the only one for which there is substantial documentation, and therefore, the only one on which confident conclusions about timing, nature, and even occurrence might be drawn." Bradley also wrote, that  "no scholar of Joseph Smith's polygamy has taken the position in print that there was no intimacy between the pair."  

Edited December 15, 2017 by blueglass

[blueglass]

On 12/11/2017 at 1:43 PM, cinepro said:

1. Joseph Smith's polyandry (57.4%)

Brian Hales as of 2014 stood alone as far as "no" sexual polyandry.  Does anyone know if any other scholars have moved from "maybe" to no , or changed from yes to maybe?  From the Matthew Grow tape which leaked it looks like the church is strongly against any evidence for sexual polyandry.