Reconciling bruce r. McConkie

[Fair Dinkum]

8 minutes ago, Calm said:

If “no death before the fall” (meaning no physical death) is one of FD’s false doctrines, that is pretty much a collective error in the sense of being officially promoted, as can be demonstrated by a search on the Church’s website. 
 

Now whether that has a bearing on eternal life is debatable as it is a consistent contribution in discussions about the Fall and therefore the Atonement. 

If a witness of Jesus Christ can’t teach true principles of an essential element of the plan of salvation aka plan of happiness that stands the test of time why should we believe anything they’ve taught will ?  It’s all just hope and speculation 

Edited July 15, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[JAHS]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

If “no death before the fall” (meaning no physical death) is one of FD’s false doctrines, that is pretty much a collective error in the sense of being officially promoted, as can be demonstrated by a search on the Church’s website. 
 

Now whether that has a bearing on eternal life is debatable as it is a consistent contribution in discussions about the Fall and therefore the Atonement. 

If death means separation of body and spirit, any creatures dying before Adam may not have had a spirit and therefore Adam was the first human with both body and spirit and he and his descendants were the first to die do to separation of body and spirit. Total speculation of course. But yes knowing what really happened I don't think has any bearing on our eternal life.

[mfbukowski]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

If “no death before the fall” (meaning no physical death) is one of FD’s false doctrines, that is pretty much a collective error in the sense of being officially promoted, as can be demonstrated by a search on the Church’s website. 
 

Now whether that has a bearing on eternal life is debatable as it is a consistent contribution in discussions about the Fall and therefore the Atonement. 

That's one of my examples of ingrained scientism. We take "Death" to be a thing external to the human concept of death. Yes "death" describes a CAUSE of a human experience, one of grief and sorrow for someone.

Did the Pacific Ocean "exist" before it was defined by people? Or was it just a great expanse of water in human experience?

If a tree falls in the forest unknown to anyone, does it make a "sound"?

You can see it one way or the other!!

As usual these philosophical "problems" are linguistic confusions of little importance except in our imagination 

Six day creation goes one way, the scientific interpretation goes another.  Take your pick. Both are right or wrong depending on your perspective.

There is no possible resolution.

 

[CV75]

2 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

It's an example of doctrines being taught as if true that are in fact false.  So yes its an example of being led astray.

This doctrinal assertion that according to McConkie is just as essential a part of the plan of salvation (rebranded as the Plan of Happiness) as the atonement itself...IS FLATY NOT TRUE

You are still not explaining how this led you astray: how did this teaching (or any other you find to be false on whatever basis) lead you into an incorrect moral path?

[Hamba Tuhan]

13 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

If a witness of Jesus Christ can’t teach true principles of an essential element of the plan of salvation aka plan of happiness that stands the test of time why should we believe anything they’ve taught will ? 

Because you've independently verified it and therefore know it for yourself?

Brigham Young's thoughts on this topic:

Quote

What a pity it would be if we were lead by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are lead by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purpose of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders did they know for themselves by the revelations of Jesus that they are led in the right way.

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[let’s roll]

4 hours ago, CV75 said:

One suggestion I have is to settle the #1 truth claim: that God lives and loves you and build from there. To paraphrase https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2021/07/afc-eng-local-pages/local-news-002?lang=eng :

• Decide about God.
• Decide whether He knows and loves you.
• Decide whether you can speak to Him.
• Decide whether Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
• Decide whether the kingdom of God is on the earth.

Thank you for sharing the crux of the concept of truth claims.  The OP says he’s spent more “mental effort” into investigating truth claims of the Church than anything else.  

My personal experience has been that when one starts their spiritual journey working tirelessly on truth claim #1, a relationship with Deity is built and a reservoir of spiritual experiences of being led and directed by Deity is established which quells doubt and fear and engenders spiritual insight and confidence. 

My experience in observing those who approach their spiritual journey without trusting God with all their heart, choosing instead to “lean [  ] on their own understanding” is that they are inevitably confused and confounded, “driven by the wind and tossed” and left to themselves.

My humble invitation to anyone looking to investigate truth claims is to include heaven in that investigation as it will be fruitful only with the companionship of Deity.   So necessarily the investigation starts with truth claim #1.

