Brigham young's infallibility

[Stargazer]

On 3/31/2021 at 12:04 AM, MiserereNobis said:

Well, I did bring up the bordering-on-pedophilia scene, too  

I'd not call it bordering-on-pedophilia if a child was sua-sponte flirtatious towards an adult. But if the adult responded to the flirting in an inappropriate manner, then that would be different.

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, CV75 said:

Do you believe he was excommunicated because he thought the prophets were fallible and taught that they were?

Well, here is the full story. He published a ton of stuff on the nascent world-wide web about Church in the late 1990's. Then he got bored with it and started to move on with his life and didn't write much about the church for a while. When the proclamation on the family then came out, he was a little offended by the idea that mothers are "primarily responsible for the nurture of children"--according to his own sensibilities, both parents are equally responsible for the nurture of children. So he aded a page about that to his website.

Even though he hadn't shadowed a door of a church in years, he got a call saying the stake president, whom he had never met, wanted to meet with him. He said this about his conversation with the stake president: 

The stake president said I was free to think whatever I like and be a "freethinker" so long as I am following the prophet. I didn't bother to point out the inherent contradiction in such a statement and what an oxymoron it was as he didn't pause to allow me to respond.

I found it incredibly ironic that even though my critiques of a literal reading/belief of the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Book of Abraham are far more extensive than anything I have stated on the site about the Proclamation on the Family, the church seems to only be concerned with--or at least primarily concerned with--the Proclamation on the Family. It has apparently become more important than all the other scriptures. I have a hard time believing they want to be known as the church that excommunicates those who publicly voice their opinion that the church should encourage--not discourage--nurturing fathers, but that is what it sounded like since they didn't address any other specifics as to how I am considered an apostate.

I asked the stake president how he found the site and he stated that the Quorum of the 70 asked him to take care of the problem. He was unaware of me or the site before then. Back in 1993 when the September Six were disciplined Elder Dallin Oaks claimed that church members are not singled out at high levels for church discipline--that church discipline is something left to the local level. If that was ever the case, it isn't now. 

Was he excommunicated for thinking the prophet was fallible? It's more like he was excommunicated for thinking that he was fallible when penning the proclamation. For what it's worth.  

Edited April 2, 2021 by Analytics

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

It was just an example of how a lot of people (not all) react to any stated disagreement with something the prophet says. If there is no sense of infallibility, then there should be no stigma attached to disagreeing with the prophet. Yet there is a huge stigma generally attached to publicly disagreeing with a living prophet; not so much with past prophets. The connection seems clear to me, but maybe I'm just weird. Well, yes, I am weird, but not necessarily in that way. 

That's interesting. Not about you being weird, that's a given 😉, but about the idea of there being "a huge stigma generally attached to publicly disagreeing with a living prophet; not so much with past prophets."

I plugged your idea into my own psyche and out popped agreement. I don't generally publicly disagree with prophets, living or dead, but privately I might tend to argue with, say, Brigham Young or Joseph Fielding Smith, but not Russell M. Nelson. Most curious, and I wonder why?

Nice to see you pop up, by the way! I had been wondering if you'd ever be back -- been a while, John!

Edited April 2, 2021 by Stargazer

[JLHPROF]

1 minute ago, Stargazer said:

That's interesting. Not about you being weird, that's a given 😉, but about the idea of there being "a huge stigma generally attached to publicly disagreeing with a living prophet; not so much with past prophets."

I plugged your idea into my own psyche and out popped agreement. I don't generally publicly disagree with prophets, living or dead, but privately I might tend to argue with, say, Brigham Young or Joseph Fielding Smith, but not Russell M. Nelson. Most curious, and I wonder why?

Training.

Ezra Taft Benson's 14 fundamentals for instance.

[Stargazer]

6 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Training.

Ezra Taft Benson's 14 fundamentals for instance.

I guess so! Don't remember these 14 fundamentals as a talk by Elder Benson. But I found it and it seemed I had heard it all before. Maybe I took it in as training.

Interesting one that hits me sometimes:

"Eleventh: The two groups who have the greatest difficulty in following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich. The learned may feel the prophet is only inspired when he agrees with them, otherwise the prophet is just giving his opinion—speaking as a man. The rich may feel they have no need to take counsel of a lowly prophet."

 

[jkwilliams]

44 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

That's interesting. Not about you being weird, that's a given 😉, but about the idea of there being "a huge stigma generally attached to publicly disagreeing with a living prophet; not so much with past prophets."

I plugged your idea into my own psyche and out popped agreement. I don't generally publicly disagree with prophets, living or dead, but privately I might tend to argue with, say, Brigham Young or Joseph Fielding Smith, but not Russell M. Nelson. Most curious, and I wonder why?

Nice to see you pop up, by the way! I had been wondering if you'd ever be back -- been a while, John!