 

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Because you've independently verified it and therefore know it for yourself?

Brigham Young's thoughts on this topic:

 

Great quote!

[Hamba Tuhan]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Great quote!

The Restoration has been revolutionary in so many ways since its very beginnings -- including epistemology! -- and yet many of our critics and some members seem never to have grasped what it is or what it is designed to do.

[CV75]

11 hours ago, let’s roll said:

Thank you for sharing the crux of the concept of truth claims.  The OP says he’s spent more “mental effort” into investigating truth claims of the Church than anything else.  

My personal experience has been that when one starts their spiritual journey working tirelessly on truth claim #1, a relationship with Deity is built and a reservoir of spiritual experiences of being led and directed by Deity is established which quells doubt and fear and engenders spiritual insight and confidence. 

My experience in observing those who approach their spiritual journey without trusting God with all their heart, choosing instead to “lean [  ] on their own understanding” is that they are inevitably confused and confounded, “driven by the wind and tossed” and left to themselves.

My humble invitation to anyone looking to investigate truth claims is to include heaven in that investigation as it will be fruitful only with the companionship of Deity.   So necessarily the investigation starts with truth claim #1.

 

Yes, it begins with #1 but I confess that I did that without trusting God with all my heart, but just enough -- a particle -- to try prayer. By His grace this was sufficient to convert me. 

[smac97]

14 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Because you've independently verified it and therefore know it for yourself?

Brigham Young's thoughts on this topic:

Quote

What a pity it would be if we were lead by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are lead by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purpose of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders did they know for themselves by the revelations of Jesus that they are led in the right way.

 

One facet of my testimony arises in my thoughts every time a prophet or an apostle passes away.  We as a community come together (virtually), share remembrances, some shed tears, and we bid a fond farewell.

Then, we raise our arms to the square and sustain the next man called to be a "special witness" of Jesus Christ, then he starts his job and we get back to our daily lives.

And so it goes. 

We sustain these men not because we belong to a cult of personality, but because they are imperfect men called to perform a sacred and important work.  

We sustain these men not because of they are perfect, but because they are imperfect men who therefore need our love and support while they spend literally the rest of their lives serving others.

We sustain these men not by relying wholly on them, but rather by "relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save."  (2 Nephi 31:19.)

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited July 16, 2021 by smac97

[Fair Dinkum]

16 hours ago, JAHS said:

But not all 15 apostles and prophets are collectively going to allow false doctrine to be preached to the church. If one of them does make a mistake they are corrected by the other 14, just like elder McConkie was. Anything official that has a bearing on our eternal lives has to be agreed upon by all 15 of them.

Actually this is not true.  I could provide a multitude of examples when false doctrines were allow to persists within the church.  But for the sake of this post I will provide one.  Adam-God was part of the endowment depending on the source, at least 10 years and according to some witnesses up to 25.   This is a blatantly false doctrine that was able to creep into the temple endowment and while not having the blessing of all 15, it did have the blessing of enough to get it in.

[Tacenda]

7 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Actually this is not true.  I could provide a multitude of examples when false doctrines were allow to persists within the church.  But for the sake of this post I will provide one.  Adam-God was part of the endowment depending on the source, at least 10 years and according to some witnesses up to 25.   This is a blatantly false doctrine that was able to creep into the temple endowment and while not having the blessing of all 15, it did have the blessing of enough to get it in.

Years and years of a few others too!

Edited July 16, 2021 by Tacenda

[Fair Dinkum]

14 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Because you've independently verified it and therefore know it for yourself?

Brigham Young's thoughts on this topic:

 

Well I actually agree with this.  We should NEVER take anything taught over a general conference pulpit as true or authoritative.  Everything should be questioned, scrutinized and tested before ever allowing it to become a core belief.  All too often these men are just plain wrong, as are all human beings, are speculating , while well intentioned they may be, their council is often not reliable nor true and should be rejected.

That said much of their council should be heeded.  The problem is knowing which parts to heed and which parts that were given as authoritative council from God should be rejected.

[Teancum]

On 7/14/2021 at 7:58 PM, webbles said:

I didn't realize that the bolded had been proven to be definitely false.  When did that happen?

 

Seems like a discussion for a different thread.

[Fair Dinkum]

On 7/14/2021 at 8:24 PM, JLHPROF said:

The Church is true.  Which one of his errors in belief stopped the Church being true?

I think calling an institution true is a bit silly.  I prefer saying that there are valuable lessons that the church teaches that if practiced in ones life can add value for some while for others these same lessons may cause pain and should be avoided  The church often also teaches doctrine that end up being not true.  So can a church be called true if it teaches things that are not true, given the passage of time?

To call the church true while at the same time knowing that they have and may be doing so now, we won't know until more time passes, taught doctrines at are false and some that the church itself has disavowed is silly.  The church is probably, based solely on past performance, currently teaching doctrines that will be disavowed by some future 1st presidency and quorum of the 12.

[JAHS]

6 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Actually this is not true.  I could provide a multitude of examples when false doctrines were allow to persists within the church.  But for the sake of this post I will provide one.  Adam-God was part of the endowment depending on the source, at least 10 years and according to some witnesses up to 25.   This is a blatantly false doctrine that was able to creep into the temple endowment and while not having the blessing of all 15, it did have the blessing of enough to get it in.

So if not all 15 agreed on it then it was not really official church doctrine. This was Brigham Youngs personal interpretation that was included in what was called the lecture at the veil. After continued study and revelation about the concept the church leaders decided it was not a valid doctrine. It was not used in all temple endowment ceremonies and was removed completely by 1904. This is another one of those concepts (your multitude of examples) that, right or wrong, has no effect on our personal exaltation. 

[Fair Dinkum]

14 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Because you've independently verified it and therefore know it for yourself?

And how to distinguish your personal confirmation bias and elevation feelings from those of the spirit? Which incidentally have been clinically duplicated and triggered in the science lab.  I submit that you can't, therefore your best hope is to seek emperical evidence that is tangible and can be tested, everything else is just a unsupported hope that could or could not bare out.

Quote

Elevation is an emotion elicited by witnessing virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness. It is experienced as a distinct feeling of warmth and expansion that is accompanied by appreciation and affection for the individual whose exceptional conduct is being observed.

 

[Fair Dinkum]

27 minutes ago, JAHS said:

So if not all 15 agreed on it then it was not really official church doctrine. This was Brigham Youngs personal interpretation that was included in what was called the lecture at the veil. After continued study and revelation about the concept the church leaders decided it was not a valid doctrine. It was not used in all temple endowment ceremonies and was removed completely by 1904. This is another one of those concepts (your multitude of examples) that, right or wrong, has no effect on our personal exaltation. 

And yet it was a false doctrine that was part of the most sacred and highest rituals of the church for 27 years. Ummm. And again this is only one example.

Edited July 16, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[pogi]

15 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

If a witness of Jesus Christ can’t teach true principles...

Well, they can and do teach true principles, but they can also make mistakes.  This idea of human fallibility in regards to prophets seems to really be hanging you up.  If you can grasp and accept this one fact, I think most of your problems with the church will just go away. What is your hang up on accepting that apostles can be fallible, especially given Biblical evidence that they are...yet Christ called them anyway.  

Like you, I love science.  I trust it.  But I also understand that the scientists doing the science are fallible, have a limited perspective, and therefore make mistakes.  If we would have given up on Einstein and doubted all of his work because of his ideas on the cosmological constant...what a pity!  Or if we dismissed all of Pauling's work because of his ideas on the triple helix, or Darwin because of his notion of heredity, or Kelvin because of his earth age estimate...  

Religion does learn a lot from science.  But in terms of salvific principles and spiritual matters, science has nothing to say.  

Religion is progressive like science.  Line upon line, precept upon precept. Our understanding evolves with every line and every precept.  Mistakes have been made, but those do not diminish from the seeds that we know are true from experience and spiritual testing, which seeds only prophets can provide and science can say nothing of.  

16 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

...why should we believe anything they’ve taught will ?  It’s all just hope and speculation 

Because we have planted the seed and it bears good fruit.  I'll take hope over doubt any day of the week if it makes my life more meaningful and brings a greater sense of well-being and peace. 

[Amulek]

7 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

And how to distinguish your personal confirmation bias and elevation feelings from those of the spirit?

Practice.