I'm glad someone understood what I was trying to say. Thanks for the welcome back. I've just been busy with work and grandkids, and somehow message boards aren't a high priority anymore. These days we feed the missionaries once a week, and unless apostasy is transmitted through my cooking, I don't even bother kicking against the pricks. 

[CV75]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Well, here is the full story. He published a ton of stuff on the nascent world-wide web about Church in the late 1990's. Then he got bored with it and started to move on with his life and didn't write much about the church for a while. When the proclamation on the family then came out, he was a little offended by the idea that mothers are "primarily responsible for the nurture of children"--according to his own sensibilities, both parents are equally responsible for the nurture of children. So he aded a page about that to his website.

Even though he hadn't shadowed a door of a church in years, he got a call saying the stake president, whom he had never met, wanted to meet with him. He said this about his conversation with the stake president: 

The stake president said I was free to think whatever I like and be a "freethinker" so long as I am following the prophet. I didn't bother to point out the inherent contradiction in such a statement and what an oxymoron it was as he didn't pause to allow me to respond.

I found it incredibly ironic that even though my critiques of a literal reading/belief of the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Book of Abraham are far more extensive than anything I have stated on the site about the Proclamation on the Family, the church seems to only be concerned with--or at least primarily concerned with--the Proclamation on the Family. It has apparently become more important than all the other scriptures. I have a hard time believing they want to be known as the church that excommunicates those who publicly voice their opinion that the church should encourage--not discourage--nurturing fathers, but that is what it sounded like since they didn't address any other specifics as to how I am considered an apostate.

I asked the stake president how he found the site and he stated that the Quorum of the 70 asked him to take care of the problem. He was unaware of me or the site before then. Back in 1993 when the September Six were disciplined Elder Dallin Oaks claimed that church members are not singled out at high levels for church discipline--that church discipline is something left to the local level. If that was ever the case, it isn't now. 

Was he excommunicated for thinking the prophet was fallible? It's more like he was excommunicated for thinking that he was fallible when penning the proclamation. For what it's worth.  

Thank you, but this doesn't cut the mustard for "the full story" on so many levels.

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

That really depends on the system and its rules. Some systems can be so broadly and specifically controlling that perfection is impossible. Other systems can be less controlling and more reasonably calibrated, making perfect obedience frequently possible and common.

Perhaps perfection is possible in some Orwellian conception, but certainly not in an LDS environment, where the only perfect one is Jesus Himself and no other. Having less rules or less control does not enhance perfection, but only blurs reality and crucial distinctions.  Otherwise words come to mean nothing or anything.  Perhaps you are thinking of doing math with a slide rule and obtaining only approximations which then pass for "best."  That is not the same as perfection.

14 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

Well I had not addressed enforcement. Our thread in this post began with my common to HJW, "Yes, and there seems to be an increasing pattern to support following even if it might be wrong, the fact of obedience taking precedence." I was talking about the pattern of increasing rhetoric to obey the words of the human leaders even when they could be/ seem to be wrong. That is a shift from the idea to obey because they are inspired and speak the testable good word of the Lord. 

To me that represents a noticeable divergence from Option 1 of Euthyphro's Dilemma, Option 1 being to believe that God is God because God is Good, the other, Option 2 being to believe that Good is Good because God decrees it Good. In essence Option 2 would mean that all ability to perceive Good and evidence of God can be overridden by God, and presumably God's spokesman. Obviously that eliminates the ability to judge the nature of a revelation claim based on principled merits.

When it comes to enforcement, religions tend to structure that through afterlife claims, and also social pressure. I would be careful about downplaying either of those. Both are still extremely influential, and people do not necessarily perceive themselves as free from either.

I look at the LDS Church as a loose structure which does not ride herd on its members.  My parents were similarly very easy with me:  They did not make strong demands or monitor me closely.  I could do pretty much what I wanted.  I could go out and play and go deep into the forest (we lived in the high Sierras), and they never seemed to worry.  At school I could daydream and even get bad grades and no one called me on it.  I was allowed to hew my own path at home and in the Church.  I could ignore the Church at my leisure.

My impression is that LDS Church members are at the chapel or at the temple because they want to be there.  I hear them bearing their honest testimonies regularly.

The Ace in the Hole for Mormons is the notion that one cannot live on borrowed light.  Brigham Young himself had tough words for those who foolishly believed in borrowed light (depending on someone else's testimony) and asked the Saints not to believe anything he said unless they had prayed about it and found that he was correct, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As to Euthyphro, that dilemma is not applicable simply because the premises are alien to Mormon thought:  Mormon's believe that they are of the same genus and species as God,and that any separation is only temporary.  Both humans and God must obey natural law.  God is finite and is not the author of natural law, nor of the good, but is merely obedient to natural law, else He could not be God.  To Socrates and Plato all that would be absurd, just as it is to modern Judeo-Christians, who accept those non-biblical, ancient Greek philosophical norms.