 

[Teancum]

On 7/14/2021 at 9:29 PM, Fair Dinkum said:

I served a mission, which led to a lifetime of faithful service and devotion to the church...all based on the premise that the church was true.  Now I wonder what my life would have been. 

This is a great thread.  It reinforces in my mind the fact that LDS prophets and apostles are not infallible, though I never believed they were.  But the apologists here have done a great job in convincing me just how fallible they are. They are extremely fallible. They get a lot wrong. The priesthood ban is a fine example.  And Elder McConkie's comment about forgetting every thing he had said prior to he 1978 lift of the ban is  great advice. And the essay on the ban demonstrates that further.  Also the teachings about becoming God and creating worlds.  All just speculation.

So I just have decided to forget most of what they say and ignore what they say now as well since down the road it all may just be ignored or changed anyway.  So thank you Fair Dinkum for highlighting this.  And thank you to all the true believers and apologists on this and other threads for confirming to me that these men, as wonderful as they may be, have no better clue as to who and what God is and what God wants us to know than anyone else including myself.  Thank you!

[Fair Dinkum]

39 minutes ago, JAHS said:

So if not all 15 agreed on it then it was not really official church doctrine. This was Brigham Youngs personal interpretation that was included in what was called the lecture at the veil. After continued study and revelation about the concept the church leaders decided it was not a valid doctrine. It was not used in all temple endowment ceremonies and was removed completely by 1904. This is another one of those concepts (your multitude of examples) that, right or wrong, has no effect on our personal exaltation. 

 And yet it was a false doctrine that was part of the most sacred and highest rituals of the church for 27 years. Ummm. And again this is only one example.

Here's another false doctrine even more pernicious than Adam-God:

Quote

August 17, 1949

The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: "Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to."

President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: "The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have."

The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.

The First Presidency

Ironically never formally disavowed over a pulpit, they took the chicken way and only disavowed through an unofficial essay so the majority of members do not even know that it has been disavowed.  In fact the cure of Cain is still taught in seminary and often in Sunday school by unknowledgeable teachers. So it is essentially STILL CHURCH DOCTRINE until formally disavowed by the 1st presidency.

[2BizE]

I moved on a long time ago from anything BRM has taught or said. So much of it was either false or inappropriate that I tend to completely ignore him.

[Fair Dinkum]

22 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Practice.

 

And had I lived in the late 19th century and had received a spiritual confirmation that Adam-God as taught by BY was true or in the early 1950's and received a spiritual confirmation that the Curse of Cain doctrine was true then what?  Did the spirit lie to me?  Did I not receive a true spiritual confirmation as I had believed?  Certainly I would have had the full backing of LDS leadership with my spiritual confirmation and had I somehow gone against them and expounded my angst against the false doctrine they taught as eternal truths I would have been excommunicated.

Which brings me to today.  If I receive a spiritual confirmation that say some current doctrine is true that is in a few years disavowed by the church, why did the spirit give me a false confirmation?  So why should I believe that anything that I receive a spiritual confirmation on can be relied on as a meaningful means to defining truth?

At best anything the spirit confirms should be questioned.  It is not a reliable means to detect and confirm truth and should not be the end of seeking truth, while it might be a road sign along the path to truth it should never be the end stopping place.

Edited July 16, 2021 by Fair Dinkum

[Teancum]

On 7/14/2021 at 8:38 PM, Bob Crockett said:

Elder McConkie was uniquely a scriptorian, meaning, he knew the KJV scriptures back and forth.  But a Biblical scholar he was not.  He didn't know any of the basics of Biblical commentary even though he wrote one.  The Church doesn't really need a Biblical scholar, as Elder Dallin Oaks once said in a famous speech in or around 2003.  Elder Oaks said that we rely upon and revere the words of the Bible for what the words are today, and not for what contemporaneous religious and secular history might explain the words to be.  Elder Oaks said that the Bible can be interpreted many different ways by people subject to the Spirit. The Church doesn't need a Bart Erhmann (sp?) to understand the Bible.

Why do you think the Church does not need Biblical scholars?  Seems to me Ehrman has expanded our knowledge of what the Bible is and how  it came to be.  And it seems to me that the LDS Church only could use a better understanding of the Bible.